 Okay, there you go. Yeah, I'd like to call the Finance Committee meeting of November 14, 2023, the order at five minutes after 1 p.m. And thank you, everybody, for being here. I think we have connected properly the entire committee present, but we'll know in a second. But this meeting is being held by Zoom. Pursuant to the current application of the meeting law, members of the public have access to the meeting via Zoom. But everybody who's in attendance should be aware that this meeting is being recorded both audio and visual so that it's important that you know that. That said, I would like to go through the membership of the committee and make sure that everybody can hear me and. We can hear them. So, I'll start with Anna Devlin got here. Lynn Grusner present. Bob Hegner, Matt Holloway here for the Kubey act here. Yeah, if he's saying, yeah, of course, I am present Alicia Walker, which we didn't hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, now we did. Thank you. So, all members of the community presence of the agenda as we always do it starts with called order, which we just did and then review agenda followed by public comment. So, the 1 thing that I want to. Explain and just see if there's agreement of the committee to that is that there was substantial discussion last night about. The Jones library building project bond authorization and it was then towards the end of the meeting we made the decision that on Friday. We would convene a council meeting of the whole so that all counselors who are interested in. Attending the meeting that in which we're going to be discussing the Jones library. Would be present and I in all, I think you're going to. Let's share and share, you know, the plan to handle other issues today and. Reserve as much time as necessary for the Jones library discussion on Friday. Yeah, I thought you might be collecting questions today. Right, that's the only possibility so I because it is on the agenda. The difficulty with collecting questions, however, is that. Athena was not going to have time before the staff can is meeting to. Had logged the questions that came out of yesterday's meeting and. So we want to we don't want to duplicate the effort that was made last night. So to some extent it might be most useful for. At my random that can be a public document if it's possible and Athena will have to advise us so there it is. Could go to the committee and then give the committee an opportunity to respond only to her and to me. Kathy, I think you, I think you just said what I was going to suggest Andy. So if we if we get that list and we think something is missing, we just add to it. I mean, I sent Lynn Lynn a list this morning, but it would be easy for me to merge mine in. So that's what you're suggesting Athena would get us something that tried to capture last night. The issue is that Lin has got other questions that were sent earlier. So just getting some amalgam of something to us and then letting us add to it would save time rather than. Doing that in discussion today, I agree with that. I think so. Lynn and Kathy, if you have a list, I can incorporate them into. If you send them to me, I can incorporate them into one document. So we have them all together for Friday. I have the list and I and I can get that to you as well as. Kathy, are you suggesting that all of the emails you've sent me with questions are now in that one document? I think so. But, you know, if I'm missing anything, I'll do a double check. But so I don't think you have to go back through all your emails, land and catalog them. You can take what I sent today and share it with Athena. Okay. Thank you. So, process we just described agreeable to committees. If nobody raises their hand, I'm just going to assume that the answer is yes. So, we will not be discussing it. Anybody who's in attendance should recognize that we're not going to discuss that the library today. However, during public comment, it has always been our policy that we take public comment. On any business that is relevant to the finance committee. It does not have to be on the agenda. It does not have to be on the agenda today. So, just want to recognize that as we go on and ignition. The agenda discussion. So, my thought was then to have an opportunity to talk about beginning of the budget guideline process. Which really is mostly to making sure since the financial indicators presentation last night. Leads into the budget guideline discussion and development. That we have an opportunity also to ask any questions that low from that discussion in presentation last night. And that would be what we I would propose to do. And that would allow us to then get to the supplemental budget appropriation requests, which I think is a major item to try and get as much done today as possible. I did ask that we have staff and council members of bandage of Hanneke in particular. Available if possible for this later part of the meeting. So that we can see if there's additional questions on rental registration. I sent them a couple of questions that I'll get to when we get to that point in the agenda. And the AHA report. I don't think needs discussion other than the transfer order today. And I did have a chance to talk to Michelle Miller about that. And so she and she's fine with that. So, if there's any anybody who has comments on what I suggest for the order of the agenda. Happy. I just have one Andy misses for the public too. I thought we were going to get to a conclusion on rental and fees today. Are you saying we just raise any other additional questions? That's number one. And then my second is on guidelines. Can you just remind me when we need to have a draft to the council? So we've got a meeting this Friday, but I started to look at last year's guidelines to figure out where I wanted to write just rewrite wording. So just so it's a question on timeline on how much you want to talk about that today. So are we going to do something on fees today or not? That was my main question. The main question that you asked about these is that if we can get to a conclusion, I think that we should, I have a couple of questions that sort of came out of my studying matter on my own in between. And I guess that I would like to present those questions and see if there's responses to them so we can all understand the complexity of the issue. But I was hoping to wait until I want to make it clear. I am fine postponing that because I have some suggestions on fees and a couple others. So it's more, is it on today's agenda other than a couple more questions? That's all I'm asking, Andy. We don't have to make a decision today. I mean, you know, it's on the agenda for both meetings today and Friday. I think that what happened is when we decided to schedule the extra meeting, I put all of the issues on both agendas with the idea that it gives us ultimate full flexibility, but recognizing that we weren't going to be able to get to all of them. It was, but you can always not discuss something, but you can't add discussions to something after you've posted the meeting unless it's less than 48 hours that you knew about it. So that's how I came to what I've been doing in planning this. As far as your question on the financial guidelines and what the due date would be for that, the first discussion in the council is anticipated, presently for December 4th. And we would want to have virtually a complete draft before our December 1st meeting so that anything that comes up after December 1st is really just minor tinkering with final draft, which means that we're under some pressure to get significant progress made by our next in our next couple of meetings after today or after this week. I guess we really let me take that back. We just need to move quickly on it. Athena. If there was substantial changes to the council had feedback on December 4, we have a couple meetings scheduled on December 8 and December 15. If the committee needs more time to update the guidelines before the final vote on the 18th, which is fine. In prior years, the suggestions from the council have not been that odorous. So we've needed more than one meeting in between. That's always good to have flexibility. So with all of that said, can we move on to public comment? And let me get the participant list. I already have five hands raised under public comment. And as I just said, a minute ago, in what was we are not going to be discussing the library today, but our policy in this committee is that we receive public comment at any meeting about any issue that is relevant to the committee's work, whether it's been in Sunday agenda for the day or not. There is no limitation on items as long as it's relevant to the committee. And we try and limit to two or three minutes per comment. Linda, you have your hand up. Yeah, Seina, do you want to make me co-host because so I can bring people in if we go beyond when you can? Thank you. So we'll just take them in the order that they appear on the screen, which means to start with Renata Shepard and Renata, I'll come back. Yeah, thank you. Renata Shepard, excuse my voice, I'm a little hoarse. Renata Shepard, Justice Drive. I sent us in writing, but I just wanted to make sure I made it to public comment. I understand that there was difficulty plugging in numbers on the spreadsheet for the rental registration fees at the last finance committee meeting. But could you please try some other options? Just adding an extra line reducing the $250 field to a hundred or $150 for one to two rental properties and increasing the $700 cap would already be helpful. How would that affect the total? That still doesn't work. Is there a way to offer a discount to low income landlords like myself? $250,000 a year. The finance committee meeting upsets me for many reasons, but mostly because of some of the conversation. We know both, and when we get to the section of the meeting, we are wasting time. That we're talking about it later when Mr. Mora is here and possibly Councilor Hannake. But I will return to those questions. Thank you. So I'm going to bring Sarah Marshall in to the meeting. Hi, am I in the meeting? Yes, you are. Hello, everyone. I do want to speak to the library, but if you can tell me what time on Friday, you'll be taking this up. Perhaps I can come then. Do you know? I think that we anticipate, given the complexity of the issues that we're going to be spending almost, if not, totally meeting almost all or totally the meeting on the issues. So we should be taking it up right at the beginning. Yes, but starting what time? I don't know what time the meeting is. They're both posted. Oh, okay. Then I will reappear on Friday at one. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Tony. Hi, Tony. Hi, thank you. I sent an email to the finance committee listing financial information that I believe is required if you are to make a fully informed recommendation to the town council regarding the supplemental bond authorization for the library project. This includes details and borrowings above the 15.8 million town share that the town would have to take out debt projections and all borrowings in which party is responsible cash flow of the project showing debt service and receipts from fundraising and the MBLC and the financial model showing the impact of debt service on the town's capital budget and the other major capital projects. In addition to charts that graphically illustrate the impact of borrowing for the library project on our capital budget, I would suggest that we need to see the five year capital plan and how the debt service and borrowing for the library project fits into that plan. The joint capital planning committee already struggles with what to drop from the long list of requests each year due to a shortage of cash capital. If you approve this higher borrowing authorization and the town takes on more than $40 million in debt, what capital projects and purchases will be deferred because we have to pay the library project debt service. As you know road and sidewalk repairs come out of that same pot of money. That is the 10.5% of the property tax levy as do town vehicles equipment and facility repairs. So to does regional school debt such as for the middle school roof and the high school track and field project cash capital and FY 25 is projected to be $6.5 million before deducting existing debt. If we are on the hook for say 5 million and debt service for the library, it will likely wipe out the capital budget for the year in that instance where does the money come from for peaks and debt service is the plan to tap reserves. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it and as we list our questions that will be helpful. I'm going to bring Ken in Ken Rosenthal. Thank you Chairman Seinberg. I'm not going to speak now about why I think that the decision that you're faced with is premature. I want to respond to something that President Greaves said last night with all the respect that I do have for her. I think she was in error when she spoke and said that contractors require that bond authorizations be in place before they would be on a project. As the town manager might attest. I've been involved in financing and construction projects for nonprofit organizations for 55 years or so. And this I can tell you about the mentality of contractors as they consider whether or not to be. They first of all want to know whether they have the capacity to do what the bids require. They also want to know what other options there are to build a bid on other projects and make money elsewhere. And then of course, as President Greaves said, they do want to be assured that they're going to get paid. But to require a bond authorization from the town of Amherst, which would be supporting a project at Jones library. That's not important. They understand the town of Amherst will stand behind its projects and so will the Jones library. They know they're going to get paid, and they will not require a previous bond authorization. So with respect, President Greaves, you and I disagree on that point. Thank you for listening to me and I will hope to speak with you again on Friday. Okay, thank you, Ken. I'm going to bring Jeff in. Jeff Lee. Hello. Jeff Lee from district five. I just wanted to speak to a document that is in the packet. It's about Jones library capital campaign funding sources. And while that lists revenue sources for the capital campaign it omits the expenses, which will be deducted from what the capital campaign remits to the town. For its remaining $7.4 million commitment. Last I saw on September 30 that amount was $278,000 or so. So I think that's important. It essentially wipes out the two state grants that we've received. So just wanted to bring that to your attention. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Darcy Darcy. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, I'm Darcy Dumont. I live in district three and I'm just commenting today on behalf of the Amherst climate justice coalition. We should have received also our written comments on the FY 25 budget guidance letter and the FY 25 budget in general. Please that counselors showed such high support for prioritizing climate action in the budget and answering our ACGA candidate survey this fall. And also that there was funding for sustainability initiatives through ARPA. And the $200,000 in this fiscal budget for the state, the capital project fund for climate actions. The first of our town climate action goals is to reach 25% emission reduction by 2025. That can only be achieved through a concerted effort on the part of the town. In our budget requests, we urgently need to at least double our capacity to accomplish the climate justice goals by hiring additional full time professional level staff members. This is especially so since the FY 24 budget in the FY 24 budget. The manager expressed that quote the town is stretched to manage grants, and thus applies based on staffing ability to implement and oversee them. What must be done to address the climate emergency far exceeds what one staff person can do. We appreciate our current director Stephanie Chagrilla is professional and dedicated work. She does the work of more than one person already. I will let you read our letter on the rest of that portion. I do want to mention that we would like to. We request doubling the capital budget amount from 200 to 400,000 in order to work on our our carp actions. And we also would like to to ask for any outlook on allocated funds or current budget reserves that are in this budget to be used for car priorities. On the budget guidance letter. It's just so important as far as starting out the budget process. We urge you to take into account that these aren't normal times that due to the climate emergency priorities and fundings need to shift. In order to accomplish our very time sensitive climate action goals. Two things we'd like you to do. We want you to make sure you. Restate our strong. Commitment to climate action and meeting our climate action goals. The type of language that we had prior to last year's budget guidance letter. And also to remove the language suggesting that we shouldn't. Have new initiatives or fund them through the reserves. Or. Fund them at all. Because we have, we'll have a new council. And we have the potential for looking at priorities in a different way. And we would like you to take out the language from last year's budget. That seemed to deep prioritize climate action by saying that the manager could quote for go taking on some new efforts. Until we have the funds needed for the major building projects required work on roads and sidewalks. Determine the long term public safety plan and have the staff. Needed for the three public safety departments, unquote. That language was a major, major step back from our former commitment to climate action. So I really want you to look at that. And take a look at the specific requests we have in our letter that we sent this morning. Including the request for staffing. Staffing for the waste taller proposal. And increasing the capital budget. Thanks so much. Okay. Thank you. So, seeing no other public comment. Appreciate everything that we've heard it is all relevant to discussions. And we will be having in the next couple of meetings today and Friday. So, public public comment is very much appreciated. What I know that there's a number of people in the audience still from a lot who are attached to the library project. And I want to reiterate what I said at the beginning that we do not intend to have a significant discussion today. Really, it's not going to be much of a discussion at all. Because what I was, I think that our major point right now is to catalog questions that need to be responded to. A lot of them were presented last night. During the council meeting. And so what I decided is to ask Athena to take that portion of the minutes that she'll develop for last night's meeting that have the questions. And work with Lynn to make sure that that list is correct. Get it out to the members of the committee, ask members of the finance committee. If they have additional questions, which they can send at any time to act to Athena, we can't have it be a public document because of open meeting law requirements. So, those suggestions will only go to Athena and to me, and then we'll have a more complete list for consideration when we meet on Friday. So that basically is the process that we are undertaking. And therefore, we're going to postpone trying to address any of the issues we raised last night until we can get an organized group of questions together and then some of us who are in this role of trying to coordinate the meeting, make sure that we get those out, get the questions out to the right people who can provide us with answers and help us with our discussion. So, I don't know, does anybody from the committee want to say anything more about what I just reported and process. So, I'm doing the requests. I think that what we want to do then is to go on to the guideline discussion, which is an item on the agenda under item seven. And what we're going to start with is since guidelines flow from the financial indicators presentation last night. So, if you have any questions about the financial indicators presentation, and then trying to spend a few minutes talking about key issues I have identified some to bring up I'm sure others have also. So, we would go forward from there. So, Paul, you have a question about this or just to, were you going to address the DPW requests first or are you going to wait till after you talked about financial guidelines. And then we're going to do. Okay, fair enough. Thank you. So it's the order. Matt. Thanks Andy. I just I wanted to, since we're going to tack on to the discussion from last night I wanted to just sort of highlight my, my key question for Paul, which I think would work into the guidelines eventually. I mean, you know, taking away from, from last night's presentation on the indicators, you know, I just I wanted to take a moment and commend you and other folks who have been involved in this process for a long time. You know, the debt service numbers that were presented in the indicators were extremely healthy compared to other towns in our region and puts us in a really good position for all the ambitious work that we're getting ready to start. And our bond rating reflects that our reserve accounts reflect that. So I think, you know, there's been a lot of really careful fiscal management out of the town and I want to give credit to Paul, Holly, Andy, you know, the entire team has really been extraordinary over many, many years and I just want to start with that. You know, I wanted to just, of course, point out, you know, some of our tax rate issues and the impact on our taxpayers. You know, because as everybody points out we have such a low property tax base. You know the impact and the pressure on on the property taxes is disproportionate I think to to the region although not totally out of whack but that is very significant so I wanted to put that issue out there. I always mention it in our guidelines discussions but I do think it's, it really is worth putting sort of front and center in the discussion is, you know, as we're doing all this work and, you know, as Paul mentioned, the fiscal discipline that's required to do some of this ambitious work. I do think that we should, you know, really maintain that as a as a central area of focus as we move forward in this. I did also want to sort of hear more doesn't have to be right this second but as we hear from Paul and Holly and the team. Paul you did point out economic development as a major challenge, you know, in one of your, in one of your slides last night in the indicators presentation so that's something I'd like to sort of hear just, I guess, you know, on the townside town staff side. What potential solutions you would you would point towards for that as well. Thanks. Any other questions here. First is Paul are you planning to convene the budget coordinating group and if so when I thought that that was supposed to happen. Kind of right about now at the commenced in the charter it says that the commencement of the budgeting process and my understanding seems like the guidelines are the start of that process and I remember last year we got into a bit of a pickle. Because we were Kathy I see you shaking your head and I know you want to correct me so bad but let me finish please. I think that the one of the things that happened last year is when by the time we were, we pulled the budget coordinating group together. We were too far into the process and so even if this isn't when it's supposed to or required to happen. I think that we should ask for the budget coordinating group to come together sooner rather than later so we're not in the spot that we've been in in the past where it's it's too late and the guidelines have already been established and we're already further into the process so that's that's my first part. And happy to hear all the corrections on why I'm wrong about that but those are my that's my two cents. And then the other part of the my thought was, and this made me wildly popular with Paul last time, but I do think that we really need to reevaluate when we are hearing from town. I'm just going to go back to the department heads regarding the budget and it's actually it's kind of a smack in the middle of both the budget, the financial guidelines, but also the town manager goals. By the time we hear from town staff, we have already established both the goals for the coming year and the financial guidelines and while the financial guidelines don't always necessarily necessarily and I look back from years before I was on council as well. We weren't necessarily getting into that nitty gritty of a budget because we shouldn't be in the financial guidelines that's not the job, and we are not directing town staff, but as we're developing financial guidelines and time manager goals. We're going off of old information heard directly from town staff as well as what we hear from residents and so I think that in order for us to do the best job and creating these the goals which do directly inform the budget as we see in the budget when amounts are to goals, as well as with the financial guidelines, we need that information and I think that we put ourselves and town staff at a bit of a, you know, I don't think it's the highest and best use of our time to hear those specifics from them after we have a developed budget. It's a great opportunity to learn, but it doesn't actually shift anything for us in doing our jobs so I wanted to put that out there one more time that I believe that in future it's too late. I pitched this a while ago and it didn't go anywhere so pitching it again. I do recognize it's too late for this year but I think that we shouldn't be hearing from them in in May, we should be hearing from them in November and December. My two cents. Thanks. Okay. Well, do you want to respond to questions as they come along or do you want to are you accumulating them. I'm writing them down so I can talk to them afterwards. Okay. Kathy. A couple of things and I do apologize for shaking my head and it was just that. No, it's been explained to me each year that the meeting we had last night is the budget coordinating committee meeting. And so it seems that the tradition has been when those indicators come out. We all meet together as the primary piece. Then it's the work of the council and the manager. And then we only meet again in that a more select group. And then there's some mid year. Oh my gosh, kind of thing so we got hit with it when the pandemic hit, and we had to have an emergency meeting to literally change the guidelines. So I think what you're asking is, should there be a change in that tradition, which is we're not bringing the schools want a bigger pot of the pie or the town services want a bigger part because that's 3% equal so that's a different kind of discussion. That was what I was saying is that we kind of just had that and now it's, we're supposed to be handing it off so that was my, but we just had that last night. Reaction, but I do have a couple of things about the guidelines. But last night, Holly, Jen and all the people that worked on that you flagged some big issues for us that we should quantify or talk about it in our guidelines as much as possible the schools are losing answer. And it would be nice to get from you get from the schools, what does that mean, you know, like this most recent budget that they've been living with has this much money in it. What is FY 25 look like the year we're about to do so just it's a loss of 100,400 I don't know, but just really give us a number to make that not be just conceptual. Then the other one you flagged is that we increased our EMT our firefighter staff, and we finance the smoothen with that with the ARPA fund and now they're coming fully on budget or they've been partially on budget. I'd like to make sure we highlight that so we had a general challenges section in our guidelines last year but I think this is this year and I think Bob. A couple of us noted that when certain things happen we had a FY 25 problem or an FY 26 problem. You know that is ARPA money went away because we, we brought in part of crest with it or is school then then suddenly we had this crunch so so I would just like to get. I don't need them now but you know the, the impact on our budget of having to go whole and as much as possible I know we find it put pension and health benefits over in another box. But I think of one more EMT person is a person that comes with wages salaries and benefits. So I want the big, the bigger number rather than the smaller number that just shows one person. So I think, I think that's it and then I just wanted to talk about grappling with something we are doing a lot on climate and on carp in our budget, including in the capital budget, not just the thing called sustainability, but there's been a concerted effort to retool our buildings to go to all electric to retool our cars. So I'd like to be able to capture and I can draft those sentences, you know to say that's part of what we're doing it's permeating that capital budget and that's one of the reasons we need the capital budget. And my only other comment and this is, I don't even know how to express this it's, I mentioned it to Paul. There's money on the table for the town with as we even the North Amherst library where we moved off an oil based HVAC system to all electric. We can get a direct credit back for that expenditure. So I just want to be sure that our understaffed finance department is supported by whether we have to do a consultant or something outside to help us grab every federal incentive dollar that's out there so once we make the expenditure the next year is when you claim claim the direct payment. I want to write a sentence in to guidelines to that effect Paul but it may not be staffing up to do it as much as a every community North Hampton needs this to to find the person that just helps us understand how we as a non taxable entity file taxes to get money back from the federal government and the list of all the things. There are a lot of things in it, more than you would think that qualify for potential direct credit so it's an opportunity to enhance our revenue flow after we've made an expense to be thinking about and those are my comments that are guideline related just on some of it is populating it with numbers. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Yeah, actually, I would like on it to talk a little bit more about to both the request for an additional BCG meeting and also hearing from staff and what she envisions that to look like. That's all. All right, so I think to my first, my first question Kathy I that makes sense that the meeting last night could be considered the BCG meeting I think where I'm stuck is that I was looking at the BCG charge just to try to, you know, this the thought that shouldn't they have been meeting and I, I mean, like, logistically, have they met if we haven't called them to order and have they met when there's no current member representative appointed from the school committee, and the two library positions are required in June. So they have to technically reappoint people to it so I think I struggle with that. And then I quit I have question about one of the items on the BCG charge is to develop financial guidelines and we get a presentation as that group but is that group in of itself supposed to also be according to their charge supposed to be developing guidelines as well and how does that happen. And so I think I'd like clarity on that from Paul or Andy on those elements of the BCG charge and how that can be considered a group meeting if that group isn't, you know, formerly even called to order. And I understand that every member is there but I'm just a little confused on that and if I could get some enlightenment I'd appreciate it. And the other point that I made about department heads I think what I would be hoping to understand from it. And this was where Lynn when I was when I was flushing it out I was realizing that it's, it's more beneficial to the goals setting process for the town manager than the budget guidelines. I do think it still is beneficial for the budget guidelines but I think that we set very specific goals for the town manager and, and we set broader budget guideline I'm trying to tread carefully to make sure I'm not jumping into GL territory here but I think about, you know, last year I was the liaison to ECAC and I worked really closely and put a lot of time in with that group to bring their goals forward. And, and that included the staff member for that committee working as in those committee meetings with them. And so I think that it's what it raised for me was that we don't know what we don't know, and for us to develop guidelines and goals without the knowledge from what the needs are and what the projects are that they're, they're working with. We're kind of just grabbing whatever is loudest and I don't think that that is the best way to govern. And so I think, you know, the alternative alternative here would be to hear from sort of maybe some, some of the players that are coming, coming up more often when it comes to the budget guidelines so for example we talk in the budget guidelines a lot about roads and sidewalks. Maybe it would make sense to have DPW come in for that part to talk to us as we, and not every single department I can understand that but generally, generally speaking I think that if we're going to hear from one we should hear from all because I think it sets us up better. I don't have this like a written response prepared out for you but that's kind of where I'm going is that I think that for us to be giving direction we need to know where we are and the financial indicators while it was an amazing overview from from Holly and Jen and Athena. I think that we need more, I think we need more detailed information if what we're supposed to be putting out is more detailed as well. Does that help answer your question. I think that we get in June I'd like to hear where they are and whether they want to go. Basically, is the overview. Thank you. I had some thoughts about what you just raised but I mean actually as Paul go ahead and go first. Okay. So first off the BCG did meet last year in December right now we typically have a December meeting and then they met again in. March last year so the BC BCG was the four towns meeting. I mean I'm sorry. Different topic. So the the the financial indicators is part one BCG meets in December. And you met and you're not sure if you were in the meeting at that time or not. And then there was then they meet in March again and those are the times when those four bodies get together and they talk about things. And, you know, I think I know that those they met those three times, or at least those two times. Last year, and that's would probably be our same pattern for this year as well. So we haven't called together, you know, we haven't gotten to setting up BCG meeting in December at this point. And because I think part of it is. We've asked the school committee to figure out who's going to be their representatives and you know, they newly constituted and all that kind of stuff. So I think, you know, BCG is meeting it's fulfilling its function. BCG does not set the guidelines. It's more of a communication tool. I never see it as being a decision making tool. It's really a communication tool amongst the three elected bodies by their representatives have been chosen by themselves by each body. So. So. And then in terms of the. The way it feels to me that you would. The way the council should do is you're looking at the big goals. I don't want you to it's not your job to figure out. Should this should this person get a copier or this person get a, you know, another part time position. That's not your job. Your job is to say, we want to achieve these bigger goals. And then I come to you, my job as the executive is to come to you as a budget. And then, and I, and to support that budget, I bring the staff to say why they're doing their things. And you're, and I think that that's, that's the process that we follow typically. So, and so I, so I think that that bringing all the staff in. And then you're going to have them all get ginned up about what they want. And then they are going to develop a lobbying technique because they all will because they know that they're going to get, I want to get my thing into. You're the ones who are in the policy making role and you're on top of everything. It's really your job to say, look out above the town and see where you, where the town should be going and where you want to put our efforts. And you've, I think the council, we've changed our government because of the goals that you said. At the, at the bigger picture, like racial equity, racial equity, the crest department, you know, sustainability, those big things. And so I think that's where the energy for this, our chief elected officials should be. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm going to make a couple of comments and then I'm going to recognize Bernie whose hand is up. I think it is important that we make sure that as we do this, though, that there's connection to between the BCG and the finance committee. I don't think that they can run separate from each other. Do you know, Lynn, who are members currently are on BCG here. Currently are you, me and Mandy Joe. Yeah, because I'm not sure that I recall the meetings that last year, but at any event. The answers that question the other thing that I want to point out is that we have been very careful in the last two years of making sure that there's coordination between the budget guidelines that are approved by the council. And the town manager goals, which are approved by the council, become out of separate committees. And I'm confident that we will be able to do that again, because we now have experience in making sure that that is happens because inconsistency would really not be helpful to anybody. And we'd probably drive all crazy. And so that, and the other thing that we just need to recognize too is that the putting together of the budget that is Paul's job then is a pretty complex undertaking. Now it is taken town managers and I've been observing this process through two forms of government. It takes the town manager several, you know, probably three months, at least to put that to do that and to do that well. And therefore, us getting guidelines is by the end of the year, and giving that space then for the beginning of the year for town manager to work with staff is really important. And it might be more challenging even this year, because there's a missing piece and that's a full time finance director because our two acting finance directors have other jobs too. I would be very hesitant to cut back on the time that is allotted between the issuance of council guidelines and the town manager giving a budget back to the council on the May 1 date that is mandated. Bernie. Okay, thank you Andy. One of the things that I think people need to understand and appreciate is that in this in some ways began before Paul appeared on the scene but he's managed to push the process even further is to have a process where you reduce competition. You know, among various components for the budget pieces and everybody's going to advocate for what they want. But building an understanding, and you know you look at the working assumptions in the document that it's 3% across the board. You look at the budget coordinating group, you look at the meeting that we had the other night to kick the process off that kind of collaborative effort. I think it's been really valuable and it's kept the town from engaging in some of the, the nasty fights that I've I've experienced in the scene in other communities. So I really don't think the council needs to get down in the weeds and hear from individual department heads. I don't think there needs to be kind of liaison system which is my experience as an administrator is a kiss of death because people become captured and advocates. So let's continue to let's continue to share information let's continue to share the wealth or share the problems. And this is that you know it's been remarkable. I just want to very quickly recall the conversation I had not too long ago with a couple of firefighters and I said to them you know I'm on the finance committee we have an interest in getting you guys a new fire house and you know new headquarters and all this and they said yeah well we appreciate that but you know the highway guys have it worse, they need to come first. That is an unusual and very important kind of attitude that I think it's been fostered in in in brought along in terms of the budget discussions and I'd like to really congratulate Paul and the team on that and hope it continues. Thank you. You're muted though. One of the things that I find both challenging and interesting about on a suggesting some more interaction with department heads, but it's, it's something that I've had to just come to trust because is that our department heads, and many, many if not all of our staff are extremely professional, and they bring enormous thought to the trends and issues that we should be dealing with. And in many ways, I can think of times frankly, where maybe counselors began something but frankly staff should have been consulting and taking either a co leadership in that issue, or been leading that issue. Well, I, so I think one of the things that the town manager is whether it's Paul or anybody else is always going to be challenged with is the fine line between making sure that great staff ideas are also coupled with great policy ideas at the level or in this case counselor level. And, and yet to do that in a way that doesn't walk across the line where Paul, or whomever is the town manager, he is managing the place. And, you know, Bernie, you know, you and I both have seen situations where departments aren't getting along. And, you know, and they're buying for somebody's attention, and it becomes pretty crass. But I really want to respect the fact that, and I'm sure I don't want to put words on his mouth but I want to respect the fact that our staff really are extraordinarily people, extraordinary people with really good ideas about where we should be going and how we should be getting there. And we have to trust that the town manager is hearing that and incorporating that as we go forward. So that's just my interpretation of what I want from staff and what I want to come through the town manager from staff. I don't know on if I've hit it or not, but it's in that kind of. Yeah, I mean, I, and I don't, it's this fine. I'm so sorry, Andy, can I raise my hand. Thank you. Sorry. It's this fine line right because I am not, there's no part of this as that is intended as an overstepping of the council and I recognize that it's really easy to jump into that place and that's not what I'm trying to do. I think I'm trying to, what I'm trying to reconcile is how big picture those those the financial indicators are with how micro we can get in our goals and Paul what it seems like I'm hearing from you is that you don't want us to get as micro as we've been getting in those goals. And at the same time, broad goals mean that it's, it's, you know, it's very easy to meet broad goals with and miss the intention of those goals. And again, I'm not insinuating that you would ever intentionally do that but when you list concrete things in goals you're able to say whether they've been met or not. And so I think that that's, these are the lines that we're trying to tread with this. And so I guess I'm trying to think about alternate ways of getting at that. And I think, if, if possible, and again, I'm looking at future years this isn't going to happen for this year and Andy I also wanted to clarify. In no way am I trying to say that we should shorten the amount of time that Paul has to build the budget I'm talking about moving back in time right. I don't know how he does it in the time we already give him I'm not trying to make that shorter. I think that maybe if there were a way to get more of an update not from department heads themselves but from Paul that gives a little bit more detail into that into those those operating funds or whatever, however, it is that can help us a little bit more to shape the guidelines based on what we see is as those internal needs. And that would be a way to sort of get at it without doing the entire process I think we get information that's way up here, and our goals will need to be somewhere in the middle I get you that they don't need to be nitty gritty but they also the goals can't be so big picture either so I want something from the town in some way whether it's Paul or whether Paul directs town staff, that's a little bit more middle that's a little bit more detailed about the needs and the, and the successes of the areas sphere. I hope that clarifies it a bit. It does a little bit I think that the problem that I would have with it is that the general statement we make every year in the guidelines is that community values the services that the town is presently delivering and we want those services to continue. We don't get into the nitty gritty detail of saying that we want more of this, because that gets into the question of does that mean you have to have less of something else and what do you have less of. And at some point, unless there's a very specific guideline presentation that comes out of this committee or comes out of the Council, I think that our tendency is to kind of leave that judgment to all. And the, that it's appropriate for the town manager to have that goal so that if the, this one department and add to another because of a reason that it doesn't come at the Council level because we are partaking the services and evaluating the services to that level of detail. And so I'm not sure how to go forward with what you're suggesting is balanced to Bernie. I just like to acknowledge that I understand and I know where Anna is coming from. And, you know, as a slack money experience that boom of being a down council, certainly experience that that kind of like I really want to know this in detail. I also have great admiration for Anna's ability to handle detail and complicated situations and I very much appreciate that. It's not, you know, we're, it might be a different story if every counselor were possessed of those skills but they aren't. I do think, like I said before, I think the idea of having the town, the town manager being the central point the central focus of this process is key to making it work. And I think one of my experience is elected official when I would get stopped by a town employee who would tell me that you better vote for this because we wrote the budget. You know, it, it, it does add some distance, it adds some perspective. And I think I agree completely with with when we have a highly professional staff. So, again, in my experience, and let's the counselors I would hope would be conscious of if they're when they're setting goals, what the fiscal impact of those goals might be. And there might be more additional dialogue with Paul around, you know, what's it going to take if we want to do this. But let's keep the system as it is. And because it's been working. Okay. So are there any specific questions about information that was presented yesterday we've been going on a policy level. The financial indicators and or how they were presented or anything. Because otherwise we should then move on to some guidelines questions and then see if we can get on to the orders because I think we'll have given as much guidance as we can. For the first stage, Matt. Yeah, I have a process question. I was just looking at the work plan, and somewhat ambitiously, there is a hope that we can finalize budget guidelines by December 1. And then I know we'll talk about the schedule later but I just, I just wanted to know are you are, are we, you want to circulate last year. I mean, just if you talk about sort of how we're going to attack the document as a group I think that'd be helpful to me. Thanks. I will do one of two things after today's meeting. And that is, just go ahead and get out last year's guidelines again for everybody to look at this reminder which I probably you should do anyway. It would be easier, but also to at least see if there's some beginnings so that I can start making new adjustments for the next year. And I have some questions that I'm going to present in a minute so that we can then see if there are any comments on them and then go on. But it is a massive process to do in a small number of meetings is such a advance to. Lynn, did you have anything. Yeah, I just want to make sure that one day what couple issues that were brought up last night when was the compensation study, and the extent to which we need to be aware of that as it relates to the financial guidelines. The second issue that got brought up was whether or not we actually do want to entertain increasing the percentage that we put aside for capital. Right now I believe we're at 10 and a half percent. And then we also later but this is not necessarily part of guidelines, but it may be and that is that there are a couple of those markers that we look at that would be useful to look at in relationship to other municipalities that have heavy higher ed populations. And in looking at that it's because of my own personal desire and I know that of other counselors to really try to pursue the issue of pilots, both from public and private higher ed institutions. So those are issues that came up last night. I think that I don't know how much of that belongs in the guidelines and how much of it just is something someplace else. Thank you. I'm going to come back to that in a second. If not, I'll talk to about it later. Kathy. I have a suggestion because that's one of the reasons, Matt, when you looked at where we are in the in the great in the month of November and that next Thanksgiving is next week. How are we going to get this done. So my suggestion Andy is, if you could send us the word version of last year's guidelines, and then to the extent to any of us have the wherewithal on whenever you think we're going to actually start working on it. And we could put suggested changes areas to change, and we could market up. And then we might get more quickly to a final document. And you know so some are all and we would just send them into you or we could. It's one thing we've done in JCPC where there is a draft and people send in and then I just pull them all in and we get pretty quickly to a final. So if we could get the word document rather than the PDF, that's a request. Second, I asked for a little bit more information on the loss of Essar and bringing EMT and if if staff could quantify for us with a 12% increase in health insurance costs means in terms of the top line of it not how it hits every single department, I'm thinking of that Lynn counterposed to your, can we go any higher than 10 and a half, because it was really when Sean first put in 10 and a half it's just because I tend to remember numbers. When nothing worked, we're hitting 202526 and 27 that we couldn't be higher on 10 and a half, and still be funding operating budget, you know, like we had, we had a little bit of breathing room, because of ARPA and Essar and, but now we're in a, the salaries the contracts were settled. You know so there's a pay increase somewhere built into all of this. It's like a little bit more so we can, both for the whole council but for the town, have people have a good picture of the tough spot worry and we're not in a bad spot, we're just in a tough spot, in terms of where do you put. You know, when I, because I'm JCPC, I mean one of the things you did, and I don't want to do this in guidelines Paul but we had a couple tough years on capital, and we just said we're not buying any vehicles this year, you know, live with what our vehicle, and that made some room for roads or you know it was within that we made room for something that we valued more highly and so sort of trusting Paul of his limit is 10 and a half, you know, take home to us. I just, so it's my request is the 12% health care, give me and what that means for next next year's expenses how much of the total expense increase is in just that alone, and Lynn asked about compensation and then I wanted to quantify loss of extra. So we can bring those in in a, what we're facing when we say, which of any of these things can we touch let alone do we want to touch but can we without this delicate budget falling apart. And we already have Paul the Jones is coming in to because the line that's in for repaying the debt and the insurance, we have a good solid line running through the capital. But that assumed a much lower interest rates so at some point we're going to have to, you know, when does that hit it may not hit FY 25 that much. So I'm not going to worry about it in FY 25. And I'll stop there because I'm, I'm ready to mark up. I looked at the guidelines I'm ready to do some marking up because a lot of it's fine we just have to plug in the more recent numbers but some things need a strong rewrite to convey a message. Yeah, I'll look for that. The final version is we always converted at the end. All you have anything and then I wanted to move to the guideline questions and get on to the next agenda item. Great. Thank you. So just quick answers on the on the health insurance we build that if you remember last night. We showed a very quick spreadsheet, but we didn't get into the details. That's the spreadsheet that this committee will look at that's built into that number and you can, you know, we can change that. It's a spreadsheet. Obviously you can change it and then that's how we determine if we have enough funds to go to 3% to an half percent, whatever. So we put in all the what we believe are our fixed costs in terms of revenue and expenses first. And then it's those numbers refine we can change those and then it shows where we have some leeway. So that's built into it. Loss of Essar. The we had a fiscal stability committee that we had met once or twice that included the finance directors from both the school and the town. Both are not in their jobs right now. We have subsequently we're getting a proposal from someone who does has done this for other school districts because every school district is looking at the migration off of Essar funds. And what does that look like? And how do you digest that? So we're getting a proposal from somebody who can come in. We don't have anybody who can coordinate that for us right now. And that's a big job and someone who has to know school finances mostly. So I've talked with them been working with the superintendent on this. We've all all the finance folks have bet this person. And so we're looking at bringing them in to help coordinate that. And just sort of target it. It's insight full weight for the it's really for the school department more than anything, but it impacts us. So, just those two quick things, Andy. Holly, did you have something? Yeah, I just can bury quickly. And it's not always that way, but I was able to really quickly calculate what a 12% increase estimate would be. And that's about $370,000. That's just for the general fund. This affects region, this affects Pellum, this affects the libraries, this affects all four of the enterprise funds, but for the general fund budget only, it would be about $370,000 at a 12% increase. Okay. But does that you were saying the general fund budget includes the other schools and library. No, no, it will also affect. So just our number and an increase of 3%. The library is 3% region goes up 3% questions. Okay. Just general fund. So the questions that I had identified that I don't think we can discuss them today is we need to get on to the financial orders. But one is this question of whether we're comfortable with revenue projections. I think the answer is yes, but I just want everybody to have an opportunity to think that through and come to the same conclusion that you're comfortable with what was presented last night on revenue projections. We need to just recognize that we've had some long standing policies. And that I'm assuming them again, unless somebody's going to say otherwise. One is that we don't spend reserves for operations. Because once you set up an operating need for reserves, then what are you going to do the next year is more reserves. It doesn't it's not a sustainable funding source. If you do it that way, which is why we tend to do capital out of reserves but not operating so that's that's another question. We're going to assume, unless people say otherwise that we still stand by that general principle. No override request to our voters is a third. It is an additional item that we need to be very clear about. I think that the question has already been raised about, are we staying with 10 and a half percent per capital. We've looked our way very slowly. I mean, very slowly from 7% to 10 and a half percent. It was quite an achievement to finally get 10 and a half percent. Because we know the need is great. We also know that the operations side of the budget is very demanding. So, but I did also identify that as a question. The long standing principle of having equal increases from municipal school and library. And that has in the former form of government was very successful in keeping battles from taking place on the floor of town meeting or limiting those battles to the extent that they were. And I think the same question thing has been a value for the council, because if you start allowing variations in every year is going to put a lot more pressure on the council process and ultimately end on Paul and whether that's something that we would want to do. But so I'm assuming that again that that's still our principle. We've had the discussion of Esther. But Esther is really a school function. I think when we get to the municipal side, which we tend to function to pay more attention to in the guidelines because we don't develop the school and library budgets. That's developed elsewhere and presented back to us through the town manager. Is there any ARPA or one time funding that is running out that we need to be thinking about as to whether there are things that are currently being funded with grant funding that we need to be aware that they're going to disappear and that we would want to talk about and see if it's important to continue. And then the last one I think has already been talked about. Really greatly and what Anna was bringing up which was whether there are any municipal programs that require special attention. So those are the issues that I identified is needing to present for everyone to think about. But I don't think we have time to really dig into them and address them. I'm going to assume, for example, in the end that the answer is no. But if somebody comes up and says, hey, wait a minute, what about this, then we need to talk about it. So with that said, I'm ready to move on to the next item but I want to give anybody else a chance to say if they're not ready to move on. Okay, so we want to go to the supplemental budget appropriation requests, and we'll count on all to take leadership on answering initial questions. Because I think that the answer on each one. Are we are we comfortable recommending to the council. The adoption of the order that is recommended. So we want to take the orders and I think that we had agreed that we would start with TPW orders because Guilford is here and then he can go if we just do those first. So, I don't know if you want to put them on the screen if you have them available and if not, I think you knew the order we were going to take them in. So if you can enlarge it in any way that would be helpful. You see what I can do. In the meantime, I don't know all or feel for if you want to at least start with the presentation and give an overview of it and then see if the questions from the committee. I just start quickly so just to note that this is coming from retained earnings of the sewer enterprise fund it's not coming from free cash it's because sewer sewer is an enterprise fund that's where the funds are coming from from the retained earnings. So Guilford, do you want to talk about why the appropriation request is there? Yes. So we've been having a slew of items we're breaking on us lately, the plant, the plants, old and some of the equipment in it is is old as well. What we've had is we've had several valves that have failed. We've had a couple of motors that have failed and pumps that have failed. And then we also had the collapse on Snell Street which we weren't expecting that section of sewer to collapse. That was it cost us about $110,000 to actually have that repaired. So we've been spending our appropriations for the sewer enterprise system pretty rapidly this year. We've been doing it for a couple of years now, but we were able to cover those. So we're just asking for an extra $500,000 in capital to cover pumps, the gates, valves, and some sewer line repairs that we know we need to kind of get to and stuff we've already actually repaired. So that's where we are and what's going on right now. And I believe that the balance in the undesignate retained earnings balances. Holly can confirm this made $2.6 million is in there now. So, another committee questions. Yeah. I think Paul just answered Paul that's before the 500,000. So this would pull Santa. So, so I guess my question, go for it if you can be looking forward rather than as each street or pipe collapses. Do you have a sense. Because we were not at the point of what our next year is going to be I hesitate to even talk about this but I was in your office, and saw pipe you had there which was a pretty amazing one that had all these holes in it and you said it was one of the newer ones and you didn't know what had happened. So maybe it was a water pipe but is, are we going to hold is that 2.1 that's remaining with a we say you've got a slew of these, or are we going to need to do something that's on an emergent level. The rule is not to do something on an emergent level. We've been saying for the past few years that we've been hoping to get our wastewater permit in hand so we know what the permit was going to require us to do. We have our draft permit in hand there are no major changes to the plant that we have to do. So that means we'll probably means we will start doing a plan to actually start replacing things that need to be replaced. And you will see in the next year or two you're going to see a plan that's going to be relatively it's going to be an expensive plan maybe a million $2 million to go through and replace things that need to be replaced. Because we don't have to upgrade our permit said we didn't have to do that which is great. Like we have the GBT we're adding the second GBT at this time. That's an upgrade and replacement of an existing system, the older one will be a backup but then you want to be the primary. So we'll start that process now that we have our permit and you should expect that yes there'll be some capital expenditures that will increase in the sewer fund as we move forward in the next few years. So you have to work with us 2.1 million right now. We'll work it in. We'll work it into the capital plan and the rate. And we actually if you look at how the funds went this year we actually brought in about 600. I think it was 600,000 more than we plan on bringing in so we did make more money this year than we originally thought we would. So then you have to calculate that into. I can't. And Andy I can't go ahead. So this is transferring money from the sewer fund to the capital. This is not using the pre cash right. I mean, it's using retained the proposal is to use retained earnings, which is the term that is used for accounting purposes, or the enterprise fund equivalent cat of free cash. So using the free cash bucket that is specifically from the sewer fund as an isolated enterprise and transferring it from what is essentially their free cash but called retained earnings to the budget so that it can be spent. And so it's really same thought process, but a separate bucket. But I, given all of that, I just wanted to make sure I was seeing that the right way. My, my question builds to some extent on Kathy's but brings in another issue and that is the issue of, as we do roads. We're using that as the opportunity to upgrade the infrastructure systems under those roads. Like we like we in this case we had to partner with the state to do route nine, but it seems to me that that's the optimal time to do upgrades where we suspect we may see problems coming up because of just aging infrastructure. We do major road upgrades. Yes, we will do those utilities underneath us at the same time, as we shift more into a maintenance mode on roads or we do just an overlay or a shim code or a crack ceiling. Those don't get the utilities looked at as quickly or as intensely, unless there's a real problem there that we know of. We do major upgrades we do utilities and everything, and then the mean is that we're going to try to do more of as they don't get as much look at the utilities. Okay. I just want to make sure that we're, we're, we're using the opportunity to build up the funds now for that down the road. I believe the town has done that and I give the example of Pine Street, because all of us remember everybody having bumper stickers that said I survived Pine Street, and the reason that it was delayed. It was simply that Ilford and the Enterprise funds had to take care of major needs that were lying under Pine Street and sit all went together. Okay, thank you. I'm fine and I'm ready to make a motion if you're ready. Yeah, I was going to do that too. And so I'm just going to make a motion. I think that the Finance Committee recommend that the Council approve Council order 2405C in order appropriating funds for the town of Amherst sewer fund capital campaign. Change seconds. And that's been made and seconded. And unless there's further discussion requested and I don't see any hands that I'm going to go ahead and just go alphabetically. My last name. Anna Devlin gout here. I I I'm I'm support. Mad Halloween. Support. Bernie Kuvac support. Gatti Shane. Yes. I'm a yes Alicia. Yes. This has been recommended five to zero with the three members who resident members in support. So the next one. I believe that we were going to take up is 2405 B. Other capital. One that is related to. Part. This is the right one, right? Yeah. So, people want to have it increased in size, but. Yes, Lynn. This is the beginning of a bigger conversation. When I know you've been expecting. Of course, I'd like to make this bigger, but frankly, I don't think we can at this point. But how would you suggest that we approach the development of a multi year. Funded program that would attract maybe partners in other other towns. To attract the people to come in to repair our roads. And how are we going to get on top of our road situation versus. But I think we saw this year's we're just getting further behind. Column column. Well, we just had this conversation. So. So actually we're doing much. And the person driving on the road, they probably don't see that much difference on their small side roads. But the person driving on the main roads were a much better shape than we were a while ago. The issue we've had in the past was we only relied on chapter 90 and we didn't add any additional money to it. The best thing to do and the most important thing to do is every year. We need to decide ahead of time. This is how much money we're putting in the pot. We're just going to do chapter 90, which is $890,000. We're going to do more. And if we know that money in advance, we can put together a road project to bid. That's that amount of money. The money and deciding on the amount of money is the most important thing that can be done up front. Because if we know, then we can put together the road project. We're doing about three to $4 million a year right now on road projects that doesn't. That includes what you're authorizing in chapter 90. It also includes what comes out of these grants like the MassWorks grant. We have another MassWorks grant that will do some paving for us. Those grants, we push them all together and we get a base. We get what we're all going to do. But the most important thing is know is we're going to put $3 million, which actually is probably a good number. It doesn't get you what $3 million used to get you, but $3 million is a good number for us to have. If you want to add more to it as the year goes on, that's great. But just as we knew we had like that amount of money every year is coming to us. Then we could schedule out the roads a little better and make things work better. And we see that in a separated planned document that's multi-year and begins to lay out for us what we need to have in our financial guidelines this year and every year in order to do that. I guess in some ways, instead of suggesting, oh, maybe we should go above 10.5, we should in fact say a certain percentage or a certain dollar amount every year should be in the budget on a multi-year basis. I mean, I'm looking for a way for us to have much more assurance that we're getting ahead. And I know, I know we give the people in Amherst enormous tremendous service, but I can't tell you the number of people that have said to me, and I'm a taxpayer and I can't even get my road fixed in front of my house. I agree with what what Lynn just said. And, you know, if you think of what it means practically if he gives us a multi-year plan, does that mean every year out of the 10.5 capital draw, we're putting it, we're going to do at least a million in roads. You know, we don't, ROG have often been the residual, like if we don't do something else. So, so I think trying to look at Paul also how, how we might pre-commit. I mean, this way of committing now is, if we have a surplus, we, we pull a million out if we can. And that's, some of our surplus may not be so surplusy going forward. I mean, that's not up for sure. So, my, my other, my related question. And I think people will argue with me that this is not true. But I think a lot of the wear and tear on our roads is because we have a major university here with a lot more cars than we might otherwise have. We have delivery vans and trucks that would, if we were, I mean, so we're not, you know, like Amherst was never the sleepy little town since I moved here, but I know what rolls by my house. I'm on 63. So, a hard car push for our state legislators to say, either a big bump up on chapter 90, or an allocation, and they could do it in some even way of any town that has a major public university in it with a lot of people driving on the roads gets a bump up on their road. You know, so Lynn, trying to think of how you would frame it that it's not us just asking for our own handout, because I think the, the chapter 90 has been flat. You'll further my right. I mean, I'm not just in real dollar terms and actual dollar dollar terms. If I, it's the same number every year. Yes. It's, it's, it's not just failing to keep up. It's not keeping up in any other way. It's, it's a shrinking share of our road budget. So I just think a really big push. And you mentioned once, and I'll stop because I see three hands up, you mentioned once that you wish there weren't so many little pockets. I put it all in one big bucket at the state level, because we spent, we spent a lot of time saying, oh, I could get a piece out of here or I could get a piece out of there. It's a staff intensive time and then you've got these. If we could articulate that more than what I just did. You know, I'm piecing together things from all of this. It's a message our legislators might be able to work on. And this happened in healthcare years ago that you could piece together the funding of a community center if you were willing to apply to 100 different sources, but no one source would give you the money you needed to survive. So maybe we could articulate that, you know, we get something if it's near a school or we get something if it's near this, but it would be nice to have just a pot. So I'm thinking statewide, but Lynn and our more local level is if we're saying, we're going to intend to spend this much of JCPC dollars. That says, well, what else are we not going to spend it on but it's, are we willing to do that so I don't know if the answer is yes, but are we willing to do that. That's the question. Yeah. From my perspective from being on the MMA fiscal policy committee. You know, the underlying problem is exactly what you're talking about there was a formula that was used for the development of the chapter 90 allocation. The formula worked to the disadvantage of Western Massachusetts communities and to the advantage of Eastern Massachusetts Boston area communities, which is no grand prize. And it was there for finally an effort in the legislature to put some additional funds into, as you noted another special pot, having to do with the miles of roads in the community because the formula didn't really put significant of effort priority to that particular aspect. And just a couple things to note one is is that that money hasn't been allocated out to communities yet and probably won't be until February or March from what we've been able to determine that the fiscal policy committee when we ask that question. And the other thing that is just obvious whenever you get into these discussions is that if you change a formula to be more balanced towards your needs, you're going to be working against somebody else's and it's a political game and we all know that. So, this is never an easy issue. You know I try and work out the discussions for our in our favor in the fiscal policy committee. But even if I'm successful there, then you get into the next level and I can give you some examples but I'm not going to go into that now. Yeah, all those those little programs and pockets and forces, I think forces Guilford and his staff to be opportunistic. You know, it makes it very difficult for them to kind of proceed in a, in a priority needs fashion, because something might, you know bright and shiny might come up and we can capitalize on that but it leads to questions like why are you doing that and not this. And I think Guilford and his staff can can make use of that to give, you know, to give everybody an idea of what a good base would be to, you know, to follow that plan and make the needed repairs and changes to the roads that are suggested by the pavement management plan. So we've got that we've got that data. And we need to make better use of it in terms of projecting funding. And finally, I, if you're going to ask for some kind of add on. I would use the term state facility, rather than university or college, because that broadens the pool and the broader the pool you have the more likely you are to get some legislation passed. I would think the folks in Bridgewater would be more than happy not only to have some recompense for Bridgewater State University, but also for the prison there. You know, I think that that would be a better tactic to take is to say, you know, you establish these large scale developments Commonwealth that have an impact on us because it takes, it takes our wealth away. It reduces the taxable property we have for one, and for two, it imposes costs, and they go over and above what you're paying us. So that would be my suggestions you broaden the pool, and you look at state facilities. Thank you. And to emphasize that in the fiscal policy committee when we talked about pilot on state on land. I was careful not to just use the term university but to talk about how state owned land is utilized. What is, and what is the effect on the community and the costs that the community incurs because of the state on land. And then I quickly turned to Charlemont every time because Charlemont has brought up the fact that they have so many people coming in to use their state owned land for recreational purposes that they have tremendous public safety and public works requirements and. I use Charlemont to help me not focus on the university as a sole piece. So thank you, Bernie for bringing that up. Matt. Thanks, Andy. Yeah, three quick things I do like this conversation very much and I would support any efforts we can make towards it. So, last year when I brought up the I and several others mentioned the idea of regionalizing and working with our neighbors. The answer was that this might go against the philosophy of New England town governance which I was a little bit taken aback by that that notion and made me think that. So, if that's not something we can explore. I think we need to, as as Lynn prefaced this, we need to be looking at, you know, multi-year comprehensive planning. And I do think that, you know, some regional collaboration may be necessary, regardless. This is the fur cog collective bidding program. I realize that that may not be something that folks want to engage with either for various reasons I'm sure there's there's plenty of downsides to it but I think a public discussion about that would be helpful. Her folks are not like aware for you do not have to be a Franklin County town to join that. But it's a sort of a fee for service process that allows for, as I understand it more efficient bidding and there are several Hampshire County towns who are in that as well. So I think that'd be a good thing to have a public discussion about. And then finally, I've said, I've actually suggested all three of these things before but I just want to put them on the on the record again. So just sort of, you know, Lynn and Anna and the council leadership. I do think that that TSO or a different ad hoc subcommittee of the council would be a useful body to sort of drive this work forward internally and to see a multi-year plan that gets results and go for it. I want to actually just double up on what you said, I have seen a lot of paving work happening in town. And I do think that we've made really good progress on some of our larger through fares and, you know, the roadways as well. So, you know, I think the town may have to make some hard decisions on some of these smaller roads that are in disrepair like, you know, mine being one of the one of the examples I mean, you know, it is it is a tough challenge to try to pay as many roads as we have and I think we're putting the priorities in the right places. But, but we, I think we do need multi-year planning on this. Thanks. Anything else Lynn or because otherwise I'm going to make a motion. The other motion is that I move that the finance committee recommend that Council approve Council order FY 2405 be in order appropriating funds for a portion of the town of Amherst capital program road and sidewalk repairs. Thank you. Many people second that one. Any other motion that's been made and seconded Paul. Not for this item for next item. Okay. Then let's go take a vote and we'll move down one does first start and start this time with Lynn. Hi. Bob. My support. Matt support. Bernie support. Kathy. Yes. Yes, Alicia. Yes. And Anna. Okay, so that one is approved. Paul, do you have something you want to add now? Yes, please. I just want to know if you think the finance community is going to get to rental registration today or not. I know I have our building commissioner in the audience. If you are, but if you're not just would like to let him go. Why don't we do this so that we can let him go. I sent an email. I raised my questions. I had two questions that I asked of Rob and that would help me. And if other people have questions. I would like to pose to Rob or the CRC. If we could just get them sent in they don't have to go through the committee they can just go through a theme or through me and just do it that way and then Rob probably would not need to stay longer. I agree with that. Andy, I just, I did actually take the spreadsheet and work on it a bit. And I also just read the legal memo Paul on, you know, I'm again looking at places where frequency of inspections matters. And I also, I can put together a memo with some potential change ideas and I can send it to Rob and Mandy so they could just have them. If I don't have to go through the whole committee. If that's okay with people, I mean, I have a, I am trying to get to the same totals but in a different way. And so, if you'd rather I don't do that, I can wait till we do just come back to fees. I just, I don't want them to do anything for me. I just want them to see the ideas. So, I guess, Andy, I raise it just to know if you're going to meet beyond 3pm or not because. And so if you are, I'm sure Rob would be happy to have this conversation but if you're not. I'm thinking that if we can get through the rest of the orders. That's probably going to take another half hour and then we really need to adjourn. Okay. Over already. Those. Okay, if you don't mind if Kathy just sends that. Andy. Sure. Okay. I'm sorry. We got delayed on this, but let's try and get through the rest of these supplemental orders. So, the next ones are fairly straight forward and they were presented. Last night by Holly and. She. Explained the policies of. Trying to make sure that we have. 10% that our free cash is a 5% of the general fund. Budget. And the. Stabilization fund, the general stabilization fund is a 10%. That above that we transfer to. To other funds and. So we know what. What they are. And one of them is being reparations and the other being capital. So. I'm ready to make a motion if you want. I think we traditionally go through each one separately. So. I'm going to. Let's just keep going with the we've been doing. I'm going to move. Yes. I have a question. May I speak? Yes. Yeah. So. We were adding 767,450 to the general stabilization fund. I thought we already had. 10% in the general stabilization from, from last year. Is this just the due to the increase in the budget? I mean, the, the, the, the overall town budget or. Did we somehow tap into some. Something in the general stabilization fund that we have to replace. Do you want to answer that? Do you want to solid? I think that's Holly's question. I'm double checking right now. I don't believe that we used any general stabilization last year. We used capital stabilization. It is likely due to the change in the, in the, in the budget figure. That's fine. I just wanted to make sure that we're not. We weren't somehow tapping into that fund and that was something I didn't think we needed to do. So. It's a vote of town council to take money out of there. So. No, I think it was just that the changes in the, we had also the year before, unfortunately, before interest rates got really great again, we had had some market losses. So there were the year before the balance did go down this last year. It did go up and the only difference would be. The change because we did not use money. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we could. We could talk about the investment policy, but I think that that's going to delay us a lot. Let somebody really has questions about it. The funds generally, our policy is to invest with the state. And as I mentioned in the morning. The committee was. The council approved the department of. Treasures. Fund. And they. They manage the investments for municipalities. So I make a motion. Finance committee recommended the council approve council order. 24. To the stabilization funds. Second, but I'd like to speak to the motion. Yes. I'd like the record to capture. That for the reparation stabilization fund. That. At some future time. A. Committee who is given the responsibility of disbursement from the reparation stabilization fund. Could come to the council. And request. Money. Out of that fund. In advance of it, meeting its $2 million limit. In order to capture what I believe was the essence of the recommendation in the. HRA report. You want to do that now? Or is this the HRA policy discussion that we need to have. In order to finish out the HRA recommendations on section three. I guess I'm feeling. The need for both finance and GOL to do something. That recognizes that discussion. And I don't care if it's with this or in a carryover memo, but somehow or another, we not. Put aside the fact that there has been a request. In advance of. A successor assigned committee. Using coming to the council with a program that they want to spend funds for in advance. Of. There being a million dollars. Two million. Two million. Two million. Right. We can make sure. I think that we need to carry on the discussion. With the HR. I made reference to the fact that I had spoken with Michelle. Earlier in the day, and she was fine with. Passing. The. This recommendation for the transfer. Being made. Through what we're doing now. And I pointed out exactly. That you just raised and said that they. We need to have that discussion. And. So she's well aware of it, but it's really. I have conceived of it as being when we get back to actually. Making a report back to. The. Council regarding. The section three, which is what our assignment is. That's fine. So. Yeah, Andy, I just wanted to. Echo Lynn's desire to do something on that, especially with the 20th. So I just checked the report being due on the 20th. So, but I think. I'm hoping we have that list of questions is in the packet, but it hasn't been touched since sort of the partial answers we got previously. When will we see. Answers to the rest of it. I particularly wanted to see the modeling question for, you know, I think that this may be what's referred to as a carryover item. But we're going to, in the end. Recommend. Issues that can't be resolved before the end of this council term and have to carry over to the next council. And I have not had a chance to. Talk with the chair of GOL directly about this, but it's my understanding that the part that was assigned to them for consideration. Is also going to have to carry over to the next council. And so that. The, I think that they both do and. What Michelle said when I was talking with her. Is that she understands that she just would like to see the carry over memos. Being very specific that we recognize the issues that need to be addressed and. That we're committed to providing responses to the issues that were signed. Initially to the current committees. So I think that. The discussion will happen, but it's probably not going to happen that quickly. I know Linda said. I think you talked with her also today. Yes. In place. I think we are, I think we all realize we're not going to resolve this during this term. And that's all I'm, I mean, I have nothing else to say. Yeah. Kathy. Yeah, I just want to ask. I agree with what Lynn's suggested on records showing. And I liked your wording lot, land. So I'm wondering in. Andy, you said it could be in the minutes. When we report back our recommendation for these different transfers. Could we also put those two sentences in to say we didn't forget. And so it will be in a council document. It wouldn't just be in the minutes of the finance. So I didn't know what you were asking for. Lynn. Because the minutes it gets kind of buried. If it's in a council document, it stays with it. And I'm just saying that, you know, in doing this, we also noted and then the wording that Lynn provided. I would be comfortable with that. So I don't know whether others would be. I'd like it in the report that we do. I'd also like it to see mentioned in our carryover memos. Yeah. Thank you. If you have the sentences down there, can record them. Otherwise I'll ask Athena. I think we're going to have to ask Athena. Thank you. So. We have a motion that has been made in second that I believe. Regarding. I think I actually seconded it. I think I actually seconded it. Andy made. Andy made a motion and then seconded it. Okay. So. I'll second it. I'll second it if we don't have a record or someone. Make sure we second it. I second it. Yeah. Okay. I think Lynn did. I think I actually seconded it. Andy made a motion and then seconded it. Okay. So. Moving down the alphabet, one more to start. Take the vote. Bob Hector. Support. Support. Matt. Support. Ernie. Yes. I'm a yes. Alicia. Yes. Anna. Lynn. I'm a yes. I'm a yes. I'm a yes. Yes. And Lynn. I. I think everyone is voted and it's. Five to zero three support. Which then gets us to. Council order 24. For B. And. Maybe what I'll do is since we heard the presentation of this last night. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion and then. Since we heard the presentation of this last night. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion and then. If people have questions or discussion, we can let it come after the motions has been made. So I move that the finance committee recommend that the council approve. Council order 24 04 be an order appropriating a supplemental increase. To the town of Amherst operating budget for fiscal year 2024. To incorporate for firefighter positions previously funded by our book. Second. The second was on it. Okay. So. Are there any, does everybody understand what the source of these funds are because this is actually a transfer. From the ambulance fund, it is not a transfer from. The big cash. So I just want to make sure, or are there any other questions or comments people wish to make. If I may, Andy. Yes, just wanted to bring highlight that we are including the benefits costs for these four positions. So we want to highlight that. And we call that out explicitly just, I think that was a question Kathy had raised earlier. So we are trying to capture the full cost of these additional positions. Okay. Anything else. Thank you. Hopefully that will get into the minutes. I just have a quick question. Paul. Is the UMass money going into the ambulance fund and then this is coming out of it. Yes, Holly can address that if you want. Yes, that is correct. Yes. So the ambulance received a reserve for appropriation account. The strategic partnership gets split up and sent to a couple of places, but this portion of it is to fund the additional firefighters. It goes into the ambulance fund and then we will annually add that to the amount that we take out to cover portion of their operating budget. Yep. So we will see this appropriation every year. Every year it will be, it will be part of the original budget from this point forward. We transfer an amount into the ambulance fund at the beginning of each fiscal year to cover a portion. I believe it was about $2.8 million last year to cover their capital and a portion of their operating budget. We're doing this now midterm, but next year it will just be part of that original number. I think we can move ahead then. So, there's no other hands up and I don't see any of them. They call start moving down again alphabetically. So that makes me at Holloway the first person I'm going to call in support. Bernie Kubiak. Support. Yes, Shane. Yes. Nami Yes, Alicia Walker. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Devlin does. Last name works to I. Yeah. Well, you answered lots of questions, things that we won't go into that. Lynn. Hi. And. I'm Hegner. Support. Okay. So again, it's unanimous with. All three resident members in support. And it passes, which then brings us to. Council order 2416 a. Regarding three cash transfers to. Hand of this impact revenue fund. And. Is there any question that people have after last night's presentation. Of what, how the cannabis impact money. It's into free cash. Or what this is about, Kathy. I don't have a question about this. My question is, and. And I apologize if this was already said last night, I'd like to know what the balance in this fund is. And I have the same question for the opioid. And what we can use it for. And do we have any plans to use it? So it's a three part my understanding is we have to do this. It has to be sequestered the way we're doing it. So I'm a yes for both of these orders, but I'm. What, what kind of balance are we building up and each and then. We know your questions. Yeah. Holly, you know the balances. Yeah, so the, the cannabis impact. The one had been had been accumulating for a few years and we did a transfer last year. It was 713,000 for $151. So this brings the balance in the cannabis impact fee to 763,500. The opioid money. Fy 23 was the first year we got it. So the $162,000 will be the balance. There are other ways to account for this, but this is the most easiest way to account for it. And then we can appropriate it without further action from a special revenue fund. They both can only be spent on. And I can, I will find the information I found the one on the opioid money. I wasn't able to find yesterday the one on the cannabis impact fee, but they can only be spent on mitigating the, you know, the effects of substance use disorder. So it can be used for educational programs. It can be used, you know, in the schools, it can be used to buy, like the opioid money can be used to buy Narcan and, you know, counseling services and things that folks. Who have substance abuse disorders, you know, are looking for this is to mitigate the effects of both the, the cannabis, the impact of having those sales in our town. And then the opioid settlement funds. And I will find the information and send it along to you folks. Yeah, so the impact just, I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, yep. Next question was, I missed the part about. Do we have plans for it yet? We do not have. Concrete plans for it yet. There are a lot of ideas. I know that the schools are looking to maybe tap into some of this money for some educational programs at the school level. We just hired our new public health director who is already asking lots of questions about this and I believe I'm meeting with her later on this week to try to figure out how she can go about starting to get a plan together for this. So Paul, yeah, two different funds, two different purposes, but the cannabis impact has to be tied to the cannabis, to the impact of the cannabis establishments. And so it's kind of, you know, we, we're looking at what other communities have done for it to it. It's a lot of money in there, but a lot of, and there's some limitation of how we can use it. The opioid is brand new, our new health director, as Holly says, really all over this and eager to work with Craig stores and other groups about how to allocate the funds for their purpose. But, you know, I think the first step is to set them aside so we can account for it so we can report on it when we need to. I think that when the cannabis. That's got his hand up. It was a, you know, the thought behind it at the legislative level was costs like unknown public health education and public safety costs. And is a general matter is probably turned out to be more difficult than the legislature had anticipated at the time to identify costs that fit into those kinds of impacts. I'm not going to be surprised if the cannabis control commission doesn't amend the requirement or eliminate the requirement, but the funds are there and they have the depth of purpose map. I just want to say I'm excited to hear that, you know, you're having these conversations when when this came to us last year. And I think this is smart to have a special account, obviously. When this came to this last year, we talked at length, and I don't remember exactly what the final decision was, but we, we talked about like a reporting mechanism that wasn't too cumbersome for Paul and staff. But I think we collectively are just curious because as I have read some of those, you know, some of the restrictions on the use of the funds is, you know, it's calls for creativity, hard work, but it's a significant chunk of money. So I'm still, and I don't know exactly what we agreed on, but I think we found a solution that was not going to be cumbersome in terms of reporting, but it allowed us to at least, you know, be informed of it. And I hope we are going to honor that whatever we can all honor whatever we agree to. I think that last year uses run through the school. The former superintendent Morris had a couple of very specific proposals. We did fund those. So with that, I'm going to make the motion. I move that the finance committee recommend that the council approve. Council order 2416 a an order appropriating from free cash to the cannabis impact special revenue fund. That can't grease for. Okay, so the motion has been seconded by Lynn. And I believe that at this point, if there's no further discussion, I don't see any hands up. We'll start with Bernie. Support. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes. Lisa. Yes. I'm. Lynn. Hi. Bob. And Matt. Support. So again, we have unanimous vote with all three numbers. Who are resident members in support. And the last one is the. I move that the finance committee recommend that the council approve council order. FY 24 dash 16 be an order appropriating from free cash to the opioid settlement special revenue fund. That can grease for. Okay, I'll show Lynn again as the seconder. Any further discussion. We did. Talk about this a little bit. And I think that at this point. Run to Kathy starting. Yes. I'm a yes. Alicia. Yes. Hi. Lynn. Hi. Bob. Port. Matt. Support. And Bernie. Simple. Okay. So again, five to zero. With three resident members in support. So. We have taken care of that issue. Talked about rental registration and preparations. So I think that we've talked about all issues on the agenda. I have. Nothing to report. Other than what's already obvious about next meetings. I don't think we have any scheduling questions because we've scheduled them. Scheduled already. I don't have anything that was, I did not anticipate 48 hours in advance. Is there anything else? Yeah. I'm wondering if we're going to have to look at meeting. Twice. Right after Thanksgiving. And I think that's a good question. I think we should talk about that next. On Friday. And if, you know, and if we can do that. Do at the same time we're doing today, Tuesday. Tuesday at one. Why don't we leave it at this since everybody's present. Can I just ask, is that November 28th? Yes, it is. The design team on the school is here at Fort River. And. Well, I probably can't be there for the whole meeting, the beginning of the meeting. It starts at 11 in the morning, but they're going to be here. I might be late. So I could definitely start at two. On Tuesday. I just, it's, it's unusual for me to have a conflict. Let's, let's make it two. I'm just, I just am being realistic at this point. I'm just going to make a request. So I agree with all the rest of the committee to start at two o'clock on that Tuesday, if the meeting is needed, and let's plan that it will. I just make a request. These middle of the day meetings. They're really, really hard. I'm working way over hours to make them happen. If we can do as much sending questions to Andy in advance, getting answers in advance and just focus on getting to our votes and then we can start to get to the meeting. I know that everyone wants to be stuck in meetings, but. Whenever we add those two hours, it's, it, it makes life a lot harder for. I know everybody, but I'm just going to reiterate that it makes. I'll speak for myself only. It's making it really, really tough for the, the next couple of weeks. When I've got. That, that pesky job thing. So. I know I'm not alone in that, but if, if we could really try to. Pull it together and get as much in advance to Andy. And get answers in advance, that would be very, very helpful. Yeah. Are we not meeting at all next week? Yeah. If you go back and pull up to you. No, we are not. You could. That's why I asked. We could meet on the 21st. So. Paul. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. People have a Thanksgiving week. Is that what we're saying? I agree. Okay. We're holding the 28th, but you know, on it. For instance, I could meet that evening if that would be more helpful to you. But I don't know if others can. I don't need to play calendars. I just, I, I think that. I think some of the things that come up, we, at some point, we need to be satisfied with the answers we get. I think that we will always have more questions. And so I think this is more of a. Not really a morale boost, but sort of an encouragement to folks to. If we could get to a point where we're ready to start voting on, on things and really keeping it within the time on. Just stressing that this is, this is really getting, getting tough. Yeah. Got it. It is. I think we all are feeling it. There are two times of the year this happens for this committee. In May. And. During the end of the year. The direction year. Yeah. The election always makes it a little bit more difficult. But it. Let's all pay attention to. Question. I think we all are feeling it. There are two times of the year this happens. This committee. In May. And. During the end of the year. The direction year. Yeah. I think that it's important to. Interest. And, And. To do things in advance. So I have nothing further and don't say anybody else making requests. So therefore. I declare that the meeting is adjourned. We. 25. Great.