 So I'm calling the meeting of the finance committee to order. It is the meeting of Thursday, July 2nd. And it is meeting where we are going to be meeting with public safety department to hear public safety issues is the principal purpose of the meeting. I'm going to now for just a moment put up on the screen. The agenda for today's meeting. And just like to remind everybody that we're soon to go to March 12 2020 order suspending 38 section 18. This meeting of finance committee and town council is being starting to remote participation. In order to do that, I have to go through the process of asking each member of the finance committee to indicate that they have heard me by responding and saying that they have heard me or are present as I go through the list. And then I'm going to ask the council president to call a council to order and she will have to do a similar process. For members of the council who are not members of the finance committee. The finance committee consists of five members of the council and myself and four others, so I'm going to ask them first. Dorothy Pam, are you present. Yes. Shane. Yes. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. And I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm on mute and let us know you can be heard. Sorry. Yes. I'm here and I can hear. Okay. And then Guzmer. Yes, I can hear. Okay. And then the three members of the committee. Who are not counselors. Okay, so we have confirmed that all members of the committee have been able to participate in our able to participate in the meeting. Lynn, did you want to call the council to order? Yes. This time at 233 on July 2nd, I'm calling a council meeting to order as part of the town finance committee meeting as well. I'm calling a council meeting to order as part of the town finance committee meeting as well. And the people I need to check on are the following. Mandy Jo Hanneke, can you hear me? Yes, I can. George Ryan, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay, Andy, do you want to check on the other people who will be speaking today? I don't think it's necessary according to the open meeting law. And if we have problems, we will note it as we go through. I just want to alert you what the agenda is for today's meeting and what the order is going to be. It's only very slightly changed from the agenda as presented here. Public safety is going to be first and consists of, I think, so my understanding of the police department has decided that they would like to go first and so we're going to go in the order that they have requested. The one change that is made here is that general public comment will be third item so that after the public safety presentations, we will be recognizing any members of the public who wish to make comments to the committee about the issues that are for the committee today. We will then talk as a committee about where we are with the budget review process and that will conclude the meeting. So with that, I'm going to take the sharing down so we can get back to a more normal view. And I want to thank the members of our public safety departments for being present and what we normally do is have a brief presentation by the chief about the budgets being presented. And then turn it off, open it up to questions from members of the finance committee and additional members of the council regarding budgets as being presented. Chief Livingstone, welcome. Good afternoon. How's everybody doing. Hi, everybody. Typically, I oversee the animal welfare communication center and the police budget. So do you want to hear from all three of those I'm assuming you do, as in the past. I think we do but obviously, why don't we just do it in the order. And since police facilities is usually very quick, you can go ahead and start and just do it in the order is presented to in the book and then people can follow along in the budget book and for members of the public. If there are any attendance and I don't see any at this moment should be aware that the town manager's budget is available on the town website. And you look under government budget and then look for the town manager's budget. All members of the council and the committee have copies and police chief go ahead and give us just a quick presentation on the facilities budget and where we are there. Okay, if you want me to go right down the list then Andy I'll start with the police facilities budget. The police facilities budget itself is not actually drafted by myself but it's Rob more and Jeremiah, who put that presentation together. I will give them typically suggestions and recommendations about what needs to be replaced in the building. I'll just go through the recent accomplishments as far as the facility itself it's almost 30 years old it's still an outstanding shape. We have one full time maintenance person who oversees it. Deb Cormier who does an outstanding job. We've had replacement of the community room which gets a lot of use with new furniture and carpeting and also renovations to the communication center kitchen and the kitchen that was used by the police officers themselves. As far as the actual budget and expenses that isn't something I typically. I typically present, but if there are questions about the facility specifically I'm more than happy to answer those to the best of my ability, otherwise I'll go right into the police budget. Okay, so I'll just stop for a second and see. Kathy has a hand up. I've got a couple of questions. It's noted in the longer term that you're going to need a roof. Yes, and I didn't know whether and I don't think we need the information now since it's not I know it's not a next year's capital budget for the coming year, but your estimate of when that's going to come to us and we've also had an internal a couple of different audits on energy efficiency and on solar and that you're going to be starting to implement some of those just some sense of, are we heading towards solar or not. And again, when would that expense come. And my last question is related to something I saw on communication that you're, you're considering the possibility longer term of being a regional communication center and do so the question was about space it is our space big enough if we went regional to accommodate that so those are my three the roof energy efficiency and space if we were to go regional. So specific to the roof. It is a area that we have been discussing with facilities people about replacing. So it's my understanding there is money been appropriated for the roof replacement section for FY 21. And then that needs to be replaced first and then the discussion about solar and solar costs would take place. So I don't solar certainly won't be taking place in FY 21. But the roof shingles and structure needs to be replaced first and then they're going to have the discussion about adding the solar to it it's an area though that we want it to happen. Pretty consistently every year. The discussion is about the cost of running this facility which is 24 7365 I think it's probably the most expensive facility to run every year. From a cost of you know fuel and electricity and that sort of thing. So, I know that the roof itself is to be replaced in FY 21 or that's my understanding in the solar is to come afterwards. So probably FY 22. As far as the communication center on the third floor of the police facility. Those are conversations that we continue to try and find partners with most recently Belcher town and Hadley. If it were to become a regional dispatch center which is what we're hoping for and watch. We could accommodate up to three other communities of that size. If we were to look at a much larger regional approach to communications. I know the discussions were that once a decision was made on a new fire facility. We would probably incorporate a new communication system into that into that blueprint into that construction phase. So that's kind of where we stand. Thank you. If you don't have a follow up on mass Mandy Joe whose hand was up. And I'm just trying to get through all members of the committee and the council who have questions have hands up release this segment. Yeah. I just have a follow up on the communication center the regionalization of it. So I, it's sort of a piggyback on Kathy's question. How would the impacts on how would that regionalization impact funding would we get, you know, because it might include increased maintenance or increased operational costs. And how I assume that would be some sort of regionalization agreement that might allow us to help maintain the building a little bit more but I'd like, you know, some thinking on that and what would it be the impact of the facility. And she talked about size Kathy asked about size but the extra use potentially of it. And then the other question is about the electricity per se which I've noticed has gone up dramatically in kilowatt usage in the last five years. And I'm wondering if there's a reason for that. I know that's kind of into the weeds but when we're looking at reducing electricity it was it was curious to see how much that's increased. You know, I am manually specific to the electricity cost. I don't have an answer for you on why it's gone up so significantly. You know, pretty much the manpower has remained the same and our manpower and the communication center has remained the same. We have just recently changed some of the boilers and the boiler systems which were old. So I don't know and that just happened this past year. So I don't know if that fact that going to a more efficient set of boilers is going to bring that cost back down or that usage back down. But I know that was a concern with the with Rob Moore and maintenance and things and that's kind of why I had been pushing for so many years to really start thinking about solar when we replace the roof. So I don't actually have a legitimate answer on why that has gone up so dramatically. As far as the size and the ability of the communication and its current blueprint we can accommodate two more dispatch centers. With the current setup the way it is we have the ability to have additional dispatch personnel up there. If we were to take on partners of the size of either Belcher town and Hadley and or both. We could accommodate the added call volume with the current structure that we have there now. So we wouldn't need any additional buildouts. We wouldn't need any additional additional construction for the call volume that would represent taking on Belcher town and or Hadley at this time. I just have quickly follow up Andy and if we did would we have some sort of agreement where they help pay for the costs associated to that. I can answer that Andy. So yes, it would be an agreement with both those towns that they would incorporate some of the cost. We also believe it would be a savings for the town of Amherst and a savings for both Belcher town and Hadley because they would actually be able to eliminate all of their full time positions except for probably one. So we would, we would take on one each full time position from Belcher town and Hadley but of course they would incur the cost on that. So we understand, or we believe there would be savings across the board for both ourselves and for both Belcher town and Hadley and we also know that we would be getting increases from state E 911 if we became a regional center. The grant funding part that we get from the state would increase as well. And I believe just everybody knows because I've been on the fight from my original days on the finance committee, which is around 2007 on this goal of trying to get to a regional dispatch approach is a more cost effective approach for us and for the communities that we join us has been a long standing and ongoing discussion. People questions on this segment of the budget and then we should move on Dorothy Pam. I'd like to ask if the have considered having the communication center. A secure energy center in other words off the grid so that in case of disaster no matter what else happened that would continue to function. So, yes, Dorothy, we are actually this summer working on a backup system that would be located at the North fire station. So we're in the process of doing that currently and we are, we are applying for a grant for the equipment, equipment that would be necessary to do that up at North fire. Okay, thank you. Mary Lou. Mary Lou. Did you have a question? Yes, I do. Hello. Yes, please go forward. I was wondering if the combination of the roof and the solar doing it at the same time would be a greater savings over time. Obviously, you know, it's a money issue, but it may be more cost effective if we did it all at once rather than doing it at two different times. Yes. Very quickly. First of all, I'm very glad to see in here the desire to maintain this building at its current use because one of the things we're dealing with is all the other buildings in town that we have not been able to maintain. And the second thing is I am I correct that the call center already covers the other towns that we provide ambulance service to. I could defer that question about ambulances maybe to the fire department guys because we lost that contract. But I know we still do dispatch for firing ambulance for some of the regional towns. Yes. Right. Okay. Thank you. I wanted to get back to Mary Lou's question really quickly about the order of things. What's most cost effective approach. I was kind of hoping Lynn was going to answer that for me, but I will answer it from my own experience. It makes no difference. They're two different companies. Roofers don't install solar doesn't install roofs. Unless you have a different experience. So I would suggest that on these, these level of questions that you wait for the maintenance budget to come in. It's really Rob Mora and Jeremiah who are probably going to run these projects anyway. Yeah. Okay, we'll do that. So then we can get on to the police department unless there's any questions about the ability. So, that did you have something before we go on. No, I, well, no, I was like trying to get ready for going on. And also I'm going to say that I seem to be on this screen in two places, one where you can see me and I'm talking, but my name is also listed with a non video thing. And I have no idea why that is and I don't know whether that means something is happening. So I just wanted to put that out there. I'll, I'll remove the extra patent. Thank you. One of me is enough. So back to the chief. I'm sure we turn to the police budget. Sure. So I, and I'll try and I know Sean wanted us to try and stay to about five minutes. And we'll see how that goes, but I'll run that through this relatively quickly as far as the police budgets and I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions but you know our mission statement was a mission statement that was developed with the police department and the community in mind and that was something we've changed about six years ago and we're in process of looking at redeveloping that mission statement as this year as we speak. Recent accomplishments and current challenges. You know, you see all the bullets in front of you about our accomplishments of what we're very proud on our community outreach with septet and community outreach. I think when you look back at our call volume, a lot of the calls that have been reduced or specific to all the work that we've done in community outreach, most of it towards the campus and community coalition group. Our crisis intervention team and our dark team deals more specifically with mental health issues in town that we are, you know, pretty constantly dealing with. We're very, very proud of the work we've done with with that group as well. You know, we continue to recruitment is a challenge in our profession. As far as both police recruits and getting officers to apply for the positions. It's something that you know we involve the community with and our HR department with frequently long range objectives I will continue on. I will continue to work on if I get the majority of emails and calls that I get are probably from people requesting traffic and traffic enforcement in their neighborhood so it's an area. You know, we continue to stress and work on continue to working with our schools provide the resources that they need specific to keeping the school environment safe. Updates for objectives. You know, you can see those most of them are either continuing to be ongoing or accomplished. You know, all the strategies that we have going on about the work that we're doing in town are there in front of you so I'll answer questions specific to that. And then, where we stand with our FY 21 objectives to expand and implement continue work with our tech team and community outreach groups. We're working for grants and funds to help us work better on anything that we do within the community, whether it's our hope you ordered passports groups are guard officers are crisis intervention group are wrote adventure course that we do with with community members. We're working on department and townwide with our Alice training and alert training, and, and that's pretty much self explanatory far as our FY 21 objectives. You know, as far as our happy levels we are we are currently budgeted at 48 currently have on staff 44 officers. We have three that are currently in the Academy will be graduating this month. So we have one vacancy weren't anticipating probably three retirements this coming year. So, you know that that's going to be continue to be a challenge as far as recruitment and the recruitment process. I'm not sure what else you want me to cover Andy with, I thought it would be more geared towards questions and that sort of thing so I'll stop there. If there are very specifics you want me to address as far as the budget. I'd be more than happy to but I know again. 93% of our budget is vivid up into personnel. And then the rest of supplies maintenance and that sort of thing. So, that's kind of where we stand. Did we lose Andy. Do you see Andy anywhere. We did lose Andy. Okay. Okay, Andy noted that at the beginning that he has some issues in his house, and that he would move to another room so I am temporarily taking over as chair. Alexander Hague. Yes, I am, I am, I am this the sub the sub whatever. And I see one person I think Pat's hand was up first. And I know that she was prepared to be talking about this. So Pat, do you want to lead off. Andy's back. I just called on Pat, Andy. Pat's movie. Pat. I'm unmuted but what I said was, I have lowered my hand temporarily. Oh, okay. The question I had was already answered in terms of the two openings and whether that was budgeted or not. And I have other questions, but I'll wait to see how things go. Okay, Andy, do you want to take over do you want, because there, I'm going to raise my hand too but I see Dorothy and Sharon both have questions. Why don't you go ahead with the, just follow that order and do you ask your questions and then we'll go with Dorothy and Sharon and then if they're quick, I have a question that I'll ask after. Well, I'm going to call on them first because they had their hands up the in the entrance so Dorothy. Okay, I wanted some more explanation on the CPTED, the community policing through environmental design teams. Wanting to know, it's that you're planning to increase that. How does that affect personnel plans and costs. In other words, what are they, I gather that means that they're not in the police station out and about doing things. They're different from what you have been doing. So, yeah, thank you. Can you hear me now. Yes. Okay. So yeah, our crime prevention through environmental design, mostly exists through one officer Bill Laramie it's a national program and it's an actually recognized program we're an award winning program and it comes to the work that we've been able to do and we've accomplished through officer Laramie and the work that he does, but he's kind of the kingpin of the CPTED, you know, operation, but we do incorporate all the other police officers in some way shape or form so, you know, North Amherst has been getting the brunt of the, you know, concentration on our efforts. And typically what would happen is, we'll find a problem in a neighborhood and I'll use Grant what is an example now where we've been having some issues up there. So we'll kind of over officer Laramie will kind of oversee and identify what the issues are and then the officers that are assigned to that. You know, sector will be also responsible about working with Bill to find reasons and ways that we can fix the specific problems. It may be a problem with a lot of noise disturbances or parties. It may be a specific neighborhood is dealing with house breakings or that sort of thing. But once the problem is identified, officer Laramie will kind of oversee and coordinate either group meetings, neighborhood meetings or officer involvement and take care of that issue. And that's kind of the idea behind the sector based policing philosophy that we started some 10 years ago is identify problems find solutions and work through those solutions to doing agreed upon recommendation. Thank you. Welcome. Sharon. I have to have two quick questions. One under the status update of FY 20 objectives. You state that helping a strategy to contend with anticipated increases in motor vehicle collisions and fatalities. And I believe that's due to associated with illegalization of recreational marijuana. However, in the if you look in the next page, like looking at motor vehicle crashes and motor vehicle violations those two are going to be going down. In instance, and so I wondered if you could speak to that a little and my other question was concerning the full time community outreach officer for downtown. Is, is there an aspect of that that I know policing has changed a lot in 30 or 40 years but is that a feet on the street person, or is that somebody who you know it's more in your building. I'm just, you know, I obviously I have a business downtown. I have a lot of people who are challenged, you know, in the parks. So just wonder if you could speak to that a little. Sure. So the first part about the FY 20 objectives about developing strategies for increases in collisions and fatalities. Based on what we had heard and we've heard from reports from other states that had already enacted legalization of marijuana laws. Quite frankly, the good news is we haven't seen the same types of issues that they've seen in both Colorado and the Washington area. We were anticipating a larger number of crashes associated with an uptick in marijuana use, and we haven't seen it. I think that's a good thing. Even our OUI arrested down and we were having a discussion earlier today about it and the good thing is education was an integral part of that and the uses of Uber in this town is very high and we think that's had an impact on it as well. So quite frankly, as far as the expectations of increased accidents, we just haven't seen it, which is really good news from our perspective. As far as the downtown outreach officer, that is a foot officer and or bike officer, whether dependent, sometimes he's in a cruiser, but the expectation is he walks and or bikes downtown gets to know the business owners better and or the individuals who are hanging out. You know, downtown more frequently, whether it's, you know, issues with homelessness or other individuals that is an officer, it's officer Casey Nagel. He is out there. You know, he works a foreign to ship so he's out there, you know, whatever his four shifts of the week are he is out there, and he is dealing with downtown issues. So that's not us. That's not an office person. That's a police officer in uniform who's downtown. Andy, maybe I could ask my questions now and then see who else. So I was both of those were on my list so thank you, others for asking them. I was looking at the service calls and the mix of them. And one question is, I'm assuming but I might not be right that you enter a call into just one category or could some of these be the same person was in three or four categories. So that's just an overall question. And then I have a second one about the mix. So, if I understand your question correctly, and one individual be when a call comes in for whatever the service may be, whether it's a noise disturbance, or a, you know, let's say just somebody complaining about somebody hanging out in the town comment or so there, it is possible that somebody would be responsible for more than one. We call it a cat computer generated dispatch so one individual could be responsible for more than one call that is true yet. And then what I was doing, I might not have been able to do what I was doing so I was adding up calls for domestic violence rape sexual assault restraining order mental health, you know, sort of clusters. And if I add those up, I get to about 1000 of the calls. So that may be the original call was nuisance and you got out there and found it was a mental health concern. So what I want to focus on that is the training that your team has. And as you think of vacancies and the department, would you, you know, it, it seems to me that wouldn't be typically what police academy would train for some of them are health related. Would you potentially be able to hire a specially trained person out of a police academy, or can you hire a different kind of person and make them a team team up with a police officer so I don't know how much flexibility you have in the staff mix if you see you know this these don't seem to me sometimes even you necessarily want to have a police uniform be the only uniform someone seeing but you need someone there so that's the question of them, the mix of the team. So, when a recruit officer gets trained at the academy there, their academy training is pretty basic. So they wouldn't be an officer who would be part of a sexual assault investigation team, not for many many years. You know, there needs to be some experience for an officer so it wouldn't really fall into the lap of a new police officer. They get very basic training, specific to domestic violence or rape investigation that sort of thing. One of the good things, one of the really great things that I'm very proud of in this agency, specific to sexual assault is the grant we did with the University of Massachusetts. Yeah, five years ago, close to a half a million dollar grant where we actually have a civilian advocate who works in our building. She works directly with the victims of anything related to domestic violence. So if an officer responds to a call. She is immediately contacted and works with that victim right through the process of court hearings works with the police officers. She has complete access to end an office right here in our building. And she is funded to a grant that we've had for over five years now. One area where we're very proud of, we are looking to expand that into mental health fields as well. We have a grant that we have and Captain young can talk a little bit more about it with our crisis intervention team members. We have a grant that was written with CSO Northampton. And that very question has, we started to work on this spring was about duplicating what we've done with the domestic violence advocate and having a mental health advocate in the facility in this building as well. That's an area that we're looking to expand Ronnie, do you want to add anything on that. Very briefly, Chief. I mean, one of one of the models that we see nationally and I would love to replicate here for our community. The core response. So you'll notice that our mental health calls have risen over the last couple of fiscal years. Some of that is self initiated activity with people for aftercare reasons. You recognize that we're not clinicians. What we try to do is make them make different resources available. Current models naturally are that if you have a response, police officers or the relationship. The clinician can then take over on care for the patient, get them wired and when they wire that cost money, of course, so we are actively searching out various grants that are available to the Department of Mental Health. Thank you. Thank you. I think what I heard you say is right now the approach is to the extent you can find a grant for this. It wouldn't be in addition to police, you would have someone who's specialized so you know longer. So I'll leave my question there because it, you know, I see that you also have medical calls that you go out with the ambulance and it's similar that it's a, it's a, it's not traffic. It's not, you know, it's not the longer list. So thank you. I'll stop. I'll just ask one quick follow up on that and then I'm going to go to Pat is the next person but chief is it still standard practice on domestic violence calls to send out to officers at a time. Correct. It is more and more the calls that we respond to are requiring multiple officer responses but domestic violence is one that for many, many years is responsible as necessitated a two officer, at least two officer response. For a host of reasons and I can go on for half an hour about that but yes that is a two officer minimum two officer response to a domestic violence call. Okay, I might return to it later but I wanted to proceed to others on the committee and the council. Pat, you put very patient. Yes, I have a combined question about the FY 21 objectives. We work with town staff and community outreach members to complete a review of department wide rules and regulations policies and procedures, and then at the bottom, you have continued to maintain our best practices as outlined by President Obama's task force on 21st century policing. And one of those I mean I look that up and it's an amazing document although a lot of it is questionable but it to a recommendation that is a two point six is law enforcement agency should be encouraged to collect, maintain and analyze demographic data on all the tensions stops risks, searches summonses and arrests. Is that happening can you clarify for us how the community is involved and also what practices, are you implementing from that from Obama's task force or and what are you leaving out and why. Yeah, so specific to the President Obama's task force we do follow that and the recommendations that were implemented in that most of those. Yeah, all of them. So you have a citizens review committee. We don't have a citizens review committee specific but I mean I'm going specifically with the. What can the five, what are the five things that a police agency can do. So we follow those as far as the transparency and data collection, what we're trying to establish now and Captain Ting is working on that we've always collected the filing data on motor vehicle stocks. So we're trying to break that down even further to for the arrest numbers and enter any interactions that we have with the public that may result in not only just traffic stops but any, any, you know, call volumes that we will respond to it all so it's complicated with our community with our CAD dispatch system on trying to break down those actual numbers. Traffic citations are easy to do. It's less easy for responding to just general calls because we don't always ask for a person's to identify, you know, and we don't want to guess about some somebody's ethnicity or that sort of thing. So it's a little bit more complicated and tracking those types of numbers. And what about arrests. Arrest again, that's something that we can do but it's hard to do, because we don't necessarily always have accurate information about individuals that we're arresting because we don't specifically always ask them what their nationality is. And they don't always want to give it. So basically you kind of follow certain elements of the plant 21st century policing but you modify them. As you see fit I know in terms of undocumented community. We've asked the department, not to as a sanctuary city to ask for proof of residency and things like that. So that's a way of modifying so I'm not trying to imply that all modifications would be negative, but And I agree with that I mean it just, it's not something that we've always done in the past as far as a general booking process if somebody gets arrested. It is something that we do because it's mandated for traffic violations. It's kind of. So how do you wed. I'm sorry if I'm taking up too much. How do you wed that to transparency and communication with the community that feels like it in Amherst it feels like it's being targeted. And, and you have you can't show that they are or we can't show that they aren't or, you know, those are areas I think we're going to need to have communication from the public about because it's not as simple as asking somebody. Okay, what do you identify is as a nationality and or raised because sometimes they just don't want to tell us and that happens with traffic stops as well. You know, we have people where an officer will write a citation and an officer will write down black male and he'll say I'm not a black male so you know it's it's not as always as accurate as we would like it to be but we try and make it as accurate as we can make it. Thank you. You're welcome. I just want to point out that we want to try and stick as close to budget as we can on questions. Other people brought up objectives. So I know I know I appreciate that. A little tricky question. I'm looking actually I was doing this more to get guidance from the council president is to whether she has any advice for us on the subject and what she envisions for a different meeting. I would say that the police working with the town manager are in the process of preparing a very comprehensive presentation that will address many of these issues on Monday. To the extent possible I would like us to stay on the budget today, because we do have a full council meeting where chief living stone and his other fellow members will say and I will say I was not the first person to bring up questions about objectives. In fact I didn't I waited, and I feel uncomfortable that we're being told to stop. Yeah, no I appreciate that and I think that the problem that I'm trying to get at today is that we have a lot of territory to cover on budget issues and I'm not picking on anyone for having started the conversation. It was a good conversation to begin, but I don't want to end up losing our time to get to the fire department and EMS budget and really complete budget questions and so I was that that's why I did that and I apologize if it was misunderstood. But if there are additional questions that come along that seem that they should be asked today, please do. I'm looking at hands up in the sea of Mandy and then Bob Hegner and the Hanna key and then Bob. Thank you. Um, I have also been having a hard time distinguishing between the two. So I'm going to try and save some of my questions for Monday that might not be as related directly to next year's budget versus potentially future years budgets beyond that but I do have a question and I'm going to try to ask some others that are more directly related to budget. One of your long range objectives is the need for traffic officers. I'm wondering whether in alternatives to that need for additional potentially hires, dedicated officer or officers, which may require additional hires and have been all looked at, you know, have we looked at expanding our parking and parking management to other areas. Have we looked at reassigning. You know this goes to sort of some of those objectives reassigning calls that might not be traditionally thought of as properly in the police department but are now handled by the police department to non police officers, whether that's quality of life or drug and opioid issues or animal calls. Have we looked at technology solutions, red light cameras and other things like that that address some of those traffic issues, speeding and everything, but don't require hiring or dedicating individuals to that role so that's one of my questions about public enforcement in general. And then I would like you to talk about the size of the police department as it relates to the size of our community what standard practice is. We have a community of about 40,000 residents but we also have two other bonded police departments in our community that are contracted essentially to patrol approximately 15,000 of those 40,000 residents with ACPD patrolling everyone on campus of Amherst College and ACPD patrolling a sent you could consider it 13,000 or so beds that are on UMass campus in terms of populations. So, I don't know how to look at that with what a PD covers versus ACPD and UMass PD. But what is a standard size for a department and is some of that related to maybe how much this department covers that might not be traditionally considered police calls. So yeah, a lot of information I'll try and get a lot of questions I'll try and get it all Mandy. As far as traffic enforcement. So we don't have a dedicated traffic safety officer group we used to and it consisted of two officers whose sole responsibility was go out and basically do traffic enforcement right so officers who are on regular patrol are responding to calls are responsible during the course of their patrol shifts to find the neighborhoods where we're receiving complaints and run radar that sort of things stop traffic stop signs and red light violations. So that's the expectation there. As far as red light cameras and that sort of thing as against the law currently it would need to be a legislative change. Well, you know that is not something we're allowed to do. So, you know, we don't have the ability to do that in the state of Massachusetts yet. So, that covers the traffic enforcement part as far as standards for police officer or police agency sizes. There was a there is a national recommendation based on population and call volume. We brought that up. Probably right around when I became police chief 10 years ago about where we should be. All of the standards that we looked at we are smaller than we should be. And in comparison, you know you mentioned the University Police Department their budgeted at 62 police officers. Northampton is budgeted at 60 police officers were busier than both of those agencies, even with the reduction in Northampton Police Department's budget of I think $600,000 they're still budgeted at 55 officers now, you know we're budgeted at 48. So, from a size perspective I would, you know, I would argue that we're probably less than we should be but we've made. I think it's on a really good job with the resources that we've had in the pleasing that we've done. Amherst College pretty much stays there. It's a different process that they go through for on campus officers as far as what they're allowed to do off campus. You know the training is different. Not to say that they haven't assisted us and vice versa. The University of Massachusetts Police Department is pretty exclusively staying on campus. You know, typically when we're at our busiest whether it's September, October, March, April and May is when they're the busiest. We certainly help each other out recalls when times are when it's necessary or needed. But we've had experimentations with mutual patrols and that sort of thing. And they haven't always worked out. Can I follow up, you know, you say no host budgeted at 55 officers and we're similarly sized in our Hampton but that includes, you know, all of the residents of the UMass campus and the Amherst College campuses that have their own police department. And I guess that was part of my question was, if we know I'm generally not a fan of removing students from calculations but but there are essentially three police departments that are patrolling sectors of town with UMass patrolling UMass campus I don't think they generally patrols that so if we remove those individuals from the calculation what would our national recommended recommended size be for a population that's about, you know, that 25,000 and, and I guess that that the counter of that is call volume is separate from population and does our call call volume match our population in that instance and I guess would be another question. You know for comparisons as far as call volume. You know, on UMass's end, I don't know what their call volume looks like obviously in the summertime it's going to be significantly reduced. And because we restrict our officers time off. We don't allow officers to take vacation time typically on Thursday Fridays and Saturdays and September, October, November, April and May, so our officers take a lot of time off in the summertime. So it kind of matches the fact that we are have a reduction in call volume and fewer officers working in the summertime because we wouldn't replace for overtime that sort of thing. You know, going back to, you know, 10 years ago when we did the national federal standard, we were supposed to be. And it was based on call volume population. We were trying to remember what else, geographical size that sort of thing. You know, the recommendation that was that we would have been I think 55 officers is where Amherst would have been. You know, for many, many years, we've looked at mechanisms or ways to try and get both the university police department to work mutual patrols with us and it just hasn't worked out. Anything else maybe if not I'll see Bob Wagner. No, I'm good for now. Yeah, I had a question about trends and call volume. If I look at the chart on the table on page 52. So 15 and 16, the volume was roughly 15,000 calls, then 1718 19 the volume jumps about 16%. And is that a trend that's continuing. And at some point, is that going to put any stress on the, the, the number of or putting, you know, increase the need for the number of officers. I can tell you that the trends kind of fluctuate. We've been as high as 21,000 calls in one year, but the trends currently in the 14 to 17,000 rain seems to be the most consistent that we've seen. You know, I look at things like arrest numbers that are weighed down and I specifically believe and we believe just based on the conversations we've had with our outreach officers that it's really comes down to the community outreach that we're doing why those numbers are so significantly specifically arrest numbers for quality of life calls, you know, minors in business of alcohol student related type calls are weighed down and we really believe that that's a direct result of the campus and community coalition in our community outreach and sector based officers, the work that they're doing. So, you know, numbers change every year. But the areas of concentration that we worked really hard at are the numbers that are going down and that those are the ones that we're most proud of right now. The ones that you see going up, yeah, they are mental health calls and calls related to homelessness and that sort of thing. And so that's an area that we're starting to concentrate more on. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Let's see if there are any other questions I don't see any right now chief I just said one follow up a little bit. What Mandy started and are there periods of time when you find it particularly difficult to arrange the staffing to get the number of officers available and on the street that you think should be there is that a non existent problem occasional frequent. How do you read what would you say I mean we try and you know in the process of recruitment. We try and educate the recruits as best that we can that look you're coming into an environment where we're a very busy police agency but our expectations are high as are the communities expectations of our officers. So you know we kind of try and prep them for the fact that it's a busy agency. There's an expectation that you'll be available for overtime because we do hire a lot of officers on overtime during the school years to you know make up for officers who may not be, you know, the numbers just aren't there so you know our weekends typically start on Thursdays so Thursday Friday Saturdays and now even Sundays. We find ourselves having to hire extra officers to deal with call volume they're just, you know calls in general because it seems like the types of calls were responding to now are a requiring more officer responses and then they're taking longer to deal with them. You know the dynamics of the policing has changed. So, those are the types of things we're seeing. You know, a typical arrest used to be, it used to take 15 or 20 minutes to book and do a report now it's over an hour hour and a half to accomplish that same task. The other guys are just more complicated so little things like that so if an officer makes an arrest he's essentially off the street for well over an hour and it didn't used to be the case. I see Mary Lou has a question. So, in the past that you there were concerns about the shelter and intercept shelter at the Baptist church and it seemed to be many calls there has that improved. That's the first question. The second question is that the media people who say they leave asking their address they say the streets of Amherst, and we know that there were issues, not only on the streets but around the library. And I wonder if that that group of people are increasing or decreasing and how much impact does that have on the department. So, specific to the shelter the Craig's door shelter. The call volume to that shelters. I wouldn't say it's a lot. It's consistent, but we also have officers who are liaisons to the shelter who work directly with not only the staff but they're very familiar with the clientele. So, we have a pretty good working relationship and working rapport with the bags door shelter people. So, I wouldn't say the call volume has increased over the years, but it's consistent for probably both for police and fire. As far as the community, the homeless community downtown. That also is relatively consistent. You know, when the shelter does close it becomes a different set of problems because they're finding places to sleep that we wouldn't necessarily want them to find a sleep. That was one of the reasons we initiated the downtown patrol officer. Officer Nagel is the deal specifically with issues related around the library. Sometimes town hall they would be in or other areas. So, you know, that there was a very specific reason and it was related to those types of calls that we had the outreach officer in downtown. Thank you. You're welcome. You talked about overtime and one of my questions was using COVID experience, which we hopefully won't have the same kind of experience over time but being able to quantify the extent to which your overtime either went down or shifted. And I'm partly thinking about this. I know Paul is listening also was that when we are in negotiations with UMass on what money they're paying back to the town. Right. This gives us, we can document some of that seasonality of the change in the mix. That was would have, would have been your typical March April, May, and however that happened. So I'm, I would, I would imagine either the budget for overtime was down or shifted during those months, and that you've already computed that in. You've already put it into next year's budget in terms of what you're expecting in the first half of the year, but just going back and doing some analysis of that to be able to be using on what are the nature of those calls that that produce overtime that we can't handle with regular staff. Yeah, so, yeah, and for overtime in the normal school year you're right. The majority of that is for vacation and sick replacement but then additional officers when we're at our busiest, which is September, October and November and then March, April and May. There was savings this year in our overtime budget because of the we see 19. You know spring break when the students didn't return. It wasn't necessary for us to have as many officers available. We had savings there and I think, you know, the fact that we weren't at maximum number of officers there'll be some savings there as well in our full time line item budget. But well, I guess we'll see where this fall takes us. I know we have concerns. I was meeting earlier today with you mass a zoom meeting. I don't think anybody quite knows what to expect for this fall as far as, you know, where we're going to be as an agency and what we're going to need for staffing levels. I guess time will tell on that but you know any monies that we and I know you all know this but any monies that we don't use gets returned to the general fund. Yeah, no, I know you're not sitting there with a nice purse sitting on your tail. Okay, thank you. I think it's an opportunity to document, you know, I'm going to say the same thing with ambulance and EMS, you know where before we could show seasonality but this will really show it in a different way. We certainly track. Okay, how much are we spending in our overtime budget on vacation replacement. How much are we, you know, using on sick replacement and then how much are we using for what we call extra help when we're assigning officers just to have extra bodies around at our peak times. We definitely document that. Okay, thank you. I don't see any more hands up is for the police. I'm just give a second to see if there are any other counselors or members of the committee who wish to ask additional questions about the police budget. And if not gone in some order to just briefly touch on communications and animal welfare. And then I guess chief we can go on to the other two segments of the budget that relate to your supervision. Sure so just the communication center. We have full 12 full time employees in the communication center that's been pretty consistent for many, many years. We one of those positions is paid for through the state in 911 grant. That's been a pretty standard practice that we've had over the years as well. We receive additional grant funding for training for our, our, all of our dispatchers they are mandated annually at 16 hours of training and that usually involves dealing with mental health problems. First aid, you know, being able to talk people through, you know, EMT issues, whether it be CPR that sort of thing. We have an extremely professional communications group led by Mike Curtin. You know, one of the questions and I know we've already discussed it earlier is trying to enhance or enlarge the possibility of a regional approach to communications. We've had difficulty over the years and continue to have difficulty finding partners to do that. There's a reluctance and of communities just to won't, we don't want to give up their communication center whether it's a small town like Granby Delta Town and Hadley and so those are the three communicate those are the three towns most recently we've had communication with about seeing if there's an interesting going to a regional system but other than that their, their, their budget again is similar to the police and that's 95%, 96% of it involves personnel, and then overtime replacement and that sort of thing, but I'll entertain any questions if anybody has anything specific to learn any questions about communications. Mandy. Thank you a couple related to funding. And I think some of this is already been answered but we do communications for Pelham levered and shoots Barry. I'm guessing and assuming but please confirm that they actually contribute to the class of our dispatch and and the funding for that. And does our designation of a as a regional hazmat dispatch center come with funding from the state. And then, then last one is the 911 call volume. This year was fairly decreased, you know showed a significant decrease. Is that because is it directly related to the loss of Hadley EMS through our dispatch. Now, when you're talking about the first part of the question Mandy for who we, who we dispatch for originally, Pelham levered and shoes very we only dispatch originally for fire, not for police on that. So, and I think Hadley's out of that loop as well and I would prefer to Tim Nelson on that specifically the E 911 calls received that's in transition. I brought my curtain down to explain that but they're going to a geographical location for E 911 or for 911 calls and a lot of it has to do with cell phones and where you are geographically on that. So, there's a reduction there because for instance if you're on the UMass campus now, it would go to the UMass police department as a check off for the number of calls we get. So that that there's some variations there about geographically where people are calling from on cell phones and that sort of thing. Thank you. Did I answer everything. Okay. I saw in the part that was called challenges. Is the word staff morale and turn over. Has it been difficult to retain people. Is there something. Is this like a one year or has that been long going and then on morale. So just a little bit about what that is. Yeah, there's been some pretty significant turnover in the communication center over the last couple of years. It's a stressful job there's no question about it and the town manager takes sits in on those from time to time. So we have had turnover recently. And it's a relative similar to policing and that it's a long process to get a replacement because there's training that's involved there's mandated training that's involved so you know the process of hiring a dispatch. It can be as long as six to nine months to get somebody who a goes through the interview process then goes to the training and then they have to go through a field training, you know, time, because you just, there's a lot to know up there. And so, and it's, again, you're working. You know the same schedule that police officers are midnight to eight four to 12 so that shift work involved it's weekends it's holidays it's not a profession that a lot of people can deal with so there is significant turnover and communication center there's no doubt about it. So that you would call that such as to, it's a long term problem and that it's going to be a recurrent. It sounds like you're saying it's a recurring problem too. It's not like you can see in a way to fix it or Yeah, I would agree with that the way I see to fix it is to try and get a regional regional approach to it because you'd be reducing the number of PSAPs communication center and you'd have more people to draw from. We're trying to get the state to change the mechanism of what they require for communication center. If they did something as simple as mandate to dispatchers at a time in every communication center, it would fix a lot of the problems. But that's at the state level and we haven't been successful at getting that accomplished. Okay, thank you. So, Dorothy, did you have something. One is a I have two questions but one's a quick follow up to that. Would an increased salary make the job more desirable. I mean, people are funny sometimes people take a really rough job and do it but if the salaries really good. Have they considered increasing the salary. Where's the town manager I need him to chime in here but yeah I'm sure that would be the first thing they would say but I pretty I know our, I know our communication salaries are competitive but I don't know in comparison to towns around here where they stand so if you can't keep somebody in the job, then there's costing you more because of the training and the whatever and it's cheaper to get somebody who stays. Yeah, I'll probably get a phone call from a communication center employee at about five minutes after this ends and wants to know why I didn't go to bat for him but you know those are conversations that you know I have specifically with Mike curtain and you know talking about keeping our salaries competitive to area dispatch centers you know North Hampton being the closest one in our size and I, you know, want to make sure that we stay equal to them that sort of thing. And my second question, if we're going to have a separate discussion on fire, but if I don't know why active shooter training is in the fire department EMS budget and not in the police department budget. So if it's going to be that's going to be dealt with later, fine I'll wait but that was one of my questions. I'm not sure why that's in their budget, except for the fact that we use tactical EMTs as part of our training for active shooter so I don't know if there's a crossover there. I didn't really, I'll be honest with I didn't really look at the fire budget, but we do use tactical EMTs as part of our active shooter training so I don't know if that's incorporated in there. So that does that mean it is a tactical EMT mean an EMT with a gun. It certainly means they're trained in how to use a gun but they wouldn't be carrying a gun. Okay, because that's one of our big issues and topics right now. Okay. Thank you. So I don't see any other hands up in the night. You just want to say one few words about animal welfare. No, I don't want to say a word about Carol Hepburn but Anyways, Carol's you know budget is her budget she's responsible for not only responding to all sorts of animal complaints over the course of the year, but she inspects all of our farms and I'd say this every year she responds to more things and I would like her to be responding to because she can't say no to anybody but again, Carol's budget is 90% of it is her salary and then, you know gasoline and some other supplies as far as The kennel run properly which she doesn't outstanding job with, you know, I wish I had 20 carols in this building. He just doesn't outstanding job, you can actually see her service levels, you know don't change dramatically but for one person she's always very very busy. You know she's responding on weekends she's responding at night, even though I tell her not to. And, you know, she just doesn't outstanding job I can't say enough good things. The cops lover. I know the community loves her. And I'll just leave it at that and answer any questions I can. Looking to see if there any questions. Mary Lou you had something. A few years ago we had space in the animal shelter and we I believe we rented some space to North Hampton. And then I wondered if we have if we still have space that we rent to other towns and what the fee would be. Yeah, so we have a regional shelter currently North Hampton the city of North Hampton uses our shelter for stray animals and the town of Hadley use it as well they do. They pay an annual fee which is not very much, but we are proposing to increase that this this year and then we charge per dog per number of days that they're there so there's there's two, two separate fees to use the annual fee and then there's an annual fee and then there's a daily fee to how the dog can. Thank you. Welcome. Mandy. Yeah, I don't know whether chief you can answer these, but one of them is about leash law compliance there was a item in here whether I don't know whether it was the objective or the chat it was the challenge. Town on properties leash law compliance is the only person that does that Carol, our animal welfare officer, and what are we looking at for helping that compliance as we open a dog park in the next year, where now will be able to hopefully send people to the dog park instead of violating the leash laws in the local conservation areas on the off leash on the when off leash is not permitted on those properties and to make them more friendly for those that don't want to be hiking with off leash dogs. And then the second one is, who responds for things like you know we read the bulletin blogs, call blogs and police logs and we get a lot of farm animals in the roads and those types of calls a moose in a backyard or something or bear in the backyard. Who is in charge of responding for that and what are your thoughts on if you know where that response should be. So those are my questions. Yeah, so the leash law part is probably one area that drives Carol more crazy than anything she is the sole person who's responsible while both licensing dogs every year and I think she's around 90% compliance on that. But yeah the majority of the calls for violations of people on, you know, not adhering to the leash law and it usually occurs at our hiking trails. Unless Carol is not working a police officer respond to that complaint, but she certainly carries the brunt of that probably 90% of the calls, it's one person who's responsible for that and, and I know that's an area that drives are a little bit crazy. I'm trying to trying to deal with all of the calls that she gets about that. We do anticipate once the dog park opens that that will help. With the leash law calls that she gets I know she was talking about it just recently that also the majority of the violations occur from people who are not from Amherst. So they'll come in Amethyst Brook is a big area Mill River rec area is a big area of complaints offers pond in the warm weather. They're all hot spots for people who just want to let their dogs run free and run in the streams and stuff of that nature. And it's a constant source of frustration for Carol. So, as far as animal calls, typically those would be funneled through the police department so yeah so there's a bear in my backyard, or there's loose cows on the street. They respond initially, but usually Carol gets involved because she knows pretty much everybody who owns everything in town if it's a farm animal she she's a source of unbelievable knowledge and then she also has good report with our environmental police officers who would come out for a moose type call or a bear call that sort of thing. So those are who those calls would typically go to. Thank you. You're welcome. So, I don't say any more hands up I want to thank you chiefs Livingstone and your staff and I really appreciate the presentation that you've made news. A really good discussion very informative and I think that helped all of us on the committee and the additional counselors present to get an understanding of the budget and the relationship between budget and goals and the challenges so thank you for what you do every day and thank you for your presentation today. Thank you all and thank you Andy and I'll talk to you. See you on Monday. Okay, so with that, I'm going to thank our fire department for having volunteered to be second, but, and then to actually stay with us. I'm going to assume that Chief Nelson that you're going to start with the presentation. Welcome, please. Hi, how you doing. Scott Scott Scott he owes owes me, I think I think he's got got a golf golf game game is going to go into. So, I've got assistant chief strong stronger and since chief owns that here here as well so. For us, same same as, you know, not, you know, we've, you know, I won't go go into a lot I think this is more more more about answering questions that they may have. But just to go go through it, our mission state states state is the same as been there for the past few years we think that in Congress is really what what what we do we do here. Con accomplishments, just go ahead and take a couple of the high the high lights. One, one big, big thing that we require to require for a portable radio radios for all of our firefighters that's a national stands stands standard. And we've been using grant grant money and that type of thing. We require those partnership with you you you mass to add staff on on our weekly weekends. That is that has remained successful. I would be skeptic skeptic skeptic skeptic to think that that might that that that would continue into into this new year for obviously reasons. One of our big, big, one of the big, big things we're proud of, of course, is our, our students in fire, fire safety safety program program again, 24 years of success there and what I and what I said in the in the past when I when I was at Holyoke fire and Amherst was the program that everybody wants to be like that that that and Amherst is set to set the standards of standards are up throughout the state for the safer program and still still does. And the other thing is we do do our best best to beat the pushes for grant grant grant grant funds and that type of thing to get to get to get needed to close with it, and especially specializing. Heading down down to our child to child challenges. Again, for us, our big, big thing is this is staffing we're, you know, we're, as you may may have read in the interstate staffing study from 2017. You know, we were not we're not where we're we should should be by through the study and by the national standards for our size size population and call calls all the volume. The other thing is, you know, the ongoing size saga of replacing this this bill building. And again, it's a nine and 90 year year old so so the in our north state state station is 25 years old. That's a that's trying and that's that's that that's one of one of our big expenses. Each each year is maintained and maintaining both both both buildings in a somewhat live live live live livable condition because we're we're here 2024 hours a day seven days a week 306 Friday. The other challenge challenge, of course, are the vehicle maintenance maintenance, they, they, they run some hard mile. And, and that and that and that and that's an expense. One one thing where we're lucky and fortunate, I guess, is that we, we, we have, we have a group of group of firefighters firefighters that name name name name name maintain most it's not all of our equipment equipment. Just right up right or right up to the point of major name name name name name. It's when there are there are some some things that we just have to either bring some some someone or send the equipment out, but they've done a lot over the years to save the town money in terms of terms of the work work they do. Our calls, you know, our calls are what we want lost lost calls, of course, because of lost handling. But, but as I mentioned here, we lost, you know, moved on 23% of our of our are either the EMS responses responses but the rest of the rest of our responses area is in is in is in increasing. Increasing most most of this right here in town. Long long range. Jeck is pretty clear. One want to keep working on on a new new head, head forward for quarters work working on a plan plan for the north, north stays. As I said, it's 45 years old. And some something that's kind of coming down down the road that has that has come out of it not quite a bit that now of late is just a community pair of pair of pair of pair of medicine sort of the EMS making making house falls to reduce the number of this to emergency room. So, are 20 objectives. Well enough and update on those. We, we have we have applied, applied, applied to the assistant for fire for fire for his grant to seek funding for more for personnel, as was recommended in the staffing study. We, we were contended spending our work on a rubber rescue task task force that that goes along with the active shoes shoes. We did a good we did a company comprehensive emergency man and the drill earlier this year, and we're working with work. Last year, I'm sorry, and we're working working on just what lessons learned from from from that. And well, kind of accomplished though one is that it's, we do we've we've got kind of figured out just how much of an in the impact of loss and I think at the time we said it would take us about five years to get back to where we were where when the one we want to last had had in terms of our activity, but that we've been looking at that and we think it will be more and more in the three, three and a half to four four year time. So, and the objectives for the for the coming coming coming coming coming here as mentioned we've added we've we've applied for grant grant grants for staffs, staffing equipment and training training. Again, going back to to the staffing so the study we're looking you know we want we want to want to implement some some of the facets of that. And just in the last year, state has adopted the federal OSHA stands standards that apply across across the board to us about how about and we're working on a plan to come into compliance with that and one of the, I guess, surprising things or is that the state is will is willing to help they they're they're from from the government and they're here here to help they they really want folks to come into compliance. And with that there were there, they're willing to advise and assist me as a foul, foul is to reach to reach to reach reach a point point where where they they are are in compliance with those OSHA rights. And to the point where they'll they'll come come in do all audits to say the safety audits and and assist me as well probably come up with a plan to reach reach reach reach those been been smart. And with that, I think that we wanted to entertain any questions you might have. And fall of all, all, all wait, wait, wait, we get into it. I want to I want to make sure I clarify clarify clarified the did the dispatch question that came up. So with that. Okay, well thank you. You had your hand up and I know you've been thinking about some of the issues. I want to thank everybody in the department in the firehouse for doing so much maintenance on vehicles etc you save us obviously an enormous amount of money. So but I do have some questions. The operating expenses are level funded and the capital outlay is also level funded. And I'm concerned in two ways. Why one I'd like to have a sense of what the small equipment is that makes up the capital outlay, and also I'd like to have a sense of you live there, all of you, and what ending doom we have a habit of not maintaining as you've mentioned, and what should we be looking at really to think about and anticipate you know we're talking about the police department roof what about your roof what about that's not been budgeted that's not been looked at. Right. Well for us, I mean, I'll start to start with the second question first is, you know, the fact that this is, they're both old building so every day we're working on something I mean they're, you know, they're they're draft draft draft draft draft draft draft the cold and in the in the We just repaired in the last six months we just just prepared to seal the ceiling in our second floor that that came came about because we had a leak in the room that will work its way through and that that was a that that was an expense we did not So it's that kind kind of thing day to day main main main maintenance of a build the building that was that was put up nine 90 years years ago. It's tough to be fuel fuel fuel fuel efficient tough to be and energy efficient building like like like that. There's the other the other there's a human. The other kind of another another piece is that we, the air we breathe here is the air we breathe breath here there's no no fulfill trade trade trade trade trade we don't have an 8H an H and H for vexs system are heating venting vent vent translation cool cool cool is we have air conditioners in the windows and that type of thing, you know, and North State's station, it's 45 years old. It's in the better shape, but it's still a 45 year old building. It's just kind of the same as we need to replace some carpets, we need to replace some other items throughout the building there. I would ask Sissi Chukstron-Stromkin to weigh weigh in because he is our operations. He's got an intimate knowledge of the needs of both of the buildings. There we go. Yeah, I mean, I think you've hit on the key points, you know, we're not right now talking about, you know, just the needs of the building in terms of size and layout for a modern fire department that's a separate from your question, and both stations in particular the central are lacking that, but just in terms of maintenance, you know, sort of the critical infrastructure of the building, you mentioned the roofs right now are in pretty good shape. They're fortunately central stations, about 10 years old, although as the chief said, we had a problem. Nor station, I want to say is about 15 years old, the roof, both are in reasonably good shape. We've had failures of the main heating system in both buildings in the last three to four years, and those have been replaced under emergency procurement, not the way we like to do business, but that's the way it goes. Unfortunately, things like that break, they have to be replaced immediately. So in terms of roofs and heating, we've actually accomplished those. There's a lot of other little things that come up, central station, you know, the plaster is coming down, the ceiling and the walls in many places constantly, it's beyond patching. A few ceiling leaks to Nor station, electrical issues of both buildings, so it's a lot of little things. Central station right now, the DPW is about to deal with some cabing and in the parking lot due to some drainage problems there. So it's lots of little things like that that we patch as they come up. Tired to anticipate what might fail next, other to say we have taken care of the roofs and the heating system relatively recently. Can I ask a clarification of finance either Sean or Paul? What kind of plan in the budget, what kind of preparation are you making financially for these kinds of ongoing minor collapses or repair needs? Because I don't see it when I'm curious. So I can weigh in first Paul. So I sent an email out earlier this week just to all the department heads letting them know if there are any urgent capital expenditures that come up to reach out to us. The capital improvement program did include some funds for that. So there is a pot of funding that if it's an urgent need and it's something that's safety related or you know preserving the building that there are funds available for it. Well she asked me about our capital needs or that. I'm trying to figure out how you are whether we plan to do the again quote unquote small fixes that are keeping the roof from leaking etc. What's the contingency? How much do we have in reserves? How can you put so much emphasis on I guess I'm trying to understand how what kind of plan is is in place to maintain the fire building as it is because I understand the need for building and stuff and make it safe for the men and women who work there because I'm not seeing it and I'm sure it's there. I'm hoping that it's there. What's this pot? How much is it? What's the anticipated costs? So Kathy you have your hand up in your chair of JCPC so I don't know if this your hand was up for this issue but if it is I wanted to get to you next. I just was going to build on Pat's question because if I looked at the things we delayed in terms of requests this list wasn't on it and I'm wondering whether in the works Lynn mentioned this the other night that if we get to a point we're saying we're not going to be building a new fire station for you know name the time frame. So what is the list of critical needs whether it's potable water air conditioning systems and which are fixable if we had the budget for which are if they fail put you in safety but it's it's that facility kind of a list that would be done on both north station now that you've mentioned and central station that whatever it is when we we add it up we just did something with the library which walk through on systems and then walk through on ADA on disability but it just went through big to small and I'm thinking that we need something like that and then you know Sean mentioned we've put aside something called a capital reserve but it may exceed this coming year but then we should be thinking about okay is it FY 22 or can some part of it be done in and I just I don't think we have that list and so it's a request for that thoughtful list that's almost an inventory I think I think oops no go ahead Tim well for me you know part part of it is that the things we need to do they're you know so you look and assess the separate items and they don't rise to the level of buy buy buy buy themselves they don't rise to the level of a capital project because we we need we need to replay place the floor we need we need to fix pixel in windows we need we need we need you know as I said replay place car car car car car car we need to do to work on on the van on the ventilation system things like that they and in general main main main and that's in that's a case where you know because the build build goes or oh oh you do a lot more of a small small stuff you know and it's and it and that adds up it's it's you know a depth a depth 5000 small small cuts but but in in the end it adds up Andy can I weigh in real quick uh yeah just two things so one of the things that we started working on a little bit with fire and dpw but we need to build it out more which is what you both said which is a deferred maintenance list we have a pretty good idea of deferred maintenance at the elementary schools and at the library and we need to build that list out more for the fire station and dpw we've got the beginnings of it but we need to really dig into it a little bit more and the other pot of money that does exist typically I have I don't have it in front of me so I'll have to double check usually there's a facility type capital article that has like a building improvement focus and it's not always geared towards specific like a specific building improvement it's a pot of money because we know there will be building improvement needs that rise that come up throughout the year so we'll have to look at some of the older articles that have been approved and see if there is a building improvement article that might still still exist I know the original FY 21 plan that was something we were looking at but then obviously COVID-19 happened so so there may be some building improvement articles out there that can be used for some of the smaller capital items Paul you wanted to say something go ahead just quickly we have a facilities manager we can get him involved in this that to get organized this a little bit better right so um having spent a fair amount of time on the facilities in this town I want to just be very clear there's no way the central fire station can ever be renovated to accommodate what our staff need so we can fix it we can glue it but we can't continue to for instance have people endangered by smoke versus opioids etc it's not okay that's set enough but I do have some questions Tim hey how are you doing I'm fine how are you doing I'm well I'm doing well I want you to know I haven't forgotten fire I know I know so fall force and student force how do I look at this budget and see them uh they're right now they're a critical part of our of our operation because of the way we're staffed because of the model that we were you using we we depend on them as as our as our support support staff okay so and that and that's and that's how and that's how how how how we see see see see them I've said said before you know what what we run here is a rule model of a fire department when we're really a small city even if you remove the the three the three over two two call call colleges and the university we're still the small city so and and you know a rule model is one where you depend on folks come come come come come in from off the duty and that and that type type type type of thing to answer calls so so that that's where the the call call force and student force can come in to support for for for us when when we're completely completely well fully out just just flat flat flat out so where where do I see them in this budget because I don't line item oh they have they have a they have a they have a line line on the call the call the call force has one uh five ten four hundred for the call force it's the fourth fight down it just says call for us under uh bereavement leaf yeah it's in yeah it's in the uh yes it's they they they've always had had a had a had a line line item and the uh the student student force don't don't don't don't perverse say because they're involved they're involved they're involved volunteers and in any expense expenses we might incur because of them come come out of out of our our operator or a running budget most most of that is our training both our training line and then my other question was um I need to understand a little bit more about what you mean by community paramedicine especially as you then make the statement how it might impact your activity level there for your budget one one of the things that's the thing that's that's it's a coming thing it's tainted taking their paramedics and then sending them out on how on how house calls per per say and this and this is being pushed by insurance kind of companies to reduce the number of visits to to uh your pcp or or or a hospital it's sort of sort of proactive for active care and using paramedics as the ones to deliver that that care and to check to check to check on folks uh post post hospital visits that is that is that type type type type of thing um uh assistant chief film almost has done a lot of work on this so jeff why don't you you weigh weigh in on this so the community paramedicine format is unfortunately one that's not well funded at this point through the insurance company so while they're pushing it um in the northeast they haven't really backed it up with funding you find in other parts of the country they've been very aggressive about uh doing that and and really what it would mean to be taking one paramedics maybe two at a time and and not having them attached to a fire truck or the 911 ambulances they would be a standalone uh go out and help folks and we could develop this into and we talked a little bit earlier with apd about mental health cases and we've seen the spike in mental health cases and i think looking at some national models that's might be a good place for us to be involved with um the cso's and other uh social workers that we're really looking to help people find the resources they need so they don't need emergency services for a lot of folks going to the emergency department for mental health cases is not a really good way to give them medical care it's not the type of medical care they're really needing what they're looking for so we're looking for a way to develop this but at some point we have to be able to fund it or get the kind of insurance money that goes with it there's some medicare's has some pilot projects that are out there looking at funding at a kind of a lower level um but it's not a sustainable format for us at this point okay thank you that was very helpful to understand yeah one additional thing just uh and then when i get on demand the newsman i had her hand up for a long time but um when you into your first question on page 56 under there's a big line for personnel services and then under the box um where it talks to about major components it defines personnel services and it puts all personnel services including the call force together in the single line and um i've had an assumption that there were sub lines in budgets that are used for internal working purposes within the finance department but the budget is always presented has always had that approach of putting all personnel services not just for this but department for for many departments together and then including in the paragraph to make it clear as to what's in there um so i don't know if shawn or sun uh sunny or if anything else to add but otherwise you can go on um mandy um you had your hand up for a long time yes um thank you for everything it's been very informative i have four questions i think for the chief and then one that's more of a statement but it was kind of directed at paul and shawn and that one's based on and i'll start with that one um i'm hearing about all the maintenance in knowing about what our central fire station um what it's not just status as a falling apart building but also its status of not serving the needs of a 21st century fire and ems department is it really time for us to as a council and as a town to say we need to start building and funding that new fire station south of town um and figure out a way to move dpw out temporarily to get that done because have we reached a point where putting money into all of these small repairs is you know not only that is not worth it but also we just can't do the job our firefighters need to do so i just want to put that out there as mainly for paul and shawn and the rest of the council but for the chief um a couple things one i think's a quick easy answer which is do we actually have separate dispatches for fire and pd uh if i call them i thought it goes to one place and whoever that is dispatches who it is so how does the mine we have have a combined police fire fire did this dispatch that's that's we have had that here for okay for years so it so that's that's the thing and and they they just just and they only did dispatch for amherst the town is kind of amherst we don't we don't do any other dispatch dispatching for anybody anyone any other you know the municipal and before i forget you would ask about the regional hazmat dispatch that uh uh that uh we've been doing that good god at least oh you know it's probably eight eight years now uh when i when i when i came came here i'm i'm still for the regional hazmat team here but when i when i came came here uh the state was looking for a second facility so so a bad bad bad back back back up to the one that they have in they've had in whole in whole whole whole work for some some time so being part of the team i said you know why why not any other than amherst so uh so so we've we've we've got we've had a had a had had here since about my second year year here and with with that we're paid the town has paid tens of thousand dollars a year to host to host so to host that and it's not just a bad bad backup they're they're they they are primed for all for for weville western mass and bad bad backup for eastern mass and they can take take on the whole the whole state if the whole if hold or goes down as whole hold or can take over if we if we go down hi thank you for that um my other three questions one is just a there's there's a mention of a community emergency response team so i'm curious what that does but let me ask my other two before you respond to that because they're kind of relate to each other um false and accidental alarms on your service levels represent half of all calls i'm curious whether that's a normal ratio for fire departments and then similarly on ems um on the total ems calls and all there seem to be about 800 given what the split out is 800 patient contacts that aren't classified as either transport or treat but don't transport so i'm curious what those sort of on this list what those missing calls are all right i'll give i'll give give the uh either either the ems question to uh jeff olm olms that on the false alarms and that that type type type of thing that's it that's yeah that's average and i think and in in a way that that's a good good thing because we encourage folks to call even you know even you know sometimes they're they might they might might be embarrassed because it's it's a small thing or or and and for the end in in in the grand scheme it might might be you know in in in kind of kind of consequential but we encourage folks to call they have they have a problem for a problem they have us i mean in the most it's a smoking sector that that won't won't shut off or that or something like that or they i don't know we've we've we've gone out for uh bats you know so i mean you know that it's all all kinds of things but you know the false false calls that that that means that folks are called calling us for for health we want them to be in the habit habit of if if there's an issue you give you give us a call and we're and we'll end and we're on run on the way and that and you know false calls they have happened accidentally the issues they have happened and that's and that's okay um jeff you want to want to weigh in on on the either the ems side i'm going to start off just following up your lead on on the prevention side which is i would not want anybody to walk away feeling like a lot of these accidental alarms are coming from repeat addresses or residents they're not typically if there is we address those to make sure that the fire life safety equipment is fixed and repaired so they are spread out and fairly randomized so we don't really deal with a lot of repeat folks where we need to think about violations and stuff like that because i know that's come up in the past and i just kind of wanted to clarify that as far as the data information we had an issue in our data collection related to the software program that we use and when we had done some changes and had some upgrades uh inevitably we we broke something else and we never really recovered some of that data to be able to separate it out so we have the cumulative data and some of those points but we lost on the specificity of the individual data points so unfortunately i don't have a better way of giving you uh the numbers this year but i'm hoping next year to be able to have a little more articulate um you know process for you that and better data i'm just curious though you look back on multiple years and patient contacts 5000 in fy 18 but transported it's only 3800 and patient contacts treat no transporter 300 that still leaves this thousand what i'm just curious what that is like what type of service is that the separation between those two are being requested for service and having the patient largely refuse to be transported to the hospital so and the broader question that that's that's where that separation comes from and refuse treatment too um yeah generally you know not always they might want us to you know we'll get a chance to assess them we will try to often talk people and say look something's obviously happened for us to be here we'd be happy to take you to the hospital this is what our concerns are um and these are why we think you should see a higher level of care and ultimately they make if they're competent capable that they can make that decision to say you know what thank you very much i'm all set and uh and they're gonna go about their day um and we get a refusal from them that they don't want to be transported um and we document that and then it shows up as a as a call because it is a call for service and we did spend time with them um but it's not something we bill for so if somebody refuses to transport we don't bill for our services um to meet them and assess them yeah if a lot of those are also uh patient assistus lifts these days correct or tracino yeah we're seeing a higher quantity of lift assists and requests for people to be lifted off the floor that aren't physically capable of getting them themselves some of those have happened in facilities that you know um our group homes or assisted living although interestingly enough a lot of those cases dropped out after the being a covid we've actually seen a decrease in some of those so it'll be interesting to see how the fall or even next winter if that swings back the other way is that something that community paramedic insurance company if we got that working would be able to then sort of reimburse for probably not a lot of them a lot of it really comes down to uh people as they obviously become older and are less able sometimes to maneuver and get around a lot of those lift assists are from folks that you know for example they get out of bed in the morning because they need to use the bathroom and they maybe don't get their fee underneath them before they go um or they have a variety of medical conditions that make it more complicated for them to um to get up if they fall but none of us you know all of us want to live independent life um so inevitably that that those two are in conflict though sometimes um and we try to take care of both sides of that form so the answer is community paramedics and probably doesn't address a lot of those directly and especially from a financial standpoint unless in some cases say the house was unsafe or had poor living conditions or there's something that we can do to help them get more services and that case we might be able to prevent some of those falls and a lot of cases it's really um you know more more about the uh the folks and where they live and and ultimately a lot of a lot of companies that support assisted living or group homes um are looking for us to be more of their muscle to help live people because people are heavy and um those individuals sometimes get hurt um when they're picking people up by themselves uh just an explanation of what the community emergency response team is those those are uh citizens citizens involved volunteers they want to give back to their community it's uh it came came out of the theme and what what is they and it's uh more in the emergency management function and our our group we have an active group here and they uh and they and it's pretty pretty much all funded funded by grants we're we go to that we do I go go out and and get get states states and federal grants and you know to support them for their training training and equipment uh you know we you know they they can help they can assist with traffic during uh some some kind of kind of disaster weather weather event something like that they they was assisted with the uh the half marrow marathon that that that we've had here there's assisted there they they were going to step in uh when when we were uh when when when when we we first began again to deal with COVID and our our homeless population they were going to assist with with the uh shelter uh the the isolation shelter shelter we were going to put up put up put up they can assist with shell shells shells shells shells sheltering so then oh and and what and you know the wider variety of tasks that they can do to support the town in in the emergency management functional air area uh they uh train on uh train train on first first for first stage and generally emergency management management uh traffic control that that type type type type of thing and being and and you know they're trained to be part of the emergency management management public public safety safety team so and it's all they're all and they're all all volunteers they're unpaid they take they take it's it's it's their own their own time and it's really it's it's it's a great great fun bunch of folks they they just want to give back back back back to their their community unit so there's so they're you know and add and add jumped up to five five part of our department that sounds fantastic thanks it's cool it is cool they're but they're really cool cool folks yeah ii muting i wanted to follow up on two different um pieces on not not at the department level but on state legislation so on the community paramedics if um i know medicare is its own uh being but if we said that um if at if our state reps um pushed for it to be covered as a service um the same way home care is covered and often that's only covered if a doctor has ordered it or said this person should be treating so i'm just looking for where uh we could reach out to for a legislative piece and then um for the lift and assist it's interesting that i heard you say that it's declined with covid um because in the big facilities i would say probably the arbors and applewood because they were really trying to limit anyone from outside coming in period but first question is do we ever build the facility for that call um and if we don't could we so could we build them and the second in terms of licensure and accreditation applewood is independent but an assisted living is a licensed facility in massachusetts and i went on the their criteria and they require training to prevent a fall but they don't require training to pick up someone when they've fallen so if we could change the wording of that um i understand you know they would have to it's the same way a nursing home has to be very careful of back injuries and train strap and have two people come and pick up but in assisted living they're regularly helping people bathe um helping people get in and out so i'm looking for a way and part of it is how much of a cost of this to the town is it that we don't get paid for so if we're looking for revenue streams um through these two different so you don't have to answer it right now but if we could quantify it and say that it would be helping the town out through these two different routes one either bill for lift and assist so there's an incentive um for at least the assisted living place so i don't know what kind of budget impact that would have those two pieces i'm not i'm gonna try to try to cover both those um so for the lift assist specifically we do not charge anybody across the town regardless of at home residents or assisted living or a group home we treat everyone the same in that format so someone would have to make a decision about whether we continue that or not um and whether or not maybe there's a process for hey we do so many of these for free before we start to uh address the issue of of a cost one of the things is come back is that the idea that that bill would be then transmitted down to the actual person who fell instead of it being covered by the company or the organizer of the facility and so that's that's one problem um to go along with that so there's parts of that the cost really is our time and obviously a time is valuable especially with our staffing levels what they are um that is a big deal and the number of calls were a problem to go back to your original part if you were looking for an avenue i believe that minnesota in fact has um their version of mass health that helps cover community paramedicine and they have a fairly robust community paramedicine program so i think if you were looking for an example to go and see what that temple looks like that might be a place to go look okay thank you i actually know the minister can follow up on that i think that's great thank you for that lead yeah anything else kathy about uh storky storky okay um just a quick thought to kathy um charging for lift assist can lee have unintended consequences and lee lead nursing homes to do what they were doing and are now not supposed to do which is tying people into their wheelchairs to avoid falls and i've seen them tied into their wheelchairs dorthy i don't think these calls are coming from nursing homes they're coming nursing homes are still picking people no they they are coming from nursing homes many of them that's what i read on the paper i'll try to hit that a little bit they're more nursing homes are allowed to pick people up and in fact they are allowed to use the equipment to help pick them up interestingly enough by regulation the assisted living facility is not allowed to use that mechanical device to help pick people up so they have a a disadvantage on that aspect due to regulations now why that regulation is there i'll let someone else figure that out um because i know they don't want to necessarily cross these two boundaries because money's involved when it's done but in fact you can use a say a Hoyer lift at a nursing home and you can't use a Hoyer lift at an assisted living facility that's based on regulations so my my question i still had was um and looking at the wording um i want to know how the how the funding and how this works is that are there any costs tied to the rescue task force um training to public safety partners um for the fire department to develop an active an active shooter response plan so i'm assuming that you're a partner with the police department and that they're in charge of active shooter response and you're being trained to work with them or well this well i'll have jeff jeff jeff is in charge in charge of that team but i'll i'll i'll start start started for you we we train with uh we we train train with all all three police police forces here here here in town as uh we have a group of pat they're called they are there to protect the to uh to treat treat the police if if they go down in in such a situation like that or the victims right uh after the after the scene and they're and they're and and they need to train to to together so they so that uh our our folks know how to keep themselves safe in in in a dynamic situation so uh and and that's your training i mean that's that's that you know for our for our folks it comes comes out of out of our train train train budget and that's and that's and that's and that's just the way it is uh our the rescue task force is one one of those things specifically for a multi-cad casualty event a violent violent event that our our so we we train our department department to go in snap to grab snap snap and grab grab folks and treat treat folks get to get them out of out of the dame dame dame dame dame danger zone and it's a it's called a res rescue task task task force because it could happen at any time and you're going to use your on-duty people so we train train them how to uh record record recognize threats how to how to how to how to work with the police and how and how to save and how to how to how to save save the victims jeff jeff can be more specific on on that so i mean i'm gonna try to delineate a little bit between the tactics we have and the the four of us that do that we work specifically with um the police departments in some kind of you know dynamic or unique event it could be crowds it could be if they were doing warrant entries it could be um a specific type of of hazardous event and what we do is we give the tactics helmet and basically ballistic vest because that's a tool that's a tool how we keep safe because in that environment the only people that are able to protect each of us are the officers and the tools that we bring with us and we have extra training in trauma and treatment um in hazardous and unique events where we basically are the only ems and medical care that can be provided in that space the problem is for active shooter when you spread that out no one ever knows when that's going to take place and because of the number of potential people in a mass casualty one tactic by themselves can't treat all the people they're going to be there much less know when to have that tactic available all the time so when the active shooter i'm going to give you three stages the first stage being event happens and the police respond and the police neutralize the violence that it's occurring at that point you have people who are injured and not able to be moved the police are still trying to ascertain whether there's more than one person have they got all the people that are causing violence and they create a opportunity for us to get into the place that is hazardous and we would go in there with a team and that team often would be two of our medics teamed up with two of the police officers and those two police officers provide my street medics that you see every day they provide protection for those two when they go into the building and then they can get inside assess patients treat patients because time is of the essence of that point and we probably aren't set up to actually move them out of the building and get them in an ambulance at all at the same time so tag medics are very specific to the four people who do it the active shooter involves all the medics that work and we use the team approach to provide protection for them when they go into the building they exit the building with patients and do treatment so we do some similar things with them and we do work with the police departments to make this work but we need to provide training to the entire department and how to successfully do that Thank you very much I'm Mary Lou and I think at that point maybe we catch everyone Mary Lou Okay just a couple the I would think that the liability of becoming a paramedic team would be extremely high certainly doctors have high liability insurance so if if we had this team we'd have to have that type of insurance correct that's for Jeff No all the the work that we're doing is within our normal scope of practice so there's no type of care treatment that we're doing and ultimately we live in a high hazard job we're firefighters we go to fires we go to hazmat scenes we do water rescues and we do EMS and this is really and we do technical rescue high-angle trench confined spaces this is really just part of that job and part of that envelope that has you know over time expanded but it's become a very relevant thing because of the type of situations we're seeing in the world today So you're saying that if we went to community paramedicine we wouldn't need liability insurance On the community paramedicine no as long as we were working within our licensure within our scope of practice and working with the state we we shouldn't need an additional liability format to accomplish that so it's when you start stretching out into things that you aren't you know supposed to do or allowed to do or try to go beyond that that's where you really get into questions so really staying within our our boundaries that we're provided by the state is where we you know kind of our safety net oh that's good right under mutual aid we have mutual aid coming in i'm assuming that's because all the ambulances are out and do we have to pay the towns that provide that and tying that in with mutual aid out is most of this going to Hadley and if so are we charging them because they have they already have their EMS Mutual aid is just just that it's it's an agreement that you know if we we need need help folks will come come here folks need need help we'll we'll go go there we don't we don't bill bill for that because if we we go and we and well for the on either the EMS side if we if we go we we uh pick up the pay pay pay patient treat and tran tran transport we we will bill that that that pay patient so that's that's what that kind of and so that's so that's where where where where you see the it's not not that we're bill billing for the town we're bill billing the the patient and and by by by vice versa folks if a service service comes comes here we uh they'll they'll treat uh treat treating tran tran transport they'll bill the patient so so no so we don't we don't bill each other each other for that that type type of thing and the second part of your question was I was curious as to how many uh calls we make to Hadley now that they have their own service yeah I want to say that number and I don't have right in front of me was around 50 uh last year um so you know there was a little bit of a bump um but we expected that um they are using other services as well Northampton uh South County or South Hadley depending on location so we do have it in our contract that if we do so or a certain number of calls that we would bill them um that's something that we really haven't uh addressed um directly uh he he was close it was I was actually forward 49 times we went away not not 50 okay thank you that was a pretty good estimate come on I did my hard time I have to I have to come on he broke broke my chair so I have to so anyway um I want to thank you I don't see any more hands up this has been very informative I again appreciate you having uh worked it out with Chief Livingstone and I'm assuming that you get a good compensation from him and so he owes me big he owes me big but anyway thank you very much to all three of you uh Lindsay and Jeff and uh we appreciate all of you having been with us and it's been very informative and helpful to um we also thank you for the service to the town you are an amazing team and we know it we've we've got some special people who are a worker will work in here so that's that's the thing I'm I like to say I'm the luckiest guy I got around because I get to work with these folks every day so thank you so and uh I have this applauding you there so anyway that'll bring us on Dorothy I know uh sorry your can came up late okay I just wanted to say I appreciated um his uh men in black reference uh I'm I'm from the government and I'm here to help I've heard that the audience laughed and I thought why are they laughing because I still do believe I'm from the government and I'm here to help so I appreciate your sense of humor all right okay well thank you um so um I said we do public comment next but there's no public in attendance at this point in the time so I don't think that I have to do anything on that and which then brings us to the last agenda item for the day and uh unless uh but I do want to see if Paul Shawner uh so do you have anything that they wanted to report at this point before we get there um seeing nothing uh so what we were going to talk about at the end was just make sure that we have it covered for um how we're working towards developing the report and um the three of us who said we'd work on it actually the one who gets the uh gold star uh and a huge gold star is Mary Lou who really did a great summary of the elementary education budget and um is really a good model for the rest of us so I asked Mary Lou um earlier in the day by email if I could share it with the rest of you right away and she said absolutely so at the conclusion of the meeting when we're offline I will to the lists and uh the copies uh with Mary Lou drafted um I think Kathy who's taking on the other one that was up was um the library but um we do have that and that gives you an additional piece above and beyond the um what we had already um been looking at which was what we were at last year and uh what I was going to do is take the narrative section and um rework the narrative section is it draft to cover the topics that uh sort of the general overview but instead of talking about the general budget process which was important for the first year of the council what I'm going to do is probably um lay a little bit of groundwork just to John even though we've heard it the council's heard it many times about the unusual nature of this year's process and COVID just so for the sake of posterity that that's in our budget and that will be the launch to get an overview so I'll work on that as quickly as I can and I think that if you take a look at what Mary Lou did that will give you a sense as you help to develop a section that is specific to whatever department and you look at what was written last year and put the two put the two together I think that that should be helpful um so is there any other thoughts that people have right now about um the process that we're engaging in so that we're prepared in the end when after we have a recommendation to fairly quickly meet our deadline to get a report out to the council seeing nothing um is there any other unanticipated business that I should be recognizing for discussion today because if not then I think that the other topic I just wanted to just make reference to Pat D'Angelo's asked me a very good question this morning and I hope that I answered it as best I could in a limited time but she was asking question about what the anti-aid amendment was and why it affected community services and social services funding and I will send that out a week from today we will be doing community services budget and I'm going to make sure that's available to you anything else that I can find on the anti-aid amendment so that it's available to us at the beginning of that session it is a complicated topic and so I'll just leave it at that for now but I appreciate Pat thank you for bringing that up because you gave me a signal that it needed attention uh anything else that anybody has otherwise I think we uh Lynn you have your ravings we have a would like to stay on it and ask others to leave there were I think a couple people who were going to do that after we adjourned yeah um so um with that I am going to um adjourn the council when you uh are adjourned the committee Lynn do you need to adjourn the council and I will adjourn the council okay so the records uh we're both at 4 50 p.m and thank you and we'll see you on Tuesday it's a rough process but we do I appreciate you doing we're doing great and thank you so