 Yeah, so I'd like to call the finance committee meeting of May 5th to order at one o'clock. And this meeting is being recorded. And so we do need to provide that notice to the all members and Let me start by seeing we have the forum present and everybody who is a member of the finance committee. And here and be heard and then I'll turn it over to Lynn about the council meeting. So when you're here. Present. And Anna. Present. Bob. Here. Matt. Present. Bernie. Present. So the people who are absent just to know. Kathy Shane is not going to be able to attend today. She is. Taking off some time after all the work that she's been doing on the building committee and Alicia just prior to the meeting let me know that she was going to be late. And so with that, Lynn. I don't believe we have a quorum of the council present. Okay, so let us keep an eye on it. Absolutely. If you see someone else, comma, we just one short. We are. So if either of us notes, we can just speak up and then pause and. Start the council meeting. So. Do you want me to leave Pam and Jennifer in the room. During the meeting or. I think so. Yes. Let's just see if we have anybody participating. In the public because our first agenda item. Should be to hear public comment. And so I'm going to do that in a moment. See if there is anybody who's in the attendee group wants to offer public comment. And then we'll proceed with the meeting. And just to see if there are any immediate questions about the budget as a whole. The major review of the budget is going to really start next week today's focus is going to be on the capital improvement plan and then the water sewer rates, optional tax exemption. And at least a brief discussion of council compensation. But we don't want to do that till Alicia is here and then Michelle hopefully will be able to join also because they're the cosponsors. So with that said, is there anybody who's in public would like to make public comment. I usually hope that it's related to the work of the finance committee. But does not have to be about the particular agenda items today. And Tony is here and is already in the room so Tony. Hi, thanks Tony Cunningham Northamers. I just wanted to make a general comment about the capital improvement plan. Many of the line items proposed in the FY 24 plan are recurring lines that have been allocated money in previous years. Sean mentioned at a recent meeting that there is about a half a million dollars in unspent repurposed capital account. And I know in the capital improvement plan you include articles that are three years old or older that still have money on spend from them. I just want to encourage the committee to look at using up that money before you allocate new monies. I, I don't think the school items are publicly available so I did file a public records request back in January for the unspent capital for the school and there is hundreds of thousands of dollars there. So, and they're asking for more again this year so I just want to encourage this committee. I know the JC PCs finished its work at this point but encourage the finance committee to push the departments to spend the money they've been allocated already before you give them new allocations for the same purposes. Thank you. Okay, thank you Tony. So, I think that Maria needs to be brought in for the room. Hi Maria. Hi there, I think I'm in. Thank you. Thanks. So, a big second to to Tony's comment, really important to look at money that's already been allocated there's a lot of projects out there. Sean and I talked a little bit about the months and library project so there's all of these capital projects that have been approved that have had money authorized but that have not happened and it would be. It's important to kind of look through all of them see what's done what's not done why isn't it done if it's not going to get done this year. Let's not give money to it this year. The other thing I'd like to ask that you talk about at some point not necessarily directly related to the capital improvement program but to have an accounting of ARPA funds. Sean talked a little bit about that in a recent meeting about possible uses uses for the ARPA funds but I would appreciate it if maybe there was a council meeting or finance committee or some meeting to really dig in about the money of that 9 million I think it was what have we spent what are we really logically going to spend that on who's going to make those decisions what kind of stakeholder input is going into that and how would we prioritize that. So, just to general please there. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, there's no public comment that I'll think the other person the attendee group right now is actually staff. So, there's no other public comment I appreciate the comments and questions about the CIP questions about the unspent funds. Maybe Sean will get a chance to respond to a little bit of that. Because I think the committee has that interest too. So with that said, I also want to recognize that Mandy is here. She is one of the two counselors who's a member of the joint capital planning committee and Kathy had who's the other member and is also There are three members I think Pam Rooney is that there. Yeah, on a Mandy Joe and Pam Rooney. Nope. Coffee Mandy Joe and thank you. I'm sorry that's right. We made a change. So, do you need to call the meeting? No, we're still on short. Yeah. Anyway, Kathy is not able to attend today's meeting as noted. And so we really appreciate Mandy you're being here as a member of the council, who is on during capital planning committee so that you can answer any questions about the work of the committee and any observations that you have about the CIP and whether the CIP followed your recommendations as a committee. So, thank you for being here. So with that said, is there any introductory comments further that either Sean or Paul went to make about the capital improvement plan as proposed. Sure. I'll say a few things. And if anybody wants me to go through the document at all later on happy to do that as well. The capital improvement program it's a rolling five year program so the council will be specifically weighing in on the funding for FY 24 but obviously we present the whole five year plan and welcome your feedback on it. The FY 24 request has some highlights some things that are recurring that we've done the past but are noteworthy and has some new things that we thought should be highlighted. So, again, we talked about this at the presentation to the council, about $2.5 million for roads and sidewalks. One of if not the largest investment in roads and sidewalks in a single year and really shows the priority that's been placed there. After that we have to two requests that are each $725,000 each for vehicles. The first one is for a fire truck, the next pumper truck. Again there was a bubble of expensive vehicles, they weren't as expensive back in the late 1990s but of expensive vehicles that have come due and they're all in their 20 to 25 year range. So that's why we've had a number of these expensive fire trucks come through. The other one is for two electric buses, either through purchase or lease. One of them is the grant, the one that we have a grant for that will pay for some of it, that we have to appropriate our share before we get reimbursed. And then the other one, it was originally going to be allocated, the funding was going to be allocated to repairing our E-Line bus. We've had a lot of issues with that bus and keeping it on the road and so we decided, or actually JCPC helped recommend that maybe that money be put into leasing a new electric bus as opposed to investing in an older one. And we've had some good conversations with a company that does that recently. Next, $300,000 for facility improvements. So this is one of those recurring items. This is what our facility directors have to make repairs and improvements to facilities throughout the year. This is combined, cuts across both the schools and the town, so the number is inclusive of all buildings. And it's a little higher than what JCPC review, this is one I'll try to note some of the changes that happened after the JCPC review. It's a little higher than what JCPC reviewed because we added $100,000 to it for public works. We all know the condition of the public works facility and that the timeline for replacing that facility is really contingent upon funding and interest rates and things like that. So we're setting aside some funding specifically for that building to make improvements to the roof and the external structure keep water out. Get that building to where it needs to be until a replacement can be put in place. Next, $300,000 for the roof replacement APD. There was some design money several years ago the pandemic happened and that project sort of a pause for a little bit. It's now back on our facility managers radar. And so this would help replace that roof. Alicia did send in so Alicia's topic topic area was the capital improvement program so she did send in questions. And one of the questions was, you know, do we anticipate $300,000 for the roof will be enough. We don't know for sure, until we get bids. There's always we always put some contingency in the numbers when we budget them, but given the market and we haven't done a roof project. We haven't done that in a little while. We can't say for sure so. But the anticipation is it will be enough and if it isn't that would be something we would have to come back for. $230,000 for field equipment. Again, you all heard all the public comment on the field conditions not only the field that's being considered for complete replacement but all the other fields. Public works superintendent Gilford, you know, listen to all that as well. And he proposed a few different phases of investment to get the fields in better condition. This plan includes the first phase of that. All this equipment is for natural grass. It's not dependent on whether there's a turf or natural grass field at the region. It could be used on the regional fields. It would be used. It would be used there, but it could also be used that potline or Kiwanis or other fields that, you know, hopefully the new Fort River field in the future. $200,000 for sustainability improvements. This is something we started doing a couple of years ago to give our sustainability director recurring source of funds that she can plan for and go out and start implementing the goals of the climate action adaptation and resiliency plan. And it's been successful the last couple of years and so this would be the next, the next round of that. $50,000 to finish the space on the second floor of the bang so if you haven't seen the new press office. It's pretty good it was done in house for the most part, but only half of that second floor was refinished and the other half is in a great state can't really be used for anything. So these funds would finish the other half. And then we're doing some space planning and it would be used for potentially one of our departments. And then the last thing is $40,000 was added for tree planting we've got received a lot of feedback around the need for new trees, especially we talked about this at the presentation some trees need to come down in the future. I think I just saw Amherst was tree city again, our tree community again. So we got to got to keep that title. So this would be for a regular amount of funding to recurring amount of funding to replace trees or plant new trees. And then the last thing I'll just say some of the again the variances to what JCPC recommended so there was 100,000 that I mentioned for public works facility it's not that they didn't it's just that we hadn't put it in the original plan that they reviewed so I don't know how they would have felt about that. We did swap out one of the DPW vehicles that kind of came in late. There was a vehicle for tree and grounds. It was a pickup truck of some sort. It was determined there was a greater need for a trash truck the truck that goes around to the different recreational areas and replaces, or takes the trash from those facilities. And so that vehicle was put in and it's an exchange of the other vehicle. And then the last thing was the, we incorporated the four building projects into the five year plan so you can see, you know, an SNO where the debt exclusion starts the library debt is in there. When we first presented to JCPC the public works project was a little sooner in the five year plan, looking at where the funding really would become available potentially that the beginning of that project was pushed later on the plan. So if you look at the five year summary, it looks better now than it did when JCPC reviewed it and that's because the funding was sort of shifted to match up better. And I think that is it and happy to if, and if you're okay with Mandy, she wants to weigh in as well. Yeah. So Mandy, you, if you have anything to offer about the JCPC process and how you feel that JCPC recommendation was translated in the plan. Anything else you'd like to tell the committee, please. I would say, well, thank you for having me and I had mentioned this to Pam so I will pass it off if Pam has any other comments. I mentioned I was invited to do this because Kathy wasn't here and since Pam was the other council member I had told her about it. So if she has any comments about the disconnect or lack of disconnect. I'd welcome her comments too but Sean basically covered it all in terms of the facilities repairs to DPW. You could consider it as potentially part of the JCPC recommendation, we had recommended that if the body cameras were removed, that some of the costs of what had been budgeted for body cameras be put towards potentially future facilities improvements and projects for facilities that were already in the five year plan but were not planned for next year if they could be done earlier. And so I would say that the addition of the DPW facility repairs at 100,000 is in some sense consistent with that recommendation even if it's not wasn't considered a project that was already on the list. The biggest, I would say the biggest change that is sort of was not ever contemplated by JCPC at all was that trash truck. It was never brought to JCPC's attention at all it was not on the five year plan when JCPC was considering anything. There was no chance for JCPC to discuss the trash truck at all and make any recommendation as it relates to that truck. And the only other thing I wanted to mention with the field maintenance equipment is that JCPC had a recommendation that talked about staffing at the DPW and considerations of buying field equipment that may or may not be fully staffed or staff created to be able to use it in a manner that would not remove other services from DPW's capabilities to use the equipment. I was concerned that if we bought the field equipment and did not add staffing to DPW staff that the superintendent had indicated without additional staffing, the use of that equipment and the maintenance of the fields would have to something else would have to give that there's no more additional time to do everything. And so, and it is still not clear at least within the CIP report, what is being done about that despite the equipment being recommended to be purchased. And that was not a don't buy or don't that was just a figure out what's going on and what's going to happen if staff is not added. And the equipment is a purchase sort of consider the two together. That's what I would say we're different or potentially in conflict with what JCPC had reported and what came out of the final request from the manager. No, I didn't I don't think you missed anything. It would be actually helpful though to have the latest version of the capital plan with those with those items highlighted that were changed from from the approval of JCPC. So that it's easy reference on what what has changed. Yeah, just just be clear that this JCPC makes a recommendation to the manager and then this is what you have in front of you is the plan and you can reference back to what the JCPC did. And we will. I can send out a summary to have the changes. It's easier to send out a summary of what changed and the highlight the plan itself. I appreciate, I appreciate that it's slightly different but if I'm not going to hold up to version side by side to go through line by line and see what changed so it just would be very quick and easy reference if they were highlighted. So the other thing, Andy, we did receive some questions on the capital improvement program. I thought I'm happy to go through now or whenever you'd like. Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest as the next steps. So, I think that the order we were going to try and proceed in was that we would do the questions were submitted in advance that you could just have a chance because you'd have a chance to at least think about them for a moment before the meeting I know you only got some today. And then see if there are other members of the committee in the council that have questions would be then the next step to follow. Okay. So you want me to run through them. And the plan is to put all these together compile them and at some point it'll be a post in the packet all the questions and answers so everybody can refer to them and the recommendation from the finance committee. So the first few came from Bernie, I believe. First question was, how is borrowing monitored and projected out over future budgets to ensure that borrowing costs are crowding out cash capital requests. So generally borrowing is monitored by our comptroller and our treasure they both maintain spreadsheets for slightly different purposes. They maintain all everything that's authorized, whether it's actually borrowed or not. And that services our basis for when we project out into future years. The terms of those borrowings this is part of the question as well. The terms of those borrowings are typically related to the, what the borrowings for so if it's a vehicle. Typically on the shorter side, maybe five years for a lot of our vehicles if it's something a little bit bigger than we would do 10 years for large building projects you know we were looking at 25 or 30 years potentially. So it's typically the term is typically tied to the type of asset that we're borrowing for. One of the ways we try to keep an eye on whether borrowing costs are forcing out or elbowing out cash capital is by doing the five year projection. That allows us to look forward and project out our debt even projects that aren't approved yet if we think they're going to be borrowings we project the debt. So we can see what it leaves for cash capital. And so that helps us keep an eye on it. So let's say, you know, go with the four building projects that was one of the trade offs we knew that that was going to be one of the side effects is if we do have all the building projects, even with the fire department potentially not being financed. There's going to be less for cash capital so it is something to keep an eye on you do see it when you look in the five year plan that there's less available for cash capital. But hopefully everyone knew that was coming because we said that early on. And some of the things we can do to help address that because we know that is a concern having less for cash capital. We have been very successful at getting grants so anything we can do to find grants for projects that are on the list. Which there are several that potentially could be on the list, or some of them are certainly CPA eligible as well so we could look to CPA, which would help relieve some pressure on the list would be great. We talked about new growth we talked about new growth it seems like it's a recurring theme but if our property tax levy increases because of new development that's more that's 10 and a half percent of a greater number so that's more money in the capital And then the last thing is we have this capital stabilization fund, our plan now is to use it for the fire department specifically but the goal. Longer term is to use it as a, you know, as a technique to balance out, you know, peaks and valleys with our capital plan so long term it could be used to help out with years where capitals maybe there's not as much funding and so we could pull for certain projects. The next question was about the additional funding for streets and sidewalks and specifically, what is there for culvert maintenance, and how do we maintain culverts throughout town. So I talked to go for a little bit before this meeting and he can certainly speak to it again if there's more questions, but the public works department maintains a culvert inspection program or they check our culverts once or twice a year. The culverts need to be replaced and their part and the road is being replaced paved or redone, then it would be part about funding whatever the cost of replacing that road would include the culvert replacement. If it's not part of a road replacement project, they have gotten grants in the past and they would look for grants, but there's not necessarily a current source of funding for culvert replacements if it's not part of a road project. There may change in the future we did talk about stormwater in the past and we had a couple bylaws related to stormwater and I think we alluded at the time that down the road there would likely need to be an enterprise fund set up for stormwater with potentially, hopefully low fees, but fees that would go into the stormwater fund and help maintain the entire system which would include the culverts. We don't expect that in the next couple years, but it could be in the later half of the 2020s. So we just submitted a grant application today for three culvert replacements from the state. West Pomeroy middle and forget, maybe forget what then other street is some major replacements for those big money they all cost a lot of money though. And quickly, Bernie before you weigh in, one of the questions was, how do we control what grants get applied for, and how do we ensure that sort of grants align with sort of the goals of the town. The town manager is ultimately in charge of saying okay to department heads to apply for grants and it's a good example of one that he said okay to Bernie, or is okay if I just call in people. Sure. Yeah, thanks. Sean I really appreciate the detailed explanation of the process behind this I think it's important that people know what the process is and the thought that goes into it and how things are monitored and straight out it's just not, you know, somebody making up a wish list and then taking things. And the culvert questions is wacky as it may sound because given climate change and given where our roads were initially installed and given permitting requirements are replacing the culverts. It could become a major problem. And so that's that that I'm glad to know that the dvw is carefully monitoring that and we're being aggressive about trying to get funds for it where where we need to and pulse right some of these are very expensive. The physics behind the physics behind going from a 10 inch culvert to a 12 inch culvert is enough to boggle the mind so. Anna. So you had alluded to one of my questions which is about applying for grants and as I look at what's what's available to municipalities through the infrastructure act and through the inflation reduction act and I know that we've gotten some we've taken advantage of the state fund a little bit for for some stormwater projects but what is I hear that I hear you saying it's Paul's discretion but sort of what's the project what's the process to make sure that we're not leaving money on the table that we could be really taking big advantage of with these with these two bills I mean I'm looking at stormwater management but it's relevant across the board with vehicles with with all that I know that we don't have staff there. Our job is to apply for grants but I'd love to hear more about the process because I'm I don't want us to leave money on the table. So the grant process is, it usually is generated by the departments and departments are fully usually pretty well aware of it, you know, we pass along any kind of notifications we have a grant applications to the departments. The departments have to not only just prepare the grant and get it then they also have to manage the grant and that's usually the biggest piece of it. What can they actually consume and deliver and there's sometimes where we pass on a grant that would be perfectly good for us but we just don't have the internal capacity to manage it and we've tried some other option in terms and so that's an important piece like how much can we actually manage we only have certain number of people without adding additional staff, we tend not to do that just to for grants. So, our, our staff have been really entrepreneurial and I think our record for obtaining grants especially in the last three years has been spectacular compared to other communities so I think we've been fairly aggressive about things that matter to the town. And so, we tend not to go after things that are like, we could get this. It's a nice to have that it's usually something that aligns with the goals that the council have established and along with the needs of the infrastructure needs of the town. Yeah, just anecdotally a lot of times, there are things we want to do anyway, and we can go out and find grants to help support them I think the North Commons a great example, where the North common project was moving forward, I think either way, but having the grant really shifted the, you know, the cost of it for the town, the federal grant yeah. Thank you for clarifying. So the next question also from Bernie was about the temporary station road bridge, why it wasn't on the list of pending projects and the capital plan. And we'll you know what is the plan for replacing it. And so that was a good question, it probably should have been on that list and I imagine it will be on that list next year I think it was just an oversight that it wasn't on that list. So, good catch. And then the plan right now is we have applied for, or we try to apply for a grant to replace that bridge we're going to probably keep applying each year for grants to replace that bridge. It's quite expensive so we are trying to seek some of those infrastructure programs like I just mentioned or at the state level to replace it. Next is, I think these start coming from Andy. Does the passage of the debt exclusion change any recommendations for maintenance of school buildings. And the answers potentially so generally Fort River and Wildwood specific projects have already been removed from the capital plan. If you look on the five year plan the school section you won't see any Wildwood or Fort River specific projects. There are some of those recurring items those year after year items like HVAC improvements, asbestos remediation furniture, some of those potentially might be able to be reduced in the future with a new facility. That would have to come from the schools those those are requesting the schools that they work on with their facility department. I would say there's potential in that area that they might not need to spend as much on HVAC for example each year once the new facility is on on board. Now there might be some new costs related with the new facility as well that we just have to be mindful of and, and we'll see what those are when the as the buildings can build. Next is, I think this relates to one of the public comments was, there's the proposal for the field maintenance equipment. The answer operational increases to support that. And the answer is not currently there was no new staffing proposed for public works and talking with a public work superintendent, I think, Mandy already provided this answer is that there will have to be a trade off. The more that equipment use it means they won't be doing something else. What we heard was a high priority from the community that the field conditions need to be improved so given that higher priority will work with the superintendent to figure out what that trade off is in the future, you know, the hope is to do more there. And one of the things we are looking at as well as how we rent out our field facilities, the money that we get from it in our field facilities and how do we direct more of that to public works for maintaining those fields and improving those field conditions so there's work going on around that but there was no specific staffing increase for the public works department. And then the last one from Andy was, was there any discussion about dredging puffers pond. So, manager you correct me if I'm wrong, I don't believe there was a specific discussion about dredging puffers pond is on our list of pending projects. It's another one that we apply for grants for the FEMA grants or some of the other resiliency grants that are out there, but it's, but I don't think there was explicit discussion at JCPC. Paul did you want to add. Yeah, no, we just to apply for another grant for puffers pond explicitly. There's they have prepared a plan for puffers pond in the future what that could look like. But it's a, again, a very it's a multi it's a over a million dollar project so getting a grant for that from the state would be really helpful. And now we're getting into Alicia's question so where in the capital improvement program does it show the amount of unspent slash repurposed capital or money is left over from previous articles. So page 21 of the plan shows anything that's unspent three years and older. And again the reason we do three years is because generally we kind of give a three year timeframe for capital projects to be completed. And one of the reasons why they're we call them capital is that the funding rolls over from one year to the next. And they often take more than a year. Nowhere in the capital plan do we show the uns of the repurposed capital then you know one of the funding sources we propose for the, the old gas station. It's not a lot of money relative to the overall capital plan each year but we're happy to, you know, we can share that number, figure out a way to fold it in. So basically, we use that money to, or some of the ways we can use that money is to top off projects that might come in over budget like that roof project that was asked about the police station. We use it in some years if the capital request is greater than the funds we have available. So if there's something that's really high priority but we can't cover it within the existing allocation of capital we could pull that in those particular years. Again, it's in this capital plan to be used 200,000 to support the EV buses. It was in a couple years ago for the cost escalation reserve fund so it's used on a regular basis. And the question about should that be allocated before new funding is something we could consider I'd say we think the flexibility of not doing that has been helpful. So to have that source of funding that you could go to if there was an issue during the year has been, I think, advantageous to the town if it was all appropriated every year. It just would it would make a, it would give us less capacity and less flexibility to address things that might pop up throughout the year. And again, given that it's not a huge amount of money. We think the process has worked well. We have the capital articles when they are closed out where does the money go. So again, we have this closed capital fund, we have a block of accounts that are capital every project gets its own account, and there's sort of a balance balance sheet account, essentially that when a project gets closed out anything that's left over falls into that account, and then we can use it for future capital plans. Some projects get closed out because they come in under budget. Some projects get, you know, we had some projects that they thought they were going to do something something changed. So they get closed out for a variety of different reasons but that's one of our comptroller's major tasks each year is at the end of the year. So we review all the balances that are out there for capital and anything that's been lingering for multiple years. She either closes out or she works with the department had to get a really good reason why it shouldn't be closed out. What else are all the projects in the FY 24 plan ready to go so that they will happen in the next 12 months. So, most of them are in many cases they aren't completed within 12 months the expectations that they will be started within the next 12 months. So projects they don't, we don't start until we know the funding is in place. So, the goal is to get them started and completed generally within three years sooner if possible if it's an equipment purchase that can obviously happen quicker. That's, well, in the past that could happen quicker now the vehicles take about 24 months to get that's turned into a three year process. So, again, the intent is that they are started within the next 12 months and then completed within three years. Again, that's why capital funds carry over from one year to the next and don't close out automatically at your end. There was a question about getting the specific roads that the money proposed in the FY 24 plan what roads will those replace. So, Guilford and Paul will have to take a look at that and weigh in. I'm not, you know, there's a the prioritized list and the system that's been discussed at previous meetings. I don't know if he knows the exact roads at this point, since it hasn't been approved but he can weigh in when he comes back for his department. So, at last night's TSO committee meeting, about a little bit over a year ago we made a presentation on roads to the TSO committee and they've asked that we do that again, which we will and that shows the five year plan I think we usually go out. We just show the ranking of the roads and see how far the money takes us. So, so that talked with the chair of the TSO committee and so that will be coming up. We'll schedule that during possibly June. Jennifer. Yeah. Oh, I just had a question because I think some constituents may ask. So I'm not trying to look at the glass being half empty but the $2 million for roads and sidewalks. What kind of an impact will that make since it's so costly. Yeah, I mean so you know last year when we did Bay Road is less than a mile cost $800,000 just for perspective. We're doing West Pomeroy and Pomeroy. I think that bit came in at like $600,000. I don't know exactly the number but it's about for a road, for a road of that length, it's a pretty substantial chunk of our road allocation. Smaller, you know, shorter roads have different, it depends on the road and what's being recommended. And as you remember from the presentation they also do different levels of a treatment some are full depth reclamation others are just a surface layer to buy a few more years for the road so they have a new technique they're going to be trying this year to get that they think we'll buy like five or seven years that we'll get more of our roads covered give us more time to catch up. I've told Paul several times we should we should look at going back to dirt roads as a way to save some money but they'll land. You don't have to look back to dirt roads they're becoming dirt roads. So Jennifer, thank you for bringing up my least favorite subject. I looked at the projections out over a couple of years. And if we're really looking at 40 million plus in roads. It seems like we need a lot more aggressive plan, then we're presenting at this time. And so I appreciate the increase I appreciate that it's more than we've done in the past. But I, we're not even catching up. It's kind of, we're not catching up. And so I would really like to see how we might think about this in a much more comprehensive way that allows us to get ahead of the problem. So that we aren't just hatching our roads and hoping that nobody gets seriously hurt. This, this is an issue that I think I've heard more about than just about anything else in this town. It's the condition of the roads, and it's people talking about how much taxes they pay. And yet the road in front of their house is just not acceptable. So I looked at, again, the projections out and we have a nice bump this year, but we're not looking at anything significant after this. And so how are we going to get ahead of this problem. So, yeah, so, I mean, the council can continue to prioritize this and that communicates to the manager about how we prioritize Andy probably remembers in the past, the town went out and borrowed a whole bunch of money to pave roads on one, one big chunk. We were still paying off that money that we borrowed 10 years ago last year. So it's still coming out of our capital budget. But we in the meantime, we paid those roads are now, you know, still need work and we're paying a lot of interest. I don't really am a, I'm not a big fan of borrowing money to pave roads. I think we need to get to a steady state where we are paving the roads and a regular forum format. Other things that we can do is look at how we're treating the roads during the winter. There's people and joy having roads as soon as it's snows and icy, you know, it's their salted if we get away from putting salt on, we move more towards a sand treatment that will preserve the roads longer. There's some long term things like that. There might be some other benefits of moving away from salt but there are other there's some downsides to using primarily sand or you can do a mixture of course. But then people will, you might hear from constituents saying the roads aren't aren't aren't free of snow and ice during the winter so there's all these things you have trade offs. So I think the two or two of the things are to prioritize, you know, continue to prioritize for the council saying this is where we want our capital to be spent and we will continue to do that. The second is the option to borrow money. But the issue with that is the capacity of the paving companies to absorb that depends what's in them is really about the state being in the market for paving. So if the state isn't doing much paving then we're much more competitive, we can get more roads done. But if the state is doing big projects like interstate 91, which is what they were doing, then there's it's a regional economy on these road paving projects. So there's no easy, there's no quick answer but there's there are certain options options available to us. I don't feel anything, Sean. I'm sorry. The only two things I would say quickly are. I think you're right Len and I would say we have been aggressive in terms of trying to tackle the issue, at least relative when you look back at what's been contributed towards roads. You know this isn't unlike buildings where there wasn't as much put into capital as a whole and so there wasn't as much put into roads. The investment in roads for the last five years has been ramped up significantly from where it was prior. And then we've done a bunch of supplemental or a couple supplemental appropriations as well so I think we have been aggressively funding it and it was a large, it was a large issue so it's it's going to require it. I think the other piece that we've talked about is the state we need to keep pushing the state to kick in more money towards our roads are chapter 90 de allocation is not changed. I know Andy you may know what it was 10 years ago but I don't I haven't seen the number change in a long time. So yeah so we get 850,000 bucks from the state every year. And that's less than a mile of road and we have, you know, by all rights we should be doing, you know, seven to 10 miles a year of roads. But what it requires Lynn is that the council will have to prioritize you're going to have to say yes to this you have to say no to something else. So this is going to be the hard part of the discussion we talked about financial authorities come the later in the year. Where do we want to put our limited capital capital, do we. And so what are the new initiatives we do want to do and we don't want to do and how much of it do we want to dedicate to roads. If we showed more aggressive five year plan for roads. Do we think we could get more attention from the construction companies. So there's there. Sometimes they want bigger projects sometimes they want smaller projects, we don't pay at the level the state does ever. So if the state is in the market they're not getting anything right now that's why we got pretty good pricing on this last bid. But it's also a capacity issue, like when we're we're paving a road we have a staff person out there, you know, monitoring the paving. And so being able to manage the actual project and putting the design together, it just takes time. But yeah, if we said we have a five year plan, we're going to put we're going to do the time it takes to design all the roads and put it out to bid. There would probably be some more. There's only like three, and Gilbert will know this, but it's only like three paving companies in western mass. So. So, I'm just trying to think through our council process and how we as a council. We can do it through the budget guidelines but is this something that we should be asking TSO to work on with the town to come up with an aggressive five year plan. I mean, I, I just, if we're having the same conversation next year. It's not going to be pretty. It's already not pretty. It's not about putting together a plan it's about allocating the resources. It's a council says we're putting half of our capital into roads for the next two or three years. That sends us the message. Okay, chapter 90 is concerned. You know, it's ultimately, there's how much money the legislature is willing to put into the chapter 90 program and what the formula is for its allocation. And they're both factors that are out there. And when you talk about the amount of money is like it's similar to the discussion we're just having now is is the legislature decides what, what they want to prioritize and how much they want to, wouldn't do something label chapter 70 for education how much they want to put in the something level chapter 90 as far as the allocation I think. There's no question. The formula. As would no great surprise favors Boston area. Towns, you know, they have higher population and don't favor Western mass towns that have more road length and comparison proportionate to population. And this is a discussion that MMA has the MMA's issue and the legislature's issue is that if you come up with formula that decreases in other towns. And then you're going to hear complaints there, and that balancing act so it's a difficult issue and sure that you know I've, I'm hearing more about it more because I'm on the financial policy committee I'm sure Paul's been hearing about it for years. Bernie. This discussion can be summed up by comment that David Plouffe made we all know David Plouffe from his successful running of Obama's campaigns. He did a lot of consulting with cities and towns and his, his mantra was you can be as inventive in this progressive issue like in your policies and your legislation but you got to remember to fill the potholes and pick up the trash. And that, that holds true. And I think, you know, the, the, if a council is genuinely interested in infrastructure, then that needs to become a priority and that needs to be pushed and and that means that some things will have to be. Again, we'll have to be set aside. The only thing I wanted to go just to mention is, there was a thing about your projects ready to go. You can have projects, the time can have projects ready to go the departments can have projects ready to go but they can't do a thing about it until an appropriation exists, which means you can't contract for it you can. So as bids you can't, you can't do anything, you have to be able to say, we've got the money in hand. So if there's, you know, if it's, if, if it's not planned and in the budget and the budget's been approved, then things just get held up. Matt. So let me just preface by this by apologizing in advance if I'm missing some really, really obvious thing but it's actually a question just. And I would say, I'm going to ask this question in terms of Amherst but I'll also ask it in terms of potential partnerships with other municipalities in the area. What is, I mean, can anybody venture a guess in terms of the cost of having our own road crew with our own paving equipment I mean what you know how I obviously the number is going to be huge and you know I'm not trying to make a proposal I'm just I'm just curious I mean, you know where how far removed is that from reality for us or us in five other towns to, to you know, just have our own road crew. That would be a really good question for Gilford. We used to do the roads and I just, I didn't, I do not think that they were of the quality that you would get from a professional company it's out there doing it. We don't have people who are they're doing a lot of different jobs during the course of the year, then they come in there in the summer, they dedicate their time to paving some roads. It just didn't seem to be of the level. And so, I was pretty clear about wanting to contract out more of the work than our crews could rather than staff up our crews to actually run crews. But I would suggest that, you know, that's a very valuable conversation I had with Gilford because it's something we should think about again. It's always good, you know, the economy may change and like economies of scale like that might work. The street was an example of an area that was done by our own crews and actually think they did a reasonably good job with it but it took a long time and it took a lot of resources away from other things that the department could have been doing and needed to be doing and I think with Paul, I have to agree with him that you got to look at the consequences that came from that decision that Gilford was here managing it at the time. So, I don't know, is he going to be with us later today? No, he's not going to be here today. Anything that we can't get today when public works comes, we can have him address. And just to add. Crews that can involve, you just need to be here for that. But just to add on what you said, Andy, it was also, it would take a long time because our crews would get pulled off to do something else and it seemed like the road projects were taking forever and people were, you know, it's a very visible job. You know, the folks who work on the streets just get, everybody watches every shovel they move and it was just like, wow, this does not look good for our town. Yeah, well, that, but that's actually, honestly, I'll just say really quickly, I mean, that sounds like the kind of thing that emerges, you know, this is what we're going to do with the existing staff that we have and the needs that we have but, but maybe now that we've taken a step back and you know, treated this differently for a few years. You know, maybe it's time to reassess and and see, you know, see if there's a specialized crew that can be, you know, formed over. I mean, obviously it's a very complicated thing to do but Yeah, so maybe we can bring it up with Guilford when we do. Absolutely. Yeah, great. And Andy I'm sorry I've got to step away for a minute I'll be back. Okay. Jennifer. Yeah, I just have the question. So if we, what would we need to allocate what kind of budget are we looking at if let's say over a three year period, we really wanted to make a visible impact where constituents felt we were responding to what they're asking for. I mean, I mean what multiple millions. Yeah, so I think when we did the presentation last year we showed there's about 50% of our roads were below standard to require about $40 million investment. Thank you. But, but your questions will make it. Well, what are our constituency as a visible impact that'd be a judgment calling you what would it take. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So we're on the topic of infrastructure and facilities. I just wanted to ask if you are any closer to setting up a small committee to look at either accessing de accessing facilities and properties. Let me check on that where we are in that the surplus property one. Yes. Let me I can report back to you on that. Yeah, I'd like to officially request to the chair this discussion regarding this portion of the capital plan be continued when we have Guilford here. Thank you. Okay, yeah, no I I'm just taking a little bit of notes so that we track the questions that would need to be asked when we have Guilford present, because there was one was the question about culverts. There was a question about the recreation equipment and the staffing to use recreation equipment. And then there's a whole series of questions about roads. So for any other topics major. This is specific questions with the global areas. So, if there are others, but we will get, and get back to them when we have built for public works on it. So I'm trying to figure out where we are here at Sean I don't think you finished your questions and I feel like I want you to do that before I jump in with more but otherwise I'm ready with more, if, if you want me to ask them. You can go ahead. Yeah, this is fine. Okay, so this is my kind of general concern here and I apologize that I didn't get you this in advance so I don't need an answer right now. One of the things that and it's not actually necessarily directed at you. One of the things that I'm concerned about is an I'm going to use this phrase very lightly because I don't this is not intentional but I think that we've ended up with a budget that's a little bit unwashed. And what I mean by that is that when we are identifying actions that are helping our sustainability efforts towards the town. There's a big range of how much it's helping. And I think that my when I'm looking at this and I'm seeing the little green leaf everywhere which is really exciting, but there are some decisions that we can make in a budget that are hugely impactful and then there are some that are as impactful. And I want to unpack those a little bit because one of the things that I brought up last year and I'll probably just always bring up is progress towards the electrification of our municipal fleet. We don't necessarily have a plan to my knowledge unless I've missed it to to electrify the fleet more fully I'm looking at, you know, I know that the garbage truck is a necessity right now and that we probably don't want to double that line item to get an electric vehicle, but I'd like to know that that question was asked, and I'm not sure that it was, and I really would like to know the process that that department heads and individuals go through to ensure that they have looked at all of the options for, especially with vehicles, electrification. I'm looking at a minivan a shift supervisor vehicle a maintenance fleet vehicle for the schools I think that there are opportunities here that I'd really like to at least understand or hear the rationale as we go through as to why those aren't electric. And if they're not electric if they're not hybrid whether not hybrid right and so I think that it gets to this larger issue that I'd really love to see and I'm trying to remember if it made it into the final goals or not of that municipal fleet electrification program, which would need to go along with a charging infrastructure program. And I really would love to see that looking forward in the capital budget clarity on that. And then the other part that sort of related about vehicles is at the beginning you were talking about how we've gotten ourselves into a cycle of needing to replace all of these, I think you were talking about fire trucks at once and how do we get out of that, because when they all need to go when they all are getting replaced on the same timeline how do you how do you get out of that cycle. So to two parts there. Yeah, so the electrification plan. We are Stephanie is working with a company now to develop that plan so she started gathering. We've been working with our fire department and our DPW who have all the fueling infrastructure to provide data to a company that's going to be helping us with this. So the first piece is sort of getting a baseline of where we are, where we are currently, and then we'll be working on that company to sort of map out where there are electric options. For vehicles there aren't electric options currently or at least not proven ones. So just keep that in mind, you know, the majority of our majority of our vehicles are pickup trucks and school buses. And so school bus starting to see more in that area but there's still not a lot of electric school bus adoption throughout the state. It feels like there is because we keep hearing all grants for electric school buses but I'm, you know, I don't know I may have changed along the last several years but members was one of the first, you know, for this electric school bus grant to have have one in operation. So, but we are working with this company that will help us at least get that sort of model, and what the cost would be the vehicles you called out those vehicles if there's electric options they will be electric. And I think the van for example the thought was that it would be electric for recreation. Yeah, or at least a hybrid alternative depending on the needs of the vehicle and how far it needs to go. Do you have it. Yeah, finished go ahead. So what would completion date for her work for his deafness work with that group. I would say I would hope within the next six months or so maybe sooner. She's got a lot of projects that are, you know, from the climate action resiliency plan and I can't remember if this is one there's a question earlier what are we doing with our but I can't remember if this is an article I think it was. But this is one of there's a bunch of planning and studies going on. There's a greenhouse gas emissions report that's going to be going on there's an inventory of building HVAC systems and where the options are to replace those with non fossil fuel burning systems. So there's a lot of work going on right now in the planning which will hopefully put us in a good position for grants in future we just obviously completed the solar municipal solar feasibility feasibility study for town buildings. Hopefully, next time around when we look at this report there will be more data to come back with on that. And I don't, I know that there has been a tremendous amount of work. I think clarity on the on the timeline of that is really helpful. Yeah, and one thing we added you may not have come across that yet. I think we added or Stephanie ground me by the neck and made me do it. There's a section sustainability in the budget this year so if you look at the table of contents. It's called focus on sustainability, but we thought it was, you know, time to add something to the budget to update the community and all the different initiatives that are going on. And so that should provide a pretty comprehensive overview of the different, the different things that are currently underway or have been completed recently for anybody who's interested. Yeah, and as you know, last night at TSO, that was one of the topics that the TSO committee said we could have a an evening to talk about sustainability initiatives with Stephanie coming in for my very meetings and invite the entire council. Thank you both. And then the other question has about the fire vehicles so, you know, it's tough, it's a trade off so how do you change that while you stretch out how long in between replacing those vehicles, or you decide how many of those vehicles we need. And so I think on one end we hear from the fire department and the condition of their vehicles and the need and, but on the other side is exactly what you said which is, how do we get a, you know, more manageable replacement schedule. There's a little bit of a push and pull that there is another one on the five year capital plan so that may be an opportunity to look at and say I would just replace two of them do. You know, is a third required and if a third is required kind of be pushed off farther into the future to space it out more. Mandy. So, yeah, Paul. So, Mandy, then we'll go ahead and keep going. Yeah, I'm on the issue of vehicles. Having sat in JCPC for two months discussing stuff and particularly vehicles I was surprised to see a brand new vehicle not only added to this year's plan but frankly the five year plan which is the trash truck. It wasn't even on a five year plan. So, no one at JCPC really got to do any due diligence on what, why is this one now coming back to the forefront when it wasn't even on a five year replacement plan. I have some questions about what why is it so necessary now that it's knocked off a three quarter ton pickup truck that was on the plan for a year that that may or may not be a fine thing to do but it's, it's quite an expensive truck. There was a vehicle at a trash truck and, and there was what happened that it wasn't even on the radar, two months ago and suddenly it's not just now on the radar it's front and center we must do it. Yeah, so, so that change came about at the request of Guilford, you know he oversees the vehicles for the, for the DPW and, and he came to us with identifying that as a higher priority than what was there previously. So we'll do it more justice speaking to it. Yeah, I can have him do it right up, or Paul can have him do it right up on the need for the trash truck and why, why was such a high priority and he can certainly speak to it when he comes back. But it was one of Paul knows he's been looking at this for a while now it was just the timing of when we develop the capital plan and when the need arose to replace the truck. And between a little bit, whether it goes in the capital plan or whether it was a separate request. So, do we have any information as to what type of trash truck this is is this similar to what we see coming around town with the automatic raising like we have no, no information at all about what it is. So right now the public works department they use sort of a modified dump truck to go around and replace to empty the trash at different locations. And the one of the biggest issues I was identified is, especially, I think it's become a bigger issue even with the dog park now, is that to load it, it requires it's not a low entry loading vehicle it requires lifting high up to put the trash into the into the bed and so I know that was one of the issues that was identified I'm sure there are other ones that Kilford can identify but the we don't really, we have sort of a modified vehicle right now that's doing the job that he thinks a trash truck is better suited for. So, yeah, we just you deserve a written sort of update on that one particularly when I agree with that. And Joe, but this you know if you if you every morning this is a truck that's out there seven days a week you see it and you hear it because it's sort of a modified thing with some. And the DPW workers have to go out lift the hands out and then they have to basically lift them above their heads and to put it into the truck and you know we're seeing to avoid injuries and stuff and this is a much more compact truck it's not a big one it's a smaller one more compact sort of but it is the rear loading. You put it in the back and it has a compressor that pushes the trash together. I added that to my list of what is that for buckets of questions to ask when we meet with. I want to switch topics to two things regarding police. The first is with the roof is, I assume that does not include putting solar on the roof, but includes getting the roof ready so solar can be put on the roof. Yeah, so the thought is that we will, we will know what needs to be done to make the roof ready for solar. When we do the design of it, they will look at whether the existing structure of the roof can support solar. And if it can support solar will get an estimate of what would have to be done to the structure of the roof. In order to do that. Now the police station recollection was not. I mean, I know we're looking to potentially put solar on all roofs as we can. But to honest point earlier we do have a plan now of municipal facilities and where optimal locations are for solar. And police was in there I guess I'll have to go back and look I can't remember where that was on the list, but we will get the information needed in order to make a decision on solar that that location. Okay, I just know. I think it might, it might be because it was seen as the next roof coming up that everybody just assumed it was solar you know it may not even pitch the right way to. Yeah, I don't know. Even now with the new building going on right next to it to I don't know what the solar coverage is of that of that space now throughout the day. And you know, changing the pitch of the roof is a much more expensive proposition if you have to do that to put solar on it so I'm not I'm just don't want to lose the fact that we had discussed at one point solar on the police roof. I noticed that people are very hopeful that the body cams can be done through cameras. Through grants, through grants, I'm sorry, body cams can be done through grants. I would like to just say straight out if they can't. I think we need to use our money to move forward on this. I do not want to see us in another situation like we had this last summer. That was a big discussion at JCPC again we didn't want to. We didn't want the committee to vote anything that would potentially make us ineligible for a grant, which is why it was pulled off for now. The chief was pretty hopeful that we would be a good applicant for a grant whether we'll cover the whole cost or not remains to be a question. But there is, I think East Hampton was a community cited that recently got a grant to do something similar. And we've already started the, at least taking a look at the paperwork to apply for this grant. And I ready to move on it when, when the town manager says yes, go ahead. Do you want me to keep any other questions or you want me I only have a few more left on my list. Okay, let's go back to your list. So, there was a question again on the vehicles, specifically how many vehicles does public works have and how does that compare to other communities again that will be one will pass on to go for to speak to. There was a request for an update on the track and field project status and timing. And that really is one that the schools will have to weigh in on again that the track and field is a regional school project has funding from the town but they're driving that project so I think when the schools come on Tuesday that's technically a regional school item. But we could, I'm sure we could get an update at that time pretty quickly or I can get an update from just through email. Is there a ranked list of priority projects to determine priority and timing if we decide to push off a project and it frees up capital funding for the coming year what would be next on the list. So yes, the projects that we get. They come in with priorities that there's multiple projects from departments. And, you know we meet with all departments to go over their projects, and what ultimately makes it on the list are the projects that overall, the highest priority. If for some reason one was delayed or decided we weren't going to move forward with one and it freed up funding on the capital plan. There's a couple things we could look to do if there were any projects that weren't put forward because again they were lower priority we could consider those. Likely we would look at the next year if like 25 and see if there's any projects that could be moved forward to use any potential funding. And then the other place we would look is at the in our capital plan we have a number of projects that we'd like to move forward with if we had funding that we just don't have funding at the current moment. And so we could look at that list. Usually those are more expensive projects so it's unlikely that it would be enough to fund one of those projects but there are a couple places we would look at funding all of a sudden became available. We talked about the question the grants and what controls are in place. Again, ultimately, Tom manager decides if we're going to go for a grant and accept it. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, I think I think just one, just one more. Are the HVAC replacements improvements. I think specifically that are listed at cracker farm. I think they're an FY 25. Are they moving away from fossil fuels. And the answer is yes, the lease for town owned buildings are new sort of policy statement for all of our mechanical system replacements heating and cooling are that we use non fossil fuel burning systems. So yeah the cracker farm projects that that's on the list we'd be looking for something that doesn't burn oil or diesel or some other or natural gas and other fuel. And that's it. There's also some other questions that we still have to respond to but that's what we could respond to today. Okay. I will, while I did not know him. I'm going to ask a Larry Kelly question about cherry hill. So the top dresser 15,000 was not on the plan last year that it wasn't on the five year plan for cherry hill to mine. I was looking back in 20, I didn't go back earlier than that. And I'm, I'm curious where that came from and if, and if there are any other. Do you know it can you anticipate any other unanticipated needs for cherry hill. This is what I was about to ask you and I realized that sounded, but I mean we're looking at next year, a couple things I think got pushed or some got re like moved around. But next year now cherry hills coming in hot. And so I just, I'd love to hear a little bit about one how it's doing and I apologize I know I could find that in here and if you don't know it I will go look for it. But yeah, I guess we we got a new they did a new I think different type of specialty more last year and I'd love just a bit of an update and that also you also can tell me that I should wait until recreation comes in and talk to them. It's good, it's good to address things as they come up. So, in terms of the equipment that was purchased last year. I believe they've received everything it's working well we that was the equipment that we actually decided to go with us to equipment to get sort of stretch those dollars further and I know we I don't have both pieces of equipment but I know we have at least one and it's been no issues that have been reported. And as to the top dresser. It was sort of communicated late in the process I think there was sort of a miscommunication during the transition around what the needs were for cherry hill and so the top dresser wasn't part of the original project that it did get identified before wreck came and presented. So that when they did present to JCPC we were able to say hey this is another need. And so what happened was the, the sprinkler system project got pushed back that was originally proposed for this year. And that project got pushed back and the top dresser was put on, and that was identified as the highest priority for cherry hill, and then parking the second highest priority and that's why the sprinkler system got pushed back. It's not as big of an item is this something else that you anticipate you might be able to find used potentially I think they had luck with it last time around, especially with the other lots of golf courses that are going out of business, unfortunately. And we've now have a relationship at least one company that does repurpose used equipment. So it's something we could look at. And then in terms of other unanticipated stuff I hope not. And in terms of how was cherry hill doing so they had during the pandemic they had a couple really good years probably their best years. In terms of performance, at least in recent memory. We are doing the third quarter budget report right now so I will say we will have an update for you on how they're doing this year probably in the next couple weeks. Okay, last time I looked at it but it the way it works is the revenues. It's not in its own fund it's sort of the expenses are a general fund expense and then the revenues are sort of going to that big pot. So you have to kind of match up separately how they're doing. But we will have an update on that when we do the third quarter report. Thank you I hope that they're doing well and appreciate all of the efforts to find used equipment where you can. That's great. So that's it for my questions any other self water and sewer which I hope we get to any other committee questions for now I know we got a bunch to come back to but yeah. Other other questions from anyone. I just want to put on the discussion list for when we come back to see IP is this is a preliminary discussion. So let's point out in a second but that is, there's a question about additional items that we would go to any of these and I think that my concern is that if it wasn't included in the capital improvement plan, we have to go through a process of a recommendation. Any consideration and another public forum. And is anything have you considered at any point, whether to just include within the CIP when it's submitted on May 1. These are items that we would go to other projects done come through so that they're already in in place and we don't have to go through that whole process. That's a good question so we could look into, you know, we haven't typically done sort of, we have contingent appropriations and not sure exactly how we would structure that. In terms of, we might do this or that. But we can take a look at it. I would say there's a lot of examples on our radar right now again the areas where we where we feel we need flexibility. We've structured the capital request in a way that gives us the flexibility like the facility repair accounts the sustainability accounts those are the areas where we want flexibility throughout the year because different things pop up and we're grateful that the in the past the council has said yes to that. And I think that for every project and I think it can get a little, we don't want to get to to nebulous in terms of what we're requesting I think we've sort of targeted the areas where it's most beneficial to town to the town. Yeah, so one more thing. I'm going to go back to the topic and then turn to it Mandy and Pam have to say it's our JCPC counselors. And that is that getting back to Lynn's favorite topic roads. I think that at a minimum you could put a provision in to the capital program that if any of the amounts are cannot be used. And then during the year that authorizes additional road contracts to be issued that that can be done and if you know that's the kind of example of something you could do with the CIP to provide that flexibility whether you go to it or not is a decision that the executive branch can make later but at least you've given a possibility so I just want to put that out there and that's it's not a, it's not a recommendation for action. There may be a good bunch of reasons why not to do that but at least I wanted to get the idea that Mandy hands up. Yeah, um, to go with the flexibility this is just really a housekeeping question on the school bus. Prior to removing the battery for the E lion, there were two separate line items one under the schools and one under the vehicles and now there's just essentially one line item there's there's the two different funding structures because of the grant but it only talks about school buses, yet, within the descriptions and all you talk about buses. And so my question is, essentially, do we need to have that those lines plural. Does it as long as it says in the description, it's okay I mean we can, we can make an edit if forgot to make a plural but let me just a little check and make sure what it says and the. I think the description is also plural. Okay. Yeah, but the line item just. Yeah, we could fix that on our end if I think that was just probably again an oversight but the description does talk about two buses. So I think it's overall the project request is hopefully communicated clearly. A new topic I see on your agenda that water and sewer rates are I guess going to be discussed today. And I would be good that it's being discussed but I would love to hear from the enterprise funds and look at their budgets and get a kind of a blow by blow of their of their actual needs before. And before I felt comfortable making any kind of recommendation about the water rate. So that's part of the discussion for the water and sewer. We will go through the water and sewer enterprise funds. If we have time to get to today we will go through the water and sewer funds. There's a separate there's a separate time where go for it will come and the finance committee will look at the goals and the objectives and some of the service levels. And as part of the water and sewer rate setting process we always sort of also look at the those enterprise funds too because as you've said like you can't weigh in on the rates without knowing what's driving the rates so. So that's part of the, that would be part of the discussion today. You're going to have the presentation about the enterprise systems today. So what I plan to do today is go through the. In the memo there's a financial summary of the water and sewer funds, and I was going to go through that summary and talk about each line and why things are changing. Again, this is the first conversation on the water and sewer rates are not being voted today. But I was going to go through each of those. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the second but thank you for raising it Pam and getting us close to the segue to the next defend item. Linda of anything. Yeah, just to mention to Pam, we actually as a council aren't going to vote on water and sewer rates until the beginning of June. So we have time during this when we can have both that conversation. So we're going to carry questions over to go for it if we need to. Okay. Yeah. Which is then gets me to concluding where our discussion is today. I always like the idea of having the capital improvement program. I think that's the beginning of the process for initial discussion, because we identify issues that relate to departments that are making a quest for equipment. And that enables us during the next sets of meetings where we actually have department heads in there to have identified questions. Then it allows us to come back to the capital improvement program before we have to vote a recommendation on it. So, I was not anticipating in the hope that nobody makes motion today because it does it doesn't fit well with the process but I think that this meeting is an example of how having this discussion will facilitate our best use of time and their time when we have our department heads meeting with us starting with schools and libraries. In our next meeting. Okay, I'm going to just ask one general question of whether anybody has anything else to say about the capital improvement program and if not, I'm going to turn it back to Sean to move us on to water and sewer. Sean, my hands went up so I guess it's time to make the move. Okay. For this one I'm going to share my screen to talk about what we just discussed. In the packet there was the presentation that was made to the council. And there's also this memo. Again, so the rates that are being proposed for FY 24 for water proposing going from 475 per 100 cubic feet to $5 per 100 cubic feet which is about a 5% increase, and sewer going from 520 to 550 which is about a 6% increase. And the presentation to the council but you've got the comparison to other communities in here. So you can see that Amherst is still competitive to many of the communities in the area and again if you've seen the news lots of communities are are dealing with these high increases for a variety of different reasons. So, what I wanted to go through is, are these sheets with you all. And they're not the easiest to just look at and intuitively understand so that's why I want to kind of go through so you can understand what what this is saying. So this is for the water fund. And so what it is it's our current budget and our current rate which is 475 and then projected out five years. And what we do is we plug in our expenses and our revenues and what we anticipate for consumption. And what this sheet will tell us is, what is the rate we would need in order to break even for the year and that's sort of how we project. And we have two lines here rate needed versus actual projected rate here in the middle. And the reason we do that is because sometimes we may not go with the exact rate needed because we might say alright that's a year where we want to use retained earnings to balance it off a little bit because we want to sort of have predictable increases year over year. They're manageable not have sort of steep steps up and then a flat year and then another big step up we want it to be sort of a steady glide to where we need to go. And so these five year projections are really helpful to projecting where we need to go. And a lot of that is determined by our infrastructure projects or Centennial Water Treatment Facility project. That's what's really driving when you look at FY 28 what the rate needs to be. It's because of that large project. And same thing on the sewer side it's really our large infrastructure projects the gravity belt that's driving up and we'll look at that in a second. So quickly I'll go through these lines. Other revenue this first line so these are revenues that we get not from the rates that are charged. But these are things that are, we have a new water service come on. There's a fee to get a new water service investment earnings from the retain the amount that's in retained earnings that goes in here. Leans on water that haven't been paid when they ultimately are paid and if there's any penalties or interest that goes in here. So these are sort of non rate revenues. Then we get into our expense are different expenses we have operating expenses transfers to general fund which are really indirect costs each enterprise funds since they're supposed to be self sustaining. And we calculate what they should pay the general fund and what they're paying for is human resources accounts payable town manager, you know all the sort of administrative services that the town provides to the water fund into the sewer fund and all the enterprise funds, they pay a percentage of based on a calculation we do. We have current debt so these would be this is that for things that are already approved, and we have proposed that which would be for new projects that are being proposed and we don't have anything in the water fund that's being proposed. The only thing is the centennial and you can see Centennial the year comes on out here in FY26 when you see the projected debt or the current debt out here and projected FY25 go from 6,650,000 and that jump up is the estimated year where we would start making payments on Centennial. It's about a two to three year project. So similar to the general fund enterprise funds or have a non debt capital line that we budget each year. They always need money to do water system improvements. They again have vehicles of their own and other other projects throughout all the facilities that we manage on the water fund. So they have different different needs as well. So in the operating expense section from FY23 to FY24, the biggest cost drivers that we're seeing right there that are pushing that number up. One is wages we're seeing the DPW collective bargain agreement is settled. All that's factored in so any wage increases that's already reflected here. So our premium increase for health insurance we talked about this on the general fund and I think I mentioned that that also impacts our enterprise funds. Same thing here we're working on 8% increase in our premium so that pushes up our operating expenses. And then the last big one for the water fund is electricity. Again water sewer our biggest users of electricity by far and electricity costs were very high this winter. They've come down a little bit recently. And our electricity supply in the Northeast is driven by natural gas and natural gas is severely impacted by what's going on in Europe and Ukraine and so on and so there's a lot of volatility with our electric prices right now, as you all have probably experienced. So that's what's driving operating expenses. After FY24 we just use sort of a 3.5% increase and when we get to the year that's about to be budgeted we make it actuals, but in terms of projecting out we use 3.5% as our sort of placeholder indirect costs are going down a little bit for 24. And that's based on an indirect cost for the services provided at Town Hall. We've had some turnover at Town Hall worth with lower salaries and so on. And so it's actually gone down a little bit for 24. Current debt. It's going up $100,000 and the main reason why is the Northampton Road replacement project. It's going on. We anticipate it's going to be completed soon. And so we're projecting the first payment on that project for next year. Again that's part of the road work that's going on in the center of town. And then cash capital we're projecting going down for FY24. So all those, we have our non rate revenues at the top we have our expenses for the enterprise system, and then you net those two together to come up with what is needed to be generated from our rates. And that is what pops in on this, these lines here. And so the other big variable that influences what the rates need to be is consumption. And so you can see what we budgeted for consumption for FY23. It's not looking like we're going to hit that number we might a barely but it's not looking like we will and if we don't hit that number means our revenues, our rate revenues will come in below budget which is okay as long as our expenses are still less than that. But some of our other revenue sources are coming in higher so it might net out. So we're projecting a more conservative number going forward. If it comes in better, that will be great. That means rates will not. We'll be able to come in a little bit lower in the future. But again because of the pandemic and the initiatives that have reduced water consumption on the campus and throughout town. So that's where we feel is sort of the reliable number we can bank on going forward. And again once we see history of actuals have they come in higher we'll adjust this number up going forward. And so yeah so that that's how we get to the rate of $5. If you look out you can see again what the rate needed is versus what we're sort of planning tentatively planning for rates. Obviously we're trying to have somewhat equal increases year after year to get to where we need to be to be able to finance the centennial project. And I'll stop there see if there's any questions on water before I go to sewer. I have one or two but let him go first. Thanks. Overhead costs indirect costs are we covering training do we do certification of professional standing or, you know, for our for our operators so that we keep them at the highest level of capability. That's within their operating expenses yeah they have depending what it is. There's some things that are sort of part of wages and there's some things that might be like a training budget or professional development budget but that's part of their operating expenses. It's also, it's also part of their union contract in terms of what they get paid for and we've made some changes in this reason contract to incentivize people to get higher grades of licenses. Great. And then just in terms of consumption I, I think I know the answer but I don't like the answer and that is if our consumption levels are going down which means we're being more careful with water usage. Are there, is there any way that we can see savings either in staffing equipment or electricity use to incentivize us to in fact use less water, because that's the direction we should be going. Yeah, so it's one of those. Yeah, no it's so the, the, the reduction in use of water is mostly at the university they've done a lot of water saving the cost of operating the water isn't really is tied somewhat to the volume of water but it's the fixed costs that are really driving this budget. And that, you know, you still need an operator there and you can't hire a tense of an operator or anything like that. So those fixed costs are what's the new development in town is sort of buoying us to a certain extent because those new apartment buildings are all super efficient but they're still using a certain amount of water. So, I think that the idea is that we want people to conserve water but our costs don't go down and people don't use water. Yeah, the big driver for the water fund are the number of water sources that we have in the facilities that we have to produce the water. That's, you know, we talked about this with the schools like when can the schools scale down because of enrollment and you know it's when they can have enough of us reduction where a classroom could be taken out. With the water fund it's similar and that it's when do we not need to necessarily water source but it's a little bit different calculus because we've had this conversation with Guilford once you lose a water source it's incredibly difficult to get it back. And, you know, just seeing what's going on and the western side of the country and how valuable water can be very reluctant to give up a water source which is why we're doing the centennial water treatment project. I just went to add and we interviewed this morning for the water supply protection committee and there's some really talented people who live in our town who do water this do water and different topic areas like that for a living one person moved here about five years ago from San Diego, partially because of the diversity of sources of water that we have we have both groundwater and surface water sources available to us. And, you know, he also said I appreciate that you're investing in your water. Because it was his business and he was choosing a community based on water, he chose Amherst. And now the. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Andy. Yeah, no, I'm going to thank him because one of the advantages of letting yourself go last is somebody will ask your questions and you asked what are my big questions are in the whole water conservation issue. As far as during the first council we in we were faced with the question of whether to go forward with the centennial plant and I think that you've heard the reasons why we felt in the end that we had to go forward with it because we've over the years huge investments in Pellum in the whole water system that comes from groundwater in into the reservoirs in Pellum that were then supplying the water plant centennial. And if we let it go and didn't get it back all that investor would be gone and the flexibility to come back would be virtually impossible because the state may never give us permission to be then equivalent to creating a new water source. So it didn't make sense to not go forward with it. But it was not a decision that the council made lightly because we recognize that it was going to be at a high cost, even though it's turned out to be a higher cost than we anticipated at the time the decision was made. It was going to be a high cost and it was going to come back to water rates because that's the only way it was going to get paid for enough any of the other people who run the original council would add to that but I think that summarizes it. There's another question that came up at the time which is the other question I was going to ask is Pam made reference to electricity costs and I had raised the question way back when we had that original centennial discussion first council about building solar capacity into Centennial so that we could reduce our water costs and be more conscious of our ECAC goals. And I don't know if there's been any progress made or any further report as to whether that was a feasible idea or buying the sky idea. Yeah, no, the municipal feasibility study we looked at unfortunately didn't look at wastewater or or water. And I've heard from Guilford concerns around solar near water sources for example, there's some potential concern about run off and, and things like that and same thing with the wastewater just taking space that might be needed for future growth. But it is something I think we'll continue to look at heavily because they are our major generators of electricity and if there's any way we could source. Yeah, if we could source some of our electricity consumption directly from solar panels into those facilities. It would save quite a bit of money. So it is something we'll keep looking at. I think that the water supply protection committee did look at in terms of solar and water supply and solar located near water supply sources. I don't know the what I know they did report on it I'm not sure exactly what it came out with. Oh, sorry. From right. I wanted to say two things one is that I was on the committee when we first looked at Centennial plan and I was actually a skeptic. Initially, until Mr. Moring gave a very, very convincing presentation about water sources and we really needed to have this and the Pellum water supply, and we need the Centennial plant for it. The alternative would be to sink another well, and that would be in the same source that we currently have so that's that's not really increasing our sources of water. And so, I know it's a terrible expense, but I came to the conclusion that we didn't really have a choice as a town that you've got to have water. And this was the best supply that we, the best thing we can do to increase our supply in the future. There was the other thing I wanted to add Andy on neither, neither. Neither Len nor Bernie are sorry, Kathy or Bernie are here but they were working on another thought about how to structure our water and sewer rates, so that we would basically cover the fixed costs through a, you know, a fixed annual rate for everyone and then the variable cost of how much water each person use or how much we use would be a variable rate. And I don't know where where where that stands. But that seemed to be another alternative to address Pam's issue which is, you know, the less we use the more expensive it gets, which is kind of perverse outcomes. Yeah. So that project has, again, it has stopped moving forward a little bit in the sense that we gathered all the data. Our next step is we need to work with water and sewer to model out some different structures. In terms of gather the data we were able to pull pre pandemic data to see all the different accounts and how much water usage they had so we could model. You know, what if you had a fixed costs for this amount and then consumption, you know, different rate for consumption. It doesn't change the overall revenue needs of the enterprise funds but to your point it might change sort of the, how those are divvied up in the community. So that's something that's not. We're not not working on but I think there's a number of other projects that popped up and that's why that one sort of hasn't been pushed forward more but it's something that's still on our radar to work on. And there was a subtle, it won't be a huge impact but there was a subtle change in the new regulations related to meter fees where meter fees were increased for the larger meter sizes that are more for institutional accounts or multi user accounts. So those have been updated to really reflect the true costs of replacing those meters. So there will be a there's a little rate adjustment there but I think the goal of that project was to look more at a higher flat fee, which we still need to do. All right. Okay to move on to sewer Andy. Yes. The last thing I'll just say quickly on water before I go to sewer is our retained earnings again that's sort of the enterprise fund version of free cash. We'd really to see it at is about 30% our range or 30 to 50 is where we wanted to see these accounts for enterprise funds, much higher than the general fund because there's much there's more volatility here and when we look back at things that have impacted our consumption our revenues. We're really looking sort of at the total dollar amount not so much the percentage. It's just so you know this is lower than where it's been the last couple years and that's because of UMass when they well UMass Amherst College all the institutions, when the pandemic closed and they sort of depopulated for at least six months. The revenue to the water fund took a huge hit and so we had a couple years with a revenue deficit, where we had to pull from retained earnings in order to balance the year. So just as a heads up this is an area we'd like to see grow a little bit to at least get up around 30%, which is not far from but just so you know that's why it's a little bit below where we'd like to see it to see it. All right, sewer fund. So why don't sewer the kind of like sibling funds, you know a lot of the issues are the same between the two of them, the way they work are very similar. You know, other revenues same thing there's a number of other revenue sources that are not related to the, to the rate that we collect that show up first operating expenses for the sewer fund, many of the same things are going up for sewer as they are for water. The one thing that's a little bit different or a couple things that are a little bit different for sewer. So this must be because of just our, our enrollment patterns health insurance isn't going up as much but our pension assessment is going up. I was just looking at what the percentage increases were are seeing a bigger increase in our pension assessment for sewer. And the other big issue that we talked about already was sludge, and the cost to remove sludge. And so that increases going up, or that cost in particular is going up about 20% to over $600,000 a year to remove sort of the byproduct that comes out of the, that comes out of the wastewater plant so it's driven by fuel fuel comes down might be able to enter into a more beneficial contract in the future but right now the costs are elevated. And that's one of the major drivers in this increase from 23 to 24. Just like water the general fund on the indirect cost is going down. Current debt is projected to rise. So we talked about this when you rescinded reuse water. The, we so we rescinded reuse water we spent a little bit on that project before we did the rescission. And so for 24, there's about $130,000 or so that we're proposing to essentially pay off what we spent on reuse water. It was a borrowing. We don't want to finance it over multiple years it's a relatively low amount and so this increase for 24 will pay that off completely so reuse water is done. And then for 25 white kind of keeps going is because we start to see the GBT and our pump station number four kick in for 25. Again proposed that why this is high in the out years for current debt is the GBT proposed that really some of this is timing so some of this proposed that should be in current debt because you all voted to increase the GBT from 2.3 million to 3.3 million. Right now that extra million has shown up and proposed because of the timing of when we put this together. But some of this proposed has become current or actual because you made that vote. And the balance is for pump station number four, which is a debt authorization request that's part of the budget proposal this year. But that's what's driving the debt up for the sewer fund. Cash capital again is dropping for FY 24. And so you can see the rates needed projected out. And so the actual rate that we're proposing to keep it sort of in balance over the five year span. This is one where it's always a little bit of a. It's not set every year, how much sewer consumption there will be sewers sort of a factor of water usage right. And so, but there are a handful of accounts and more than a handful of accounts that don't have a sewer account attached with it. So there's always a little bit of a estimate that needs to go into how much of the water consumption will sewer consumption be. As we've had new counts come on most of those new accounts have had sewer with them as well. So this percentage of 90, 90, 91% it's gone up in recent years used to be I think around 88 or so. But we can look back at his actual consumption and see what the exact percentages so this is based on where the percentages been the last couple years. And that's it again the retained earnings and the sewer fund is doing okay. And again one of the reasons sewer fund had the same issues with UMass and Amherst College the difference was in the sewer fund we were able to close our revenue gaps with American Rescue Plan Act funds you may remember that sewer funds were an allowable use of for for those funds. For some reason, early on they said water was not an eligible use. And so when water had a deficit we weren't able to backfill it with American Rescue Plan Act funds. So water took a hit and the retainer names while sewer was able to kind of stay whole. And I'll stop and see if there's questions. I just want to reiterate, I believe you said that on the study that we did that that involved UMass that the results of that study would be useful down the road for us, even though you mess chosen not to go that way. Yeah, I think Gilford Gilford said that. Right. Thank you. I just wanted to remind people of that. Thank you. Other questions. May 16 is the date that DPW and the enterprise funds will be before the committee and the council is a whole. And so that's the date we will be hearing from Gilford and possibly Amy. And so I would propose that we now as we have with the capital plan, take advantage of what we learned and prepare for that particular meeting and hold our recommendation. And I think that the water and sewer rates as we're holding it through the capital improvement program until after we've had an opportunity to talk to other staff and to use their time effectively. Andy, I want to make note that Mandy Joe has left the meeting. I actually don't know when she left. And Jennifer you're leaving at three. Yeah, she is here. And you need to make sure she can hear and be heard. And Pam Rooney you're raising your hand like maybe you're planning to leave too. Yeah, just so that you know what we're going to do for a moment is just. I'm going to hand Lynn to next to Michelle to see if she's available to join. I'm doing that right now. Okay, Alicia, can you hear us. Yes, I can thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry that you have the conflict that you asked me about and in any event. I encourage you to check with Athena to get the link to this meeting as quickly as it's available. She usually has it within the day, and then you can catch up on what you missed. And the other thing is, is that we did postpone an item on the discussion. Councilor compensation. And we had an arrangement with Michelle that with Linda was going to extra as she apparently just did. When you were able to join the meeting and if she can, then we'll spend a couple of minutes to sort of assess where we're at with that particular issue. I think that, otherwise, do we want to go ahead and talk about the optional tax exemptions or is that no longer possible today, Sean. It's a pretty quick one, again, sort of housekeeping, I can do a quick overview again. If there's any questions, I think I told the assessor I would go get her if there's any questions I couldn't answer. So again, optional tax exemption, this is where we essentially double the maximum exemption that's allowable for these different different eligibility reasons or clauses in the in the law. The state sort of sets a certain amount that we can do the town a while ago voted to increase that permanently. And then there's again there's an optional annual election that the town can make to double that. And that's what we need to vote each year to keep the same exemption level in place that we've had for the last several years. And again, this has been in place since I've started. So, what you see here is the memo that we shared with the Council, the different exemptions that we're talking about class 17 class 237 a and 41 C each one of these. This was a question that Pam had and I sent it to her, each one of these has a application form that's on our website I can send it up to the group after the application forms actually pretty helpful because it explains like the eligibility criteria and how you qualify. There's typically income or age eligibility criteria that you have to meet in order to apply. What you see here is what was awarded an FY 23. So about a little over or a little under $100,000 of exemption so essentially this is property taxes that the town chooses to forego in order to provide this additional benefit to residents that qualify. And yeah so really the vote is just to approve the maximum additional exemption of up to 100% for these different clauses, and then I think there's an order in the packet if not all send it out. If there is an order in the packet yes. Did you go back to that. Just have it on the screen because I was going to ask about a sentence of it. And then I'll turn it down to see if there are other questions. Under background, the last sentence word says, we gradually increased 100% aren't we at 100% of allowable now. Yeah, so the way I understand is we're at 100%. But the way it works is residents that have the exemption. They can only increase it each year by the amount that their taxes go up. So they don't go up, you know if they were at a lower level exemption they don't go up to the maximum level all at once it just it eliminates any increase in their taxes that year. And so gradually they move closer and closer to that 100% as that sort of increases covered by the exemption. So that's why these, when you look at these numbers, there's not a, they should be round numbers because the assumptions are round numbers but people are at varying level, very, varying places along the exemption sort of scale to get to that 100%. Okay. Looking to see if there are other questions now. Lynn has her hand up. So I just want to make sure that when we say there's, there's six accounts in surviving spouse minor elderly. The base is 105 oh the optional local is 1502. And any one of those six individuals could get up to 2552. No, this is the total that was exempted in that year. Thank you. So when you then look at seniors. It's 31 people divided into 40,883 dollars and 30 cents. Correct. That's the average some get more some or less. Yeah, you divide the 483 by 31 you have to get the average. In terms of tax forgiveness. This is a total of 99,259 dollars. In terms of yeah what's for these four that are being allowed yet. Great. And of that we only get 5,612 back from the state. Yeah, very small amount back. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood the math. And then I think that's all. Are these funded in a similar sort of way as chapter 90 chapter 70 where the state kind of decides and divvies up every year or is this an equation that they have that they redo about as often as they redo the pilot formula or how is this how is the state reimbursement decided. Yeah, I'll, I'll get, I'll check with the assessor my understanding is it's sort of like pilot funding in some ways where there was a point in time where they looked at this and they said we will reimburse you based on what you had at this point in time. But when it didn't change after that. And so that's why for some of these, like seniors at that point in time when they started doing the reimbursement we had no seniors in the program is again my understanding but I will have the assessor. I'll pose that question and get it as a written response. Yeah, that would be helpful because I am curious if this is something that we should be advocating with our state legislators about looking at that formula. Thank you. Okay, so anything else, no questions and I don't know if you feel like we you want an answer to that for we would make a motion if somebody wanted to it's order 24 dash 11 approval order 24 dash 11, which is in the packet for today. And if somebody felt that they wanted to make a motion to wreck the finance committee recommend to the council approval of that order. This should be certainly acceptable motion at this time. Yeah, I'll go ahead and make it. I move that we recommend that the town town council approve order FY 23 dash 11 and order approving the acceptance of optional tax exemptions for FY 2024. Second. I think that it's approval order 24 dash 11. I'm sorry if I got it wrong. Yes, that's correct. I still second it. So we've been a motion that's been made and seconded. And I don't unless I see hands go up with. I'm going to assume that we have no discussion about this and seeing no hands go up I just go ahead and take a vote on the motion that's on the floor, which is to make a recommendation to the council that they approve the approval order 24 dash 11. Anna. Hi. Lynn. Hi. Bob. I support. Matt support. Bernie I believe is now absent. And we know that he is absent. And I'm a yes. Lisa. Okay, so the motion carries three members who are counselors voting yes. One counselor abstaining one counselor absent to resident members in support and one resident member absent. And with that, that motion carries. I don't think that we have Michelle present yet. She's not able to join us, but should go ahead. So yes, she did. I did have a conversation with her briefly and she's licensed me to say what her thoughts are on the subject. So Alicia, we've made a brief presentation about this already. And I, so I don't know if you have anything to add because otherwise I would like to hear from Paul or Sean about the recommendation in the budget. Regarding childcare. But you have anything that you want to start with as one of the cosponsors. Thank you, Andy. I don't have anything to add right this minute. I wanted to hear if there were any questions or like more information or anything. I think we should proceed with that first. So we can go ahead and ask Paul or Sean. Yeah. Okay. So, you did make a recommendation and which may not require that it be pursued through the through council action because you may have the authority to do that anyway. What was the basic plan is there anything you want to report. Do you want me to go Paul through some of the information. So I'll just, I'll talk to the childcare and then you want to talk about the station. So childcare we put that in the budget this year. I mean, it was raised by the council. It's something that we had done in the past has also been raised by other by other people in the community about providing some support for childcare town meeting needs to do this. And so this would be in keeping with what town meeting heads had done. We set aside a certain amount of money we limited it to elected officials at this point in time so we could run it as a pilot to see the demand and start to see what the expectations would be. So that would be something if the council approves it we would put that would be in the budget starting July one. And the intent is to again try to make it easier for people who have children at home to be able to participate in public meetings. And then in terms of compensation. Yeah, so there are a couple, I think questions last time, just around what would the cost of the of the proposal be so there were different parts so the first part was the stipends that counselors the president and committee chairs get So the proposal and if I get any of this wrong, please correct me, but the proposal was to increase the counselor stipend from 5000 to 10,000. And to increase the council president stipend from 7500 to 12,500 and to increase, or to establish a committee chair stipend of 2000. So the increase in cost of doing that would be 67,000 annually to implement those changes 60,000 to increase 12 counselors stipend by $5,000 5000 for the council president stipend and then the. Sorry, it was a $500 stipend per counselor per committee chair so $2,000 total for the committee chairs for a total of 67,000 part two related to childcare again that's sort of what we're we propose a smaller amount to start as a pilot. But there were three sort of categories of possible reimbursement one was for town council meetings. One was for other committee meetings, and then one was for council related work throughout the year. And the, you know, a lot of this depends on how many meetings are and how long the meetings go so it's hard to. It's not as quantifiable as the previous section, but for the council meetings. We estimate it's about $1000 per meeting and these are at the high end this is if everybody wanted it right if, if everybody wanted to take advantage of this. It would be about $1000 per meeting, which is 13 counselors times five hours per meeting times $16 and 25 cents per hour was the rough numbers we used. So that would be the per meeting number and then depending how many means you have would be the total cost. Again, knowing that that would be the upper limit that it's unlikely all counselors would take advantage of it every, every meeting. For other committee meetings. The number was about $160 per meeting. And that's based on five counselors at each subcommittee. And usually those meetings are only about two hours in length. So a little bit shorter. So again, however many meetings you have times 160. And then the last one was family related care for council related work and that was I think the proposal is five hours per week. So that it's not tied to meeting so we came up with a total cost of about $55,000 and that's based on 13 counselors times five hours per week times 52 weeks times $6 and 25 cents per hour. Again, be in the upper bound or the upper limit if everybody utilized it to the max. And then the last one was about health insurance. Again, looking at the legislation we think health insurance would be possible. There's a typically have to work over 20 hours in order to be eligible for health insurance but there's a carve out for elected officials that provides an exception to that rule. So our, this is in terms of cost to the town, the cost to the town if all the counselors selected the least expensive plan would be $87,000. And the budget accepted the most expensive plan, it could be $254,000. And again, it would be somewhere in between or some range of that. So, yep, those are the costs for the three different parts that were being explored. And happy to answer any questions on the numbers. So a couple of comments or actual one is one is the form of a request. Okay. I would like to request that the town manager in the budget through a proposed budget through either an asterisk or direct change or a notation from our meetings, change the world words from child care to family care. And it reflects the fact that some people have issues where they're taking care of family members that are elder and not children. Okay, so that's just a request. I then would like to make a motion. The second is that we delay further conversation about this until after the teachers contract that and the professional contracts for the schools, and other contracts are settled. And if I get a second, then I'll speak to that motion. I will second that because so that we can get it done for discussion. It's to delay until the teachers contract and you said other contracts. Yes, I believe we have two or three other contracts for town employees. They're also outstanding at this time. I may have been seconded that motion, and I'm going to come back to discussion that because several people raised their hands I said that I talked with Michelle about it and that was the topic in general and this was one of the items we did not talk about other contracts but we did talk about the school negotiations with the AP a and she was feeling that it was uncomfortable to have the conversation proceed beyond child care. She felt was most important is insert until the AP a contract was included. So with that son, Alicia. Yeah, I was just going to ask if Lynn could repeat the motion because I don't think I caught it all completely. That was one and then my second question was if, if what Sean presented in regards to the numbers was in our packet. I didn't see it so if somebody could point me to where that is or if that could be sent to us. Let me repeat the motion. So I'm moving that the finance committee suspend postpone discussion of additional compensation and health insurance for elected officials until after the teacher contract teacher and professional educator contracts as well as the other town contracts are settled. Yes, we will. I'll set it out to the committee. The numbers. Anything else solution. Yeah, I'm just wondering if you could specify for me what the other contracts are. Well, I think I'm going to need to ask you. Yeah, the town has three contracts are not settled yet. We have the police supervisors, the police patrol officers and the SEI you which is more like the clerical and dispatchers and press employees. I anticipate those would, I mean, I think you can't say I, what can you tell us about any time frame on those. I don't have a time frame for them. It's important to note these are FY 23 contracts or these are contracts that technically, you know, we would have liked to have in place July 1. So these are July first a year ago or July 20 July 1 of 2022 was when these will take. The teacher contracts in terms of not having been settled by July 1 2020. Thank you. That's what I thought but I wasn't sure. Anything else Lou. No, I think that Michelle actually summarized where I'm coming from this is just an uncomfortable conversation I, I value my colleagues on the council. I totally understand how hard they work. This, you know, I know I got a point of order. I'm so sorry. I need to be taken to the audience. I have a conflict of interest and trying to raise my hand about that. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you when Sean can you move into the audience till after this vote. I have a family member in the union. Thank you. Thank you. And I, so I just, I agree with Michelle, it's just uncomfortable that we would be sitting here talking about increase in our pay by 100% at this time. There's nothing more to say. Yeah, I just had a question about what the the last date that the council could vote on this issue is that I understand the charter has to be within a certain timeframe. So what how much time does the council have. Let me just answer that because it's fairly simple. It has to be within the first 18 months of the term of a council. So it's essentially the very beginning of July. Maybe July 3rd, but we've been sort of treating it as July 1st doesn't matter. And what the charter specifically says is the compensation is dependent upon adoption of the mode for the next council adoption of the motion in the first 18 months of the prior council and subject to budget appropriation. So it really is two steps. And, but as far as the budget appropriation that could be handled by a supplemental budget for the year you're in or a future budget, or it may not be adopted into a budget that's not something that can be a known commodity. So for the step of actually having the increase in salary is first 18 months of the term of a council. And I just say it also with regard to the FY 24 budget. There only needs to be enough money in it for half of a year. Because it won't take place until I believe the date we've essentially set right now for count counselors to be sworn in is January 2nd. We actually did not have our first meeting until January 9th, but we need to do this on or about July 1 at the latest. Yes. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, I, I totally hear the sentiments that are coming across here, but wanted to one just remind you all that this proposal is not necessarily just to show that we value our council peoples, but the real initiative or the goal behind this is to increase diversity of people who are able to run for council. And so that still stands an issue regardless of where other contracts are. But I also do still understand the sentiments here and would be more prone to postpone. But I'm hoping we can maybe just postpone to maybe like a month out so that we can come back to it and see if any updates have been made and revisit it at that time so that there may still be a possibility of having this be voted on within the first 18 months, because it would still have to be voted on here and then move to the council. So we would have to leave enough time for that to possibly happen. So I'm wondering if we could at least just postpone for a certain amount of time to come back to it and then see if there has been any updates or movements in other contracts at that time. When I hear the maker of the motion so I think. I'm amenable to that. I mean, I, if we can postpone, because we have to we could postpone again but we have council meetings on June 5. June 12. And I think that's it. Isn't it. I have one on the 26 but I believe the 26 is. Now we do we have we have council meetings on the 5th, the 12th and the 26th. And so there's opportunity. We are right now on May 5. Why don't we, I'm willing to postpone until May, until June 5. And Andy, you would have to second that. So it's the motion would be to the sentiment of these of these contracts, or may or June 5 whichever comes first. Yeah, I guess I would accept that also I have to say that I would prefer, I would prefer this. Something that says that under no circumstances would we discuss it until the API contract comes up because I think that we're going to have issues that relate to the school budget and it's just very uncomfortable time. They have this discussion. While we're dealing with the budget, but there is no other way so I think it's comfortable. I'd also like to just also say that I absolutely hear what Alicia's saying. I understand the relationship of it to diversity. Diversity in this case is not just a racial diversity but income diversity. That makes a serious difference in who runs, and it would be wonderful if we could settle this before people have to start taking out papers at the beginning of July. But I just stand by the same thing Michelle said it's just really uncomfortable. So the motion that we have on the floor and I bet sure that I can get it perfectly anymore but it's just to postpone further consideration of compensation or health insurance for counselors until teachers and other contracts are settled or June 5 whichever comes first. And instead of saying teachers, you should probably say APA contract because teachers and paraphernalia. Okay, so we'll say APA, APA contract. Right. So with that motion. For any further discussion, then I'm going to call for a vote and Alicia has her hand up. Sorry, I just had one other question. So does this effectively like separate the compensation piece from the child or family care piece? Yes, Alicia, in my mind it does. I really want to thank Paul and Sean for bringing the child care piece back. It has been a practice of the town and the family care piece back. It has been a practice of the town in the past. I'm glad to see it return. I don't think that, as I said before, others may need a formal ruling from our advisor Athena on the council rules in the charter but I really not convinced that we even need to do anything because it's not a compensation issue. It's not a child care issue and it's may not be involved in that section of the charter at all if we're just limiting it to child care. But the motion looks good so we can get on and get adjourned. Anna is now absent. Lynn. Hi. Bob. I'll support. I'll support. Bernie is absent. Kathy is absent. Yes, and Alicia. Yes. So that means that it's three yes to counselors absent. And for the resident members to support one member absent in the motion areas. So that is now back. I have one last piece to do. And that is minutes and this is going to be fairly quick. There was five in the packet. And if I can get them in a readable fashion for me so I can tell you what I, I looked at them and I think that they were basically very well written. And so the things that I saw were pretty small and let me just tell you what they were. So for the record. On the first page. There was a provision that says. After manganese spoke about the preliminary chair sheet estimates for FY 24 including and then further down for Amherst increase to state on land increase and that second time as the word increase should be deleted and I think that on that set of minutes I'm just going to look that I think that that may have been. Oh, there was one other thing under other materials. Our documents presented. It's a chain motion for capital reserve and the word reserve was twice so those that deletion. Does there anybody else who has any. Men that they would like to propose for that set of minutes and this is for March, February 28. I do. Hold on. Yes. Oh, sorry, only February 28. I was going to go do the other one more set. Okay, mine's for 124 so I'll wait. Sorry. Yeah, I haven't had a chance to go back to that one. It's just that my name doesn't have a hyphen. All the other ones got it right just that one. It's not a big deal. Okay. Is there anybody who has any additional corrections to that one. Then going to one look to one additional set that I reviewed in that is March. March 7. And there was several things in there at the very beginning other participants participating remotely. There was a somebody there who was admitted. And that was Holly Drake should. So it should include controller Drake. In the first part. The second page. The third McIntyre is missing. Is an error just thrown in as an additional. At the end of a sentence and that doesn't make sense. And there was. The top of page three. Probably we should put in the first name of Mr. Elmore under the circumstances. To make it match some other places says Parker Elmore is his name. And on top of page on page four. It says the previous plan would have driven negatively. It would have affected up. It should say. The previous plan would have negatively affected the town's. S&P rating and borrowing costs. And there was one last one. And that is in the last section. It says. That is the ownership. And I put in of water and sewer lines. At this time. So those are the things that I added. Or changed to that particular set of minutes. For the March 7th meeting. Is there anything else on March 7. So. I think we should adopt those. The minutes of those two meetings. As amended. Second. So there's been a motion that's been made and seconded. And I need to. So. Taking that. Why don't we just go ahead and. Take a vote and then I think we can adjourn. You want to do the other minutes. I think I would like to take, have a chance to take a look at through them. And I have not had a chance to do so. I'm just trying to knock it down so that we're trying to. Get as few and undecided minutes as possible. So if we're willing to, to just go ahead. And I just go alphabetically so I can get this done on a. Hi. Lynn. Hi. Or. Matt. Support. Bernie's absent Kathy's absent. Yes. Alicia. Yes. So it's four to zero from voting members. From council members one. Absent. Do members in support. Resonant members one. Resonant member absent. Is there anything else anybody wants to bring up is on the anticipated business. Seeing none, I think we're ready to adjourn. I just want to let you know that our next meeting is on. Tuesday. And it's at five 30. And. Out of courtesy to our school committee, which has a posted meeting of its own at six 30. I want to take up the school budget is the first item. So that noted. We're adjourned. Thank you very much.