 I'll call the Finance Committee of March 29, 2022, to order at 9 a.m., and welcome, everybody. Thank you for being on time and we're going to try and be expeditious with this. I want to first note that pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Act of 2021, this meeting is conducted by remote means members of the public who wish, who are attending, can do so by Zoom or telephone. And there's going to be no in-person attendance by members of the public except as we call on people to see if they're interested in participating in public comment later in the meeting. So I want to make sure that we count for who's present from the committee and make sure that everybody can hear me and be heard. So with that, I'm going to start with Lou. Present. Okay. And let's see, Bob. I'm here. Okay. Matt, for everybody's attention, I'm going alphabetically. Matt has indicated that he's not available at 9 o'clock, but is hoping to join us later in the meeting. He's the one person who had indicated that he had a problem when we had to change the date from last week. And I appreciate everybody's cooperation with that. Present. Michelle. Present. Kathy. I'm here. I guess you haven't heard from Alicia, have you? I have not. Did you try texting her? Yes. Okay. I'll let you know. Okay. If you get anything back from her, hopefully she'll be joining us quickly. So, and we have two members of the staff, three members of the staff here. The scene is present. You doing minutes today yourself. Bill is unavailable today. So I'm going to be with you this morning. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate your being here. And we have Sonia and Sean. And are we expecting. The TPW. People in this so at what time. We are not expecting them. I think that item was going to be an update from probably Kathy, Bernie and myself. Just to let the group know where we're at with the study of water and sewer rates. And I have asked Guilford for an update, which I can share. What I've got back on that. Okay. I've asked. Here's my second question. And that is availability. The agendas on the screen and so the now that we've called the meeting to order. The second part of item number one is just to review the agenda. And see if there are any questions. Or preference of order. In which we take this. My thought would be, unless it's a disagreement. To do the. Trying to think about this for a second. So the next action item, I probably want to hold that. And see if we get either of the members who are not present to be able to join us. So to do the water and sewer rate first. But. Is there any feeling about that? Okay. Okay. I think we have the last meeting. Since that's fairly simple and. I did have a couple of suggestions. And I'll tell you what they are real quickly. This is the minutes of March 1st. And on page. On page two. Under discussion items. It says under the first item assessing university and college property. It quotes you Kathy say, is saying. In order to potentially. Raise their tax bills. Well, I don't have tax bills to raise. But I'm going to suggest. Changing that to. Potentially seek payments in lieu of taxation. If allowed by revision to state law or by agreement with these institutions. And I can. I have that actually. But that was one change. So again, it's after the word. Potentially in the second line. At the bottom of page two. Under discussion items. Right there. With potentially second line. In. Yeah, and that sentence. Yeah, that's that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The change is fine with me. I have without listening to tape. I have no idea what I said, but I know we couldn't raise their taxes. Yeah. Potentially seek payments in lieu of taxation. If allowed by revisions to state law or by agreement. With these institutions. And I can send that. To Athena later. As the marked up. The next page is. The very next page. As it's written now. Where it says. Excluded from being taxed. From being. From being reassessed. I'd say from being taxed. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I had to do with UMass. And we were to. I think that the discussion was. To think about assessing. You may as property. But the problem was is that state legislation. Is proposed. It needs to be clarified about being taxed. So those are the two changes that I had thought about. Does you're fine. I think we'll just go through the. Voting numbers. If not, somebody can make a quick motion. I move that we accept the minutes. March 1st, 2022. I second. As amended. As amended. Yes. Okay. And. I think we'll just go real quickly through the. Lynn. Yes. And Kathy. Yes. Michelle. Yes. And I mean, yes. And I think that we have one voting member present today. And I'll ask Bernie and Bob if you have any, if you're okay with this and we'll indicate that in the minutes. I'm fine with the changes. They're all probably. Can I just ask the, can I ask, we're posting the minutes in the packet of the current meeting. So that's where we should be looking each time. I just want to remind people because we had one question from someone who thought we didn't have any minutes. Because they're not under the thing called minutes. If you look for minutes, they're under the packet. So you have to look at the packet. I just just want to alert people. Yeah, Athena. Andy, if I may. Yes. The draft minutes go in the meeting packets. The approved minutes go in the minutes folder on the finance committee page. So the reason we don't have the minutes that have been approved this year are is because there were some edits made when they were approved that I don't have. So I'm waiting to receive the approved. Yeah, I know Andy's planning on sending those to me. So as soon as I have those, I'll post them in the approved minutes folder on the finance committee page. But the draft minutes are in the packet. That's right. And that will be done this week. Because I'm finally getting caught up and I was at home to do it yesterday. Yeah, but didn't. Okay, so we'll get the minutes up today but draft minutes don't go in that packet are under the minutes page. And that's just standard practice for all committees in the council. So going back to the agenda then, Sean, you had a suggestion of how to leave the discussion on the water and sewer rates just to bring us all back to where we were previously and then we'll have a discussion when you have a proposal. Yeah, Kathy and Bernie, is it okay if I start and then if you wanna add? So we had one meeting with Kathy and Bernie who were charged from this group to sort of do this deeper dive into our water and sewer rates. And at that meeting was myself, the town manager, Kathy, Bernie and Amy and Gilford from the DPW. And at that meeting it was more of a, we were trying to understand what types of structures we Kathy and Bernie would like us to sort of look at and dive into deeper and they can provide more on that but I think we talked about different types of block rates. We talked about an institutional rate and I think we talked about some other variations. So after that meeting, I worked with the DPW to try to get the data from our system in such a way that we could model different structures and what the impact would be on individuals and their water bills. So that took a little bit of time but we were able to get some pretty good data out of Munis, which is our accounting system and our billing system. So we were able to get every account, what their consumption was, what their bill was if they have a meter fee because that's part of the rate structures is potentially tweaking what the meter fee is and in addition to looking at the consumption fee. So we were able to get that all into a spreadsheet format. We looked back a couple of years because we realized if we look at this past year or two that the consumption is probably a little off in terms of what UMass uses, what Amherst College uses those institutions. So I believe we went back to 2019 for this. So we got that all in a spreadsheet. We've handed that over to the public works because they wanted to add some additional variables to it. They wanted to add, they were gonna work with IT and look at our GIS system and see if there was a way to add whether an account was a rental property or not to have that variable in there too for discussion. So the last update I have from Guilford is they are, that's where they're at, they're working with IT, I think they're close to having that done and once they have that done, we'll have this data set that they can then model the different structures. So it probably means we'll wanna set up another get together with Kathy and Bernie at some point, maybe to look at that data, to look at some sort of baseline options for different structures and what their impacts are. And I don't know, Kathy or Bernie, if you wanna add to what we talked about at that meeting, I know it was quite a while ago, so. I think that summarizes it, Sean, cause when we talked, what became clear, which hadn't been clear when Guilford first spoke to us is basic data was an issue. You know, it wasn't easy for them to do what Sean just described doing on what if we did the following because it's not kept in an easy format for them to access. So my, just two comments, one, that there is a memo that Bernie and I did that the finance committee as a group approved going to DPW and maybe I should just resend that so we have it as part of the record, because we particularly focused on the quarterly rate that would be, and this was because of a recommendation we had as one possible way to the size of the pipe or the meter, so you would capture the large users differently than the small users. And we talked about that being a way of covering fixed costs, whether or not, so when you hit a COVID world where UMass goes home and Amherst College goes home and other big users go home and suddenly we get plummeting revenue, it would create a more steady flow. So I thought I just should read, we might want to reshare that memo. And my only other comment, Sean, on what you just said is I think the concern about rental properties wasn't everybody who's a renter, it was the large complexes that have a lot of affordable units in it. So I don't know what DPW is thinking of adding, but it was the bigger complexes and I don't know whether they can differentiate, but so it wasn't a single home that is rented, it was 130 because they would be, they presumably would have a different kind of meter and total use, the building would, not each person. So I'll stop there, but I just thought maybe resharing that, particularly because Michelle was not there when we had that discussion, so we just make it part of the meeting. I can, I'm sure I can find it somewhere. Those are all good thoughts. Thank you, Cathy. I really don't have much to add there. I think we're gonna probably end up puzzling some over rental units, but I'm not sure how much of an impact that'll have, it'll be interesting to see that they come up with. I wanna come back with one other question and part of phrase, but a couple people have hands up so I wanna get to them, Bob. Yeah, we had a discussion, I don't remember what the outcome of the discussion was about possibly looking at dual metering and separating out irrigation systems from regular water use and will the spreadsheet be able to distinguish those two or can we maybe do some, we could do some analysis to say that, look at water use outside of the irrigation system and water use during the irrigation season rather and then maybe try to estimate how much is irrigation and how much isn't, but I don't remember where we wound up with that discussion. If you guys could let us know. We might be able to pull that out of the data, I'll have to look at it closer with our billing department. I think in those situations, if there is a water bill and not a sewer bill for the account, that might signal that it's an irrigation type situation, but I've gotta look at it closer with the billing department to see if we can see that in the data that we have. Well, and just one point is they told us at that initial meeting that some but not all farms have two meters. And so this issue was particularly for those that don't, I think, you know, that it's all running through one meter, but in any case, there is a, the town, we have a provision, there can be a separate meter. I had thought it was a separate rate, but it isn't a separate rate, it's just separately metered. But in any way, it came up just that, and I know one of the farms up here only has one because I asked them about it and it's all through the one. They got back, they got back billed because it was only estimated for five years. They were stunned. Yeah. Well, you know, what we ended up doing in Hedley was to mandate a meter if you had an outdoor irrigation system. And then for farmers, there was a separate agricultural rate for the water use, but homeowners or businesses that had sprinkler systems for landscaping, they had to install a second meter and they were charged a different rate. Right, that's what I was wondering whether we can distinguish that in the spreadsheet for residential use. Yeah, I don't think we'll be, if they only have one meter currently, I don't think we'll see it, but we can ask Amy and Guilford if they have a separate list of those types of properties that they're aware of. And you have to keep in mind that if you, we look at what we did in Hedley, that was really driven by the need to conserve water as opposed to, yeah, generally. How did the rates compare between the two sectors? I'd have to go back and look at what Hedley, currently, has posted on the website. But it wasn't a day yet. We had an engineering company that was working with us on this and they did, we relied on their calculations. Because I was on the select board when we had the discussion and at that point, it was because there were several farms that had raised the unfairness of being billed pursuer on one of those clearly not ever intended to go into the sewer system. So the goal was not on differentiation of rates, the goal was on doing the removal of the sewer charges from their accounts. And it was required that they be the ones who pay for the installation of changes to the system that would, in their property, that would allow for dual metering, depending upon how the water is being used. Lynn, you had your hand up. Yeah, I just want to put this in a larger context and that is we have three different things about water and sewer going on right now. One is we need to adopt the rates for this next year. The second is the discussion we're having now which could impact rates, but obviously not for this coming year, okay? And the third is the whole water and sewer regulations. And somewhere, so as long as we agree that this discussion that we're having right now will not impact this coming FY23's rates and the regulations have yet to be seen when they're going to impact, okay? And how they're going to impact. I'm fine with this discussion. I just want to make sure we're not trying to do this to impact the FY23 rates. Bergen? Yeah, all this was forward-looking. I think we had come to the, not a sort of a consensus that the rate setting for this year would just go forward and that what we're looking at is future stuff. I guess one last question that I have. How would we characterize the goals that we're seeking in changing the rate structure? Andy, that's why I thought resending the memo would make some sense because we did go through that. And we talked about providing more certainty, covering capital costs, and so this was the potential modeling whether we could do that or not. So I think if I resend that, we don't have to have that discussion again and then we could look at that memo because it did try to lay out why were we even looking at in a forward way without saying we are going to do this. We said we want to look at the what ifs if we did something like that. And it was for this regular, the quarterly payment that was not variable with usage was to knowing that we're regularly going to have to invest in plant and water processing plants. So to be covering the costs, the capital costs of doing that and providing a little bit of a reserve. So we did lay that out and I think it would be good just to revisit that memo and see maybe if we, I'm not saying we definitely were totally clear when we captured everything but that was the goal of that memo. Okay, I'd appreciate that. The reason that I brought it up is there are actually three new members to the committee since we had that discussion. Michelle being the only one who's present right now, Felicia and Matt are the other ones who are new as members of the committee since we had that discussion. So it would be helpful to resend that memo and what we probably want to do is for the two members who were absent, urge them at some point to watch the video of this portion of the meeting or the meeting till they join if they're able to join, which would then enable them to catch up on this discussion together with the memo resend which would lace out the goals and then we're able to come back to this later. Andy, just a quick heads up and maybe for Athena, we lost Bob a couple of minutes ago. I assume he'll try to rejoin but he hasn't yet. And Alicia will not be able to join us. So I will both resend and I'm gonna make sure it goes to either Sean or Athena so they can post as part of the packet. And when I resend, what I might do is we had a very good presentation from DBW with a consultant. So I might do a hot link to that because that started this whole discussion on a potential other ways of setting rates is what they presented to us. So I will make sure, I will do that after this meeting because I'll have to go back to figure out when they made that presentation, what packet it was in, but it was in one of our packets. It was a very good set of charts that then triggered the memo. Okay, and if you don't find it, contact Sean or me because one of it is certainly, I think all of the documents too but I'm not gonna look for them if you're looking. Michelle, give your hand up. Yeah, I'll appreciate seeing all that, thank you. I just have more of a general question about this. Do we have complaints from residents about our water and sewer rates? Like what's the overall feeling? So is it okay if I respond to that, Andy? Yes. I think where we've seen some complaints is sometimes around the issues of fixing or repairing issues. And sometimes if things don't get caught, the way it works is if there's an issue with a read or an estimate bill and sometimes if something for whatever reason falls to the cracks and it doesn't get repaired in a timely fashion, those estimates can go on for some time. And so the situation that Kathy described was a situation where for whatever reason there were multiple years of estimates on a meter and when it finally was fixed and the actual read was done, they paid for the water they actually consumed but it was a big adjustment to get to the actual. So I think that's where I've heard most of the complaints is around addressing areas that need to be fixed in a timely fashion and get them up to date. We do look at our water rates compared to other towns and you'll see that in the, you'll get a memo sometime in the next few weeks on the water and sewer rates for FY23. And then we'll talk about that a little bit and you'll see how we compare to our neighbors. Our rates are not high compared to our neighbors. I think they were on the low end. We have made some larger increases the last few years because of some infrastructure projects that we're taking on but they still I believe are in sort of the middle to low end of the rate structure that when we compared to other towns. Can I just ask you a follow-up, Sean? So when those residents got hit with the larger bill, did they have an option of paying it over time or was it required that they pay immediately? I'll look at the respondents. I think she knows the details of this one. Sorry, he said it's already Cathy and I missed it. No, no, no, that's fine. I don't think it came up in finance at all. It was a phone call that I received. It was a $5,000 bill just to give you a sense that it wasn't just a slight. And there isn't, there is an appeals process and in this case, the appeal reduced that to zero. So there was an effort that the town said it was our responsibility to be reading the meter and that we didn't read it for five years and you faithfully paid the estimated bill. So there is a recourse through an appeals process. But the other thing I just wanted to say that there's been a, it's not been a regular complaint but because we brought, have had to do a major investment in a new plant and the combination of that and then you mass leaving town for a while which created a shortfall, the enterprise fund pays for its capital. So people have seen a rapid increase in their water rates. So Sean is right that they're not necessarily high compared to other towns but it's outside the regular tax system. So people go, whoa, my water rate's going up. So there wasn't a lot of, it created attention. I don't think it necessarily created complaints and we will be seeing that when we see the enterprise fund proposed, so we are going to have to vote on water sewer rates again and that will be coming up. Can I add one more thing, Andy, to that? Sure. One other thing just on that is, so as Kathy mentioned, the DPW superintendent has the ability to abate. So sometimes if there's a leak, I remember when I first started at the schools we had a burst pipe behind a wall and we didn't know about it and we got this huge water bill and so he's able to abate in some situations. And then the other issue just with the estimates, sometimes it's not always the case but sometimes the reason the estimates don't get fixed on timely fashion is because we're not able to get access into some of the meters are still not accessible to the outside. So sometimes it does require coordination with the homeowner to get in and repair an issue or fix an issue. Not saying that's the reason all the time but I know that's come up in the past as well. So other issues that were involved were the discussion as to whether we could, and this is actually being encouraged by the state and there's a regulatory issues that Amy Russecki talked about at some length and that was to try and have a rate structure that encourages conservation of water because that's an ongoing issue in all water systems, including ours. And the other is the, which has already been referenced earlier, the question of what's a fair way to deal with agriculture and I think that was the third one, Kathy, and you had raised early in the discussion which was very large users and what's an appropriate rate for very large users. So I think those were the kinds of things that we've talked about. So is there anything else? Andy, we do have a cell phone number in the audience. I don't know if it's Bob, it could be Bob. I don't think he has the ability to raise his hand. I don't know if anyone knows Bob's cell phone number because if it's him, we could bring him into the room, but... He can raise his hand by pressing star nine on his phone if that is Bob. Okay, so Bob, if that's you, hit star nine. Okay, hit us, good. All right, good, he's coming in. And then I believe it's star six to mute and unmute. Yeah, this is Bob, sorry. I can't get it on the internet on my computer having problems. Can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you. Great. Well, welcome back. So you missed most of the water discussion, but what we did was kind of just went through what some of the major issues were that we discussed in the prior discussions and we're a little bit of a report on from Bernie and Kathy and Beth, they're meeting with Sean and Sean's report on it. And we talked about the goals for the reconsideration of the rate structure, which is not going to be done as Lynn pointed out in time for the next year when we set FY23 rates, but that we need to move forward so that we can do something for the FY24 rates, hopefully. And I think- What's the progress? Wait, are you speaking? He's back. Back from the day. I did hear most of the discussion, Andy. You're muted, Andy. Andy, you're muted, yeah. It's strange, it's strange. No, Andy. Yeah, I don't get it. Okay, I think that should take care of it. Well, Andy, you either have to turn off the mic on your computer or hang up your phone. We're getting feedback. We're gonna loop. I think- Andy, if your phone is on speaker, then you might just want to mute your phone because it seems like your microphone is picking up. You're muted in both places now. I've been having a problem because, okay, let's see if that made me disappear. Can somebody say something and let me see if I can hear you? That's better now, yeah. You're fine now. We can hear you. See, the problem that I'm having is that I'm not getting sound out of my computer. So you- And I don't know what the problem is. I was trying to avoid having the... I couldn't get to an easy, get to my settings easily to find out. So now I can't hear. So your other method with phone worked. He could just do phone. Why that is, I don't know. Let's take a break for a minute or so and let me see if I can get to settings on my computer and see if I can figure it out. Maybe that'll do it. Can somebody say something again? Can you hear us now? Yep, got it. For some reason that it... Once I went into settings, so I think I've now solved the problem and I'm off on the phone. So thank you for patience, Bernie. Your hand is up. Yeah, this is maybe an aside. I don't know what we, I honestly don't know what we use for technology, but I mean, certainly when it comes to reading meters, we should have, everybody should be on a remote read so that you just have to drive by and get the meter in or have the meter phone home and phone it in. And some of the technology, it's old technology that's out there that does leak detection. So when water use jumps in a home, the homeowner gets a note automatically saying, your water use has gone way up. Both those are helpful. Can I respond to that, Andy? Yes. So I think, so we do have a lot of radio reads like that. I think they're looking to move more as they swap out meters and they put new ones in. And we have, I know Amy has looked into the possibility of doing a complete swap out for that type of meter where it detects the leaks where you basically can get an app on your phone and that will give you an alert if your water usage goes above a certain point. And I think there's some communities that have done that and it is expensive. So it would have to be a capital project that would be funded through the enterprise funds. But I know it is something they're considering. It's just sort of the timing of when we can fit that into the capital plan. Okay, so is there anything else we need to say on water and sewer rates now or have we put enough background out there and come back to it when we're able to do so? Because then we should turn to the other major issue which is the question of the parking policy. And I sent an email to members of the committee that I'm going to repeat just so that it's in public. What the theme was is just explained to the committee that the committee report was phrased as recommendations to the town services and outreach committee also known as TSO. And TSO essentially said, thank you but and did not accept the rate structure as proposed and the reason that they did so was not related to failure to appreciate the consideration ought to be given to a different tiering structure but because the regulation is proposed as both suggested rate structure within the regulations but also saying that the final decision on rates will be made by the town manager that the town manager can make the decision to phase in more quickly and therefore it does not need to be within the policy that's being proposed and passed by the council and which is a time God be thinking about that part of the policy too is to whether it is an administrative or the legislative function to establish the rates and especially remembering that we're dealing with the public way and we are the key person of the public way this came up in another part of the discussion that we had with on a different topic at the last TSO meeting. And what Paul said very clearly was is that there are times that the council has chosen to give discretion to the town manager which is perfectly appropriate thing for the council to do because the council can always now or a future council take that back if they find that the system is not working. So that was I think the best response to what had been proposed tonight the question before us is whether we feel strongly enough about the recommendations that we made that we wanna make this is not just a suggestions to the TSO but whether we wanna turn it into a report to the council for Monday's meeting with actual recommendations. And so that's sort of the introduction and now Kathy your hand is up so I'm gonna recognize you. Let me I need to repeat back to what I think I heard about TSO. Did you say that they decided to take a pass on this that they basically we have a proposed new rate structure and they said they didn't feel they had to act on it because the town manager can go ahead and do this without a council action. Is that what you said TSO had decided? What TSO decided to do is the motion that was passed at TSO was to recommend the rate structure in the regulations as proposed by town staff and that they did not make changes to have more rapid phase in that we had discussed. Because that's where they said the reason was that if more rapid phase in was deemed to be an appropriate decision down the line by the manager then the manager could do it. Okay, so that I misheard. So they approved what had they weren't saying that it wasn't within their purview. They approve what had been being what was being proposed. So I just to me there is a slight but subtle distinction between the finance committee and TSO this came up more than a year ago in the context of places that would increase the revenue to the town. So it wasn't just focused on permits and Sean and the town said they were already looking at this. So I would still like to have a discussion within this committee on whether we want to recommend a more rapid increase. And I see Sean's hand is up. The one thing he talked about during the hearing that did give me pause is that he was worried that we might just, and I was particularly focused on resident without Amherst registration, not on the rest of the right structure that I felt that we could go up more rapidly that that group doesn't really have an option. And then me one of the goals is to not have as many cars parked all the time on the street. So it wasn't just to increase money for the permit that we were in theory going to have residents living downtown without cars. And it's turned out not to be true. So that's just one point I wanted to make. I'm still interested in talking about a more rapid schedule increase. And then the other thing I heard that I hadn't been aware of is that the select board a while ago decided overnight parking was okay on streets. And I heard the rationale why I would love to know what other towns do because, you know, to park your car all night long, it basically uses the street as your parking place when you're doing that. So that's not part of this proposal at all. But I would like at some point to revisit that select board decision, not today. So I'll stop there. Yeah, I'll comment on that later. But I first want to recognize Sean. And Michelle. So Sean. Yeah, the only thing I was going to. So I think at TSO that came up, Kathy. But it was more in regards not to the streets, but to the parking lots. The overnight parking. So they did discuss that a little bit. And the only thing I was going to add is another change that happened in TSO was the reserve spot permit. I believe when this committee first reviewed that, the high end of this was 1250. They recommended that they go up higher given what some of the comparables are. So you'll notice one thing you'll notice is that the reserve spot permit. The end result is higher than, than what you saw, I think the first time around. We brought up to $250 up to $1,500. Total. I like that. Michelle. I wasn't able to make it to the hearing on this. And I'm just wondering what the general, were there participants that spoke at the hearing or residents that spoke with the hearing. And what was the general sense from the public. I don't think we had any. There wasn't a hearing on this. They were, they were stunned. They were stunned. There was no one speechless. No, there was a hearing, but no one spoke at the hearing. There weren't any speakers. Other than counselors. I mean, we had a discussion during the, but no, there wasn't. There wasn't an array of public speakers lined up on this issue. Yeah, I just, the reason I asked is as Andy sort of alluded to, and TSO, and talking about another matter with, I think, I don't know if this is what he was alluding to, but the, the rental registration fees, which is also another fee item that we're looking at. And some counselors feeling like there needed to be more public input. And I guess I'm just as a newer counselor. Confused about like. Where should there be hearings when we're addressing these things, especially if we're thinking about implementing changes more quickly. And how are we getting at least making the public aware of that we're talking about these things. And I know this is like a bigger, broader discussion, but yeah. And can I just add one quick thing to that? Yeah. We did use. So parking permits are now done online and we have the email address for everyone who has a parking permit. And we did send out the notice of the hearing and the general, the general focus of the hearing, which was to increase permit fees to everybody who has a parking permit. So at least in terms of the people that were most impacted, I think we reached them as best we could in this particular circumstance. So I think. To answer the question real quickly about what this. Select board was reacting to mostly was that. Residential neighborhoods. That because of the way the snow regulation used to be. People in residential streets could not. Park cars during winter months at all. And the change was really. I mean, focusing in that direction and the establishment of the system with. Declaring snow emergencies and. Notification through. Various mechanisms, including the official one, which is those blue flashing lights, but it's also. There are ways you can. You know, get a notification by text or otherwise and. But the goal was to not ban parking on residential streets for a substantial portion of the year when you're really trying to cover half a dozen days when there's a snow problem and just focus on that. So, I think that snow emergency parking is fairly common. Lots of cities use. A snow emergency notification system. An exception was not made for the downtown area. So I think that there. If you're going to go back and revisit the issue. Then I would suggest for my experience having dealt with the ones before. Is to deal with it in two different ways to think about residential areas than think about the central business district. So. Getting back in. I think the question still with us is in the. I see your hand just went up Bob is. Yeah. To go through and look at the various things that we've had as recommendations. Our suggestions to the. TSO. And whether we want to report them as recommendations to the finance committee. To the council directly. For the Monday meeting. I think we're going to have some. Now, because otherwise there's no action to be taken. Bob. Yeah, I just wanted to, I think you answered my question that. To clarify that the. The recommendation or the discussions that we had. Prior to this or only focus at. Input to the TSO. We're not. Directed at the council. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I've raised the question for the finance committee as to whether the finance committee. Has any recommendations knowing what. TSO's. Recommendation was just the finance committee. Wish to make recommendations to the council directly. Prior to Monday's meeting. And. The issues that we talked about. I think that. Everybody probably knows what they are. Because we talked about whether to. Implement. The changes more quickly. We had several members of our committee. Who suggested moving to a higher rate. Faster and going to two year phase in instead of three year phase in. There was a. Question of whether that phase in should be. Differentiated between. People who had cars that were registered in Amherst. And the people who. Did not have cars recommended in Amherst. And. There was a suggestion we made about making the. Rates phase in. For people who don't have cars in Amherst. More quickly. We had some discussion about the Boltwood garage. And. Whether again, a more rapid phase in. Which was the one thing that is Sean pointed out they did deal with. TSO by proposing a higher end rate. And. There was Kathy's suggestion about. Trying to. Have. Parking places reserved only for. Weekday daytime and not. All around the clock and. That was discussed in the committee, but no position was taken. Our committee rather. And. Then. Whether there should be a reduction in the number. Of reserved underground spaces was. At least also mentioned in our prior report. So those were, I think that the issues that. Came up as. Things to report to the. TSO and they are included in the report. Kathy. Okay. I'm. Okay. Since I was the one starting the conversation, or I was one of the ones starting the conversation. Looking at the two proposals we have in front of us. I was going to. Recommend. Only one change compared to what's called proposal one. I like what TSO did on, on the reserve spot permit. So I would say that. I would say that. If you're dealing with phasing more rapidly on everything. Would be the phase more rapidly on the resident with non-resident registration. Just that one line. So I'd like. So if we. That would. That's my suggestion and recommendation. And whether it's goes immediately from 25 to 400. That would make the phasing more rapid. And the rationale I have is that a lot of those cores. My belief are. Residents that are only here for a short period of time, their students, and that's why they didn't reregister their car. Their alternative. Potential alternative is. That's what they would have to pay. Although those lots are full. So I think we're giving away our, our permits too cheaply. And I don't think we should be encouraging parking on the street. So that's the one I would do. Because they always could reregister their car and get the lower rate. If they want to, and then they'd be paying us an excise tax. So that would be my recommendation. I was going to focus just on that one row. And make that would be my recommendation. As, as the only difference between. Finance committee, if others are with me and what TSO voted out. I will stop there. Hopefully that was clear. It was just because we, we. Rightfully proposal two does what had been suggested is a more specific approach. I think that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And for each of the lines with immediate increase in this. So instead of giving up on the others, leaving the resident as the slow phase in the employees as a slow phase in, and the reserve spot permits as. Is written in the TSO. Proposal one. I will stop. Hopefully that was clear. Yeah. I just wanted to see what Michelle wants to say. And then I have Sean explain chart a little bit on the screen and. Why are we, why he did that. Which was actually my request, but. Michelle. That might be helpful. Yeah, for me. And I, so I was just curious, Kathy, with your rationale. So are you saying that the. Non immersed registration in your mind is mostly students. And where is that data coming from? The data is coming from who are the residents of the big. Department complexes downtown and what you can see, you can see a variation that often the people have them for just a year. They're not here for long term. So my bet is the reason you're supposed to change your car registration when you're a long-term resident, you're not supposed to sit here with a non. I'm in some of these cases, the registrar registration isn't even a Massachusetts registration. So that's my guess. And so I was doing the two things. One, you have the option of changing your registration and you could be at the lower rate. If you do that. So you're both avoiding an excise tax. And you're likely not here for very long. So we're not hitting someone who's a long time down to a resident. So it is an assumption, Michelle, but. I don't know what I didn't know. And I think Sean told me. When you get a permit, I thought you had to give your plate number. So we would, but you probably don't have to say whether you're a student, you know, and, and the one more piece of information, UMass in Lowell, you can't get a permit to park on the street unless your car is registered in Lowell. They just have a, you can't get it. You can't get a permit to park on the street unless you're a resident by registering your car. So they put an outright, you can't get one of these. So they're much tougher than what's being proposed here. You can still get access to a on street parking permit. Yeah. And I'll just say as a student at UMass who came from Pennsylvania. I don't think I really thought about changing my registration or registration. I even knew that that was something I should consider doing. And I did have a car here most years. So I'm just curious kind of what the awareness or what the educational component might be in terms of, and what would it take for a student to register in Amherst and then go home for the summer to their other state that they live in, and what are the consequences of that? So. Yeah. And that just, just one more thing, you know, we, when we put the, that you could build a large apartment complex downtown and not have to provide parking. The argument would be was that many of these people. Might be students and they could walk to campus and there was no need for a car. That's why they didn't have to. Create parking places. So there was. So, and then when the complexes opened up, they actually discovered $25 was a pretty good rate. And rather than, and the complexes said, where can you get parking permits? And they said, well, you can park at the UMass lots. These are available to you. Or you could go downtown and get one for $25. It was a really good deal. And you can see. That's where the, the variation, the other thing you can see is the variation in those buildings, because I think some of them. When COVID hit didn't come back, you know, so we had fewer permits being taken out during the COVID period. It wasn't the long time residents. So it is an assumption that I'm making about those, but it, I felt that the. We don't need more cars parked on our street. We don't need more. We don't need more cars parked on our street. I want to treat the treat those as precious places. I want visitors. People are coming for a short amount of time to come down and park in them. So I'm. Part of my goal would be to open up the street a little bit. By making it more expensive to buy one of these. I'll stop. So. I guess we'll have Sean go next and explain the chart and. The financial implications for the. Transportation. The. We come from that change. Sean. Yeah. And just. I just wanted to add to what Kathy said. I think the. The issue of the non-amorous registration. I think the primary focus were was for vehicles that were registered in other Massachusetts cities, not an Amherst. Because in those instances, they're paying the excise tax either way. It's not a, it's not whether they're paying it. It's just what community receives it. And our feeling is if they're here. 10 months of the year, then our community should receive it. As opposed to. The two months of the year. And. And to your point, Michelle, I think we can provide education or provide some information when. People are registering for the permits. To, to outline exactly what you said is how, how do you switch your registration if you want to. And what does that process look like? So we can, if these changes are approved, we can look into how we can provide that education at the time people sign up for permits. Yeah, we can do that at our. Through our collector's office. So this, this chart, again, it compares proposal one to proposal two. So proposal one. The first black box shows you our current structure and an estimate of the quantity of permits at each. For each type. Another correction that you'll see here from the memo that you saw, is we actually have 28 reserve spot permits, not 20. I think the first version you saw show 20. So that's corrected here. The second black box shows the pricing for 2023 and then 2024 and 2025. So in the first one, it's a three year phase in for all of the different price structures. So resident with Amherst registration goes from 25 to 50 to 100 to 150. And you can see what the, the similar transition plans are for the other types of permits. And then the green line totals up the revenue from the permit system for that year. And then you can see how that revenue grows over the three years to ultimately to 2025 where we would reevaluate fee levels at that point. Proposal two. Instead of doing it over three years, you'll see that it gets up to the end point in 2024 instead of 2025. So again, looking at that first one with Amherst registration. You'll see it gets up to 150 by 2024. So just it goes one year quicker. Except for the resident permit with non Amherst registration that goes immediately to the max price. I think that was the initial proposal is to not do a phase in for that to go right up to that. The full amount. So for that resident non Amherst registration, you'll see it goes from 25 all the way up to $400 once. So accelerating the transition plan will assuming the one thing we need to do is to make sure that we have the same amount of money that we're going to be able to speak to. Or we can't say with certainty is that the, the number of permits won't change between the two proposals. In terms of, if it goes up faster, will that impact how many people apply for permits? So for this comparison, we just left the number of permits the same under both proposals, but that's one variable we can't, we can't guarantee. But raising the prices faster. We'll, we'll bring in more revenue. We'll bring in $2023 would bring in $73,000. More for 2023 and then for 2024 would bring in $32,000 more. And then by 20 by 2025, they're at the same level. So in total proposal to bring in about $106,000 more. Over those three years. Andy, I can't raise my hand because I'm showing the screen. But I'd like to ask, I just like to clarify. So Kathy, what you're suggesting is we stay with proposal one, except with regard to the resident with non Amherst registration. Correct. And what are you proposing that we do. Instead of what's in proposal one, are you proposing that we do proposal to. Well, I, I'd be happy to think either way. So faster. So right now. Proposal two goes all the way up from 25 to 400. So we, with the others, that's what we had discussed doing. So would we instead go. You know, a three year phase and so would it go 25 to 150 to 400 or 25 to 300 to 400. Either one, I just think it should be more rapid. And right now it goes all the way to the end point. I'm comfortable with the end point, the 400. So just getting to it faster, Lynn. So. So let me just say, Kathy, I think your rationale about what, what does it cost to park a car in a UMass Amherst campus as why we should raise it rapidly and continue to look at it is actually spot on. I mean, this is what they're going to pay. And they can't, you know, they can't get a parking space on Amherst and they can't get a parking space on UMass Amherst thing. So I think what you're, I'm just trying to get to the point. We have a motion. The motion would be to stay with proposal one, except with regard to what is in proposal two for residents without Amherst registration. Correct. That would be the motion. I can make the motion, I can make the motion. Proposal one, except for resident non. With non Amherst registration in this case, don't phase in, but go immediately to 400. Okay. I'll second that. The motion that I have is to recommend proposal one. Is that correct? It's correct. Okay. Thank you. Recommend proposal one, except. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So this motion has been made and seconded on the floor. And. Michelle has her hand up. Yeah, I just. I'm not. We're not getting to voting. So. Yeah. I think we're discussing the motion at this point. Okay. I guess that the. We should be clear about what the rationale is when we. For phrasing the report. That was the. Point that I was going to get Michelle. So this is the discussion within the, within the motion. Is that correct? Okay. Before getting to voting, I just want to say that I, I don't feel I can support this. But I don't think that it's fair to sort of. Create such an immediate increase when. These students have been, whether it's right or wrong, you know, and I don't even want to use those words, just whether it makes sense or not that they're paying $25 right now. I think to just move them up to 400. And, you know, like that is just, I don't feel like that. So I won't be able to support this. What would you, how would you phase it in? If you were doing it as a phase in. I mean, I don't really see a difference between. These fees haven't been increased. And that. I don't know who was sort of, or what reason that was, you know, it just didn't happen. The town didn't do it or whatever body was responsible for doing it. Didn't do it. So I feel like we should. Increase it. However, we're going to increase it equitably throughout all of the categories. I don't feel like because. You mass students would have to pay for, I mean, that's sort of to me feeling like bordering on saying, well, they can't get parking at you mass. So why don't we even increase it more? You know, like, I just think that's a slippery slope. And I just, I feel like it doesn't, it's not. I don't think it's worth the money to do that. I just think that we should increase everybody at the same, at the same level at the same cadence. So I, I feel like. Proposal one is the one that I feel more comfortable with. I just speak to it again. Andy for your, so you can have it in your report. They have an option. And that's to register their car and Amherst. And in Lowell. You can't get a resident parking permit for the downtown street, unless your car is registered. And that was the first question I asked when I found out about permits. I was stunned that we weren't requiring you to be a resident with a resident. License plate. So. There is an option here to only pay $100. It, or $50 to have a very slow increase. So I don't think it's arbitrary. We are allowing something that at least one other, I couldn't find, I don't know what New Haven does, what some of the others do, which have large student populations. But I tried to find Burlington. I just found Lowell as an example where there was just a strict, if you want a downtown parking permit as a resident, you have to have an Amherst registration, you have to have a Lowell registration. So I think that's my rationale. Because I think we don't even have a cap on how many permits we give out. We just give them out. So I think it's important for people to come to restaurants for people to come at night. So you, it's, it's an important policy decision on making sure their place is to park. So I'll just, I'll stop. Is that okay? Oh, I see. I'm sorry, Sean. But would it be okay if I respond to that real quick? I think that parking is a problem, but it's a problem that we need to solve. And that we've been having conversations in the town about, especially as, you know, as you said, Kathy, I agree we want to have places for people to come and visit and to park. And that's why we're talking about other things like garages and things like that. I just, I don't. I feel like if we sort of at least did some education to get that out there, that folks would have that option to be able to register and Amherst. But my concern is also, you know, this sort of other. That we, that I feel like we make of the students, like they're part of our community. And I just personally feel like we could think about them. Think about student residents as part of the fabric of our community. Their families come and park down and use our restaurants and our businesses. And, you know, so. I just, I'm not sure necessarily that I can agree with the rationale. I just want to say this is not anti-student. It's just a resident without a residential license plate. And Sean gave us information on our excise tax. We are really low in Amherst, given the number of residents we have with cars. And it's partly because we're not enforcing if you're here a year, you're supposed to change your resume. We are low on that as an income. He had a really nice piece in the original memo we got. So we, there is an option for getting a $50 permit here. Just register your car in Amherst. So it's not a focus. We don't want you. You have an option. So I just, and the excise taxes will be relative to how new your car is and the value of your car. So you do have an option for a much lower rate. It's not a pay this or hold your piece. So I will stop, but I just want to create a rationale on, I think we're already being permissive to allow you to get a car without registering your car. Not every town does that. And all you have to do is register your car. It's not that hard. It's just an extra step. So I'll stop. Yeah, I was just going to, I don't think this group should do anything with this right now, but since Kathy brought up the issue of demand and caps, that may be something we do have to look at in the future. But I think that the, the development on spring street has started again, started work again. I think there's supposed to be done sometime early next year. And that property, I believe, is entirely, there's no parking on that, on that site. So I'm not sure quite how many units are in there, how many residents it'll bring, but that unit will likely be exclusively permit parking. So it's something, I just want to let this group know that we'll continue to do that and if we start hearing concerns around an ability to find permit parking, because that's, you know, sort of in the heart of where a lot of our permit parking is. That we, you know, we may have to consider an upper cap at some point. The other piece that I want to add to that, I'm sorry, Bernie, but they're going to start construction on the other high rise in downtown. I hesitate to call it five story building high rise, but the other apartment in downtown, and that's going to take up that lot. That is used a lot. So we've got two major changes going on downtown. That in this next year, and the North common space. I actually support with Kathy's suggestion suggesting. So I just want to be clear. Bernie. When I thought the term was skyscraper. That's it. I think I'm supporting what Kathy suggested here, and I don't see this as necessarily anti-student. It's an economic proposition. We have a scarce resource parking spaces. We are willing to acknowledge if you have a car registered in the city, I think it's a fair compromise. I'm always concerned that we try to find ways to. Carve out certain groups whenever we come up with a proposal like this. I think that's that's a slippery slope. You make life a little bit too complicated. And I know going back to the city, I think it's a fair compromise. I'm always concerned that we try to find ways to. Carve out certain groups whenever we come up with a proposal like this. I think it's a fair compromise. And I know going back to the dark ages. 50 years ago. I became a man. I moved to Amherst because it was UMass 50 years ago. And I first moved Amherst before I moved into town. I had changed my. Voter registration in my vehicle registration. So it's, and that was back when we had to do things by paper. It's not a difficult thing. So I'm, I'm supporting getting so. Is there, is there some way that we could, if. You know, a person with a non Amherst registration gets their bill. It's $400. Right. I don't know exactly what the timing of all of that is or how that works, but. So they've been paying 25. Now they're going to be asked to pay $500. And I heard you Sean say that you could send them. Information that says if you'd like to, you know, become a register in Amherst, here's what you can do. Is there some sort of grace period that can be. Offered so that, I mean, how would they have to. Just get in and I'm just thinking about college students and sort of. You know, is there. What period of time would they have to, to, to do that between the time when they got their bill to. When they'd get a fine for being late or whatever. Yeah. So. It's okay. Any, if I respond to that. Yes, go ahead. I believe they pay for it now at the time. When they apply for the permit, which is on, on open gov. So it's all done online. I can, I don't have a good response for you today, but I'm going to go ahead and talk with our collector about ways for at least this first year to maybe provide some. Buffer in that process that I know it's. They're always worried about simplicity and the administrative impacts of, of making too many types of. Extra steps or things like that, but I can talk to her more about ways we can. Try to get the word out there and provide sort of a little bit of a bit of a, a little bit of a tone. And then I would say that I would like to. If they want to switch their plates or things like that, that they don't get penalized, but the good thing is there is no. There is no upper cap at this point. So it's, it's not if they, you know, don't get it in by a certain point that they're going to lose their spot. They can still. Go for it. I can talk with her more about. If they buy it and then they do register name. Amherst what options they have. At that point. And that this is going to be like a shock for them to, you know, as they renew. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess one thing I'd ask is you when you talk with. Collector about it is. Whether there's a way to prorate it by month. If people make a switch during the year. And they either refund or do monthly proration so that they have some time to make the change. The other thing that I was going to point out, and this is just based on my own experience as a student, which is a long time ago is because I was like Michelle coming from another state to where I went to college. One of the reasons to not change registration was comparing which car insurance rates are. Whether you can, whether you'll end up paying a higher car insurance rate and whether that will lead it up. And I think that depends upon where you come from if you come from a Boston suburb the answer is going to be no if you're coming from. You know, small Berkshire town, I'm not sure. But I don't think we can solve everybody's problems we just have to make the wisest decision for the town and the first decision for the town. So anything else to be said otherwise we have a motion that's been made in second on the floor. And I would first go ahead and move to a vote. If I don't see any more hands. Seeing none, then. We'll start. Do it alphabetically. Lynn. Yes, Bob. Whether you recommend. I'm sorry, did you call on me. Yes, yes, I recommend. Matt is not with us. I think that is here. Yeah. Is Matt is Matt. He joined he joined a few, maybe 20 minutes ago. Okay. Matt, do you have. Give a recommendation. He might have had a step away. Okay. Bernie. Recommended. Michelle. Yes. Yes. And I'm a yes. And. Alicia is absent. So at this point. We have unanimous. Four votes. Yes. To recommend. And two members. I'm participating in the vote. Okay. So can I just ask that for the purposes of. The council meeting. Sean, could we prepare this as option one being TSO's recommendation. And then change option two. To be. The finance committee's recommendation and show everything that we have. So. Okay. And just to clarify that. It's the same as proposal one except for. The non-amorous registration will come in. Immediately. Is it immediately for 2023 or is it a two-year phase in? Yes, it's immediate. Okay. And then I just want a nice chart so that the council can look. Here and here. Okay. And then I just want to. I just want to. I just want to. I just want to. I just want to. Proposal two so that it's identical to proposal one. Except for that change. For that other change. Thanks. And I think Lynn, keep the yellow. Keep it yellow so that you can see that that's the only line. That's different. Sean. Yeah, I can do that. And the other thing that you might want to do is. Change the wordings and proposal. Okay. So that's good. And the. Other thing that. I would. Probably do in the report, which I'll write with Kathy since. She's the. One who's been doing this is to say that. We are looking that we've also requested. To make a decision. In the finance committee that we look at the ways in which we can. Allow preparation during the first year so that. People don't have to make a decision. To buy a $400 permit. If they're going to change the registration. If they change the registration that they. If they change the registration. If they change the registration. If they change the registration. I think if, if, if staff can figure out an easy way to do it. So just at least allow them to figure out. Yeah, I want to want that to be. We'll. By the time we meet with council, I should have an answer for the council on that. Well, you know, and when you, you show up to rinse an apartment. In your lease starts in July. You don't say to the apartment. You don't say to the apartment owner. Well, you know, I'm not going to be here until September when school starts. Yeah. So, you know, I understand that people want to be sympathetic. But not all renters, not all temporary residents or students. And. People need to be able to plan for some of this stuff. And I would just say they don't have to, you don't have to buy a permit on day one. You just don't get to park your car in a permit parking spot. So if you, if you need a couple of months, you don't have to pay that fee on because we, right now we don't have a limit on the number of permits. So you could say, I'm going to wait and re-register my car. And I'll pay it in November, you know, so. So to Bernie's point, you know, this is a. A privilege to be parking on our streets and you can choose. You can choose. If you want to. You can choose. When you want to slot in. So, Andy, I would write that sentence really carefully. Cause I just think they don't, they don't even have to show up on the first day permits become available. If we ever put a cap on permits, they would have to, because it would be first come first serve on them. But right now we're. It's, it's expandable. I will write. A version of the report. At least this section. That we're just now discussing. Immediately. And so it gets out to the committee. The committee has a chance to comment on it and make suggestions. Cause. That is what the process ought to be for the report. And I think it's really important because it is. I think the one thing that we've had some additional discussion. Sean. And just so everyone knows, so these changes would become effective September 1st, I think is the first month of the new permit cycle. So if they're approved. In the next month or so we'll have plenty of time to get the word out. And I think another thing we can try to use again. Is the open gov email notification system to all our existing permit holders. To Michelle's point of returning people being surprised by it. We may be able to get some information out to all the existing permit holders and, you know, especially around the registration issue. Anything else. Anyway, that's the subject. Cause. If not. I just wanted to see. I haven't looked to see if there's anyone in the audience at this point. If there's one attendee. And. You have your hand up. So you want to comment. Don't you bring Dorothy and so she can comment. Who's hosting. Hi Dorothy. I just want to say it's been very useful listening to the conversation. First of all, reminding me what we did do it. So. And seeing how we can move forward on this in a reasonable way. I think you've had a. It's been very helpful. I think you've had a good discussion. And the discussion on the water rates at the beginning. One thing I didn't see said was is, isn't there to be a differential rate for somebody who is watering for lawn purposes. I don't know. I don't know. I know some towns. Do not rate them as agricultural. They, in fact, sometimes don't want them to do that if there's a water shortage. So. I have no idea if you even know who. Have that separated out. So that would be part of the, I think when we're looking at the rate structure going forward, that would be part of if we want to have a differential rate for that. Hadley did that years ago. And so they had a lot of, some of the water. I mean, I mean, I don't know if it's going to be, but I think the number of towns, unfortunately tying bond no longer doesn't, doesn't seem to have an updated version of their water, sort of rate studies. So it's. It's hard to tell. From a, you know, broader perspective, but. Yeah. The whole idea behind two meters for residential. If you're going to water your lawn, you pay more for it. So that was very helpful. Comment, Dorothy. Thank you. You know, this is something that was not for, changes for the year that we're coming up on that we're using the same rate policies for getting proposed rates to the council for FY23. And we're looking at these kinds of policy changes to propose for consideration and discussion for FY24 so that there's time within the finance committee and the council to fully consider all of the issues. I see there's one other person just joined. I don't again, if there's any public comment otherwise, you know, please raise hands and otherwise. I think that we had one additional item on the agenda and Sean, you had wanted to present some of the future plans for the committee. Yeah, so I wanted to share two things. I wanted to look at the budget, the overall budget calendar, which includes finance committee and town council meetings and see if there's, you know, if there's any disagreement on those dates and then bring up the finance committee specific agenda, which ties to this, but has some separate items that need to be considered. So I'll just walk through it quickly. I think the easiest way to walk through it is to kind of take each topic that needs to be acted on separately. So the first topic that we need to, that this group needs to handle is the regional school committee budget. So right now, the way the calendar works is the regional school budget and related debt would be presented to the council on April 4th and that would be referred to finance committee. Finance committee would review it on April 12th. There would be a public hearing at the town council meeting on the 25th of April. That would be it's a council meeting, but finance committee would hold schedule the pre-meeting hearing and then finance committee would reconvene on April 26th to finalize the recommendation to the council based on whatever they heard at the hearing. And then town council would act on the regional budget on May 2nd, which it needs to, originally we had this for later in the month, but in order to stay within the 60 days that's required, if the council wants to act on the debt of the regional school district, it would have to act on it on this May 2nd meeting. So that would be the full regional process. I guess maybe it's easy to take easier to go through questions on each process. Is there any questions on the regional school committee process, regional school budget? Sean, you said May 2nd, but you've got us down for a meeting on May 3rd. So May 2nd would be a council meeting. Oh, so it's at the council meeting. Okay. So this group would make its recommendation on April 26th and in advance of the council meeting on May 2nd to vote. And at that council meeting, they'll vote on the assessment method, the budget, and then it will have a choice of whether or not to vote on the debt. I think the practice in the past couple years has been to vote on the debt authorization. And just so people know if you're not aware, the regional school committee, the debt authorization this year is a little bit different because of the track and field project. So just a heads up on that. You may want to take a look. We'll have that motion wording ready pretty soon. The way the school committee voted it was they authorized a certain amount for the track and field project. And there's some some contingency language around if additional funds are raised by a certain point. The regional school committee can move forward with the larger track and field projects. And if those funds aren't raised by that point, they would move forward with the smaller track and field project. So I think it was actually smart the way they crafted it to kind of leave flexibility and not require a decision at this point. But just so people know it's a little bit different than the language is a little bit unique. So that's the regional school process. I'll hang on there before you go beyond that. Superintendent Mike and Doug Slaughter, will they be with us at the finance committee meeting on the 4th? Yeah. So I've sent these draft dates to them and told them that, you know, we'll let them know if they don't need to attend any of these meetings, but to plan to attend at this point all of the dates that have the regional school district budget. I don't know if Matt has rejoined us or not. But we're going to go ahead and say what I'm going to say. He had raised a question that he would like to have a finance committee discussion of what happened at the last four town meeting and what is envisioned for the assessment method and its impact going forward. And there was, I had, I missed that meeting because that was just after I had the worst part of my health crisis. So I was not at that four towns meeting, but there was discussion about presentation about guardrails. And I think that it was sort of phrased as needing to have a better understanding of what that means and what the projections are for future years. And so we really want to have the presence of the superintendent and school finance director and have them aware that that is anticipated to be some of the questions that we would look to answer. Because I essentially suggested to Matt that we do it as a part of that meeting so that we can do it when school staff are present. And Andy, so that discussion would have been, I think the bulk of that discussion would happen on April 12th. And if there are, if it's okay with you, Andy, if there are, if anyone has specific regional budget questions that they want to hear addressed, if they send them to Andy and I, we can get them to the school district and make, you know, so multiple people have the same question, we can kind of synthesize it and get those questions. I also want to interject that at that regional school committee, there was a very strong reference to the fact that what we're seeing right now is this first year and that over the summer, once we get the budget passed, there would be a further discussion about the guardrail concept in a four town public, either subcommittee or committee, but that the proposal this year keeps us at 2.5. I don't want to get into my concerns about out years, I have them, but we had also really heard from the superintendent and agreed at that meeting that the discussion about how this would work in out years would be after this year's budget. And this proposal only, the assessment method is only for 2023. So what is, if it's approved this year, it does not obligate the town to go this method beyond 2023. Okay. And let me ask, Mr. Matt has his hand up in Kathy, too. I'm going to ask my take privilege of asking the question first on the capital request. Is the thought behind all of this that the schools would renew a request to for CPA funds as one of the sources that might enable them to go for a larger track and therefore that the capital request, as is presently stated, that would default to the smaller track if necessary because no additional funds is raised is really a projected future town expense. We would anticipate that it not be shared with CPA. Yeah. So I think the their plan is to consider other funding sources beyond the regular regional capital process, one of which would be CPA. So they currently have a CPA request that's been sort of put on hold until they could get clear what option they're pursuing with the expectation that they would come back to CPA at some point to, and if you look at the CPA report, I think it says something to that effect around that request being on hold. Okay. Matt. Good morning and sorry I had to join a little late. So to Lynn's point, I thought the discussion at the four towns meeting was really clear that we would move into a working group over the summer and that kind of look at the long-term implications. And I really wasn't quite as concerned then. And then a piece ran in the Gazette shortly afterwards that sort of mentioned the popularity of this four percent guardrail idea and didn't sort of, you know, I mean, not that you expect the press to capture every little nuance, but I do think that, you know, in years that are not supplemented by federal aid, you know, that four percent number can be very important for us to keep an eye on and to work. So, you know, I think, as Sean said, you know, talking about this year's on the 12th is fine. But I also, the other thing that I picked up in the meeting was that had we been meeting in person, there would have been time for individual towns or councils to sort of meet independent of each other and have, you know, some of those more frank discussions separately and in the Zoom format that wasn't permissible with open meeting restrictions. So, I just felt like there were a couple of nuances that we as a finance committee might want to put our attention on, you know, off of the, this very clear sort of cycle schedule that Sean has brought, but sort of larger longer-term discussions. And I leave it up to, you know, your judgment as to when the best time is to talk about that. But I do think it merits, you know, a specific conversation. I don't know if you have any response to that, Sean. Otherwise, I'm going to go ahead. No, I think that's absolutely right. I think we've got to do this for this year. But the summer, I think, is the time to dive in and really, you know, whoever the representatives are from Amherst that are part of that group need to really look at the long-term implications to Amherst. So, I think that's right, Anna. I think I phrase it also as long-term implications to the regional schools, which is a shared concern for hopefully for all four towns. But if the consequence of going to this, what's being proposed for this coming year as a long-term solution, is there a risk to regional school funding because the pressures would be put on the regional schools to make sure that we have an affordable structure for all four towns each year. And so, I worry about the schools too. Kathy? Hi. I completely endorse everything Matt just said about having a meeting focus on this and just one comment. I don't know on the Zoom, I don't know whether we'll have to continue or whether we want to continue or we'll be able to continue Zoom. Zoom does have the capacity for meeting rooms. So, it's a feature that was used with the school building where groups were parceled out to just their respecter groups and completely for that kind of private conversation. So, we shouldn't, if we continue to meet in four towns and want to have those separate discussions, they were excellent, Matt, when we were able to break out. You know, and they're called breakout, I think, in the way Zoom does it. But I wanted to just raise one other thing about the summer schedule that I think will come up a little bit when we talk about the capital budget. And it's a, I think we need, we'll need to go back and look at some thinking about the large capital projects as we model our resources. And so, I want to make sure we schedule Andy and Sean, figure out when is the right time to do that because they did that discussion. Sean developed a model for us to look at and we've had to take it down temporarily as we're learning more about the cost of the school project. So, I just want to make sure we pencil in some dates for whether it's July or August to have that discussion sooner rather than later. Lynn may want to comment on, so this is this year's budget. I understand that, but it will come up. At least you'll see it in the JCPC report that we just finished with Sean's expert and Sanya's expert. We raise the issue of looking at the out years that we will probably will need to revisit those. So, I think we need to schedule some dates that that was my only comment on it, not a suggestion on what date and I don't mean in June. I'm not looking at the way we're meeting in May and June, but I think we need to be ready to have that discussion. Just briefly, Andy, if I may, I think there was a comment that the Zoom breakout rooms were a problem for open meeting law. Somebody indicated that during the conversation and I don't know if that's true or not, but that seemed like that was the motivation for not doing so. Athena, you might be able to comment on that. Sure. If the different towns went in a breakout session, then they just have to have a minute take or it would have to be open to the public and I'm not sure that we could do all of that in an open meeting. It gets a little tricky when you can't have people jumping between those breakout sessions. I'd have to look more closely before we with IT to see if we could allow public access to all of the different breakout rooms at the same time. Otherwise, yeah, it would be an issue. I also want to just mention that having shared the breakout sessions, we only get about 20, 30 minutes. It's really not enough for the kind of conversation, Matt, that I agree with you totally we need to have. I do too. And with regard to the model, Kathy, you're absolutely right. I'm waiting for Sean and Paul to indicate when they think it's ready, but there's going to have to be some meetings again about the model. And as we get more data, it keeps changing. I also, while I have your attention, want to just say that I have talked with a couple of the people involved in the fundraising side of this and they're very working hard to try to raise a significant amount of money because the cleared preferred option is the one that reorients the field so that you're not glaring into the sunset or sunrise for that matter. And they are painfully aware of the challenge, but they have their booster club working on it. Andy, can I keep going through the other processes? Okay. So the next one, an easy one, water and sewer rates. So I think we push this back, Lynn, so you'll have to say if it's okay. But as of right now, we would do the presentation of the water and sewer rates on April 25th to the council. And then they'd be referred to finance committee. Finance committee would discuss them on the third and or the 10th. That's correct. Okay. And then they'd be part of a recommendation and they would come back to the council for a vote on the 13th. And I think we may need to put a hearing for the water and sewer rates. I'm not sure if we decided last year if we have to do a hearing or not, but I think we chose to. Athena, what did we decide? I don't believe we need a hearing for water and sewer rates, but I think we did discuss it twice rather than waiting 8.4. Okay. Great. So we won't vote until after this. It comes back to the council and then there'll be one meeting and then a second time. Okay. Then the next issue is the capital improvement program. So JCPC just wrapped up their work. And so the town manager will present the capital improvement program to the council on May 2nd. And then it would be referred to the finance committee. And then the finance committee would discuss it on the third and the 10th as well. That would be sort of the two major, those two topics, water and sewer rates and capital improvement would guide those two meetings. Then there would be a public forum on the capital improvement program on the 6th of June. And then it would be voted on the 13th potentially. And then the last topic is the actual budget. So the budget would also be presented on May 2nd. We would then have several finance committee meetings that would be focused on this. And you can see what we've marked out here for the departments that would come. And we've got a contingency meeting if we need an additional meeting. We don't currently have a forum scheduled or hearing scheduled. I think it's a hearing in this case. I think we did the forum. And so we would need to schedule a hearing or a forum. I get those confused. We would need to schedule one of those on the operating budget potentially on June 6th as well if we wanted to keep them the same night and then vote on that on the 13th. And one question for this group in particular are those meeting dates for finance committee okay? Because in May we always get a very intense schedule. And the other thing we've done in the past, which will likely be needed this year as well, is those meetings are typically three-hour meetings as opposed to two-hour meetings to allow sufficient time to get through all the departments. So also recognizing that those meetings might be nine to 12 if we keep the same schedule. And they're also on some weeks they're on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah, so that's the big piece. I wanted to make sure to see if there's any challenges with this finance committee schedule. I personally have none, but I think we need to check with Alicia. That's what I was going to say too. So I can say if this group is okay with the schedule as is, I can send it up to the full group after and ask if there's any conflicts. Yeah, and I'll try to be in touch too. I was going to say I'll try to be in touch. And then once we finalize this, I will work with department heads to make sure that they're available for these or flip them around as needed, but try to stick to the schedule. Okay. No, I appreciate the thought that you've given to I think we all knew that we may was going to be heavy. I've been clear with people about that all along. But obviously without exact dates, the charter and the state law say what they say. Right. So I guess for the counselors, do you think June 6 is okay for the hearing slash forum on the operating budget to do the same night as the Capital Improvement program? I think that's makes sense. Okay. There's already just plan to be discussion on the budget. So yeah. Okay. I'll put that in there. I have to go back and look at the charter again. My recollection is it's actually the finance committee. Right. It's charged by the charter with holding the hearing, which we have typically done at council meetings. Right. Even though it's technically by the charter finance committee hearing. I'll add that in if I'll confirm that as well. And I'll add that in. Lynn, do you want to bring up the finance committee specific schedule real quick? It'll it won't take long. Yep. I think it's the next tab over. Got it. Hold on. Here. Yes. So this mirrors mostly what was on the other sheet. The only couple of things that are added in here. We'll do the third quarter financial report on April 26 and Sonya is here and she'll yell at me if that's not the case. But that would be the goal would be to get to that on the 26th. And the other topic we have to add in sometime before June 30th is the optional exemption for seniors and the blind and veterans. So every year the finance committee has to have to make a recommendation to the council, whether to adopt the optional exemption, which basically doubles the exemption amount for those certain groups. So if we can have a motion on that for the April 25th meeting, let's just do it as a consent agenda recommendation to the council. It's probably automatic, but I'll check with things. So let's just make sure we have it by the time we do the budget. That makes sense. Yeah. All right. So I'll send this out to the group. I'll put the tentative time of nine, nine a.m. to 12 p.m. Make them three hour meetings and then see if there's any conflicts from the group. Yeah. Can I also can I stop sharing this for a moment? And Matt has his hand up. So sorry. I just I missed that the April 25th meeting is an evening meeting or morning. That is an evening meeting. Okay. Thank you. And if you want to hear the town, the superintendent of schools full budget presentation, it will be on this coming Monday, April 3rd, April 4th, right? Yeah. And it's going to be at eight o'clock. We're trying to set a time specific, probably 10 after eight. But the goal is to have a full presentation to the council on that day. It's a jammed packed meeting as usual. So you're anticipated for I can't see any reason to make it a finance committee meeting since it's going to be next step is to refer to the so for those three of you just be aware if you're interested in seeing that presentation in advance, just put in your calendar to attend the meeting as attendees. So is there anything else? I think that we have done everything that was on the agenda for today's meeting. I don't have anything that was unanticipated 48 hours in advance. I don't know if anybody else has anything that they feel that needs to be addressed. If not, I will consider that first of all, I want to thank everybody. It was a really good meeting and we pretty much met our 11 o'clock goal. So in order to do that for real, we should adjourn. So thank you. And thanks, Sean.