 All right, you're all set. Okay, so I'm going to call the finance committee meeting of June 1, 2021 to order at two or five PM. And welcome everybody who's here from the committee and staff and who's here in the audience as attendees. And this meeting is being held virtually. It is pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020, orders to suspend a certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 38, section 18. And as required, we, I will ask each member of the committee to acknowledge that as I say their name that they are here, and then we will know that they can hear me and we will know that we can hear them. So I'll start with Dorothy Pam Dorothy. Yes, yes, here I am. You acknowledge your presence. Yeah, thank you. Pat d'Angelo's present. Here. Bernie Kubiak. Present. Present. Present. Yes. Here. Andy, sometimes your voice is breaking. Up a little. But here. On the computer that has. Wire to connection. Using wifi to get to. Still having problems. Better. Best. I think that Lynn. Wanted to say something. At the beginning of the meeting before we actually get it. To the agenda itself. So I'm going to say this now and then I'd like, I will repeat it at our meeting on June 7th. We would like to extend an apology. To the community safety working group. For leaving them in the attendees as long as we did. Having said that, I do want people to know. That I had sent them an email. 24 hours in advance. That told them how the meeting was going to proceed. But nevertheless, two hours was a very long time. And so please accept our apology. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I. Also extend my apology for. Being the one who is chairing and not Rick. Realizing how long it was going on. Following the process that had been agreed, but not being sensitive to changing the process. So I also extend my apologies again. But need to get on to the business of the day, which is to go through the budget. And because we have to make a recommendation and tomorrow is a day by which we have to make a recommendation on the budget. So I'm going to ask. Sean. If he has it available. To put up the first of two proposed orders. That really are part of the core. Of what it is that we are recommending and. Order 22. Oh, six, which I think is the. Number for the. Operating budget. Do you have that, Sean? Yeah. Do you, can you see it? It's yes. And you're exactly the right. View of it. Leave it there and. Go, go down a little bit. Because we can. Okay, stop. So what we're being asked to do. Is consider. An appropriation transfer order for the operating budget in the amount of $69,707,427. As indicated. And the reason I wanted this on the screen as the first item. Is that. There are parts of it. That may not require any discussion today. And that we just agree are. We can accept. And I want to try and go through those first. Which means I'm going to put off the town operating budget for a moment. That line. It's the fourth line. And go through the other lines and see. If there is any discussion that needs to take place on other line items, as I call them out. And. If not, then we can. Just focus on the town operating budget. The fourth line. So. Are there any. Is there anybody of anything to say about retirement assessments. The regional lockup assessment. Or the proposed allocation to other post employment benefits. And if I don't see anybody's. Hand being raised. Then I will assume that we can just. Proceed and. Go through to the next line. So seeing no request for discussion. I'm going to assume that. Those are items that do not require discussion today. Library services. Or elementary schools. And I'm looking for raised hands. Seeing none. I'll go to the question of. That service. And the enter in the four enterprise funds. I believe Dorothy may have had her hand up on library and elementary school. Oh, it's funny because it didn't appear on my screen. Dorothy. Actually, it was on region. I thought you could go in order. We can lock up assessment. And I was curious to know whether that related to. Our share. I'm sorry, Dorothy. We didn't, I didn't hear the whole question. Is that because we used it that much? Or because we just get a share whether we use it or not. Sonya. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it's just an allocation. An assessment that we pay a portion of. It's not based on actual usage. But is that right, Sonia? Correct. I'm sorry, Dorothy. I didn't hear the whole question. Question on regional lock up assessment. Is that because we used it that much? Or because we just get a share whether we use it or not. Sonya. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it's just an allocation. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? And Kathy has her hand up. Kathy. I have my participant list correct. So I can. See it, but Kathy. Okay. I don't really have a question on the elementary school line, the way it's presented, but I'm thinking in our report, it would be useful to have the expected amount that is being allocated to our schools from the recovery. American recovery act. So. There's additional funds that will be supporting the schools. And I believe Sean, that there's a decent estimate at this point. On what amount is going to the schools. So. Andy, is it okay if I respond to that? Yes. So I can try to find a link. I haven't actually so while the town has seen an update of what we're expected to receive from the, the American rescue plan. I haven't actually seen a rabbi, like a actual. Projection of what the schools are going to get. There were some preliminary estimates that were put together, I think over a month ago. So I can try to find the link that I think MMA put together around that. It may be helpful to link that in the report. And I can also check and see if there have been revised estimates on what the schools are going to get. And I just thought that it will be important so that people, I mean, there was a lot of concern that we're putting too much of a squeeze on the schools and there will be these additional resources. So if you can find a number that's our best guesstimate, I think it would be useful to put it in our report. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll take a look and see if I can find something on the MMA, MMA website because they did a forecast or a projection a while ago that had a bunch of different sources of federal aid. And it broke it out between town and schools. And so I can, I think that's the most recent estimate of what the schools were going to get from the American rescue plan act unless something's come out in the last day or two. Okay. And, and when you get it, you know, I've never been clear when I see the big numbers, whether that's a per year. I know we can get it pro up to three years or whether that's a total. So just, yeah, it's a total. I mean, the number of the 11 million or so for the town as a total over three years. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Anything else. Going back to the other ones who we raised, I asked just to make sure that we have no need for the discussion on debt service or any of the four enterprise funds. So, and seeing no hands raised. Then we get back to the town operating budget itself. And I'm going to, I guess next question that I have is regarding the town operating budget. Is there any questions right now that people have about anything having to do with conservation and development? Seeing no hands raised. If something comes up, you can bring it up later, but what I'm trying to do is just to see if we're down to talking about public safety and community services. So I'm going to ask about the other two for the same purpose. Public works. Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll be seeking discussion on any aspect of public works. In general government. Okay. Seeing none. Then as I said, if somebody comes up with something later, we can bring it back up, but I wanted to get to focusing on two. Lynn. And Kathy. Lynn first since your hand went up first. So on the community safety working group community responders. I'm going to start with the fact that. How manager on Thursday presented us with an alternative plan. And if possible, could we find that part of the slide presentation Sean. And put it up. And then let me mention that between Thursday when we met. And Friday morning. We learned that Senator Joe Comerford. Has successfully placed in the budget. $90,000. For community responders. And that is essentially equivalent to one full year. Equivalent person. At least the way I think we're estimating or thereabouts. Because I think it would include benefits. Okay. Thank you. The right page to. You do. That would include allowing us to go to either 4.0 up to 6.0. Responders for five months. If I'm correct. And then while there is discussion. About further reductions to the police. I would prefer. And I want to word this by saying I would strongly prefer. That we not tell the town manager where to find additional money. But basically ask the town manager. Once the budget is passed. He seek additional money. That would add yet another two positions. To the responders. So the total for this first year. Would be eight FTE responders for. Five or. Whatever months we can hire them. First of all, I'm just going to say, I think it's going to be a challenge to hire these responders. We have not identified. What. Qualifications are yet. But, you know, my quick guess that is going to be something like psychologists and social workers. Because they're the people who are more closely trained to this kind of work. Neither of my suggestions, either the money from the Senate. That we hope makes it through the conference committee. And we know that Mindy Dom will support that for the additional money we're asking the town manager to find. None of that would be. I think it's going to be a challenge. And then substitute for the bottom line. Where the data gathering and analytics, the 250,000. Or anything else. It would be merely to bring the number up. The eight FTE responders for five months. I haven't made that into a motion. I was interested in other people's thoughts. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We'll get back to. Kathy. Were you wanting to be. Yeah. Up next. I do. So. I have something to say that goes beyond what Lynn just said, but I was glad you said that Lynn first. It provides a bigger context. So. I think. Number one. I think is. Both good news and it increases. In theory, it increases the total revenue the town has. So we will have to figure out how we write that up because it's grant grant money. And I think. At some point it will be useful. Or Paul. Flash Sean. Sean. For. To understand, as you just said that this is a five month commission. So I would like to. Because I want to make sure that we have in FY. 23. We have the equivalent for a full year. So I would like to. Have. A best guess on what this. Will be in FY 23. In as part of this when we write it up, Andy. I would like to make sure that we have the equivalent. For a full year of this year. And I'm not necessarily saying where it should come from. So I just think it's important because we can do some things in this year for a variety of reasons. So my, my other, I came prepared to talk to use the wording we used last year. When we. When we look at the approval of the budget. With the understanding that the town manager. Hold two positions in the police department. If we move to, there are still three vacancies. So yes, Lynn, I understand what you're saying is it gives him the flexibility, what you're asking for. Is it would give the flexibility to make that decision. Or find the money someplace else. I do. Us writing up. I think it would be a mistake. I think it would be a mistake. Of where you might get it, even if it's just one and the, I had come up with a motion that would are recommending. That this, we have this first six months to assess data to get the system. And then make that decision in January, whether to release that money or not for either one or two. Because I think. It would be a mistake. To fill all three positions. And then we still have the budget. Or the budget. I don't think it will be available at the level that we do. Any of them. So I would be interested in others. I have a draft motion that would do. The way we did it last year, which was, if people remember, we didn't cut the budget. We accept the budget with an understanding that the town manager manager would hold one of these two. One, and I'm saying one or two positions vacant. So. not send any signals. So I'm more comfortable with saying where it might come from. And that would still leave by January, a decision on that's not where it's coming from, it's coming from someplace else. So I will stop talking now, but I did, I have a draft of what that wording would look like. Yeah, let me start, I'll put the disclaimer first. I'm very much a supporter of community response programs for a variety of reasons that go beyond the anti-racism piece of it. Having worked with folks with disabilities who's gotten themselves in trouble with cops throughout Western Massachusetts, I can tell you a community response program is preferable. That said, I have not seen any data that would support the level of staffing that was insisted on in the community safety working community safety working groups report. That's still coming. My guess, based on what I've experienced based on putting together the South County emergency medical services, based on looking at boots and some other data, that if we have two person teams on 24 seven, that may be sufficient. And that I don't think at this point in time, we have any information that the community response or responder program is gonna lessen the workload and the importance of the police to the point where we can take more positions away from the police. So I'm very much in favor of saying to Paul, if you have, as you staff this up, find the money anywhere you can, not necessarily take it from the police. We don't have that data. If you look at Kahootz, they operate on $2.1 million a year. That's about 2% of the $66 million budget that police department operates under. And they, while they answer 20% of the calls, their actual impact on police operations is more like seven or 8%. So this is a complicated thing and we're gonna have to work through it. And I very much encourage bringing that organization in to consult as well as whomever else you've been talking to. So I would be hesitant to be prescriptive and say, take the money from the police department because I don't think there's gonna be that much that can be taken from the police department. And again, looking at the good status. And I also think that level of staffing is proposed. The number of FTEs and the community safety working group budget doesn't support the level of staffing we think they're asking for. So, you know, and I'd very much want to see this program succeed for a variety of reasons. But I think the proposal that Paul put together to kind of back into this and build data, build some experience is a good one. And again, I think we should be supportive and not prescriptive. Thank you, Bob. Yeah, I wanna agree with Lynn and Bernie that I don't think we should tie the manager's hands in terms of where the money should come from because everything's in flux right now with, well, there's a number of things in flux. And I think that they, I think giving the manager the flexibility to find money where he can find it, I think is something I would certainly support that. I think, Kathy, it wasn't clear to me. I mean, I agree with the idea of increasing the number of Crest responders. It wasn't clear to me what the kind of practical look is for that. I mean, in from my opinion, I think we should try if we can to get at least one team available 24-7 in order to have that service be truly tested in terms of what's gonna happen on the weekends and at night, what's the demand going to be, et cetera, et cetera. And I think it would be very helpful if we could get that and have a commitment to at least have that going forward in FY23 so that we're not, we're signalling, we're not gonna pull the rug out after five months or six months, but we do have an ongoing commitment for at least, you know, 18 months, 17, 18 months to really work out, iron out all the problems with this new service. So, I don't know, Kathy, were you thinking sort of a full-time 24-7 presence? When I talked about, Bob, I'm thinking similar to you and I'm just, this budget that we're looking at right now looks very doable for FY22, especially if you add the other 90,000 in. And Lynn talked about how you could get up to as many as eight. When you say, what does that look for FY23? Suddenly we're not a five-month budget, we're a 12-month budget. So, I too would like to make sure if we start it, we can keep it going, that we're committed to it. And I just wanna say that, I, Doreenie, I'm agreeing in what Lynn said. I think we don't even know for sure that the people we would wanna hire exist with the training we would like them to have. So, we may need to cross-train or get some community groups where we're, and we want this to succeed. So, we want everybody we hire to be really a good fit. And so, then we also wanna be able to go, no, go in to, if it's five months, go into the next 12 months with that commitment. So, I was more just saying, let's make sure we have the money. And when I look at our FY23 budget, it is really tight, really tight. And I'll talk about that later with capital, but I wanna make sure that we are not making just a FY22 commitment. We're making a minimum of the equivalent of a year and a half here, that getting it started and then running it. I would agree that it's gonna take a year and a half to kind of suss through this and get a good idea what the program's capable of doing. My caution is not to go to two teams, 24-7. 24-7, if you look at CAHOOTS, they put up 31 hours of staffing. That's two team for 24 hours and then seven or eight hours of double coverage. And that's for a community that has 170,000 people. So, you're gonna wanna watch how you build this thing and we're gonna need some data. And I know we're getting one year of data crunched for us, but I'm not convinced of that even at one year of data sufficient. It's gonna have to be some practical experience. Yeah, Bernie, just to clarify, I was suggesting we aim for one team 24-7. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, I would agree to build to that. Yeah. And the first couple of shifts would be those times of the day or the week when the data suggests this is prime time. And then the remaining coverage gets added on later. We have some other members of the committee who wanna be recognized. So, I wanna try and get to the Dorothy. I just wanted to add my voice to concern about being able to carry it forward. I agree it's better to learn how to walk before you try to run and that careful start is better than just rushing in and getting yourself in trouble. So, just want to, because I think that we have to make clear that the town manager and the committees are doing their best to do this in a way which seems rational, clear, and doable. And that is aim for success, but concerns. I think making the first team a little more robust might not be a bad idea. So, that's my comment. Sean, since you, did you have some things for any instructor that you wanna add? Yeah, I was just gonna sort of kind of echo what Dorothy said, which is, if we were to create a eight-person program in FY22 and try to maintain that eight-person program in FY23, it would be a pretty large increase to the budget for FY23 that would take up resources from other places. And that might be fine. I guess what I was gonna say is it'd be good to hear maybe sort of what are the priorities for FY23 because I'm thinking if we're gonna add this program and maintain eight in FY23, it's possible the recovery is stronger than expected and maybe it won't be an issue, but I could see it potentially impacting operating budgets more than what we've already projected where I think we already projected not being at 2.5% could potentially come out of capital, but that would impact the ability to do the plan for the four building projects. So I guess it would be helpful to myself and I'm not sure if others, but would we kind of get a sense of priorities where if the funding's there, we'd do it, but how does this compare to other things? Because I'm just looking at just to maintain four, we're gonna have to find 300 to 350,000 additional funds for FY23 if we're adding eight and the grant doesn't come back, you can double that more or less. And that's well more than what the municipal budget gets in a given year at 2.5%. So again, I'm just looking for what are the priorities for this so that we can kind of make those decisions as we go forward. Paul, the two of us. So I think it's important what Kathy and Dorothy are talking about and others as well about and to add on what Sean said is FY23 is really important to think about because we've always said it's not that hard to find the money in FY22, FY23, 24, 25 or the challenging years. And I think you need to make your recommendation based on what is going to happen in those out years. Secondly, I think what's really important for us to say that we want to follow the data. So if the data says we need two teams of people during certain times of the day, as opposed to people from midnight to 6 a.m when they're having people sitting there and having maybe no calls, we want to look at when the calls come in that we're going to be allocating. So I think it's important to analyze this in a little bit more substantive way over time as we get into the call data that will be analyzed by LEAP. We can look at it, not just the types of calls, but also when they come in, when the most likely hooded is a time of year. We know we staff appropriately for police and fire now based on our inherent knowledge about how the season works during the course of the year. So we staff up at certain times and staff down at other times and we are able to take vacation. So I think, again, adding what others have said, being trying not to be prescriptive, but having the goal being very clear that the council wants to see and the finance committee is recommending that the council establish this program. We want it to be successful, which I think we all are in agreement on that. So, but again, the biggest challenge that we talk about regularly is how are we going to, you know, maintain this going forward? And what it would mean is that the council today or whatever is saying, we find this to be a high priority and this takes precedence over all other budget requests. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm saving my own comments for later. Lynn, there are a couple of people who I haven't heard them yet that I want to hear from. Please go ahead and then I'll... Okay, because I know Jane has been had her hand up for a little bit. Jane. Michael. I just wanted to ask you about the problem of hearing you. It's still a problem. Now you seem to be frozen. Yeah. Sometimes when people turn their video off, the voice is less unstable, but not always. Try it. I don't know if it'd be better than if you're having problems with your wifi to try calling in and connecting that way too. Because I certainly want to hear from you. Yeah, I'll just go back to the whole portion. Okay, I'll ask Pat next and then we can come back to Jane. Pat? Yeah, thank you. I'm trying to understand we have a $90,000 grant which Lynn suggested we increase the FTEs by two and that would give us six. And then we were talking about two positions more coming from the police department, which would give us the eight. And I'm assuming when we're talking about one team, we're talking about four people which is originally in Paul's budget. I would like to see us recommend that there be a reduction in the police department. I'm concerned. I know the logical. The conservative step is to follow through and not have eight people. My concern is that it's in terms of the definition of what an emergency is. We had white people in wanted a new bridge, Station Road because they were in convenience. It was an emergency because they had to run their car longer and therefore they were impacting climate, which has got some reality except for the amount of time that they had to run their car. It really didn't make much of a difference. We funded a temporary bridge because it was an emergency. And so I'm just having when I and we keep finding money to do kinds of things and we don't fund, we don't replace our ladder truck. That's an emergency, but we don't talk about it as if it's an emergency. So I'm having a hard time being logical and conservative. I wanna see this program succeed. I think it will impact the police. I would like to see, I would like to see that happen. And it's not because I disrespect the police. I'm sorry, I really don't have this logical basis, but we're making a mistake by not saying where the money has to come from. And I, you know, I said this earlier today, I have a lot of respect for you, Paul. I know that you will do your best. I believe in you and Sean and Sonya, but I think that we need to do some directing and be a little impractical. And take a risk. That's kind of where I am. Andy, do you wanna go ahead, please? Yeah, I can go ahead. A couple of things. One is that I think that we might be able to get some statistics from just our current calls to the police department to know what it is that we have seen the nature of demand, kind of demand, and whether there's any predictions that can be made from current experience. But one of the things that I am very concerned about that I've been fairly consistent saying this at council meeting last week and the prior finance committee meeting is that we would be making a big mistake if we cut the police department without being thoughtful about it and making sure that we have enough of a police presence to do response that police will still be required to do. And I bring up domestic violence because I had such a big investment in my prior career and because I emotionally have a strong investment in it. And I don't agree with what was said in response to me at the meeting on Monday. When it comes down to something that involves the word violence, there is no substitute to people who are trained to deal with violence. And if you don't have enough response to have quick response and adequate response, then it's a problem. So I think that we can reduce the police department, we have reduced the police department as we develop a Crest program that's gonna take up appropriate places from them. But I don't wanna do it at the cost of jeopardizing the safety of anyone in the community whether they'd be a domestic violence victim or any other kind of threat to violence or anything else that absolutely requires police presence. So I am loathe to make precipitous cuts without real thoughtful approach. And that's where I really have to rely on Paul to provide guidance on that and not make assumptions and oppose our views on visibility to manage a police department that's at least adequate to serve the most essential needs in the community. So that was what I thought was, Jane, you're back, can you try again? Or, because you obviously, Jane, can you hear? You might contact Athena by eat and see if she has any suggestions for you because she's pretty good at trying to help people solve problems. So why don't you and Athena see what you can do? Lynn, I'll take it back to you. Okay, so my logic for eight is people don't work seven days a week. And if you want three shifts, you have to have a minimum of eight and that's your 24 seven. My second logic is we wanna give this program the best opportunity to be successful. And I think if four, it's just not enough to try it out. And I think it's gonna be tough when we go to funded a year from now. But if we as a council say this is a priority, then we have to put it as a priority. And finally, I really believe sending the message to our police by cutting more positions or freezing more positions is the wrong thing to do. That's what Northampton has done. They can't recruit good police officers and they're leaving in droves. If we want young, BIPOC, new policemen to join our force then let's stop sending this message. I think we have to go to Dorothy. I can't find the cursor on you half the time. Okay, this is, I agree with what Lynn said, but this is to kind of counter something you said, Andy, although I totally agree with you that we need a joint presence for many, many things. What we don't know from existing stats is we do not know how many people will call crests who in the past have not called the police. There's just no way that we can possibly know that. And so that and the dedicated number they were talking about, that's a truly new aspect of this, which we have to see how it plays out. I mean, no one can predict actually, but we have to see if in fact there are a lot of people who will call this new service who would not have not in the past called police because of fear of what might happen. Thank you. And thank you, Dorothy. I think it's fair point because I don't think that current statistics can do more than give us at least a preliminary direction, but it's not going to give us the real answer. I think you're right. We need the experience of crest itself. And the only thing said we have to rely on otherwise, besides the experience we gain, which will be the best is what other communities have. So Kathy, Athena, did you have something? I just wanted to say I got ahold of Jane and she said that she just didn't have anything to add right now, so she's all set. Okay, Jane, let us know if you have something more, Kathy, I'll go back to you then. I will go back to, I will build off of what Lynn just said if we need eight to run three shifts and cover seven days. You know, some of those shifts may not be, need to be 27, may not be, need to be a 24, 24 hour shift. So I would really like Sean and company to be able to say what does that look like if not this coming year, but what does that look like for FY23 in terms of what kind of budget we're talking about? Because I don't want to imagine a budget. So I do know that the last two or three years, even with the restricted revenues we've had because of the budgeting we've produced, we come in under our budget every year. So we've had some revenue that we could reallocate. If we can say that we don't have to be quite as conservative, I just would, I don't want to staff up by the end of FY22 and discover we can't support the people we're staffing up. I could also see that some might not be there for the full five months. They might be there for something less because when we put out our job description, we're not inundated with the perfect matches. It takes us some time to find the people we want to hire and I think we should be careful. You know, my only experience with starting up new programs with staff, with the kinds of people that haven't existed before. So we're building up is in the healthcare world when in primary care, we brought in physician assistants and nurse practitioners and we had to learn what they could do, what went off the doctor's schedule and people had to trust that they could do when we sent them out to the community. So, you know, so Lynn, if aid is our target, I think we should be explicit about it and we should have some sense, not just that we trust Paul, we'll find the money somewhere. We have to have some sense that we can really be able to fund that. So when I talked about the, I didn't want to cut the police budget, I wanted to hold one or two positions until January just to secure the money. If we don't think we can do that because it sends the wrong message. I understood the police Jeep to say it's gonna take them time to fill those vacancies anyway. He's not filling them. And I wasn't saying all of them. I'm not sure where else we're looking. I don't think we're looking easily at the school budget, at the DPW budget, at the fire department budget, at the people who work for Paul budget. So I would just like some sense of money flowing in that we think we can realistically reallocate. I'll stop talking here, but I did my, before this started, I asked if we're, when we're voting the budget, are we also voting the capital budget? Because I'm concerned already that the amount of debt we're taking on, because we said we can do all four buildings. Schools will just do an override. 3.4 million is what is in the FY22 budget for a schematic design for DPW and fire. That's an increase in FY23 of $200 to $250,000 a year in new debt service. So that's hitting this year we're talking about, which is already budgeted for just barely a 2% increase on operating budget. We got a very tight, when you look forward several years, the operating budget is really tight. And when health insurance doesn't come in at zero, which we were lucky this year, when it's back up to one or 2%, if there are step increases. I just wanna make sure that we can get there because I don't wanna start and then stop in any way. I think that will, there's gonna be a learning curve and I think we need time to learn. So I would just like, my request is that we have a guesstimate of what this program would cost in FY23 with us being told how one plans to do it. Yeah, that's it. I'm quite liberal in the way I'm willing to spend money and federal government was fun because you could just deficit spend if you wanted to, but you can't as a local government. So I would just like to know, and I think we have to look at the capital side when we say we wouldn't have to look at, we can't commit to do everything and start spending the money and not have the money to spend. So we have to be thinking across not just FY22, but the impact of what decision we make in 22 and how it hits 23. Richard just said we are bleeding into capital a little bit, but Sean might have some way of responding to the question as to if we did the borrowing that included the funds that are being proposed for schematic and we'll come back and talk about the value of doing that a little bit later. When would the repayments start to affect the budget? When would first payments become due? Give me one minute to pull that up. Are you talking about the borrowings for the design work? Yes. Yeah, give me one minute and I can pull that up for you. Okay, we can come back to that. Lynn, did you have something you wanted? Yeah, I guess the other point I just want to add is every year we've been on the council, we have voted at least $2 million to stabilization funds. We've never asked where did that come from? But if you ask, what you're going to find is come from vacancies, underspent budgets, et cetera. I feel we need to have more faith in our town manager and let him find the money, but not send the message. And so I really want to not lay it on the police, but just say it to the town manager. And I am worried about the next year, but you know what? We can only do what we can do at the moment. And if we don't launch the program with some successful parameters, then we have condemned it to failure. Okay, Lynn? It comes to the minds that's seen in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where they jump off the cliff and on the way down Sundance says, I can't swim. But you regularly find yourself in those situations in municipal government and it's just part of the show. And I think that, I think going forward, I think we'll be able to find the money, maybe a struggle or maybe type, we will find the money. The other thing I will say quite sincerely is I think, well, the community responders have been framed as a response to the police. We have to watch that because they're not a complete replacement for the police. They're a partial replacement for the police and they're gonna have to work collaboratively with the police department. You look at the Cahoots data, I don't have it in front of me, it's working out of memory. About 11% of the Cahoots calls have to be backed up by the cops, especially around domestic disturbances because those are very dangerous situations. And I think Andy's right with his concerns about that. Andy, can I just respond to the debt question from before? Yes. Yeah, so the borrowings for the design engineering work, we have those as bond anticipation notes that would be paid once the project is completed or once the project is bonded out. So the DPW would start an FY23, sort of the DPW portion of that and the fire station would start an FY25. So they would be temporary borrowings until the full project is complete. And that could change as we go forward, if this is approved, if we go forward, if there's a year where we could make a pay-down on those, we potentially could factor that in but right now they're projected to be paid with the rest of the project. So there's no payment on a temporary because I saw the big jump up in debt service and I assume that we were paying down. Yeah, for FY23, the jump is from the DPW portion of that. So again, the DPW were projecting the first initial payment to start an FY23. Again, these are best guesses because we don't know exactly when the DPW project's gonna start and finish, but the jump you saw for FY23 is related to the DPW portion. I don't think we can complete the discussion without having some understanding of what the value is of having that work done on the schematic designs now. Do you wanna talk about that now, Andy, or is that a hold that till later? Yeah, I think the problem is is everything interacts with each other because as I say, all bonds are fungible and you do go back and forth on some topics. And I think that's as much as we're trying to contain it, it's difficult to avoid it entirely. Yeah, I mean, I could just say real quick that the reason why we're including that request as part of the FY22 budget is because until we get a really good design for both the fire station, the DPW and a cost estimate, it's hard to, these projections, these are just projections because we're putting in estimates around them, but we need to have that sort of detailed schematic design looking at the site, looking at the, doing an updated needs assessment with a budget in mind and also with the net zero in mind so that we know if these numbers are gonna work for the community. So that's why this is really the next step to get to the DPW or fire stations to get this detailed level for the DPW especially, but also for the fire station. Because can you do it without a location? I would always understood that a schematic without a location is hard to do. Right, so we, I mean, we're anticipating, when we ask for these funds, we're anticipating that we will have a location before they're used for next, so I think the RFP for a DPW location is, does it do this week, Paul? I think we were talking about, yeah. So we wanna spend the money to do this schematic design till we have a location identified. You wouldn't borrow money to fund it until you have the right to do. So it'd be an authorization, but it would not necessarily be borrowing, just being able to borrow if we're able to find a location. Can I just build on this? When we give Paul, if we're talking about discretion to make this work, would we give him the discretion to say, gee, I can't move forward on that because I need this money for something else, because we've also asked him to do four buildings. I'm just, I don't wanna tie hands if we're talking about flexibility and those numbers, they're big numbers. And if you look at the debt service, if we go forward, it's big. And I'm a little worried about the DPW site for fire, if we discovered their contaminants, that there's a long cleanup on it because we haven't really looked into that. Gilford said you go down eight inches and it's pretty yucky. So I just, I'm looking for not tying Paul's hands if we wanna move forward with the other program to say that FY23 is feasible. I'd like to know what's feasible. I'm totally for this program. I just wanted to be a health that we give it the resources to start and the resources to sustain it a year later. And we can, if we're gonna meet tomorrow, we can have those numbers for tomorrow, if that's what's needed for the committee to move forward on this. Yeah, I mean, this is hard and for Paul and Yashon trying to figure it out entirely because we really don't know whether we're gonna be really successful in quickly hiring people. So we can then get into training to become community responders or if it's gonna be more difficult to do that hiring. And I don't know how you know that until you actually get out there and try and do some advertising and hiring. So it seemed to be at a quandary. And the last thing that I wanted to point out was that Lynn talked about how each year we have money that we can transfer to stabilization. Well, that's the money we were looking for to initially fund the reparations stabilization fund. So, Hill Lynn. My only point is first of all, we haven't pledged all that money to reparations. We've only pledged equal to approximately $206,000. Second of all, my point is that there is flexibility in the budget that we don't see because we thank God are not the daily managers of the budget, but the financial people do see it. And it comes from a variety of different sources. So I'm trying to place faith in our town manager and our financial people first that they will do everything they can to find it. And second of all, if they can't, if they find they can't find it, yeah, they have to come back to us. So it's basically putting management where management should be and policymaking for policymaking should be. Okay, so Dorothy, you're waving your hand so I see that way. You know, the police department has a police academy and these Crest workers need perhaps some kind of uniform training, not just relevant background and character aspects. And it's quite possible that one of our local community colleges could in fact develop a program of training for them. So part of me, I want this to happen quickly, but part of me says, I don't know if you can do it that well quickly. I think you hire people and you train them. So they're not really out there working 24 seven because they're being trained because in the police department, everybody's trained before they do things. So just putting that in is something else to think about. Good point. Community colleges have been very good about being fast at developing new programs when there's a need to do it and I can see community responders that one of the colleges is gonna say, hey, this is where there's a demand now and we've got to start making that training available. But we know it's gonna take a little bit of time to get going. I think that's one of the frustrations that I can see the community is gonna have and the community services working group is gonna have about the program because I think once we get our emotions invested in it, we wanna see it happen, but it's, there are risks of going too fast. Lynn? Andy, do you wanna start trying to move to motions or not? I think so, unless we think that there's additional information from Sean who's gonna enhance conversation for tomorrow, otherwise I think we are getting to the point where it's appropriate to get to motions. So if somebody could refresh my memory, I believe last year we did two different things on this. We one did a motion to pass the budget and then separately we did a motion where we made a certain request of the town manager and Kathy, I think that's what you were trying to map out before. I'm not asking for the motion that takes it from the police. I'd like to start it with taking it general, but could you just describe for us what we did last year? Okay, so what we did is, I won't read the middle of the sentence that you don't want, Lynn. It's we recommended to the town council that the approval of the budget be made with the explicit understanding with the town manager that. And then we wrote out what our that was. And that would be in consultation with the town council. And what we did last time was having assessed alternative options of providing services and commuter responders. So, and then we recommended that the result of that assessment be presented to us by and we gave a date. So we were, last time we were saying, come up with some options. So we're approving the amount, the total budget with all the money, but leaving you to come up with the options is what we had last time, but we gave them two slots. We gave them two slots to work with. So this time that the, with the explicit understanding that with the town manager that. And so what I had was that one to two of the current vacant positions be, be held until January, 2022 was the way I had done the draft. So this would have to have that wording with something else in it. You know, and just when Paul, Paul will know this better, but in terms of your, the way you had done it, it looked like the startup time was initially data analysis, advertising, job description so that hiring people that five months was, you will be a certain point by November, December, January. There's some point where you will have a certain, so that's where that date would be, that date would be, be driven by a best guess of the reporting. It would be the reporting back to us, that we're ready to launch in this case. So. Right, if I can respond to that. So yeah, we do have eight to 10 weeks of training included in the budget because we know that there is, training is a significant portion of what we need to do. And that, you know, there isn't an academy for this and they could not purchase, there aren't academies being run right now by for the police anyway. They're very, they're very, there's not available. So we would be doing a specified training that we would learn from other communities, what they've found to be valuable trainings. And so I think the recruiting would be done in the fall, winter, and hoping to get people up and running and on the payroll in the first quarter of 2022. And Paul, would you just on, you know, community college, we've also got stick in Springfield that does tech, does nurses, does several allied professionals. I think one of these is going to want to develop a program because other areas are talking about this too, that would draw from the fact that they're, you know, so I don't, first year they won't be available, but I think really trying to say, can there be a tailor made program to this kind of, it's a cross training because it's also de-escalation skills. It's a communication skill that's different than what you have when you're working in a mental health center or when you're working as a social service worker. So I'm just thinking that that won't be up and running in year one, but could be by year two if someone knows what we're looking for. If anyone knows what we're looking for. Right. And I would note that several of our employees on the fire department and the police department do train people in that regard. They're certified trainers who can provide those kinds of trainings as well. So what I would propose to do is, before we get to actual motions, see if there's any comment to be offered from the people who are attendees because there are several counselors, president and as well as other members of the public and if there's no objection from committee, I would very much like to see if there's anybody who wants to raise hand who's in the attendee group and be able to offer their thoughts in the discussion that's been going on or anything that else that they have in mind regarding the budget. So anyone in the attendee list wish to be recognized? Athena, can you bring a shallony in and then after shallony bring a Tony in? Got it. Shallony, hi. Please unmute yourself and. Hi. Okay, so my questions were around looking at, why are we not considering contracting out? I was looking at Kahootz and then Olympia and Texas, Austin or most of the programs that I've looked at have contracted out and if we are seeing this as an emergency, we want to start implementing this program as soon as possible and why are we not considering the option of the training and all like I looked at what does the training entail? It's about 500 hours on the field and 40 hours in the classroom that I've never read a bunch of different articles and trying to find information. I clearly am not an expert in this but based on the research I've done so far and reading the report from safety working group and all of the information I have, it seems like there is a lot involved. It's not just hiring people, it's the training, it's coordination with the police, all of that. So it seems like many of the programs out there that have been very successful contracted out and have you looked at that option thoroughly? The second thing I was looking at is Olympia which seems like Olympia and Washington seems like a similar size in population about 55,000 people. They started with the budget of $497,000 plus $110,000 for this program. So with what we're, you know, and there... So I'm just looking at like when we're looking at our pilot program, this is a pilot. So any kind of new startup that one does we create a pilot program, a pilot product and we test it out and then we tweak it and build it and so forth, right? So yes, our end goal is to grow it into the full-fledged program, but I think it's reasonable to think that we're not gonna start with a two million investment in it. We have to start with a smaller program based on what I'm hearing you say is you're gonna assess the calls from LEAP or other things, find out what it is, create a pilot program, test and tweak it and the other part is the ultimate goal what I'm hearing is that police calls do get reduced but in the interim, we don't know what that looks like. So we can't say that we don't need police from next year onwards or we need to reduce police. There is gonna be an interim period till we find out what that's gonna look like. And I think what I'm hearing from the police, from the community, from the safety working from all from all of us is we're all on the same page about it that we want this model to succeed and based on what I've seen in all the other places in the country, this model is successful. So those are my two big questions, I guess. The contracting and the basis for the pilot program. Paul, do you have a response? Yeah, so on the contracting, yes. I mean, the COOS program, which is the longest lasting, longest program in existence is a contract program. And we could learn a lot from them. And in fact, members of the community safety working group said we should be paying more attention to that. They do a contracting model. The working group had recommended a staffing model, which is what we start to build from based on that recommendation. I am totally open to a contracting model. The challenge we have is that from initial preliminary discussions, we're not sure if there are agencies who are able to take this on as a contract. So I think our default or the worst case scenario for us is that we hire it and build it ourselves. If there is an option for contracting that meets the town's needs, that's something that we could also do. But I think this is the, we should be budgeting, assuming that we have to do it ourselves, but being alert to that there might be another way to do it. And the other question was about... The piloting, we're considering the pilot because seeing Olympia, they started with $497,000 and their police budget now is $18 million. And their program for this is 600, it's increased to $663,000. So what is the basis for our pilot program? So again, that's an excellent point. I think Denver with their STAR program did a similar thing where they just, they didn't have 24-7 coverage. That's the big chain difference. And here, and even in this meeting, people are talking about the need for 24-7 coverage. And I think there's a reason why 24-7 coverage has been emphasized by the Community Safety Working Group in that they want there to be a dedicated number to the Cress program because their sense is that there are people who will not call the police and that this will generate more calls independent of the police. And we don't know what that market looks like. It may be a lot, it may be a few. So not knowing if there's exactly like a transferable number of calls from the police. And so I think doing a pilot program, I think the concern that, I believe in a pilot program, I talked about proof of concept and things like that during the presentation. I think from the working group's concern is that if you do it and then someone calls and there's no answer, you're gonna lose that person's trust. And so if you don't have it up and running 24-7, it may not work. And I think that's something we'd really need to investigate what does that look like? Because you're right, we all are on the same page. We want this to succeed. I think everybody wants this program to be designed well and to succeed. I mean, I think there's also something we have to be alert to is that just because you're transferring calls from the police department to a new agency doesn't mean there'll be necessarily reduction in police officers. It's like if you're in a school and you lose three kids out of a classroom, it doesn't mean that teacher isn't still needed. There's just fewer kids in the classroom. So until you really are able to reduce staff based on reduction in call volume, that's where I'm really arguing against reducing the police department's budget at this moment in time. Great. Wait, there was one other follow-up question, but I'm forgetting it, so maybe I'll raise my hand again afterwards, if possible. Thank you. Thanks. Tony, hi. Hi, thanks. I just wanted to offer my support to Councillor D'Angeles's stance on identifying the funding now for FY23, for the Cress program and providing clear guidance to the town manager to reduce the police department budget. I support Councillor Shane's proposal to make a motion to hold off on filling vacant police officer positions in order to identify that funding. And then separately, regarding the elementary budget, I would reiterate what I've said in the past about restoring the $75,000 cuts to art and technology teachers. Amherst is projected to receive almost $1.6 million in S or three funds. That's the elementary school district. And the town will receive many millions in funding, which I understand can be used to replace revenues that were down due to the economic impact of COVID. So it seems it is within the town's ability to allocate additional funding to the elementary schools, which could come with some sort of direction to restore those cut-start and technology teachers. Even though I understand that school committee has jurisdiction and that they already approved the budget, it's now in your hands and you now have more information that you didn't have at that time. Thank you. Thank you. Sean, do you know how the S or funds work in response to what Tony just was raising? The S or funds, I think Tony may have mentioned this, they go to the school department directly and the school expends them. We don't ever see those funds unlike the municipal money that does come to us and we can choose to grant it to the schools if that's the way we want to spend the money. But the S or funds go directly to the schools. So the S or funds, so the schools have the funds and the discretion to make the decision to support the arts teachers that she was mentioning that school decision. We'd want to talk with probably the superintendent or the finance director on that one because the S or funds have different restrictions than we have on the municipal side. So there's four eligible uses for the municipal funds. The S or funds are completely different. They have other criteria with how they can spend that money. So I'm not saying they can't use it for that. I just don't know the answer to that. It's possible, but we'd want to hear from the schools if they can. And I guess the last piece is that the funds that are available to us which are not S or funds for American Recovery Act funds, we haven't engaged in that process yet, but that's outside of the budget. That's going to be a separate process. Yeah, I think we're planning on bringing something later in June on that topic. So there's at least the possibility or the ability to consider it whether we will do it or not. So it could be considered at that point, but not now. Okay, the two other people know Bernie had in somebody else's other hands up, but we'd said we were doing public comment for a few minutes. Birdie, could you, I just really quickly do to follow up on Shalini's comments. Is that also suggested to Paul that we look at contracting this out. Bernie, I think you said Birdie. Is that right, Annie? Sorry, no, I just don't want to. Birdie, could you identify yourself and where you live? Yeah, no worries. We have similar names. I'm Birdie Newman and I live on Memorial Drive in Amherst. First, I just want to say I really appreciate the movement of public comment to this point. So we have a chance to speak up before the vote. Some things I really appreciated about this meeting are the counselors sort of emphasizing the importance of a 24-7 Cres program, because to me that feels really key to it getting started successfully. I think this conversation that has emerged on like whether or not to sort of bring funds and positions to Cres from the APD, I think it does make sense to do that. My understanding from the community safety working groups work and the research they got from Seven Gen Movement Collective is that their idea of like putting Cres together comes with a reduction in the size of the Amherst Police Department and that those things being in tandem is really key to the anti-racism work they're envisioning. I also, I believe it was counselor Andy Steinberg bringing up fears about domestic violence and I really appreciate your care for victims and survivors and making sure they get the support they need. I wanna note that I think it's 8.5% of Amherst Police Department's calls that involve violence so I don't think freezing some positions or taking some money away would suddenly pose a risk to people experiencing those types of violence. And yeah, I would definitely second Pat's comments about this being an emergency and sort of trying something that feels different and taking a leap of faith. Thank you. Thank you. Lauren, hi, I wonder, Lauren. You don't tell us who you are and where you live and which is on your mind. Yes, hi, I live on Long Meadow Street in South Amherst and instead of emailing you guys later I thought I would speak now and also as a member and a person of color I wanted to speak on the issue of the Crest Services, the Alternative Services and I just had two suggestions that instead of like fully funding the first five months with four people or eight people using that pilot time of the first five months to maybe incorporate other services like the Survival Center or Community Connections or the Bank Center for people to call and then those calls be transferred to whoever gets hired in those first five months would maybe stretch out the money a little bit and also then you could start the fully funded program in January instead of saying that you're starting, I guess, I don't know when you guys we're gonna start the pilot program but using the first five months as a pilot and then fully funding it after that. So that's all I wanted to say. Okay, well, thank you. It's helpful, appreciate it. So Bernie. Okay, no, it's legitimately my turn, thank you. To follow up on what Shalini was saying about contracting through a clinic or an organization like Whitebird, Whitebird brings a real advantage to the program because they have the ability to do respite, they have the ability to provide psychiatric care, they have the ability to do substance abuse, work with people. So that's a problem because you're gonna run it, you're having a clinic that has those capabilities already can really be very helpful to the community. And while I've been disconnected from the social service system for probably 15 years now, I do believe that emergency services in Western Massachusetts are handled for Department of Mental Health are handled through clinics and through agencies. So I wouldn't dismiss the idea of looking for a private, not-for-profit vendor to provide the service. Okay, thanks. Dorothy. I'm going back to what Tony Cunningham which I've brought up before, but I think that we should not forget which is the funding for arts and technology. And I have thought about this a lot and I looked amongst things that I say collect in life. And what they are are the projects that I and my children have made in arts and technology. You know, a bust of a gym teacher, I disliked immensely, that looks a little bit like a witch, aprons and little metal boxes, ashtrays, racing cars. Those are such precious artifacts. It's when a young person discovers things about themselves and that's agency by creating something with their hands. And I'm still shocked that that has even been taken, that's been taken off the table. I just see it as so absolutely basic and essential, particularly after the children have suffered so much with online and distance learning this year. So whatever you have to do, I think that money has got to be put back in the budget. Thank you. Thanks, Dorothy. Let's come to that. Let's put off the question of schools. We talk, I went through the beginning. Nobody raised questions about schools. I said we'd come back to it if it came up, but I sort of hate to jump from topic to topic. So I'd rather come back to it and stick with where we are right now. Lynn. We'll have a motion if we're ready, but if we're not, then we'll hold off. I think at this point, I don't know, Bernie's hand is just up from having asked to say, speak before, but I don't see anybody else who's currently, so a motion might move us along. So go ahead, Lynn. May I share it on the screen? Sure. So the motion is to recommend to the town council that they approve the FY 2022 operating budget and with an explicit understanding with the town manager that the town manager will find within the approved budget, the funds necessary to fund two additional community responder positions and report back to the town council and residents of Amherst, how he plans to accomplish this no later than January 31st, 2022. I'm very open to friendly amendments. So I guess the next thing to ask is whether there's any member of the committee wants to second that. I guess it has to be a councilor member. I will second it. His motion has been made by Lynn, seconded by Dorothy. So it's open for discussion on the motion. Let me get back to my participant list. Does anybody has any discussion, Kathy? This is Lynn. This is me interpreting what you have written here. In the budget that we're looking at right now, there are two positions. So you've gone to additional positions that gets us up to four, correct? In the present proposal, oh, interesting. Thank you, Kathy. I'm building off the proposal and that is not incorporated. Yeah. Okay. This needs a little more work then. You're right. This does not build. This, this builds off of what the town manager proposed last Thursday and also assumes the $90,000 from the state budget. And so this doesn't do it. That's what I thought because I, I, you know, what? So my, so let me just say a couple more things. You know, so I think. With that 90,000. Correct me if I'm wrong, we have enough money. The fund sticks for half of the year. The question is whether we're talking about eight. So I'm not talking about with, you know, whether it's additional or not. So Paul, you originally had two in your budget. Then you came back with four. Where benefits were rolled into them. And so are we talking about. Two more than what you. You proposed on. Thursday night is my question. Or are we. You know, so you're going to amend the budget the way it is presented. To us. It actually needs to say six. It needs to say six if we want eight. Six. We want eight, correct? Yes. Yeah. And that's what, you know, I believe me, I have no problem with eight if we can support eight. So, um, everyone else is trying to get me off of trying to find an explicit way to fund them. But I want to know we can fund eight. Sean. Back to the drawing boards here. Can I just, can I add one thing to that? And maybe you already said this, I set the way for a second. When you say within the approved budget. Does that include the grant funds? Or does that not include the grant funds when you say within the approved budget. Because I, at least two of the six additional sounded like it would be. Grant. Okay. Thank you. The reason I asked for the clarifying, because if Paul comes back and. I'm not, I'm just going. You know, I can't help but thinking. FY 22. And 23. That's the way out. I think I think about a whole program. So are we. This is about FY 22 budget. We can't. No, I know, I know that Lynn, but if we, if we fund it at eight, which is what you're doing two plus, then we need to keep going at eight following year. I do understand that. I'm just saying that that. We've put us in a conversation. And then if Paul comes back on January 31st and said, I have a problem. I can't fund it. Then we have another conversation. Correct. Right. And we can change the state. I just want to point out. 31st will be a new council. Okay. So I have a question. I mean. Without right now. I'm just saying that we've put us an explicit number in. And then if Paul comes back on January 31st and said, I have a problem. I can't fund it. Then we have another conversation, correct. Right. We're not right now. And that is that we talked about six. So six additional positions. But we don't, we haven't really funded two positions to begin with. We've set aside some money for cross. But I don't think that there was any positions. That were assumed to be within those money had money. So should be. With an explicit understanding of time manager will find within the approved budget and or with grant funds. Funds necessary. For six. Community. Responder positions. I mean, for eight, I should be eight. Yeah. And you could also say for eight up to, you could say up to eight. And then take the word additional out. Right. Additional has to come out. Yeah. Andy can ask a question. Yes. So I understand three, because that's three shifts of eight hours. So if you want 24 hours, you hired three people. So two shifts of that is six people. No, no. So what do I, what do I not know? Two people for a shift. Yes. I don't see why that's not. The reason is because as one pointed out earlier. You have to cover weekends and holidays. You can't have people working seven days a week. Yeah. Yeah. So the rule of thumb is there's 2,080 working days in a year. The rule of thumb is you don't actually have anybody work more than maybe 1,920, but with, with these kinds of positions, you need to take time out in addition to. Holiday vacation, sick leave. You also have training time. So when you, when you take all that out and to cover. More than 40 hours a week. You need extra positions. Thank you so much. It's really helpful to have you explain. So Dorothy. I have to ask you is the seconder of the motion. Are you comfortable with what's now on the screen? Yeah. Okay. So we do have motion still on the screen because. I think we have a motion. Yeah. I think we have a motion. Lynn made the amendment to her own motion and the seconder agreed to the change in language. All has his hand up. Yeah. I don't think you want to say up to eight. I think your intent is to be at eight. I mean up to eight minutes. It could be one position. I don't think that's an intent of your motion. No. I don't think that's an intent of your motion. I think the seconder raised earlier. Was. Do we want to make this jump without. At least some level of comfort. Come a year from now we can continue this program with the number of positions that we've hired and bill. I don't see how you do that. Without. I don't think that's an intent of your motion. I mean, I understand the problem and believe me, I have great sympathy for that question. But I don't see how we can do that with this motion. But if we, if you're saying, don't tie his hands. If we, we think six is definitely doable. And we think eight might be doable. I'm just. Lynn, we can't. Yeah. I think we can allow the council to do that too. And have them say, okay, and I can only do. Six and FI 23. It doesn't make any sense to me. So I just, I really want to know. You know, I understand we're just doing one year. that in the budget that the Cal Manager presents to us on or about May 1st, 2022, he will have in it a proposal on how to then move forward. And it's not that I don't have a great deal of concern about how we're going to fund this going forward. I just don't know how to write a motion that doesn't bind next year's budget. And because we don't do multiple year budgets also has a standard. Maybe he has a brilliant idea on how to do this. Oh, no, I think let us make you the point that if you put this this way, you're saying in the budget now before you is four positions, right? Two, we have $130,000 in the budget for four, that equal equates to four positions in FY 22 that we can that we can fund out of that those funds. If you're saying eight positions in FY 22 that doubles that number. But here's my now that I'm looking at this, Paul, I want to build on the time you gave us the other day. And I want to add two positions four positions to that. So this motion really doesn't do that. Because this motion only refers to that community responder line item. So somehow or another we need to add a phrase or two that adds in the full time manager and the other necessary funds up to a certain amount. Can I put this down for a moment and ask Sean to share what Paul gave us the other day. See, this is what I want, plus another 300. No, another you know, so I can't. I want this number right here four point out to be eight point out. So maybe it needs to be to increase the line item, but then we can't do that because this I'm sorry for speaking out loud, but this is essentially grant money. And $90,000 is also grant money. I'm sorry, I missed it. Which which is grant money? This 250,000. Oh, I see. Yeah, that's grant money. And then two of these positions is another state grant money. And then the two more that you would have to find the money for. So it's almost like we have to calculate for FTE responders, figure out what this total bottom line is and say that this plus grant money will give you this amount. Sean, if you can give me two numbers, if you can give me the number for the 4.0 FTEs. So just to I can figure that number out in one second. So you just want to know what the number is for four more responders for five months. Yes, because then all we're going to do is basically say we want to increase that budget line item from 130,000 to whatever the new number is with grant with, you know, I'll take it. But you can't increase the budget. No, you can't. I mean, the actions available to the council are to decrease a line item of the budget or to have a similar action that you took last year, which was to request a freeze of positions. And I understand what your intent is to put additional positions into the community responder program. I think that's if I'm trying, I'm just trying to understand what the goal is of the council at this point in time or the finance committee. That's the goal, Paul, but I'm, I also want to keep, you're absolutely right. We can't do this. Okay, put your motion back on the screen because I've been thinking about this as we go. And I'll tell you what I'm thinking is that we did not adopt the nor do I think that we have the authority necessarily need to adopt the plan that Paul put forward on Thursday. But it is kind of the base from which we are working. So we could consider that. But what we're essentially saying is that we'll find within the budget and or with grant funds, if he's going to find the money, well, he's already found the money to fund some of the positions, the legislature hopefully is going to come up with a couple with funds for finding two more positions. So I'm not sure that the kid that the motion is you've originally written it doesn't do exactly what we want. Because it doesn't doesn't use the language that we're adopting his recommendation from Thursday's meeting. But in effect, it is. Yeah, but it doesn't, if this motion, first of all, it says adopt the existing budget. That's so we're not reducing it, we're not adding to it. So then, but now we want an explicit understanding that he'll find the money to fund to fill eight community responder positions. But we also want to make sure that the other the training money and the coordinator position and whatever else was on that page is in here. But didn't he do this in effect, doing that? But just simply because it's saying that we're asking that he find the funds necessary to fill eight positions. He's told us how he intends to do for his last Thursday's date. May 27. You know, if it's if instead of saying and or grant funds, it said supplemented by grant funds. So the approved budget doesn't have era and it doesn't have the Mindy if we say supplemented by. So we're voting on the approved budget, but we're also his slide had another chunk of money. And then I just added this line, Sonia has her hand up. Yeah, I have my hand up because I'm totally confused at the moment here, because this motion is approving the budget, the operating budget. So as it is, the they're spending in here for the for four positions, part of the year. We've found all the money that we could in this operating budget. So how are we going to say within this operating budget, we're going to find four more? I mean, if you want to put a note that any grant funds available, we'll add four more positions. But that should be part of the operating budget motion. Because you're saying that Paul needs to find four more positions within the existing budget. How is that possible? We would have done that already if it was possible. We say approved budget supplemented by grant funds. I understand what you're saying, Sonia. I gotta explain this to the Department of Revenue, so I need to. Yeah, I mean, the problem is that we don't know what the final state budget is going to come up with. And will it have that money that Joe's trying to get in the budget? This is why last year it was actually two final motions. But I guess it wasn't. I mean, the difference between this year and last year is last year, you know, there was a motion to approve the budget and to freeze positions, which is not, which is not that hard to do because they're already budgeted. Whereas this year, I think it's sort of going in a different direction, which I worry about a little bit. I think it's where Sonia's going too, which is now you're approving the budget, but also sort of adding things to the budget, not adding money, but adding additional things that we don't know how it's going to be funded. And I'm a little worried about that for this, but also going forward if this becomes sort of a practice of adding things within the approval that we don't actually know where the funding is coming for yet. I think you should do a motion to approve the budget. And then if you want to do another motion for direction, Paul, that's how I would approach this because otherwise the DR is going to look at this and ask me, where is the funding? What brands are you looking at? You know, where's the expense side of this? This is, this is like a accounting nightmare to put it lightly. So I have raised my hand, but I'm sorry. Go ahead, Doris. We can hold off the second part of this motion until we've discussed capital and follow up on Kathy's suggestion about putting off these drawings one year. Then we have a clearer trend as to of money and expenses. Are you saying, I'm sorry, Andy, may I ask a question? Are you saying that going forward with this motion is contingent upon the capital? Well, I mean, we have to be realistic. Maybe we can't, everything we said, because we didn't anticipate, nobody anticipated this project when everybody vowed to do more capital projects. And at some point, something has to give. So I'm just saying that Kathy's suggestion, what a reasonable one to me, it's not stopping, but it is putting off, putting off because we have to do it now. And Sonya's got to be able to do it if we did that way. Andy, why don't we take this down and I'll work on it while we're looking at the capital budget. Yeah, if you're going to work on it, it might be that you're working looking to language like to direct the town manager to seek to find funds to hire and then work from that. So that he isn't directed to do something and it becomes a problem to explain to DOR what happens if it fails. Got it. Yep, work on it. Take it down, go on ahead. Okay, Bernie, did you have something else? Just a second, Sonya's suggestion, the cleanest way to do this is two motions. Because once you start saying to find within or supplement this budget or do something else with this budget, that's going to throw up flags at DOR. So the easiest thing to do is to write the right emotion that endorses the operating budget. And the second motion that says, now withstanding, Paul, your obligation is to move through and implement this program. This is the desire of the council. Okay, I have something like that. Don't try it or not. Yeah, go ahead. Sure. So, if you're going to keep in its recommend the town council direct the town manager correct. Yes. Can I offer one additional edit? Where it says to seek to find. You could probably just say to seek. Funds or to find funds one of the other alternative funds. I just think we need to save funds. You need to find it in the budget or outside. Can I offer one more. So, so to seek funds to fill eight community responder positions and the program as proposed on May 27, 2021. One could construe that to say eight in addition to what was proposed for a total of 12 so maybe change that to four or, or clarify that the program meeting like the, like the process and the timeline. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Thank you. I don't want to put you on the spot. But Pat, your hand was up for a while and then you didn't. You took it down. So if you want to be recognized, I certainly will recognize you. I felt I was just supporting the idea of separating the motions and I was before. And we should vote on the first one before we go and do anything else. So I'm going to make the motion on the first one to recommend to the town council that they approve the FY 2022 operating budget. And this is a substitution. You've asked to withdraw your previous motion. Thank you. I withdraw my previous motion. So now we have the second motion that Lynn is offering. Is there a second to this to the motion. To the town council and budget. Yes. I second. Okay. Dorothy seconds. I do. I do. I do. I mean, yeah. Okay. So that's it. So now we have the second motion that. Lynn is offering. Is there a second to this to the motion. Okay. Okay. Dorothy seconds. Any further discussion on that. Motion knowing we're coming. Immediately to another motion to follow. If not, I'm going to, if there's no further discussion. Because I need to do roll call. I'm going to do a roll call or the entire committee. And as usual. The resident members of the committee. Indicate whether they support the motion as. As it is. Before the committee. So you're either voting on it or. As I call on you because I'm just going to go down the list. Resident members. Whether they support the motion. It's being discussed and voted on. So. You're on your first on my list. Yes. Dorothy. Yeah. With respect to Mr. Manganos and Miss Aldridge's work. I respectfully vote no. Kathy. Am I voting on that? No. No. The double set right now. No. Just the one. Which one? The first one. Yes. Abstain. Okay. Bob. Bernie. Jane. I support it. And I'm voting yes. So are we at. Three in favor. One opposed and one abstain in three. Resident members. Supporting the motion. I think that's where we were. That's what that's what I recorded to. Okay. So it's the motion carries. And I guess we should go to the second motion. Right. I move to recommend that the town. Council. To the town council. That they direct the town manager. To seek funds to fill eight community responder positions. And the other elements of the program. As proposed on March on May 27, 2021. And the report back to the town council. And residents of Amherst, how he plans to accomplish this no later than January 31st, 2021. You said 20, 21 or 22. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. So I need a second. Dorothy seconds. So we've motion on the floor and made by Lynn seconded by Dorothy. And any further discussion on the motion. Then. I'll start this time. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sometimes it's a practice in some bodies. Like the council. We'll go to the next person in line. Dorothy. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Pat. No. Or Bernie. But the understanding says doesn't preclude contracting for the positions. Yes. Support it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Jane. Yeah, I supported. Yes. I really do this, but I'm really uncomfortable with knowing that we, whether or not. I'm going to change my vote to an abstain. So we're back to. You're, you're going to be three yeses. Three. Yes. One. I guess that I'm going to have to ask. Pat either now or. Subsequent. To the meeting. To. By email, just to me then. To state what you want to put into the. Report is the reason for your vote. And. I just unmuted myself. Sorry. Andy. I wish I had an eloquent. Elocuent statement to make. I cannot support this budget because it does not. Do enough. To fund the program to start this program. I just can't, I just can't find a way to do it. Maybe I'll be able to type you something eloquent. I just can't support this. I believe money should be coming from the police department. And that is not disrespectful of our department. Two empty positions. There have been four empty positions all year and we haven't had murder and mayhem all over Amherst because the police department has been down four people. So we weren't asking for a lot when we said we needed to move some funds from the police department. So I just can't do it. I'll put that into pretty much exact wording unless you send me something else later. I don't think any clearer I wish I could say that it would. Kathy, I don't know if you have anything different to say on extensions that you've made. You know, I can send you the sentence and it will build on paths is that I would be much more comfortable actually directed where these monies are going to come from. And I'm particularly concerned about the year after next, even though we are only voting on the current year in front of us. I will comment that my yes vote is a voter support for the town manager. I believe that he will do what needs to be done. I think that we've completed the work on the operating budget and can turn to the capital plan. Paul or Sean or Sonya anything additional I want to say. Do you want me to bring up that order. Yes, Andy for the so again there I'll bring them unless I see something from the staff that they want to add to it I think we should go to the capital. Can you see the see the order on the screen. Yes. So this is the order for the capital improvement program funding for FY 22. And there is also an order for the debt authorizations that are related to this as well so this is one and then there's another order for the debt. So any discussion on appropriation order FY 2205A for motions. I'm not sure I'm seeing any. I guess I'm going to ask at this point whether any of the attendees have any questions or comments regarding the capital budget. Seeing none and saying I will come back to the committee and see if there's a motion. I just, we're voting just on the cash side, not the debt side the part that I'm concerned about is that it's a separate order. Okay, thank you. Listen, most of the staff tells me I'm wrong I believe it's a separate order. No, you're right. So, regarding the appropriation transfer order FY 2205A. I move, I'll make a motion I move that the finance committee recommend to the town council approval of appropriation and transfer order FY 22-05A. Second, second. Okay, Dorothy I believe seconded motion made by Kathy. That was Lynn. I was Lynn, I'm sorry. Substitute that for the same for the minutes. Any discussion on the motion that's on the floor. Seeing no requests for motion then I think we can proceed to vote on the motion. It's on the floor regarding the financial order for the cash portion of the capital improvement plan, capital budget. And let's see else. Start this time with Dorothy Pam. Yes. You did Lynn. Yes. Pat. Yes. Bernie. Yeah, you support it. I support it. I vote yes and Kathy. Yes. I think everybody's voted. Bob, you didn't get Bob. I'm sorry. I support. Apologize. And so that makes a five to zero. And with three resident members indicating support. So that Sean, I guess that does bring us to the other motion regarding that. So Andy, can I just speak to this real quick? So there's five projects. A B and C are sort of just sort of one year projects. Two are vehicles and one is a facility improvement. The two that I think we're in question are D and E, which is for design and engineering. It's also to fund the. The owner's project manager services for these projects, because we can't really move forward with until we get an owner's project manager on board. So these numbers were, we arrived at these numbers by looking at the total project budget, estimating what percentage of that would be for the project manager. Looking at the total project budget, estimating what percentage of that would be for design and then estimated again what percentage of that would bring us through to bidding. And so that's, and that's for design work and OPM for each of these projects. So these numbers were sort of our best estimate at this point. And, and again, these would be funded through bond anticipation notes, which are temporary borrowings that can be rolled over year to year until we convert them to a bond and at that point we would make a principal payment on them and we would have to pay short term borrowing costs in the meantime. You wouldn't incur the you wouldn't take out the bond anticipation notes. You would immediately take them out when needed. So this is an authorization but not an indication that borrowing will occur until there's need to expend the funds. Right, we usually will borrow at the end of the fiscal year after the funds have been spent because we need to have the funds by the time we close out the fiscal year. And, you know, if we only expended a portion we would only request a portion and then if the rest of it was in the next year we might request additional amount the next year, but we don't we want to actually borrow any of these funds until we actually spent the money. Lynn, you had your hand up. I'm. You mentioned at one point that you thought the era funding, our funding might be able to fund the OPM. Is that still your thinking. That was not the OPM we were thinking about that money to support a capital projects manager which is a subtle difference of somebody on our side that can help manage all these projects between the library if it gets going the DBW the fire station. And then we also have some infrastructure projects in the enterprise funds and there's lots of projects there's no shortage of big capital projects going on right now. And so we were thinking of a position that could help manage these make sure they stay on time, you know, try to find ways to reduce the cost or make sure it stays within its budget. That type of position to take some of the to absorb some of that burden from all the departments that are managing these projects. That temporary position that would only exist during the life of, you know, this sort of wave of capital projects that we're looking at. And that money is not included here because it's grant money. Right, that would be if that position is approved and funded it would come out of the grant. Thank you. Okay. Kathy go ahead. You quickly said bond anticipation notes the, when I look at the line item for debt service, we go from 30,000 to 1.5 million and FY 23. And these two are big items that we would be voting on now to incur that debt. And I know we are just talking about 22 so I don't need to be reminded but in FY 23. Everyone should know that operating budgets right now. Yes, is there only going up by 2% not 2.1 not 2.2 not 2.4 that's where we is. And that extra money, whatever it is of debt is the difference if I took is it a couple hundred thousand dollars in short term interest. So that would be at more like 2.2 or 2.3 so I'm really worried about FY 23 operating budgets. When health insurance starts going up again when we have step increases, I don't want to have to start as we're coming out hopefully of a recovery, squeezing our schools and our staff, and we haven't addressed fire station staffing issues. I'm worried about. I know we gave the town manager instructions try to find a way to do all four capital projects. We didn't say one has to find a way. I'm worried that we're jumping into all of these in a way that we're going to be out of debt if you're telling me you may not spend $3.4 million you may not use it at all. Then the out your debt service will also go down. So I'm just really worried about bunching them all in the same time period, and the commitment that is so I will be voting against this because of those two line items but I think. We never had a robust discussion about how one might be able to do it which is how you came to us originally on whether we thought it was a good idea to do it this way. So the squeeze you've always pointed out FY 23 is the squeeze we're back up to maybe 2.2 2.4% operating budgets. And yes, if the world turns in a much more favorable, it all may be possible. We're voting on authorization to move forward in this and I'm still not sure that DPW that we don't have a cleanup issue on the site. If DPW moves no one has told me we won't and that's even more money. So I, I, I'm just so uncertain about these two. But I'm really worried about elementary school. I know it's an override, but I don't want to send the signal that we seem to have the money for everything but the school and for the school you have to pay higher taxes. So I am, that is why I am voting against the debt authorization. I have no problem with the other items in it at all. Yes. Am I correct that we are expecting responses to the RFP that is on the street for DBW this Friday. And based on the response we get, could significantly alter the figures, because we went out with a very broad set of options, including an existing building, a building for lease purchase, or building a building. So, I'm a little concerned. At this point we're very close to maybe being able to be more specific about DBW. And so we can approve this but I just want to say it, you know, based on the response to the RFP, we could have a serious change. Yeah, I mean I would just add, I would think regardless of what comes forward we are probably going to have some design work related to it. I don't think we wrote, we weren't intending for this debt authorization to preclude, you know, if the design was for renovation versus a new construction or something like that. We were thinking we are going to need money if we want to advance these projects in the next fiscal year. For just the same, exactly what Kathy had mentioned earlier about, what are the site cleanup issues at the DBW and what those because it may affect the long term plan if it's substantial but we're not going to know that until we have the money to really dig into, you know, literally dig into it and figure out what to figure out those answers. So again, this money was really to move us forward. The DBW project, you know, we have it estimated for FY23 when debt payments begin, it could be a year after that, based on how long it takes whether it's renovation or new construction. So, but yeah, these funds were not meant to preclude or rule out, you know, what options we make it when we open those proposals. And I also assume this doesn't preclude the possibility that Senator Comfort and would be successful in getting state legislation that would make fire and DBW and other municipalities like a library or a school where there might be some funds that would augment or supplement or replace some of the expenditures. We could still go ahead with a proposal as long as we've not started the building. I don't know if there's enough details about that to know how to answer it. I think with the school project, you know, you sort of have to be in their pipeline to and follow their rules and I I've heard a little bit about this but I haven't heard what the funding source would be and and what the rules of the program would be and maybe Paul's heard more about that program I'm not sure. I think we're a ways from that because they both have to get legislation and then appropriate funds into it before we'd be eligible for any grants. So, I haven't heard if it has any legs in the in the Senate in the House or not. You know, I feel like we've made a commitment to find a way to address five major projects that's been a long standing policy of this council and that authorizing a debt with the debt only to knowing that we don't borrow funds until after we've expended funds and we don't expend funds until there's basis to do it, but there's a sequence here that we that's a matter of trust. Our time manager and our finance director and our comptroller to manage this appropriately and they're not going to spend the funds if there's no property in which to do a schematic design and not going to therefore need to borrow funds. But that if we get the property that we hope will arise out of this project for this project out of the process that's underway that we need to move forward and having the ability to borrow under those circumstances is an essential part of it. I don't see any reason to delay giving that authorization. You know we could delay giving the authorization until actually we have to have the property but I don't think we really gain anything by doing that. So that's why I to support this. Dorothy. I just want to put in a little caveat here. I don't want us to say that we have promised so much money to so many places that we continue to accept new revenue sources, which are buildings which are distressing and upsetting a huge segment of the town. I don't want to be bound to kind of take whatever comes our way because we've already promised we're going to raise this money. I'm beginning to feel uncomfortable. I'm beginning to feel too tight that we're trying to do too much at once. That's it. I was part of Kathy's question about sequencing but sequencing fire down the lines a long way away. The real question is if we find land for the DPW project that we can't imagine why we would not want to go forward as quickly as possible to get a schematic design going and that's what I really feel is the most important one to get going with Lynn. Neither of my questions suggest I would not vote for this. I will definitely support it. Lynn, could you repeat that? I didn't catch it. Lynn, you're muted this time. Yes, my questions did not suggest that I don't support this. I totally support it. So at this point, here was FY2206 said number on it. Yes, FY2206 is the bond authorizations. So we can make a motion. Yeah. Compared to make a motion if you're ready. Let's go ahead. I would recommend that we recommend to the town council. The approval of appropriations and borrowing authorization order FY22-06. Yeah, I'm going to second the motion just to keep this process moving. Dorothy, your hand is up still. Was that from before? Do you have something to add? Nothing to add. I don't have anything on the floor. I'm pausing to see if there's anybody who is going to seek recognition for any purpose, either to speak or to offer an amendment to the motion and if I hear none, then I'm going to call for a vote. Okay. So at this point then I will call for a vote and I'll just go up to the top again. It's easier for me to do it that way. Dorothy. Upstain. Yes. Kathy. No. Pat. Yes. Support. Bernie. Support. I can't hear you muted at the moment. I still haven't heard the chain supports. I vote yes. Because right now I think that we are three. One. One. John. Can you hear me? Okay. No, I can't. Yes. Okay. I support. Okay. So we have three members, supporting three voting yes, one voting no, and one abstention. So the motion carries. Which then brings us to one additional agenda item. If we are able to discuss it and actually have to go back and take a look at the. Agenda itself. See how whether we can actually do this. And that is the question of whether we can. Follow up on a discussion from the last meeting about. A report to the council on reparations. I think that I have something from Sean, which I will read regardless. I wanted to get this. We put it's not explicitly on the agenda. And so I'm not sure that we can handle the motion on it without unless Athena agrees that it was not anticipated 48 hours in advance. The last discussion was on the afternoon of. Thursday, which was. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if we can leave after the posting deadline for this meeting. Yeah, I think Andy, if you're going to, if you expect to have a. A thorough discussion about it, then I would save it. So that we can post it on an agenda and all the public, but you'll have that conversation. Which would leave it that we. Sean. Yeah. So I think we have to have at least one more meeting after the meeting on that, but also there's a optional tax exemption. That's sort of a routine thing we do every year that has to be approved before June 30th. And we could also add this item. So it would be, it would be whatever date we can agree to. I think after June 7th, unless you have a date scheduled yet, but we could address this one at that same time and get it to the council before they vote on the 21st. Okay. Thank you, Sean. To Lynn, who's in her role as council president. We had a motion from the council requesting that we report back. We can report on a discussion, but we cannot report on a position. Because we will not have a motion. And I'm going to just tell you. Based upon our last discussion. Thank you, Sean. What we came up with was the following that we would be considering the creation of a stabilization fund. In June, 2021 by the council. The stabilization fund would be in order. To create a new reparation stabilization fund. Secondly, that we would seek to transfer approximately $206,000 from fiscal year 22 reserves. If I don't have this right channel, correct me. Transfer approximately $206,000 from FY 22 reserves. To the new stabilization fund. And this would occur in the later fall when the town transfers free cash over 5% of the regular stabilization fund. And the council of Kurds would have to approve that transfer at the time. And it would have to be initiated by town manager. It would have to request the transfer. And then third was that no funds would be expended. From the. Stabilize it in the new stabilization funds until the town receives little guidance on allowable uses. That's the summary of where we ended up last time. So, Andy, I think you just report on the progress and then say that by the 21st, we'll have a motion. I think that's fine. I think that's where we are. So I will. Is there anybody else who has anything to say on the subject or anything else? We will write a memorandum on that report on that piece. Which I probably will do as a separate report from the report that we're doing. Trying to get together on the other. Paul, you have your hand up. Yeah. So for your next meeting, we can provide some background information and the sample motion that I think that you're referencing. If you have any questions, anything else that you would like to discuss? If you have any questions, would you consider the idea of reparations? I'm just curious when you think that might come up on. On your next, when, when will your next meeting be on this topic? You will discuss that momentarily. Okay. Anything else that anyone has. Council. And. They go back to the attendee list for just a second. I think. Michelle is in the audience. So if she raised her hand, I would recognize her. Having said that, I think that. This point. We need to do a schedule next meeting and then I want to tell you where we are, where I am with the report. And it's been a struggle, but I'm getting there. And I appreciate everybody doing their, their piece with it. So. Next meeting, Sean, you had a date in mind. You were suggesting. There's a couple. So if we wanted to stick to Tuesdays, we could do the eighth or the 15th. I'm not sure if there's any conflicts on those days. I'm just looking at my own calendar. Yeah. I have a conflict on the 15th. I have a conflict on the 15th. My wife has an appointment, medical appointment in Boston, that we scheduled long, long time ago. So. Unfortunately, I can't break that. I also have a. 15th. Your city is meeting on the 15th. Do we know when the. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's seriously meeting on the eighth. Right. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The clock on the eighth. CRC. Two o'clock on the eighth. Oh, CRC meets on the eighth. So both of the, both of those Tuesdays are not possible. What about Thursdays? The 10th and the 17th. Yeah. Yeah, I have a conflict on the 17th, but I'm available on the 10. The 10th will work for me. I'm doubtful about the, the next. The next week. The 10th is good. Yeah. Can you unmute me for a second? The 10th works, but the 17th would have to be earlier than. So I would have a hard stop at four o'clock. I think there were. Several people have said that the 17th won't work. Okay. So that's, I had to go get my calendar. The 10th. I'll work too. I'll try to make. I'll try to see if I can move an appointment on the 10th. I'm fine with the 10th. So. I have an appointment on the 10th, but I'll see if I can move it. Okay. So. Our plan right now is to meet at two o'clock on the 10th and to. You'll be able to provide the additional pieces that we need to finish our business. Yes. And I just wanted to ask one quick question. I think of Lynn. Do you know, is the optional tax exemption going to come up at council before the 10th so that when it gets referred, we can address it on the 10th. At finance committee. Okay. We can make that happen. Athena. We just have to add that to the. We already have that. We already have it on our draft agenda. It's on consent. Thank you. Perfect. See, you really need to ask Athena about. Oh, Okay. So. We have. Paul has his hand up, Andy. Yeah, Paul. So on the agenda on the 10th, we'll be reporting on the 10th. Okay. We can make that happen. We just have to add that to the. We already have it on our draft agenda. It's on consent. Thank you. Perfect. So on the 10th, we'll be reparations optional tax exemptions. What else? We want to talk about. There was one more. Oh, if there was any follow up from the capital improvement. Program forum. The forum will be on the seventh. Got it. The third quarter report. Oh, yep. Perfect. But I won't be here. I'm prepared to do that. Holly will be here. We can have Holly here. Yeah. Okay. We can do the estimate for Lynn surplus. For this year. I started looking at it. It's, it's sitting there for us to see if you take it out of quarter. Okay. So I think with that. We've completed our business. It's done a lot. We do not need to meet tomorrow then. Dorothy's hand is up. Now I was going to talk about. I don't know if we just tell you where I'm at with the report. Dorothy. Oh, it was, I thought we had a meeting tomorrow. We don't have, we don't need to do it. Okay. Great. I think we don't need to do it. But look before I say that for final. What I was going to try and do is. Complete the report. I think we're going to be struggling along with some final editing on. The various reports that I've received from all of you. With much appreciation and one piece to write. And obviously you have to write up. Add the pieces from today. I could. My inclination would be to just send it to the committee. And ask for comments back to. Just two of us to me and Kathy. As vice chair, but. If we'd people would prefer to have a meeting to talk about the actual wording of the report. Then we would. It's going to be real squeeze on time, but we couldn't. And. Meeting. I prefer responding via email to you and Kathy. Then meeting again. My voice of support and trust. Okay, so we will. We will not meet tomorrow and. Kathy and I will make our best to get a report of some sort. Into the county. And what we're going to do in order to meet deadlines is. That the reports will be. And we will be able to email tomorrow and send. To the town council and posted. By Athena. Acceptable process. So then. Anything I'm missing. I didn't anticipate. 48 hours in advance or otherwise. Seeing that there's none. I think that we are adjourned. Thank you very much. This has been. Not an easy meeting, but it was a very productive meeting. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Thank you.