 the meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee to order. First order of business is the minutes, which you all should have, and I know read through thoroughly. Are there any corrections? Okay, and again, anybody whose budgets was submitted, they really should check these numbers before they get up on the website and it becomes much more difficult to do. I've got a few corrections, Peter. Under on page two, article six, number six, article 27, Chaplain does ES not think this will be expensive. I think he basically said there wouldn't be any additional cost. So maybe Chaplain does not think this will have additional cost. Okay, and then under seven, article 49, third line down, I think that should be no conclusion in the near future, not conclusion. I think you need to cross out the T. Third line, beginning of the sentence. You see what I mean? Okay, number seven, third line down, we'll probably go into binding arbitration next. No conclusion, you have not conclusion. Oh yeah, I got it now. Okay. Article number eight and nine, article 52 and 58. Was somebody wants to correct me? We didn't vote on those articles. The manager is coming back with the actual budgets for us to vote on. So he's coming back. So I think you just need to cross off the voted, et cetera, on both lines. Was there a response? I know you put it in there just to see if I read the minutes. Okay, and then under 11 and 12, sewer and water in the second line fiscal 21 sewer renovation project with a no cost loan. I think it should be no interest cost loan. They still expect us to pay it back. Same thing under the bottom. I'm sorry. That's why it's called loan. That's right. Except for the last slide. And same thing under 12 and that's it. Okay, any other questions? Do I have a motion? Second? Okay, any other discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Okay, minutes are passed. Just one more quick thing. Today we'll have the community kind of a preservation and then we'll do some budgets. Monday we have the arts and culture commission that's coming in and I hope budgets will come in and then Wednesday is capital 20 on the fourth and then minute man on the ninth and Adam is coming back on the 11th. So please again, try to get your budgets done and questions back in so we can move on those. Okay, today we have the Community Preservation Act and I'd like to welcome you all here. Look forward to your presentation. Which article was this now? Do you remember? It's in the 50s. I just saw the warrant for the first time today. I do not have it in front of me. I think 59 is the plan and the appropriations to the right people are after that. Okay, there we go. Oh, 66 and 67. Okay, that's what I said. Now, do you have handouts? Just what I've already sent around and you should have in your package already. You should have a budget sheet and I think listen around the PowerPoint that you're gonna see tonight. Okay, so you don't have any hard copy? No, no, I provide those so we could go to. Okay. Sure, print those out. Okay, so you've got two articles here. Why two articles? So first of all, hello, Eric Helmuth. I'm the chair of the Community Preservation Act Committee. I have with me our co-chair, Clarissa Rowe. Jim Feeney, I think your current department you're heading up as facilities for the moment. Normally the town manager's office who helps the committee and Julie Wayman also from the town manager's office who's the management, you know her very well but she also helps implement the committee. So we have two articles this year. The first one is a presentation to town meeting of the revised Community Preservation Plan that we're working on. This is a priority setting document that will be informed by a public meeting that we'll be holding sometime this spring. And so that's what that's there for. The other one is our annual appropriation requests to town meeting. So for most of you may remember and for those of you who don't, CPA is the one, I call it the odd duck, not that we are the odd ducks, but the CPA appropriation article is the one money article that goes before town meeting that you don't directly present to them as the main motion by state law that has to be our committee. However, the Arlington CPA bylaw wisely requires us to come to consult with the finance committee, the select board which we did Monday night and the capital planning committee to inform you about where we think we're going with our recommended appropriations to town meeting and to invite your comments, your questions and your advice and ultimately we hope to invite your vote of support. Okay, so basically 66 is your long-term plan and 67 is your immediate appropriation. That's right. Okay, so why don't you start your presentation? Great. So the CPA Community Preservation Act is a dedicated revenue stream for three important areas, funding projects in three important areas in historic preservation, open space and recreation and community housing. The funds come from the people of Arlington who back in 2014 voted themselves, voted ourselves, a property tax surcharge to go into this fund and that is supplemented with matching funds from the state. I have some good news this year about the level of the state match both this year and in subsequent years and those projects then go through our committee as the gatekeeper where the only body that can put forth projects, town meeting of course writes the checks and when we get to town meeting they can deny an appropriation or reduce it but they can't originate one. So that's a little bit above what we do. Every year the state law, the state CPA law requires us to commit a minimum of 10% of the anticipated new revenues in the coming fiscal year to each of the three main CPA categories. The rest of it is flexible. The gray sliver of 5% is what the CPA Committee is permitted to request from town meeting for our own administrative expenses. We have always used and requested a lot less than that and in fact we kind of found our happy place with that and this year we plan to request just 2.75%. That funds primarily part of the time of these two valuable individuals here in administering the program and we think that is a very good deal. The unspent balance of those administrative funds always get turned back to the local CPA fund and then that money has to be used for future CPA projects. So I wanna quickly go through the projects that we plan to present to town meeting and I won't spend a lot of time on each one, you're welcome to ask any questions that you have and at the end of this I'll go into some detail about our budget. So first up, this will be the third round of CPA funding to contribute to the ongoing restoration of the Jason Russell House. We're very proud of this program because it is not only one of the state's most treasured historic resources and certainly that of Arlington and indeed the country. It's also one that we've taken under our wing and they've done a really good job. CPA first funded a comprehensive conditions assessment and preservation plan, a five year plan that looked at everything that needed to be done to keep this old building alive and then that has informed every request and very thoughtful request that they've come back to us for and this is the third round. The work is envelope restoration, foundation work, just about everything you can imagine in old building needs. I asked, can you finally repair those musket ball holes on the stairs? They said maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea. We found some more by the way. Yes, I know, they have to submit an appropriation. Notably, the historical society to whom the CPA grants are made has used this, the CPA grants each time as a direct catalyst, as direct leverage to get additional state grant money because a lot of grant programs require a local match. CPA is really only about $2 million a year but it is a really good catalyst. So the historical society has taken the money that we've given them and turned that into $180,000 in new money that have come directly as a result of leveraged funding from the CPA program for the building. So we're really pleased with that and I think that's one message that I like to tell a lot to the leadership of the town also to the citizens that your money pays dividends. This is with the investment. Next up, the Mr. Gribber Watershed Association working in very close collaboration with the town conservation commission and the environmental planner in the planning office has come, well actually also be our third CPA appropriation. And I remember coming back here one year to an earlier project and somebody asked, will you be able to finish it? And I'm pleased to say that yes. In fact, we're about to just do just that. So you're seeing on the screen the first round went to a comprehensive planning and design grant and that's a theme. Our committee really values planning ahead and we're very happy to pay for good comprehensive planning studies because that saves money in the long term. So that's the first thing we did. A couple of years ago, phase one came along and it's another example of CPA money becoming more than just the CPA grant. The town was able to use the CPA appropriation as the local match to get a $400,000 municipal vulnerability preparedness grant for flood mitigation which dovetailed really nicely with the improvements that were planned for the park. You can see the boardwalk, some signage and a path on the stream. This is what most people think of as the tennis courts by the DPW and it is tennis courts but believe it or not, Mill Brook is right there. Now a year ago you wouldn't have known that because there was the rusty old ugly chain fence and a bunch of garbage and some horrible shrubs and no clear way how to go enjoy the brook. So what the first phase of construction, CPA phase two, first phase of construction did was install that boardwalk, get rid of the fence, clean up the area, expose the brook, install the path and then with the MVP grant in that bright area, the circle, removed invasives and did some planted flood storage to act kind of as a sponge during overflow of events. This is a real project because it's making this parcel really nice but it's also a demonstration project of the potential what can be done along the Mill Brook corridor. There is the town for decades has dreamed of and planned the concept of a long Mill Brook corridor park that could go along the length of it to various parts of the brook that are covered or not covered. So this is one kind of installment in that dream to show people what the recreational resource can be and the ecological resource that it can be. This current phase that we're planning to put forward to town meeting would be the second in final construction phase that would extend the path and open that up. Believe it or not, there's a wooden bridge that crosses Mill Brook down back there and goes up the street. So that's going to be reinforced, repaired. The path will be improved. There'll be a rain garden, some enhanced plantings and it'll just be a much nicer park for people to enjoy beyond just going to the tennis courts. Staying on the theme of open space and recreation, we are also contemplating and plan to recommend a grant to the recreation department for continued work on the reservoir. This is a big project and CPA is just a part of the funding capital, the capital plan and capital appropriations have made up for the lion's share of it, but CPA again paid for the comprehensive plan the first year and paid for much of the phase one of construction, which is focused on the filter and filtration and pump situation in the water beach on the bathing beach, which has a direct revenue in the hands of generating function to the town. And that is that work has gone out to bid a couple of times and is now in progress, but this is looking ahead to the next phase. A lot of people don't really realize that the res is more than just the bathing beach, that there's a beautiful trail that goes all the way around the perimeter of it, but the trail has some real access to mobility problems, particularly for ADA or anybody who just doesn't watch where they're going. You can trip over a tree root really easily. So there's a lot of improvements there and as well as ecological improvements with invasions around the perimeter, stabilization of erosion that will help preserve that preserve of water quality in the res. So this is the next installment in that work. Switching gears to historic preservation, the old varying ground or OBG is really difficult. Why don't we sort of stop after each section? Sure. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Any questions on the Wellington or the reservoir? I just have a general question. I'm looking at a presentation that was sent around to us. It says the FinCom CPC presentation. It has your piece in it, the ones under review. I'm just matching up the numbers. And for example, the Allenton Reservoir improvements here of phase two says 700,000, yours does 587. So what are you looking at? Something different? You're seeing 700,000. What slide are you looking at or what? Sorry. Slide. This is a CPC presentation you're giving to the Finance Committee March 4th, 2018. So that's the capital planning, this is the CPC's report? Yeah, but it has your piece in it that says these are the current projects which maps with your slides. Just the numbers. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Jim, do you want to address that? I think that's the delta that we're still trying to figure out about the actual request. I think we probably just need to update the capital report. Yeah, I think we believe our numbers are the current ones that are needed in the consultation with the Recreation Department. I just want to know which is the right one. This one. As far as the last word we had was this figure that is needed. I'm sorry, question, do you want to say something? No. Any other questions so far? We've done Wellington Park, Jason Russell House, and the Bering Ground. And we're at the Bering Ground. Yeah, we're at the Bering Ground, so. Okay, any other questions, observations? It's good. Yeah, you got to put the brakes on and I'll just keep going. So the old Bering Ground is the cemetery, the historic cemetery between the library and the Woodermore-Robbins House and Pleasant Street. It's also an important historic resource. The stone wall is crumbling, is a safety hazard, is a hazard to the graves, and we have to fix it. Fortunately it qualifies for CPA money so we can leverage that with the state CPA match money and work on that. So the first phase of this, ably managed by this gentleman over here, Jim, took us about to where the black dots are, and the second phase will simply extend the wall repairs down to, I believe we plan to go down to the Unitarian Church. Maybe turn the corner. Yeah, and turn the corner. So we prioritize the worst conditions. We're back there, back to the Woodermore-Robbins House, but those will keep going and Jim can answer any questions. I think very ably is managing that project. Now are you gonna, is it eventually, you're gonna go around the whole circle? Yeah, I guess. Because there's some pigs, red and flocks that. They actually, there was an emergency repair work that was done during the first phase, because the ones near the nursery school were very serious. So Jim actually had this. Some of the capstones, if you know what I mean. Okay, John? Who always is very impressed? I think that we do. I think it's the zone by the town, and it's probably under the jurisdiction of the cemetery commission. Yeah, it's always. So then, a way of art, we're using some of the funds from lots of graves. Let's do some of this work. We have used some of their money in the past, and this is another phase, and we haven't used it, but we. There's a lot of money. Okay. So one thing I would add is, when we first did sort of preservation plan, it was to include the whole bearing ground and a number of tombs down in the Pleasant Center. That's right. And we did that, but in terms of funding, we chose to cull out the bearing ground because the sort of commission also has some oversight over it and pursue the grant through CPA under historic preservation. However, we are using cemetery money to begin the work on tombs in the Pleasant Center right now. But within the cemetery commission, we have the lives to spend money on this. We can, why don't we ask them? Yeah. That's, they come to all the meetings. They've been the. Do you speak up? Oh yeah. Okay. The question was, shouldn't the Cemetery Commission be participant in the cost? And they have been very active as part of this process. And we can go back to them. They are putting money into the Mount Pleasant Crips, which were also part of the initial study. But we can go back to them and ask them if they could make a contribution. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's a good point that they are contributing to the historic preservation need that we identified in the CPA Immunization Plan and they are contributing to their side of it. But I think it was a fair question to see if there's money laying around that could be used for this. There's much, there's plenty more work than this appropriation or fund. I think this was divided up so that it was a manageable chunk each year. There'll be many, many phases to come. Yeah. There's a lot to do here. The trees are in terrible shape. We have to take those down too. And there's just, there's a lot more. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Onward. So the Robbins Memorial Garden is the beautiful fountain and parked around it between town hall and the library. And we were just delighted to be able to support a restoration of the fountain, the water features, the spillway, resealing of that last summer. We finished up just a year ago. So this is a small proposal that would finish the job by restoring the original planning's design from the Olmstead Brothers. We have an Olmstead Brothers design park. And this would further beautify this and complete the vision of making it as beautiful and as historic as it once was. So this would just simply pay for landscaping and planning. Peter? Could you be a little more specific about what that means? Sure. What it means, when the Olmstead Brothers did the park in the early 20th century, they did, as part of the construction documents, they have a planning plan. And what the friends are gonna do is use the same planning plan that was originally envisioned and the plants that have died or are not in good shape will be pruned back or removed and new plants but ones that are very similar to the original planning plan will be installed. Obviously in a hundred and some years, the nursery trades have come up with more resilient and hardy plants. And so they will use the hardier species of plant but that's their idea is to use the original plan. It will be overseen by a landscape historian from nearby Belmont, I believe. And it's, you know, the friends of Robbins, Park are very active in this. But I'll tell you that the guy to my right was particularly helpful in the last construction project. Absolutely. Thank you. Now I understand why we're never gonna let her off the committee. Everybody else? Onward. All right. We have a four modest planning projects that the town has proposed. I'll hit them briefly. The open space and recreation plan has to be updated every, how many years? Five? Seven. Seven years. So this one is coming due. And we have to do this plan because it's the only way we can get conservation grants from the state. Any grants. Any grants. Second office. Right. So this will just pay for the, for that plan. The community-wide archeological survey was proposed by the Department of Planning and Community Development to start to identify historic and prehistoric artifacts that may exist in key locations around the town for the purpose of mapping them and formulating a proactive town plan for any development or construction that may happen in those areas. The third one documentation of historic municipal resources is a continuation of some work that CPA has funded before. These are town-owned buildings. The purpose of documenting these is a specific process to going on the state register and that makes these buildings eligible for certain state grants. We have to do that. And finally, the Minuteman Bikeway Planning Study is designed to look at Ellington's portion of the bikeway and to look long range at what some of the maintenance and infrastructure needs are with a special emphasis on the evolving transportation mode. So I think that there's a lot of awareness that not only do we have pedestrians and cyclists, but we have people on electric scooters and the e-bikes and they wanna do some real study on how that's interacting and what the pain points are and what some of the solutions could be. This would be done in concert with the sustainable transportation plan that will be going on at the same time. And we've actually gone back to planning and urged them to refine the proposal. Do you wanna say just a little bit more about that and how we can make that better? Well, the overall transportation plan that's being done for the town includes the bike path. But this part of it, the CPA is gonna fund is one that, as Eric has said, it's gonna look at what I would call the infrastructure of the bike path and that would mean crossings, intersections, whether the bike path should be lit or not and if it's gonna be lit, is it only lit from Lake to L-Wife or that kind of maintenance consideration that needs to be ongoing? The bike path is, as we know, very successful. It's the most successful bike path in the Commonwealth and in New England. So it gets a lot of use and it needs some tender, loving care. Questions? Charlie? On the open space and the recreation plan, I have two questions. One is, how do you anticipate coordinating that planning with the, let's call it the care and the key of the school playgrounds? Number one. I mean, they're all part of the town's playground infrastructure. I know that CPA doesn't normally deal with the school side of things. Well, on the open space and recreation, it would be referring to conservation land or open space, restricted recreation land where the school playgrounds are school property, but not necessarily reserved for recreational use. But I think they could be added to the inventory of the open space. Because I think that one of the problems with the playgrounds is that they're not up to code, they're not accessible. And I think it would be, we could ask Ann and the open space committee to include them. I think it would be a good idea. And I think it would be good to be coordinated with the capital planning committees. Yes, I've talked to one of your members about it. Well, particularly since this plan is a vehicle for grant funding, I think that does make a lot of sense. I think it would be a good idea. I think this plan is a vehicle for grant funding. I think that does make a lot of sense. So the second question I have is that in the last 12 or 24 months, there's been a huge escalation in the cost of playgrounds. Whatever we do with playgrounds, whether it's making them ADA compatible or I think the old chips on the ground are no longer acceptable, et cetera. So the numbers are astronomical. They are, and having my office has designed six in the last year, I will say that all of my estimates came in under, within budget. Now the reason for that is we're very conservative about our estimates and the thing about playgrounds is the safety surface is extremely expensive. It's sort of a rubberized surface and it has, underneath it, it has special sub-base material. And the other thing that playgrounds have is a lot of aluminum and steel. And I think that contractors right now are very wary of giving prices with aluminum and steel and the tariffs. So we found that our construction prices in the last year have gone up. And the year before that, they went up. And I think the figure that I was told, 900,000, is at the high end of what a playground should be. But, you know, 500, 600, 700 is something that you should be looking at as you go forward. Traditionally, the town has spent between 300,000 and 500,000 per playground. And the numbers that the town showed us recently are 500,000 to a million. How do you get that out of the CPA plan? Well, so the Nova Space Recreation Plan is, the CPA is contributing to that as deliverable. It's not necessarily to aimed at CPA projects per se. You know, the plan has potential to generate funding for playgrounds and Nova Space Recreation, whether or not it would come through CPA. You know, I think that... These are town studies. These are town studies, yeah. I'm not saying the study is going to cost 500,000. I'm just saying all of these sites are going to cost a lot of money. And I'm just wondering where we're going to get the money. Out of our pockets, I bet. I think one of the... When my children were in elementary school, we built all... The parents built all the playgrounds. At Bishop's School, there were three different projects. We also basically built the one in Monotomy Rocks Park. But I don't know... Now there are so many liability issues. And what we did in the past was we would have a contractor come in and put in the foundations, and then the parents would do everything else. And it's much more difficult now. The construction is more complicated. The rubber surfacing has to be done by a certified person. You also now have a certified playground person that Jim works with that double checks that every single piece of equipment is in there correctly, and that it's ADA accessible. So the whole... It's very much more sophisticated than it used to be. And much more expensive. I remember... We were rebuilding a hardy school playground. And it was just like that. Put in the structure, and the parents would all come swooping in on a Saturday. And there was... There was my wife at the top of the swing set. Tightening everything. From page of the advocate, the top headline was some assembly requirements. She was a lot younger then. That's great. Okay, Alan. Well, we all grew up playing on dirt, so I don't know if it's wrong. Regarding the archeological survey, I was wondering if you could give some... Are there any examples of target sites to be studied? And would this involve the local indigenous community? Yes. We worked with the planning department to come up with what they were really going to look at. At first, they were going to look at the mill history sites. And we said the indigenous populations were very important. And we also said that we had some colonial history that was quite important. And they've talked about using some radar. And we would love to have that done in the old bearing ground because there are not only British soldiers that are buried there. There are slaves that are buried there. And there's a lot of mystery. And it would be great if some of the resources, maybe not in this study but going forward, could be used to really look at that particular place with radar. So you're in contact with the first audience? Yes. I'm not in contact with them. Well, somebody is. Their spirit is talking to them. Squass HM is sitting on my left shoulder. No, I mean, they're actually living Native Americans in Arlington? Yes. So we should... Any other questions? George? Are there any implications if significant archaeological sites are found either on the plus side that there is funding available from the state or the federal government for that? Or possibly on the negative side if it happens to be on town land where we're trying to build something or whatever? I don't know if you've looked at that at all. I think they're both true. I worked on a project in Lowell. And some archaeological remains were found. And it's not the project. It was a construction project for Harvard. It's not the project for two years. So, yes, they're positive and negatives. The one big positive is the head of Mass Historic Commission right now as an archaeologist. So she's tremendously interested in the workings of what's going on. And so we probably could get good grants to do the work. But, yes, it can also be a lively one. Can we stay away from the high school for the next five years? I think that would be a good idea. You're wrong. The Historic Municipal Resources, do you have any more detail about that? Yes. We were working very closely with Joanne Robinson and she was Steve Macalca, who are on the Historic Commission and Historic District Commissions. The initial list of resources they were going to look at was sort of multiplied by three by the time there had been review of it. I mean, one of the things we had is some people that wanted to look at the Prince Hall Cemetery, for instance, which is another one of Malone's interests. And I think that they really were thinking about it in terms of looking at the schools and we asked them to broaden their scope a little bit. So what, the price of the work went up a little bit. Any other questions? No. Each of the... I'm sorry, go ahead. So the CPA funding is also for affordable housing? Yeah, I want to actually address that on my next slide. We're not quite done yet. Thank you. So are this the total cost of each of these studies? I'm not sure I understand. Yeah. Okay. And is CPAs funding the whole thing? Oh, I understand. Yes. Yes, it is. Okay. And are these being done in-house or are they being bid out? I think the first one is a mix. They're all involved. Yeah, they're all involved in consultants with talent. Because it's specialized work. Okay. Onward. All right. So now to the budget part of our budget presentation. This chart summarizes what you've seen on the screen, but I want to draw your attention to the totals. So to address the point, we did not have any applications this year for funding to our affordable housing funding, which was, frankly, to our disappointment because that has been a priority of the committee. That said, partly because of that and partly because of kind of a bunker year and some state resources, which I'll shortly detail, there will be a substantial amount of money left over the town meeting. We encourage town meeting to reserve for future projects, namely the $724,000 in change. And that's if we in town meeting spends everything that we put in front of them this year. So that could go for housing next year. We hope that it does in addition to new money. So the budget breaks out with the subtotal of the projects as presented here at $1.4 million because we're not doing housing appropriation, but because of that mandatory reservation of 10% in that category, that town meeting will be required to reserve that for future housing. The 2.75%, do I have that figure right? Yup, yup, yup. Would cover the administrative expenses as I did detail earlier for the committee, for the program administration. So that adds up to $1.7 million and then that's the expenses. The available funds for appropriation come from two sources. Normally they come from reserves, but last year town meetings spent everything we had on CPA because the need was great. So we're starting fresh, but we project very, very conservatively with local receipts. Every year we have had substantial turn backs from the excess contributions in excess of what we projected, but until it's known every year what the applications for exemptions will be and all that in frankly the state of the economy and the real estate market, we go conservatively project $1.8 million in local collections from the CPA property tax surcharge and this is where it gets tricky. The official state match is just estimated on last year. We haven't heard yet what the state estimate will be. It will undoubtedly be much higher, but we're just going on the only solid figure we have which was 14% from a prior year. The good news is that the legislature has finally applied a substantial patch to the state CPA trust fund revenue stream. So that fund comes from fees on property registered transactions in the state and so they increased the fees. What's up? Yes, thank you. That fee was increased. The problem that many of you have noted from year to year is that CPA is a victim of its own popularity and has more communities bought into it, in particular Boston coming online that diluted the amount of state match money. Two years ago the CPA match was 11% and I remember somebody asking me when is it going to dip to single digits and say that it's not going to. In fact, there is a stop gap so the new registry fees take effect not on time for this past year but the governor and legislature allocated $20 million from the state budget surplus from the cycle that just closed that was just distributed so they gave us another $218,000. The effective state match that we're looking at this past year was 24% that we just got and we don't know what the estimate will be for next year, we should know in about a month but we anticipate it will be somewhere in that neighborhood moving forward so that I think is really good news for us. So that's what the numbers look like as of this time. Okay, questions on this? Yes? So the 10% requirements for the community housing for the open space is that 10% of local tax receipts or local tax receipts plus the match? That one. So whatever we get in for the match so this year nothing is being spent on affordable housing so 10% of the total will go into reserve for maybe next year. That's right and it can only be spent on community housing appropriations in the future. Okay, John? Last year you funded I think eight projects and I'm wondering if you have a quick update on whether the money's been spent if there are any problems and with the one that was planning the spy pond features, what was the result and is there news funding that's going to happen because of that study? Sure. So we always do report on those on our annual report to town meeting so do you have an update on the spy pond? So the spy pond field bleacher study is underway with no decisions. And the others with low tower envelope repair North Union playground reservoir you talked about a bit. Most of the pieces. We didn't mention all barrier and ground you already discussed. So the tercentenary marker restoration that project is currently underway the markers have been removed and brought off site to a where we put back when the weather's good. Yeah. Woodmore Robbins cottage exterior rehab still in the design phase we've procured an architect there on board the Winslow Towers envelope repair similarly the work has not begun it's still going through the design phase. North Union playground there's been a number of large public forums they're narrowing in on a final design for that project which I expect to be built in the fall. Did you mention it was little more bark? We did. We can talk about we're up to date. We are very up to date. We were just there at the select board on Monday. Yeah. That's getting ready for construction. I think it passed one of its last hurdles on Monday night when there was a vote of the select board to take down three trees in the park and there was a lot of opposition to taking down those trees. But I think the design work is excellent and I think it will make a wonderful new park in the center of Arlington. It's interesting everybody on the select board had gone to that park Woodmore Park to double check everything and they were always the only person in the park. So, it's been very warm. So, I think it's going to make a real difference. I will say that the committee is charged by the state statute to supervise to oversee the projects that we have funded and so we regularly monitor the progress. We've never done it. I don't anticipate the need to but we can even pull the funding for projects if we can revoke it if needed directly. So, we keep a pretty close leash on that but we think that's important. We think it's important for people to ask because it's taxpayer money. And I will say that Jim Feeney has been excellent in that regard as he and that lady on the left review all the pay wrecks and are very careful. And if there's any excuse me any impropriety they bring to the committee. And I sign along with others each invoice that comes in through CPA for all the projects and progress. I sign each one. So, there's nothing over budget you appropriate the right amount for all of those? If it goes over budget it's not our problem we fund what we fund. Yeah, oftentimes there's a turn oftentimes there have been turn backs where they don't spend it all and they are required by CPA grant that goes to a non-town entity we require with the help of legal department we draw up a grant agreement that specifies that they give an act if they don't spend it and they have to document every expenditure with invoices from a vendor. That's what we sign. Okay. Annie? Okay, so one question got answered which is everything's down a reimbursement basis you're saying invoices come in and we so we don't have any affordable housing projects this year do we know why and do we anticipate getting them in future and we're holding that money Yeah, I mean we're required to hold the money anyway. No, I think there's an affordable housing crisis right now I and others on the committee and John can weigh in I know the housing corporation of Arlington has been has had something in front of us for a single year they're at the moment they're in the midst of three ongoing major projects and I think that if John please correct me I think that they felt that they couldn't come again because they didn't have the capacity to start a brand new project Is that accurate? Yeah, where we are in the pipeline and the affordable housing projects are more complicated than any of the others they also bring in a lot of federal and state money so I think we have now in our little bit of money have matched almost $14 million additional money That's the most productive city housing housing and we're going to make a special effort next year to get a housing authority project It's fun to get a primer out on how affordable housing funding works I mean not FNCOM responsibility All you have to do is go to communitypreservation.org and look at their housing section and they've got lots of water primers and one of the things the town is looking at is an affordable housing fund Trust That's on the warrant this year in fact that's a possibility as well I just had an observation comment These project titles they talk about various phases, phase 2, phase 3 etc To me it would be helpful to have phase 2 of what phase 2 of 4, phase 2 of 3 so I can get a sense of completion Thank you That's an excellent idea And I say it to myself and the owner writes it and says please remind me John I just want to point out that if one contributes money to the housing corporation of Arlington you get a great break off of the taxes It's really good It's true More to the best Reduction to the taxes It has to be a certain amount I don't get up to that So I don't get anything It's a wonderful organization and they work very hard with the report and the stamp You mentioned the possibility of the trust fund that's on the warrant What would be the relationship Could CPA money be deposited directly into that or how would they work together That would be an option We have not discussed it as a committee whether we want to or not I think in a year like this that would have been a nice vehicle speaking for myself not for the committee because we haven't discussed it but I think that more options this year would have been welcome I think it would be great if the planning department looked carefully at some of the non-building options to use the affordable housing money Things that they could be asking for money for that we as a town have not done So you have a project to reserve of 724 in the past which is It's really two parts I don't like the term reserve for CPA, we're going to use it but it doesn't really reflect it probably right because the program let's say has collected 12 million dollars since inception and it's spent 11.3 It's not really a reserve, it's just a delay in funding the cumulative effect of all the money you've collected versus inflows it off That being said I've said before I still think there is merit in perpetual lag in funding in that regard So I look at that $724,000 lag and say well this is a good thing because I really do think all of you nice people who work on this are going to wake up one morning and find out that you want to acquire something like something somewhere in this town and you're going to need the money to do it and if that balance is zero you don't have the money to go to a special town meeting or to appropriate it or to figure it out and so it's a reserve I don't know what the right number is 50% of the current year appropriation that the lag doesn't seem like a big deal because technically you're just going to spend it next year and money collected next year will be in that reserve and then it's just kind of a rolling reserve because in some years someone is going to say look we've collected 20 million dollars over this life of this program 18.3 that's really what we've had and it's a really open community move forward that you continue to think and embrace having some kind of a lack of funding is a good thing in the event that there's something that comes along and you're like we would like to buy this and we need the money and now we have the money versions like the townspeople saying well they were pretty dumb not for planning for this things like that I think that's a good idea and I think it's when we started spending the money we were trying to get as many different people in and projects in so that people could understand what their tax money was going to and I think that we were very successful and this is the first time we've ever had this kind of reserve and the reserve term is the legal language from the act but I think it's how it's like I can give a friendly name that's right yeah maybe say look we're going to hold back for you it's a lag with the intention of if something ever came about where you woke up and said you know what I'd like to spend all of this right now you know it's not it's to proverbial like unexpected broken boiler except it's the unexpected open space affordable housing or something else to get the czars down thank you any other questions comments a couple questions Schwann Mill finished oh yeah for now yeah for now and the path around the reservoir I spend a lot of time there and in fact I watch the cross-country team races around there and by the way if you ever want to really raise your spirits go on the line find out when the next cross-country team is going competitive there and it's heartwarming to see the entire team and it's usually right around the parking lot as all the players you know come around again sharing them on and it doesn't matter whether you're the first runner or the last runner they get cheered the same way it's really pretty cool and the reason I bring it up is I don't understand how they can get through there without tripping on those roots oh boy you're young and of course it's all in the Lexington side how the heck are you going to I mean you can't pave it it's a flexible pave that raises the surface up to the roots one of the things that I found out in the last year this so-called root barrier fabric doesn't work and it's been a oh we'll put root barrier fabric you see that on the bike path the roots are stronger than anything so this flexi pave is the newest thing we'll let you know how it goes you'll let us know okay so this is the budget you're presenting you're looking for our support so that's what we're going to be voting on are there any additional questions okay that's article 67 how about 66 I'm not I don't think there's a necessary action and there wasn't even for select board as well just the acceptance of a plan basically it's an opportunity to present a town meeting and ask them to move receipt essentially on their part so okay so you're not asking us to take any action on correct could we look at it sure when it's written yes yes yes by all means no we'd welcome your look at that and I think one of the biggest thing is it has a listing of all the the CPA projects that's the $14 million figure okay so it's looking back and forward when you anticipate it would be ready time for town meeting before that for our public meeting oh for that chart but the plan itself we want to incorporate input for the public meeting we'll be finalized we're not going to be meeting after the end of March yes so I mean it's a town meeting presentation and so you're not voting to support you're asking them to just accept the report right okay well we have a meeting before every town meeting so as soon as it's done please send it to Liz she could send it around and whatever meeting we have that's available if the committee would like to endorse it then it would be fine we would love it if you did okay Brian it's 1.25% right the CPA 1.5 if you took the number and the the manager's worksheets for what the projected revenues are shouldn't you just put down for your own sake instead of saying projected because we have the budget as it's being budgeted that's a projection in and of itself for your own sake just so they say where are you pulling numbers out of the department of revenue gives a more accurate the local receipts are the state factory no local receipts yeah so if you have our budget she can drop exact numbers yeah that doesn't matter I think we make our own estimate that's really conservative but if that figure is also conservative it's 1.5% the way CPA has calculated that's minus for certain classes of property minus the first 100,000 of assessed value minus abatements, exemptions, delinquencies okay I get it so we can't use that exact figure yeah thank you ultimately comes out to be approximately 1.25% of our total tax levy each year looking back at our past three years so that's the cost of the abatement so in the fall who does the calculations and gives it to the assessors the assessors give us the calculations yeah okay so assessor do the calculations and then we were in Julie reports to the state for the CPA we have to file a CPA expenditure report in income okay close the books any other questions for the committee I want to thank you very much for coming thank you for having us and so we appreciate your work hopefully you'll get some housing applications yeah we hope so too okay thank you very much thank you all okay why don't we start on budgets Peter I'd like to move consideration of the planning budget when you get to it okay what budget is that number or page oh it's page 67 okay so if you could turn to 66 to 67 somehow we overlooked the offset situation the conservation number is small and we asked the deputy town manager that we consider they did some work you've got Julie's research into the past conservation commission input and so forth in the email the bottom line is that they think it could be 10% of environmental planners salary which would be 6932 instead of 4971 in other words almost $2000 more I know that's not a big number but it's a big percentage okay so have you redone the calculations for the total offsets in the bottom line the offsets would be 109 619 would be 567 894 567 okay almost my glasses are foggy the original number was 598 so it shouldn't have been 596 anybody have their calculator out oops thank you Al Knight did an old man's mistake I'm there with you 596 539 that's right 596 539 okay so is that your recommendation yes is there a second? second so any questions on that basically the manager's office blessed our request to increase the offset from the conservation commission fund okay any questions any discussion okay what did you say I said 596 539 I think 894 we got 539 anyway so I'm sorry Alan what did you get 596 539 okay okay so the planning community development budget has been seconded any further discussion or questions just for confirmation the conservation offset is 6932 I believe that's what Peter said okay I just want to make sure I have the right okay all those in favor please say aye aye okay past unanimously okay today please okay why don't we go back to the for a second to the community preservation fund you got the pages the reports before a few days ago and heard the presentation they actually make the recommendation we don't have the budget in our book all we're doing is looking for our support or endorsement I think that's how we phrased it in the past the article 66 we'll just put in no report at this time and then if we get the long-term plan and we like it like the night before town meeting I'll change our recommendation to support it so what is the will of the committee on article 66 David I moved to endorse as presented second okay it's been moved to the second discussion 67 and can you amend that to say no report on 66 yes okay I seconded okay any questions on 66 no report 67 endorse favor please say aye opposed unanimous 226 26 okay budgets David Peter are you all done okay thank you very much I appreciate it coming in sure those are already fun even funner they're at the very back yes secretary is hard of hearing very much appreciated all right so recreation is on 166 and we met with Sandy because Stacy resigned to a different job doing a different job so it seems like every other year we have a different person a lot of these numbers are so different I don't know if we need to go through each line item no I think you could focus on something that might have changed all right in general the numbers have changed because they determined they were more realistic and then moved from different places like electricity for example the if you look down at the the fall programs the travel basketball the winter programs the spring programs they were those numbers are gone now because those dollars were reallocated into season five to four oh see that's gone from $50,000 to $100,000 how they're accounting where they're accounting the debt service is for the grants or the kid care programs obviously are the after school programs what else do we want to say the the res number they had 428911 they reduced the revenue estimate so that's why there's that big difference between $150,000 and $100,000 for the seasonal program income the number is considered more realistic than what was initially budgeted and the the reason that the reason why I was going down is because they undergone construction and like every year the the salaries of the full-time people are divided between work and work so it's not that people are working quite time just that some of their hours are in rack and the other hours are in break and what's left in the reserve fund is $765,855 did you say that again? yep the rack is $765,855 now is that the ending balance from fiscal 2019? yes so they're using $100,000 of that to balance this budget and the retained earnings you see what I mean? so actually Sandy said that there's still money in the recreation fund but it's being spent down because you can't buy a lot, can't have too much money I don't know what the number is $886,000 is the number, it's going to be my very first question okay I'm sorry Dean they have a cash balance of $886,000 at the end of fiscal 19 from the recreation department fund and that translates into a fund balance of $867,000 so is that from the audit? yep once more $800,000 the fund amount that unrestricted is $867,000 okay that's before the 100,000 increase? yeah so they're using $100,000 in a year they're using $100,000 so it'll probably go up another year okay questions? yes John? what is this new line item the debt service? the debt service is for the REZ and what's owed to the state right after the debt than that? is probably part of the capital plan last year? they have the capital plan pays a part of their capital debt service and they pay the balance in the past it's been 50-50 I don't know what this number is so that's probably the REZ department's share of the work probably yeah done at the REZ and also the seasonal program income which is 428-920 that number changes significantly because they feel it's a more realistic number it's going down it went down significantly yes okay, have any questions? John? they're bringing some handicapped mobility elevators that comes out of a different fund some capital fund it's on the capital planning budget to put in these lifts so you can get to the stands is that from this pot of money or a different pot of money? the bleachers? the bleachers, they're adding some lift that's in the capital planning budget that we'll look at in 2 days and it says, but it doesn't say rink fund the rink? rink capital fund I don't know let's see if you said anything about that and that wasn't mentioned but I realized that's a different fund you talking about the bleachers found in the spot fund? yeah no, I'm talking about Ed Burns rink okay so what is that pot of money? is that different than this $800,000? what's that? the rink is a separate fund alright, so and the other thing I wanted to say is I asked who was replacing Stacy that job is not yet posted but Bobby Jefferson is the interim director cool okay George? I'm just curious as a new person why the reserve fund is so high is that something structural that we should try to pay attention to what's going on and see if there's a way to change it or is it okay the way it is? so my first time on the finance committee we used to sit here and scream at the recreation director who ran large deficits and they accounted zero money and we used to say you need to build self-sustaining programming in your enterprise fund okay and then somewhere along the way second time Joe Collins director he built self-sustaining programs that built up a bunch of money and then everybody stopped yelling at them about it and they built up a big pot of money and so now life comes full circle so now we're going to yell at them about having too much money is there a certain beauty in that? yes, yes are we merely going to yell at them or is there some suggestion we can or ought to make about how to budget it or how to look at it? so I think Charlie will take it out of the cabinet I think there are two things one is that this is a seasonal they have a lot of seasonal services and sometimes they don't get the revenue so they need the money I mean like the costs are there and if a certain number of kids don't sign up or the weather's bad or something like that there can be big variances in their income so our view is this is fine I think that's one of the best the right thing to do well I'm trying the one thing that is different with the Wreck Enterprise Fund is once you get past like a seasonal let's say working capital balance you can, there are always significant capital needs in the Wreck so you could, if you just if they decide one day I think it will eventually happen if they said let's say we're going to take $500,000 and put it towards these like million dollar playgrounds they can do that you just move the money right out and do it so I don't think the balance has the same concern as if it was a department or an Enterprise Fund that was not capital intensive in nature you'd start to get concerned because there would be nowhere for that money to go but this could have almost an infinite balance and you could spend it drop it, you could bet it quickly I would think that Enterprise Funds by statute are supposed to use the money for the for the services rendered and at some point and I'm not quite sure I don't think the statute defines it that if they build up too much they either going to spend it or give it back and so I would assume that our controller would be keeping an eye on if she felt that this was sort of getting out of hand that she would say something to the manager right now it's about what a third round numbers a third of total expenditures for the fund balance which is healthy it starts to get up over a million maybe a word or two okay do you have any other questions well so my only question about that is is there like is there some advice we ought like some oversight responsibility we have to say to them hey it should be in this range or something along those lines that fits in with whatever the rules are around this I mean at some point somebody has to flag for them if it's too high but we don't want it to go anywhere near zero so is there something we ought to do or I believe they are working with Sandy okay so Sandy's got an eye on it okay then yeah that's the only answer okay other questions drawing and drawing so there are two items here that seem to have big numbers that reduced one is I read the great contracted services went from 475 to 450 and the seasonal expenses that was in the other direction some big swings there rental and maintenance is another $50,000 swing and a lot of these we flagged and Sandy's response was it was a more realistic amount the the rental one is the Gibbs change the Gibbs and there's also a lot of teachers to pay for these classes and it's not always clear at the beginning which classes they're going to have and which ones they'll get enough people to participate and you know these are people that are working just for that particular season doing that particular class so a lot of it is hard to predict until it actually happens I guess I'd just like to point out that there is no person in charge here right now Sandy doing it but it's really very entrepreneurial you know what they offer has a lot to do with how much they can bring in so it's important that the yet a person who can think through creative things to present especially in that summer program they've also been tracking all the programs to see how much they cost see how popular they were how many people attended 10 days how much did it cost to pay the instructors for those classes and they do a lot of data analysis after school programs too they used to use the gem at the Gibbs oh wow where did they shift most of that I think they're using a building on that they've got a store product on that Sandy now I think if you drive by and there's assignments that's what it is we're about to do that I think so we're at least don't live down there anymore so never stop George one more minor question but seen in a few spots to look at contracted services the 2020 budgets 475 the 2021 budget is 250,000 the change is $25,000 and the percent change is zero is our software flaky do we need to be checking these kinds of things or I guess I'm just wondering what's going on most things that output if you don't I'm not sure what where all this comes from what makes you think there's software doing this am I dating myself no it's an Excel spreadsheet that does that yeah and then formula is good for trust me who prepares this Sandy and company okay Sandy I'm sure that Stacey did a lot before she left and then Sandy we're all going to 475 to 450 George the 475 to 450 okay just a minute with John and I have to say that every time we get a new director they change the way they do the budget thank you one of the problems I've been trying to fix um probably leave this office with it still not being fixed is the transition of data you know from unis to excel to this to another excel so I'll leave my successor to finally get that done but it's uh it does cause a few headaches headaches and like I said everybody who comes into the office like Mary Margaret said feels that they've got to put their stamp of uh reform on it and things get changed all around because they I believe you know a lot of this was changed a couple years ago oh yeah with Joe left it got changed with John left it got changed and now with Jason left it got changed because people keep heisting recreation people but I do have to say they're really good programs and they're it's run very well and there's programs for a variety of people and kids who are taking care of George I have one more minor question that I've hit it so apologies maybe the other thing that everybody first year asks some places in the budgets there is an actual change in step from four to five five to six and there's a step increase in other places the step stays the same for an employee there's also a step increase is there any magic that we know in the current incarnation of these spreadsheets to figure out what's going on in those cases in the DPW budget there are some employees who step does not change from last year to this year and yet there is a step increase for them in the budget other employees do have a step you know from four to five or whatever and I can look that step up and it's correct it's employees who do not have a change in step but do have a step increase and the question is is that necessarily an error seems unlikely because it happens fairly frequently in the DPW budget or is there just some other magic is there cola in there and Christine you suggested it could be cola a contract change and all sorts of things that go on so the steps are separately stated so I don't believe the steps roll into the base what happens sometimes that might be confusing is like let me use the patrolmen who are out right now so they're unsettled on collective bargaining so we budget a pot of money into the I forget what article it was so eventually that gets settled and so all of those back years whatever the seven have to get paid so all at once those numbers get adjusted and so the number of last year the number of this the prior year number for an employee in the book might not be the actual because you had to catch it up and then get to the book and it looks all wacky at once so that might be a lot of the wacky as you see Troy you want to answer that I think there's also an issue half year steps if people come on in the middle of a fiscal year they get a step increase based on their anniversary and I think they can wind up getting some money but not flipping change in the in other words at the beginning of the fiscal year they might be step four but by the end of the fiscal year they're step five and it shows up as step four in the budget but they have to put the money in for their transition it's hard to check yeah you basically have to flag it and ask going on Charlie's point I think in the last contract cycle that there was something to do there was an adjustment halfway through the year in some of these steps that there was by by the new contract so that's what throws it off any other questions okay so the Mary Margaret what is your motion okay for 2,942,444 second any further discussion all those in favor please say aye opposed unanimous 226 okay rank next page the line item 5208 is the lease payment the DCR lease payment 3 the budget they don't seem to pay it strange and then we talked about the debt service which must be in the capital plan Charlie the debt service here is the debt service that they're paying right there's other debt service in the capital plan that also supports some of the debt of arena that was a 50-50 wasn't it? it should be 50-50, I think at one point the capital budget took more than 50% but I can't tell you on the top of my head what the issue is today so it must be getting towards the end of the debt service since it's going down okay so the in the concession stand 5290 there's an expectation if if the concession stand had more if it more professionally managed it could generate more money that's why you have that expectation there that 10,000 to 19,000 sorry what was that the concession stand 5290 they believe with better oversight of it you could actually generate more money than it does now okay well that's the expense line that is the same there's a difference in the income line the revenue line stays the same to the 21,000 yes the difference between those numbers were going up for a while and that was why that's what Sandy suspected that Stacy was trying to make happen to generate more income I have to say that the money left in the fund is 14,728 I'm sorry how much 14,728 there because they had a deficit last year what's the audit say Dean human unrestricted government unbalanced 81,000 okay so this has a lot less surplus funds than the recreation yeah I mean I would think it would have to be they use different terminology sometimes like the other one was to transfer from retained earnings use of retained earnings I don't know why it's Dean says it's coming from somebody else's budget oh 497 schools it could be anything I was guessing I would say the schools for their hockey teams okay so there is no use of retained earnings on this just look at you don't have much to use alright so Sandy wrote a note saying that in FY20 we finished paying off a million dollars in debt issued in 2009 for renovations to the reef there are two other bonds related to the rate for renovations and for electrical improvements issued in 2013 and 2016 the rink will pay debt service for them starting in FY21 in prior years it was understood the rink enterprise fund did not have sufficient revenue to cover all its debt service so the general fund covered the payments for the 2013 and 2016 hope this helps I see if we just merge the rink and rink and together you know Bob alright you also this is back it for the rink the rink electricity account is higher than prior years because in 1718 and 19 some electricity costs were paid from the revolving fund the administrative staff has been in this year to stop using that account and pay all the bills from the enterprise fund questions did somebody say the balance of the enterprise fund I see this is the question $150,000 is being spent on the enterprise fund for a bleacher lift what's the balance of that enterprise fund well it's that $14,728 number that Sandy gave to me so it was presumably $164,000 and they're spending $150,000 on this bleacher lift I'm wondering I'm looking at the capital plan right now and it says the insurance memorial rink enterprise fund will spend $150,000 on the bleacher lift they could be financing that right so the bleachers are coming out of the capital plan the capital planning committee right so what will happen is the capital planning committee is putting it into the enterprise fund sort of so the capital planning committee will go out and I'll borrow the money and let's say Bonded they'll buy it and the asset will then get transferred to the rec department and then when the debt's being serviced half of the portion of the debt service will come out of that rink enterprise fund over the years a portion will come out of the capital budget over the years and that's what Mary-Marg alluded to in that letter that wording letter from Sandy I see I didn't understand this I'm quite sure so it just does that really quick to help you understand so what happened was back in 2002-2006 so a lot of these former they're MTC but what is it DCR DCR no no so they do the DCR rink and they decided to give it to us for free in free med to take on the capital burden so we had no planning as a town to be able to do any of that and so to deal with our free rink with all these contractual obligations we came up I think Charlie came up at a time with a financing plan to say the capital budget will take on some of it and then the enterprise fund will take on the rest of it the challenge becomes that CAPEX schedule goes on like what feels like forever it's not just like you do this million dollars when you're done there are all sorts of phases for our free building so that's kind of how it works almost in perpetuity we pay off one set of bonds on this allocation and then a whole bunch of spending has to occur behind it my next question which may be more appropriate when we talk about capital planning but the rink is a place I spend a lot of hours unfortunately but it's pretty decrepit the locker rooms and none of the showers work I spoke to the high school coach and he said when does the finance committee getting me new locker rooms because it's just disgusting I wonder to the extent that's on the radar of either the rec department or the capital planning committee that at some point it's going to be hazardous to go in those locker rooms I suspect that's all in their plan they know that they fix what they fix they do gets a lot of use they have a thousand people that sign up for stick and puck but they had three three heads of this rink now design and there is none right now and so sort of the impetus to do this just hasn't been there usually a department head will come in and say I want to do this over the capital planning committee and ask for it they haven't asked for anything they ask for stuff every year I'm just looking for my planning document here they've always been in the capital budget I mean we've put Zamboni's in there and you know electrical supplies for the refrigerators in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars and we replaced the roof I think there's a roof repair I know we did the boiler last year so I don't know about the locker rooms I can't recall I mean it's a I should say a bit of a borderline operation enterprise funds are supposed to be fully self supporting and I think we came to the realization back in the 2009 that either the town puts in more money and operates on a loss or we close it and so in 2009 I think they did the big capital project on it we've been doing capital in the split the 50-50 split is trying to keep the place to going but it's an old rink Brian? I've spent a good part of 45 years in various rinks here in Canada, out in California and I've yet to see with the exception of the fabulous farm I've yet to see one that doesn't have a decrepit locker room for whatever reason they're not funded for that just as long as they've got a good rubber surface so you don't kill your skates that's about all they really have in general another question so really quick if it's a free building and they gave it to us why do we have a lease payment at all that's about I think it's at some point I'm trying to remember the administration but the state decided they were going to sell off all their assets and so their inclination was just to take this rank and sell it at the highest bidder and I think the town came in agreement with them to pay a lease payment you know a certain amount over a period of time that's why I was sort of confused on this because we're appropriating $13,100 a year but we haven't spent much of it the year two years prior than that so I don't know what's going on there now I don't know how long we have the lease payment I mean we either keep patching it rebuilding it and repairing it or give it back to the state or we tear it down and put a new one in no on land that's not our land but that's the other question it's a building they gave that's not the land correct I'm not sure I don't know John as I understood it when we first took it over five years ago or whatever that was the the ice time is so desired that you could probably increase the fees and I'm wondering if you all think when we get a new director or new department head for this whether or not we should I think that was part of the problem because of the state increase a certain percentage but as far as I could tell every time we put in for an increase the state's got along with it so I'm wondering if when we get a new director there whether or not you think we ought to push them to increase the fees so I don't think you can if I remember correctly I have to go back and look I'm going through my computer to find it I believe that we're capped we can only raise fees like every other year maximum all what we can raise so that tends to be the that tends to be the challenge to me as a person who spends a lot of time on the rent there's an obvious thing that jumps out looking at those numbers which is that percentage of the time that's doled out as renting the ice is probably 10x the amount of time for stick and puck and open skate but the money collected is about 5x so presumably that you could maybe charge more for the rental payments and there might be other reasons for that maybe the school doesn't pay full there could be other reasons for that but those numbers to me I know that ring schedule and I know that there's not that much time dedicated to stick and puck and open skate relative to the amount that you're collecting for to count the ice why don't you did you talk about fees with Sandy? no why don't you give them a holler back and ask them what's online for increasing the fees in general and what's stopping us we first took it over Dean that we pushed the guy who was the director of the puck ahead of the time and he did that and it didn't seem to me there's no way what I'm saying is there may be a liberal there but it may be that we haven't pushed as far as we need to there was I think a 2018 cap of state bond bill that had a billion dollars for decan for the efforts of you I'm sorry so in 2018 the state legislature passed a bond bill capital bond bill there's a lot of your marks here but I see it says it burns a million dollars for capital improvements for decan so I don't know what you're going to ask about yeah that would be state so I just wanted to answer John's question there are no locker rooms in the capital there's oil replacement and a couple years of roof work but no discretion okay so you're saying in the state plan there's a million dollars for burns yes so in 2018 capital bond bill obviously it's like a presubstantial I think spent but it looks like it's discretion just because the legislature authorizes it doesn't mean administration no I understand so Mary Margaret why don't you ask about that too 2008 bond bill 2018 2018 okay any other questions so Mary Margaret and John will get that back to us any other questions on the rink one thing I did mention was about the health insurance because there is a big difference and the explanation was it was underestimated for last year and this is a more realistic number that's 5706 so are you recommending as printed so far yes okay um is there a second okay third of the discussion Mary Margaret will get back to us on those issues all those in favor please say aye aye opposed unanimous 226 any others okay Dave close out one point that we had I keep everything so I have the rink leads and it actually specifies by year what the rink is allowed to charge users for skating time over the life of the lake so it starts and it says it shall not exceed $160 per 50 minute ice session for 3 hours then it cannot exceed $180 per 50 minute ice session and then it gives you a schedule in which you can go up so that tends to be the challenge with creating any type of additional revenue source for the rink because the lease agreement has clearly been made in and the whole thing about a petition TCR to go up and get written approval blah blah blah I mean it's very clear on there on stopping you from increasing I believe that everyone has been managing the rink has tried to get the most that they can get what document were you looking at for that which we got in 2008 how long did it go I I could keep flipping through and find it for you glorious 63 pages I'll find that day for you okay okay just ask have you been at least keeping up with the link lease okay do you want any other budgets to present not yet who has budgets to present I think you were did you take a vote yes unanimous what page were we 111 the problem 111 so we actually met with Dan acting chief clarity permanent chief we met with her a week before she got the appointment this is usual pretty uneventful budget I'll just quickly go through some of the changes on the personnel side with salary side most of the changes are related to longevity payments from last year they carried over to this year on the expenses side the $25,000 for telephone expenses just moving their phone cross out of teleprocessing into a new line item that they got they set up and that $1,000 there for 50 to 50 carat dogs was apparently the police dog encounter with a coyote and had to have eye surgery apparently that was successful so that's good news and then there's also they didn't talk about that there's boarding fees for when the dog's owner goes on vacation so that's basically it personnel on expense side to go to page 114 they do have a few vacancies so in the police patrol they have four vacancies last year they had four and they had higher four they thought they were all set but only one made it through the academy one failed the physical and apparently one couldn't even get to classes on time so they're posting the three that are still vacant and then they're adding another position for a school personnel officer and apparently the part of the captain who is in charge of hiring last year was heads down on a microwave project so that account for why things went slower in the hiring but they're back to hiring personnel so they're hoping that they'll be able to get those positions built so as of today how many vacancies are there? in patrol there's four then on page 115 two-thirds of the way down the page there's one vacancy and you'll see this sort of musical chairs Gallagher moved up Conroy Conroy moved up to Flaherty and Flaherty moved up to Chief Ryan so apparently there they're going to do some sort of reorg once the chief was named which now has happened but we really couldn't comfortably ask her what that reorg was going to be so there's the one vacancy there on page 116 there's a vacancy in the book it's about halfway down the page the social worker is filled now the positions split between the police and the health and treatment services and then on 117 there's one vacancy in the book they actually have two more but they do have conditional offers pending and then they're potentially having two retirements this year basically yeah it's out of there I think 20 minutes I believe the two potential retirements are actually tenant now do they does the chief expect that they will end the fiscal year in a surplus they'll be able to cover retirements as far as she knows now yeah any questions which it's the taxation total is the taxation total that we're voting is not the appropriation well we usually just vote the entire amount so the taxation total is eight million five eleven three oh five we're basically voting at the bottom of that page so I move that we prove the non aspirant data eight million five hundred eleven thousand three hundred and five second okay questions what was the question about the new tip system app that they launched recently is that it didn't come up so it didn't appear to be it didn't come up something I can ask I mean the one that just came online that can ask what does it do it's a thing you put in your phone you can report something supposedly anonymize the report SMS of course this this amount will go higher when they settle the contracts because that money now is in a collective bargaining order call on that clarification so this money is moved from tele-processing to telephone and what is tele-processing and probably not in this data communications why don't you have all the top-seller terms remember they used to have stenographer in some of these with this state they still have terms like key operators other questions print manager that's to my face any other questions okay all motions were made and seconded for 8 million 511 305 any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed unanimous okay any other budgets okay john you're still working on the fire yeah Monday okay like I said if you don't hear back call me I'll call okay other budgets well we're just going to sit here for a half hour now okay so on Monday it's a good idea on Monday we have the arts and culture now that's not going to take the time here so I expect a lot of budgets and at the end when we're sitting here at 9 o'clock and nobody has a budget I'm going to go through each budget and ask you when it's going to get done and assign that remember your pay depends on it okay any other business any adjourned