 We're good to go. You're all set. Have a nice meeting. Thank you. I'm going to call the Finance Committee meeting of the Town Council on June 9th at 2.30 p.m. and we have a quorum of the committee present for of the council members out of five, which constitutes a quorum and two of the resident members and we have the finance director present. So I think at this point I want to just remind everybody that we're soon to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Watch General Law chapter 30, A618. This meeting of the Finance Committee is being conducted by a remote participation. So I want to go through the committee members who are present and ask each of the members to indicate that they can hear and then we can confirm that they can be heard. And we may be joined and expect to be joined by one additional member of Ms. Pavanelli a little bit later. So Pat Dangelis is not present for the meeting. Lynn? Present. Dorothy Pam. Present. E. Shane. Present. Bob Hegner. Present. Mary Lou Thalman. Present. Okay, so I think that I heard everybody who I asked to recognize. Troll of the committee members. And we also joined by Angela Nils who's taking minutes for us. Thank you. Sean Mangano and Sonia Aldrich. So with that, I'm going to, we are going to do have public comment later in the meeting. I'm going to do some sharing at various points and then stop the sharing when it's no longer. No longer helpful to have the sharing take place, but I wanted to start by putting the agenda on the screen for a moment. And remind everybody that the first item that's listed is to review the regional school budget. But to remind you that we do not need to make any decisions about the regional school budget today. And the regional school budget is not going to be voted on by the council until June 29th. So that at this point, when we do talk about the regional school budget. It's going to be for the purpose of trying to make sure that we're all happy with. So that's the information presented and to enable us to ask additional questions. If additional questions are necessary. Because there's still as time to, if there are additional questions that came forward after last night. To go to the. The regional school district pose the questions and then get a response back. So that's basically what would happen there. So I think that I won't put the regional school presentation up from last night right now. And we'll just do that. And I think that this is necessary later and put at this point. I think we can. I'll hold off on the sharing. We're back to the regular presentation. Were there any things that people have thought about since last night regarding the regional school budget that's additional information that would be helpful. Yeah, I noticed it was on page it was one of the pages of the presentation but it was, it was in the packet that we got, you know, last week. It was on page 43 or something it was the sort of the budget, the proposed budget general fund appropriation where they had the payroll accounts expense accounts and all that. I noticed that in the expense accounts, the special education expense account went down $454,000 over the FY 20, although the FY 20 was about $300,000 higher than the FY 19 so I just wanted, I think it would be helpful to understand what's going on with with that expense budget. Andy I can answer that one a little bit. Okay, why don't you go ahead. Just speaking on my experience from when I was there, the nature of the expense accounts for special education, particularly at the region is that the largest portion of that budget is for out of district students. And the cost for an out of district student can range anywhere from 50,000 to 300,000 sometimes more. And they tend to go, you know, sometimes they move out of town and then the financial obligation moves to another town. Often they move in, and then we have to, we have to budget for it. So a couple years ago we have some move in or become come up from sixth grade to where we have to start budgeting for them at the region. So I don't know this for sure. It's probably once they put the full budget document out and you can see the, the number of students that are in out of district placements. I'm assuming that the number of out of your students has gone down or the cost of the programming has gone down, because that's usually what generates those large swings. So the drop in which may be affecting next year for special ed is the state changed the circuit breaker reimbursement law. So circuit breaker originally used to only cover the cost of special education students when that cost exceeded roughly $40,000. They wouldn't cover any special ed transportation. And one of the big things that they changed bank was that they started they did start including transportation which is a huge cost it was like $200 or $300,000 for the region and sometimes more. So they started reimbursing for some of that special ed transportation as well. And they made some other little changes to it so that if the reimbursement went up for circuit breaker then that means their general fund portion would go down. But we can, but I can, I can follow up with Doug just to verify those things for you to make sure that's what happened. Yeah, that makes sense. It just, it just stood out. Yeah, it's a big number. It's a big number on this, you know, it's half of the of the change. So. Okay, thank you. Is there anything else I was going to report on one thing that I had talked with Sean about but Dorothy. Two points. I remember at a previous meeting that I believe it was Superintendent Moore said that the district was meeting needs within the district at a higher level than they were before. In other words, there were fewer people were going outside for the very expensive special ed services and that the district had been better at meeting some of them here in town. And my other question was and Sean partly answered that was, why is this a local expense anyway special ed should be a state expense and it sounds from his comment that there's some movement in that direction, because it can just totally skew town budgets and it's, you know, we don't control it. Yeah, can I speak to that a little bit Andy. Yes. Yeah, it's a huge expense, obviously, and there has been a lot of push for more state support and that's why that law was changed partially. The other thing the state allowed school districts to do a couple years ago is to create a special ed stabilization fund in both the region and the elementary schools a couple years ago did create those special ed stabilization funds and have put some money into them. And it's really intended for if we get a move in during the year, and we have to obviously pay for it that there is another funding source we don't have to pull from other parts of the budget for that one year. And the town council is involved if we ever use that money the town council has to approve it, but both both districts are prepared for something like that. And the other thing, historically, there used to be more reliance. I think there's still some reliance on what was known as circuit breaker. That was that if the district had an unusual point in the amount that it was required for the budget for special education. The coverage, but with formula was to be covered by what was called circuit breaker provision but the problems that was the legislature was not always reliable on funfully funding the circuit breaker amount. Yeah, they still they've been better in the last couple years I think they, the, they got up to 75%, which is sort of their commitment. They've been here to spend below 75%. So they've been a little bit better, but we'll see how that what happens with COVID-19 and the economic impact and how that affects circuit breaker. Anything else otherwise I'll ask Kathy. Okay, can't be. Yeah, I'm going to build on what Bob just asked and then Sean talked about the contribution to the stabilization fund. So on the, we can't talk about first page so I'll talk about the second page on the page that just showed the addition, the subtractions. Since the first subtractions were made it, there was a pullout of $98,000 less to the stabilization fund, the special ed stabilization fund. So my question for both that fund and then on the next page, there is a fund that Doug referred to last night contingencies and reserves. And that's got 497,000 in it if I look at it as the pre COVID number. So I just want to know how much do we have just a fact how much do we have in the stabilization fund on special ed, and how much going into the next year and how much do we have a contingency reserve so do we have 497 because last night Doug noted when we were talking about potential cuts in school aid that we're where we had an accounted for. We have a little bit of a buffer so we have. So I'm not sure how that contingency reserve works, but it's nearly $500,000 of a buffer. And so then the second question is do we also have one in the other so I'm one of the things I asked last night I'm, I'm worried but I'm no, I understand this why this is as it is that we might have some expenses that we haven't known about yet for teachers or substitutes. So they might need that stabilization money we might get a state cut. They might need that you know so just trying to think of where in this budget there's some a little bit of breathing room so it's just those two numbers, it wasn't to question them or not. And the same question I have on capital. And I know we're supposed to just look at the operating budget now but Doug showed the capital pieces as as the people who aren't the joint capital planning committee know we didn't do a line out in for schools. We have a reserve that we will be talking about in the fall. So I'm wondering whether the region we got it for elementary whether they have any from prior years appropriated funds that haven't been fully spent down yet. And I double checked what Doug had sent us and he just sent us, I think just for the elementary school. So that's just a question of the region that I don't think affects this operating budget at all but one of the he listed COVID expenses and a couple other things so it's those are questions of I can't get it off these sheets. Yeah, the first question I can ask Doug for a breakout of the contingencies in their line and some of that is every budget regardless of COVID. The regional school district has always had a $280,000 E&D contingency that they vote as part of the budget every year. And it's never been used it's always just there as a contingency. And the reason why that's done is because of a little bit what Doug spoke about last night. When we vote that that gives the school committee the ability to use it if there was an emergency without going back to the towns. We didn't do that if we ever needed to use any E&D for an emergency or situation we'd have to go back to the towns for approval. So that's one of the reasons why we include that as part of the budget every year so at least half of that number that you're looking at is that regularly recurring item. So your second question about capital. So the region doesn't get cash capital like the town of Amherst departments do the region borrows for its capital projects and then assesses the town, all the towns for that capital. Typically they borrow after they know the exact project costs so the town is only paying the actual debt obligation for the actual costs. So there's not really a situation where there's money left over or anything like that so anything, any emergency costs they would have this year. And I mean this year I mean in FY 21, the town of Amherst wouldn't be assessed that until FY 22 which Doug said, you know alluded to last night, that cost when it hit Amherst until the following year. Okay, thank you. I think it's close to where I was going. You'll see the term time used in regional school discussions about bans or bond anticipation notes and that's the mechanism to borrow funds. And before the debt is actually issued. That is going to be the long term debt. The long term debt vote isn't really a vote. And it's one of the things that I wanted to just mention that Sean and I had talked about a little bit earlier. Because the way that the process works is that the region sends a letter to each of the towns, saying that they are proposing to borrow the following amount of funds for the following purposes. And that triggers a period of time in which the town can vote that it disapproves of the issuance of the debt. And if towns don't vote then it becomes automatic so it's sort of like this negative thing. And because you don't affirmatively vote to do it you affirmatively vote to object. What has happened in the course of time for this region is that the region is always presenting to the four town meetings about the proposed debt to be issued. And it is discussed and at the four town meetings. And then nobody's surprised when those letters come out from the school committee, and I've never recollect that any of the towns has taken that action. And in the communities in the NAMRS previously, it would require the select board to make a decision to submit it to a town meeting. And then the town meeting would have to take the actual vote as the legislative body. And there's a 60 day period and if those actions don't occur within 60 days, then it becomes binding debt and goes forward. And that's what the process is. We're in this thing that I'm a little bit uncertain about because the stand in for the select board in our form of government is the town manager, the executive. And so what I'm not sure about is whether the town manager has to make a decision to refer to the council before the council can vote on it or the council can take it up in our form of government under its own initiative. The other thing that becomes relevant to all of this. It's really about process because I don't think that we want to object what had happened was in March there was a letter, and we didn't do anything with the letter it became binding after the 60 days. And, but the schools, and this is what I had asked Sean earlier, have issued a new letter. So the process has started again, the letter is just for the reduced amount of borrowing to listing the projects as presented by the superintendent last night. So, that's kind of just background. A little bit I think that the question that it also come up is whether we want to have something in the financial order, even though we are, it is the way I said I'm going to go back to screen sharing in a moment. I know that I cannot. I think I have a problem with that. Hang on just a second, sorry. Back up to the somehow I should have let you do the screen sharing after all, just do stop sharing in. Okay. Back. Okay, so I was going to show you the order but if you look in the order that Sonia sent to us earlier today. Just before the meeting, you'll notice in the order there's a provision in there that kind of affirmatively states. You're not objecting, which is really an unnecessary step to have to take in the order. Yes, you have to go down a little bit, go lower on the document. So, unless I don't have the right one. You're right, you're right there. So Andy that's the condensed version for of the vote just for the council it's not the, it's not the full notification that you saw previously. That's why it's so much shorter than the letter that we get. So, I was looking for the piece on the fellow that we're talking about for the No, so it's the final section there, the approval of 115,000 aggregate principal amount of debt authorized by the vote of the Amherst Pellum Regional School Committee. So that's, that's all that has typically been done I believe in the past for the council to vote on the, the notification that the regional school committee sends to the each town is much longer. There's a lot more legal ease about, you know, the process that they took to vote the debt and the notification requirements of the notification that actually sent out by the regional school committee is much longer and more complicated. And this is just basically Amherst saying we're okay with the debt. Okay, so what I just wanted to alert you to is when we come back to actually voting on the order. The question. I just wanted to come up with is, do we really need or want this particular paragraph as a part of the order. And, Sean, if you get the letter from Doug, you can just forward it to the committee so that people can take a look at what the full letter looks like. I don't think we have to discuss it today. Okay. Thank you Lynn for finding the document so quickly. Yep. So, I'll send the regional. I see Dorothy's hand is off, is that from before? You're muting. It's a new question. It's just a follow up. I was looking for notes I took last night when Sean explained what END was. And the note I had last night was, it says END line equals reserves school choice line. That I didn't understand it last night. Yeah. I heard that there is no school choice this year, which is personally relevant to me. But I was just confusing how those two things went together. What's it mean. Okay. So, END is its own fund or account stands for excess and deficiency. And that is similar to a town's free cash. So anytime the region has surplus revenues, it goes into that account. And anytime we have savings on the expense side, it also goes into that account at the end of the year. And that account is allowed to build up a balance up to 5% of the operating budget operating capital budget. That's one thing that's different about regions is there is a cap on how much we can have in that reserve, whereas towns don't have a cap on on their pre cash. The region also has a school choice fund, which is completely separate. And whenever students choice into the region with the district gets 5000 per student plus a little bit more for special education students. And the tuition money coming in goes into that school choice fund. And then each year the school committee and the district decide how much of those funds they want to use to. It doesn't support the general fund budget, but costs are shifted from the general fund budget to that school choice fund. And so there's a decision each year how much of those funds they want to use and you know they want to keep the funds sustainable because they don't want to run out of that money and have a cliff type situation so both are somewhat one is definitely reserved the other one sort of acts like a reserve but it's used to support school choice students. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so how much is totally in the one that acts like a reserve. So we always tried to keep it, you know serve like the town we tried to keep it between three and 5% to maintain, you know, a strong district. Last time when I was there it was at about 3.7 or 3.8%. So it's somewhere between one and one and a half million. It's where you take up percentage and multiply by roughly 32 million which is the budget for the region. So somewhere between one and one and a half million it's not, it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things when you think about how big the regional budget is and the 5% guide the 5% cap is actually, if you compare to the town that's the low end of the guidance for the town the town wants to have 5% and 15% whereas the region the most it can have is 5%. So, but that's where it's at. And that's not contingency reserve. No, so the contingency reserve would be if if we were to use any of those reserve funds or to earmark any of those reserve funds as a contingency in the budget, like we do that 280,000 that I described earlier. That's the account that it goes into. So those funds would be, we budget in that account. So the contingency reserve is within the general fund, where END is the separate fund. So, I just want to understand last night, even though we're not voting right now. There was the capital expenditures. And if we when those are finally approved, do they come to us for approval. Number one, and if they do or if they don't. And we find out that, you know, the budget is in serious serious trouble. So would those projects be funded out of this reserve account? So they, so it's up to you whether you want to approve it or not. If you don't act on the vote, the capital request, the vote within 60 days, then they are automatically approved. And that's the way the three towns have typically done it three smaller towns and the way Amherst had has done it up until just this past year. So you don't have to act on it, but you can. If you, if those three projects they're borrowing for. And then they're going to assess the town and your question is if the financial situation is such that the town can't pay the assessment would could the school usage reserves to pay for those capital projects. Yeah, since now I find out they're planning to borrow that would be the question. Theoretically they could I mean so the region always has borrowed for its debt and it's just the way the capital process has always worked for the region there's always a short term borrowing, and then it's assessed to the towns and the towns pay it that's how pretty much every regional school district handles its major capital needs is through some sort of borrowing and assessment to towns. But theoretically they could appropriate the reserves for capital projects but I'm not sure that you'd want to dip into reserves for that purpose right now. And my other question is, when is the clock ticking on the 60 days. So it's in the notification that I'll send out to you it says the date that the vote occurred I believe it was a couple weeks ago. So I don't think you're at any risk of the 60 days, expiring soon. But when I send a notification out to today or tomorrow you'll see the date that I was voted. So it'll be some time in July. So that was when the regional school district voted it. Yeah, I'd be the date that the regional school committee voted it. Okay. Well, the reality, you're not going to know by mid July, what condition the state budgets really in right. I just so the reality is will end up letting the 60 days expire but I'm just trying to. Luckily, I'm trying to identify where every penny is. Yeah, the other thing I'll just note because it's it's something we talk about it. The regional school committee does have a small capital stabilization fund as well. It's for again specifically capital. So it can't really be used for anything else and we keep it there as an emergency. We were building it up to help fund the track placement you may pass budget processes we've made contributions to it when when things were a little better. We were trying to build it up to help offset the cost of the track so there's also that money that if there was a real emergency. The region would have access to. Yeah, I mean you don't want to strip the budget of every possible contingency right every once in a while you just want to know. What's available. What's available. That's all. So just pause for a moment. I see that Sharon. You are not here. I am sorry. Sorry I was late. No, that's okay. I wanted to confirm for the minutes that you came on into the meeting at three o'clock, and we are meeting remotely so I was confirming that you could hear us and that we can hear you. So we should go ahead. I'm sorry. No. I mean, it's. You have to look at the region debt which shows up in our budget as part of our capital allocation is being not any different. Once you incurred that you've incurred a debt you have an obligation to repay it. And so we've, I don't think we've ever asked. I'm not aware of any town having asked to go back and relieve it. It is worth noting that the way that the amount is allocated amongst districts is different from the operating budget. The assessment methodology is not the same assessment methodology is used for the operating budget, which is this 45% budget that we talked about last night. It is straight allocation according to the property values within the town. Interesting. Okay. Thank you. I don't think there's much else to say on it. Any other questions to be posed about this because we should turn our attention to the one month budget. If there's nothing else to ask right now. And Sean can take notes back. Yeah. First Kathy, then Lynn. Okay, I, it's, it's mainly having heard there are these other funds in addition to what we're seeing here. If I went on to the regional school budget page on ARPS, would I find this off? You know, so if I could, if I knew what I was looking for, would I find the big reserve. Yeah, document includes includes information on the excess and deficiency balance and the school choice fund. Okay. Andy, I don't think you're looking for a vote today. Is that correct? That is correct because we have time. Right. Thank you. So we do need to vote on the one month budget if we're going to make a recommendation to the council. So I think that if everybody's in agreement to do so, we should move to the next agenda item. Talk about the one month budget. And I don't know if there were questions that are still lingering from last night. We'll start there and then we'll put the proposed order up on the screen after that. But let's start by seeing if there are any questions. Additional comments from last night's hearing. You want to screen Andy? Yes. You're going to go ahead and put it on the screen, the proposed order. Yeah. Okay. If you have it. Oh, I have the one month budget memo. Yeah. I think, is this, is this the sort of way we receive today? I'm sorry, Sean. Yeah. Lower page. There we go. Now you're in the middle of it. So just go back up a teeny bit to the top again so you can see the top of the order to start. So this, maybe goes a little bit higher, but this is the appropriation of transfer order. I think stopped there. 2104 a. This is what the count has been submitted to the finance committee with the intention of submitting it with our approval to the council for consideration for adoption. And I don't know if Sean or Sonia have anything to that they want to say about it at first is the order. But it just encapsulates everything that was presented last night. The numbers all match the memo above, which was by the two are attached together. It indicates how much is to be raised and appropriated and how much is to be made available from each of the enterprise funds. Yeah, there's nothing really new on from me, Andy. I don't know if Sonya wants to say anything. No, we're not in the same room for once so pretty much said everything there really is to say about this. So the one question that I had asked before the meeting convened and I'll just come back to it real quickly is that we what is below where it has town operating budget. It's my understanding of how the order is structured that we are actually voting an entire amount for operations of the town during the month of July and that the breakdown that is shown in the process below is to illustrate the intent. But it is not a part of the actual order itself. So that if public safety expenses were to be a little bit higher and general government a little bit lower. The town manager would have the authority to make that transfer would not have to come back to do that, which is different from the way that it would have worked under our old form of government. But I wanted to make sure that I say that correctly and that everybody had the opportunity to hear it. I'm sorry. Dorothy, I see your hand up. Because of the memo that you sent out with the assignments of areas of the budget to look into and you had me down for community services. And there was community services program and community service program includes some things which might you might think go under public safety. So I was interested in that was community policing initiatives neighborhood watch programs directed bicycle patrol. So I was just, and there was some school based programs and adventure ropes challenge. I was wondering, when you write community services, do you mean community services program? Or is that under public safety? That's all under what what you just mentioned is all under public safety. Community services would be health leisure services. Council on aging. Okay, structure is basically coming from the finance, I mean, from the budget book. That's how it's broken out by functional. Okay. Thank you structures like this. Yeah, that's what I wanted to know. There's another hand up. Yeah. Mary Lou, I'm going to. But I can't find it. I am. You're not. Oh, okay. All right. See, I'm looking for where we pay debt. And if we pay any in July, I thought I read that somewhere, but I can't find it. We obviously have debt. We pay toward. Things we've borrowed, but I don't see it on this chart. Yes, that's true. There's no debt service do in July. So it's not included in the one month budget. But we get service and it will be part of the 12 month budget. Right. Thank you. There's no capital. In the one month budget. So any capital that we spent was money that was had been allocated in the previous year. So other questions. Mary. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You used to have other questions still or was that. Had your hand just stayed up. No, I'm fine. Thank you. Okay. Bob. Sorry. Yeah. Back to the town operating budget. I understand that the town manager has flexibility to move money among these accounts, which is fine. But it's not required by law. It's not required by law, but if that's practice that comes to make that's fine. Okay. That's all. As I said, I don't have a problem with that. Just for the record so that we're not setting up a situation where someone looks at this and says, oh, wait a minute, you overspent general government or something like that. Just a thought. I don't know if it's necessary or not, but. That's fine. Okay. That's all. As I said, I don't have a problem with it. I just think it, you know, You know, and if we don't need, if the, if the council is fine with the order as it is, that's fine with me too. Just pointing out if I, you know, If I, if I pretend to be a lawyer, I might want to note this somewhere just so that no one says, Oh, Mr. Bachman is held to these numbers. Yeah, I just want to comment that the only place that you would see that that might happen would be within the town's operating budget between the functional areas. Sometimes one is lower and the others, their savings and others that covers that. That used to be the typical amendments at town meeting for the previous year budget. It would just be moving from one functional area to the other, meaning general government, public safety, public works, state and county, and. Community and community services. It never happens between enterprise funds. Can't do that. They're separate entities. It's never happens at retirement. So it's only within there. And it's very rare that happens. The retirement assessment, the regional lock-up assessment. of the town and there to be paid in their entirety for the year in the first month. I don't know if we get a discount on the lockup, but we do get a discount on the retirement assessment by paying in July the entire amount. We don't get a discount on the lockup. But I also just want to point out that this one month budget is just a bookkeeping. Um, what's the word I'm looking for? Sean, help me out. I'm not in the same room as you. I can't do that. Oh, it's just a bookkeeping entry because so that we can spend money in July, this whole order is going to be rescinded and the full 12 month budget will be put in its place, including replacing retirement and everything. The whole order will be null and void and the new budget will come in place to this. Right. So what we'll be doing is authorizing that amount of money to be spent on town operating budget. And if you notice amount to be voted and the reason appropriate sums are $1,620,000. So that the amounts that are below where it says town operating budget and breaks it out is not an amount to be voted. It's there for illustration purposes, which is just Bob's question from before. Kathy, you had a question about the order? Well, I'm just, I'm thinking that Bob is raising a point on I don't know what sentence to put where because we don't normally do one month budget. So clearly, you know, on one month budget in any given month, there would be things moving around because some departments would spend more in July and others would spend more in September. So that's, so the operating budget for the manager for the year has line items for each of these. So I think Bob was just saying that, you know, do we write something somewhere that makes it clear that we understand everything that Sony just said that this is gonna flow right into a 12 month budget for the public, for the history or for whatever. Because the other thing is that of these line items, the regional assessment is a full 12th of a year when I did the math and many of the others are not. So I don't want anyone in the public to think we're somehow running the town for 1.6 times 12. So I just don't know where will you put words around an order so the council understands it and the public at large. Maybe you do a paragraph leading into the order. So it doesn't have to be in the order because this is so unusual because of what's going on. You know, we had that conversation yesterday and so maybe it just has the quick paragraph before, you know, that it's not that the manager will be therefore that for the entire year flexible to move money around wherever and that this doesn't represent a one 12th of each of, yeah. That's, I just want to say the word I was looking for is housekeeping item. Yeah. But anyways, I wouldn't write that into the order. It can be part of the court from the finance committee but I wouldn't restrict orders any more than they already are. We want to have most flexibility to cover things. Every change is reported quarterly, so. Then it just may be that finance writes this really clearly so that anyone who comes across this order understands what it is and what it isn't. Yeah. That's too good. Item. That's who I think that I would look at it too because it really needs to be in our report clearly so that it's understandable to the council and to anyone who reads the report along with the order. I think the order legally stands on its own and has the clarity that's required. But the other thing I'd notice going back to last year about in June when we passed the order for the appropriation for the entire FY20 budget, it was similarly structured in that all of the town operating budget was raised and appropriated in a single amount. So we're not doing anything differently for the one month budget than we did for the 12 month budget in FY20. And. Dorothy Ezra. Yeah, Dorothy. Yes. I'm just thinking at this time, there are people who are gonna look in the budget. So if they go and take a look at the one month budget, do they know to go look at the finance report that goes with it? I mean, it's very difficult to keep on top of things. And although this is a one month budget, we're at a time when many people are gonna be looking at records and asking to see them. So to my mind, it's better to be clear and that if that includes adding a sentence or an asterisk or a referral note to something, I would do that. Also, Andy, you raised thoughts in my mind. If town meeting would vote to move things around in the operating budget, that's not the equivalent to the town manager doing it. Wouldn't the equivalent be that the town manager would propose it and the town council would vote on it? I'm really just in a very, I wouldn't say defensive mood, but since with this big interest in transparency, I think that we have to make sure that whatever we do can be understood by interested members of the public who want to see what we're doing. There's no plan to move between any of these line items at all. And if there was, it would be totally transparent. Okay, good. Yeah, I think the transparency wasn't the issue it was ease of administration that sort of got us to thinking about just doing the last year, the structure that we've just described. The important things that are out there, we have, if you look at other cities and towns and even look at our, excuse me for saying this, Sean, look at the school district, I think we have much more on our website available about all aspects of the budget. But if there is a point of transparency, I don't think that it's missing. We even have a piece in there where if you want to go and look at the actual transactions, that's available on the website. Our website is very complete for transparency and that's sort of been the historical value that we put forward. So, you know, this is the legal document and I think that the question is keeping it simple. It sort of came up actually in a non financial order. One of our counselors was objecting to putting where as clauses into the order because where as clauses, she was arguing dump along there at all that the order should just be the order. And this is sort of in that same light. So, are there any questions about last night's discussion yet to talk about? Because if not, then what I would be looking for is a motion that the finance committee recommends appropriation order FY 21-04A for adoption by the town council. So moved. Kathy moves. Kathy made that motion. Yeah, I seconded. Okay. Who was the seconded? Dorothy. Dorothy seconded. So is there any further discussion on the motion? And I'm looking for doing it by raised hands. Since I can't see with the document on the screen other than the current speaker, but I see no hands up. I don't see any hands up for the non voting members. And I'm going to I don't see a hand go from the non voting members assume that that means that they agree with the motion that is on the floor. So I think we're fine. Because we've given opportunity for discussion. I do have to do a roll call vote. However, from the four member voting members of the council who are present. So please. Did you say grease mark? Yes. Yes. That's a good. Pam. Yes. Shane. Yes. Steinberg votes. Yes. So it's four to zero. With one member. Absent. And I think that that means we can go on to the next, next to agenda items and the question I think is the next one, the I'm getting there. The report CPA. We don't really need to go. We can just take up the report for the CPA. Kathy helped me write that there is one additional piece that was very important. It's finance committee process. And your internet just was unstable. You just need to repeat what you said. Okay. So let's go over and probably with the name because I thought I said your name. For, but anyway, so let's go to the process. Can you do you have the, I do if you want to let me screen share with just the, I have the process. Hold on. You just want the grid up and Mary Lou is going to have sent us one additional or send me one additional item and I don't know if she wants to talk about it. But the purposes of this were to help to both frame questions for when we have presentations and also to take the lead role in developing the section. So Mary Lou, you had made some comments. So you want to repeat? It's up to you, but if you want to repeat them, please do. Sure. Do you hear me? Yes. Okay. I just put that together from the old finance committee. We had a meeting. We over time developed a series of questions that we would like answered, you know, some ideas in terms of of people, equipment, what they do. And, you know, it's a rough copy. I send it to you and Kathy. If you think it's worth passing along to everybody else, they can take from it what they wish or totally disregard it. But I think we had found it helpful. And it's at least might be a starting point for some. Okay. What did up on the screen, Andy? That's not it. Yeah. Why don't we leave this on the screen for a moment? Sorry. Just because I want to see if everybody's agreeable. One other thing, Sean, you had put in a date where I think you were suggesting a date for the presentation of the planning and development conservation inspections, which wasn't listed in the original. Yeah. We were going to add it to the same, same afternoon as general government, which I think is July 9th. Out of all the finance committee presentation dates that looked like the one that had the most ability to be added to. So it wasn't, we just missed it when we originally did the calendar. So we added conservation development to July 9th. And you were going to confirm with the various department heads their availability. Yeah, I let Dave, I let Dave, Dave actually raised it. Dave's Oh, I actually raised. When am I supposed to go? So I, so he's, he's aware of that day. And we've let the other department heads know of their dates. So looking at the reason I wanted to leave this up for a second is that I took all the replies from people who gave replies and then filled in for the rest. Is there any discomfort or request for changes to what I put forward? So I don't see any. Dorothy has her hand up. Dorothy. Literally her hand. Yes, I did both. Okay. Okay. I would wonder if I could, I was very interested in the items that I mentioned from the community services program, which are, I now find out are under public safety. I'm just wondering if I could do some of those with community services as well. Well, of course, when we do the, when we do all of the budgets, all of the committee should be asking questions. We're looking for the questions to becoming exclusively from Okay. Anyone individual so that if you have questions about public safety or anything else, if you have taken on community services, that's fine. What we want to make sure is that somebody is reading the budget book and making sure that at least one person is well prepared for the meeting, but hopefully we're all well prepared for the meeting. I think it's just our experience with the complexity of the budget and the length of the budget. You can get lost in it if you focus on the specific areas. But if you have the time to get through the entire budget, you certainly should get through in detail anything that you're interested in. So you're not included from asking questions. Okay. Very good. Mary, Mary Lou and then Kathy. I see two more ends up. No, I'm fine. You're fine. I didn't have. Okay, I was just going to say to Bob that on public works and enterprise funds that they're going to be on the same day. So I was planning whatever to learn as much about both of them as I could by going backwards. So just that you would know that I'm also doing that. And then on public safety, Pat's not here, but I actually, I went on our website. Andy, when you say transparency, I could get all the way back to, I think FY 06. I forget where I could no longer find budgets, but there was a FY 10. And I was going to ask Sean where to find some, because I was trying to track staffing in town and where it's gone up and down and look at police, look at fire. And our website actually has a lot of that information. Just sometimes you can't find it right away. So I was going to be an understudy for public safety, like doing some work and then cross-referencing enterprise funds and public safety. So I was going to be an understudy for public works because it strikes me that the staffing for the larger public works is servicing both the enterprise funds and roads and others. So just trying to understand that mix. So it was just a comment. So it went with Dorothy. It's not that I wasn't going to be exclusive about that, but I found last year it was the first time through those, both of those. And I felt like I needed to know more by going backwards as well as looking at this year's, the coming very thick budget document. So. I think that that's a good thing to do. I mean, that's an added piece. I think we should just be flexible and how we deal with this. So that if you're spending a lot of time on public safety, for example, since that's when you're gay, you just let Pat know that you've been spending a lot of time on it. So she's aware of it. And she probably welcomed me having the opportunity to consult with one other member of the committee because you're not tripping into a majority until you get to three. And I just think if we come up with questions when we get the budget book, I've found it useful. I don't know whether the departments have to try to think of, if I have specific questions to write them down in advance. So before they come to the meeting, I just want to make sure that they're having to look through things. So I don't know whether I'll have them, but I didn't do that as well with the budget process last year, my first time through. I was thinking of questions as I was looking at the book rather than in advance. So I just, yeah. Because we're going to be squeezing a lot into a very short period of time. Yeah, we would welcome the questions in advance. We can get them out to department heads so that they can get to where they need to go when they come to meet with you. And we would just send them to you, Sean. I'm assuming you. We'll make sure they get to where they need to go. Okay. And the staffing history question. Yeah, I can help. I think the question was where is it on the web or previous budgets on the web? So you can see the, where the staffing has been in the past and I can, I can send some of that to you, Kathy. Yeah. I can send some of that to you. I can send some of that to you. I can send some of that to you. I can send some of that to you. I don't know how far back I got before I, my word search didn't turn anything up. You know, I could go back really. Pretty far. And then. You know, I wanted to get back because Lynn, that I, then I found it very helpful to see what had happened to the last three sessions. You know, where. Where'd we tightened up and how did we adjust? And then. And then what happened? You know, I mean, it was just an inch. And I only was following one department. So I did, uh, work on the. I was the one that was doing the work. My, my son from Switzerland was amazed at what you put up on the website. He said, look at this. This is great. So. Can I just mention something if you look at the, um, October indicators or reports? Historically, there is FTE's in there. So you can see the ups and downs. Just. Okay. That's great. Thank you. financial trend indicators, as Sunny just indicated, the other, if you really want to get into the history of things, you can find all sorts of stuff in the annual reports, but they take a lot of time, especially when you get to the point where they're no longer available online, but they're available in PDF scan documents. And they're really wordy, Andy. So, you know, but yes, I found some. Whoa. Yep. So, Mary Lou has a question as I see your hands up. Oh, I'm wondering, you know, we're looking at the budget and those are projected amounts that we think we will spend. But at the end of the year, those numbers change. So are we all going to be looking at the budget with projected numbers, or should we be looking at the end of the year report with actual numbers? Otherwise, we're going to have different people looking at different things. I mean, I've done the schools, you know, for a long time, and I know that those numbers are projected, and then they show me what they actually spent last year. And you can see, there's a difference. It may not be much, but in some cases, it could be a little more. So, I guess my question is, what sets of numbers do we look at so we're all consistent? Thank you. We can all talk about our own experience to the extent that we've done this before. The budget we're proving is the budget that's proposed. And obviously, one of the things that gets reported in the budget is where there are changes from the previous year and why there are changes from the previous year. So we understand that. But that still is not always on actuals because of the timing that is often built upon the prior year is the prior year projected. And the only other place that I know to look for is to the extent he can to look at the quarterly reports. Okay. So, it is worth looking at. Yes. Dorothy? All right. So I have an awful lot of finance documents. And I'm looking for the one that says when we talk about what I had written it in my date book, but I never wrote community in anywhere. So I've just gone through the file that are sitting on top my desk. I don't know what document to look for to find that schedule. Do you know what I'm talking about? Amy, can I respond to Dorothy and then the previous question? So the calendar is on the website on the budget page. Okay. So that you can find the most recent calendar. And I believe I did put the one up that has community or conservation and planning in there now. So that will give you the most up to date schedule and we'll update it if anything else changes. The other question was from Mary Lou about actuals. If you look at our budget book from prior years, there are actuals included in there by different categories within departments. So there is information on actual spending that council members and committee members can dig into and ask questions if they see a large change between actual spending and the budget. So that data is provided. Okay. Thank you. Calendar. I don't know if anyone has any questions about the calendar. If you go down further, you'll see what we're talking about. And I guess to make sure that if you've now listed as being the person who's going to take the lead role in analyzing budget proposals to make sure that you're going to be available for the date that we're talking about. Of course, these are all virtual meetings, but that's the month where we had where we're getting into frequent meetings for a short period of time because by statute, we only have 30 days to review the budget. Sean, you said we were going to do conservation and what? The inspections, it's all together. Yeah, you can put C and D. They call it C and D as an acronym. And yeah, that that day seemed like the best day to fold it in, looking at the other days, and those would be pretty packed. Okay. So I think that we're set on and this is not an item we developed on. So we can just let's just just for discussion purposes. Mary Luce provided us with some guidance that we're going to look at later. I don't think we have to do that today, because we're not going to be looking at the budget until July, because we're not going to get it until later and until the end of June. The 29th. So that's pretty much the end. So the only other thing that we really have, because we have no attendees, so there's no reason to think about public comment, is with Kathy's assistance, I did a first round, she did a second round and I did a third round of the section that would be in the next finance committee report regarding the Community Preservation Act. And the only thing that is going to be added is we're going to add the actual order in there, because the order lists all of the projects by dollar amount and by category. And that that was an important part to illustrate in a more visual fashion than what is in the written draft. So I don't know, Kathy, if you had anything else to say, because that was one thing you wanted to make sure got added. No, I thought I thought I thought it looked good, Andy, the draft. And I just I just personally always like if it if I'm looking at a total and it adds up, I like being able to see the table. So that's why I thought just we had that nice table when we were discussing it that Nate had up. So just inserting that. Okay. So Sean or Sonia can either send it to me in whatever format order, whatever it's in for the order, I can make it a part of the document and it becomes a single document, or you can add it for us in the reverse fashion, but we'll make that part of it. Are there any comments about it or people comfortable with what we said? I was seeing Dorothy, you had something. I didn't see this to print it out, so I have to read it yet, but I'll do that. I guess it's in today's mail or yesterday's mail? Yes, it was in today's email. I'm sorry I didn't get it to you earlier, but I literally was consumed by preparation for yesterday to try and see if I could get us through. Let's leave it this way. If you have anything that you think of later, you'll get it to me promptly. I will do that. Because we don't usually vote on the report, but I did want to make sure that I got the sense of the committee correctly, if anybody is uncomfortable in the end with how it's phrased or what's included, let us know. It does focus on the order because that's what it's about. It does make reference to the additional item, but the council's not going to be voting on that next week, so I really wanted to focus on what we're going to be voting on next week. Andy, I don't have a question on this, but we just did the one-month budget. Are you going to do a finance report that has two parts? One is the one-month I will add the finance committee, and I'll do that with you just to report on the one-month budget. Because both of these come up on Monday night, correct? Correct. It'll all be in a single report. Okay. And then I just, with Paul's capital, that's, I'm right, I've got my dates right. That's on Monday night, correct? That's right. So last year, I think he had one page that was CPA, but I'm not sure whether he's planning on doing that. Anyway, that's it for him to do, so I won't worry about it, but that's also on Monday night, correct? So CPA Monday night, we have a 530 meeting, which is basically information, and then we have a six o'clock public forum, where we will not really repeat the information, we might do a five-minute summary, and then we have a forum, which is what requires the 50% opportunity for the public to speak, and then we'll go on by 630 to our meeting, unless the public forum takes longer. Because I'm just remembering, for those who sat through last year's capital forum, the entire conversation was about one CPA project. I mean, I shouldn't say the entire, but most of the evening, and people talk, so I, we're not, we're not at risk this year. I mean, this is a simple list of what's on the CPA list. Yeah. Yeah, the one thing that we might hear about is proponents of the one citizen petition. Yeah, I think they, that it's, it's not gone, it could be lined up for the reserve fund. So that's the other thing that Paul, you know, it's, the reserve fund has a value, this new thing we put together, particularly I saw the schools talked about solar, solar studies, solar canopies, so it's not, it's not gone, it's just not a line item anywhere. Yeah, so I can imagine we might hear about it. Yeah. So, excuse me, I don't think that we have anything else that we have to do, there are no attendees, so we're not going to ask about public comment. I have nothing else to add to the agenda, unless anybody else has something that they would like to request to add, but otherwise I think that we're complete. And if I see nobody who wants to ask anything else, we can treat ourselves as adjourned. Thank you. No, we're not. Thank you. And the meeting then is adjourned at 3.50 p.m. Thank you. Bye.