 I'm sorry, the March minus 16th in the Office of Finance committee. Let me just start out by giving you the agenda for tonight. We have, I'm going to skip the minutes, at least right now, and we'll go right to additional disability because we have representatives here. So we'll do that. I'm going to take advantage of Christine being here. For also the opioid settlement case. There are any additional questions. I don't think we have any, but since you're here. Then we're going to go to, then we'll cover the history of this commission budget request. And then we're going to go to insurance. We also have to do the revote on pensions. A quick revote. And then I would like to dedicate a part of tonight's meeting to talk about the override. And whatever other time we have left, we'll deal with the miscellaneous warrant articles, DPW, composting, whatever we can get done tonight. So with that, welcome people from the disability commission. Could you introduce yourself and then just I'll turn over to you. Tim, ADA coordinator. I'm just going to give Christine my journal health. So you have a budget. Ask of $25,000. Yes. So. You just quickly explain. The money is for. I just have a one. I have on the screen. Yes, basically thank you. Yeah, so basically thank you so much for having us. Here we go. Thank you all for having us. Thank you for your support the past few years of this budget. Well, I have a chance to review it. We've broken this down pretty much in the four buckets. Areas that we see just like going to admin and supplies a day improvements general staff and training and then program events. So, last year or 23, you have about 1500 for outreach materials. E-mails are saying these letters, things like that. The improvements around town that we've identified on my swing door opener for the select office inner door. Purchasing of two floating beach wheelchairs to be used at the town reservoir. Covering some equipment and uniforms for top soccer test building program. We have 5000 for language access projects and way finding assessments essentially way finding throughout town hall, how do people navigate it? How is that done in a better, more accessible way. We have 2500 for communications board. So that is the chef and that's for folks that they're not familiar with that. So the communication board that actually is one at the playgrounds. This is a large wooden board that has different verbal cues and pictures associated with it. The people, kids and caretakers of children at the playgrounds who are either nonverbal, neurodivergent that still communicate with each other. So, for instance, can say play in the fall or climb and swing and things like that. The type of these things are really cool. One of the things that has come up a lot. My very little time as a community coordinator, particularly is how kids do not have the education to interact with other disabled children or adults. And kind of giving them that space and that opportunity to do that. And then lastly, some money for the Robbins library automatic doors to fix those staff and training. We have employment discrimination and internal investigations. That's for the master's mission against discrimination. Basically the first training would be for how to identify disability combinations as well as just our treatment harassing like that which combinations. And that was just a little bit higher more involved continuation of that training. And lastly, we have programs events. You're having on April 30 resources and connection there and what this is going to be is getting folks together from many different departments found organizations needs housing authority. Having some time at Town Hall folks to come in and really have everyone that they may need to talk to all in one place and will be guidance. So for instance, they have issues for this specific disability issue. I can be there if they need to get signed up for snack, you have folks from Council on aging, we can help them with that things like that. And for the fiscal year 24 was hoping that we'll have more capacity for more outreach, we're getting out into the community more. There's some things for any coordinator certificate training for myself. And then we have 4,000 for disability events. Celebrations things like that. Is anyone has any questions or could you tell us more about the disability events. What was the way you would expect and and you if you're asking for it $50 more outreach and just expand on on those efforts that you expect. Yeah, of course. So for the events, we're hoping to have the resource and connections fair and we're hoping to have a good thing. So this one April, I'm dealing with something in the fall, not conflicting with town to do too much. Another events. Really I think working with our community outreach and even coordinator. How do we create other opportunities in the town for folks to get resources information things like that. I don't know how those will work out but I'm hoping to deal with it in the next many months really work with the di team to put that stuff together and outreach and materials. Again, as my position grows, and I'm here for longer it's I anticipate we'll be turning out more stuff more email lists, newsletters things like that. So why would, why would some of this not be covered under the di budget. What, which is, well, we have the training. And then various events that you're talking about. I know that we have about $88,000 and the DDI budget for training and something so what I guess I guess with this training is specific for the coordinator so I think the idea was that we would train the ADA coordinator out of the disability commission funding. Sure, the ADA coordinator, we're looking to take that funding out of the ADA, the disability commission budget, the DDI budget. In the past we've used that funding to train all town staff. I think that that's the goal is to continue to do some more of that work. Questions. Thank you. I'm interested about the events, particularly if you get very difficult sometimes to organize social activity with people who apparently kind of not so social so what kind of activities do you have planned to be conducted in these events that kind of enhance these people's communication rather than their adults communicating with each other. So I would like to have a full time resources and connection fairly similarly. So what we do will be doing in April. Really, I think, making an impact of town day the commission was not a time this year. And you know the past people have talked about the commission not being there and how do we get more fun events. So I'm out and talking to one of the co-chairs last week at the Arlington Reads the other event. And he had mentioned that years ago that they invited some speed Braille readers to come to town day and kind of show off, you know, the highlight and also celebrate, you know, the disability committee so it's not just, you know, we have Braille printouts and you can feel them, but you can have someone there actually showing you how they interact and how they operate in the world and how they can be successful in that and make it a little fun. It's not just take this pamphlet or take this key chain that has our name written on it. I think a little bit more exciting and I guess memorable. They've also the commission has also in the past hosted a disability career fair with the state, and they've had about 400 people come through the doors and this was held at town hall. It was like a regional employment fair and I think that's a, you know, with the end of covert we're hoping to reinvigorate that program. And I think that's going to be another key piece because there are so many agencies looking to fill jobs and it's, you know, a very great group to reach out to. Grant. Thank you for that. I'm kind of a nuts and bolts type guy mostly nutty, but what kinds of activities the only thing I heard was a career fair. It's okay to say we don't have any plan. But if you do any plan, I'm interested what kinds those are. Sure. There have been. They're called vision walks or site walking. And these are events where you can have folks come in and they'll be blindfolded or given site impairing goggles. I think that's really important because I can highlight, you know, how many times do I might cross a crosswalk and not think a second thought of anything. And that might be a little terrifying. Without your. Things like that, I don't have, I've only been here for a few months. I'm new to disability worlds and so I'm kind of learning as I go, but it's great to have a resource and grace and other commissioners have been here for a while and have that history and ideas as well. Having some sort of background or experience with that. That's great activity for the people who don't have disabilities don't understand what it's like, but it's a zero activity for anybody who has a disability so be great if you can kind of focus on some of those activities, especially I mean it's difficult, but they're all out there that help them actually interact. Yeah, so it's partly also a way to raise awareness. Oh, sure. Absolutely awareness, but it's not helping them. Well, it does help. If no one knows what the problems are. Oh, absolutely fully agree. Following up a little bit along the lines of what Graham was going to. What's the numbers of people that you would have to deal with either with disabilities or people that disabilities that are inquiring about it. Inquiring about these events or well inquiring that come to your events that you're having interaction with. So we have had a fairly steady group of volunteers for the commission itself. In terms of the straight up number of folks who could come to this event. I couldn't start. You know, there's the commission and then Tim and so. And Tim interacts with people who are looking for certain pieces of information. And then there are the events that hopefully will be able to move forward with the commission in the coming year. Okay, let me raise it in using $25,000 for the town's resources. What numbers of people would you expect to reach out to the hundreds. I mean, I think that the budget is clearly showing that there are upgrades to systems in town in addition to just events. I think events come second to, you know, fixing the library doors and when people say why aren't these items in the capital plan. I mean, they are right repairing our doors. Those items are in the capital plan but they may be a few years out and so the struggle is as a department head so if I identify something that is an issue within my building. I would let facilities know and it may not be, it may be a few years before it's repaired or fixed and there's an interim repair but it doesn't always address the issue if any of you have seen the doors of the rodents library. And you've tried to use the paddle, you'll see that they, they work sometimes and sometimes they don't. And that's frustrating for people that are mobility impaired and you have a significant number of residents in our community that are, and to be able to have those individuals voice those concerns to department has and the department has come to the disability commission to say I have this issue and I need help to have that funding available immediately is helpful. So I think just from a department head perspective, to be able to immediately identify an issue and have it repaired for such short money $3,000 to fix the library doors. It's, it's just, it's valuable to the community that's that it serves. You know, I think the other issue is, there was a select the select board office doors, the exterior door was, there's a paddle to but then people couldn't get into the interior door which, again, that was in the capital plan that was going to be the assessment the community assessment of all of our spaces in town, but it's, it's, it's scheduled further out that that needed to be done in order to allow access to that space, so that people can start going back into those chambers and so being able to pull from this budget was was extremely helpful. And, you know, the, the floating meal chairs I think that was another issue that was brought to the commission and it was something that, you know, the, the Parks and Rec Commission says, yes, we'll put it into the capital plan but we're not going to get that funding for, you know, could be two years, it could be five years so I think to be able to have a commission that can hear from the community. The issues that they're living with, and then for the commission to be able to say yes, we are going to find that that's a priority for us for from what I see. So there are some events that happen but I think that the majority of this funding really is identifying issues and addressing them immediately so that our people that are living with disability and mobility impairments can continue with care. So if that's the case, then would you expect this to reoccur next year? Expect, I'm sorry. The budget request. Would you expect to have a request $25,000 next year? I think it's helpful. Yes. I think, I think we see this 25,000 as being able to plug the gaps, to plug the holes in identified areas and they never go away. We're always seeing me so. Charlie. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Madam Chair. So Christine, first of all, I think I want to say that I think you're one of the best department managers we have in town. Charlie, thank you. And I admire what you've done in some of the different areas. What you just described here is basically circumventing the procedures and the rules and the practices, the good management practices of the town. And, you know, we have a facilities department to maintain a facility. We put a lot of effort in the town to create that facilities department. And that's the capital plan, which is set up, you know, there's a team of the psychologist name is the famous German psychologist or whatever who had this theory of delayed gratification know that maturity personal maturity arrives out of the community. And that's the, that's the very essence of capital planning is that, you know, I delay my fire truck so that somebody else can get their dump truck or the, you know, you're trading off in a communal sense. The priorities of the things that you need so that everybody can benefit. And what you just described goes completely against that. Nice just have a lot of problems with. Thank you. So, I guess I have to disagree with Charlie, I think that we, we do this a lot right so in the facilities department. And in DW, there are pots of money that are available for people with really specialized knowledge. And so, you know, I appreciate your coming to us with a level of funding, you know, we know that that's actually a cut because inflation. But I think, you know, you likely you also have to make decisions, like the things that are impressive you are greater than enough resources. You know, given your specialized knowledge of decisions. I have a couple of questions. But one is, you actually had a full event I wish I could have gone to one was the event showing what it's like to be disabled in Arlington but I feel it becomes like this meeting so I couldn't go to it. And then of course, Judy's. Of course I died right before the event happened. So I have a couple questions. One is about grants. So one of the sort of things up there says that one of the great events having this money that you can use it to match grants. So I'm just curious about the grant funding over the last couple of years. And I'll just ask my final question, which is that last year we did a $5,000 way by finding assessment. So I'm just curious, do you think this year you'll be using looking for ways to put into place those recommendations from that assessment. Sure. For the grants. In September I applied for grant to the department to the town hall annex parking lot. Unfortunately, it was not accepted. And then in November I applied for one for actually to get the floating beach wheelchairs. So this was particularly a grant to increase the physical activity, helping lifestyle living of disabled folks and those in lower income areas and areas of color. So this is not those two things, unfortunately, and I can not bend the truth but I can present the data of saying, you know, the res is in particularly lower income area, particularly higher personal color living area. So it's not really a great way to get these to be quoted each wheelchairs and it's great. You're still in white town and money. So it's great that we still have this money to when that's not an option. You can still have these. These projects that we can complete when we're identifying we think they're important. The second one was that the way that you did last time. I was not aware of that. So I can honestly go with that what was done. Yes. The clarification for me the last couple of years have you gotten a grant money. Yes. Yes. But yes, there have been grants that we have received from the state. I think it was 50,000. These. Yeah, actually $50,000 to fund the neat words and all the town spaces. There have been a few years of funding requests. I've gone to Emily and this latest one was another, you know, something that was pulled from the capital plan. We applied to the state for, but that's, that's really the one of the goals of Tim's position is to pull projects and apply for state and federal dollars to leverage, you know, as much as we can. And to save the capital budget as much as possible. You finished that. Yes. Yeah. My recollection is there's some history to this funding level that we at some point were asked to provide the commission with its own budget because the commission was not actually receiving the kind of attention to the solutions and issues that they had that we were required to find our APA and that this money was actually money that we needed to fund them with like to meet legal obligations or obligations under the law. I don't think this is nice to have money. I think it's money required to provide to commission to meet these needs. Because it's not so inventing the capital budget. I think that the near fact that some projects that could have been funded capital budget are able to be forwarded faster because of this. A lot of money isn't misuse of the system. It's a use of this pot for some practical things. I don't remember when we did that, but I'm interested to hear, Christine, that you're able to leverage it. I assume that you use it as leverage when you apply for grants. We'll fund half of the other half so I'm going to go for it. And so, you know, similar to see the G funding for housing. So it seems like an effective use of the funds. And then I would just add the thought that it sounds to me like some of the things that you funded in 2021 things that could wait two or three years for people who needed access to select for meetings, the library, so on and so forth. And the idea that for what seems to me like short money compared to some of our large capital projects, we could make something accessible quickly seem like a good idea. So sorry, that was mostly a speech and not a question. I have some language from the last finance report regarding this budget. You want me to share that. Sure. Okay. So one of the notes is under the funding from last year is that under state law, the town is authorized to allocate to the disability commission all fines collected by the town for handicapped parking violations. Since FY 20, the town has appropriated 25,000 per year to the disability commission and amount approximately equal to the fines collected by the town for handicapped parking violations in FY 2019. This 25,000 appropriation is in lieu of the town allocating such fines to the disability commission, as it is authorized to do pursuant to MGLC 40 section 22 G. And then the disability commission has used the majority of its appropriation since FY 20 on repairs to town hall to improve accessibility software to improve the accessibility of the town website and for ADA and MCAT training for town staff. The finance committee is offered to provide a liaison to the disability commission to assist with planning and any budgeting questions and or questions related to potential expenses under the town's 2020 ADA transition plan. How much have you collected and fines. Do you have those numbers handy. I don't know if we can do but it was not. So, we all had a meeting last week and discuss those and the funding went up. I believe it was 2018 or 2019 it went up to 14,000. And that was at the same time when the town was hiring additional parking control officers. And we were going along and we had received a lot of feedback from our community that people were parking illegally and parking spaces and parking spaces so that the time the chief was saying, all right, we're getting more parking control officers. We were all really excited about getting more funding in and then go ahead. And nobody was parking anywhere and things just went south and there were, I think maybe $8,000 collected and then it went down to six maybe I don't have the numbers of family but it went down to 2000 so it's essentially we're in a situation right now where we're not at 25,000 and I think that was our, what we expected based on sort of where we're going at that point, but we never, we never hit that and there were reasons for that. Before COVID it was hit 14,000. 14. And then the parking control officers were hired, and there was a commitment from the chief to make sure that HD spots are available when people need them. So that's where we're working. Yeah. So just the money that you don't spend in a given year go back to the general fund. Okay. And the expenses for things like getting doors to operate. You know, I have to get, I have to agree with Annie. I mean that's legally you have to have doors that are going to open for people you can't wait until the capital budget says oh we're going to do that. We're going to be done ASAP. That you know but then it's really easy to get on slippery slope of, do we really, do we really need something like the floats, or is that something that should go into a capital campaign. I don't know what to do with those types of issues and questions, because then it becomes nice that potentially nice things to have. And the question is what's a nice thing to have versus what's legally required. Sophie. So sort of piggybacking on that different take the commission is is just that a commission it's not a town department so wouldn't liability for doors. It's not viable under the ADA act for not funding it. And we're lucky that the commission is willing to spend their money on this. They have no obligation to. Right. Where's the floats correctly if I'm wrong is exactly what the commission is there to provide it or in response to a community need. I would. I guess my question to the commission is these fixes that you're making. They're sort of coming to the town's rescue right because they're not putting it at the front of the list at the capital planning when in fact legally were the town is subject to liability. They don't put it at the top of the list and fix it immediately. No. No, we'll have a trend. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. We have the transition plan and it identifies all of the problem areas in town. And there are a lot. So it's just a matter of prioritizing the commission is a commission of the town. And therefore when they identify and people come to the commission with identified needs that may be funded in future years. That's when the commission says, no, let's let's do this now. I mean, there are small amounts. It's doable. I mean, they're not going to be able to do, you know, add a $15,000 ramp to every building in town. It's not. Do we know. Do we know if any of these other town budgets, or do they commit to a certain amount towards that plan to instituting fixes that have been identified. I believe it's 100,000 CDB G gets 100,000. It's never enough. Yeah. Towards handicapped. ADA compliance. Yes. Yes. And also, and also I just said that the library doors as it wasn't on the ADA that the transition plan because I think it was working that day. I go a lot and half the time it's not working. So, some of these things, they don't get into the plan, but they're really important. One more follow-up. I remember if it was pre-COVID, because retro worker was still open, someone from the ADA, somebody from the disability commission was going to get stripped over there talking about access because there's a little step between the sidewalk and when you get into these restaurants and obviously you can't. Do you know whatever happened with that survey that was being done of the businesses because I had talked to somebody. There's probably Darcy. Right. And she was going around and talking about putting little ramps or giving the businesses little ramps to put on those steps so they can actually give access to those wheelchairs. Do you know what happened with that? I don't know. Now we'll have to look into it. But that was definitely Darcy. I just ran into her. They're outside. Pre-COVID is simple. Feels like a little different. But if that was the type of project where the disability commission was going out, talking to the restaurant owner, saying, you have this problem here, let's find the solution, which is great. Another question. I'm curious. I'm sorry if I missed this, but I'd like to know about your relationship and capital planning committee. Have you gone to them with requests that express the urgency and the legal requirements and they said, no, we have to put that off? What was that interaction? The planning department puts the request in. So that request goes through planning. The planning director typically will put that forward. Okay, but have you made specific requests and capital planning and said, no, we can't do that? They asked for a certain amount. And then that, I think it's $100,000 this year. I mean, I don't know, Jennifer, did you say it was $200? That's usually $100. And then it's taking that funding and allocating that to the top project. So the planning department manages that. We've worked with them, obviously. And they're aware of the urgency and the legal requirements. Of course. Thank you. So the first thing I want to say is that the psychologist was Abraham Maslow. Secondly, I just, I mean, I know there's not much detail in the fiscal plan here, but looking at the items in the, in the 23 expenses, they are expenses like that. You know, the flows of $2,000 each or not capital items. And on the other hand, the number one priority for the capital planning committee is the health and safety of citizens and employees of the town. And so if something is really affects that, it goes to the top of lists. And if it hasn't gone to the top list, that's a management failure on the part of town. I don't know whether it's in your department or the planning department on the town manager, but that's the way it's supposed to work. And in, I mean, I think some of these items are legitimate or the disability department or the commission or whatever they're spending things on. But when it comes to the items that are facility repairs, or capital items that affect the health and safety of people in the town, that should get management attention across the board. And if it doesn't, there's something wrong with the system. So I just have to stand by my earlier comment that we should not be circumventing the system. We should be making it work. And to the extent that the finance committee or I can help. Let me know because I would be happy to talk to somebody. So when people were throwing around the hundred or 200,000 that specific money is for improvements for to say, and that's for this coming year or year after year. It's each year. It's that amount. Okay. So we are at least spending 200,000 on issues in town related to this. Right. I'm getting a little confused here. So from this, because you can hear all the way over here when you're just talking about everything. So it's my understanding that $100 or $200,000 eight years are being allocated through the capital plan. Is that, is that a correct statement? I think there's two cap. One is in the capital plan. Okay, so there's, there's going to be an allocate this. What is different, I would say 18,000 for the 2024 budget. That's not in the 200. That's right. I'm like, is there these for emergency repairs that haven't come up or. Yeah. All together here. Yes, they, they're typically the, the one off accessibility issues that may not, may not be in any plans. Because we, we work off of the transition plan, which the town invested in, I want to say it was six or seven years ago, and that's kind of like a roadmap for repairs and upgrades and compliance across the town. The plan allows us to spend 1050 years on making upgrades. Every year, something is identified that maybe wasn't part of the plan because, for example, the library doors weren't necessarily broken the day that they did that inspection so that that's something that's not in that transition plan so that would not be part of that. So, yeah, I mean, I think it, you know, maybe side the signage of town hall, it doesn't have Braille at the height it needs to be at it wasn't maybe identified on the plan. Or it is, but it's way, you know, further out in the plan, but it's something that the commission has heard is an issue that needs to be addressed. I don't know if that's signage, but if something breaks in town. You can come to this committee for a reserve fund transfer immediately and get it fixed. I think it sounds like you're just waiting for something to happen that hasn't happened yet. Yet we are throwing $100 or $200,000 towards it. What I'm putting out to you is, I think, as these events occur that come to you that is emergency, you can come to this committee will give you the money. I mean, I don't know about the eight like I said, I don't about authorizing this $18,000 that is not highlighted as to what it's for and you'd be surprised how many feet we stick in the fire over $500, which is unfortunate but true. If something is really necessary. You know, you just, you can make it a, and we do it, we would do it year round too. If something happens, we'd have an emergency, not emergency meeting, we schedule a meeting and you could be a zoom meeting or whatever. And you get funds immediately. Any other questions. Carolyn, can we get a list of what's in the long range plan. The transition plan. Is there something that says here's what what are the next, you know, top 10 things or what's up for this coming the effort. Just say this is the page right. If you can send Tara a link to put it up on our in-chair point so that we'll have access to it. Thank you. Charlie. Just one more question. What is the transportation survey cost? I don't know. Oh, right, right, right. No further questions. All right. Opioids. I think these two. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We got a memo. On the opening of the settlement. This. So I think everyone's working out. I apologize. So this is the opioid settlement memo we got a week or two ago. When the town manager was here, he spoke briefly about it. And we've got a little bit more detail. Thank you. And I don't know if anyone has any questions, but if they do, we have a person here. Hopefully who can answer any questions. And if we don't have questions, then that's fine. Yeah. Is the memo in our share points on there? It was terrible. Friday. Yeah. I can pull it up. That's all right. Yeah. Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, maybe. It's stated at 20 seconds. Yeah, I guess that the Thursday. 20. At least one chair point. You have. Do you have specific uses set up. In the memo. For the 148,000. Sure. So in the memo, I outlined the process in order to spend one of the steps. The state has required is that we've received. Meeting approval in our form of government. We have received 148. Since the beginning of. But it all came in July. Last year. So the state system is a little behind. We also received some of the, some of the companies that have settled. We received those up front. And then additional parties have settled. So the amount that we received is 148. We anticipate getting for about like an average of 40 to 41,000 dollars per year for 16 years. Which is a significant amount. To help really address this epidemic. So. The question. Do you remind me the question again? I'm sorry. Do I know what we're. You know, what are you planning to do with just. Next year. Yeah. So in order. Like I was saying, in order to spend, we have to get time meeting approval. We have to. Do a community needs assessment. So we need to assess the problem, which we're currently doing in our department. And we also then have to have a community forum in order to. Receive community. We have experienced doing these types of projects. We received a federal branch. And it was a part of our coalition. That you've helped to see the coalition for a number of years. Where we did the same exact process where we did a community health needs assessment. We developed a strategic plan. We received community feedback and began a process in order to start. And we also have to have a community forum in order to receive community for feedback. And we have to do that process before we decide. But I do know that some of the need that I have seen so far. Our residents that are struggling with opioid use disorder. Some of them are struggling to get access to. So we're living homes. So. The scholarships, which. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So we're looking for people who are struggling to get access to neglect this. So we do that. We also provide community driven homes. So partnerships. Which there are seven areas that we're allowed to spend on. We have a recovery coach currently that we have on contract. Which has been very valuable. For people that are looking to understand systems. And he's been incredibly helpful. He actually works out of the police department. I anticipate that using some of us, So I, because I have, I have found that to be very helpful, but again, I need to get community feedback before we can commit to funding any projects. So it is, it is important that we do that. We recently hired, made an offer to fill a vacant position under department that will be managing this, as well as a bunch of other grant funding that we received as well. Annie. So, if I understand correctly what this model is saying, you cannot use this funding to fund current operations. It has to be funding something within these seven areas and has to supplement and strengthen and can't supply it. Yes. The town manager did ask if funds would be directed to a YCC. I think that might have been a question here. We do see that there are families impacted by overdoses. And so when that does occur, we will be looking at ways to support, you know, the trauma informed care that we're really promoting throughout all of our departments in town. We're really looking at making sure we have either group work or we have clinicians that are available to address that. So there could be some funding put towards that. If, for example, a family doesn't have insurance or is in between insurance or has high co-pay. So this funding could be used for a YCC. It's just, we're not going to take it to fund a position. Unfortunately, I'd obviously love to do that. Thank you. So we have to the town will have to vote to authorize the spending related to this to this funds that we're receiving. So we're receiving about 40,000 per year over a 17 year period. Is that something that the town has to vote on every single year or is it a one time vote for authorization for the 17 year period. So as it currently stands, it's every year that has to be an authorization of funds received. The comptroller has been provided information about there being to now. Now the state has allowed two different options. So I'm letting the finance people the side which is best. So it might be an annual family approval. And I understand there are other state funds that require that as well. Thank you. Charlie. Well, thank you. Will these funds that they have to be spent to the given year kind of be carried over. In other words, will it be some sort of a specialized account or reserve account so that you can accumulate the funds if you have a larger demand of some sort. Yes, I believe so. I don't, I don't think I can send 148,000 by the end of June this year. And so I think that the plan will be for communities to carry over. Many communities haven't even started this process. So I think the state is giving a lot of leeway. And because it fluctuates, it's difficult to have a lot of spending in one year and none, you know, less than the other. So I think by carrying it over we can even it out. So that's one of the questions. Can you talk a little bit more. So there's more process in front of you. You talk about what sort of process you envision to like get that community. Sure. So as I mentioned, the staff of the department now are working through collecting data doing assessment. And in the input session, we anticipate doing probably some focus groups out in the community with specific populations. And then most likely a large community forum where we would invite the public in and all of you would be invited obviously to help direct those funds based on the data. So here are our data here are some model programs. What do we want to see and it would likely be similar to other process. But as we've had where we do small group tables and people can work through scenarios, the world cafe style. That's that's what we vision. I don't know if that's what the final. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for all of this information. You mentioned you recently made an offer to someone who will be managing. Is that is the diverse salary made out of it. No, there's a portion of that person salary that will come out of a different grant. So the job. This is just going to be a small portion. This is a massive. In the beginning, this will be a massive program that I can't do. So I'm assigning it to this role. This person has a whole host of other duties as well, but this piece, because the person we've hired is coming to us with a lot of experience in this field. I think we'll be able to really take this and run with it. So excited for that. But I, I don't see this funding going to that role because it's already funded elsewhere. Yeah. This will all, all of this money will be spent through health and services. Correct. However, we don't work in just a silo. We partner with other with the police department. I guess this has been for Christine mechanical, for example, in health and human services budget, we have an offset from the bureau of substance abuse, things like that. It always seems like we should include the expenditures in the health and human services budget, and then add, you know, money from the opioid fund into as an offset to that just to, you know, Yeah, I think we treat those offsets and various budgets and the expenditures are all shown in the budget. The problem with that is being them if it's in the budget, it has to go back to free cash closed out at the end of June. If it stays in the war on article it could continue from year to year. Okay. Is that what happens with the other like the ambulance fund and the cemetery fund, things like that. I believe they can, you know, same with the commissions and committees. Okay, I'm just trying to make it consistent and transparent. No, I understand that. It's just, if you have to hire any town employees either permanently or temporarily, will these funds cover their benefits, insurance. We don't anticipate hiring employees. The recovery cost that we have on our team now is a contractor so we're paying per hour. So we I don't anticipate hiring staff for this because it is it fluctuates year to year I just I can't. And I don't feel that we're getting enough funding to pay for a salary, a person. Thank you. Other questions. All right. Thank you very much. See you at time meeting. And just remind that what we just covered is article 52 and one. Take a vote on that. Yes. Welcome. Seat. So welcome. Let's have you introduce yourself. Sure. Okay. So I'm Steve McAuliffe, chair of the district's mission. We have seven historic local historic districts in town that accomplish about 335 properties. Commission's all volunteers. 13 members six at large one from each of the districts. We meet. Usually we monthly for during the pandemic we've been meeting twice a month because of just constraints and having extended zoom meetings. We've gone backwards. We're all volunteers. We do employing executive secretary help us deal with our legal obligations for notice, putting in advertisements, communicating with residents of the district. We rely a lot on the executive secretary and actually the town's allies on her a lot too. We have the historic district mission, the Arlington historical commission and historical society. Most of the people in town, government are confused by all those entities and where the dotted lines are. Carol or executive secretary is the go to person. People know if you call her, you will get a response from somebody. So we're carrying some, I don't mean saying anyone else is shirking, but through the efforts of the historic district missions, we're covering some of the questions that are coming from the building department from historical commission covered properties. So that's a very important role that we're planning in that she's playing for us, everyone else is. All the other commissioners are volunteered. We've been at 5,100 for many years. We've really, you know, really focusing our expenditures on legal obligations and things that have to happen. So what we have planned to do and we're in negotiations and discussions with the public works is to replace a lot of the signs identifying historic districts in town. We had paid the current ones have been installed back in the 90s are very early 2000s. Many of them are gone. You can walk down central street across from town hall, you can barely read the wording on the sign it's so faded at this point. So what we were doing in order to do this as economically as possible is the town used to employ sign painters they don't anymore would be a sequering the signs ourselves and working with the public works to do the installation. Because they had the manpower available to do that. They were agreeable to doing that so that's the one time thing that I have down in our budget, but just on an ongoing recurring expenditures. I mean, close to that $5,100 me slightly below for a while. We're going over will be over this year. I did have one correction to make I had asked the comptroller's office for current year to date fiscal 23 information. And what they sent was fiscal year 21. So the 4,892 that's listed there is really full year expenditures for physical fiscal 21. So we've got the information today from the comptroller for year to date fiscal 23 is $5,254. So we will have additional legal and advertising expenditures coming in the remainder of the year. So we'll be over our current budget a lot more questions. So how much are you asking for 5,750. 650 holiday increase over our current budget. So I'm looking at the budget request here. And it looks to me like what you're saying is, you're asking for $5,750 point forward. And then a prior years transfer of 3,329. Do you actually have that 3,329 somewhere. That's in the fiscal that was transferred into fiscal year 2023. Okay. And our plan is to extend that amount on the signs and commit that this year. I'm not asking for recurring funds that amount recurring thing point in the future. All right, then I'm not then I'm misunderstanding your budget here because your budget set on this page $9,070. So if you look at the recurring sub total halfway down. Yeah. In 2018, that's kind of what we expect are recurring what we're going to need in fiscal year 24. Right. And one is the one time I love that. I'm sorry. It listed this fiscal year 24 it's this is for the remainder of fiscal year 23 we plan on giving the bonus to our secretary to reflect the double meeting she's been doing for the past two years. We've got to work and sign replacement, which is out of current funds. There's just trying to explain that current 33 29 it was on the 21 carry over but it's really not the 21 to 24, it's in the 24 K over. All right. But again, it's still 2329 is not 4,000 rank. So, where's the rest of the 4,000 coming from and and $570 is in $5918. 5, 9, 1, 8. It's less of that. You understand my dilemma here? Technically you can't overspend your budget. In fiscal year 2023, and I apologize, this one time that's under 24 probably should be shifted over under fiscal year 2030. That amount is appropriate in our fiscal year 23 budget. The fiscal year 23 budget was $5,100. Correct? What they transfer? A transfer of $33,000. $33,000. Okay. And so your recurring expenses in FY 23 are how much? The estimate of what that recurring expense is is $5,299. Okay. The actual budget out of the units for current year to date is $5,254. So $5,254 plus $4,254 is $8,254. $5,100 plus the $33,29, or maybe the number of dollars. $33,29 is about $8,500. Okay. So about $8,500. And you're talking about spending over $9,000. If that $4,000 is FY 23 money plus what you're estimating your recurring expenses is here to be. So we plan on spending year to date expenses of $5,254 plus a little bit more plus the $500 for the bonus for executive secretary and money on the signs. Okay. How much money on the signs? Money on the signs is approximately $3,500. I'm still not sure that adds up to what you actually have. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you're asking for money. Well, again, this is I'm not asking for any more money for this year. And we may be a little bit short on being able to do all the signs, in which case we may do five signs rather than seven signs. Okay. So you understand you can't overspend your budget. That's all I'm trying to clarify. Absolutely. Okay. Great. We know we can't overspend. The preliminary estimate we've got is for $500 a sign. We're working with the Historical Commission that buys signs for houses all the time. We may be able to get them for $400 a sign. All right. So then let me ask you this. Yes. The recurring expenditures that you're adding up here to $5,918. Is that what you're estimating for FY24? Yes. But you're only asking for $5,750. Right. Do you really want to ask for $5,750? What are you going to cut? Just tell us what you want. No. Just tell us what the dollar amount you actually need. Do you actually need $5,718? All the legal expenditures fluctuate year by year. We don't know exactly what it's going to be. Ask for $5,918. Right. Ask for $918. I want you to ask for what you think you're actually going to spend. I think that what we will actually end up spending next year because of the increase in all the different costs is going to be on the order of $5,900 to $6,000. $5,900 and... $2,6,000. So if you asked me today what I would like the budget requested be is even $6,000 to cover our annual expenses. Okay. So then I think you can ask for $6,000. When I made the original request for $5,750, it was a guesstimate because I had no information from the comptroller's office. But that's of the carryover. Right. Well, it's here to date budget as well. Yeah. And you're under budget. Yeah. Right. Year to date, the comptroller told me today we have spent or encumbered $5,254. And what do you... So we're already over budget, but we have a transfer. So to the extent we're going to have to use some of that transfer money already in, that's going to be one last sign that we're going to be able to pay for because we know we can't go over budget. Sorry, I took me a long time to get to where you're going. It's okay. I understand. The question before us is do you want to revise your act to $6,000 for fiscal 24 or do you want to leave it at $5,750? I think realistically going forward the legal required expenses and only $6,000, based on the information available to me today. I assume by transfer you mean from prior year budgets, prior year warranted articles? That's my understanding. Any other questions? Yes. Grant. My no answer. I think this, you're right about the signs. And you did get a quote because I, you're going to get a sign for $500. If that was a quote from DPW to Peyton, and that's great. But I think that's underestimating the placement cost of the sign, but I don't know. I actually have a quote from a sign painter that does signs for historic districts for three by two double-sided sign for $490.485. Very good. For now. Thank you. There's hardware and other stuff that we'll have to add in. We understand what we're living, working with women. And if we need additional money and we feel that it is important, we will come back in as per additional money. Don't plan on it, but we know that we have to live with the net limits. Any other questions? Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Let me take a vote on the commission on disabilities. Get that over with. Who is there? I move approval of their $25,000 budget request. Okay. All right. Discussion. Any questions, discussion, comments? Brian? I'm back too. I'm forgiving them everything they need. I'm not sure that they really put that list in front of us. And if there are things that are desperately needed, if they brought it to the reserve as a reserve fund transfer, this committee would give it to them. They'd have the money next week. So I'm not sure about that $18,000. I know there's a transportation study. They didn't know how much it was, but I'm not sure that it was really well thought out. That number seems like it got plucked out to add up to $25,000. Grant? Do you have a hand up? No, I'm sure I did. All right. Any... Sophie? I'm really frustrated with this budget. Not the $25,000 that the commission was saying, but I really feel like it's... And I'm not going to vote against it, I don't think, because I want them to spend the money on these things. But I think going forward, it just seems to me like it's basically being run by the Department of Inclusion and DEI or whatever the abbreviation is now. And they need that ADA coordinator. I talked to them last year that it's a huge help, but he's not on a commission. He's basically running the commission and spending the money, and they just approve whatever budget he comes up with. And it just bothers me when you look at the mission of the Disability Commission online. I don't know, I'm just frustrated with it, but I mean, I have further disabilities, so I want it spent just... So are you concerned that the Disability Commission is being railroaded in some way about spending? Well, I don't know that it's always... I would like to see when they need these funds for the doors, they should be coming to us. It shouldn't be coming out of their budget. Their budget should be for making things even better. It shouldn't be for making... To fund the town's liability, right? I guess I'm seeing it as it's being used by the town and the town manager as the reserve fund for anything needed for ADA. And I don't feel like that needs its mission. And I don't think that's the goal or commission. I think the goal should be to advise the town on making things better, not just to meet the town's legal liability. So that's where my frustration comes from. Maybe, personally, you talk too emotional. My advice would be, and I was on this blackboard, you'd be on the disability commission. And I'm sorry, just based on the experience of the phone, there's a comment out there. It sounds to me like the commission itself needs some training on how to think about this and how to assert their correct control over this budget. And how to push back. Well, and I don't know how that happened. I mean, when you look at when they have their meetings, it's like 4 to 6 in the afternoon, which limits when people, you know, that's why we have meetings in the evening. I think they have, there are, there's a town appointed, DPW, I think, Department Head is on their mission. I don't know. Right, there are, I don't know. Maybe it's a message to the blackboard, maybe there are some... Yeah, I think it's a discussion which was like ordered in the direction of the company manager. And I'm happy to be single with you on that, because it's been a problem for a while. Right, and I feel like that doesn't feel in control of their fate. Right, and then last year, we had, when we had an email from Julie, the town manager's office saying that 25,000 was because of handicapped parking, and that's what it was. And then we pulled the numbers. This year, it turns out it was actually that. So I'm like, okay, they're telling us one thing, and then we look at the numbers. It's another. But I'm not, for not giving them, you know, they need money for good costs. Charlie. So, thank you, Christine. I am strongly opposed to the way Christine on general described that this is being run. And I really think that going by the facilities department or the capital plan, there's other organizations that are attached to doing some of these things. If every department did that, we would be a complete chaos. It's just a bad man. So I also note that 25,000 dollars is not the number that we're collecting from the park, you know, the penalties or whatever, which is what's required by law for appropriation. So I'm making a motion to reduce it from 25,000 to 20,000 to number one, be closer to what the collections are as it's required by law. And number two, to send the message to both Christine von Yarno and the town manager and the board of selectmen that money counts. So that's my motion. So a second to that much. Second. What was the amount, Charlie, that you 20,000. Okay. I was going to go lower. Oh, thank you. Well, if Charlie is going to go with 20, then I guess I won't go lower. But I was going to say either 14 or 18 based on the numbers. But I'd also not formally and this isn't a formal, but I would also ask that we one have a list of what's on the list with 200,000 to $100,000 and then to, as you were saying, that they need to be able to present us what their description, what their purpose is and how they're honoring that purpose. You know, I don't, I mean, I don't want to, I want them to get better by next year, but I also want to send a message that, you know, something has, some things need to change. I mean, my concern is, yeah, the anyone just go ahead, just kind of, wait, whatever. So go ahead. I kind of, I distracted words coming up with, so I'll finish when you're done. All right. I just want to say that I, you know, my concern is that we empower the Disabilities Commission. We do have a mission and who I just know for my time on the select board when I met with now, feel very disempowered. And I don't know why that is. They need some help understanding how they can communicate their needs to and get satisfaction from the various parts of the town that are supposed to be providing it. Like, I don't know, they know what's on the list for the 200,000 or the CBG money. And I'm not sure that they know that they should be playing the role in defining what are the most urgent issues and so on and so forth. Maybe that's in the transition plan and they agree with the transition plan. But I hate to send to them a signal that we're going to cut their budget if it's going to make them feel disempowered. That said, if we're going to vote the $25,000 that I'm suggesting that we vote them and agree with Sophie, we have to talk to them about what their actual mission is and how to push back on. No, that should be in the facilities budget. No, that should be in the capital budget. Oh, by the way, cap budget people, you got to put urgent issues at the top of the list, even shifting something else back or how do you ask for a reserve fund transfer to deal with uprisings? So, you know, I'm of two minds. I'd like to give them a full amount of money, but I do think we have some work to do here to help them understand what's in their purview and what other people should be doing here. Does that make sense? I hear you, Annie. I just don't know how much we take on with the finance committee. Grant, yes, thank you. Again, with the, I guess the point, we should take a film clip of the 10th graders presentation. Because they were the best prepared, they knew what they were asking for, they hadn't planned out. I mean, so I'll give again, have to give some, all these people that there's less money, but it's just so, I understand he's only been there a couple of months, but he couldn't describe an activity that was already in the past event. So I, again, lack of planning and lack of preparation just for the meeting for the ask, I think kind of indicates that there's a lack of planning. So I don't know that I want to, I'm again, conflicted on the vote. Just like you said, you know, I want to send a message, but I don't want to cheat anybody out of any money. I question about how well the money is spent. So I'm conflicted by leaning toward the 20K. And hopefully next year, more experienced, have a better plan than maybe can accurately describe some of the activities other than educational. If memory serves me, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't. I do remember we had a discussion a number of years ago, and the disability commission come in, they were asking for $35,000, not $25,000. And we as a board, through a discussion with the then town manager, we come up with this $25,000. And I'm being known to us that $25,000 kind of got est in stone year after year after year, never not been put down. And the other part of it is the disability commission itself turns over quite frequently. And that's part of the situation is going back to your point, any training for the disability commission themselves. Well, every time they start doing that, there's a new group, a new group, a new group. And that's part of the conflict. So I kind of go with childhood just to give them kind of a notice. We're going to go over to $20,000 rather than $25,000 because we've sat here for a number of years now and had the same discussion. Where is the money being spent and why are we doing it this way? I would just note that the one thing that they do specify for this coming here for the $18,000, sorry, there are two things that they say for the $18,000. And that is a transportation survey and an automatic door pod. And an automatic door pod, it seems to me to be a different thing than actually fixing the automatic door. So I guess I'm conflicted about, I don't love what they did for fiscal year 2023 because those didn't seem like the right things. And there's not enough specificity in the current year, but the two things they have identified seem more reasonable than what they did last year. So I'm conflicted because I agree definitely with this point that there's something, the doors of the library are broken. Facilities should just affect them. But in so far as they told us what they're going to do this year, those seem better to me than what they did last year. Troy. And I'll just add on to that. I just have a problem with this commission, their job and responsibility is not building management. That should be the function of facilities along with general, the town's general management. So the fact that they have to take it upon themselves, even if it's relatively minor damage, again, from my perspective, I think that that should be something that should be thought of not using this budget. It should come out of facilities. It should come elsewhere. It doesn't make sense that, again, a board like this has to use money to be able to do these repairs. So I just put out this thought that we're talking about empowering this commission. This is under Christine Bonjourno and the ADA coordinators under the DEI department, which we've increased in both personnel and funding. And they have a lot of money in their budget, which has increased substantially. It was a 13 and a half percent jump from last year. So I feel like it shouldn't be us. It shouldn't be the finance committee. There's plenty of other people responsible for taking this on. And maybe our job is to spur those other people to say, you've got to straighten this up. We should not be paying, over jumping over capital planning facilities to do these things. And as Brian says, there is an emergency. We can handle those things. There is a lack of specificity in that. I could say that word. We have two motions. The motion to fund them at 20,000, which unless there are more questions or comments, I'll take that first. And if it loses, then I'll take a vote for 25. Any other? Rebecca? Sorry, could you just clarify the vote process? We'll vote on Charlie's first. Okay. And so then if the 20,000 is passed, we're finished. Shouldn't we do the other round? If the 25,000 fails, we'll vote for the 20,000. I think the 25,000 is going to fail. I mean, happy. I didn't go with Charlie's first. But I don't want to go against it. So that's the problem. I don't want to vote against it to get to the 25. I mean, I'll vote for 20 or 25. All right. We're voting on a motion to appropriate 20,000 to the disability commission. All right. Everyone understand that? Any other questions? All right. We vote for the 20. And it passes. We don't get a chance to vote for the 25. I think that's the end of the story. All right. All in favor of appropriating 20,000. Raise your hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12. I guessed. Just abstaining. I'm not against it. I just vote for the 25. All right. Who's abstaining? Raise your hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Raise your hand for abstaining. One, two, three, four. All right. So the motion passes 11, four, zero, against the four abstaining. So appropriate 20,000. That means it's a unanimous vote. Yeah, because the percentage doesn't count. All right. My suggestion would be, Sophie, you've been helpful in being that our liaison can have a conversation with them. And my suggestion would also be preparing for next year's budget. Maybe having a talk with Darrell on how to plan for war so that they need money for facilities or capital. It should be, we should anticipate that. Charlie Pennell. What I heard from Christine Maggiano is that the planning department actually makes these recommendations. So this may never have gotten to the finance, to the capital planning committee board of facilities department. So, you know, I think that somehow the ten manager and the deputy ten manager have to be communicated to them in the decision. Yes. Because. Well, I communicated with them last year. I communicated with them last year. It's not one big pot of money. It doesn't matter where the money comes from. What I'm saying is that these requests aren't getting passed. And I can't pass the planning board. He gave the same response. I mean, Christine got this response from him last year, which was it's not a priority for any of these committees. You know, they'll have to wait two or three years. The commission says it's a priority now. So thanks for the money. All right, to make a motion for $6,000 for these historic district commissions. All right. All right. Is everyone here? Any discussion? All right. All in favor of $6,000 for the historic district commission. I raise your hand. Any opposed? All right. That's unanimous. How about the opioid settlement funding? You want to rephrase that out? Do we have to vote a recommended vote right now? So I recommend a positive vote on appropriating $148,000 or whatever it is. I'm doing $48,139.02, article 52. So is there a second? Second. All right. Any questions now? I'm sorry. Where does it get appropriated to? In the warrant article. But okay. I mean, I go back to like the cemetery fund where there's an article to appropriate from the cemetery fund and then it's used as an offset in the cemetery department. And I would like to see this used as an offset in some department. Well, you'd have to put the $148,000 in some place of revenues. Where? The Soania's revenue. But where's the offset go? Here's the appropriation and the revenues I guess they've already received. Right. So this is appropriating the revenues to some place, which to me feels like an offset to some budget. In other words, it's one-sided entry. Well, it could be helped. And you can serve it back because it's helping you. So that would satisfy you to have a $148,000 offset to help you with services with an increase someplace in their budget to balance it. But I'm just like, yeah, I'm looking for consistency and transparency. Where does this money we're appropriating it from the receipts to some place to be extended under the shout manager? Could be any other warrant. Other warrant, I'll say. Yeah, it's like any other warrant article and it is restricted funds. It's the term manager, the town, is going to have to report how they spent the money back to the settlement fund and prove that they spent it as. Okay. I'll vote in favor of it, but it just seems to me to be a little bit obscure that town meetings are really, town meetings voting to appropriate the money someplace for some reason. Right. We don't know anything about it, which doesn't seem like it's. Don't do that for other warrant articles. That's a question. To that size. My example of a cemetery fund, a warrant article to take my appropriate money from the cemetery fund, and it's clear it's used as an offset. I'm looking for that level of transparency. I'll vote for it, but. Perhaps we should put something in our, so let's think about what that might be. I think we need to vote to appropriate the funds. In other words, they can't spend them and they just sit there. Understood. It seems like a pair of appropriate here and then just take the warrant article and play with it. I'll say this is where it should go. And it's to be received by the town to the state of New York. But let's say if it goes to help in the services. To be extended under the direction of the town manager. Right. Yeah. Okay. I'm just over here. We'll need a, I think we need a significant comment. Yeah. Because it has to reference the memo and the purpose of the funds. You guys want us to supplement, strengthen, you know, the opioid from the state. So is that going to help with human services? It's too. Everybody's saying, oh, no. You know what it's supposed to be. Who's going to actually write the checks? She said they were. Yes. So it says in the article, it says, the funding and prevention, harm reduction treatment, recovery programs as further detailed in the messages and state subdivision agreement. So what the town can spend it on is defined. Okay. Okay. All right. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That has been asked in the end. Insurance budget. Okay. I know everybody should have gotten materials this weekend and has studied them thoroughly, but not thoroughly enough to ask questions that I can't answer. Okay. So if we just take the cover page, it's pretty much identical. The new substitute page is pretty much identical to the old one. So if I start at the top of the page of workers comp, that's stays the same. Medicare penalty stays the same. And if anybody wants me to explain some of this, I will. So the op-out program, and that's where families can, they get the insurance through their partner and they don't need to get it from us or pay them for it. The elephant in the room is the insurance group health. Now, originally, this is going to go up 3.17%. We got the rates from the GIC in early, I think the first weekend in March. And they were, it was sort of interesting because the rates actually went up, I think 5.7% and one of them went up 1.45 or something like that. And they ended up only going up 1.17%. So my first question to Karen was why, and she gave me some interesting reasons because all these numbers come in and that's how much, you know, average plans are going up. But that's not what depends on, that's not what drives the cost for us. It's where our people are in those individual plans. And we have seemed to have the unfortunate circumstance that many of our employees choose the cheaper plans. So that's the prime reason that it only went up 1.7%, which saved us a lot of money. Now, it turns out also we're having trouble filling positions, so we tend to carry a lot of vacancies. Yeah, vacancies don't pay for health insurance. The fiscal 23 budget, they admitted was very conservative, which means my next question, of course, was, so you're planning to turn a fair amount of money back to free cash. And they said yes. So it would be interesting to see that. Now, the other thing, which was a good chunk of this is they got the school lunch programs to actually pay through their user fees for the health insurance. So rather than the town paying for the health insurance, the users are paying for the health insurance. That was about $170,000. So that was, you know, Sandy's been beating the, that all grants and user fees are going to pay for health insurance. So those are the prime reasons why the group health, which I guess says is the elephant in the living room, only went up 1.7%, which saved us a considerable amount of money. Now the group life, about the same, Medicare payroll tax, that's going up. And it's going to go up a little bit each year until we're fully Medicare. So all employees who have come on, I think since 1986 have to be on Medicare or have to pay Medicare, but all the employees before 1986, they don't have to. So every time when they retire and we're bringing a new person, our Medicare goes up. So that'll be going up until we no longer have anybody on the town payroll from before 1986. What they do is they use a three-year average. So they're doing it that way. Flexible benefit program is about the same. That's a GIC fee. And then the employee mitigation, that was done when these were negotiated. The ability to join the GIC, thanks to the prior governor, was taken away from the unions. And the town basically could go right into the GIC itself, but they had to impact Oregon with the unions. And so we had to maintain a fund. These are out of pocket, to cover out of pocket costs. We had to maintain a fund of at least 200,000, sort of to a certain degree, out of a cash flow. And the fund had been going steadily down. And over the last two years, or this year and next year, we're going to have to put money in this 50,000. Offsets. Keep going. Unemployment compensation is about the same. Now, most of these are premiums that you see at actual costs. Property insurance is premium and also includes vehicles. So it's not just property, it's vehicles. Also, the increase of 18,000 basically came from our insurance agent recommendation. And that's about it. So my recommendation is as printed in the substitute version, $21,498,752 for group health insurance and liability insurance of $5,790,070. Any questions? Jennifer and then Al. So question with the offset. So that number has gone down. Or so, sorry. The offset that was in the book is 696585. And it's sorry it's gone up, but it means the naked number. Is the offset, is sewer offset or some other offset? I'm sure you're talking the offset on group health. It's just different than it is in the book. So what is the offset? The book doesn't have the school lunch or the ECE. Yeah. They had it in the school lunch. Okay. Yeah, I'm just, so I thought the school lunch was affecting that the group health didn't go up as much. But it's also. So you had, it was going up, that was actually going down. But basically the change is the school. So the change to the school lunch affects both the group health insurance, the $57,004, and the offsets. Or is that not right? That's what I thought you'd said. No, I think what he's saying is that the reason the offset went up, and therefore the taxation, but it is lower. Okay. Okay. So that just, okay. And they're shared. Got it. Got it. So then the decrease in the increase for the, for the group health is all about the earlier stuff he talked about. People choosing lower plans or choosing a partner's plan or something like that. Okay. Then just one more question. So the employee mitigation, were you saying that that is a fund that we fund or is the $50,000 what we expect we're going to spend each year? This was a fund that was set up with the original negotiations to cover out-of-pocket costs for employees. It said that it could go no longer than lower than $200,000. Okay. So there's a pot of money. This is to make sure it stays above $200,000. Okay. I just wanted to clarify with the, so the cost of insurance hasn't changed, but we're charging back both the school lunch, which is $97,000 and our ID community had the same thing with $74,000. So $170,000 at the school lunch. That's right. Our community had our school lunch. Yeah. Charlie. Yes. Thank you. So Al, didn't Karen mention that in the insurance group health program, there was a merger between two providers. Tufts and Harvard building. Tufts and Harvard building. That's right. And it turns out that if we were, if most of our employees were in one, the insurance race would have gone up, but we were fortunate and they were in the other plan. So the race went down. It benefited from the merger. That's my recollection. I just want to point out one thing. So on the workers comp, so it looks like it's staying the same 580 last year, 580 this year. And there's a nice memo that explains why it's staying the same. Interesting in the memo, it mentions that that workers comp covers all town employees, including the schools, but it doesn't cover police fire. And I just kind of want to note that way back when we spoke with the chief at the fire department, he noted that I think it was like 30,000, maybe more 30 or $40,000 invoice that he had to pick up in his department related to a retired firefighter, just incurring some medical bills. And he just wanted to make sure we passed along. I think I did pass along, but going back when we were doing the fire presentations. And to me, it seems like it's a little bit of a hole in the system. Like who's picking up the workers comp for the firefighters and the police? I don't know, but I just wanted to. I was wondering about that too, because we have a warrant article actually in here that covers, this is last year, miscellaneous appropriations. And that covers identification of medical costs for police and fire. So I wasn't quite sure why it was in the fire budget. Unless it was particularly large, I can never, I, because this money, this amount of money has never been above. It's always been like eight to 12,000 in this warrant article. And they have to go through all their other insurances before they can come here. So I was going to ask that question. I'm sorry. I didn't. I'm not quite sure why it was in the fire. But it was above the 12 grand. So maybe that's just the size of the program. Okay. Just to help you out. Yeah. The police and fire have, do not have workers compensation, compensation. They have what they call line of duty. And basically what happens is if someone was outlining duty, they receive full salary. So it's not a reduced like what it's called. And that full salary is tax exempt until they come back from their injury. So that's, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's good expiry and anything. And just listening to you speak, I think I'm kind of maybe connecting through the dots. So you're describing lost salary. Whereas what I was the, what we were talking about with the chief was actually a medical bill. So and what happened was there was a retiree along. Yeah. And he applied for a disability. He claimed the injury was while he was working. And that was in the rules in his favor. That's why it come out of the fire budget. If they had not moved in his favor, keep it a watch. And every once in a while, that happens, it doesn't happen routinely. You just want to keep it right. Well, sometimes you, some of these rules you say, yeah, got it. Thank you. Thanks for clarification. Any other questions? Thanks. Thanks out. Just want to understand, so the GAC basically sets the rates for us, right? We don't really have any control. It's like the group insurance commission. They set the rates for the plans. Plans, yeah. Okay. So this is basically the ton of Ireland's share. So the employees themselves are also paying some portion of this. Yeah. In other words, they have to decide which employees and which plan at what pay. And literally for two or three weeks go down and do that. And as they say in the carpentry world, you know, measure twice caught once. It takes a while. I just also want to add, when the town went to the GIC, I'm not, I'm not sure, but I believe the savings was like $9 million a year. It was like the street lights, which was so out of control. And then it just like fell into nothing. Now, this is obviously rising from what it was. I believe it originally started out about $12, $13 million a year, 10 years ago. Yeah. So we got a $3 million reset, and we have been running in 7% a year for health insurance and always ending up paying more, and therefore using other budgets. And since we went into the GIC, we have never had, as far as I know, a 7% increase with health insurance specifically. So that was the advantage that was a chance. And then I believe that the employees could come back every time we do their contract and say they want to argue us out of the GIC. They didn't want to go under the GIC, but they've never come back and said, you want to be bargaining this. So I think it's pretty easy to be a really good deal. Well, I mean, their argument was the out-of-pocket costs because they don't want to be able to buy the quality design, which was the out-of-pocket costs, and hence the fund that we were putting on them to cover some of those out-of-pocket costs. And they had some real concerns about employees who at the time were very, very sad. At the time, yes. At the time, yes. Now, no. Yeah. So anyways, it's turned out to be a really good deal and a helpful start. I just, I think there's only been two municipalities that have opted out of the GIC in the time the GIC is allowed to go. There's only been two. Whatever reason. So we had Alex had a motion. Was it seconded? Sorry. Sorry, one quick follow-up question. I guess it's been seconded, correct, or right, Shane? The reason I asked about the who pays, which share, is that set by statute or is that part of collective bargaining? That was by collective bargaining, except for retirees. And many years ago, there was a selectman at the Urgent and the Finance Committee and putting together a whole plan to fund the OPEB that the non-certain plans used to be 9010 and they went to 8515. And every time we fund money for OPEB, you see one white item with 155,000, probably shouldn't modify that at some point, but that's came from there. So that one, retirees are set by the board of selectmen, unless the legislature decides to take it away for a year, which they sometimes do. And I think all of the rest is by collective bargaining. Okay, I'm just thinking about subsequent years if that becomes a subject of bargaining, that number, if the rate goes up, but then we're bargaining on a higher proportion from the town. They can bargain on the split, but it has not been contentious since we went into the GIC, I think, because they got the reset, so they got a reset on their split. And then they got, you know, it has not gone up dramatically. And so it hasn't been to their advantage to bargain on the split. They'd have to give something up. Any more questions? I just, the presence of employees on the health insurance is 7525. And that was negotiated all the bargaining units, including the teachers. So any new employee coming in when they did that, 7525, any employee that was on before, it stayed at 8515 for a while, and it was originally 9010. So now any employees, I'd say the majority of employees in the town is 7525. However, if they would, the town would want to negotiate to lower that, take the 64, there's been a town bylaw, and it went in in 1974 that says you can't go lower than 7525 without a vote at town meeting. And that's something that I'll bet you none of these people that work here now know that. So you can imagine the complexity of not only, you know, what plan that they want, but what union are they in? And there's 1585, there's 8020, and there's 7525s. So you could imagine this is a huge headache to figure out, but they do a good job. Any more questions? Sorry, just one more question. So I know somebody goes on to their partners plan, some of her sales, they get extra money, right? Where does that come from? So somebody decides to not use our plan, health plan, and they go on to like a fastest plan in some other place. Yeah, I think we get all my programs. Why do you have to write down? Oh, okay, that's a good one down to 13. Any other questions? All right. All right. Are we ready for a vote? All right. All in favor of the group health insurance amount of 21498752 and the liability insurance amount of 579070. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'm saying. All right. So all, all in favor, raise your hand on 14 in favor, zero opposed and one abstention, right? Oh, yeah. All right. Quickly, we have to rebuild the pension budget because we are $140 off. So, Grant, you say that that was all set? Yeah, it was actually corrected. Oh, okay. In revised, we tabled the vote and then the revised vote, I believe, in the accurate number. Yeah. My mistake was the note I wrote says $400. It must have been Zoom meeting that we did that because I wrote it out saying $400. So what do you say? So it's my mistake. We voted to correct it for the retirement budget. Okay. Okay. So Julie's email at 11.55 this morning as well. Julie sent an email this morning saying that the pension budget was $140 more than it should have been. It was a number that was in her original email. Yes. She said she took care of it a month ago or so. Because we cut it by 140. Right. So that's right. Yes, it's correct. Again, I was looking at February 27 minutes and it said we tabled it tonight. Finally looked at the next minutes meeting the meeting later. I actually even think I asked you what the offset number was in the meeting too if I'm not mistaken. I just wrote a note so I just misread it. All right. So one of the core numbers is the one we voted on. It's revised, but we voted on it. It's not the one in the book. The book that should, the amount that should be according to Julie as of 11.55 this morning is $14,133,735. That's what you have. That's what I'm going to make sure of. All right. All right. I want to stop at 9.30 to start talking about the override between now and then. Can we do composting? Yeah. Do you want to do the whole, just composting or the whole trash? I just wanted to do the water article composting. Oh, the water school people. Do you want a motion or do you want to have discussion first? I want a motion. I need a pool of $4,992 to fund a pilot program for encourage breast rights. There's a second, probably a second. All right. Discussion. We just came up with $5,000 by reducing another budget. They aren't even out of balance. So $4,992 is what they asked for. I rounded up with $5,000 just because otherwise it's going to be crazy. And I asked many people are not supposed to round up. Eight bucks. Eight bucks. All right. Any discussion, Charlie? So I think those students did a fantastic job. And my concern here is that they're subsidizing businesses to do what they should be doing. There must be a better way to do this. I'm not trying to not give the students the funds, but the idea of subsidizing businesses is to me, first of all, the subsidy that they're going to get out of $5,000 is probably not meaningful in the scope of their business. So maybe we should ask that, is this going to go to the DPW department? I think inevitably it will. I think these four times the students themselves are going to have to do some work to find out whether or not the week is going to take it on because if they're not, then they're going to fail at the end of the week. So, well, if we really want to support these kids, not to be majority of these young students, and the composting is beneficial to the town, probably going to be required by state law eventually anyway. Why don't we appropriate the money for a recommended appropriation to DPW to be used by this group for advertising and promotion of the program, as opposed to giving anything directly to businesses? Because at any business in town, we should say, well, I could get a little slice of the taxpayer's dollar because I do good things. I think it's not a good precedent for us to undertake. Yeah, I think the way in which we usually use is to be expended under the direction of the town manager. He would shift it off there. So this was working with restaurants to get their used food and to compost. Yes. The company Foodwink, which is right up here in Summer Street, they do a lot of work with restaurants, I think, to get edible food. This is the stuff they have to throw out, the stuff you leave on your plate, etc. Yeah. Okay. That's all. Grant? Yeah. I can appreciate you don't want to subsidize, so to speak, kind of subsidizing restaurants. It is a pilot program. So maybe there's some way you can sunset that or something like that in the real program. Rebecca, they indicated in their presentation that the law that just went into effect says that if a business has half of a ton per week, what would they want half a ton a week of compostable or organic waste that they have to send it to compost. But orally, they seem to suggest that this is going to drop to a quarter of a ton a week. That was based on Dean's comments, actually. Yeah. It was a prediction to the law now. Because if that's the case, if it's if it's going to be, I mean, I agree that this is a big problem. I certainly agree with what they did a fantastic job. But if it's going to be the case that the state is going to require most businesses to do it. And sort of at the same time, we're having to negotiate our trash contracts and so forth. Yes. Unless as part of the trash contract, you want to say, well, how much do businesses pay? So, so I worry a little bit if they're about to have within the next few years a mandate that they have to compost it, how does the subsidy fit in? Because then is everyone expect to be subsidized after they've been told they have to do it? Or do we just stick with the 16? What do we have? I guess I'm a little concerned about how that fits in. Other other Carolyn and then Al. So one year pilot. So they're only asking for it for one year. The drop to a quarter in five years Dean has worked in in restaurants his entire adult life. And so he was the one who said it used to be a ton. Now it's half a ton. I'm telling all the restaurants that through the professional organizations, it's going to drop to a quarter in about five years. We have to do our contract in two years. So this is this is sort of a one off as a way to get get some awareness, get more awareness through the town about it, get the town more used to composting as a factor. And so it shouldn't the restaurants are either going to pick it up on their own after that year, because they may actually save money in the process, even if they go back up to the 10%. They may find that they're actually saving a little bit of money because their trash costs just dropped. So they may find like, Oh, this was a really good pilot. And we found this and then 30 more restaurants jump on board, you know, or they may find well, we're willing to pay the extra 10% because of X, Y, Z. So that's their attitude was it's a one year pilot. This is what it costs. This is what it could do for the town at a lot of different levels. And some of that is just a town awareness. The reason I'm so comfortable voting for this is that I don't even look at it as a composting in center. This is like the best educational investment we can ever make. These kids learned about science and learning about the only economics and learning about the energy that they can convince the restaurants to do it. I'd put it in the school budget. I'm totally comfortable yet. And they'll take it. They said they'd follow through for the next three years through 10th grade. It's just a wonderful thing. And that's why I'm just really comfortable and enthusiastic about voting. Grant. Thank you. Again, so these limits of a half a ton, is the half a ton a year? Half a ton a week. A week, yeah. Okay. I've got a lot. It was one ton in 2014. So half a ton in 2020. Okay. And you wouldn't have any idea what a restaurant? According to their presentation, average is 600, which is low of a quarter of a week. That's the average, but they don't know. I mean, that's the average across most restaurants. They didn't survey every restaurant around them. They didn't. This is a general. This is a general. So no one knows. Okay. So I'm sorry, but no one knows. Actually, but any of the pilots that the restaurants were volunteering, they may not have to do this. We don't know how much they use the corner pizza. It may not apply. Again, bigger restaurants, they may not be in the pilot. So we don't really know enough on that. But that's why it's a pilot. So that's why I want to point out that we don't know what the info of what these restaurants use. We don't know what the average does, but you know, that's like the normal child. So that's my point. We don't really know what a quarter or even a half a pound half a ton relates to the town restaurants. Now, I'm sure this is one meeting I've missed. How are the, how is the stuff actually going to be picked up? Who's going to do it? Black Earth. So, so they right now they have a the amount that they based all their information on Black Earth. Black Earth. The process includes having the waste barrel offering the waste barrel to the restaurant. So the restaurant doesn't have to buy the sorry the compost barrel. And it also includes the tipping fee. So all the restaurant has to do is find room for the compost barrel and make sure it's ready to be picked up when the time it's supposed to be picked up. Thank you. And the compost barrel is rat a rat proof. Brian. I'm not mistaken too. I mean we we're investing $5,000. We don't have to go over that if you don't want to. So it's not like it's any real exposure from that. So I apologize for my need. What is the tipping fee? That's the pick up fee. That's what they cost. That's the cost we call later in the way. Sophie. Today I have a presentation as well. Are we going to get a report at the end of it? I mean is the town going to benefit from this pilot program of having usable data that's going to inform us or something? I believe so based on the presentation they made. I think they're going to get better data on this program than I get on most. We can add that to the boat that we will give them as long as they return with a report. Right. Also because I'm trying to recruit these kids for the finance committee. So just really interestingly we went to them saying there's no way finance committee is going to give you a dime. And there's just the statement like you be so good that they can't ignore you. And that's what they did. I do think that they see this potentially more than a one-year pilot. That doesn't mean that we have to see that way. But I think that they were thinking of it as a three to four year until other things kick in in town. But we can see how it goes. It's possible they don't spend $5,000 this year because it's based on 17 restaurants and maybe they'll give us 17 restaurants. I do see besides the attribution value of what's happening to students, there is a general education value in the town at large in this kind of talking to restaurants, talking to customers, talking to town meeting that I think has a lot of value. Okay. Just a couple more questions and I'll take it to about Carolyn. So Charlie and I got together after this and I brought up the fact that I'm in a building with 75 units. Al is in a very large building too. Now we can't do this with units, you know, buildings that are large because then every unit has to have one of those little compostable containers and that's another $5. And the other issue with that if we were to ask them to make a shift to that is that right now we can't even get the people in our building to recycle properly. So the idea of making sure that they weren't throwing trash and they weren't throwing meat products or fish products or poultry products into the compost would be tricky. However, I see that coming down the pike pretty quickly, particularly for buildings like the size of the one I know. And so this is a way to sort of start looking at what those issues are. And they had information about what it's what the composting is like at the schools, which we're already doing and the issues that they're facing there. Anything further? I have a question. All right, we have a motion for $5,000 and it's in second Yes. All right, all in favor raise your hand. Did you want me to include something about them needing to include a report? All right, we have a little over 20 minutes left. I want to talk about the state, the status of the override. And I'll start in those Alec Jones and Annie who have just made a long meeting at Japan and I know Al Tosti and Charlie, we're also watching our meeting, the long meeting on Friday. So after the election, the select board will convene to vote put an override on the ballot in June. It looks right now that the amount, although uncomfortable that it seems like the town manager is going to recommend an override in the amount of $7 million. And in addition to just keeping I mean, operations as it has been the 3.5% increase on the school side and the 3.25% increase on the town side. Most of the bulk of this override money will be going to the schools to help fund their new initiatives, but mostly it will be to an attempt to increase teacher salaries. So the numbers that the school department wants is one incorrect made out, I'm wrong, it's $1 million in 24, $3.1 million in 25, $1.7 million in 26 and then $600,000 and $300,000. The town manager wants $650,000 for the town side, additions to the town side and that would include, wants $200,000 for roads and sidewalks. He wants to hire an engineer in DQW for the health handle gas leaks in town. Children's librarian, maybe a dispatch supervisor and he also wants to make the ARPA community engagement for them, which is currently funded by ARPA money, permanent position under our money. We will have a very sizable deficit. This will be a three-year override with the expectation there will be a very sizable deficit in year four and going forward, which there is no plan to address. And that those deficit numbers also provide nothing in terms of any additional money or contingency for solid waste when our contract comes out. So I have concerns about the failure to have anything, but I think Al Jones used the word correctly, wishful thinking about what will happen at the end of three years. So I just want Al and Annie to add your two cents and I'll talk to Charlie too, Al Jones. The main concern I have is very macro. It's not micromanaging positions or prayers or anything, but when we're looking at doing something now in three years, it leads to according to plan, maybe a $20 million override or $22 million override, that sounds to me one sense pushing the cam down the road or heading for a cliff. I'm not doing anything about it. So what I suggested was okay, and then when I say that it was $17 million and then you always get, well, but the GIC happened and that was a windfall and this windfall and these things happened and then ARCA, it was ARCA money came in and the state had really good state aid. And that to me is that's really nice, but thinking that we're going to get that something of the same magnitude in the same three years is what I think is wishful thinking and I don't like plans based on wishful thinking. So making a plan that leads to what I believe is an untenable override again in three years isn't a good plan. So simplistically, what I suggested was, so if we have an override, we go to the vote and say, well, this will be the last override for at least three years. I'd like to add to that for at least three years and the next one wouldn't be higher than 5% or pick a number. So it's not planning seven generations ahead. There's at least looking at a couple of overrides in advance. So we're not intentionally heading towards a cliff and saying, well, I hope something really good happens. That's not going to work. So that's my objection. Again, it's a very high level one without going into questioning positions or head count or things like that. As we discussed during the school budget and we were adding positions, at a pretty good clip on both sides of the school side, which just continues to bake in our expenses going forward. And I'm troubled with here we are facing an override and where we anticipate adding new people, addition people. And I, again, without the thought of, well, then what happens is this concern. I want to add a couple things to the conversation. So the first thing I want to add is that the major ask here on part of the schools is to be able to bargain in good faith with our teachers. Our teachers are currently paid less than 50% of what the average, I think it's the average of the town of 8 and 12, which are the towns we compare ourselves to or pay to teachers. Their request here is for the money to put in a bargain pool to be able to get their teachers up to 50%. Their ambition was 65% median, but they're asking for 50% because of what our time. Yeah. So we have towns around us that are paying much better. And the fact of that is that we have, we don't need to entertain teachers. Okay. And in particular, if you think about how this works in business, you get someone in who say they come to work for you for the first two, three, four or five years. Okay. And then they want to either be closer to home for our teachers because they can't work in the town or they can get a higher salary elsewhere. They now have experience. They're taking everything they learned from us, all of that for a couple of years and getting their feet moving when they're taking it to another community. And it also means that when we're hiring, we have this difficulty of not being able to make the offer that actually gets the good teacher that we want to hire. So it's a lot about the contract. I understand it's a big chunk of money. Okay. But I think that the school department did a pretty good job presenting to us what I would call a plan, which is that they sat down and thought about alleys and priorities and they have some goals and they said, this is where we're going to hire. Okay. It is true that $17 million in 2027 is a big cliff. And because it's then followed by an increasing deficit, we have, you know, we're looking at an override that would be bigger than that if that $17 million falls up. We now have 18 years of experience with this kind of planning and we have never passed an override projecting a number that was going to be what we were going to spend or what the deficit was going to be three, four, five years later where that number held up was always less. Part of that is we're very conservative about our revenue projections. And so our revenues always come in higher than expected. We roll it into free cash, then we have a very good goal that free cash stretches our stabilization funds. I don't know of a way to project that other than to be less conservative about our revenue assumptions, which I don't think any of us want to do. So I wouldn't say we don't, we're exactly facing a cliff without our plan. But if we're facing a cliff without a plan, it's because the financial projection is not a plan. So the question is, if you want to avoid $17 million, then what do you want to do? We have to start reducing our expenses now. Which expenses do you want to do? And I understand the school we're asking to add money. But even if we take the school's money and we don't add it, it doesn't solve our problem. We're still facing an override in the future. We still don't have a plan to live on 2.5%. The reason we don't have a plan to live on 2.5% is because we can't. We have many expenses. We have no control over it go up more than 2.5% per year. So overrides are our fate going into the future. Unless we decide that what we want to do is we want to allow a great deal more housing density in town and therefore gain the kind of growth that, for example, means that well-found has never had no right or a budget cut. And their teachers pay 7% of their healthcare premiums, not 15% or 20% or 25%. So that's kind of my color argument. Obviously, I feel it's worth making the investment in the schools. I would also point out that this is a question for the citizens of the town. So for us to say we are not going to support this ask is for us to say we don't trust the citizens to know what they want. So hence I am supporting this override because I think this is the ask we have to make and we're going to pass that override or not. If we don't pass that override then we're going to have to adjust our thinking and come back with a different question. Or optionally, and I've never understood why we don't do this, we do a manual override and we say here's how much we need to sustain town services and have these things and here's how much we need to meet the goals of the schools and we let the citizens decide whether or not they want to support that ask for the schools. So we have options for that. But all right, that's yeah. That's your voices. Yes, it is ultimately the voters decision but voters will be looking at financing. Okay, I was going back and forth. I've never failed to support an override or a debt exclusion in the past. I've led debt exclusions. Charlie's led debt exclusions. But this, if this was just a $7 million override to build up the, so we have a smaller one down the road, I think I could support that. But there's an old Chinese robber. I'm not sure if it's a Chinese robber but they seem to get good press. If you dig yourself into a hole, the first lesson is stop digging. We're, you know, those are long-term plan projection. We're digging ourselves into quite a hole. I mean, we're talking deficits of 17, 18, 20 million, 23 million dollars. That's getting huge. We've never gone through an override greater than 10% of our property wealth. And I think to continue to add spending to it just keeps the deficit growing and we're going to be, you know, in real trouble. The thing that did it for me was the school budget presentation the other day. You know, everybody's got to make decisions on how they want to spend their money. So they had a line up there and it said, okay, here's, we have $4.8 million of spending. I think the only thing is that we have to spend this for, you know, all the coal and steps and lanes. We have to spend this for contract, this for this. And then we found savings of about 1.1 million, which is great. And so they totaled those and they got, we have $2.8 million dollars. And we did this whole public thing and we came up with all the things. These are things we want to add into this budget. Well, they made that decision. If they really thought that employee salaries were key and critically important, then they shouldn't be spending 28, 2.8 million dollars on more, on more programs and staff. They should be somehow sending this aside for a long-term plan to pay their employees more. And that really did it for me. And then besides Alan saying about a cliff, everything is projected upon good news for the next five years. And I have no idea what's going to grow, what's going to be going on in the economy. We haven't had a good walloping recession for quite a while. And when the recession hits, the first thing the state does is start cutting local in. They have to do it. So I would support the override if it's just $7 million period to help support eliminate these deficits. Dispense to have a $7 million override and then spend it all for new programs. Makes no sense to me. Brian and then Charlie. Al is stealing my thunder, but basically it's voodoo economics at its best. I don't understand when you're facing deficits that you said, oh, let's spend an extra $7 million that we don't have. It doesn't add up. I can tell you that the override when it finally hits a maybe in four years, I don't think it'll be in three, but it could be just because everything we do is conservative here. We're budgeting, money's turned back to the town. But when that comes, and you wanted to have a five-year budget going on, you're going to be looking for $30 million a year. That's, and that, it's just, that'll never pass. So you're just joining the town. If you have the $7 million and you're spending it, if you're putting it in the piggy bank, it's a different story. Charlie. Thank you. So a couple of general comments, and I agree with most of the comments that have been made except for ends. So one question in my mind is, is the Arlington Finance Committee a rubber stamp operation, or does it actually think so? And he said that it's the citizen's decision, implying that it's not our decision. I agree, whether this override goes forward or not, is the decision of the board of selection, whether it gets put up or not, and it's the decision of the citizens to whether they vote for it or not. But the citizens look to guidance from the Finance Committee, and they deserve guidance from the Finance Committee. So we should evaluate this on its merits and make a decision as a committee as to whether we should support it or not support it. That's my first point. Without any changes or additional expenditures, we have a deficit in fiscal 26 of $9 million. The proposed changes by the town manager, I can't tell whether the Long Range Planning Committee supported it or not, but the proposed changes that the town manager is threatening to recommend to the board of selection add up to about $7.8 million additional spending over the five-year period. It's going to have a cost of an increase in the first year of $464 to the average household tax bill, which represents about a 4.5% increase. And that's going to rise each year with the normal progression. And the total incremental spending over that five-year period that has been presented is $27.6 million. As far as I'm concerned, that's a big number. And I think the Finance Committee should be thinking about what we're going to tell the citizens of this town. We think about spending another $27.6 million. Now, I understand the question of teacher pay. Our teachers are paid less than the average of the 12 towns. But nobody has dealt into why that is and what it means. The superintendent the other night said that teachers come here and they work and they get to a certain age and they want to have a family and they can't afford to live in this area. So they and they move out, they have more space and they want to work somewhere close to their home. Giving them this raise is not necessarily going to change that. It has absolutely no effect. If somebody has a bigger family and they want to move out to stow or something like that, they're going to do that whether they get a raise or not. I also have looked at the correlation of teacher salaries with MKS results. The town that has the lowest MKS results and the highest teacher salaries is Boston. If you compare, I compared Winchester, Waltham, Watertown, Arlington, Belmont, and Lexington. And as far as the MKS results are concerned, Lexington always comes out of the top, no matter what. But in that small set of towns in Boston, there is no correlation between teacher salaries and MKS results. In all cases, our students are in the top, I don't know, one, two, three in that set of towns. And in some cases, Winchester might have kept ahead of us, but usually we're behind Lexington. So I'm not convinced that this teacher pay argument is that compelling. I'm not saying that the teachers couldn't be paid more, but I would follow Christine's suggestion that says instead of spending money on other programs or other things, let's use the money that's in the budget. I mean, I pointed out to them last week that they actually increased the payroll categories without touching the teachers by 13% in the budget that they presented to us. Now, they have all sorts of arguments as to why they would do that, but they did not address teacher salaries. So I wanted to make one or two other comments here. And that is that the, I looked at the tax growth in Arlington over the last five years from 2018 to 2023, it averages 5.1% a year. And the proposed override is going to increase that by 4.5%. So that's, I think, getting to be an extremely high increase in our taxes. From 2012 to 2022, including the recent increase in inflation, the average inflation rate is 2.44%. So we're spending much more than the average inflation rate. And at one time, a week or two ago, I heard Andy say that the 2.5% of proposition 2.5 is an arbitrary number. It's not an arbitrary number. It's the number of the average inflation over many decades. So we're saying to ourselves, we should be spending more than the average inflation. In the face of all this, for the town manager 12 towns, I looked at, and this is all, by the way, data that's on the state website. I looked at what the per capita income growth was over the past, even the period 2014 to 2019 or 2017 to 2023. There's two different databases for that. So I looked at both of them. Arlington is, the income per capita growth in Arlington is a little bit below the middle. And our compounded growth every year is 3.8%. So we're raising taxes by 0.1%. We have an inflation rate of 2%. And our per capita income is growing at 3.8%. And who knows what's going to happen in the next couple of years. I think all the comments that the earlier speakers made about the question about the programs, I mean, I think they're all valid. And I certainly wasn't convinced that the school department should be spending another $20 million over the next, incremental $20 million over the next five years. And I think the town of Arlington is looking for guidance from the finance committee as to whether or not this is an appropriate program, that this increase in their taxes is the thing that we should do. So my firm suggestion is that we evaluate these costs and what we think the returns are and then make a recommendation as a committee as to whether we support the override, the override and its uses are not supported. And if the town manager and the long-range planning committee or whoever come back with it, and if we don't support it, they come back with a different plan, we can support, we can consider it. Thank you. Well, it's approaching 10 o'clock. I think we could have this conversation for another two hours. And I'll try to find some time on Wednesday to continue the discussion. Also on Wednesday, hopefully we'll finish DPW and facilities and then Grant, are you ready for warrants? We can do it now. All right. So we'll finish the last budgets. Then I think we can do some of the warrant articles. And then if I have any more information about the override, we can talk about some more on Wednesday night. We'll be meeting next Monday, but we will not be meeting next Wednesday because it's Jewish holiday. And hopefully we don't have to meet them. But let's try to get a lot. Lots of stuff done on Wednesday. Anything remaining on Monday. And that'll be good. All right. We still haven't voted. Tara won't be here on Wednesday, and I'd be greatly appreciative that someone could volunteer to do some minutes. I will help with minutes, but if someone could just sort of... Sophie, you're wonderful. They will be very, very abbreviated in that slide. Thank you. All right. All right. Want to do it again? All right. Thank you very much.