 Welcome everyone to the March 13th meeting of the joint capital planning committee and as usual my first order of business is to call out your names to make sure you can hear and be heard and far has agreed to be our minute taker so we've got that or set up already so I'll just call out the names as I see them on the screen on a present sorry. Sandy. Present. Jennifer. Present. Alex. Present. And far. Yeah. Okay so we only are missing her right now so the plan for tonight is to bring up any remaining questions but also ideas that would we would want to be specifically calling out as recommendations to town manager, you saw the way we wrote the report. We wrote the report last year so I'm going to kind of use that template where it repeats a lot of things just to remind that we have this much money, and we're basically in agreement with most of what's in the proposed budget with these kinds of issues. And those can range from just a question about a project to a, you know, we, one thing I remember we talked about is the potential of a volatility fund, you know, a reserve funds to adjust with price so it can be an idea that we want to propose. And then focus on the, what we heard on the projects for 2023 fiscal 23. And then if we have any comments about the other four years or other parts of it to come up with what they are and Jennifer I think in an email to us you said how do we do this. The way we've done it, there's not a, we've always done it one way or the other, is we come up with a list, and if people kind of agree, that's the list of what we want to call out. We don't vote on them individually we just say yes, that's the list, and then I do my best to capture that in a draft report, which, if it's not extensive, I would hope to get you the draft tonight's Thursday I could probably get you the draft by Monday to be reading the Thursday meeting, and then any edits changes didn't word it quite right didn't capture it we can do so. That's the goal and then Sean has been collecting I know he's been collecting questions that were raised that were weren't completely answered were questions with answers and any other issues so maybe I'll first turn it over to him and then ask people to raise their hands to identify specific areas and I have a list of four but I'm just going to wait to hear what everyone else has to say. Thank you. So just to build up what Kathy said so the key to remember is that now JCPC is issuing a recommendation to the town manager to help shape his capital plan that he'll ultimately present to the Council. It's a little bit different than what JCPC did pre charter new charter. So when you give the feedback, I think the projects are helpful but also any feedback you give in terms of future years or things to consider for the overall capital improvement program that all helps I think last year. We did ultimately adopt pretty much all the recommendations from JCPC, which included some things that weren't necessarily like the projects I think it was, there was some additional stuff about information in the capital improvement program that would be helpful or the way the capital improvement program presents information that was helpful. I think it was we broke up, we broke up the pending projects that weren't on the plan, we broke those up into two lists sort of projects that lacked funding and projects that required more study or more planning. So that was one improvement that we got from JCPC last year. So in terms of the follow up items so I told Kathy that we actually updated Paul on all the feedback and comments that we have received so far. So we do have some information we can share with the committee in terms of what he's thinking based on the feedback so far. So the first issue I think that came up was the eligibility of the cyclical inspection program and the compensation study. So ERV raised the issue about it doesn't meet the definition of capital as it's written in the capital improvement program report, which I think we all sort of agreed with that it doesn't meet that definition, the way it's written currently. So we did talk about that with Paul. I think he's leaning towards, we'd rather modify that definition to be more inclusive than to pull these types of projects out because it would. Sonya can add a little bit more to this but it'll impact the way operating budgets we're going forward we'd have to make some pretty big changes to operating budgets. So I think we'd rather modify that language to be more inclusive if possible, but ultimately if there is a push to not fund those types of projects in the capital plan. We'd prefer again that the recommendation would be going forward because I think this year we've already worked with department heads. We've sort of followed the protocol that we've followed in the past in terms of these types of projects which happened funded through JC or been recommended by JCPC in the past. So that's a recommendation from this committee to change. I think we were hoping it would be sort of forward looking recommendation to consider this going forward. So, maybe I'll stop with that one Kathy and see if there's more discussion or Sonya if you want to add anything go ahead. I'm good. If anybody has any questions I can. I was one of the four items on my list so I don't know whether I think the recommendation is we flag it as what I thought we should and then we can either say, change the definitions, or going forward, consider, including it in operating so we could, I'm just thinking of loose wording of what a recommendation might be so are there any reactions to one way or the other of highlighting it. I mean, I can write it so it leaves those options open rather than takes a firm stand, and yet brings it to his attention and the other readers that council does get a copy of this report so it's he is the main audience but he's not the only one. So if that sounds like a way to address that issue, it will become a bullet in what we're pulling out on a what other things might. So, this is not going to sound as eloquent as I wanted to kind of feels like we are specifically creating a loophole for good reason. What else might get through it in the future that wouldn't have already come to us because we're saying things like this study right like is this is how big of a doorway are we creating that didn't already exist because it sounds like it's kind of just already existed for a while just hasn't been written which is understandable, but if we write it are we opening a doorway further. Can I just kind of chime in on a little history. So the reason. The reason these have kind of shift to the operating but I mean to the capital budgets is back at the last recession I don't know if it's 2010 I can't remember the actual year but when we had to cut budgets pretty drastically. So we used to have room for this kind of thing in budgets, but we had to cut the budgets really drastically capital was low. We kind of shifted funding, and we were told some of these some of these things don't happen every year but when they do come up where we were told departments were told to bring it to the capital, because some of these things take multiple years to to get done and everything so we shift it. And in order to go back to operating but budgets we do have to look at reshifting capitals funding as well. So that's kind of how it all kind of shifted over to the capital. That's really helpful. Thank you. And it sounds like it. It's more. So yeah, let me if I sounds like it. It's not an every year because this is the first time I've seen things like this so it's not an every year it's these. We occasionally have to do something like this and you would have to put it in as an extra funding this year's operating budget for someone. We wouldn't have it next year, and when we do this simple operating budget we just do two and a half percent times things, it would be, it would. Yeah, so Jennifer, and some of them reoccur like the assessors ask for the reveal. They used to reoccur every three years but now they're every five years. Studies don't always occur. It's not like a regular three year cycle or anything it's just one when they need to come up. Jennifer, do we have a sense of whether other municipalities have a practice like this, like including not traditionally considered capital things in the capital budget do we have any sense for whether other cities and towns do this. I've never really paid attention to. Maybe we could look at Northampton or some other communities but I think this town's practice has been to include some of these types of things. I was going to just add to what Sonia said from honest question. Other types of projects that sort of fall into this bucket. Some of the planning projects are kind of like this. I'm even thinking some of the other ones like the, the solar bylaw. It's not specifically related to a capital project but it is sort of a one time, you know, expense that we wouldn't need every year. I think a couple of years ago there was a housing production plan. Again, not specifically tied to a capital project. So, I think the project, the information we get from these is really important to where we don't want to necessarily lose it from this process. Mandy. I support the plan, a plan to redefine capital I know some of these don't really fall within what we traditionally think of as capital but maybe adding a third leg to capital because I do appreciate Sonia's comment about that. But if you can't spend it within a year the operating side it goes back to free cash, if it's not that you know and and some of these take longer or have multiple parts to it and so it would really be. It's a different way of budgeting that we haven't really done and might create more problems than it's worth versus just adding in a line for sort of studies of some sort, you know, like figuring out a way to do that, recognizing that we do do them and they're doing it all and they sometimes take a while to RFP out and actually then spend the money because you don't want to necessarily spend all the money. At the beginning of the RFP if the RFP is a year and a half you probably want to withhold some of that till the end and they end product is received, you know, and that creates operating budget issues so I would support the, the modifying the definition method. So I will draft it that way and I'll use some of the words you just did Mandy, you know on it. These are studies we need to do they may cross over more than one year with me which makes them difficult to budget and an operating budget so we recognize that so create a category that works. And, you know, I, you know, I guess personally I think we're such a tight budget as a town over everything. You know, the, the, it's not like a hole that a truck can go through because the capital budget is so tightly budgeted, you know it's not like it's a, it's a scapegoat for big things it's, it's, it's a safety net for small things. Okay, so next issue. Sean, do you want to go. I think you, these are things you talk through with Paul and or you've got further information to give to us correct. Yeah, yeah so this next one is probably for you and I Kathy, which was a question that Mandy asked about school and town it, and how much can go from existing facilities to the new facility. And we did talk to that we did raise this question at one of the last building committee meetings. And my recollection the response Kathy was that some can there wasn't a good detailed answer in terms of like the precise things but it sounded like computers, the computers tablets Chromebooks, those types of things can easily be brought obviously forward to the new building. So things that are less able to be brought over sort of the, the technology that's attached to the building or that's integrated within the building. I don't know, did I, did you capture anything else Kathy from that response from the designer. But the designer was definitely thrilled that cares money had bought lots of laptops, because the other schools pre cares. That's the thing they just didn't have. And so you're in the school, the way the granting authority works is you're only given so much per student and that is furniture and tech stuff. And so carrying over more and doing a quick, I went, I walked through wild with the other day and I would say some of the stuff you just don't want to bring with you, because it looks like it's taped together. When I looked at deaths, and I think they have repurposed some couches from probably a thrift store somewhere because these were never school but anyway so, but they said some of the stuff definitely and then the other. What is that to the extent you've got wire hubs modems and other things in the current school they're outdated, not current, and you would never do a system like that, because they had to be retrofitted. You know you would be building, building, building it in to be a system wide including access points outside the building. So if you were outdoors you would have access points so he said some just won't, some things just won't transfer. So, so the next, the next issue was and I sent some more information on this one was the Jones library request and the shelving. So, I had a conversation with Sharon and Cindy the librarian head librarian up there. And I think the information she provided was helpful at first it took me a while to kind of wrap my head around it. And then we finally settled on can you send pictures and I think the pictures will really sort of help me understand the differences between those two types of units. But I think the most important piece that she noted was that it's not a waste it'll be reused over the other purposes, especially during the transition for this for the shelving so, but there's any questions. We can discuss them now or I can bring them back to to Sharon and Cindy. Yes, but that response I think it's not something we need to flag it all week. We, we, it was asked and answered so it can be one of the projects we're saying, unless people have more to say about it. It wouldn't be one we have to call out in any way. And I know on a you originally raised it on a in relationship with with what the CPA grant was going to be covering. So, yeah, and my question was very thoroughly answered. Okay, so we won't. So I think we got an answer to that so we, there's no not going to be any special reference to it. Okay. So the next one was about Cherry Hill, and the, the two pieces of equipment. So this is one where we talked at length with Paul and we also had some follow up conversations with Ray. That's in the sort of the draft of the FY 23 budget that I anticipate will stay to the final version is one goal that Ray has listed for next year is doing a sort of an operational analysis on Cherry Hill to determine whether his recommendations going to be to maintain it as a golf course or do something else with it. The town manager supports that sort of analysis. So that'll be something that is hopefully completed within FY 23 and it'll be a goal in the recreation department budget. So that being said, and thinking through it more with the town manager, we sort of agree that it may not be wise to buy both of those pieces of equipment outright this year. So we would be open, or we would, we think a recommendation on the lines of either lease, try to find a lease for the equipment. You know, or maybe it's one year at a time, or to sort of explore alternatives like maybe used equipment. We did do a little research to see if there was used equipment would be something worth entertaining, at least for this next year, while that analysis is being done. And then we can make a decision after that. To me that's a great way to frame ours. And then I think, you know, Jennifer had sent some things directly through to Ray on a, in this analysis he's doing analysis of fees and what an operating budget, how much could it support. I, I picked up well probably because I raised it is that it is signage. If he renamed cherry hill the cherry hill recreation area, it would capture that it is more than just a golf course. And that would also cover us for not having to buy another sign. So we don't run, and it could say underneath, you know, golf and other activities or whatever but it's, it is so it's used so much more broadly. And the other thing, and Jennifer you raise this on a feeling somewhat differently about this course, if our kids were using it, if the elementary and high school kids and they either got to use it for free, or at a subsidized rate so it was an outdoor activity that got kids outside. And I think it's used a little bit that way now for free meaning you don't have to pay anything when you go there. But this was something a resident in North Amherst said, you know, if we can get clubs donated, it's a great thing for little kids because you don't have to get the ball in the hole you just whack it. You know, and it's really I mean I've been out with a group of kids and what I realized is I couldn't get anywhere near the group of kids because the ball was never going in the direction they were aiming. And I was walking my dog on the course so we quickly went back into the forest so we didn't get whacked, but they were having a ball just, you know, trying to hit the little balls. So I just thought writing it a little bit broadly that you know in the analysis figure out how much it's used as a larger recreation area. Okay, so we've got that. Next. So the next one was the volatility or the cost escalation idea. And the town manager really like that idea. We had a sense to do. We were thinking maybe around 100,000 or something like that, specifically for that. And, you know, Sonya and I looked at this a little bit we think this is something that could come out of prior year closed closed prior articles, as opposed to coming out of the money for this year's capital, because it's really sort of acting as a reserve to top off a project that maybe comes in higher. So the rules this wasn't in the original. This wasn't in the original plan that we presented but got us the information that they're planning on closing out $85,000 prior your article for a generator that they determined they won't need it for River. So that one project alone will be almost enough to fund, you know, reserve of some amount. And we do think it makes sense to prove it as a project so then we can just administer it and disperse it to the vehicle purchases. Primarily the vehicle purchases we were thinking, maybe not restricting it just to vehicles in case there's something else that came in higher because of cost escalation but I think vehicles were the primary thought. So Sean, if you've almost given us some wording on it, if, if, if Cherry Hill doesn't buy the two pieces and can lease or rent them for something less than proposed that may get you to the full hundred. And you, the whole budget was 17, what 71 71. You know, so, I mean one of our recommendations is going to be to balance the budget so do you think you're going to have enough flexibility and all of this. Yeah, 100. We'll be close, we'll be close we have one other adjustment we'll tell you about in a second that will close more than half of that gap. But I'll share that after we finish this item. Mandy. I like the use of volatility fund. I like that it wouldn't be strictly to vehicles although that's its main thought at this point. And I do like using closed out capital instead of this year's capital. And so I guess I would support using that potential savings on Cherry Hill to help close the gap, or to potentially add money to some of these vehicles that we already know have gone up in price to maybe allow the volatility fund to go a little farther if we've been able to close the gap somewhere but actually put some of that money in specific vehicle lines to if we've closed the gap. I wasn't sure what you said a few minutes ago Sean when you were talking about the money for the generator for Fort River. Yeah, saying that that that money would be going toward the Cherry Hill vehicles. I'm sorry. Not specifically to the. So, some time ago, there was a project approved for a generator at Fort River. I want to say it was an 18, it must have been an 18 or 19, and they've reviewed it and they've made some other adjustments, or other capital improvements to the building where they don't think they need that funding anymore. So when they do that but basically they tell us that they don't need it and then we can close it out it goes into sort of a capital capital fund that can be appropriated. So we're proposing is to take that 85,000 and appropriate it for this other more general use for vehicle inflation or maybe not vehicle inflation cost escalation to be flexible enough where one of the other projects that is approved for would be the three if when we go out to get quotes. It comes in higher than what was approved the specific number that was approved that we could then pull a little bit from this fund to get it to where it needs to be. So, not for the schools. It could potentially be used for the school van. There's two, there's two, I think van proposals this year. So the school vehicles would also be potentially in that. would be one we had this year, which was it was it the pumper trucker? Yeah, we'd approved a purchase. It was all lined up. And it turned out to be $100,000 more expensive. Bad example in terms of the amount that it was over. Wipe out the fun, but they couldn't possibly buy it for the amount of money. So they had to come to the council. And we had to separately vote on an appropriation to be able to buy it. So the idea is that this could, um, we'll see how far it stretches because it would be an innovation. So if something comes in $5,000 more, $10,000 more, you could still go ahead within the capital budget without having to reopen up a hearing to find the money. So it could be the schools because schools had vans. Um, you know, I'm thinking the library actually wants to buy this van. And at least what we heard from the library is they're none available right now to buy. But so it was hard to figure out what the price would be. So I think those are, it allows for flexibility within the capital budget that doesn't exist right now. Yep. And I think Mandy, Mandy's points, a good one for the recommendation to have, we should update all the vehicle prices to get them good as of now. So that this fund can really just be used for cost escalation that happens after this point. Otherwise, it'll go, we'll go through it really quickly. And I know some of the departments have done that, but we can take another look at it and see if there's been any changes since they submitted their projects. Okay, so the next one. So Sonia has done a great job and has updated our ambulance receipts fund. So as many of you know, we provide paramedic ambulance services to our town. When we bring people to the hospital, we're able to bill insurance for that. And all those funds go into a ambulance receipt fund that we can then appropriate from. And we appropriate amounts from that fund every year to support the budget and sort of specifically, it goes to help support the the fire and amass department. And so the way that fund works is we can't appropriate money out of that fund until we have it. So we've so Sonia has to update it regularly through this time of the year, when we're doing the budget to decide do we have the funds in the budget so that we can appropriate bring it forward as an appropriation request. So Sonia has looked at that and has confirmed that we have enough in that fund right that we as of right now, we have enough in that fund, where we can meet what we're proposing to support the budget next year. And then we can also support the purchase of an ambulance. So instead of borrowing the ambulance for FY 23, we could buy it outright from the ambulance fund, which is what we typically do. And so that won't actually help FY 23, but it'll help the out years, about $300,000 of that deficit in the five year plan will come off because of that. And then the other thing that will help FY 23 is that we can also support the the lease payments for the different defibrillators, which was I think 41,000 or so, maybe 48,000 48,000 or so in FY 23, and another 48,000 in FY 24. So that'll help about 90,000. So for FY 23, that'll take off about half a little more than half of the deficit. Again, that's our normal practice is to use that ambulance fund for capital. So Sean, for those that's, that's you adjusting the proposed spending. So we would change the funding source on the we would keep it on the plan, but we would change the funding source to other so that it would not come out of cash capital or borrowing, it would come out, it would come in as a new funding source and go out as a as a different funding source. So should we do something that says we got an update and that there will be funding so our understanding is the the funding arrangement will change for the ambulance and the defiler, you know, just say something vague. Yeah, since we're going to still be looking at the tables we've already got, we're not going to have new tables, correct? Yeah, you can acknowledge that we updated you on the when we first did this, we didn't have sufficient funds in the in that account. So I think it's fine to provide that as an update. Okay, Mandy. Sorry, this is a little off topic, but it popped into my head when we were talking about ambulance receipts and the ability to charge when we transport someone to the hospital charge the insurance and all. Kathy's brought up in the past that a number of our ambulance calls are to assisted living facilities, where the patient doesn't get transported, but they're being helped off the ground in some sense, they're like a lift or something to be put back on. Have we ever looked at figuring out a way to potentially charge assisted living facilities for using our staff to do what I foresee or perceive as something the facility itself should be able to do? You know, I understand there's an issue with just charging in general for responding to an ambulance call, and we don't necessarily want to go down that route. But when we're looking at potentially assisted living facilities, to me, that's a different beast, right, where people are paying to have that assistance if they fall to get lifted up. And yet, those facilities are using our staff to do so, which takes a whole lot of different issues. So it's not really related to capital yet. If we could do that, and I don't know whether it's legal to, and if we had looked at that, that would add into our ambulance fund, or decrease the burden on our fire EMS personnel to respond to calls. So it might be a boost other ways. Yeah, no, that's a great question observation. Historically, it was up pre COVID. That was a really big issue that happened a lot. I remember talking with Jeff Ohm said about this, that during COVID, it's that dropped off a little bit, because they just didn't want people in the buildings. You know, unless they absolutely had to be. But I suspect that will return as being a concern. And they have talked about, we don't currently build for that. Build Camp, I don't think we bill insurance for that, but they have talked about is there a fee structure or, you know, one per day or something like that we charge. So I think the best person to bring back and that would be Jeff, because he's spent a lot of time thinking about it. And I will ask him when we when we review the fire and EMS budget with finance committee to include that as part of his discussion. That's what I was just going to ask, because it's they actually they call what call it what you said, Mandy's called lift and assist. And I said, what do you mean? And they said, we're called because someone is kneeling on the floor and no one wants to help them get up. And and it's both the Orbers and Applewood with the Orbers being officially supposedly trained to do this. So a fee to the and I think it's the idea is a fee to the facility. So it's not the individual person, because the facility is making the decision that none of their staff can help. Yeah. Okay. So Mandy, we can figure out when we see you see the draft of this. So we want to include that as a recommendation to be considered by the finance committee in the department because it's clearly beyond capital. Yeah, I mean, maybe mention that there or as vice chair of finance, just take it to finance directly is something to consider. I know it's not quite related to capital, but it relates to capital spending sort of if we were to put a fee like that in and I do say yes to the facility not to the individual who felt it should be the facility. Yeah. No, actually, well, you don't want to hear more, but I looked up the code for assisted living. That's what the order to resist. And they are trained to prevent a fall, but they're not trained to pick up someone when they fall, which is the weirdest thing I've ever heard. So it's a licensing issue where we should be building it into the license to but that's a bigger issue. So next, so I think the last big question was one that you raised Kathy, which is the ladder truck. So the ladder truck that we have proposed is about one and a half million dollars. And it's a platform ladder truck, meaning the firefighters can stand on as they get lifted up. And if they bring people out of a building, they, you know, there's a platform for them to actually stand on and and recently Northampton has proposed, either purchased or proposed a ladder truck. And there's is what was it called a stick ladder truck? Is that the name of it, Kathy? Where there's no platform at the top, it's just a ladder. So in terms of the, you know, it's reach and that kind of stuff, it's similar, but there's no platform to stand on it. And so Kathy raised, you know, the question of why it's a million dollars. So it's a 500,000 dollar price difference. Yeah, right. So so Kathy raised the question of, you know, that we should look at this and make sure that what we're proposing, the value is there essentially for, for how much more cost than what Northampton is buying. So the two differences between what Northampton was buying and what we're proposing is the platform element. And I think the other piece Kathy was there's a generator in the truck we're proposing. And so our chief gave the North Hampton chief a call to kind of find out what the deal was with their proposal. So I don't know if this group wants to make a specific recommendation or just say to review that closer. My thought is that we should recommend it reviewed, you know, because it, they actually, when they came in, they talked about North Hampton is able to buy new ratatux and we never do. Well, if our cost is 50% higher, you know, we, it's more expensive. And I think the other thing he said is that, and I'd have to check the response you sent me that the ladder truck they're doing can pump water, can attach to a hydrant. So you don't have to send, you don't have to send a second vehicle with it. And the North Hampton one requires two when they go out. So one is the ladder. And that's what I just, I don't know how many times we need the ladder, I guess is the question, you know, if it's every once in a while, we need both. And usually we can do a pumper. So it's that kind of analysis. So Mandy, yeah. Yeah, the other question I would have in terms of analysis is maintenance costs, right? I've heard a lot of the fire department personnel say in some sense that the platform part costs a lot to maintain how, how does, how much does it break down and cause us in maintenance versus the the benefit we get. Although I will say I, I see a benefit in not having to climb a ladder to just have a platform up there, especially if it takes water up to then having to lug a hose up and have, if you're actually doing a rescue, people that have to climb down, right? I see that benefit. But what's the main added maintenance costs to some of it too, if, you know, to add that complication of platform and extra controls at the top and the but, you know, all of that and, and what does that leave us with in the future? Yeah, and I, you know, I had heard this a couple years ago when actually another counselor is not in the council anymore mentioned that Europe has a different, has a different kind of ladder truck. It's just a ladder and they're smaller. So they fit in a more confined space and was talking about the size of ours that, that ours or what, in any case, it was the first time I realized that ours was not the norm. You know, I just thought a ladder truck is a ladder truck as opposed to their variations. So, so if we write it as needs further analysis, including maintenance costs as a recommendation, you know, so we're not saying don't do it, but you know, questioning what is it we really need for any, are there any, and I mean, I'm writing these down as, as I said, the pullouts where we're identifying and I, you got through my entire list. I didn't have anything else. So, so the only other topic that's more, I think it's more helpful for probably me. I think one of the first things you raised Mandy was around the inventory and how it's sort of tough to decipher the inventory. So I don't know if we want to talk, you know, talk through what some potential improvements could look like to the inventory in future years to make it this easier to, you know, see what we have for different types of trucks. Mandy? That was going to be one of my potential ads on my lists, which was describing the size of vehicles. The biggest one is that there's no size listed, so I don't know the difference, but you know, we always get a capital project list that says we need to replace a one ton truck or a three quarter truck. And then I look at an inventory and I can't tell how many three quarter trucks we actually own or how many one tons we actually own or how many are just regular pickup trucks. And so some sort of description in the inventory that matches the descriptions we get in the project listings would be very helpful. Yeah, we'll try to standardize the terminology in term. I think the inventories, yeah, every department does a little differently, but we can try to give some direction next year. Like we don't need, we don't need to know what color it is necessarily, but just knowing if it's a, like you said, a one ton a plow truck, that kind of stuff, trying to think about what standard terminology would be helpful. Yep. Mandy, you said you had, well, anyone should just raise their hand if they have, it doesn't matter where it goes. Just things they wanted to call out in the report. Yeah. I had three other things. I'll start with the two short ones. I think a number of us, you added a actual and projected debt schedule, and I think we should just call out that we really liked that addition, you know, to keep that in in the future. Fire, the fire department talked about, or the facilities department talked about, one of them, I think both, that it was good that the maintenance of the fire buildings have now been moved into the facilities department prioritization. So another way, you know, putting that in the report that that is a positive improvement in terms of capital prioritization, spending, identification and all of that. And then I had done some asking about future projects that departments didn't show up on these lists anywhere. And so I was wondering if some of them could be listed somewhere in the report or put in our report as recommended to be listed somewhere in the report. A lot of the things that like fire department talked about were already in the capital plan, just in out years, and they talked about the delays. But the police talked about needing L3, level 3 chargers, if they're going to start buying EV patrol vehicles, you know, and things like that that didn't show up in the current plan that we really do need to be looking at if we're going to go EV, we're going to have to install some very expensive chargers for them to be able to be used. DPW talked about war memorial, both a pool liner and a pool house. And DPW also talked about relamping the whole town if we want to go a little more sustainable in terms of wattage and all. And then fire also talked about a 10-year replacement plan instead of an eight-year replacement plan for ambulances. Those are the ones I had noted. There might be others, maybe not all of them need listed, but it might be good to somewhere add into future projects lists somewhere. So, Mindy, I wrote pretty fast, but can you send me if you have that written and then I'll do it on this in a listing? Sure, sure. Sean. So one other inventory related thing that Anna brought up early in the process was I think having more information in the inventory about I guess about sustainability and I know one of the initiatives were hoping to achieve this year or looking to achieve this year is doing some sort of fleet emissions inventory where we look at each vehicle and sort of map out when it can be replaced and if there's a electric option when it can be replaced. So if we do have that type of information the next time around we do the inventory we'll try to include that as well. I think that actually is a goal of the council I believe one of the town manager's goals is to map out a transition plan for all of our vehicles. Anna. Yeah, so this is something that I'm hoping I have the right avenues here so I also happen to be the liaison to the Energy and Climate Action Committee and so I mentioned this to them as something in terms of the criteria. I didn't think we this body needed to spend time on that I thought it could just be a memo that was sent to finance am I correct? Okay, great. That's still on the radar and well we're hoping to get something to them once budgets like it's not for this year right so it's before people start doing inventory for actively for next year I think you said that starts in December is that right? We'll do it in late September October. Great, so we'll work with them then. One of the things we did last time Anna when we actually it wasn't in JCP say we did it in finance saying figure out what can be done in inventory that's updateable without sending the staff out and spending months you know so it so it's been an evolution on so I think we can do that and then yes we can do this so I think that's exactly the right place to send it you know for you. Yeah, perfect and it's beyond vehicle it's buildings too. Yeah, makes sense. Thank you. You know I thought the other improvement this year and maybe I'll talk to Jennifer but before I forget it I can't remember what it was in last year but this year you have the utility costs of the buildings in it and that was a really good thing to have and what I wondered is you just did the town buildings even though we spend money on the school buildings and I was wondering if we should expand it to include the school buildings. Yeah we can. Again I don't know how much work that is but since Rupert came with us with high back systems and ceilings and gyms but at least the utility costs where it creates us a historical line on what we're using with oil and gas and electric yeah. Yeah I think the accounts are set in a way where we could get that information pretty easily from them and the other building that Alex asked about was the North Amherst library which likely will be added next time around too. We're looking at what that would be to bring that information over to the town side. Jennifer. So I have some questions about myself understanding the report can I ask them. So I read the last three years of reports incidentally there was the very first one after the charter is the only pre-pandemic report so it's not too long we've been in the pandemic so I read all the past three years and it seems like there are certain key figures that the reports include every year that I was having trouble myself identifying what those figures are this year. So like there's tax levy allocated to capital there's debt service there's tax funded capital and then there's sometimes like state aid or other aid added to like the total spent on capital the total funds available for capital and then there's the total the sum the total requested amount the sum of all of the things that we've been presented. So like if I look at the capital improvement program and I look at the five year plan I just I couldn't figure out where all those am I are we supposed to have have we been given all those figures already should we already know what they are and is the amount spent equal to the amount requested I know we talked about having a balance out and so like I just can I don't know if it helps to would help for Sean to like show the Sean if you pull up the one page that is for five year plan Jennifer the what you see in there is me taking me in the last two years the information we've been giving and bringing it up in a slightly different form so it wasn't that it came from out of my mind but this very that column you see of FY 23 has those numbers in it so how much comes from the 10% of cash so you can see 5,719,000 is coming from 10% of the levée then you can see down below that 841 is coming from state aid so if you add them up it's this is how much we potentially have to spend this year total and then down below it's how much do we have to spend whether we want to or not because we're paying off debt from previous years that's the actual debt and this year we have something called projective debt and it's like once we fund the ladder truck it's going to show up next year as new debt so these are we don't have a choice about those so we're really working with 4,466,000 but some of which so the proposals might add to 7 million because 3 million of it's going to be debt financed so what I do then is go back to that incredibly long table that Sean gave us that says the fire truck is debt the ambulance is debt these are cash and they always add up not surprisingly since he generated all of this to the amount we have to spend so all that those reports are doing is pulling numbers out of this and we've been in bed this table has been embedded in our report which is a little bit odd because we got it from the town manager and we're sending it back to him without any changes but it helps in reading the report to know where these come from so and Sean has been really good about it because I don't always add the right things correctly he just goes back and checks that I've not either made a typo or I missed something that's debt financed so he just you know we just can work off of what was proposed to us so he just changed some of this calculus because one thing went from debt to cash so we would just recognize that but that's where that came from and similarly you know the one thing I wanted to alert everyone because I think we should write a sentence about it last year if you looked on the bottom line here where it's 71,000 in deficit the year we're looking at last year it was much lower but the future years last year were all nearer to zero you know like plus or minus this time we've got big deficits going out so I thought we should remark on that because that is it's not because of the there's a big table in the back on where this comes from it's not because of the vehicles we're buying or the buildings we're repairing it's the big projects that coming online and the one is real it's Jones we've committed to it and there's a mount DPW was still a hope rather than real and that if you could look at projected debt what happens in FY24 where it goes from a million up to 2.5 million that jump is because Jones and DPW and the beginning of something else have come online so it's not so I thought I just I was going to write a sentence is that this isn't a balanced plan yet someone's got to go back and look at it because we will not have enough money to do what we're saying we want to do in 24, 25 all the things that we kept asking Rupert and others what are you going to do next year we're in deficit so it's not balanced yet and I know the manager and our finance director are well aware of this but it's because of that big jump up and projected debt when I went and looked at it so I was just going to add a sentence that that said last time around you gave us a fairly balanced five-year budget now we're pretty good on year one and he will get to zero here I mean there won't be a negative but that's where all those numbers came from you know it was from this initial report that we got Kathy can I add a couple of things to that yeah so when you're thinking about that section on why this changed so much two things that weren't in the plan last year that were in the plan this year the ladder truck was one that wasn't in here that added you know you can imagine that added about a million and a half to to the numbers the other thing that was that's new as we increase the projection for the regional schools based on what they presented at their their last four-town meeting so that also added quite a bit when we increased that projection and then the other thing I want to point out as we've circled back to this that is it's important for this committee to know and maybe to weigh in on so this projected debt column this 1.36 sorry this gives you makes you dizzy but so that includes an estimate of a debt payment for the Jones library in FY 23 so in order for that to happen that means we would borrow for the Jones library we would have to borrow for the Jones library before June to have our first debt payment next fiscal year initially we were planning on doing that we were planning on borrowing early for this project we don't normally do that but we were planning on borrowing early for the library to take advantage of low interest rates and get it locked in however the project hasn't moved as quickly as we thought and we we don't want to borrow too too early where we can't spend the money in a reasonable amount of time so right now we still have this in there as us borrowing this fiscal year and having our first payment next fiscal year I want to just raise that it is possible that by the time we finalize this plan we may have decided we are not going to borrow this fiscal year for the library and if we don't borrow this fiscal year for the library this payment goes away and so what that means for the plan I'm just going back to that page we're looking at we have another million you have a million dollars so we would have a we would have about 500,000 because we wouldn't we wouldn't use these reserves these reserves were specifically to support the cap building projects coming on coming on so we wouldn't use these reserves but as you said we would also not have this big projected debt so what we're thinking is if that happens we would just not borrow for some of the projects that we're saying we're going to borrow for or borrow less or if this group wanted to say no these are some of these other needs that we heard we think maybe if you do have this money and it becomes available you should fund these things so I think we do have a plan or we have the flexibility where if that happens it's not the end of the world but I just want to make sure this group is aware of that and if you do feel you want to weigh in like yeah don't borrow as much or fund this other these other projects that you heard about that were in this plan you would want to include that now too so if it's okay with people I will try to write a paragraph that captures what Sean just said pretty quickly because it is when we're looking at the five-year plan we didn't go into each of the projects for the other five years but at least noting that it's possible this will be balanced for the following reasons and that the town manager is well aware of this so we can write that and that last page I wasn't sure it was there until Sean reminded me that he had included it that's an addition that's the one Mandy was talking about that it's the last page in the big long document we got which shows you if you borrow now how much it costs in every single year going outward so the very first year there's no no costs that's why we can spend more in a year than we have or we can commit to more than we have because we're paying it off over time but it's a good table to have as a reference point so even the tables Jennifer that went into this last year's report they came completely from this report Sean just gave me an easy to drop in version so Jennifer your hands up I have another question I heard you guys talking I didn't hear the whole thing about the high school track when I first joined and so my question is you know assuming the town council approves that borrowing will that be added to the debt line I don't know how the timing works like well I first I guess just like will it get added to this report or to our report depending on how the timing works and then it feels a little weird that like you know that that's a spend that the town is going to have to spend but it gets approved by the regional school committee and then has to get approved by the town council but it's not part of this report yet because it wasn't approved yet so there's like spending that's outside of this that's out there that could happen so how does that all fit in so let me just make one let Sean respond but we're not actually approving spending we're making a recommendation to the manager so on certain things they're not even coming to us as a project because somewhere else has been the approval so we're not reopening last year's decisions we're not looking at whether we're funding the Jones Library or not and similarly if that regional track makes it through the regional committee and then through the council it will show up here and Sean can show you it will show up as a draw on the capital money that's not available for next year so Sean it will where would it go it goes there it is yeah so it gets yeah in this it kind of gets lumped in with that but we do break it out here as you can see what that is so the number the regional schools gave us for runway 23 is this 389955 last year we sort of had this around 400,000 each year going out based on what we were hearing from the the regional schools this most recent year they updated us on some some additional capital investments that they anticipate needing in the coming years so we did increase this quite a bit we doubled it to 800,000 per year that being said this doesn't raise it all the way to where the regional schools projected it would go because I think if we did that this plan I think we're going to have to have a greater discussion on that before we can build it into this plan because I believe it went up as high as two million dollars per year if we did everything that was on their plan so we did want to reflect that there's going to be some immediate increases like potentially the track and some other projects that will raise this up but we didn't want to go all the way because we haven't really there's a bit of longer discussion about whether the town can support that that level of assessment thank you is there those are excellent questions by the way Jennifer I mean it took me a couple years before I realized I was only focusing on certain things that the other things were given and then and if you looked at last year last year was somewhat unusual if I went back in time JCP she usually was saying yes you know like because they had this feedback from the town manager and it kept getting whittled in last year we said don't do a couple things and double one other thing I mean we gave you know we said don't don't fund the North Amherst intersection with a study until you actually know you're going to get a grant so it disappeared and doubled the sustainability fund so it was a departure in a way in terms of very specific recommendations to the town manager that we hadn't already received from him so and the year before was just COVID year it was a different world altogether yeah so so any anything else because if we don't put anything else on the list the draft report you'll see as soon as I can get it done I will probably yellow highlight where something we're saying as a recommendation or as one of the things Mandy did was say we really like the fact that you expanded the building font repair fund to include the fire and police you know to make it more expansive that's a good idea continue it and I think we all like that he doubled the proposal doubled the sustainability fund we just said great idea so some of those we can remark on as keep it keep keep that that's a good thing so and then we've got a section on inventory and then a really short section on looking out over the five years on so it certainly won't be longer than last year either if anything will be shorter and then Sean can help me drop in these tables but it's the same table as we have already in the larger document farah so Kathy once you have can you hear me yeah oh sorry once you have this type this up do we discuss it we you get a report that actually looks like a report and other than something was missing that I literally just forgot and we just talked about it today or the way I've worded it nobody would ever understand what we're talking about which Alex has fixed in the past when I've gotten a turn time you know that my wording was just awkward or wasn't clear we go through the report pretty quickly with copy edits and Mandy usually is the first one to find everything where the verb isn't the right tense or the period isn't it I mean it just in terms of just a close reader that's a really good copy edit so I will try to get you it by Monday's a council meeting I should be able to get it to by Tuesday potentially by Monday morning Kathy just a just a heads up that we have of don't click on the Q and A and we've had a group of people join as attendees that I think are part of a zoom bomb of some sort so I guess it's good that we're close to being done but just want to alert you to that we usually don't have a Q and A yeah I think this we've had we've had a Q and A feature which I'll make sure I turn off for the next time but just okay I'm not going to basically wants to click on it it's not something you want to click on so Farah that that is it's it's not a you know last time we had very few comments on the report itself that weren't in the nature of edits you know you know sentence not done and and we try to do all of those and then leave it to I mean Alex you can refresh from you know people basically like it Alex does a right through of it to make it flow better without changing substance and then then we're done and so the next thing you do is you get a final document that gets sent to the town directly to the town manager and I do a two page cover for the council to say hey we just sent it to the town manager and here's a copy of it but it the council doesn't do anything with it other than to know that they received it so we are we probably we will not need the third I think we can finish next week it just it's my my Sunday my Sunday fund I think this is doable I mean I have a pretty good listen and if Mandy sends me her list so I can capture the wording if anyone else had specific wording if you send it then I will be more faithful to what you said so any other questions and I see there are we have do have a public so I want to make sure I turn to the public okay we don't have a public Kathy okay ignore it completely that is not a public I saw four attendees I was like yes jcpc got popular again and then no I don't know how many of you were there with the we we did have an unfortunate school building forum that got thoroughly zoom bombed and it was a pretty it was awful yeah it was just really awful and somehow the creative bomber was able to write on the screen and scroll over people's charts with with like crayons it was you know you you didn't know with what was going on so so hopefully we've been protected so I want to thank everyone I mean this is the questions are good because this is not an easy process to jump into you know there's a ton of numbers when you look your eyes kind of glaze over when you look at those five-year sheets with vehicle lines and you know other than saying we're spending a lot of money on this stuff you know one thing that is notable in the out years and we mentioned it early on is we will be spending less on roads and sidewalks as the big projects start coming in because we only have so much money so we're and the town manager has said that but I think we'll say again this year that he's got to make clear he articulates that because we are already getting pothole messages all over the place given what's going on with the weather so so I think that's it and I think we can say the meeting is adjourned and again thank you everyone and Farah when you're finished with your draft if you just send it if you want to wait and say I want to watch the video first you don't have to get them here immediately the videos have been they've been pretty good to get well Sean can send you the video link it'll be up it'll be up tomorrow and we can send it to you okay so thank you good night everyone we are adjourned bye goodbye