 All right, we are recording. Okay, welcome to the finance committee and special meeting of the town council. It's October. 2022. And it's 3pm. So I'm calling. The meeting of the finance committee to order. I'm going to. Then go through the usual steps to begin the meeting and then I'm going to turn it over briefly. To Lynn, who's going to call the council meeting to order. After which I will explain. What, how these two meetings are going to be handled today because it's a little different from how we've done. I'm meeting before. But let me start by saying that pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, which has been extended by subsequent legislation. This meeting will be conducted by a remote by a remote means members of the public who wish to attend the meeting may do so by zoom or telephone. There is no in person attendance of members of the public. But every effort being made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a technological means. I also want to remind everyone that this meeting is being recorded. And so that it, it's, there's public notice of the fact that it's being recorded visually in audio. So with that being said, what I'm going to do is call on members of the finance committee to make sure that they can hear and be heard and then I'm going to turn it over to Lynn who's going to take steps to convene the meeting of the council. So, I'll start with Lynn. And just to confirm you can hear. Present. Bob. President. At Halloween. Present. Bernie Kubiak. Michelle Miller. Present. Kathy Shane. Here. And I'm present and I think that Alicia will be joining later so that because of her work schedule. So we need to keep an eye on the participant list on both sides to make sure that she gets into the meeting as quickly as possible if she doesn't, if she signs on as an attendee. I'm going to call the council meeting order. Yes, given that we have a quorum at the council present I'm calling the town council meeting to order at 303. I'm going to check with those counselors that are not on the finance committee to make sure that they can hear us and we can hear them. Dorothy Pam. I'm here but I'll have to leave early to go pick up my grandson. Thank you. I'm here too, I'm not here to go. I'm sorry, Matt. EP Italy and Pat. No, Pat DiAngelo's. President. Jennifer Thomas. Present.canね Feng Yin any keyVENEmoempaliśmy to. President, maybe that's it. I'm here too, but he already heard me. Yet still here. Okay, thank you. that they're posted as council meetings is because it's an issue that's being discussed by the finance committee that is of sufficient interest to the council that we recognize that a quorum of the council may wish to attend to participate in the discussion. And later in the meeting, Sean Mangana is going to make a presentation about alternative approaches that and the factors to consider for each one for the completion of the four major buildings and how they could be financed. And he will explain it more when he gets there. But we also last night postponed two motions at the council meeting to the next and by the rules of the charter and the rules of the council, they have to be considered at the next meeting of the council. So this is a council meeting for that purpose also. And Lynn will explain what those two issues are, even though I think all councilors know but the resident members of the finance committee may not know and we're going to address those questions first and then come back and we'll have Sean make his presentation and then the last item for consideration today, Sonia's with us is going to be the fourth quarter and year end which is a combined report of the budget for the year that ended on June 30. Lynn, I therefore turn it over to you for the first section of the meeting. Thank you. There were two motions last night were postponed via the provisions of charter section 2.10C. Under this section, a motion is postponed to the next meeting of the council whether regular or special. Those two motions therefore have to be taken up today at this three o'clock meeting which coincidentally had been already posted. However, I'm going to deal with the first motion and then I'm going to come back to the second but after I deal with the first motion I'll be looking for a second. So I am going to move that to postpone the motion that is on the floor made by Michelle Miller and seconded by Alicia Walker to November 1st, 2022, 6.30 PM. Is there a second? Second, Devlin-Gothier. Thank you. Let me explain my motion and then I'm going to call on Mandy Jo who would also like to speak. Since last night I have conducted a poll of both the council and the CSSJC while I'm still waiting for a few final responses. I am at the November 1st date which is a Tuesday at 6.30 seems to be the date that we can get the most number of councillors and the most number of members of the CSSJC. I also do wanna note that in the audience tonight or today, excuse me, Philip Avila is in the audience. He is a member of CSSJC but this is not a meeting of the CSSJC. And so my also felt that it was important that this meeting be held as a joint meeting and that that is one reason why I have pulled so both. So that's really all my explanation. The motion to postpone means that we will not be discussing the motion and we'll leave it at that. Mandy Jo. Thank you. To my colleagues on the council. Last night I used my charter right to postpone for a motion that was made during the last minutes of a council quote time limited discussion, a discussion which was noticed under discussion items, not action items and for which councillors had no opportunity to prepare that a motion might be made, no ability to read the motion and no ability to think in solitude either ahead of time or during the meeting about the reasons to support or oppose the motion. Through no fault of any councillor, I was completely unprepared to discuss, consider or even contemplate the motion last night. I needed time, time that I did not have if the discussion and vote would have proceeded. So I invoked my right as a councillor under the town's charter to postpone the debate and vote to give me time. I knew there would be opposition and disappointment to using this right, but all 13 of us have as councillors to ask for more time to do what we have been elected to do. It was not comfortable, it was not enjoyable. At the time, I knew I was not in a safe, tolerant or compassionate space to use the charter right, but I did because I needed the time. Time that over the past day has been condemned by not just those watching, but you, my colleagues. I asked that we as a full council and individually reflect on the values we have adopted. Respect, we value a culture of kindness, compassion and respect for different points of view, experience and knowledge, grace. We value allowing people the space to be human, to make mistakes and to learn and grow from those mistakes, to experience adverse situations without thinking of themselves or others as lesser than and to be their authentic selves. Teamwork, we value our colleagues working in collaboration and taking pride in our collective work. Diversity, inclusion and equity. We value the diversity of our residents, the inclusion of voices, ideas and cultures that reflect Amherst's rich personality and the creation of safe spaces and equal opportunities for participation. Tolerance, we value the expression of diverse perspectives, even when we don't agree with them and we don't put our own perspectives above others. I ask us as a council to think about what happened last night, not just after I postponed the discussion until today, but before that too. And in other meetings since we took office 10 months ago. In the past 10 months, have we been valuing a culture of kindness, compassion and respect during our meetings? Have we been allowing people the space to be human during our meetings? Have we been allowing counselors, staff and the public to make mistakes and to learn and grow from those mistakes? Have we been creating safe spaces for counselors to participate in our meetings, to make statements that might challenge the prevailing wind? Have we valued the expression of diverse perspectives even when we don't agree with them? I know I can't say we have to all of these questions. Let's collectively figure out a way to forward that uplifts our values and calls colleagues, staff and residents into discussions instead of pushing each other away from tough discussions and intimidating each other into staying silent because of fear of the repercussions of expressing diverse perspectives or admitting we need time to just think. I think the counselors who have reached out to me to ask why I used my right to postpone whether they agreed with me when my use or not. I think the counselors who've reached out to see if I'm okay. I also respect the position of the counselor who last night withdrew from partnering on an upcoming measure that is intended to address racial inequities in our zoning laws, although I'm saddened. If that counselor changes their mind, I will gladly welcome the collaboration again on this matter or others where we can find common ground. Thank you for allowing me the time to speak. Mandy Jo, thank you very much. I'm going, I would like to have us move on to the vote because we do have the finance committee meeting and we have a full agenda for that. Lynn, the reason I had my hand up is so one of us needs to make sure that Alicia can hear me heard. She's joined the meeting and the minutes need to reflect that. Thank you. Alicia, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Lynn. And Alicia, thanks for getting here as fast as you could. Alicia, there is a motion on the floor to postpone the motion and discussion made by Michelle Miller and seconded by you to November 1st at 6.30 and that is based on a poll that I've conducted today of both the council and the CSSJC since it would be a joint meeting. Michelle, I'm really hesitant to get into a conversation at this point but I am going to respect the fact that you might want to speak to the motion which is on the floor. I don't want to speak to the motion that's on the floor. I want to speak to what just happened while I really appreciate that Mandy came forward with this statement. There were people last night who needed to be heard and they were silenced. And the idea that I again, I understand this is frustrating but I feel like we have to have some consistency in the way that we're managing people's voices because there were people that needed to be heard last night and they weren't able to be heard. I am very, very sure that each of us has various things we would like to say but there is a motion on the table and I think that motion on the table is what we should address at this point. Dorothy, you have your hand up. I want to paraphrase a story from Martin Luther King about the man who pushed another man into a hole and then felt victimized because he hurt his arm when he did it. Thank you. I'd like to move on to the vote. The vote is to meet again on November 1st when we will pick up and take the motion that is on the floor. Let me start. I don't have my normal list in front of me. Let me start with Shalini Balmiel. Yes. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Yes. Pat DeAngelis. Aye. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Andy Steinberg. Yes. Jennifer Tobbe. Yes. Michelle Miller. Aye. Mandy Johanicki. Aye. It's unanimous. We're going to move on. I'm sorry, Lynn, you haven't voted. I'm sorry. You also didn't call on me. Oh, I'm sorry, Alicia. Yes. Oh, and I didn't vote aye. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. It is unanimous. We also are going to go on to the next item. And that is the other item that was put, placed on the, kept on the floor. I just want to find it. Okay. And that is to adopt appropriation transfer order FY23-05C and order appropriating funds for a proportion of the town of Amherst capital program, school track and field rehabilitation recommended by finance committee on October 17th, 2022 and shown on page nine of the draft motion sheet. The motion was made by myself, Lynn Griezmer and seconded by Anna Devlin-Gothier. It is now back on the floor. Is there any discussion on the motion? Bertha, you will have your hand up. Okay. Jennifer. Yes. I just had a question would now be the time to. Yes. Yeah. So I was, where it's, I just had a question about the fundraising that's happened on the part of the other towns. I was just, if I could have a little more information on that. Sean, I think you're the best person to answer that at this point. Yeah. So my understanding is that the regional school district business manager, Doug Slaughter has either submitted or is going to submit based on their upcoming timeline, CPA requests to each of those communities. I don't know for how much or what portion, but he is Doug Slaughter is working with the other communities to come up with what they've identified as their shares of the project. The requests in front of you today is the final piece of the town of Amherst Share as outlined in the plan that the regional school district put together. And I want to note that we did have a counselor who asked that specific question. They are not able to be here at this meeting, but it is the final payment for our share. It is not an additional payment. Okay. I'm just wondering if you have any questions or comments from the public. I'm just wondering if you have any questions from the public. Yeah. I could be just clarify for the public when the public comment will be because there are two hands in the public. Andy, do you want to have public comment right after we're finished with this before we go on? Actually, I'm glad that the question has been raised. I was wondering if we should have separate public comment for the council meeting on issues that are on the council agenda one, which we've discussed and the one that's on the table and then have separate comment on financial issues, including the capital projects, which will be discussed later. Okay. That's fine with me. So shall any we'll have public comment as soon as we conclude this discussion and vote. Thank you. And I had a question too about this. I believe that there was going to be fund raising from the players and the parents. And if he raised the funds, then we were going to go one way. And then if he didn't have the funds, we're going to go. Do we know anything about that? Like which way it's going to go. And also the question that was raised yesterday about the material being used, we did we decide that the health board is going to look at that and make a decision on that. So those are the two questions. Paul or Sean. I can answer the first one and maybe Paul, you can help with the second one, but. So they're my understanding is there is a group that's starting to look into the fundraising. I don't believe any funds have been raised yet. So, but if we, if the town of Amherst approves the allocation today, there is still more work that needs to be done to get to the, the benchmark that the regional school committee is set. And again, that will be up to the regional school district to either. You know, to solicit the, to get the funds from the other towns or for the fundraisers to generate those funds or for the regional school committee to, you know, reconsider their vote because they set the, they set the date and the threshold that they have to meet. And then the second question about the materials. So. So I think it's a good question. Certainly in the news a lot today. You know, I was looking into a little bit. There's, there's certainly information going both ways. It's hard to kind of get definitive information on it. The only thing I'll say is that it's, it's on regional school district property and it's the regional school district has voted specifically for the synthetic turf. So I think any discussion or, or. You know, questions about the impacts of synthetic turf. We should think about posing those to the regional school committee. As they move forward. Thank you. Dorothy. I was asked by Pam Rooney, just to pass on the words that she supported the 900,000 last year, but has seen no signs of fundraising. And she supported repairs, not the full blown makeover. And she would like to see the 900,000 put into the capital stabilization fund. So I think that's it. Thank you. Thank you. She, council Rooney was also the one who asked whether this was part of our commitment and the answer to that question is yes, it is part of what we voted earlier. Kathy. I want to make a comment that I think is accurate, but I want to have it confirmed by Sean. When we talked about this earlier at finance. We talked about this earlier at finance. We talked about this earlier at finance. That if the other towns fail to raise the amount of money, or the fundraising doesn't. This is contingent money or 900,000 on it happening. And then it reverts back. And I think we did discuss it would go into a stabilization fund. So I just want to. Make sure confirm that that, because we set a deadline of January. Which is we're now almost November. So I'm just trying to get a sense of the amount of money. I'm just trying to get a sense of the amount of money. I'm just trying to get a sense of the amount of evidence. This, the question. Goes away. We, the 900,000 aren't spent. Will we be writing this in a way that makes it contingent? That's my, I know the CPA money. Excluded the synthetic material. It can't. It can't be spent on it. So. So I'm just trying to get a sense. So CPA goes away. 900,000 goes away. I'm just trying to get a sense of the amount of money. I'm just trying to get a sense of the amount of money that stays. Is that correct? And then I have one other question. So Sean, is that correct? Yeah. So this amount is approved today. If the, if the larger project does not move forward. Think of this as like a capital project. That gets approved by the council, you know, for a truck or something. We, we create an account. We put the money into it. If that. Project does not pursued that project would get closed out. So that would be the, the capital stabilization fund or some other reserve fund from there, but it can only be used on the purpose that we specified. And I believe we amended the motion to make it very clear that the project that we're considering today is option three, which is what the regional school committee wrote into their debt authorization, which is the turning the track and having a synthetic surface in the middle. So if there's any other project besides that one, that would be considered to see if it's still consistent with the purpose. So that's the 900,000 being requested today. The CPA, as you, as you noted, that was previously approved. That's a debt authorization. So if that, if this project doesn't move forward, that debt authorization authorization would be rescinded and that would also go away. And we'd be left over with the original 1.5 million contingency to it's contingent on the larger project, not. Yeah. The CPA one, the reason why it says can't use for synthetic turf is not eligible for CPA funds, but it's for that project of option three. So my second question is I've been overseas, but watching the issue of the health effects of synthetic turf, we had a quick discussion on ACL tears earlier on on. So even if the region has said they want to go this route, could Amherst's award be contingent on a finding of the health department that there was not a, likely a negative health. Could we make it contingent, Sean? And so raise this issue at the regional school level with that wording. I'll look to Sonia to see if that's ever been done before, but I would say no, I think it would be tough to have a contingent order to, to approve something based on that. Now, I think if that's the, if that's the will, I would say hold on the vote until you get, get that and then vote based on that. But we can look into, I just don't know if we've done contingent orders like that before. Well, cause we probably haven't had to mine. Certainly in my time, the four years, we haven't had anything with this kind of issue in it. Right. In concept, we want to fix the track, but it issues come up about the materials. So, so I just would like clarification on that because it's actually the first time I'm reading some of this material. Thank you. Michelle. Yeah, I'm sort of lost in all this in the sense that this came back here because of the postponement issue, but the finance committee, we had already made a recommendation. Right. Okay. So, and then I read Tony's email, Tony Cunningham's email, which added a lot of information for me that brought, you know, questions and concerns. So, Kath, I'm just wondering, did you have a chance to read that email? And is that what you were just addressing? Yeah, exactly. That was, that was literally the first time I've heard some of those issues. The main issues I'd heard before up until now had been. And those had been improved is that there were more ACL tears because of the, the, what the turf did, but apparently, according to my husband, who follows artificial turf, even that issue is less than it used to be. And when we talked about artificial turf, the argument for it was it allows for more seasonal use that it's less, less often out of commission than is grass. But I don't think we ever talked about to what extent we could in our partnership agreements with UMass and Amherst, which we don't now have on, could we ever use their, their fields? Do we have to build our own with artificial turf? But Michelle, yes, that was new information to me that I hadn't had before. I want to make sure we remember that it is not our decision on the artificial turf. It is the school district's decision. And if we want to take this up, or if individuals want to take it up with the regional school district, they should do so. Okay. But, but just sorry to follow up Lynn, just to make sure I understand. So our vote on this is it's, it's not conditioned. Like it's basically unconditional. So we're saying $900,000, whatever you all decide to do with it, we're approving that amount and there's really not much else that we have the power to do other than to try to advocate for something that's not synthetic. Is that the only condition on this vote is that if the rest of the money is not raised, then this money will not be spent for that. And it will revert to the town coffers. That's the only condition on this. All right. Thank you. All right. Are there any more questions about this vote? We clarified earlier since that this one only requires a majority. Which in this case, I want to clarify with the town clerk. Is that a majority of those present or is it a majority of the council? I'm sorry. Majority of those present. Thank you. And. All right, Kathy. Okay. You've told me we can't make it contingent. Sean said. No, I. I said. Contingency at this time. Is on. The issue that if the rest of the money is raised. Right, but I'm talking on the health. So if we said, we want to postpone this discussion to the regional. Committee has taken up the issue of health. And had they even considered it when they went this route. So it's my, it's just, it's, I didn't have this information before. If you want to make that motion, then I would suggest you make that motion. Okay. Okay. Jennifer. I guess, you know, just picking up on Kathy about motions. 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. Could it also be a motion to postpone till we. Get a determination or recommendation from our board of health. You can put other contingencies on this motion. That is to absolutely fine. What I'm hearing is that there be a motion to postpone. The question now is, is there a motion to postpone to a state certain. That's a motion to postpone. That's a motion to postpone to a state certain. That's a motion to postpone to a state certain. That's a motion to postpone to a state certain. That's a motion to postpone or seventh. But if there's a motion to postpone, because you want conditions like. The weighing in of the board of health. Or for consideration by the regional school district. And that is another different motion. So the floor is this point. The motion is on the floor. It's been made and seconded. Michelle. What are the. Potential negative consequences of postponing? Is this, and I'm sorry. I don't have the exact timeline in front of me. I'm personally, I, I'll ask Sean that. I'm not trying to answer personally. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think a couple of things. There is the deadline of January, I think 16th. So that's the deadline. The school committee set in order to raise the funds. I think delaying it. Does make it harder probably for the fundraising. If there's. I think the fundraising is around a specific. Yes. It's a moderate difference. But there will be a model option three. If there's uncertainty, whether the town is going to cope with it share that sort of, you know, side tracks the fundraising efforts, that being said, there's no fundraised yet. So, but I do think it makes it difficult to get that going. Michelle, does that answer your question? Yeah. Thank you. the Board of Health's recommendations if we could request it in a time frame that we wouldn't that we could still meet the January fundraising deadline. I mean it's October if I don't know if this is Michelle you're the liaison I don't know if you would know to the Board of Health if this is something they've been discussing but if we could ask for their opinion 30 days from now I don't know what exactly the protocol for that would be let me try the following okay I'm going to try it as a motion and I'm going to look for Athena to help me correct it I moved to postpone the motion made and seconded last evening with regard to the track and field through November 21st at 6 30 is there a second second okay let me explain my motion and that is I move to move it till then and then working with the town manager of see what we can learn from the Board of Health so that by the time we come back that gives them a month to meet discuss and perhaps even the school district can discuss and that gives us a month but them a month but also means we revisit it in a reasonable amount of time Dorothy I just wanted to clarify when looking at motions to postpone I guess it was last night it said one the reason to one could entertain a motion to postpone is when you need to get additional information yeah so this sounds like a legitimate request to postpone right that's correct Michelle what was the date Lynn November 21st that's the that's our second meeting in November okay the Board of Health meets again on November 10th just to keep that in mind that's the next meeting excellent thank you Andy yeah um the only suggestion I make on the wording of the motion instead of saying uh track and field I would say appropriation and transfer order FY 2305C I accept that as a friendly amendment uh who seconded Jennifer second and you accept that as a friendly amendment thank you are there any other questions or comments seeing none I'm going to move to a vote and the vote is postponed to November 21st and um I'm going to start with show any bongan yes pat de angeles hi on a delin goth here I'm Lynn greesmer's I'm andy johannike hi anika lopes is not hillan michelle miller I dorthy pamm yes pamm runy is not here kathy shane yes andy steinberg yes jennifer tov yes alisha walker yes thank you we've concluded the votes we're going to move to public comment this will be the first of two public comments it's particularly public comment related to the full town council business and I see two hands and the first one is vera cage we are going to stick to a three-minute time limit and although we may not have a clock up I'm going to use my handy phone alarm so I'm sorry if you hear the alarm go off Vera please enter the room state your name and where you live hi vera cage 12 long meadow drive apartment 21 amherst mass zero one zero zero two I attended last night's town council meeting and I listened to the statement today of the town council member who made the motion to suspend the vote to this particular meeting I'm going to share your statement town councilor panicky and I want to be able to count the words that you were able to come up with to describe your pain your feeling of being unsafe of being unsupported and I'm going to compare the number of words you're able to describe your situation for the nine members of the amherst nine when that comes up again because they too feel unsafe they too feel pain they too have suffered they too have been harmed so I'd like for you to consider what they may be going through when they were stopped and detained and they were not allowed to move freely even after the situation was determined that this was not a group of teens that were causing mayhem in the community you heard chief living stone say that he would do it again you heard chief living stone say that he felt that that was the right thing to do so basically parents of our children who resemble who look who may be these teens can expect from the amherst police that their child their teen is not safe to move freely in their own home town in their home community in their neighborhoods in the place where they live that is what I heard from chief living stone I appreciate that the diversity equity and inclusion officer included a parent's name in the her report I've since spoken to that parent and I'm not sure which parent of the two that the police or the DEI is asserting that they've reached out to that supported the actions of the police and I will leave my comments at that thank you thank you Vera the other hand that is up is Philip Avila who is a member of the CSSJC and co-chair of the human rights commission Philip please enter the room state your name and where you live hello can you hear me we can my name is Philip Avila five feet in port I have had really no intention on speaking until this statement was read so I just want this narrative of a motion needing to be thought of of groups coming together from town appointed committees to discuss to enact an advisory type of statement or advice to the town council with town lawyers that needing more time to decide that you need to think about that you need to think about that we need committees outside of the majority white town council dealing with a BIPOC issue that would be majority BIPOC groups coming together to advise white town counselors on this issue that is going to be the definition of white supremacy what you did last night was white supremacist you silence BIPOC individuals into your privilege of enacting such article and your privilege of your whiteness to allow that to happen I want the town counselors to really reflect on that I want the town counselors to really ask themselves are they doing enough to fight against their privilege of inequalities because what happened last night was unequal thank you thank you Philip I see no other hands for public comment therefore I'm going to turn the meeting back over to Andy and Andy it's your turn to chair well thank you I'm returning to my role as a finance committee member thank you so what we're going to do next is that one of the two major agenda items that I cited earlier was to hear from Sean mangana but also one offer town manager an opportunity to speak at any if you'd like to take this first we had been looking at various models for how we could fund four major building projects because of changed circumstances who have been presented to the committee in a prior meeting we know that we need to think about different alternatives on how to approach the goal of funding the four major projects in the future and so the purpose of today's meeting this section of today's meeting is to present those alternatives that were identified and then to have questions from the council and the committee regarding that so what I will be doing after the presentation is to recognize any member of the committee or the council in the order that I see hands go up and because today is to understand the presentation that's been made and the choices before us it is not the intention of the finance committee to actually make a recommendation today but because this is the first step of just understanding what our options might be so with that I'm going to ask town manager if he has anything he wants to say first sure thank you Andy and Sean will be going through a set of slides that will outline where we are some assumptions that we've built into the work I'd recognize that Sonya is here as well and value her insight into this you know the world has changed a lot since the last time we started to make projections on the four capital projects our mission continues to be until we hear otherwise that we want to move forward on all four capital projects we want to lay out to you some scenarios in which we think they can move forward with that being said we do recognize that the world continues to change we don't know what is going on with inflation we do not know nobody knows what's going on with interest rates we've tried to build those buffers in so we the the presentation we are making to you today we think are achievable under today's circumstances so with that I would turn it over to Sean to go through the the set of slides thank you okay can you see the presentation on the screen so just to reiterate what we talked about at the council meeting a couple weeks ago we tried to sort of develop reframe how we want to about things or things we talked about some of them are new but quick recap the first one is urgency how quickly can we complete all four projects impact on bond rating which is really our bond rating is very complex in terms of how it gets determined but some of the key levers within our bond rating that are impacted by capital are our budgetary flexibility liquidity and debt service and and that's debt services are annual debt costs versus total outstanding debt which is the aggregate of all of our debt overall costs so some some options cost more than others so if we you know if we incurred debt for an option and it's over 30 years that's going to cost more than if we incurred debt for an option over 20 years because the the interest is is more expensive however when you spread out over 30 years you it's a smaller chunk each year so it makes it a little more manageable each year other capital funding how much can we continue to set aside for the other capital needs in town vehicle replacements building instincts of that nature usage of reserve so last night the council voted to establish the capital stabilization fund which was really helpful in moving this process forward and you voted to move about nine point three million dollars into that capital stabilization fund so now we have a number that we can look to and say that's how much we currently have you'll see some options today propose using more than that and which means we would have to use that fund and build it up over a number of years to achieve those models and then flexibility to Paul's point we try to build in well each model does it does it different does this differently but there's ways to build in more flexibility into each model meaning if interest rates rise is there something else we can adjust so that we can continue with that model so for very if this model is more conservative there's more room for things to change for the worse and still move forward if we're very aggressive with the model meaning we sort of max out you know try to get every piece of cost savings we can to make it work if things get worse from that point there's really nowhere to go and the models kind of kind of defunct at that point so we try to build in a certain level of flexibility but some models have so just some basic sort of fundamentals about the models that we're going to look at so in all cases we've assigned these total project costs to the to the different projects so for the fire we've assigned 20 million that's up from when we first started this process we had started with 15 so that's been raised up to 20 public works we started at 20 we've raised that up to 30 the Jones library is still at 15.8 because that's what's been approved and the interest rate that we're assuming is 4% right now to Paul's point that's changing every day as people look you know hear negative news from the Fed about what they're doing and that has an impact on what we're doing the school project we're assuming will be funded through debt exclusion so you won't see much on the schools here because because it's going to be funded through a separate revenue source if it's approved so really the focus here is how do we make the other three projects work using our existing funds the four models that we're going to look at the first one just call the baseline to show what if we did serve use roughly the reserves we currently have in hand kept our capital funding at 10% of the tax levy which was our original goal and if we set aside three and a half million for other capital needs which is a larger amount than what we were anticipating before that we feel that we'll fund our other capital needs at a better level the second model is what if we don't use any reserves if we want to keep the reserves we built up as sort of that buffer that I talked about in order to make that work we would have to increase capital funding as a percentage of the levy and we'd have to reduce how much we set aside for other capital needs and we'll you'll see what that looks like and then the last two up what if we try to use the capital stabilization fund as a as a piggy bank that we build up so that we can just outright pay for a project and not borrow for it that significantly reduces the debt that we take on but it also reduces our reserves in a big chunk all at once and so you'll see what that looks like if we were to try to do that for the fire station which costs 20 million or if we were to try to do that for the Jones library which costs about 15.8 but we would still have to pay for some of the short-term financing costs for the Jones library and there's some other costs there that we'd have to cover so in either circumstance it comes out to about 20 million of reserves that we would have to have in order to do that any questions on so the baseline before I start diving into the models that there's a question then Bob Hagner in that order okay um Sean I let you go into your modeling but I looked at this last night and I want to raise the question on all of school is debt finance is debt service um and and the timing because for a couple things we're we're still assuming and and I do understand Paul and Sean that this is coming from the council that we're doing all four and we're doing all four kind of in the same time period we've also got another assumption that fire has to be where DPW is so therefore we have to find another place for DPW we could revisit those those are working assumptions and I don't know whether the DPW cost it went from 20 to 30 million rather than from 20 to 25 million I don't know how much of that is because the price of buying a piece of land to put it on since we don't have a piece of land to put it on is driving it up so I want to come back to some of those after you go through the modeling because I could imagine a different kind of process where fire for example went down we own Hickory Ridge we own some developer property there we said we could sequence it differently they don't have to be coming online at the same time and we could use some of this capital reserve for school I know we can't fall fund all of school from internal but I'm looking to lower the amount we need to raise from taxes so that will be too much for tonight's discussion but I think calling in some of the basic assumptions going in of making sure people understand this is assuming DPW and fire are rolling out over this time period and school is all debt service debt exclusion and that is a decision we can make and it's a working assumption we have made but I'd like to come back to it and the same thing with this DPW has to find a new place so fire has to go where DPW is because I think we could stage the construction differently if that was not the situation so I'll just enough said because I noticed that fire went up by 5 million but DPW went up by 10 million in your revised number so it's getting back up there as a pretty expensive project that's it yeah um can I quickly respond to that Andy yeah sure I think the point you raised the first point you raised is one I just want to reiterate which again all these models are based on the the directive that we've received to what are ways to do all for I think when you look at these models you know your reaction I think is a reasonable one based on just where we are economically now if there's a different direction that says look at some try to propose some models that do something different we can do that as well but to your original point these all are how do we do all for okay thank you Sean if you could go back to the previous slide I'm a little confused about how much in these each each of these four options how much are we actually borrowing you said I thought you said we would not borrow anything for any of these scenarios is that correct or nope we would we would borrow so how much are we borrowing under each one so in the baseline option we're borrowing for all three projects so the sort of the face value of what we would borrow would be the 20 million for the fire station plus the 30 million for public works plus the 15.8 so roughly 60 65.8 million that's the same for model number two the difference for number three number four is that number three we wouldn't borrow for the fire station so it would be just the public works plus the library and for number four we wouldn't borrow for the library so just be the fire station the public works okay thanks okay so I will go to so I'm going to go through these charts kind of quickly but I'll go through this first one very slowly but I think the the table at the end is sort of the comparison which I'll spend more time on so this may be a little small but this is the tool that you've seen in the past that has different levers so we've plugged in the assumptions for the baseline which is the so this the one fixed thing that is in all of these models is the library debt because we have a debt authorization approved the library and the amount of 15.8 million we've worked with our financial advisor to model that out using assumptions around the fundraising and CPA and so we have a good debt schedule for the Jones library that includes short term interest so if you look at the purple bar it might be difficult to see but you'll see a couple bigger years at the beginning 2026 and 2027 that are larger than the other years that's because those years have a lot of short term interest which is needed in order to keep the project moving while fundraising comes in and historical tax credits come in so that's all been baked into the to the library debt in this the scenario uh the the fire station has again the price tag of 20 million this model proposed it is showing that starting in 2035 and it would be a 30 year borrowing at 4 percent the public works building is at the 30 million that we discussed that would start in 2030 in this option and again these years are based you know you change the year changes how far above the line you are the more you space it out the less you are above the line in this situation that black line is the amount of funding that we have from capital the black line is the equals the amount that is the percentage of the tax levy that we dedicate to capital so right now it's at 10 percent if we change that number to 10 and a half percent that black line would move up a little bit if we changed it to nine percent it would drop down and that line determines how far above or below funding we have or how the funding how far the bars are above that black line or below that black line is how close we are to funding it um and again the school you won't see on here because at least in this model we're proposing it to be funded through a debt exclusion this chart looks at what can we do with our existing capital funds not the funds to be raised through a debt exclusion so that the the quick takeaway is with these assumptions 10 percent of the tax levy for capital set in the side three and a half million for other capital needs which is made up by those yellow bars that you see there that's ongoing capital and then you'll see we also have built in our debt which are those green bars at the bottom that's an assumption around the the debt that we'll have to continue to pay for other capital needs we would have to space these out quite a bit in order to make it feasible and that's why last time we spoke I think I said you know our horizon for what is quick for these four projects is going to have to stretch out and this is an example of what that that meant any questions on this model the one you know one positive about this model I'll say it does not do very well in the urgency category but one positive is that you know there's no years where the yellow bars are our way above our way above the you know the funding that we have available which means in those particular years you know we could choose to use reserves maybe we would pull back on funding for their capital needs there might be other things to that could be manipulated to make it work more easily because there's not I think the biggest year maybe is a million dollars over and you'll see in some of the other options it's there's bigger years than that so Sean are you saying this this model one is not using any of the reserves even though we've got nine and a half million in a capital reserve so right now this theoretically would so say we didn't you know if we did want to keep everything all the assumptions the way they are you know three and a half million for their capital needs we would have to use a little bit of the reserves each year and that totals the 11.8 million in the bottom left hand corner so it would use all it would use all of what we have currently plus a little bit more but it's over a longer period of time so there's there's room for that to to be built up okay so I'm going to go so that's the baseline model one there's not really any reason for calling it baseline other than there's the first one I worked on so model two a low reserve view so this Kathy is more what you were just talking about what if we wanted to pursue an option that we didn't lock in use of any of our reserves we wanted to hold that back and keep it in case you know interest rates come in higher or there's an economic downturn and we can't fund capital at the same percentage just for as long to protect those reserves longer so to do that we would have to drop down the funding that we set aside for other capital needs to three million and the first model it was three and a half so those yellow bars are a little bit smaller in this chart we would have to increase the percentage of the tax levy that we dedicate to capital up to ten and a half percent the first model it was 10 percent so that moves that black line up and and I think everything else is pretty much the same the the amount of money we set aside for other capital needs is a variable that has a big impact because if you can imagine 500,000 on an annual basis it adds up to a lot so that that is one of the key variables that we'll want to look at so Kathy okay just um at a future point you with the 10.5 percent for the tax levy you showed us once a year or two years ago what that does to the amount left for operating budgets um I just want to do that squeezes operating budgets um during that time period correct I so it it does more than if we didn't do it so if if we go to 10.5 percent let's say for FY 24 we'll be working on the financial indicators the presentation soon if we go to 10.5 percent that half percent that we're going up could have gone to operating budgets or something else now that's not to say we won't still be able to do two and a half percent for operating budgets because it's driven by our revenues state aid new growth and other local receipts but it is a choice to put more into capital versus some other place so just we're almost there you know when we first looked at this I think we were we were right before the pandemic I think we might have been around 10 but then we dropped down but now we're back up to 10 so it's not as big of a jump now to go to 10.5 but the the one thing for all these models is we have to be disciplined and have to stick to whatever we set aside for capital for a long time so when we have the pandemic we we capital is one of the areas we look to for a very short term but we look to um to kind of cushion the impacts of the pandemic if we were locked in on this moving forward we wouldn't really have that flexibility or we would have to do like no other capital at all but that is another key point to remember is that if once we start going down this road and and moving forward with with the DPW and the fire station start locking in those projects we really have to stick to the to what we set aside for capital there's really no other choice all right so model three is the if we wanted to use the capital stabilization fund um you know as a reserve that we're going to build up and when it gets to a certain point that's when we would move forward with the fire station I'll one of the things I like about this option there's a few things I like about this this concept we don't incur as much debt so that's that's helpful for our our bond rating one thing to mention in all these circumstances we're maintaining 15 percent of reserves for for rainy days or for economic downturns that's the policy we discussed last night where we're only looking at the reserves above and beyond that so so we would have this capital stabilization fund and we would build it up over time and when we had the money in place that's when we would move forward with that project so it's making sure that we have the money in hand it doesn't put as much stress on the on the operating budget or on the the fund set aside for capital because we would be building up a pot of money specifically for a project so in this one you'll see the fire station has been taken off the chart because it wouldn't have come from our our funds for capital it come out of that capital stabilization fund which would be a separate source so you see the fire department will come off this chart we had the 30 million for the DPW in 2030 and the Jones library project stays the same and this assumes 10 and a half percent for capital and three million for other capital needs yeah i just wanted to make sure i'm understanding the graph so in all of these four models at a certain point in time in this one it's about 2033 i guess we start to see that the total expenses for the four projects plus the three point other in this case is the three million for other capital needs is falling behind below the 10.5 percent line does that mean that there's essentially more uh available more cash available you know more uh tax levy available for other things yeah so with the with this line the line grows because it's based on the tax levy and so we have a conservative assumption that the tax levy will increase two and a half percent per year it could increase more than that um so there's potential with new development and new growth the black line will increase faster than what you see here um there's also the potential if there's a you know there's a downturn of some sort that it could flatten out in some years as well um but sort of the general assumptions that it will to be conservative was we've built in a two and a half percent increase so that's why it slowly grows um so yeah at a certain point if it continues to grow and if you look back you'll see kind of where we used to be so it's kind of pans out that it does grow over time um at a certain point it'll grow to where we'll then have more flexibility under uh with our existing capital resources right so so just to make sure I understand so basically under in this particular model we'd have sort of a crunch period up until about 20 30 33 20 30 well 30 can't read these 31 32 something about that then after that we'd have more flexibility yep okay thank you yeah and this model in particular I think through 20 29 would be okay because we would just have the jones library project on the books at that point the really crunch years to your point would be the 20 30 through 20 33 or so because that's when we would have the jones library plus the dpw so there'd be a little bit less flexibility in those four years and then if things continue to grow um we we would get back into a more comfortable place all right and then the last one um is if we use our reserves to um fund the the jones library instead of the fire station so in this model the reason why it's it's still 20 million um we would still need 20 million of reserves even though the jones library is only cost 15.8 is because this model you can see is three million dollars above the line so we would need reserves to cover that that three million dollars um plus the 15.8 million for the the building itself plus um some money for the for the short term borrowings for that project while fundraising and historical tax credits come in so it comes out to about the same number as in the fire station it just gets used over a different period of time um so this one uh it it allows us to move things maybe forward a little bit more I think that's the the key difference with this model um so the the dpw and this option we start in 2025 uh this project's doing the fire station in 2029 and the the library would stay on the same schedule but we would have to um increase our reserves in the next you know two to three years to be able to pay for that uh we have to get our reserves up in the next two to three years to be able to cover the the cost of the jones library project and the related um debt service costs um the some of the three million we wouldn't need until 2029 2030 that's that those are the big years where there's some reserves needed for the rest of this model but we would need to at least get to about uh 16 or 17 million in the next three years in order to fund the initial wave of reserves in this model um building on bob's question on the black line that's going up where we get to our buildings are below the back line in those years can we start to spend more on other capital needs so you know if i take the difference you know scrunching my eyes you know am i still going to be live in some of these years would be another question but if i get out to 2037 where we're below your line we're basically starting to build up reserves again the way i understand what that line is and so we could be drawing on them for other capital needs um um so this flat three million i'm i'm trying to understand this so i should ask it as a question could so could we start to spend more than three million in those years um and and i know it's a simple model so you can't say we're going to spend three for four of the years and we're going to spend 3.5 for five of the years or something but is that is that a correct interpretation of the space below the amount we're accumulating yeah yeah so you could spend more you could also in those years you could use it to build up reserves more to build up the capital stabilization fund um to help down the road um again the the the three million or three and a half million for other capital needs again it's just used for these models to kind of set aside a rough amount that that amount will fluctuate year to year when we actually go through the capital planning process so you know there could be ways when we look at these models where maybe in the early years that's a little bit lower to build up that capital stabilization fund even more um but you're right any your your interpretation of the chart is correct any years that you see below the black line you could theoretically do more for capital or you could or you could reduce how much you don't recommend sort of playing around with that very much and i guess just i see matt's got his hand up too but could you the school is not here at all but could you um pay down pre-pay some of your debt so if you actually if this world was the world we're living in uh the way you pay off a mortgage instead of a 30-year mortgage you get it down to 25 so in those out years there's some flexibility um yeah okay yeah there's there's every um there's there's um some restrictions on what we can do but there's usually always some debt we could pay down um and we would look for the ones with the highest interest rates to start with matt so i may have uh misheard this or missed it but your um assumption for the ongoing capital i heard you say 3.5 uh that doesn't doesn't quite look like 3.5 but is that is this an inflationary like what just yeah so the the three and a half also grows so it's three and a half in the the initial year and then that grows by two and a half percent each year as well so we've built in a little bit of an inflationary factor into what we've set aside for other capital as well thinking that prices will go up and it'll sort of go yeah the same rate as what we have for capital um so yeah the yellow bar definitely gets bigger as it goes on um so there's there's a little bit of conservatism in that that we are assuming that that amount grows a little bit each year um and the other thing to remember is this also that three and a half million does not include debt for other capital needs so the green bars there um have all the debt for all the projects that have been approved already like the ladder truck um or really anything that's on our five-year capital plan um even it hasn't been approved yet we've modeled the debt and included it here in the green bar um so for example I think like the Crocker farm roof is on there um several years out we've modeled that debt and included it here so that we're trying to get you know as close to a um a good debt number so I know the three million three and a half million sounds tight but it's separate from the debt that's already been approved and there's an estimate of debt going forward so there's a little bit of room there okay thank you and then my other question is this is looking 15 years out do you have a sense of you know 15 years back in terms of ongoing capital costs what kind of you know growth um or or I don't know what kind of patterns we see in looking backwards at capital outlay yeah so we've it's also dictated by you know what we set aside for capital so when we look back there's been different years where we've um we've tried to ramp up what we set aside for capital over the last 10 years there was a time when it was a very small number and Sony may be able to fill and provide some of the context but there was a time when you know it was probably closer to five or six percent of the levy if not smaller that was set aside for capital um and and now we've intentionally tried to grow it partially to prepare for this but also partially just because we felt we needed to put more into capital um and to to maintain our assets so so it's sort of a function of of how much we say is available but we can look at the the prior capital plans and sort of add up the totals that were on there to to get a sense so uh almost done with the chart on the slide so this table sort of compares those the four models that you just looked at using the different criteria that were identified at the beginning so urgency the first two models get all four projects completed in the 2030s and the reason why I kind of broad there is I don't want people to get stuck on a specific year because all these things can fluctuate a little bit forward or backwards depending how things go so model one and model two you know you're talking about next decade model three and model four we're thinking late this decade impact on bond rating so model one has the highest impact because we're using a big chunk of our reserves we're also taking on a lot of debt and and debt long into the future that's why that one has the highest impact all of them have an impact the the the reason why the next three and there's no science to this but the reason why the next three are sort of in the medium range is because there's a little bit of wiggle room in terms of its impact so model two doesn't use a big chunk of our reserves that's a positive thing for our bond rating keeps flexibility for us model three and model four don't take on as much debt so that's why those have a little bit less of an impact overall costs so the first two models you're talking around 110 million model three about in the 90s and then model four about 100 and 506 and the big differentiator differentiator here is the the fire station that's a larger project you're paying for it outright you're not incurring interest costs on that for as long but you're also pulling 20 million out 20 million out of reserves and right now we've got a reserve fund with nine and a half million in it so yeah yeah other capital funds so the first model sets aside three and a half the next three or three so the first model from that perspective is the the best one used of reserves to Kathy's point how much are we pulling out so model one pulls out roughly what we currently have model two really doesn't pull out any reserves and then model three and model four would pull out about 20 million total so we would have work to do to build those that fund up in order to make those models possible and then the last one flexibility so model one and model two we've put it medium the first one because we only set aside 10 percent the levy for capital we didn't max out you know we're going to go up to 10 and a half and we also kept the amount of money for other capital needs of three and a half million instead of three million so that's a positive thing in terms of flexibility to move up and down model two obviously there's some flexibility because of using less reserves model three and model four very low flexibility because we're we're using a lot of reserves and and we're still incurring some debt and we're at least one of those options was that 10 and a half percent 10 and a half percent of the of the tax levy for capital and they also drop down our other capital funding out of three million so there's not much room to go much we don't want to go much lower than that so those two on the flexibility front are quite low and then trying to wrap my head around this a little bit I put together this little chart that's sort of the the two levers that these models look at are how much reserve use do we deploy and or versus how much debt do we take on and there's pros and cons to each of those so if you're in the starting with the the bottom square the lower left if we don't use a lot of debt and we don't use a lot of our reserves it's great from a financial standpoint purely financial standpoint but it would you know we would never complete the projects we have four projects that have been delayed for many decades that need to get done and the only way to get them done in a you know a reasonable time span is to do some combination of debt and reserves but it does maintain a lot of flexibility going up so if we use a lot of reserves going to the top left hand square there if we use a lot of reserves we will have lower overall cost because we're not incurring as much debt not incurring the debt service charges we may be able to complete the projects a little bit more quickly not the not the quickest way but a little bit more quickly it'll allow us to have more funding for other capital needs because again we're not incurring debt so we're not taking a chunk of the fund set aside for the for the from the tax levy which would go towards debt we're not doing that since we're using more reserves and it would help us lower what we have to set aside for capital because again we're not pulling as much debt out of that but it the major con is that it really hinders our flexibility to respond to any type of emergency going to the lower right hand side if we use a lot of debt not a lot of reserves so we keep more flexibility because we have those reserves again we can complete the projects a little bit more quickly than if we didn't use debt or reserves but the cons are we're going to have higher overall cost because we're borrowing for all the projects we're going to have less funding for other capital needs because a big chunk of what we set aside for capital is going to go towards debt and we may have to push up what we set aside for capital and then obviously using going to the top right if we use a lot of reserves and a lot of debt that's sort of the it gets the projects done the fastest but from a financial standpoint it's the worst so I know this is probably all obvious stuff but I think what we're thinking about is where do we land on here when we're looking at the different models and it's probably you know we want to be in a balanced place Alicia um thank you Sean I'm just wondering where or how we're coming up with the total project cost assumptions and if those take into consideration fluctuation in things like interest rates and inflation and if we have taken into consideration what or how each model would be affected if any of the projects come in higher than what we have as projected no that's a great question so these are the assumptions that we've used right now the model that's one of the reasons why we built in the flexibility criteria for exactly what you said so a model that doesn't doesn't have a lot of flexibility is going to be really negatively impacted by if things come in higher or if interest rates worsen which is that's why we're gauging that but for now we've put the fire station at 20 and public works at 30 we're trying to work with our designer to get some updated numbers for those two projects but again those two projects we do not have detailed schematic designs or or detailed cost estimates so they're they're really high level figures at this point and we would have to work to develop a project to those numbers the Jones library numbers we do have a detailed cost estimate for and again the school is not shown here but we we do have a more detailed cost estimate for this interest rate is roughly where interest rates are right now they've been trending up significantly so this could get worse and that would impact the feasibility of any of the models um but that's something we can we can adjust um thank you so then my follow-up would be um so there is a possibility that if we or if and when we have more information that these that this like model template could be updated and that we may not actually fall into any of these yeah no I think so what we put these out we put sort of different options out there today because we're really looking for your feedback on comfort level with using a lot of reserves or comfort level taken on a lot of debt and the hope today was to get your input on or maybe not comfortable with any of them right that could be an option too um and we're looking for that feedback to then maybe move into one direction more of the other and get into more details but it's your point is right which is there could be a completely different option that ends up being pursued or it could be a variation of what you've looked at today okay thank you so this is just like a base starting point we expect this to develop further yes absolutely thank you do have you finished the presentation uh yes yeah questions comments all right um first of all thank you modeling is um an art and a science so you've done an amazing job of laying this out and I really want to say how valuable this is for all of us and how valuable you are to us to be able to do this um the my one of my bigger questions all along has been and I have a couple whether there's any way to take a different project and I'm you know for all my years of working to build a new fire station this sounds like heresy but is there any way to take a different project like the fire station out for a debt exclusion so that we could reduce what we have to borrow our I'm sorry what we have to ask the taxpayers for for the school because that's my overall goal is trying to do that and and is trying to find and and just you know for everybody here we're working but legislatively now on both trying to get more money from the school from the legislature and trying to get more money from the legislature for the library so none of those efforts are in these models I want to just be clear about that but it doesn't mean we're not working on it so in other words take out take the fire station out for debt exclusion in a way that allows us to do something that's one thing and we're not going to sit here today and model it but I would not be true to my thinking if I didn't raise that question another issue that I think comes up for me because it comes up for Pat's and my district and every other district in town and that is the issue of our other capital demands namely streets and sidewalks and it's just so out there I'm dreading winner I just don't know whether our streets can take it so I'm concerned about that and we're hearing even from constituents that I don't feel like I can vote for the school with the roads in front of my house and the condition they're in so that to me does raise the issue of how many reserves how much reserves how much are we spending on other capital and are we truly in that other capital is there ever a point where we can get ahead of the curve on roads and sidewalks because I just feel like we're losing ground every day on roads and sidewalks so those are my two biggest questions and I'll stop with that so we could do a debt exclusion for the fire station for a vote and separate townwide vote and a separate decision the thing to remember with debt exclusions is is the town is giving permission to incur debt so you can't say necessarily you can provide information but unless you're going to let's say the fire station if you wanted to do that debt exclusion for the full cost of it again that would just go out to them for a vote but say you only want to do half the way you fund that other half you may or may not be able to communicate that to taxpayers with with assurance so if you were going to take the other half and still borrow for it coming from the tax levy the town is still going to have to vote on the full amount but if you were to take the other half and pay for it from reserves instead then you would reduce the debt authorization so you could more positively say in that circumstance the debt authorization for the fire station is only 10 million as opposed to 20 million so sorry that got kind of wonky but but just think about when you do bring out the fire station how are you bringing out the full amount or a portion of it and how you pay for that other portion impacts how you package it for taxpayers to consider and then your second question was on the was on the roads and sidewalks so we've tried to really invest heavily in roads and sidewalks the past few years I hope we're not falling behind I hope I hope we're making progress because we've increased the allocation of two million dollars and we've done a couple years with extra allocations now with the one that was approved last night and and last year we've put an extra two million dollars into it but your point is right which is when we do have less to set aside for capital there's going to be a tighter squeeze and so if you want to maintain a large investment in roads that's going to mean less available for other capital needs for buildings and vehicles and things of that nature and there's a give and take there and so I just I understand the voter question and we're going to get into that with schools in terms of it so what but what you're saying is unless we just take a chunk right out of reserves we still have to say to the voters will you spend x to build a fire station whatever the debt authorization is is what they're they're saying yes or no to well and this is a this is an educational process that the council is going to be going through actually very soon very soon exactly so because of how we do the schools thank you again Sean Bob it's okay if it's calling calling people Andy yes okay okay so um the concern I have in looking at the models is how far are we stretching out the construction of the DPW facility in the fire station and what's going to happen in between but that's my concern is that if we stretch it out too far they're they're going to collapse and we're going to have to do something so there's there's going to be a limit as to how far we can push those projects into the future and maybe we should try to have some sense of what that you know what that is I mean if that's a reality that that's a reality and let's sit down and look at what the implications of that are rather than just say well we can postpone the fire station until 20 start building until 2035 or something like that which may not be realistic no you're absolutely right I think in in those circumstances where they're pushed out that far it's going to require an investment in those buildings to get them there similarly with what we've did with Wildwood and Fort River there's been a continued investment in those buildings to keep them going there would have to be that and you know both the public works building and the fire station to get them to some of those models in the years that they're shown Kathy I want to build on Lynn's both idea and suggestion in a slightly different way you know I I know we can't do the school all internally because of the size but if we could pull five million out of our reserves and then you know I've been looking at what our share is going to be so that what the debt exclusion would be lower that we need to get from the taxpayers and then what you just said for the fire have it be partially a debt exclusion so it's a more complex modeling but I think it's just math on is there some combination looking at it because the one that's coming up is schools as Bob said we can't wait very long or the other buildings are going to collapse but we are going to have to come up with our share as a town of the school once we go to the MSBA and they determine their share so lowering it we Shawn is not showing us but there are internal models that show for each 10 million dollars of debt exclusion what does that mean for the taxpayer and so there's a big difference if you can get it down by 10 million rather than have it all go out so I just but I don't want to have that discussion tonight but I feel like it's we have to have it really soon and it should probably be a long discussion on you know what kind of choices are we willing or trying to make we know we're going to have enough information to be talking about it in November so just scheduling a chunk of time Andy where that's the main conversation and we're not asking Sean to do lots of different modeling but just say what do we think the package might look like for the town side so that's just my place so that's where you were going Lynn with getting some of that down and if we need to go back up to three and a half first and that was where looking under that line show on how quickly can we come back up but three and a half million for everything else having said on JCPC well you know these numbers better than I do we'll be lucky if we can get the same amount of roads that we've been getting unless Paul does one of his I think Paul you had two years where you said there will be no vehicles you just had a we're not going to do any for a couple years and then we had a backlog of vehicles but you know so just to trying to to juggle all this but that I I feel like the school is very real and none of us were in control of which project came first the library's grant came in before everything else but the one that's coming up that we will have to make a decision on is the school so I just want to see some thinking around that so that the whole council understands the choices in front of us on on the mixes thank you Alisha thank you Sean I just want to support everything that Kathy just said and echo a little bit further that I would like to have that conversation around the financing of the school which I know wasn't specifically included in this model but I think that because it is the project that we are going to address first the outcome of that project and specifically of that vote will affect this entire model and so I think it would be really important for us to have that conversation as soon as possible. Yeah so the only thing we're waiting on to come back with sort of the impacts of a debt exclusion for the school is is we're trying to wait for the new cost estimate to be done because what we don't want to do we have the old cost estimate but I worry that we come back and we show the impacts of those and then the new cost estimate comes in and it changes wildly and so we're not far away from I mean we're time is relative but we're not that far away from having the new cost estimate. Kathy unless you've heard otherwise I think we're supposed to get the preliminary numbers in December and then there's a vetting process that goes through but that the numbers will go through but that was sort of why we haven't shared them earlier is that we know this new cost estimate is coming up we know the costs are changing very rapidly right now and so we wanted to wait to have the best before we put a number out there and people say that's how it's going to impact my taxes we wanted to use the the last cost estimate or the final cost estimate that we're going to have before that vote happens so that there's not a dramatic shift in it. And Sean I wasn't saying go all the way I was saying we've got enough information right now to know the range of the Amherst share and to be able to say is some part of that coming out of reserves rather than all of it debt exclusion that's all I'm raising if we don't know for sure what our share is but we say suppose it was five million less off of debt exclusion so we just are playing a little bit with flexibility we've as people know we we've been looking for where there are grants there is one that's not really a grant and the TAN has already signed a memorandum of understanding with Eversource that if we can build an energy efficient building our net zero and our very tight building we get some upfront money on construction costs of the building because we're going for geothermal and they they're giving it to us as a construction you know it's it's while the building's being built but there may be other opportunities and we'll be looking for them but that's still we still have to finance the school so Sean I was thinking there's something in between a final number and playing with these numbers that isn't the school is an entirely a debt exclusion that we can we can look at something that says we're splitting it or we're we're doing some of it's from internal and some of its debt exclusion that's all not getting I don't think we'll be at the final number till early December in terms of a good a good cost number yeah. Bernie? Yeah thanks Sean. I want to thank you because the model has certainly done what I think is what I think is important which is begun to really put this on paper where people can see it and force people to start to thinking about what kind of assumptions they want to make and where they want to spend where they want to put our reserves so what we're likely to end up with is something that's a hybrid of all this but your your work is I think has caused a particularly good discussion I would be careful about putting numbers out there because people tend to anchor on the first number they hear is what they tend to remember so if we get if we have to wait until December to get a more firm estimate of the school I think we need to wait rather than try to push that discussion sooner we all know we're going to have to have it so again thanks for thanks for this effort it's been a great clarification and well we're likely to end up with nothing no model that's on the four that you've created you've pushed us in the right direction so thank you. Len? Yeah I guess the other piece that I I just want to put it out there okay and that is that I personally believe that we are at a no other choice on these projects than to build a new build new buildings okay I believe that about the schools I think if that school vote goes down we're going to be sitting here shaking over how much money we're going to have to spend to make the two schools that we're we need to tear down habitable we already know the DPW is just falling apart it's foundation is useless and our fire station none of us feel great about asking people to work in these conditions and so repair is not an option I just cannot be more clear about how we have to make sure that we can keep these buildings going until we replace them what replacing them is what we have to do thank you. Yeah I'm going to jump in because I want to move to start moving us to some conclusion of today's discussion that I do see a hand up from Michelle and giving to you in a second but I did want to just sort of interject that we need to move along with time one of the things that Lynn mentioned is the condition of the DPW facility and it is something that we're going to have to consider because we could have huge financial consequences either in short term band-aid repairs for a building that's falling apart anyway or the need to find a temporary solution if we end up having a crisis at the DPW building before we're able to come up with a solution for the DPW building so it is something that we do have to bear in mind. I'm going to recognize Michelle then if there are no further questions or comments from councilors or members of the committee recognize a few minutes for public comment and for getting the fourth quarter year-end financial report done and then I'm going to conclude with some comments about the scheduling for the committee. Michelle? Yeah Sean I was wondering if any more consideration of the Wildwood site has been given in the context of all of this and in the models has that been considered at all what will become of that site or the use of that site and maybe that's not a question you can answer right now but I just wanted to add that into the mix. I'm sorry my internet is unstable for some reason so cut out right in the middle if you could I heard Wildwood site and then I cut out. Yeah I just was wondering if you had given any consideration to the Wildwood site and the future potential use of that site and whether in any of your modeling that is something that is part of the fold and I said you may not be able to answer that question right now but I just wanted to add it to the mix. Yeah I mean early on we said that there are ways where we could use the sites of vacant sites that could help you know could potentially add revenue you know increase revenue to the town and that would certainly be so it's not something factored in right now because we don't know the ultimate fate of those sites and what they'll become but there are ways to use the Wildwood site potentially or the central fire station site potentially that could increase revenue and make all the models potentially more viable or just add more revenue to them but nothing's built into these yet because we know that that's a community discussion and conversation that has to happen. Yeah that's great and that's exactly what I was about to say is just to follow up I think that might be another discussion that we would want to have as a council maybe sooner than later to start thinking about that and how it may help to offset some of this burden that we're looking at so thanks. So anything else from the committee of the council and questions or comments about presentation? So quickly if there's anybody who's an attendee for today's meeting who would like to comment either on the discussion we've been having or on any other financial matter please feel free to raise your hand because we do recognize people for public comment during our meetings and we want to try and have public comment limited to three minutes also because we are in the time squeeze but when I hear from you Tony is in the room now and so Tony on mute. Hi thank you. I'd also like to support Kathy Shane's comments about exploring a model that uses some capital reserves for the school project to reduce the override. I think we all are aware of the importance of the override passing and that everything else hinges on that passing so anything we can do to lower that amount and increase the chances of success I think is a good thing. Regarding the assumptions for the cost of the fire station and the DPW can you provide comparables of the cost of recently built net zero fire stations and public works with facilities to indicate that these figures are realistic and then the model of three to three and a half million available per year for everything else that really concerns me and I know Ms. Grissmer mentioned roads and sidewalks and other people talked about other things I've been following JCPC fairly closely for the last few years and I see all the things that get postponed because of insufficient funds and that's with more money than we're proposing here to have available. Most of our town buildings are in need of roof replacements and energy retrofits to get off fossil fuels. Public safety vehicles need to be replaced and sidewalks not only need to be repaired but new sidewalks need to be constructed. The playing fields at all of the recreational areas are in poor shape and there has been talk in the last year capital plan of the need for a maintenance fund which I would love to see a part of this year's budget because I think we need a maintenance fund and then as as was mentioned Wildwood if it's not going to if it's going to be retained for perhaps a multi-use community center it's going to need repairs and Crocker Farm needs repairs I know the windows alone was a half a million dollars on coming up in the next couple of years. So thanks for all your work on this Sean I would like to see a model that increases the ongoing capital to a more realistic amount so that we don't fall behind on everything else and then a model that looks at employing five, minimum of five but preferably 10 million of capital reserves for the school project. Thank you. Thank you Tony. John did you have anything you wanted to respond to about comparable buildings or any of the other issues Tony raised? Yeah so if you're okay with it so I can you know next time we meet I can share with this committee some of the stuff we've looked at that being said I don't I'm not aware of any comparable net zero fire stations or DPWs but what we have looked at are square foot construction costs of other projects and then escalated them forward using some different assumptions to get us into a ball park but at the end of the day the town is going to have to move forward with what it can afford and so that's why we're having these conversations with sort of what can we afford now before we develop the design too far but we have looked at other projects and what their construction costs per square foot are and rolled them forward but adding the net zero piece is something that we think about but I don't know if there's any good comparables out there currently but I'll keep I'll look more to see if there are. Jeff Lee. Welcome. Thank you Andy. Yeah I just wanted to say I appreciate that Kathy I'm Jeff Lee from South Amherst and I appreciate that Kathy and Lynn and Alicia have been willing to consider the capital plan from the point of view of the taxpayers like the building projects the challenges facing the building projects there are serious challenges facing the taxpayers these days with economic conditions and so it's it's very concerning to me what I might have to pay in a tax override to support the school project so I totally support the idea of reducing the tax override as much as you possibly can and there are also a couple a couple of uncertainties that I think should be modeled one is what happens if the tax override does not pass the debt exclusion override will there still be a way that we might be able to use the state funding to complete the project and secondly what if the library turns out not to be able to go forward because enough funds aren't raised I think that should be modeled as well thanks very much. Great thank you Jeff. I see this Maria Kapicki also raised her hand Maria please unmute yourself. Thank you can you hear me? Yes I can. Great so I also want to support Kathy and Alicia speaking toward decreasing the debt exclusion for the school for the burden on taxpayers I am concerned about a lot of the assumptions in the models and whether they are realistic whether four percent interest rate is realistic the price tags on the buildings and in terms of the library I believe it was counselor Walker who had requested during those discussions that the model be that you make some projections of the model if it isn't 15.8 I think that sticking with 15.8 and saying that's settled is not necessarily realistic itself and I think that she had asked that there be higher interest rates and higher amounts assumed and what would that look like we can't just assuming 15.8 is does not seem wise to leave it at that so I'd like you to look more at the assumptions because the model is only as good as what you're putting into it thank you. Hey thank you Maria. So seeing nobody else trying to raise something I'd like to propose that we move on to Sonia and this may have provided us with a very thorough report and so I think she was prepared to go through this fairly quickly but wanted to give highlights so Sonia. Hello everyone I just want to warn everyone that my internet has been unstable too I'm here at town hall I don't know why but I've been fading in and out so if I do I apologize and I want to bring up that our free cash has already been certified we certified at 8.2 and I'm going to be quick on this report the report's posted on the accounting website so if anybody wants to go there and look it's got quite a bit of detail in there so I just want to focus on the on the green shaded chart on here this shows our operating surpluses back to 2016 so for Frisk leader 22 we ended with a surplus of 4.6 million of that revenue surplus was 3.2 million and the expenditure surplus is almost 1.5 million and normally in the past I used to report on the revenues that exceeded 5% of budgeted estimates but most of them exceeded that because these are reduced budgets that we're still recovering from COVID so and the recovery has been much better than we anticipated I will point out that property tax collections are still strong and part of this the surplus here mainly came from economically driven revenues such as license and permits that they've remained really strong and a contributory growth as well however we'll know if the economy starts to go down these will also go down and just to point out on the chart when are we from the chart Sean let me go back to the chart yes just stay on the chart all right you tell me when I move okay so just to point out on the chart we've had really good um surpluses returned even going through COVID and that's because of reducing the budgets and being really conservative on our revenue budgets as well and the department has really paying attention to what they're spending on and returning funds there so but I also want to point out that COVID comes from fiscal year 20 through 22 2019 we had a large revenue surplus there but I wanted to remind everybody that that is two million of that was the health claims trust fund repaying the general fund two million that we borrowed when we were in deficit in our trust fund back in 2019 2018 so I just want to remind everybody that's kind of revenue we're just paying back ourselves that we had already collected okay on the expenditure side we took we returned one point almost 1.5 million and the bulk of that came from functional areas of general government public safety and the schools general government we had health insurance premium holiday which which helped to return funds there we also took we also uncovered $100,000 to cover any FEMA expenses that were not that will not get reimbursed because we haven't gotten word on that yet in public safety there was vacancies in the police department and mainly crest because it started later on when we got everybody hired and everybody going so well I was returned from there and love was returned from there and fire department overspent by $59,000 mostly due to the first year of their lease for their defibrillators in some retirements there in the elementary school the elementary returned $191,000 from operational savings and the region returned to $329,000 and that was really excess in B&D they're only allowed to keep 5% evolution so it is yep and there was a little savings in our debt we can move on to enterprise funds there's a chart there for enterprise funds that shows our enterprise funds did much better this year in the previous years we have a surplus of 426 come that went back from sewer water we still had a small revenue deficit there there are some expenditures surplus that got returned to offset that a little but we're looking at our so can I point something out about water so I just this is a good time I just wanted to raise a concern specifically around water so you'll be seeing water projections soon for setting our rates for the coming year one thing that'll be different from last year is that you will see the new centennial debt projection so if you recall when you first authorized centennial or the council first authorized centennial it was about 11 million um cost drove that up to a current estimate around 18 million we do have some grants coming in that will reduce that and we'll we're working through the state clean the drinking water revolving fund which will give us a preferential interest rate so there's there's some benefits there but overall it's still going to be more that than what we originally anticipated borrowing so you'll see the impacts of that coming up soon and then the other thing I just wanted to point out about water is one thing we're monitoring very closely and a little concerned about is just water consumption in general water consumption drives the revenue and the water fund just you know as you can imagine and you would think consuming less water you know it's not necessarily a bad thing um from a sort of big picture and and you know the world uh standpoint but from a managing an enterprise fund that has a lot of fixed costs and it only brings in money based on how much water it sells so you think about this like a water business um we're selling less water and so there was a there was a trend down before the pandemic um as there seemed to be a you know more energy of water efficiency measures put in at the university and probably as new developments go in they're using more efficient fixture so there was a little bit of a trend down uh with the pandemic and students going home there was a big drop-off and then this past year we were hoping to see it go back up to where it was originally and it didn't get all the way back to where it was originally which is why you see this why you see a deficit on the the revenue side and so I just again I wanted to raise this now because this is probably will be potentially a theme of when we talk about the budget is where is water consumption going in the future and and the impact that'll have on rates so I just I don't want that to be a big surprise to anybody when we talk about it um in a couple months Lynn and adding to Sean's comments regarding water because of the new water and sewer regs you won't see anything this year but the following year you may see another additional jump right go ahead Sonia sorry it's okay um solid waste ended up with a surplus and transportation did as well even though there was a small revenue deficit we're looking at we're looking at parking rates now right Sean yeah and since I gave since I gave gloomy news on the waterfront I'll give some positive news on the the trash front um so we do have the solar array that's about to well it's on and the solar array on the landfill um is starting to generate um credits for the town and there's also some rent payments that go along with it so that's good news for solid waste which hasn't had a you know a new revenue source in a while there will be a you know pretty significant new revenue source for solid waste um that will start going in on an annual basis for at least the next 20 years and for transportation we will start to see the positive impacts of the of the permit changes that the council approved um last year where your where fees are going to kind of scale up over the next couple years um so you'll start to see those impacts as well that's pretty much all I had to say about the report so I'm done so it has been in the packet uh I don't know if anybody has any questions but pause to see if there are any questions at this point though seeing none this stage uh let me just um turn a little bit to the question of scheduling for the committee by the way um I was unable to uh get through uh minutes sufficiently to um do minutes today but we will do minutes at the next meeting also that meeting which will be on November 8 we will need to return to a subject that I know some people are unhappy that it's been assigned to the committee but it is here and that is the road acceptance and uh there's been some work that's been done on the issue to after our last discussion so that'll get reported to you in the course um we did agree that we would meet um on the Tuesdays after council meetings just as a marker so that'd be November 8 22 and December 6 for the next three meetings um and uh I see Sean's hand itself let me just uh finish what I was gonna say and then get back to Sean uh we um as a committee we're assigned a number of bylaws that were referred jointly to another committee to work on the bylaw and to the finance committee to look at financial implications and uh those are being held for our discussion until there's a framework for um the programmatic side of the particular bylaws that is being worked through other committees so that's kind of on hold but we do have some major things that are coming to us fairly quickly because we will have the financial indicators meeting and uh once um Dr. Sean will remind me of the date because I uh to make sure that I don't blow it on what what I say November 7 and uh you know after that we start working at that meeting on the beginnings uh and uh moved fairly quickly then after on uh proposed uh set of guidelines for the budget guidelines for the council's consideration and uh so we've got a lot of work ahead of us um and uh we do need to also fit into this uh for the discussion on the capital projects as started today so that um I'm gonna be working with Kathy as Vice Chair and Sean will try and uh figure out an appropriate schedule for how to handle us over the next meetings and whether we need to propose an additional meeting um I'm not ready to go there yet um so Sean back to you with your hand up yeah sorry sorry if you already said this one but one of their agenda item that um Gilford Maureen has reached out to me to say that they're ready to come back is the the water regulations that um Lynn previously mentioned they presented once to this committee I think this committee gave them some feedback along with some other committees and now they have um what I think is a a draft that's been further developed that they're hoping to come back to this committee because we never the finance committee never voted on it or made a recommendation um so they're ready to come back at some point as well or maybe we don't need to but he asked me about it so yeah we we can talk about that I think that the thing about the water regulations is that we had had a pretty good discussion and had um dealt with financial implications of some of the things we're being talked about particularly on reassigning responsibility for maintenance of some sections of the system that fall under private property and that has been taken into consideration by TSO and um town services outreach committee so it's uh and then there was other suggestions that were made um other issues that were spotted um and uh Bob Hegner had given us fairly comprehensive memo on on some of them and those all have been addressed so we'll get back to it but I don't think that it really needs major discussion and I'm not sure that right um we'll I'll talk to Lin later about whether recommendation for this committee is required Lin you have your hand up it was for exactly the reason you said thanks bye yeah just quickly um yeah if it's not needed I'll let uh Guilford know one thing that Lin alluded to earlier is that there are some pretty large financial implications of of both the water regs and potentially the sewer regulations and so how those get communicated to the council I think will be important because it is a there's a large impact financially to the enterprise funds for both of those you know I think we wouldn't get them back I just not sure that um other than review um whether to make recommendation or not as a committee I would leave to the committee to decide so I but I but we did need to get them back on the agenda at least to have people have an opportunity to look at what is now there and see if there are any additional comments to be offered Michelle I just wanted to check in with Paul about that because I know the water bylaw came to go well last week and then there was some follow-up and I think Anna has now left the meeting but um and there were fee structure questions and enforcement uh questions and there may be financial implications there um we had to sort of send it back we weren't able to finish the review because those items hadn't been fully fleshed out yet so I just wanted to add that in just to pick and jump in so the town attorney is revealing that as we speak so um anything else that uh people anybody from the committee wishes to raise or the council wishes to suggest uh needs to be considered by this committee because it's after five o'clock and uh if there's no objection I'm going to adjourn the meeting seeing no objection I am adjourning the meeting so thank you very much productive afternoon thank you