 Okay, we're recording now. Andy, I'll make you co-host. No, Lynn. I'm making Andy co-host. I'll make you host. Oh, great. Got it. I wanted to give a heads up. I'm going to have to switch to phone for a brief moment around 115 until about maybe 145 just for a little bit. I'll still be here. I'll just be on the phone. Got it. You're all set folks. Take care. All right, Andy. So we are. Are we recording? Yes, we are. Okay. So with that, I am going to call the finance committee. Meeting of June 9, 2023 to order. And it is 1pm. The time notice for the meeting. This meeting is being held by zoom. Members of the public, you have access to meeting by zoom and by Amherst media. But everybody should be advised that this meeting is being reported. Both video and audio. And an explanation. For those in the public who may not be aware. The staff is unavailable today. So Sean and. Athena, who are usually supporting the committee. Are not here, but we're going to go ahead with the meeting to do as much as we can today. And follow the agenda for the significant items. I think except for one. Which is the review of the third quarter f by 23 revenue and expense report. That is going to be postponed to another meeting because we do need staff from finance department. Both our comptroller and. Finance director present. I just want to mention that however, if people have questions. They'd like answered in advance of our next meeting, please go ahead and forward them to Andy and Sean. And we will get make sure that those are available to the public. Possibly by reporting them again at the next meeting or including any responses to the packet. So with that said, I need to go through the. List of people here just to confirm that everybody can hear and be heard. And so, as I usually do alphabetical by last name. So. Hello everybody, I can hear you. And Lynn. I'm present. Bob. Here. Yeah. Present. Bernie. Present. Yeah. And yes, I'm present and Alicia had indicated to me that she is. Expecting to be able to join us by one 30 that she. Can actually earlier, but we're going to go ahead and. Try and move this meeting along because I know the number of people. Have other things going. And so what I'm going to do is. Look at the participant list and see if there's anybody. At this point only, I think there's one person present in the audience. If. Anybody who's on watching. At any time. Would like to add, but if you're interested in public comment. Please raise your hand so that we can bring you into the room. Seeing that there's not a request that the hands has not gone up. I'm going to. Assume that there's no request for public comment for today. And therefore. What we want to do. I'm going to postpone. The counselor compensation proposal. Until Alicia is here since she's one of the two co-sponsors. Michelle cannot be here. Michelle said some comments which have been added to the packet for the meeting. So. I'm going to postpone this. Because. Our matter of public interest since those comments to a committee. And therefore. They are in the packet. Anybody who wants to see. Her comments can find that we offer to the committee. Just this morning. Can find them. So anyway. We're going to come back to. And therefore I want to turn to. The review and. Recommendation of. Council order. 2407 B. Which is a request of the. Community preservation act committee. And. The memorandum explaining the order and the order. Are in the packet also available for everybody. And we're also in the packet for the. Council meeting on Monday. Just briefly, just as a reminder, what this is about. Is that the. Community preservation act committee had been holding funds aside. To address a request that they were. Very interested in. But there was insufficient information for them to make a recommendation. At the time they made the recommendations and they're still insufficient. Information available. And if the money that is being held aside is not transferred. To a specific reserve account. Before the end of the year, it will not become available until. The next round of the process. So that. Their request is to do as requested in the order. And that is to make a transfer. Of the funds into a special reserve. For FY 24, which is of course the. Year that's coming up. Otherwise. So that they wouldn't have to be held. For expenditure until FY 25. Funds are done. If they don't make recommendations, then they would ultimately fold back into. The funds that are available for FY 25 distribution, but the order gives them the extra flexibility and that is the request of the CPA committee. Are there any questions about this request or any thoughts about it? Andy, I can't raise my hand because I'm showing my screen. Okay, go ahead. I just want to mention the reason I think we should support that request. I think we should support that request. Because. Periodically, we have had off cycle requests for CPA money. And if there's, and this would allow that money to be available for that. Two examples of the off cycle requests. One was for Kendrick Park. For a matching grant. And the other one was when we. Quickly bought the land on Delta town road. And the other one was when we bought the land on Delta town road. And the other one has your hand up. Yeah. Lynn, I have a question about those two. This is, I mean, this is a reserve for a specific project. It's not just a. Empty reserve for off cycle requests. The. Other two, the Belcher town road and Kendrick Park were those done in a similar fashion. With the request to finance for. I was on CPA at that time. And so I don't remember. For the Belcher town road, not for Kendrick. So what happened was they actually came forward when the new CPA money was available. But they did come to finance for review. Absolutely. But it's a little bit of a different type of reserve. I think the other thing about those two examples that you gave is that. Both of them were significant expenditures that involved indebted this. Right. And since we were taking out loans. It was not actually expenditures in the year. That we were making the decision, but it was expenditures in future years. I don't think that. I don't think that the order. Specifically. Mentions the one. Item that they. Had been discussing from the last round. So if it moved into. An FY. 24. Budgeted reserve. I don't think that it could be used for any. If I 24 expenditure, if they was to recommend. And I do have to. Point out that. They may make a recommendation, but it still has to go back to this committee and to the. Council for ultimate approval. So that. There's nothing that's. You know. We as a. Committee and the council. After us. Are not giving up our role to review any recommendation made. Kathy. Yeah, I was going to underscore what you just said. Andy on all you had said it's for a specific purpose, but it's not even though they discussed potential purpose. And one of the other things. I have been the liaison, although I'm not going to be in the future. Is in the past. They had to, because they had potentially under spent in a particular category, they had to reserve it for historic or for something else. This time. They had, they met all the 10% of this 10% of that. So it could be a general reserve. And I know this has been done in the past. You know, they, you know, it's basically. I think it's a good policy because you don't want to have. The CPA this year wasn't an example of that in a year. Where there aren't terrific proposals. You don't want to have. Spending the money just to spend it out. So being able to have a reserve for the following year. And there was one year a few years ago that that reserve became really important to then finance some larger projects. So I think this is a good policy. This was not one of the years where they were under. Under proposed. They had more than enough to spend all their money. And they had to cut. They had to trim multiple projects. So I just want to. Anna, it's, it's written to be general. And I think it's deliberate because they weren't even sure the one thing that they were interested in is going to be able to come back anywhere near. This kind of a price tag. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. I, the memo and the order are obviously different. Different framings of this request. So, um, I'll hold my question till after Bob. Okay, Bob. Yeah, I, I, I support this. Actually Kathy answered my question. The issue was whether we can do this or not. And it seems like we can. So, um, I think it's a good idea to do it. So you have, did you have some, I mean, I think I have more general. I support this. I think that it's, it's great. And I CPA is one of my favorite things. And so I, I definitely am excited about providing more opportunity through it. I think I just want to, I just want to, I just want to, I just want to, I just want to, I just want to, I just want to, I just want to, I just want to get to the point that I think that I'm going to talk about providing more opportunity through it. I think I just have like logistical questions about how. This functions, but I think those are more appropriate for me to talk to Kathy as the liaison offline and get a better understanding about it. At some point. Yeah. Nothing. I can call you at some point. But that when I watch what the committee did way back when is The reserves get held. And so when they start their deliberation and they usually In September to say how much money do we have Sonia would put up and we have this reserve held over, you know, so that it's got a f y. It's each year is how much you've collected and they never know exactly what the state appropriation would be they always can assume it. And so far the state has not done what did multiple years ago which is cut. So it's like about how much money do we have to work with when they start to open up for it. But yeah, it gets carried on the books as a, as what it says here as a reserve. I just will say as in no surprise but I think it would have been nice to have Sean here to explain this because when I look at the memo it seems to me it's kind of essentially an accounting function. They weren't allowed to make the award or not I'm sorry they were they were, they did not want to make the award a conditional award that they didn't want to make this year, and how they not created this special reserve account to hold that those funds those funds for for an entire year I think, as I read it it was just kind of an accounting move that seemed sound, but I, you know, don't whom I don't know so I but I think as I read it it's pretty straightforward if Kathy feels the same, you know, I'm very comfortable with it. Okay, anything else. Let me. So, this is what I'm summarizing here, and that is, while they want to hold these reserves into this coming year on with the possibility that the church might come back with an acceptable proposal. The reality is, if they don't this way the money is generally available as well. It is an accounting move. Yep. That's accurate. Are you frozen. Oh, okay. Your hand is upside. Okay. So, Andy, you want me to make a motion or do you want to do it. I think that the motion would be that the finance committee recommend to the council adoption of the council order 2407 be in order, appropriating the FY 24 community preservation act budget. This required under MGL chapter 44 be second. So it's been a motion that's made in seconded any further discussion seeing the request for the discussion. I'll start with Lynn. I support. Matt support. Bernie support. Kathy. Yes. I mean, yes. Alicia has not joined us yet. So she's a point absent. Hi. So, of council members, it is. One absent in the support of three. President members and I think that we can go into at least one other item that isn't going to take very much time. And then I'm going to see if there's anything that was not anticipated that you under any members want to raise. You have reset some minutes that were submitted to us and I have reviewed them and made some very minor suggestions in an amended version that is in the packet. So it's available to the public. And those are March 7 2023, February 21 2023 and March. 21 2023. Is there are there other suggestions for those minutes. Because I would make a motion to adopt them as amended. Your second. Second. Okay. So that's there's no. I have just one question that is not all the minutes we have in the packet so you've just picked out a few on. Well, I was going to ask that in a minute, but I'm fine. I'm fine with voting on this set but I was just wondering whether that means the others are being carried over or what did that mean that. I would, unless somebody wants to make a motion has reviewed them. It feels comfortable enough with them to make a motion. I have not done my review. But if somebody else has reviewed them is comfortable making a motion. I certainly will recognize it but why don't we deal with the motion on the floor first. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So, Bob. Support. Matt. Support. Bernie. Support. Yes. I mean, yes. Alicia is still absent. And Anna. Hi. Lynn. Hi. So again, it's. Or is zero with one member absent of the voting of the councilor members in support of the three resident members. At this point, I believe that we're still as an attendee or panelists do not get half Alicia. And it's not quite one 30 so it's a matter of time that she has said. I before I will go ahead and start the discussion in a moment if there's no other issues but are there any other issues that people would like to bring up. I don't think it's unanticipated business. I don't think it's unanticipated. I would just like to know if we have another meeting in June. And if we have any meetings in July so just just. And what day and what time they might be and I'm. And so I'll make one. If you're going to have another meeting in June with a postpone, I'm probably going to miss it, but I'm not sure that Friday works well for people. So if there's a meeting in July, so I just, it's very useful for my calendar to hold the date, even if we cancel it. Yeah, that of course is one of the agenda items regular meeting schedule through the remainder of 2023 kind of fits into that classification on the agenda since actually a noticed item. I'm just anticipating that we would have a very brief discussion when we had a Lisa present because we know that she's the one who has a complicated schedule that I had to work around and we understand that there's been some changes and for availability, but we don't have any specific information without her presence. So I do want to come back to that. And I think the only other item that I would have that I'm going to call on anticipated because it really came out of that. There was that article that was, I think, was 48 hours ago about the Community Preservation Act. And it was just noting that there is advocates are very concerned that not enough CPA money is being allocated and what I would call the Gold Star Community Group of municipalities that has met that threshold on a continuous basis and so that it was not the issue. When it was reported on WUR, they raised an additional issue. And that is that it became clear, at least in that reporting, that the real estate industry is campaigning against the requests of Amherst and other communities for real estate transfer fee for this purpose and they're starting to make sure and they're touting CPA as the answer and just it's not that we can do anything about it that I thought it would be something that many members at least would want to know about for future discussions on it. Sure. So as one of the co-sponsors of our home rule, I feel like I want to say I have to say something here. I mean, I think it's really important to remember that this is a strong lobbying group in Massachusetts that's doing this work and not forget the source of the information. CPA is an incredible funding source for so many different things and CPA alone cannot cover the needs of housing in our communities. So to say that we should be draining our CPA funds entirely on housing pulls from a lot of really wonderful worthwhile projects and communities like Amherst are utilizing CPA the way it's intended, giving a lot to affordable housing and seeing that that is not enough right so for me things like transfer fees are that support affordable housing like ours like Joe's bill all of these are really important because we with all of the costs escalating and that with the need level that we see unless CPA was to become solely dedicated to housing which I do not I strongly believe that should not be the case. We need an additional fund so I really, you know it's frustrating to me to see that the advocacy against these these transfer fees is saying just use CPA when we know that they could use all of the CPA funding and still need more. That's all. Yeah, and another another piece of this would be that there are a significant number of communities and state that are sitting inside there 10% for housing and CPA and not spending. So it's I think it's appropriate if we went back to our friends in the legislature and say tariff those communities who aren't using their CPA money to create affordable housing. You know it just builds up and builds up and builds up there should be some limit to it. The other elephant in the room here, which are friends the realtors won't probably want to talk about is the zoning issues. I mean we're, I just read a report in Connecticut. You know something like 90% of the land and Connecticut is on for single family housing. I don't think this chooses is quite that bad. But I think as long as we continue to have large lot single family housing zoning. We're going to have a tough time anywhere building more housing affordable housing when you have to pay $150,000 for a lot, you can't build an affordable house. Simple as all that. Yeah, I think I don't think on it for her comments and I do have some concerns about, and I worked in a couple of those communities where they got lots of money set aside for affordable housing and not spending. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you for everyone for their comments. I just wanted to sort of raise to just make everybody aware of the issue I don't think that we should do more than we've already done, which was to recommend to the council that the council submit the bill, which did in a timely fashion. And, you know, beyond that is now out of the committee's workload at the moment. I mean it might come back. Next round the CPA requests. And we get back into the portable housing discussion then. But this point we're just trying to keep ourselves well informed and go on. I just wanted to note that. I just saw that in now it's in Emerson Hills, which is a very, very high end development, but a lot is now $300,000. So, we're not going to get affordable housing on a $300,000 a lot. Yeah, I mean, I think that we are aware that a lot of times Community Preservation Act money has been used. It will acquire land. Because of us and then a partner comes in to do the actual project and they go to what was EO CD. And other sources for additional funding. It's now, of course, community development and housing or separate departments with new administration Kathy. Yeah, I just, as long as we're having this general conversation. One of the issues when you talk about the piece of land is how much, how much housing you put on that land. So one of the ways the affordable housing developers have done this is they bought a piece, and they've got a waiver for density on on it. And then they get a lot of state money to make it affordable. So this new one that's coming in and ball lane they were going to do some market rate. It's a, they're all duplexes. And when they priced out the cost of making the duplex, it was going to be too expensive. It was going to be too expensive for anyone to buy it. So they're only doing affordable units because the market rate would have been 350 400,000 and those are what the duplexes are going up in dear field and Sunderland. It's a combination of land price and construction so it's, it's the, as soon as someone's not with CPA money plus state money. It does something both to the price of the rent and the price of the property that's beyond beyond the reach of what people are thinking to get half a house. And we asked why you're not doing market rate and they said because the market, the market rate would have been too high for people to want to buy in and we didn't want to have and didn't want to have any empty units they need, they need them all to be occupied. So it was an interesting Struction insight. Well, yeah, no thank you for reminding of this and I know that because it's your district you're paying close attention. Your district in your neighborhood I think. Yeah, you know, it is both but you know one of the things I thought was curious about the advocacy report around housing is they didn't advocate more state money going into CPA for affordable or more state money going into renovate existing units for solar and for heating efficiency. So if there were specific ads on to CPA that enabled people to do that with our existing units. The cost, the utility costs in those units would be lower. You know so I think there are some policies that the report just said we need more housing we need more money so it would have been nice to also see where the money comes from to help municipal governments, and that part didn't seem to be there. Yeah, my colonel on and then, since it's 130 I think we should move on to answer compensation so that we can get our last agenda item is a Thanks Andy. Thanks Andy. I think something that's also interesting is we look at the amount of funding, and not at the amount of affordable housing created right so Pellum is lauded as a really as you know, doing the highest in the area for CPA, which is amazing I am not out here to knock Pellum Pellums great we love Pellum but if you look at the number of units created versus the number of units created and other towns are an amp like like Amherst to Kathy's point or I don't know whose point it was sorry but whoever was talking about getting a waiver right for density. I think it's Kathy, if getting a waiver for density Amherst has been putting up the sheer number of units Amherst has been putting up, I would argue outpaces most of those other towns and so it's an interesting to it's interesting to consider the amount of funding but also who's housing the most people right per per capita and for the amount of land we have. I just I think that that's something that hasn't been looked into we just look at the, you know, the minimum of 10% and Amherst doing a lot higher than that which is great, but I think it's also important to consider the number of units that have been produced, which hasn't necessarily been examined. Good point. Yeah, I just want to, again, recognize that Pellum has finally moved forward with some affordable housing. The reason their number so high is that all of a sudden they just did it this year. And so, but the good news is they did it unlike several other communities near us. So, I don't know we can go further into this and it is past the time that and there's Alicia Alicia is here. I think it's perfect Alicia. Can you hear us. Yes, I can thank you. So, I'll tell you exactly what happened. As you're aware, Michelle cannot join us today. And so we essentially disposed of this other business except for two items, which we wanted to hold until 130 when you said you could be here. One is counselor compensation and the others scheduling a future meetings for the months ahead because we, you know, you're, we understand your schedule is very complicated. And wanted to hold that conversation till you're here. We did vote on the Community Preservation Act funds the minutes we've asked for public comments so that we've taken care of other issues. And of course, third quarter report is being postponed until the next meeting. So, I guess, maybe I should offer you the opportunity as the one co-sponsor of the proposal to have the opportunity to speak first if you would like, but you don't need to. I just am offering it. Yeah, thank you, Andy. I think I don't have too much to say only because I think everything that I said during the first reading of this proposal still stands and I would be happy like anyone have any questions for me. But I did want to quickly reference the report that did come from the Northampton working group in terms of their counselor compensation and to just emphasize that that seems to be even more compelling to me. I have a reason for us to look at increasing our counselor stipends, specifically that what my and Michelle's proposal was to bump us up to match what Northampton's current pay is. And they're looking at doubling what their current pay is. So I think this just gives us an even more compelling reason to look at bumping up to what Northampton is currently offering even while they're looking at offering even more. And so again, I would just be happy to listen if anyone has any questions and I'm really interested to hear what other counselors think about this. Okay, I'm going to open it up for any comments from other members of the committee then. Yeah, I'm sorry, I missed the meeting where this was first introduced. Alicia, I have a question would, would this increase in the stipends make a difference for people who now can't afford to serve on the on the town council, or do we have to really go much higher in order to make that happen. Thank you Bob. That's a really good question. So, in my opinion, I think we would have to go higher. But in speaking within working with Michelle, this was our agreement in terms of trying to keep it conservative on our budget because we do we are aware of our budget constraints and we think that taking a huge jump at one time might not be the wisest decision and that's why we also are understanding that there be a way for us to more regularly look at and evaluate what the compensation is but we thought that at least an initial boost was definitely increase the you know diversity equity and inclusion in terms of people who would be able to run for council because it is very time consuming and a lot of different kinds of people don't have the ability to volunteer. Yeah, and I wanted to just kind of note I believe in North Hampton they hadn't changed the compensation since 2014 or something like that it's been a long time since they raised the stipends so, or the proposed to raise them. So, just, I think that's a good idea to look at this more frequently than every nine or 10 years. So, that's it. Yeah, I back with the envelope calculation. I think the counselor stipend right now and you refer to his salaries and they're not because counselors bring their employees and you don't get paid by the hour. So, I think it's a good idea to look at the $5,000 figure, I mean that really adjusting for inflation that probably what I was making as a member of the Belcher town board of Sleipman 30 years ago. So, yeah, I think, I think it increases in order. And I do think that you know the boost maybe boost even to the level of North Hampton is suggesting this is in order as well. Don't find any evidence that increasing compensation for increasing the stipends is going to have an impact on the diversity of the council. There's no that I can find there's no no research has been done at a local level and if you look at it at the state level it doesn't work that way because when you raise compensation you you you broaden the pool overall of people who are are willing to willing to run for office. But that doesn't mean I'm opposed to, you know these increases like I said adjusted for inflation it's you're getting what I got 30 years ago. And I have a problem with health insurance or elected officials I think the table that Sean gave us shows health insurance for the council but we'd also have to if I'm reading 32 be correctly we'd also have to provide that to school committee members or any elected official who gets a stipend. It's a real wild card in terms of our costs and being able to being able to control it and predict it. You know whereas a stipend for counselors is is a predictable thing we know year to year to year we're going to have 13 concerts we're going to have to have this amount of money. I'm also ambivalent about the family care piece of it. I think that the stipend should be sufficiently large that it covers a variety of expenses that someone who's holding an elected office might on a local basis might might encounter. I know that Paul said that there'd be a trial program this year. He's coming here. It's in the budget. But again the information that Sean's provided us doesn't include the school committee or the Jones Library trustees which Paul said would be included in that pilot so these numbers are are not accurate. Again, I need to be adjusted. In terms of in terms of increasing competent increasing the the stipend, please, I'm all for that but for the other two pieces I would probably not support them this time. And I know we I know we gave up. I know we gave up. Assistance to town meeting members or for family care but town meeting members were incompetent to begin with. So it's a little bit of a difference. Linda, you've talked with Paul about what he's included in the budget and how he intends to proceed. I assume not. So let me just. All I want to talk about at this moment is the family care, otherwise labeled childcare but it should be labeled family care. And that is that that has been put in the budget that budget is the budget that we have been put into the FY 24 budget. That is the budget that this committee has recommended to the town council. It was on the town council's agenda on Monday night. And I think that whatever issue was clarified that on Monday night that that money would be available as of July one for any counselor. And I didn't clarify whether it would be available for other elected officials. It was put in if you will is kind of a pilot program, but it was based on in fact, Bernie going back to town meeting where we already had that kind of fun for town meeting. So my understanding is that the town manager felt comfortable putting it in the FY budget FY 24 budget. So that budget is coming up on Monday night for approval by the town council. And if it is approved with that in there, then that piece of this proposal, though not a robust amount is in there as a way of at least starting to get some barometer on what the real need and would be for people. I also want to just go back on that issue while I'm on it. And that is that I think we can look upon counselor salaries and any numbers way ways as to what we think they should pay for and not pay for or what they compensate for what they don't compensate for, but I actually believe that family and childcare is separate. Bernie. I supported the budget so that the $5,000 it's in there as a pilot. I mean, I supported it. I'm not convinced that it's a way to go. You'll be interested to see what happens. And again, town meeting members, and I was one weren't compensated at all. So I think there's a there's a difference there my. My thing is, is let's try to make the stipends at a fair and reasonable amount. It's predictable year to year to year so we can budget. So it'll be interesting to see at the end of the year what happens with family care and I'm not again I'm. You know, I was fortunate enough to have a, you know, a situation where I received a lot of a lot of support. I also can tell you that as an elected official I probably spent more money than I received from the town of El Triton. I certainly spent more vacation time on the town than I did myself. So, so I understand some of this. It's a whole and I'm my point is, is it really needs to be an adequate stipend. I don't know. Andy, do you want to call on Alicia? I did I thought. Okay, I couldn't quite hear you. But yeah, I just wanted to respond to Bernie's comment because I really definitely hear where he's coming from and I wanted to share just that that came up in the conversation that Michelle and I had when we were looking at this proposal because my. My thought was to just give away higher stipend and a stipend that would be able to cover all things but that made it a little bit more complicated because when we're talking about childcare. And stipends were then talking more about looking at hourly like how many hours our counselor sending in meetings and then how much hourly or will they be paying for childcare and then we don't want them to be breaking even and the stipend isn't entirely for child care. So it became a little bit more complicated, which was the reason we decided to separate the two, and to go for a, in my opinion, the lower stipend amount. I met. Hi, so yeah, I, I think it's, you know, it needs to happen. Right. I mean, I think that this compensation, the process of fixing compensation does need to happen. I noticed that I believe that the state representatives. There is a formula for an annual or by annual increase on their compensation. So I would propose that, you know, this might be something that can be taken up as a bylaw but I mean the predictability function of it is the big issue because otherwise it just sort of, we'll have endless debates about, you know, the right timing and is the teacher contract ratified. I mean, it's, I just think it's, it's, it needs to be fixed in a fair equitable and reasonable predictable way, so that we can sort of make decisions about it. I'm disappointed that this, that we got this sheet that doesn't include school committee or Jones I think that's, you know, that that really throws me off in terms of the conversation and having a number to talk about for this current year. I, you know, obviously I'm very interested in where things go with child and family carry embers and some things like that. That being said, I lean towards. To me that's an earmark. It's, I don't support that I think that that should be a consideration lumped into the overall amount of the compensation and not some kind of a, of a pilot standalone program. So, although I, you know, I appreciate Sean and Paul putting that into the budget for this year I, I don't think that's the way to go for compensation and, and I hope that the council sort of goes just just focus, just focus on the stipend amount and just recognize that every single person, you know, comes into a volunteer elected position with their own set of financial realities and you know rather than trying to parse out which ones are more important than than others. So just make the compensation the best fair compensation that we can, and then hope that that gets the job done and then and then some mechanism for, you know, annual or or by annual increases as well to keep up, not to keep up with inflation but to reflect inflation. Thanks. Lynn, were you next. Kathy's next. You want to go to Kathy. Kathy, go ahead. If I focus just on compensation. I'm, I'm uncomfortable with doubling. I don't know what my lower number is. And I'm uncomfortable with paying anything more for someone who takes on the chair of a committee. So it has this had pieces. So, I don't know whether we want to focus on amounts. I saw Michelle's memo to all of us, which took. She personally took insurance off the table which I thought was a very wise decision. I think insurance gets us into a whole nother piece. So, I don't, I also would like, I would like a process that said, we're looking to do a certain percent a year, and whether it's a year or every two years. We're looking at something like that with a review of that percentage as needed so that we don't have to periodically face a big jump, but we talk about whether we want to do this. I think of these as volunteer jobs. If I look at the amount of hours that the planning committee spends the planning board, not the planning staff. It's a way up there and especially way up there when the council gets active. It's, it's lots of meetings and repeat meetings so I think the town and when, when I look at the charter documents that pretty interesting because one of the concerns is this would get to be a really expensive form of government, and since we are 13 counselors rather than nine counselors as in Northampton, and the argument was, oh no, don't worry, we're going to be saving a lot of staff time. The staff will spend far fewer hours. It literally when in, in the prelude says the estimate is 600 fewer staff hours, once we shift to the new form of government. It's so much more efficient. And so we clearly, we haven't, we have not achieved that level of efficiency in terms of draw on staff time. And I do think, you know, in terms of the time commitment. You know when we talk about the money, the money is part of it but the, the time commitment is part of it too. You know, I think you're remarkable, Alicia, because you've got children and a job, and you don't have, you know, a long term partner. It's, it's these kinds of high hour intensity volunteer work aren't well suited to full time jobs, both parents working or single parents working with children, unless they have flexible hours, they're just tough. I think what Lynn has started to do, which I really appreciate is get the council meeting time under control. You know, you know, and, and a sample of two meetings does not say a trend is three meetings, a sample of three meetings but the, the, the 2023 trend is in the right direction, let's put it that way. I think it's very helpful when we're still cheering when we get out and two to three or four hours you can see how long. So I do think we need to worry about the amount of time that committee spend and some of the committees. It's they are generating the time I for the committee like the school building project. That's a project that generates the time but sometimes the committees themselves are taking on a large amount of work. I agree. I don't so I'll send my long thing with saying I don't believe we should pay chairs of council committees, more than the council, the councilor stipend is the councilor stipend. And we've got a president paying the president more than the rest of the counselors. And I'm fine with that. I'm not sure I'm ready to go to doubling. And that's my piece. The family care I think we should stay with the $5,000 pot and see how that works out because I think it's really tricky for doing it. I like the idea of it that if people really need help. But if we go up on the salary on the stipend, we may not need to be thinking of enriching that pool in the future. I'm done. Okay, thanks. I'm going to end up so I could get to be in order but please go ahead and go ahead. I've already spoken once so why don't Andy, you and Anna both go ahead and then I'll come back. So I am very in favor of the the family care provision I think that's really important I supported that as part of this this coming budget. And I think one of my questions, Kathy you had mentioned setting a regular schedule for reviewing this I just want to check because the way that compensation increases happen is set by the charter and so I'm looking at the provision now it doesn't necessarily prohibit a regular reevaluation but it would need to fit within the parameters established. And I'm just I'm not sure if that kind of thing would need to be part of a charter review or if that can be something that we change knowing that it's under the the rules technically. It's not it's not expressly prohibited by the charter I'd be curious to explore that as something that I don't know that it needs to happen. I don't know every term I think that would be too much but I do think that having it be part of, even part of a charter review or part of it, you know, every five years or every 10 year process would be would be important so I support that. And just generally wanted to voice support for the family leave provision and then the last thing was thinking through, you know, in terms of amounts. It's important to also recognize that folks who have hourly jobs or even salary salary jobs where they might request leaves $10,000 is an amount that, you know, someone might be able to go to their there to might be able to request a partial leave rate whereas 5,000 is is much more negligible and it's harder to kind of justify that in terms of hours worked. So I think that that's, I agree with Alicia that in terms of actually making a dent on improvements to, to access we will need to evaluate and look at what's kind of what allows people to do this and work, but just maybe work less right to hold a 40 hour a week job plus counsel is really tough and I know that I don't have nearly as many challenges as other folks do so. Just naming that the higher we go the more likely it is that someone could either work fewer hours if they're in an hourly roll or request leaves because it kind of covers that. So, thanks. I've been thinking about this for a while and think about it in terms of financial, I think of it in terms of process that I think of it in terms of the politics of doing this and think we kind of probably all at the end are going to have to think about all of these things. The process piece. It was very intrigued when I finally knew that those North Hampton report was able to read it. Of course, that's fairly recent because it's only been about a month or so but it's been provided by the committee to the council. And North Hampton, they have an ordinance which is in, I think one of the appendices to the report itself. And the ordinance is equivalent to a bylaw here. And what they've obviously done is taken their charter and use the ordinance to flush out a process that goes with it. And one of the things that I thought was very helpful in dealing with the politics side of it is that by having no elected officials on the body making the recommendation that they kind of help move a little bit away from the politics side of it, based in the initial though I imagined that when the council actually gets around to voting on it. It's going to be a political issue in and of itself the council hasn't voted on the system proposal was made by the committee to the council layer. I am intrigued by it and I wonder if, you know, we had thought about it and methodically we would have come up with a process that would have had some of the investigative steps that North Hampton taken I think that we were just so overwhelmed by other things on our plate at the time that we just never really got around to having a thorough discussion about how to go about this discussion. And I'd rather to have Amherst to its own discussion in its own investigation. So that's sort of like how much about the process side I do think that we could make a process recommendation as a part of our report. The financial I think is a troubling one and because it is a fairly significant increase and given the pressure on the budget. If we start down a path that is going to have the cumulative increase in all of the compensation or elected officials that are recognized in the charter which is the council spoke many. We're getting to the, we could very easily get to the point where what we're talking about is equivalent to one position in another department. And I think there's a financial question that we have to grapple with ourselves about We heard a lot over the past month about the needs for staff positions in a variety of departments and we also know that Amherst is in an unfortunate place as far as the amount of available funds for things that are beyond our control. And mostly it's lack of pilot for a large amount of land that is in the town limits that produces a lot of demands on municipal government. So, I do think the financial is a part of our responsibility, of course, and I am troubled therefore by looking at the end of the amount that we're putting in and equating that to what else it might do within town government and thinking about it. In through one round discussion on the question as a consequence. The political piece, I think is one that we're going to have to to the most part leave to the council. One thing that is helpful is that we know from the spring is that that there's at least If approved by the union membership, the APA has reached a resolution to their But their negotiations over benefits and salaries. It was a would have been very difficult on a political basis to consider having a vote in the council I would have found this counselor very difficult to vote. And that that contract outstanding. We do know that there are other contracts from municipal units that are still outstanding so it hasn't gone away entirely. It's just, that was the one that had the most focus on it. And those are what my thinking has been on it has been kind of looking at and recognizing that there are these three elements to it and we need to at least be aware of it as we try and push forward. So that Lynn, go back to you. Yeah. I want to build on a couple pieces. First of all, I've already been very clear where I stand on the family support and I do definitely believe in that. And the health insurance side. I think if the jobs were more like full time jobs, like some city counselors are in large, much larger municipalities, then you can justify health care, but either most most people who would be going for the council in Amherst probably have another job they're getting health care from or they're part of a family unit spring health care or they in some way or another have gotten to the point they're supported by health care. So I'm not in favor of doing the health care. All honesty, I was actually a member of the commission that looked at the statewide elected official salaries, and they did it for the very reason that people are talking about now. They did it so they could take it out of the political realm. And the recommendation in fact was formulaic and was also based on cost of living. So it was a very useful way to take it again out of the political realm and at the same time, it didn't go into effect until the next term as I recall, hold on one second. I've been summoned by my family I'll be right back. Okay, sorry. Second of all, I actually then decided just for the sake of discussion to play around with an excel sheet. And I looked at you know what would have happened if we had gotten a regular say 3%, which has been kind of where cost of living has been between 2% and 3% starting with 2019 we were seated in 2018. And if anybody's interested I'm willing to share my little excel sheet with it, but I did the same thing that Alicia and Michelle have been recommending and that is that I held all I did was take that number and then add 2500 for the person who's president. And, you know, it doesn't bring us that far along but at least recognizes something that's much more in line with the kind of things we're negotiating in our existing contracts. I firmly believe that when the Charter Commission is seated for 2024. One of the things we should ask them to look at is the possibility of a change in the charter that addresses this issue. So you're interested in the same spreadsheet. Well, hold on. I can do it. Hold on. I think that would be useful. I think my calculations are correct. So we started at 5000, we're still at 5000. And I, this is my parameter and this is just whatever is here. It's this number plus 2500. So it doesn't seem like much. And I have to say, I was pretty amazed and really want to thank Michelle and Alicia for the comparison work they did do to particularly those groups around the western part of Massachusetts. I feel very uncomfortable making this kind of recommendation as a seated elected official questions or comments on this I'm more than willing to take it down. And I can also add that it be added to ask that it be added to the packet since it was shown at a meeting and technically has to be. Okay. I get the same endpoint if anyone wants to know. Yeah. Bob. Yeah, I wanted to echo a couple of points. One is that I do think that this issue should be revisited with the Charter Commission. I guess they've been there's a review next year that right. Yes. So, I think I agree I think we should ask the Charter Commission to come up with a formula or recommend formula we could do that, where we have some way that's taken out of the political realm, and made more of a kind of a general process or a general way of increasing stipends to kind of account for cost of living and other issues. I do think, given that the town just voted for pretty large tax increase. And, you know, we're getting higher water bills and sewer bills. I would recommend strongly that this council or that we do not recommend that this council takes us up this year. I just don't think the timing is right. I don't disagree with the idea. I just think it needs. A better process and it needs to be somehow taken out of the political realm. I really believe that. And, you know, it's, you know, every time Congress votes to increase their salaries, there's a big uproar. So, whether it's deserved or not, I do think that there's a danger of, of, you know, the perception that, you know, the council is increasing their their salaries at a time when the towns, you know, the rest of the town has to help pony up more money for basic services. So it's a thought just, I do think if it's taken out of the political realm, and it's a regular kind of thing, it makes it much more palatable and it's, it's easier to kind of defend. Again, I support the idea in general, I just would recommend not doing it right now. Thank you. Kathy I'm going to ask you to take over for chairing for about one or two minutes, because I'm going to have to step away for a second. But in any way, Matt is next. Yep. Thank you, Matt. Thank you Andy and thank you Kathy. Yeah, so as a resident member with no political stake, I would just say, from a finance committee perspective. I really think that this cost estimate needs to be redone by Sean, at least including school committee, if not, if not Jones trustees I think for us to really take a look at the numbers of this. We would, you know, we just we just can't we don't have a good picture of the financial outlay. And I haven't heard any explicit conversation about dropping one or the other I can't imagine anybody in this room is in suggesting that we would only make an increase to counselor salaries so you know I just I just think for the sake of practically looking at the finances of it, we as a finance committee need to see the, the full picture, and you know and that doesn't necessarily mean one set, you know 5000 versus 10,000 versus, you know, 3%, but but I just think we we need we need a projection that reflects, you know the reality of what we're potentially trying to do. And that being said, you know I, well, I actually I think that's enough. Thanks. I know I'm in the awkward position of wanting to say something but also chair so I'm going to hold my comment and first call on Alicia, and then Anna, now Bernie's hand is up I'll go, I'll be the caboose. I'm also happy to wait for others to speak. Hey, Anna. I think I hear. I hear what folks are saying in terms of concern about doing this right now. And I think it's important to remember that the reason why we do it now is to serve the next coming council. And that this summer when people are deciding whether or not to run for counsel this for some people, this is part of that decision. And I think that that's what we need to remember is that for some people, the stipend is not part of their decision. And that's great. But for others who might not be able to do that do this, that increased stipend might make that difference. And so, you know, Bernie I hear you that there hasn't been scientific data on this and maybe we can start studying it as we go because I, I think that the one of the reasons there hasn't necessarily been data is that people haven't been doing this in the in the intentional way to get to have the intended result that we are having right and there is some research on impact on boards and committees and things like that but, but I do think that it's important to do this now because if we don't do it we miss another term. And then we're going to be at the same decision point again in two years right looking forward to the next council so it's I think it's important to remember, we're not voting to raise our salaries. So for those of us who are elected as town councilors, we could lose our election, right like there is not a guarantee that we would benefit from this, if we are all running again, and that's the other if so. I guess I want to take us out of it because we don't and non voting members aside, we don't know that we would be the beneficiaries and that's why this process is designed the way it is is so that we can look forward and say this is what we're setting up for the next council. So, Alicia, would you like to speak now or should I call him Bernie first on Bernie can go thank you, Bernie. You're you made it yourself. I have two screens here my laptop and my big screen that has all the documents on it and there's two mice and I occasionally grab the wrong one. The wrong one is what works this. Anyway, I'm not opposed to, first off it's very difficult always for an elected official, and again having been there to advocate raising their compensation. I appreciate that that's, it's hard, and I understand full well that this wouldn't take place now it would be in the future after the elections. I have a problem with increasing the stipends, and again I think it's a mistake to refer to my salary is increasing the stipends for for counselors to a reasonable sum of money, because you do incur, even though you're, you're really not working on an hourly basis because you're far away far away more than that. You do incur a lot of incidental costs in and in holding the office and this is some way to offset those, those incidental costs. So I'm not disagreeing with with an increase for the counselor. You know you have what Northampton suggesting you have what, what's what's here on the page as he probably the, the number is somewhere in between is a way to start. I think we need a process to do this in the future so that counselors don't have the awkward situation of debating their salaries until somebody a neutral third party comes up and says you should be paid this. I think that I think as we go forward with these discussions we can eliminate the prospect of health insurance because no one seems to be supporting it here. And in fact probably three quarters of the cities and towns of Massachusetts don't pay health insurance for elected officials. And in fact, of the towns they've been affiliated with another 50% of them we didn't have insurance for elected officials and the other 50% I work to get rid of it. So I have a bias and so that's that's where we're at and it, you know, the, the, nobody, I think nobody I've known is going to run for public office and all the stuff that goes on with it. Because they can give up on job. Unless it's a full time position like city council in Springfield or Boston. Most of the time is people are going to calculate how what those incidental costs are and whether or not the compensation was stipend will help offset those offset those incidental costs so you do broaden the pool. The pool doesn't necessarily look any different than the pool we have now. So that's, that's where I'm at in that regard. So let's, let's hopefully move forward if we need to have the council needs to appoint a committee made up of non elected types to to take this matter up that might be a way to for the council to go. So again, I'm, I think that the stipends need to be raised and I think they need to be raised to significantly. So, thanks. Andy, are you back to chairing. Yeah, I'm back to chairing but I'll call on me. Okay, so I, the. I have a timing question on this because I very much like what the process that Northampton had working for it, which was a pre existing ordinance that has seven members who could not be elected now and couldn't be formally elected so they tried to get, you know, and only two year appointments so if, and I am totally uncomfortable on, I said it at the beginning but I think doubling, doubling our stipend, given the stress the town is under and given the large increase we just did with a voluntary increase in to pay for our property taxes, which was very generous of the citizens and I must say that I have had several people tell me and this wouldn't be surprised they're from the finance department at the school of management, feeling that the council isn't financially accountable in the way we should be, you know, really being tough on overall expenditures as they look at as decisions made and accumulate. So I am uncomfortable about us voting a double a doubling of our of our own stipend, even though we might not be the recipients of it. Otherwise, if we set out of this committee we want to immediately do an ordinance if we have to do an ordinance, we seem to be able to set up advisory boards, all sorts of ad hoc committees, just with the stroke of a pen. And what Northampton is done is it made the mayor or someone else appoint these, you know, so it wasn't that the council was appointing who would be on the advisory. So we have time to set up a committee like this. Otherwise, what I could support is something less than the increase that's been proposed I mean Lynn came up with if it had gone up 3% a year we would be at something less than $1,000 increase, you know, clearly you would want to round it up. We're at six, seven or eight, and Andy's point about the total, because there are 13 of us, and then Matt, Matt and others have pointed out and we haven't even talked about the school committee we're talking about a teacher, we're talking about a firefighter We've been sitting here, squeezing the operating budgets left and right as people are making extremely difficult decisions so I think for the council at this time to talk about doubling our stipend is I don't feel financially accountable. I won't, I won't support that is I guess the way I will say it more firmly I don't want to waffle on it. I'm totally in support of the, the family pool and wanting to see how it works because I could see it would get it into a lot of complications but right now it's been set up and I would like to see how the town manages that. And I think that going forward, we might not need it if we eventually increase the stipends, but I don't see me as a sitting counselor voting this type of increase. I think it needs to be taken out of our hands. Lisa. Thank you Andy yeah so I had a couple of comments one of them on a already made and so I'll just reemphasize that even if we were to make this decision right now it doesn't necessarily affect any current counselors. So it would be for the next council. And that was my intention and I believe Michelle's intention when we were writing this is that we want to expand who can and will run for council like that is the whole entire point. And so I think that this there, there really is no better time than right before an election because people who are perspective thinking about running this may influence their decision which is much of what Anna said but that was what I was also going to say. And also that when I talk about diversity on the council and diversity and inclusion and like all town committees. I don't just mean racial diversity I also mean like financial diversity, like people who are low income. And so again like these conversations sometimes are very difficult for me to have as one of the only low income peoples. I'm telling you, because I have experience. So we may not have the data because there may not have been research done but I have experienced this and I am living data that this would help people specifically in my position as a single parent with three children that I'm taking my own raising the stipend, there may not be specific data pointed to council participation, but there is data in terms of stipends with public participation. When I worked with a company doing an equity audit, they had taught us that if we want caregivers and families and peoples to participate in our audit in our surveys we offer them stipends. That is how you build participation. So that there is data on that actually that looking at stipends and fair stipends does increase participation. And so I think like this is really not as abstract as we're trying to make it seem. I think it's very simple, like we need to offer a more fair compensation for this job in order to allow more people to run and to be successful counselors. And so when we're also talking about the idea of paying chairs more, which I'm honestly not married to just as a thought I think increasing the stipend overall would be an accomplishment in itself. But just to explain where that idea came from it's it's the amount of work that goes into that position and making sure that counselors can do their job effectively. And so again just bringing my personal experience into this since we don't have real live data is that when the, when the council first started. I was able to take all my council meetings with my camera on. This is something that a lot of people say to me like why do you not have your camera on. Well, this is because I do not have childcare, because I very quickly found out that I will use my entire stipend to pay for my family to watch my kids during a meeting, and I could much more benefit from that stipend to put food in my house than to pay for people to watch my kids to be on a meeting. And so my kids are with me when I am on my meetings jumping all over me running around the house I am putting them to bed, while we are on council meetings. This is why my camera is off. If I could compensate somebody to be in my home and to help me with these things. I could one not only be in the town room with my colleagues which is what I actually would love to do, but I could to more fully participate and be present in my meetings which I think I deserve to do as a counselor but cannot do because it is not fair compensation. And so there are a lot of other things. And that's why we said family care because it other people don't have children but they may have an elderly parent or another person in their home who they need to take care of who would need to be taken care of in order for them to effectively participate on the council, and it's about being effective, and it's about being a good counselor, and it's about being able to get your work done being able to be present. Because the other thing is like I know it is optional to be on other committees as a counselor, but I have found that the less I participate in other committees the more confused I am at the council level. The more available I am to go to, to go to find finance committee meetings the more available I am to check in on TSO meetings or CRC meetings, the more informed I am the better job I can do the more knowledgeable I am about the decisions I'm making at the council level. And so honestly it benefits the town overall, I think. So I just wanted to offer those things. So, something that's been really something I'm frustrated by in this conversation is that, you know, when Alicia and Michelle brought this proposal forward they followed the process as it was designed. And we are finding flaws in our process and faults in our process but we cannot fault the sponsors of this for following the process as it was written. And so my concern with voting this down in order to create a study is one. I think we do that a lot. And it's, it really feels to me like we're shirking our responsibility. That is not to say I don't think that a study would be important or that having a commission made of non council folks would be the best approach to actually fixing our process I think that that's true. But I think to ignore just to say, well we don't like the process the way it was written so we're going to create a commission to do this better. But it's still our process and the sponsors followed our processes written and we cannot fault them for doing that and I think that it's does them a disservice by by ignoring this because we just don't like the way that it, the rules are right. We can change the rules and I think that we should support this measure I think both are true. I just know a couple things, Bernie, I disagree I think that there are folks and something I'm challenged by often is that there, there have been a lot of times on council where I've had to use myself as a personal example and otherwise people don't believe me. I think many things are, things are the case and I recognize that I am not always the true story for everyone, right. But there is also truth in my story and truth in my experience and, and I want to make sure that that is heard and so I hope that folks do believe that when people say, you know, I would be able to take time off of work to commit to council. If I made $10,000 a year that is true. It's something that I would be able to go to. I don't know that my boss would agree to it. It makes me very uncomfortable to say it in a public meeting because now they might know that I'm going to do that if this gets up and I get reelected. But all of that said, that is a reality for, for people who, who might have that flexibility. And it makes a difference, right, I am able to do a compressed work week during the summer so I work my entire 40 hours Monday through Thursday it's a little brutal, but then Fridays, I have off which means Friday as I spend the full work day doing council. And I'm a much better counselor in the summer, because I've had that dedicated time versus sporadically throughout random breaks in my day, and after work. So I do think that there's, and Bernie, I'm not faulting you I'm not discreet like I didn't take it personally at all I just want to make sure people know that this, there are different subsets of people where this impacts deeply. And the more that it, the more that it increases the broader that subset of people. And then the last point that I think is really important to make is we've been talking a lot about family care and childcare. And there's always going to be a second prong to that approach which is that we need to also be advocating on a state level for more funding for this right if we're finding that we need to subsidize or support family care for our elected officials. So one, what a privilege that we're able to do that it's an incredibly important thing and two, it shouldn't be a privilege it should be a right, and we need to make sure that we are also advocating on a state level for universal pre K for increased funding for things like that, so that we aren't faced with this problem at a local level, because we're only impacting how many ever folks would would benefit on the council and there's plenty of other people in our town that would really need that support as well. So, three points. Thanks. Yeah, I understand. I mean I used, like I said, I used my, I was fortunate enough to have a considerable amount of vacation time. So I took a lot of vacation time and I was fortunate enough to have a boss and when I would go to her and say gee I really need to and she would go okay this fine we should sign the sheet and I'd take time off. I mean, this is gray here, got here by something more than just simply aging. You know raised a family been involved for more time than I, I cared account with municipal governments and local governments so you know I that's why I said I'm very supportive of having paying people are reasonable giving people a reasonable contribution to help compensate for the hassle factor involved. I've known people who have done were self employed, who get elected boards and committees and I always warn them. You know, especially if you're self employed, people think you have all the time in the world, because you work for yourself. Now, you know, you can't do that and you can't continue, you can't exploit people, and you can't expect people to volunteer when you make things very difficult. And so, along with, you know, better stipends, we have to have serious discussions about civility. We have to have serious discussions about time commitments of all. We have to look hard at how much support is given to the, to the council, and how we, how we staff our town. So there's a bunch of other things go into this. And again, you know, I can use myself and I can use myself as an example. You know, and as I said when you grease the stipend you broaden the pool, but the pool doesn't look any different from what it does now. So, you know, you in terms of in terms of who chooses to run. So we have to work on not only finances we've got to work on some other factors as well. And I think civility is one of them and the kind of exposure that you're, you put yourself up to when you're you're elected to a public office. So all of a sudden, you know, you find that people are writing nasty letters to the editor about you were leaving. And so I ended up installing a second phone line, and was just my name on it to handle all the crack prank calls again. So, there's, there's a lot of other expenses involved in running for public office and I think people need to be a kind of be aware of that as well. So thanks. I think that we're at in this discussion is that we actually seem to have a consensus on some things, but we and we have one big one where we don't have consensus. But I think that where we seem to possibly have consensus is that there's not an interest right now in pursuing the health insurance coverage and the. We're not in a place where we want to make that recommendation for this round of the discussion and would leave it best leave that for a future process that we've talked about in the future that we would like to see some kind of improvement on the current process that would involve something like Northampton as with is a committee composed of people who are not elected officials were pointed to actually give the kind of consideration that they gave to this and make some specific recommendations to, but that that's something that needs to be left aside other than the observation that we can report that we think that it ought to be explored for the future and that we would look to the as possible try to review committee as the appropriate place to do that or another mechanism, if that becomes more more preferable. There was, there seems to be generally be a consensus right now of treating, continuing to treat the family care as a separate item, and to take advantage of the money that's been set aside and the budget that begins to lie first, and see how quickly it goes and see what difference it makes and come back to that issue. After there's some experience that we've had with it, which then gets to the last point is that I think that the general consensus seems to be that we think that there's some adjustment needs to be made in the compensation, but that's for probably least coming together on a specific recommendation. And the, I think that there's a feeling that something needs to be done now, and there would be benefit to making this happen on a more regular basis, as opposed to happening so that you have to deal with it as a large single jump at one time. But we're, I don't see that we've come together to at this point yet to make a recommendation. So I was, and I guess the last thing that I wanted to say is in my review of this whole thing is that there's discussion has been made about other elected officials and, of course, the charter includes the school committee does not include the library trustees. The school committee is in a very strange place on this issue, at least the current school committee. And that is that if you look at our budget, the school committee stipends are actually in the town manager's budget, I believe, and not in the school budget, because the school committee of itself feels that they would not have made that the priority choice for allocation of school budget funds. And that for that reason, from the time we've started this charter implementation, five years ago until now, that's kind of been that it's been recognized as a part of the town budget, not the school budget business. That's what the reasons that I just stated. So I, that's not part of the summary but I think that I wanted to point that out too. Is there a general feeling that the other points that I've raised there seems that there's agreement that there's consensus around those points, recognizing the big one that needs to be decided yet Kathy. Yeah, Andy, I think you did a good summary. I had a question. You know, I've said I wouldn't not be in favor of doubling. I am in favor of something between five and 10. So my question is, do we want to, and I am looking at the total impact of what that is, and also that since this would be the next council it would be a half a year because it would start in January of next year. And so I need to know whether we have room in the budget for that and what the impact is. So we've got a proposal to go from five to 10 and the related increase. As I said, I am not in favor of paying chairs an additional amount I would just do stipend and just want to focus it so I raised that Andy one I think when you took a brief piece in the original proposal it was both a doubling and an extra payment if you're a chair of a committee. And I am not in favor of that. I don't want people to hold on to chairness for money. I would like to see chairs rotating, or people be able to come on and off of it, but in any case I don't know whether we need to come up with up or down on five versus 10. Bernie seems to be in favor of the 10 I don't know how others feel. We want to talk about something less than 10. And how much time do we have I just don't know the council of looking for something for us and we could punt on the stipend and say we, we had a long discussion about it but do we want to say something more. And that's, so for example, eight, going to eight would be a more than a 50% increase it would be about a 60% increase which is a substantial increase, and then recommending that we try to set up a process that would address this two years from now or something but not, we wouldn't have to put the detail of it. So that's, that's my question of how much more do we need to do at the finance committee level. It's pretty easy to do the math on five times 13 people, 5000 more each 3000 more each. It's, it's pretty easy math. That's my both question and comment. Let me call a man a second but I just want to make the attribution that if we don't come up with an amount and we're essentially putting it back to the council and the council is going to have the same difficult discussion that we had and I'm not sure that they would get there any faster I think that they may actually appreciate a recommendation. That's where it was going and it was just, you know, to, to say we had difficulty when it came to the number doesn't seem like we're providing much help. No, I realized that that there was kind of where we were at. I think that in the few minutes we're going to have to make a decision I know that Matt was his time limit I don't know how much he has left. But we could, if we did it fairly quickly, have one more meeting to talk about that issue. And the third quarter report and just leave it to those two to issues and try and do one additional meeting after we've had some time to think about it. But we'd have to do it fairly quickly because the council doesn't need to act. We believe July 2nd is the date where we hit upon the first 18 months of the current council, which is what the charter sets as a limit. Matt. Yeah, I just, I want to say I agree with Kathy that really, you know, within if finance can make an actual dollar recommendation, I think we'll be doing, you know, justice like I think that'd be appreciated and is sort of our job. On some level that that being said, I don't think we could do it today. I do think we need another meeting. I would have a really hard time supporting anything that didn't include other bodies. You know, I think I, or at least a lengthy, more of a discussion about the explicit reason why we would increase town councils, stipends and not others. I think that that would be a sticking point for me, although, you know, there may be a rationale behind that I'm just not fully understood. I heard what you said I just I'm not sure. I'm not sure that that are tick that articulation means to me that we wouldn't recommend an increase across across the board. And I also don't I somebody said we had consensus about the child cares a second child slash family cares a second item. And I know I and I heard at least one other person say that, you know, we'd rather see the overall stipend be reflective of the cost of doing the cost of this volunteer commitment, which I think is a very and a very good way of putting it I would continue to stick with that to Alicia's point that we're looking for a for a genuinely diverse, you know, council or body, which means you know people in poverty for whether or not they or everybody has their own economic circumstance and you know I think as much as I I wanted, you know, support families and people supporting themselves. They're their loved ones. You know, I do think that personally, I think one stipend that sort of rules them all is is the appropriate way to go on that and I'm happy to discuss I could my mic be changed but that's based on where this conversation has gone so far. Thank you. Alicia. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, so I just wanted to say that I'm, I am okay with letting go of the insurance piece that's fine with me. I'm in agreement with that. And then for the stipend piece again it's a little bit complicated because my, like I would like to recommend a specific number to the council. So I'm in negotiations with Michelle. I thought 10 was too low. And I still think 10 is too low. I think it's a start. So that is why again we we added the family care piece that was a result of me thinking that 10 was too low. So I also hear where Matt is coming from in terms of just offering a higher stipend that was my initial thought in approach. But I think 10 is more complicated in terms of our town's budget overall, and maybe not everyone needs the compensation for childcare. So it's sort of lessons the burden on the town's piece, which was our figuring in this. But I would also support a way higher increase because that is what I think. I think we're in line for an increase. I think that was recommended by the Northampton board. I don't know. I don't actually think our budget could sustain that, which is why this is what I thought was the alternative. And I know we don't have specific numbers. And I thought, so I'm not sure if I'm wrong but that the recommendation was to increase the stipend for also the school committee I think that was included in the recommendation. Because we're looking at going from 5000 to 10,000. That's pretty much a double. If we needed a quick estimate a quick more realistic estimate all we would need to do is ask how much do we currently have set aside for stipends for council and school committee and times two. That's a very simple way to get a more reasonable estimate. And so I don't know if we have those numbers readily available. And I would also be happy to have more of a conversation about this because again, I would support a higher stipend, but I didn't think that everyone would which is why again I think that 10 is a safer bet and is still a substantial enough increase that it would make a difference where as opposed to eight. I don't think makes much of an impact. Right. I think what we're going to end up doing is having to come up with some kind of political compromise here. So, certainly another meeting is in order. We're, we're looking at this to happening January 1 2024. So, you know, we're, you know, it is a half a year. We're not going to fight all over. You know, we, we said to the school committee we're not going to give you $84,000 but you know, turn around and say well we'll give you $50,000 more for stipend increases I think not go over well. I sort of like what then did with her table. And the magic 3% cost of living adjustment which seems to be written in stone somewhere in Massachusetts because that's, you see time and time and time again, using a peg like that, you know this is what we've. This is what's been done for employees. You know to do something that is an interim step, because we, we all seem to agree that we need a better process to address. To come up with a better process that will work by then in short order then that's one thing the other thing would be to come up with an interim number and say, this is a, this is a peg this is what we're starting with just because we don't have a good process and just because it is in some ways unfair to have elected officials debating their compensation. So that would be my thought for the next meeting that we have as we, we come up with something that has a basis for. You know that we can point to that seems to be fair and and start there, not that that's going to get as far in terms of what I believe is a real compensation but it's a way to start. Thanks. So, I need to turn to that last subject on the agenda for a moment and find out when we're available for the next period of time. I'm assuming, as I said previously that we're going to be meeting once or twice a month between now and when the budget guidelines are on us again in November. Those last couple of months of the current council, we're in that scramble to finish out our terms and the budget guidelines because they can't wait till the new council and meet with the budget process. And that's why it is. Knowing that we're talking about what are two meetings a month. Can we agree now or do we need to do would it be easier to get ask Athena to do some kind of poll on Monday. Andy. The committee has to meet at least once prior to the 26th of June in order to bring any proposal in cancer compensation forward. So, as much as I'm very much interested in us coming up with a meeting. What I'm also hearing from people is, we need to do this particular item as and our, our last meeting prior to July 2nd is presently scheduled for June 26. That kind of be really too late to is what what council meeting comes after the 26th. Not until the July 17. So we need to be decided we need to get something to the council prior to June 26. Yes, yes. Absolutely. And I also want to point out that we had already pulled for the 16th in the afternoon and we had did not have consensus on that time. I know Alicia, you've been the one who's had the tightest scheduling challenges are you able to share with us where you are for the next period of time so that we know what works for you. Yeah, I could do so our current schedule still works for me I could essentially do any day of the week that we don't have a council meeting after five. But Fridays, I also don't work. So while I also jam packed them with appointments. It's free so like I can schedule around any time on a Friday. That also doesn't conflict with elementary school building committee. So Friday's at one are usually good for me. I could do another time on Friday, I could still do a 530 on a Tuesday, or Wednesday Thursday. So hopefully that's helpful. So if we're going to be doing that. It was going to be a Friday. 16th or the 23rd with a very quick turnaround. And doing a report that is going to be as ready as we can do it and fill it in and get it to the council for the 26, but there wouldn't be a time to have a collaborative process on the development of the report. One of us would really need to do it. If you need a quick reaction, I cannot do the 23rd, I could do the 16th. And I have no idea about the end of the day. I'm just, I'm going to be on another continent. So, as we get to the late afternoon hours. That may be an advantage to everyone I will be groggy, because it'll be late at night. I'll be on this continent, but I'm in the same boat as Kathy I cannot do the 23rd, but I could do the 16th. So anyone who can't do the 16th. I can't, but that's okay. I'm not a voting member I can offer my comments and writing to the group before you. You meet, it probably be a badly worded rehash of what I sort of mumbled through earlier. Okay. Lisa has her hand up. I know the leash does. Sorry that I'm beginning to lose my voice a little bit. We know from what Athena told Michelle this morning that if any of us wants to share thoughts with the committee. It's not just a meeting, it has to be by a memorandum is going into the packet, because it comes, it needs to be a public document. And even with that I would want to make sure that Athena is comfortable with that since she's the one who's our guru on the topic of making sure in compliance with all rules so that she's not against memos as long as Athena is comfortable with the process. I am available on the 16th but it's also my child's graduation so I might be slightly like I might join at 130 again. I have two kiddos graduating that week. Congratulations. It would be good to set a time that Alicia can make it to start, you know, so I wasn't wedded to want 130 is okay or two. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to convene and then wait so it'd be better to pick a time when you can actually be with us at the beginning Alicia. So, we agree on 130. And what we'll do is take up the third quarter report if there are any final questions about it. At that first item and it's only two item meeting. So the agreement is and Andy what what might help in terms of efficiency and I have no idea. But if you encapsulate that we've got three or four separate issues that we need to make a decision on and you did that and writing back to us so what we've talked about is, you know, are we increasing the stipend if so to how much. Yes or no on the family pool. We made a decision on health insurance I think so we can take that off the table and then my third would be do we need to consider school committee at all and my fourth is, are we going to want to propose a process, you know, so do something about the process which is what Bernie said is you know like do the interim. So if you could just get us that list back in some way that makes sense to you with words. Then we could start out with a structured conversation about it that that would be helpful to me. Andy let me just add. We can make those into motions and have a motion sheet. Yeah, so that's what I was looking, you know, just separate them out and then we could do them one at a time we could do if there's something we all agree on we could do it first. So, yeah. Thanks. I'm going to do the best I can and I will consult with the theme of making sure that I'm doing it in an appropriate fashion. She can help make develop the motions to. And it's basically a shorthand set of bullets from what we've been discussing already so it's not, I don't, I'm not asking you to render opinion as much as to just say we've separated it out to these elements, and that's what we're going to be discussing next time. In the end, the big discussion, I think we know it's going to be the amount of increase if that we would recommend if we recommend an increase at all. Correct, but that's really where the focus of discussion needs to be. So that said, I don't think there's, Lynn, your hand is up. Yes, let me just mention this is a posted item on the agenda for Monday's council meeting I will be removing that so that the council will not be engaging in that discussion on Monday without the recommendation of the finance committee. And then I also wanted to mention that a person has been in the audience with their hand raised. I don't know if they realize we'd already had public comment. Actually, I'm going to go back and get the asset person if they would. But if they could just offer their comment in a couple of minutes, it would be helpful might be helpful to know we are needing to adjourn so, but I want to value our commitment to public comments so why don't you bring that individual into the room. And let's do it real quickly and I think that we have a date for the next meeting and the time, which is 130 and 16. I have promoted them to panelists three times. And doesn't seem to be working. I allow to talk. Okay. Okay. Would you like to identify yourself and where you live and then if you can say, off your comment and couple of minutes we would really appreciate it since we have to unmute Andy. Yep, but you do have to unmute. I've asked them to unmute, but then they have to unmute. I've sent a an asked to unmute to the person or at least my computer is saying it. I've done that. Can you unmute. I think we need to go on and adjourn. If they, if they send you a comment by email, Andy, you can share the committee. That's, we've been getting comments for the school building committee that way and just a request to share with the whole committee. I'm sorry that I don't seem to be able. I'm trying to, I am sending a message that said asked to unmute, but maybe it's not going through for some reason. Well, they stepped away from their computer too, and didn't like you said their hand. Okay, so I think we're going to just have to close it out that if anybody, as you said, is once talk or comment to the committee, they're always welcome to do that writing though. Just be aware that when you offer comments to anybody, any committee or the council as a whole, that it is a public document and we'll need to, we'll go into the packet. But what you're going to say at the meeting would have been public too. So, with that said, I don't think we have anything else today I know that Matt had to leave. And we have our plan for a very limited next meeting. And so that I will treat it as adjourned. Thank you this has been a very healthy and helpful discussion so thank you.