 Okay, we're recording, Andy. Hey, we like to call the finance committee of October 27, 2023 order at 1pm. And thank everybody for being here. This meeting is being held as a virtual meeting by zoom members of the public have access to the meeting by zoom. But everybody should be advised of this meeting is being recorded, both for sound and for visual so that everybody should be aware of that. I will go through the committee and check on attendance and make sure that we can hear everybody and everybody can hear me. And I'll go alphabetically by last name. I'm a definitely present. Okay. Present. Bob Hegner. Here. Here. I'm here. Shane here. I'm here and I think then Alicia is the only one who we need to be is going to join us shortly. Okay, and I don't know if we have anybody in the participant list. Who's a member of the public, but the first item that we usually try and get to fairly quickly is public comments so. We need to. Find out if there are any members of the public who are present at the moment and I think that there are two. Okay, so. With that said, I would move immediately to public comment and offer. Public who wish to do so to offer comment. I'm at specifically, but I'm trying to limit it to two or three minutes, but it can be on any matter that is relevant to the finance committee, whether on the agenda or not. And we'll start with Renata, if you can bring Renata Shepherd in. Okay. Please identify yourself and what district you live in. So that we have a sense of it and then please proceed with your comment. Good afternoon, Renata Shepherd from Justice Drive in Amherst, I think this is district three. And I just called to urge you to consider the rental registration free proposals I submitted last week, and ask you to put yourselves in the shoes in my shoes as I represent a lower income small landlords with non owner occupied properties. And when the time comes to discuss property transfer fees, for example, I ask you that you include us in your list of exemptions, low income property owners, investment or not to earn the last 100 or 150,000 a year. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will be coming back to that. And the agenda item later in the agenda will be after we do the reparations discussion, which will end the fourth quarter year and budget reports. So later is the third substantive item of the meeting. So, I'm a car Shabazz, I think is also seeking to join the meeting. Make comment. So, hi, I'm a car. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we, yes, we can. So just very good. Well, identify yourself and or milk our Shabazz live in South Amherst and recently completing work with the African heritage reparations assembly. And I just wanted to express in terms of some of the questions that I've seen regarding the AHRA report from the finance committee, these are some very good ones, some of which we I think did have deliberations on some of them, which we did not really have deliberations, but however we might be of help in in reaching answers to some of these will be glad to to to assist. One thing is in terms of the trying to model or capture what the costs might be relative to the needs of the successor group, particularly in terms of the concept of a town meeting of African descendant residents. I don't expect it would be a huge amount but again happy to kind of think through with folks what the number of hours might be of staff time, particularly if it was allocated from the office of diversity equity and inclusion, trying to think about the amount of staff time that might be required and and then costing that out I'd imagine there'd be some expectation there. And the other thing is while we as a group AHRA did have some considerations about expenditures during our committee, of which we worked with the town manager on that and, and receive certain allocations to get things done like the, um the analysis of the black senses and undies help on doing the survey. I, I don't have a full sense of what the, we limited our deliberations on thinking about what might be some of the costs with the successor group. And I think for sure, would also be the question that I know you all have had a lot of deliberations on finance as well as the town council, in terms of stipends for certain participation on certain town, townwide committees but again we left that to the successor to develop their, their sense of their needs and to put that forward to the council so those so particularly on that one we, we did have some deliberation but pretty much left that as a future item of the of the successor group when when when created. So that's a little bit of what I could offer and thank you for your time. And thank you for joining us. Appreciate it. I don't think there's any other requests for public comment. And so I think that we can move forward to the agenda I know that we have time constraints. I believe that there are a couple members of the committee who've indicated that they have hard stops at two o'clock for one and three o'clock for several others so we are trying to be very efficient about meeting. I want to start with the fourth quarter year and report and is now on the screen in front of us and we have Holly Drake is one of the acting co co acting finance director as well as the person who has comptroller put the report together. I don't need to repeat what was there but if you want to give brief overview and then give us opportunities for questions from the committee I think you would be the best way to proceed but Holly, but I turn it over to you. Thank you Andy. Yeah, I'm not going to repeat a lot that's in here and thankfully they'll like to keep it short so what I so I'm just going to do a quick overview. Just to let you all know I know that the biggest question on everybody's mind right now is free cash and what we are anticipating for free cash. So I just wanted to let you all know that I am working closely with our DOR reps. All the reports have been submitted. We've gone back and forth over the last couple days with a few questions and clarifications and fixing a few mistakes that I made and we are. Again, it's tentative it is not certified yet but we are looking at approximately $9 million is what I'm suspecting the free cash will be certified at this year. Give or take again completely up to the DOR and you know any adjustments that they make for receivables and money that has not come in yet that we are counting towards that but right now we're estimating about $9 million. So, it was a, it was a good budget year when it all worked out but very stressful budget year as it went through where there were a lot of worries with departments going over budget increased costs salary and contracts that got settled in many departments. Electricity costs were up fuel costs were up, there seemed to be a lot of equipment breakdowns and things that needed to be replaced that were well over what we anticipated and had budgeted for those expenses. So, you will notice as you scroll down Athena if you can scroll down actually I'll start with the revenues because I believe the revenues are first on here. This is, I believe it goes down to page five is revenues came in better than expected in many places, most especially and thanks to our great treasurer and collectors office. Interest income came in well over budget due to some great rates this year licenses and permits were over over anticipated revenues. Due to building permits rental registrations alcohol licenses. The Cherry Hill golf course came in well over budget in the revenue on the revenue side. Your miscellaneous non recurring shows on here $330,000 revenue surplus. That's due to partially the opioid settlement funds, as well as the Amherst college contribution was greater than anticipated when we worked those estimates out motor vehicle excise was up. Other department revenue. There's several factors there but one of the main factors there was we were finally able to close out the health claims trust fund and return the town's portion of that that had been sitting in a special revenue fund waiting to be closed out so there's $135,000 that was returned to the town from the close out of the health claims trust fund finally sewer water. Revenues were came in greater than budgeted which was really good because the expenditure side was very very tight. So we will be adding to free cash in all of the enterprise funds solid waste fund was increased revenue was increased as well. So that is due to the rental. Some funds that came in related to the solar. So if you scroll down to the expenditure side. Again, I'm just going to, you know, a few go over a few of these and just anticipation of some questions. One of the big ones there in the police facilities over budget by $72,000. That was a large portion of that $40 to $50,000 is attributed to a catastrophic repair to the AC system and the cost of free on through the roof with this economy right now and it needed a very, very large dose of free on to get that back up and running after a repair. They public works mostly is related to salaries in all in several departments as well as increased cost of fuel increased cost of equipment increased cost of electricity. Then let's see Cherry Hills overages mostly related to some equipment maintenance and irrigation issues things that needed to be repaired that were breaking down and those those costs are increasing as well as the increased cost of cart rentals cart rental. The golf carts were replaced a couple years ago, and the rental fee was almost. I would guess close to double what it had been previously with the older carts, and that has not been adjusted for in their budget yet we need to really in our FY 25 budget process look at some of these departments very closely that have been going over the past couple of years and in making sure that we're adjusting their budgets appropriately to make up for for that. So, let's see. And then the enterprise funds on the next page, just wanted to point out that those were both very, very tight in the water and sewer funds. Notice on the sewer fund, the Interfront transfer the indirect cost that the sewer fund pays back to the general fund had to be reduced by $100,000 in order to ensure that we stayed within our budget. And then there in the water fund the same thing with the Interfront transfers of $95,000. They had to basically return a capital item that they were planning to set aside in order to balance that fund out as well. So, between the enterprise funds in the sewer fund, it was, there was a lot of additional time this year, electricity increases, increases to the sludge removal, various equipment breakdowns and pumps and things that needed to be replaced and those costs are just going up. The water department, it was basically the same thing electricity costs, equipment breakdowns and the cost of chemicals to treat our water. Those, a lot of those costs have gone up significantly in the past two years, especially since COVID there's been some issues with getting some chemicals pricing and availability of those. But the pricing has gone up considerably on some of that stuff. And the following pages, just do a recap of the general fund. And at the top is the revenues at the bottom was the expenditures. How can we pause just really quick to confirm Alicia can hear and be heard she just joined. Hi everyone can you hear me. Thank you. So this is just the year and snapshot of the general fund is see that our revenues came in better than expected. And our expenditures we spent less than budgeted and that's exactly the way that we would like it to work and it actually worked out pretty well even though some departments were over spent there were lots of savings and other places so those departments that were you know we were well aware of that we had Sean had worked closely with folks and you know given them permission to continue spending. You know we were we were on top of it there. It was it was certainly all known. You scroll down. This is the sewer fund. And, you know, again, revenues came in better than expected expenditures were very close would have been over spent had we not reduced the indirect cost by $100,000 scroll down to the water. The water revenue came in a little bit better than expected as well which was great. And same thing with the expenditures the expenditures were very close had we not basically returned or canceled one of those capital line items that they were looking to spend we would have been over spent in this area as well. We're going to have to really look closely at water and sewer, especially with some of the big capital expenses that will be coming in the coming years. You scroll down. This is the solid waste fund and just a summary of their year and again revenues came in better than expected, and expenses were, were pretty tight there as well. We just made it scroll down to parking. This is a snapshot of parking for your end. The revenues, again, slightly over it was pretty close but our expenditures were lower than budgeted so that's a good sign as well. Basically the only source of revenue in the transportation fund is from, you know, writing of tickets and late fines. So, let's see, we can scroll here. And these are just, you know, basically like a three year four year look back on the different revenues and how they've been faring. I'm not going to really go into anything here unless people have specific questions. So, I think I'll leave it at that and just open it up for questions. I'm sorry I had time to look at the report. I apologize. It was a little bit later than expected. But thank you to Sonia Aldrich for helping me out with that. And, and Paul for reviewing and going over it as well. So thank you and I suggest that we try and divide the questions into two segments and because there's might be questions about free cash, I will have one question about, you know, general question about free cash. Let's hold them and talk about budget, you know, the budget report as far as revenue and expenses compared and so try and get those questions first and then come to the free cash questions afterwards. Bernie. Yeah, I find a little button here. I mean, there's a couple of obvious questions and the obvious questions is we, you know, indirect costs got indirect payments back to the general fund got reduced by $100,000. And there was a capital project that was eliminated. So what's the impacts there I mean where did the $100,000 get made up was that because of savings in other departments so so we don't we can just say well you know $100,000 towards operations can just go away. And what, what's the impact of canceling a planned, a planned purchase. Presumably the purchase was because it was needed. Something was going to get fixed replaced added. So what's the impact there. I mean, the, the, the water and sewer funds are going to be an ongoing concern, I think, just given, given rates given costs, given aging equipment we've had some sort of overflows. We have Fearing Brook contributing, which is Amherst Underground River, contributing contamination to the Fort River. And so there's there's a lot of work there to be done. What do we lose with, you know, how's $100,000 made up and what capital project was, what project was, was canceled and what's the impact of that. The project in water was just a, every year they vote anywhere from $100 to $200,000 just for system improvements so that when, you know, say a pump breaks down or a some of those larger repairs that the operating budget can't handle they'll take them out of, it's a more of a generic. I don't add generics, not the right word. It's more of a sort of catch all distribution and treatment capital item that would cover some of those larger costs so if how do I want to explain it so if a pump breaks down at the water treatment plant and it's going to cost $50,000 to repair it it then can become a capital expense because it's projected to last you know 15 years. So it wasn't a specific item it was more of those unforeseen larger repairs that would happen so that it wasn't like this wouldn't be purchased it's it was more of let's pray nothing big breaks down this fiscal year. One of my favorite pet phrases is deferred maintenance means broken. So, we lost something. Yeah, you know we lost awesome. And again with the $100,000 that was headed for the. And the right costs come from there's there's sort of a large calculation that happens every year. In order to sort of estimate, you know, the town managers time and my time and the collector's office time and everybody's work that goes towards the enterprise funds. So, I mean, unfortunately, it just the sewer fund couldn't make it and we had luckily plenty of revenue and other areas that exceeded so that was a choice that we made to reduce it here. I was curious actually on that same subject. How much did we add to retain earnings for the fund and how much why was decision made dad to retain earnings as opposed to reduce the amount that we were having to take away from the general fund transfer. You cannot overspend the operating budget the expense budget and that would be an over expense. So, I mean, we just we can't we can't allow it to go over what we projected or we budgeted for our expenditures for the year. So I think that if I can jump in, I think the retained earnings came from the revenue portion, not the expense portion. If revenue exceeds the budget amount. That goes to retain earnings, but if expenses come in higher than budgeted. We don't have a process to amend the budget to reduce. I think we could we could come back to the council and amend the budget, but it wasn't $100,000 wasn't that much. I think that to feel like that was a important thing to do. And we've done this previously during the pandemic. We did reduce the contributions from the revenues funds to the general fund recognizing the impact on the general fund. But knowing that we had to hold the our enterprise funds solid. Bernie, do you have all your questions? Yeah, thank you. Kathy. Bernie actually asked my first question, but I did want to just follow up on, and then I have a couple others. So at this point, each of those funds to varying degrees generated more in revenue than they spent. That goes into whatever you call it the reserves. So I don't need the number right now, but I maybe in the future or maybe next time to get a sense of where the reserves stand. In each of those as we're looking forward, because that also will give us a sense for the upcoming operating budgets as we look forward. You may need to go up on them, Paul, because of the experience with supply costs, but you've got a bit of a buffer that's been built up by this year because of the way you handled it. So it's more of a request to see where those, once you close this out to see, because my understanding of the enterprise of funds, I might be wrong is once we've generated revenue in there, they stay in the enterprise fund. And it goes into the savings account for the layperson way of thinking that is there to pay interest debt capital and a variety of others. So it's a looking future. So on the transportation fund, when we increase the fee that you pay to get a resident parking permit does all of that money go into the transportation fund so I was just trying to figure out where that revenue line is. I didn't see it in words so I was thinking maybe it's in, because transportation's got traffic tickets, coinage operated, you know that parking things. So it's a question Holly, we did a fairly significant increase. One of the concerns was, would people drop off and just not buy the permits and that and Sean did an allowance for maybe it's a lot. I won't use it an economist or maybe it's elastic and you go up in the price and their fewer purchase but we particularly hit went up on those that didn't have their cars registered in Amherst. It was a substantial increase so again if you don't have that answer right now I just was curious on what that line item looks like. And then I go parking. Very quickly here so parking permit fees were between the various categories because we haven't broken out by employees and employers and town residents. So in, in total, we were about $11,000 over budget in the permit section of, and those do stay in the transportation fund. So, so that you read so much so we were, we were good on our projections and as a revenue source because it's used to generate a deficit. Then I think my last question is cherry hill. When I looked up at the revenue line, it's up a lot expenses were also up. I think it's generating a surplus if I looked at it. And so I was just, am I, am I looking at it wrong, because in the words, you talked about, not, but it would be good news if it's breaking even and so that's what I was just trying to figure out when I looked at because revenues were coming in at 304,000 and expenses with the higher expense line it was either 240 or 268 I couldn't quite figure out that piece, but neither case it looked like we're breaking even on it. So it was a question on a pretty small item in the budget, and then I have one more that's not. I'll just go back for one second and answer your question on the free cash for the enterprise funds as well. So I do have figures and I can get those to you for what last year's free cash was certified at. And then I'll very shortly hopefully know what this year's free cash will be certified at or retained earnings and the enterprise funds is what it's called I'll have that answer very shortly again that's right now in the same process as the general fund free cash and just to jump in there the the council reviews those retained earnings when you're setting the water and sewer rates and that's all laid out during that memo. Yeah, and I did it was just kind of a sense because some of this is good, you know, even though expenses were up, so were revenue so some of this is a good news story. So on Cherry Hill, if you look at the straight numbers it, it seems like it did generate a surplus this year, but the hard part and the confusing part with Cherry Hill is it's run on a fiscal year versus a calendar year and a season. So, it's sort of hard to compare apples to apples there because it's a different type rape so we could have a, you know, really great fall and a really great spring, and that's in one fiscal year and then we have a terrible fall the next year. Um, so the fiscal year numbers. If you just pull them out they did generate a surplus, but what's not shown there is benefits are not charged directly to the Cherry Hill line item so all the benefits costs for the employees at Cherry Hill are elsewhere in the budget. Um, as well as capital items capital items are elsewhere in the budget so if you start to add in employee benefits capital costs, then those numbers would change and it may not have been as good of a story as it as it looks right here on paper. Okay, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's, it's a, it's a bigger picture. I mean, benefit costs aren't charged to any of our line item. I mean, they're not that big. Correct. One of my surprise learnings my first year as a counselor. Where are they to my, my, my, my last question is, Paul, you've got a wage. We know we're under market on some of our wages and you've been out with a wage and salary survey and so will we so so some of what we're seeing on the expense lines on operating costs may be change if we try to implement if we try to do something about that and are we going to You can't tell me answers to this now, Holly, but I'm just wondering on the expense line will we have a sense of the potential impact of that as we start to look at next year's budget. Yeah, yeah, so we all of our union contracts are now settled. I signed the last one yesterday. So we have all and we get to start fire. It doesn't end, but that's incredibly good news. Kudos to our HR department for bringing them home. And thank you to the employees who helped negotiate them successfully. So that's all good news. The wage and compensation say that you references for the non union employees. That has not been completed there in the final stages of that. You know, and I have not seen what the numbers with the impact of the numbers on that are yet, but that would be something that would be implemented in this fiscal year and we'd have to manage that through the existing appropriation or if we feel like we can't we'd have to come back to the council for an additional appropriation. Okay, and if just, can I just follow on that, Andy, if there are some the one I heard was potentially a slot that is now in a union contract, but the top step of it is low compared to the rest of the market on a few. And I'm thinking of an inspector a senior inspector. If you have to at some point rethink job titles and they become in or out of a unit. Is that all within one fiscal year also as as you as the manager trying to figure out how we staff critical positions. So, and it depends and I know no Matt deals with this lot there and Bernie, like there's breakage, you know, you when someone leaves they hire new at a lower rate. So you get some savings there. So it's, it's an overall picture that we look at in terms of like when we have to make salary adjustments for one reason or another. You know, step increases, things like that that people earn we try to budget as best we can on that. But there's always some variability throughout the course of the year based on people coming and going. And there's a fair amount of inflow and outflow right now. Yeah, I guess I was asking if the top of the scale is too low and some of our unit. Within the top of the, you know, that we could just can't get somebody and we've got a vacancy. It's becoming more and more frequent that that's the case. If you talk to employees over salaries are too low. That's why we do the. No, I don't, I don't want to, I'm not opening, but I think any employee here would raise their hand and say, yes. But, you know, I think when it becomes a challenge in terms of filling the position, then. If it's a unionized position, it's a little more complicated versus a non unionized position. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, Bernie and Kathy asked a lot of the questions I was going to ask. I just want to drill down a little bit on the revenues. We had more, you know, almost $483,000 in additional revenue on an unanticipated revenue and licenses permits. We had about 410 in motor vehicle exercise and then about 345 in property taxes. Are these kind of the new reality? Are these sort of one off things that just happened last year? Or does this, does this indicate that we're, you know, we're going to be generating these kinds of revenues going forward? So I would say a bit of both. There are, we still have been estimating fairly conservatively on our revenues as we come out of COVID. Most are back up to sort of the pre COVID level. But like licenses and permits, the, you really sort of never know. We don't want to increase because they, you know, Amherst College put in a $100 million building and generated a gigantic permit this year. That may not happen again next year. So we're very conservative with the sort of economic, economic growth revenues because we really don't know. So in licenses and permits, that one has sort of consistently been high, but there's also just a lot of one off things that we know we can't rely on every single year. Motor vehicle excise, you know, again, you budget conservatively so that you make sure that you meet those things. Motor vehicle excise is one that may look at increasing. It's also difficult because with the cost of vehicles and the, in the shortage of vehicles, if we go ahead and increase that this year and then not as many car cell and not as many excise tax bills go out next year, then we'd be in a bit of a bind there. So it is sort of a combination of both. You know, the town's philosophy has always been to be very conservative on our revenues so that we can make sure that we meet them because if we don't, then we're going to have, we're going to be in trouble the other way around. So it is a combination of both. Property tax was the last one, yeah. Yeah, so property property taxes. So what happens with property taxes is property taxes are budgeted for the current fiscal year. And then when property taxes on older fiscal years where you know they may have been a lean against that property that finally paid off or, you know, people finally are just coming in and paying their property taxes so that is a consistent one because only the current year's property taxes are technically budgeted as revenues and everything else that comes in after that gets added as a as a surplus. If that makes sense. Yep, that makes sense. Thank you. But man. Thanks, Andy. Holly, oh my gosh. This is, this is really fabulous and I'm, I'm appreciative to you and Paul and the whole team for putting this together and I also want to, you know, give acknowledgement that that the finance director position is not posted so you know that's that's all great but I, this is a really great I appreciate the multi-year context and of course this has been a weird stretch economically but it is good to see the revenues, you know coming up, you know, up over projections, you know, conscious projections. The only the only question that I drive other questions but the only thing that I just wanted to hear sort of about is this on the debt service piece that that's 41%, which I know is, you know, related to like a moved payment for the library. So, I mean, that's one point that's almost 1.2 million that's a pretty significant chunk that is showing up right now as you know into free cat, you know, whatever you want to call it so, but but that payment then that slide right into July when did that payment move to and is that going to affect this coming year's budget. It's a little bit difficult for me to answer. So, we are anticipating, you know, again, the treasurer will be working out the treasurer myself will be working out debt payments for the following year but there was a debt or there is a debt payment scheduled for next fiscal year as well which has already been budgeted or hasn't been but it will be budgeted for FY 25. The library just simply was not ready they haven't started yet we make, you know, we make guesses, it would have been, you know, what a year and a half ago at this time of what our next step payments would be and you know they anticipated that it would be the project would be started so it will just simply fall to free cash and then, you know, be definitely the next year's debt payment is already anticipated. But this wouldn't cause some kind of a balloon on next year's payment. That's that's all. No, no, no, no, no, it just means it's going to go out an additional fiscal year. So if it was supposed to be paid off and, you know, 43 and I'll be paid off and 44. Okay, great. That's great news then. Thank you. Lou. Yeah, I want to second Matt's compliment to you and the team for getting this together and having this meeting with us. It's really helpful. I have a couple of questions. I'm building on the question regarding debt payment. If we receive money, for example, for the library, and we're not spending it because we don't have bills to pay on it. Are we investing that money, while it sits with us until we have payments. Are we allowed to invest that money, and does the interest on that money remain with the project. Currently, we have the grant, the MVLC grant for the library. And yes, that does earn interest that money, all of our, all of our idle money is being invested very wisely by our treasure. You'll see that with the interest income. It was amazing this year. I've never seen that my 24 years here ever. So the MVLC grant does require that it earn interest and it does stay within the project. The debt money that is the reason why we didn't borrow is because we didn't have those expenditures. So that there becomes an arbitrage issue when you borrow and you're sitting on the funds. So it may or may not earn interest depending on how long it sits in your account is the is the quick and easy answer to that one. But we typically don't borrow until we, we know that we are going to have those costs. That's why we didn't make that payment this year because we would have been sitting on that money for far too long. And I'm asking that answer. Yeah. Did you have more, you wanted to add to that Paul. Nope. The reason I'm asking that particular question is because one of the large misunderstandings about capital projects, particularly in the first couple of years is that if we authorize a debt level that we go out and we, we borrow that money that day and we're paying interest on that money from day one and that becomes a huge amount of interest and the reality is, we don't borrow the money until we need it to pay the bills. That is correct. And meantime, we're getting money that we're earning the expected or some level of interest on making sure we're not committing arbitrage. Okay. I'm asking that question for public purposes, more than anything else is the understanding that if we authorized 30 whatever million for a library, we're not going out and borrowing that today. We're borrowing only as we need money to pay the bill. Yes. This is corrected as an accountant comptroller previous comptroller and we would never allow them to borrow that money right up front because it creates so many accounting issues for us. It's crazy. One more question is, we have any evidence that the increased parking fees have led to more increased people registering their cars here, and therefore we are getting more excise tax. I, I can't answer that question I would defer that question to the tax collector treasurer general found and I, I don't really know the answer to that. But at one point when we were having the discussion about the increased fee for cars not registered here versus whatever that was a factor that was discussed in. You know it was only as of July one I believe that was in and put in effect so we're even looking not at along, we're only looking at a small period. It would make sense but I don't I don't, I wouldn't have that evidence I can check with Jen. And then my other question, it goes all the way back to solar rental. Maybe somebody can remember when did we turn the switch on for the solar on the landfill, and therefore how much of a year does this fifth quarter represent. I mean fourth quarter represent. Then you're asking whether we're getting a full year yet. Yeah, exactly is this it has, and did we turn the switch on and is this a full year of a solar rental. And it'll just be curious to know whether or not we can anticipate additional solar rental above this amount for next year. I can do a quick peek at that. I don't know off the top of your head when we have to look at it. Yeah. It's a question that we don't have to know today but I just want to. So when we do projections revenue projections, we will annualize it if we if it's not a full year anyway. So, yeah, okay. And then I would like to go back on the issue of the opioid settlement amount. That's how much was that settlement amount. Maybe I know maybe I was told I just don't remember. I can find that relatively quickly as well. I believe it was 164,000 I want to say. Our first payment 162,000 was received an FY 23. And how many more payments on that will we get. I believe it is 20 years. I believe it's 20 years. And that money has to be so that money is going to be similar to what we've been doing with the cannabis impact fees the cannabis fees. It has to be designated so that will be one of those things that will have to fall to free cash, and that we will likely then appropriate it to a separate fund so it's easier for us to keep track of that and subsequent fiscal years. You know, 20 years of fees coming in and trying to manually sort of account for them is going to be difficult. So this will be one that you will likely see coming up as a, as a transfer from free cash into a special revenue fund to set them aside and make sure that we're spending them and holding them appropriately. And if you could just remind me if somebody can remember what are we allowed to spend that money on. We can send you. So there's a lot of workshops and stuff like that about how to manage the money and also how to spend the money. So all the cities tell us we're getting it or going through the same thing. Okay, I can follow up with what they can spend it on, but we, we can only spend it on what the state says we can spend it on what the settlement allows us to. It's settlement allows. Thank you very much. I think that's all my questions, except for the free cash and I was waiting. Yeah, now we want to go back to the question. And I guess I'll start it out with, do you have a calculation of that $9 million bigger is to where it takes free cash total and how much above 5% of the general fund revenue. I think we are, which is the policy benchmark. I have not looked at that yet because I don't have a solid number I haven't, I haven't calculated that. I want to come back to that next finance committee meeting rather than continued on the linear question. I'm trying to figure out how you get to 9 million. I only see 5.7. So, again, it's, it's a complete estimate at this point, but basically. The way that the free cash works. And I, I. I still recall I have a funny story the one of the very first sort of account and conferences I went to there like talked about free cash and how to calculate it and how confusing it was and they're like, and it's not cash and it's not free. And it's it's total misconception. So what it is is it's basically it's our undesignated fund balance. So, so basically what you have to do is if our last year's free cash was. $8 million and we spent 3 million of it, or we spent 5 million of it, we still have 3 million that is undesignated and that is just a fund balance so it gets added to that. So the 9 million is going to be the balance of free cash that we haven't used that we have sitting in our free cash fund, which is not existing undesignated fund balance, then the new. Approximately $5.7 million will be added to that. Okay, so, so let me just be clear. I think of it this way, we didn't spend that much. We, there's a amount of money we just didn't spend out of last year's budget. This year, we didn't spend 5.7. Okay, last year we didn't spend it. I think it was around 8 million, but we also in a fund somewhere is the other 4 million. That's how you're getting to 9 million. Correct. But the free cash from this year specifically is only 5.7. It will be approximately what the increase to free cash is. Yes. The important thing to remember is that there's a free cash balance that we carry all of the time. Right. And so the question is what happens to that balance and we have a long standing policy that goes back to my days on the old finance committee. That if the amount that exceeds 5% of the at the at the time of certification of the general fund revenue, we then transfer to stabilization fund. And so what we're doing is we're adding to an amount that existed. Right. But I, I just wanted to make sure that people didn't think that somehow or another, in this year, we have 9 million unspent money from last fiscal year. It's 5.7 plus what is already in that account. Okay. That's correct. And it's very significant difference to think that somehow or another, we're now 9 million dollars richer or, you know, even though we can understand. And, and again, just because those reports show that we have a surplus of 5.7 million, it doesn't mean that's exactly what's going to get added to our free cash. If we have an outstanding receivable that hasn't come in, say we overspent a grant and we haven't got the money back from the granting authority yet, that may reduce our free cash. If we have other funds or other accounts that are overspent at year end, that may reduce our free cash in this year. And then if the money doesn't come in till this fiscal year, it sort of will get made up in the following. And just because it's 5.7 doesn't mean that's exactly what will be added to our free cash. There's many factors that go into it. And the Department of Revenue has to certify that and do those calculations and they'll tell us how much of that 5.7 can be added to our free cash. And then I'm again, this the statement in the very beginning. In my mind is it at this point, though uncertified it looks like we have 5.7 million from this year's budget that will be certified as free cash. And in addition to that, we have X amount already in free cash, so that we're not misleading the public about, because believe me, they're standing in line already. Yeah, but it's not cash. Yeah. I have a clarification and I see two other hands up. The policy that we have is that once we've determined the amount that can be transferred from free cash to stabilization. The first goal is to make sure that the general stabilization fund remains at 5% of the general fund revenue and that the next segment we have made a policy. I think it's in the next 5% goes into the capital stabilization fund so that we have established policies that we apply and that the town manager then applies as he is working through his recommendations. Kathy. I just want to just make a quick comment where Lynn talked about for if the total is nine we're talking about 3.3 is sitting there and the rest to get us back up to nine. You know I just, you know remembering the flows over time so when we get this poll would be, as Lynn said it would be great to have it segmented to how much we generated this year and then what what we're carrying. So that was my question and then are we anticipating that once we get it certified that the Paul, you will give us some. Here's what you think are possible uses of it and then we'll have a discussion of that. Yeah, so when we get it certified and we're hoping to get it done. I'm not sure what with the schedule is like we hope to bring a menu of orders to the council for your review. Hopefully at your in your 1st meeting in November, November 10th. I think it is. But it all depends on getting free cash certified. I mean, the amazing thing is that we got it into D L R. And everybody's putting their free cash certifications in at the same time. So it depends on when they get 2 hours. But yes, that's exactly what we'll do. The meeting is November 13th, November 13th. Yeah. Yeah. I have to duck off y'all. I apologize. I have a prior commitment, but thank you. Thanks. Matt. I agree. That it'd be helpful to break down, you know, this year's accumulation into free cash. But this is one last clarifying question on how it's presented and then. I'm sure we can go on, but I just want it. Do we budget 5% of the annual budget every year to set aside? I mean, is that in the budget book? Is that written? Are we budgeting for free cash? I know we have a policy to stay at 5% in that balance, but that doesn't go into the annual budget, does it? No, your revenues have to basically equal your expenditure in the budget. So you assume you're going to make exactly what you, well, you don't assume that, but it is not part of the budget process. It is probably why we budget as conservatively, as conservatively as we do so that we can make sure that we keep that stabilization fund and our free cash appropriate. Right. Anything would happen. And so as a follow up. Last year's budget was 106 million. So 5% by policy that there is, is like 5.3 ish. Right. And so that's, that's our policy level. Mm hmm. Thank you. Really quickly, the whole thing with free cash is, you know, it's part of it is, is being as price precise as you can when you budget. And the other part of it is just dumb luck. Basically, let's admit that sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you make your luck. Sometimes you get extra lucky. But I think the thing that folks need to remember, you know, that it's not cash and set free as funds from funds from operations. I think the corporate world calls it is that it's not a given. You're not going to see that repeat year to year to year. It's, it's money that's one that in a real sense is one time only. So you don't want to look at it and say, well, we can now budget a new program based on what we've made from free cash because it ain't going to be there next year. It's not a given. Thanks. I mean, you could almost sort of think of it as the as sort of the balance in your checkbook after you take all your money in for the year and you send all your money out for the year. What do you have left over. And then I wouldn't want to think I wouldn't want to think of it as a balance left in my checkbook. That's too scary. But then we start at zero again the next fiscal year. We like whatever happened the year before is is not really on the books. So then when the next year ends and you have more free cash, it gets sort of added to your checkbook. Yeah, Bernie, I always but it's not a perfect calculation. I always fit calculated. Put it that way because I have you free cash is what you pull off of if you have extra expenses or just what you work with in your checkbook and the stabilization funds are like your savings accounts. We put money aside for specific purpose. Well, for some of us free cash is what we what we find under the couch cushions. Well, some people actually are that careless. But anyway, let's go on. Holly, thank you so much for the report. And I think that what we're going to do is turn to the next agenda item which is the reparations report and the continuation of the discussion that we had at the last meeting and what happened as you know at the last meeting because all of you who were in attendance participated in this we put together a list of questions that we needed to understand for the in order to take on our assignment of giving a recommendation regarding section three of the reparations committee report. And so I think that the next logical thing to do is to see if any of those can be addressed immediately but also to identify what information that we need from our staff to help us to answer the questions because if we're going to be asking staff to do calculations for us or do estimates for us. I think we owe it to them to try and identify that today, so that they can have a week to answer it. So, at some point we may want to put the questions up on the screen but I'll leave that to the moment to see when it seems appropriate. Kathy. I didn't start out today's meeting for apologizing for missing last week's meeting so I didn't. I was actually in an emergency room with family members and could not participate but I had a couple of questions I wanted to add to the list and then I had, I did take time to listen to the zoom discussion that everyone had and so I really didn't. So I didn't know how you want, how you want to work with the 16 that were on the list and then I had a few others. So it's, it's, it's a question of how you want this. The question then does either Lynn or Athena have it in word to put on the screen and so that they can add your questions to it or to the list and if not, then we'll just get the questions on. We have Michelle sent the list with answers. I can, do you want to look at that before we add or wherever it makes sense for you that we add them because in the end we want to, we want a comprehensive list so I'll let you make that call. I think if you want me to do that so you can keep taking minutes etc that's fine but I'm fine with you doing it too. Okay, we can, we can add to this list and then we can add the answers Michelle if you have the answers in word I just don't have those in word so I can't mess with that right now. Sure I'll send that to you right now. So, Kathy I'm going to turn it back to you because you said you had some additional questions to add to the list. Yeah. And, and I think some of these. There is one we actually asked that I didn't see on the list there was a question of how, I know it's there, how much is in the fun now. Okay, so we've been, we've been thinking, it's often been referred as an endowment fund with the, the build it up to 2 million and then spell the interest. My question is we don't have to think of it that way so it was, you know, we can, we can think about it as a fun that has a stream of revenue from the cannabis taxes each year, and then on an annual basis. One could make a decision on how to spend it. And that would be similar to the way CPAC the Community Preservation Act works where there's a source of revenue and each year. The committee is told how much total there is, and there's a decision on, they can spend all of it or some of it and then they can reserve it so it's a it's to me. And the council can consider however we originally thought it so it doesn't seem to me we have to think of it as an endowment fund, and, and could we think of it differently. So that is, and, yeah, then so I don't know whether I was clear I'm going to you know there's there's a revenue source that's coming into that we designated up to up depending on whether we have the money each year. Why, what I say is that similar to CPAC, they get a surcharge off of property taxes, and then the state puts in some money and that's how much the money they have to spend. And then there are reserves, they didn't necessarily spend it every year so you can build up reserves so that's, that's a question that I'm not thinking that Michelle and group have to answer it's more of a philosophical question that we could answer. And then my, my other was in listening to the discussion on what if we got donated funds, whether others in the community or elsewhere wanted to put in money. We did, Andy, you were on the committee with me on the percent for art discussion. Sonya had told us there was a way of the town receiving gifts, especially designated gifts, and I think those funds could be merged. So it could be, this is the fun that they would go into. So it was just, that was a, I think, Bob Hagner or someone else asked about, you know, charitable donations but I think there's a mechanism, and that that Holly and they may be able to answer that for us because Sonya had a specific way we could do that if someone wanted to augment the amount that the town was putting aside. And I think those are my main additions to what I thought was a really good list of questions. Thank you. So, I guess that we're done back to where we that what we were trying to do is to see if there are any proposed answers to questions which we had some from Michelle and she provided them just prior to the meeting so most of us probably did not have a chance to look at what, thank you, Michelle. And then the second part, after discussing what she is proposing is answers and seeing what having discussion on that. The next part would be for us to see if there's anything that we need in the way of information from staff that requires investigation that we need to suggest so that we can keep this process moving forward. And I don't know I guess it's between Michelle and Athena whether there's something available to put on the screen now. I'm going to bring up the answers. If you have it. Is Michelle going to speak to it then I believe. Thank you Andy. If I'm being recognized then I will first just wanted to say that while the two actions that have come through the council from the recommendations in the report are in separate committees. There's a lot of intersectionality and so it is, I think, important that somehow the body GL that's looking at the successor body. And this body that's looking at the acceleration of the fund and the fund in general, that they'd be somehow in coordination as much as possible with the limitations of open meeting law. So I don't know if Athena might be able to offer us some suggestions on how to do that but I think that it would be worthwhile for that. For that to happen, for example, GL is working on a list of questions for KP law. And so if we could have those questions combined with any questions that are coming from this committee, I think we would be more efficient in our process of moving this forward. So I could quickly if you want Andy just go through my perspective on these questions, starting with number one. I think this is a good question. I'm not clear how the endowment here would be differentiated from another reserve fund but it's certainly a good question to ask. A quick Google search tells me that there's no limitation on a municipality having an endowment fund, but I'm certainly not a lawyer so I think that would be a good question to ask to ask. And for number two. From our perspective, our recommended mechanism is for the successor body to provide the council with annual or by annual recommendations for whatever the allotted funds may be at the end of this process. And that would be following consultation with the black community. And then those recommendations would be voted on by the full council and positive votes would initiate the process for the manager to create the financial order. And that's how I had always thought about it. When we've had previous discussions about how we would successfully have and a recommendation be brought through the council for approval. Okay, when you, why don't we pause and see if there anybody who raises a hand on either quite what you said about question one or two. We'll recognize those people and if not, have you gone the three. So, anyone from the committee. One of great questions about Bob. No, I just wanted to clarify on number two, there will be some amount that is recommended to be spent each year. The, the, the follow on committee will the successor body will propose that. Or will they propose, you know, here's the minimum amount. Here's the maximum amount. I mean, is it going to be like a, we want to spend this much or is it going to be we could spend any amount. If you approve. I think that we are clear in our report and this comes up again in another question that what we would like allocated on an annual basis is $100,000. And that would be used by the committee based on the recommendations that come through from that consultation process with the black community. So it would be limited to a number we are asking for $100,000 but whatever comes out of this process would be that number, depending on what option is chosen by the council ultimately. Thank you. So just on this topic, I think, you know, Bob I think this is, at least from my view as a counselor, I think this is now with the counselor and that's one of the questions GOL is going to, you know, what is, what is the charge to the community what are including there's a fairly long list of potential ways to use the money. Do we add to it? Do we add to it. And then some direction on, you know, the, what you just asked you know is it up to a certain amount of money I think that is still got it's we've received a report with recommendations now we have to figure out what the next step is. So I'm just seeing Michelle I know you're coming back with what the preference would be but I think this is one of the things now that, you know, given given that that there, there are several pieces that before the money can be spent, and I agree I always thought that once those decisions are made. There would be a recommended set of activities each year that would have to be voted on by the council there'll be some process figuring out what those are and then it would be brought to the council. Again similar I think CPAC is a good model, because there's a lot of public process there where the proposals come in there's discussion of them. The scope comes to some consensus not everything gets funded, but they're working within parameters, you know so it's not like anything goes it's it's a parameter list. So I just wanted to weigh in that some of this is still to be determined that that that the as you said Michelle there are two arms of the council one is GOL, looking at what a possible charges and we really haven't had the larger discussion in the council yet, but we've got the financing piece and the, the process piece. Yeah and I would just quickly respond I think Kathy's right I think this is now with the council. It was not my understanding. GOL would be making having any deliberation about the use of funds, rather than just setting up the charges as GOL does as a committee. From my perspective, I don't think the council needs to rush into a conversation right now about the use of funds I think that the recommendations that were brought forward remember there. There are funding priorities. So of course there could be something different than what we have recommended as a priority or they could be supported and then some so there's leeway there and I think that the successor body I don't think we can have read all of the questions now and I think personally with the little amount of time we have left that the council spending time this council spending time, deciding the way the funds will be used, when we have these really specific actions that need to occur which is approving a successor body and then having some recommendation about the funds so that initiatives can begin, maybe, you know starting as early as next year. That's when I think those discussions about use of funds will will and should appropriately be discussed and that's, that's my, my position on that. Anything else, or can Michelle go on to question three. Seeing none Michelle you're on the question. Okay, so this question. You know it's interesting. And I think it's one of the sort of questions that gets at more of the, maybe ethical components of, if that's the right way to say it, of this journey that we've embarked on. I think that while it may be effective for us to channel the funds through another department or committee that has similar goals as have been identified by the harm community. I think that, unless explicit direction were given to those committees, it would. It could potentially undermine the integrity of reparative justice, which really holds that the harmed community. It has autonomy over the repair. So my concern would be is if we say put a third to the recreation department a third to the housing trust, and a third, even maybe over to the Chamber of Commerce or something so that was the business grants and you know, those are examples. My concern would be that would really take the funds that have been allocated for reparations out of the hands potentially of the black community. And, and I don't think that would be appropriate without offering explicit direction. I also think it's important to recognize that again these were funding priorities that we came up with based on the consultation process that we had but this is an ongoing conversation. And that's why I really urge us to slow down a bit on that piece of things right now and simply focus on setting up the mechanisms. And then we'll sort of move to the, the larger questions of the use of funds and eligibility. I see Bernie's hand so I'm not going to go on. Yeah, I think I'll turn to Bernie I have a follow up question but I'm going to let Bernie go. Bernie. Yeah, I, I think this is how the funds get managed and what who actually manages them as a is an important question. Because we're a town, actually we're a city and and we we exists in this mesh of law and regulation, both state and federal. So there may be prospective uses of these funds that folks really want to see that we can't do. I think Michelle caution about taking some time to parse through this is a good one because there'll be some, there'll be some gray areas and there'll be some bright shining red lines that we won't be, we may not be able to cross. And it's not, you know, I'm not trying to throw sand in the gears here. But I'm concerned that, you know, the, if you want to continue this integral reparative justice. It may not be the best thing for the town, so for the town to actually manage it, depending again depending on what you want, what you want to do. And it comes back to the, the question that got raised earlier as to what the model is going to be is it going to be an endowment fund is it going to be an ongoing kind of expenditure like, like community preservation, or some, some hybrid so there's a bunch of stuff that has to be worked, worked through here. The other thing that I'm afraid, frankly, is, you know, when, when you, it's popping up elsewhere and there's no reason why I can't pop up here, where public entities are being challenged in court for directing programs or funds towards a particular group of people. And some of those challenges have been successful. And not that we should necessarily not do something because we might get sued that would sort of paralyze us. But I think we should keep in mind to find the most the most resilient way to set up a body to use this money. Yeah, I mean, I guess that what I had been thinking about was asking all to participate to the extent that he feels that he can at this point is to where we might go for advice on this particular question because we don't really that I can think of, have programs where we are using general fund revenue and delegating it to somebody, some other entity to manage the expenditure of those revenues without it going through some fairly strict process that involves an agreement and a department oversight some what the appropriate department overseeing the funds. And whether we need to have, you know, some kind of advice from somewhere whether it be from the KP law or it be from. Mark of our CPA firm or whoever might be appropriate to provide us advice on that subject. All you have any thoughts on it. Sure. So, you know, I mean, these are these are still taxpayer funds that we have to use in the public interest in the way we identify it and we have to comply with all the laws of the Commonwealth in terms of procurement and everything like that. So, and we have and we have funds that are set up to accommodate some of these types of things. KP law is has done a lot of research Michelle was kind of to include their opinion in the report for the reparation. There, you know, we've had lots of conversations with them they're ready to dig into this more they it's, you know, it's one of the it's a cutting edge thing there no other community is doing it. So, for some of their younger attorneys, they get sort of jazzed up about looking into this it's it's they get excited about it. So, and so I think there's the KP law portion there's clearly the our accountants would have to weigh in and then we probably talk with the Department of Revenue as well. Just to make sure anyway, we, we, you know, if we're going to start spending money in a certain way, we have to make sure we're doing it right. Real quick, folks, because if you've seen town XYZ in East East Oshkosh and often Ohio has done something doesn't mean it can happen here. Cities and towns in Massachusetts are much more restricted than cities and towns and other states. So, you know, we really have to look for models that we can enact in here in Massachusetts and, you know, pointing to Everston or somewhere else. Maybe inspirational or aspirational but it's doesn't necessarily be it can happen here. It's just a caution. There's nothing else on question three. I don't see any hand additional hands going up and thank you, Paul. I don't see any hands going up so then I'll turn it back over to Michelle that question for sure. And I just want to also quickly agree with what what Bernie said and say, I think even we can learn from, for example, the pitfalls that Evanston has had. And, and we should you know that's sort of part of taking this on is that we're paying attention to what's going on and, you know, of course, considering our own particular state and community. Number four, I, it's not a long answer I wasn't really understanding the question because we have already committed to dedicated funds for reparations so maybe it's just that I don't understand the way finance works well enough but I just I didn't understand the question in terms of balancing the budget, if, if we already have dedicated funds. So that may be better for somebody else to answer. And I had to, as I said to you before and the committee knows questions one to six actually came from other counselors not members of the committee so I can't turn to a member of the committee and say why did you ask that because Duff's was not asked by a member of the committee. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't attempt to answer number five. Because I think that, again, you know, I, I'm not sure that this question needs to be answered at the moment. We have set up the mechanisms. So we can go on to number six, unless Andy wanted to pause or I could just get through this. Okay, great. Six, I think this needs modeling I think this is the work that we really need to be looking at right now to continue with this discussion is to see how those three options. I'm going to go on a model and then I believe that with that information this committee will be able to make a really solid recommendation to the town council so I recognize that take staff time. And if there's any way that I can be helpful in that process by providing information. Paul, please let me know. And I think number seven we already covered. And just to say that that 100, that $100,000 that we are requesting was based on a 5% spending policy for the fully developed $2 million fund. I didn't get beyond that with the time that I had this morning and most of the rest of the questions I thought were going to be covered in some of the modeling and things like that that would happen. So I decided to continue on, especially I want to get you the information about the friends group and the information that we gathered about private donations and how, if they were put into the gift fund, which has already been set up by the town. There is a gift fund and I think there might even be some money in it. But how I think one of the legal questions that we has for the public funds in place if that money is in a gift fund of the municipality and would it make more sense for the black community to have more agency over private donations that may come in and not be held to the limitations of the municipality. I feel in shaking her at home experience in that room. We don't want to accept money that we then can't give for the purpose that it was intended. That's my only. It's a yes, you're correct. Thank you for giving me the time to answer these questions and I'll keep trying to work through the rest and over the next day or so and, like I said, we'll be compiling questions for KP law for GOL as well so I think there's going to be some overlap here. So, I'll turn back for a second to question six and then turn this trying to turn this back to the committee a little bit with the question of what information additional to what we've already talked about would you suggest that we need to be asking members of the staff and you were correctly pointing out requires that we get into looking at the models more closely. But I had actually started to raise the same question at the last meeting if you watch the recording of the meeting. And that one was already asked that I said, oh yeah, it was already asked. But the reason that I had thought about asking it was really just to get us thinking about the question of what are our commitments that we need to make with the available funds that we're going to have and as we transfer free cash and how are we going to assess that and I was thinking in two terms when I post when I suggested the question. It got merged into just with six and not asked separately but we do know that the capital stabilization fund was a minimum recommendation that when we get around to the question of what we need to have the capital stabilization fund to do it's an entirely different question because Sean had suggested that we think about making the four project plan work by trying to use stabilization fund money directly to fund the fire station and there's also we know a tremendous amount of work to be done by street streets and sidewalks or at least those of us that are pounding the streets and talking to residents heavily in advance of November 7th or certainly hearing that. And so that was why I had posed that question. So I think that we need to think about whether Paul and Holly can sort of go back and think about how to analyze that piece of it as we look at the models and now I'm going to turn it to Kathy. Yeah, and I totally agree with that Andy and you know in both in the models and when sitting on the Joint Capital Planning Committee, the other aside from the fire station we have a DPW building that from everything we're being told we need to move sooner rather than later on some decisions on where to put it and how to build it and the debt service on that. It one of the ways Sean had it work was start to draw on some of the General Stabilization Fund if needed when the debt service for a couple big projects are working at the same time you know we had that line that said we don't have enough money but we can draw down and he said you can draw down to and then we had a bottom that we can't draw down anymore so we were tapping into not just the state. The Capital Stabilization Fund but the General Stabilization Fund when two big projects were running at the same time within limits so it's it's an interactive six, six that question six and seven, you know anything that's pulling money out of those places is all interactive with urgent some fairly urgent needs. And I think we we all need to be thinking about that, which is why when the three options came in Michelle I always like the middle one which was spend as you go. It's another way to think about money comes in and you spend some of it and you just don't accumulate it as fast but you're not taking it out of other pots where we need it and we. So, so I just think that that look those bigger questions on my initial reaction is we're so tightly budget did that I can't see it happening but whatever way we can be more informed on that would be great. And some of the, you know, I don't think we even have on the list some of the things. Lynn and I, we were at the trivia night last night. And we're sitting under the hole in the middle school auditorium, where the water is coming through the roof. You know this is, you know, these, these are these aren't just in, you know, maybe in the future is you can see there's a hole right where it wasn't raining so we didn't get wet but you could you could definitely see that this this roof needed some help. So I just want to be really careful about the funds we've built up because we've, we draw on them with a capital allocation but we don't have a lot of bandwidth to grow on them for big capital allocations without pulling on some of those stables that those monies. That's it. Matt. Thanks Andy. And thank you Michelle I honestly when we were writing these questions last meeting, I anticipated town staff would be answering these questions I didn't mean to put this on to Michelle and the HR a because, you know as Kathy said I mean I don't really think that we have any feasible and spend as you go I don't know if that's the term but but that's a pretty good version of what be is. And I think that's exactly within the mandate that you know it's kind of the, it follows the original recommendation which is to, you know, add cannabis funds every year that you know which I think we all have a pretty clear commitment to that at this point and and then obviously, you know, or at least to me obviously, you know there's an urgency around starting to utilize one of those funds sooner than, you know, 10 years out I completely sympathetic to that. You know I was also the one that wrote the question about what would the implications be on the other accounts if we, you know drew those down to try to start drawing interest. And I don't think any of that feels safe to me for a lot of the reasons that Kathy said but, but I don't I don't think. So personally, you know I think that that that option B is is going to be my recommended option as well. However, to do to do diligence on that we, I need to see the modeling of sort of how much can we give the successor body to spend on an annual you know, and there may be a compromise in terms of, you know, walking our way up to an annual $100,000 to spend, you know, because if it if it's going to be. Oh, and I'm sorry, we haven't heard what the how much is in the account right now. I have that question was on the list I thought we would have that number right here actually I just looked at it. It's 300 as far as I know it's 345,101. That's, that's what I have. That's right all around there. Looking to Holly, but you're muted Holly. I said if you give me one second I can verify that. Thank you. And that's around what I would have expected I'll wait for Holly to get the actual answer so you know I think, as Michelle said, I mean, our job is to make a recommendation out and and we just we kind of need to see. What I thought is that there might be a couple different models within option B. And, and, you know, I don't know how much your detail finance needs to own on those things but I think I would I personally would need to see what would want to see a few models of how that sort of draw down versus spend now is going to work. You know, in terms of making a recommendation. Anyway, but I appreciate the responses and I'm guessing Holly has a number because she's quick. If Holly needs a minute longer to look for it, why don't we use Lynn. Start asking what you're going to ask. Yeah, I think Matt's provided a perfect segue into where I was going to go which is now. Let's look at 17 page 17 and 18 in the number three, which is where the options are option one two and three. And so playing out a scenario I think I wrote down about 105,000 this year. And I, people might have suspected why I was asking about the cannabis money because I was trying to figure out whether any of that money could also be used toward this fund. And that's a question I don't think we have the answer to here. Yeah, I hear that that's probably not the case. So, if you take $145,000 and the interest on that this year, and you spent half of that towards programming. You add to that $105,000 and you take half of that toward programming this year and half of it actually goes into the fund, and you modeled something like that. You would start out this year, whether or not it's spent or not spent. You would be saying well for programming or for the purposes of directly working on the goals and achieving goals will never achieve them. You would say well then we have somewhere maybe around $60,000 this year for programming or as Michelle said in one of her things you could do it by every two years or something like that, which means you'd have more. I think what I'm hearing and I think Matt you were saying this too and that is that the recommendation is to start to figure out a way to start doing some things, rather than just accumulating a fund. And yet, I absolutely am hearing what Kathy saying if she didn't say it I would, I don't need to say it we have all these other demands on our funds that we have to pay attention to. So I'm trying to figure out how to do something that allows the recommendations of age are a to begin to happen. Financially, all other issue of how it happens is part sits in GOL. So, that's what I mean, I'm in favor of option to add a minimum of but I'd like to, you know, see a model on that say over a five year period or something like that what would it look like. Because I really would like the council to support recommendations of age or a beginning to be active. Thank you. I did you have the number. Yes, so as of the excuse me as of June 30 at the balance and the reparation stabilization fund is 347,685 dollars. Okay, thank you. Bob. I just wanted to add that and Michelle you, you don't need to weigh in on this now but there in order to do something meaningful you got you have to have a minimum amount of money. And so I think that needs to be factored into whatever we model like how much is needed in order to set this particular program up in order to implement this program. I think we need that information as well. Interesting question Michelle is response to it I would wonder if it really is going to wait until we structure and appoint the successor committee but Michelle have any thoughts on it. Yeah, and I think that's right I think there's even a possibility, you know, we're probably not going to spend a dime for two years realistically. Once we get, you know, we've got to get things set up we got to get mechanisms in place we've got to continue educating the community and there's still work that we're doing and so I think that giving some guidance now in this council that the next council can feel, you know, have some solidity around is important and that that successor body has that but that number may be more it may be determined that it is more to be meaningful or less to be meaningful it may from year to year depending on the needs of the community. And it may be that we're so synergistic with some of the other initiatives that are occurring in town that you know we just we figure out what what those numbers are more easily than we even think. So, that's, that's my, my thoughts on that thanks for asking Andy. Kathy. Yeah, I was just, I think I'll just build on both what Michelle and Bob just said that. If you think of that the actual point that someone is making a spending decision is a couple years from now it will accumulate more so Lynn, your modeling of suppose two more years we have this much as a base and this is earning this much and this much is and interacts with what kind of things are we talking about spending on and we've got this series of questions that can't be answered right now that you know if you if it was ongoing support for a service. Then, then it's got to be every year so it's an ongoing support so if it was supporting programming in a daycare center or in a youth center or something then it's every year is going to be a draw if it's a one time expense. And you vary year to year what the one time expenses or, and we're so far from knowing what that list might be. I think right now we just need to say, here's a feasible way of enabling those decisions. And especially if we think, most likely two years from now that there's a bunch of process things that. I just wanted to say that, you know, some of the other, even the questions we had, I don't, I never expected you to be answering them, Michelle as much as it's a framework for how one we might, you know, say here's a funding stream that might support those decisions down the road. And then I thought that was helpful because I just immediately went to okay two years from now we'll have about 500,000. If we can be earning 5% on it, and that's an if. And there's another amount coming in, the two combined can get you start to get pretty near the 100,000. And if you say you do that every two years you're easily at that amount so it's, it there's a lot of flow flow and spending kinds of issues involved in, in not thinking of don't spend any of it for 10 years or don't spend any of it for 15 years. There's a lot of flexibility. Lisa. Thank you Andy. And so I hear what Kathy saying but I'm sort of thinking about it on the flip side, and that if we want the community to be able to plan sufficiently and give us like more specifics than we need to to have the money be filling out sooner, rather than later and so that they can know, you know, what amount of money annually they will be dealing with and planning processes take a while. So like if we waited two years. That is then delaying the process even further and it need not be delayed anymore so I think coming up with the funding sooner rather than later would be more important in terms of the ability for the committee and for the community to be able to plan as to what specific recommendations they'll be doing, because like, like Kathy said like we could have ongoing recommendations we could have one time recommendations but in order for them to even make those recommendations they need to know how much money they'll be getting on an annual basis. And so I think having the money sooner would work in their benefit. Thank you. Can I just quickly respond to Alicia with that be okay. Very quick. Yeah, I want to support what Alicia saying I agree I think that determining how much the allocation will be is part of this process that were that we're working on right now. And then, and I agree that having a sense of what that number is, then allows the community to think about what sorts of recommendations make sense within the context of that. Thank you. So my observation. I saw your hand up so if you're coming back. Okay. And what Alicia has just raised and we had Michelle's comment on kind of balances out against the other side of the coin is if we're going to accelerate additions, what's the consequence which was really what question. I think it was five was about your man. You know what is the consequence and what are the choices we're making to do to accelerate to allow us to accelerate. And we're going to have to grapple with that question as we go forward. But I want to try and summarize it and bring it to a close unless somebody else has something they want to say first. Seeing that anything right now. I think that we've identified some initial questions about question three, for example, which is the one and how we can spend funds, how to manage the funds, manage expenditures and what needs to be done through the town and what can be done through another mechanism and we said that that we needed advice on and that we were going to look to staff to figure out where to get that advice from and talk about KP law CPA from DOR as being the major sources. We also identified the general question that we wanted staff to identify of looking at the capital stabilization fund and make some analysis of what might be needs to be expended out of the capital stabilization fund and what the draws on that are. So that we have that information when we come back to try and pull all of this together. And another thing was just generally to ask our staff, which would be, you know, probably in the end, Paul and the two acting finance directors, go through the questions and see what kinds of questions what questions that they might propose answers to. And I can be available to assist in that discussion, if needed, but that was, I think the third general question suggestion. And with that, we would be is putting in beginning to put together a firmer understanding, because I think as Lynn pointed out, the next step is that we need to get to take the information that we've then gathered and to get back into the particular assignment, which is section three of the report and what our recommendation is. And I think for the most part, it is focused on the options that were presented by the HRA. The reason that all of section three was limited to was referred was so that we could talk about other financial matters like how CPA or just the general other budgets that are available in CDBG fit into the process and we'll have that's really, I think going to be a more straightforward part of which you're pretty complex discussion. So, Alicia, you had your hand up. Yes, sorry. I'm wondering if it's possible to to request that Paul and Holly get back to us with like the pros and cons of of what might happen if we are able to have the reparations stabilization fund filled in two years, like what the effects would be. Sure. So, explain more what you're looking for Alicia, we can certainly do that. Yeah, I'm just looking to know like the consequences on the budget on our overall process of how we determine what like the free cash flow is and where those things go, as well as I don't I don't know if this is particularly possible for you and Holly but as well as the reparations process overall. And you say to have the reparations fund filled, do you mean to get $2 million into the fund in two years? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if we can sort of look at like, if it would have an effect on anything, where would those effects to be? So if it were to benefit anything where those benefits would be. Okay, so if the council said, hey, we want $2 million in two years and their reparations fund, tell us how we can get there and what the impact is. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Yeah, if anything else is that we need to get on to the next agenda item. Um, I'm okay with the question. I just don't think it's easy to answer without the interaction Paul on what happens to spending on DPW fire station and other capital needs. So just keeping it within the time limits you can put into it is. Yeah, it's not a simple question. It's not a simple unless you want to make it a simple. Like, we will not do this because of that, you know, type thing. Yeah, so I just think it's, it's more than a simple question. I can do some pros and cons right now, but I can't do them with numbers. And I would want to do with numbers. So. Thanks. I'm giving you permission to take time as needed. So anything else on reparations that people, the committee wish to raise at this point. And if not, Michelle, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for the preparation work you did to help the discussion today by going through the questions and beginning to think them through. It really was very helpful. So appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to say this is really exciting. It's really amazing to like have us here having these discussions that are taking this idea and really moving it into action. And so I thank all of you for that and have a great rest of the meeting. Okay, thank you. So, I think that the next item on the agenda is the rental registration fee structure and that's actually going to be the last major item. So, you know, it's to say anything more detail on this at this point, but TSM at last night and the streetlight policy is essentially moving into a process that will allow the work on it to continue but to segue into the next legal term and not to try and press it so that there was no recommendation there for of a policy yet for us to talk about, nor maybe need to do so for the next this period that we're coming up on, which is the remainder of the current term. Is there anything else you would add to what I just said? It will come to the council the TSO recommendation was to task the town manager with reviewing the policy and bringing it back to the council in the next year. So there will be a TSO recommendation on the council agenda on the 13th for a vote, but it's not on the final policy like Andy said. And therefore there's really nothing that the finance committee can do at this point. So essentially we're putting it aside and probably turning it into an item for the finance committee carry over memo for what issues we perceive for the next term because we're essentially saying when the recommendation comes through process that would be developed would be there so that that's why I was wanting to at least clarify that. So we are turning going to rental registration and I see two hands up already so Kathy. Yeah, Andy I just, I thought we were going to end at three so I did set up something that I will have to rearrange if we're going to launch into a fairly long conversation. I'm sorry I just I. We may not be able to for that very reason I was aware that there had been requests to end at three o'clock and I mentioned that at the beginning. I think that what we need to do is make sure that in this conversation. We sort of identify the next steps that we want to take so that we can have a fuller conversation at the next meeting and reserve a real chunk of time to it. One of the things that I was going to recommend on that score was that we did get a recommendation from somebody who offered public comment at the beginning of the meeting today and at the last meeting and at the last meeting. I made a very specific recommendation about a fee structure. And I know that the same person had recommended a fee structure. There was a slide that was different at an earlier time, but we have both of those now as written documents and I was going to see if either I or somebody else who is familiar with the spreadsheet that CRC was working from in plug those recommended amounts into the spreadsheet to see what it would generate and against the amount that was anticipated by CRC to be the need in order to support the program that they're recommending. That was, I guess, the one thing that I wanted to see us move forward to. I'm willing to take a try at it, but I have to, you know, I haven't done it yet so I don't know if I will be successful. There are other things that anyone can think that we really need to do to prepare for the discussion next time Kathy. I'm not sure I can be as precise as you just were, but I am concerned about the overall cost of operation and the impact on the smaller operations particularly. I think I said it way back when I this all started out as we're pretty sure we've got some properties out there that are problematic but now we're doing all properties. But I think whatever fees we charge it's a combination of how often we inspect and how involved the original the initial permitting in terms of the questionnaire you filled out and then the ongoing costs of I think we're generating a surplus right now with the fees we're collecting on that we went up with the permit so you know it's interactive with inspections, we, we, some of that could finance more frequent inspections if the inspector decided to inspect. So I'm fine with you doing what you just said on playing with the fees but I just want to get at frequency and complexity. So that we don't build something that is really hard to administer and isn't getting at what the initial concern was. That's, that's all it was the same concern I raised at the very beginning but in any case, I just, I want to make sure we target this to be as efficient and non red taping as possible but still worry about houses being unsafe to live in or an unhabitable over time. Andy I do have to hop off now I apologize thank you. Okay. Thanks Matt. So I can try and work with Rob and Holly and Mandy who's not at today's meeting to try and see what we can do on analyzing the revenue side which was what I was suggesting. Kathy is talking about also making sure we're looking at the expense side as because in the end the I think with concern that we've heard from many many property owners is that we don't want to have fees getting so large that it has an adverse impact on their ability to provide the housing or on the rents that are that they need to charge in order to be able to manage businesses that have balanced budget and a reasonable profit, which businesses expect. And I would just say, you know, if I had to be really if it's poorly targeted so you hit everybody, then you're then you're not necessarily even doing what you set out to do so that is I was focused on the expense side and exactly, you know, where we can find it's driven by what we say we're going to do on on a annual by annual five year 10 year cycle so. So yes, it. So yes, yes, I agreed with what you said just now but it's my larger concern and I watch the federal government try to regulate and state try to regulate nursing homes and somehow they always miss the bad ones and really put a lot of burden on the good ones and it was just so poorly targeted that that you thought wait a minute what are we doing we're not keeping patients safe, but everyone, but we're harassing everybody equally. It would be the way I would say but that's from a different world that was a nursing home world. Rob, who's with the meeting at the moment I know that his computer is with the meeting has been pretty clear with us as to what, you know, not thinking we need to go into it again today, but why the recommendation was made from him to CRC and from CRC back to the Council that we're now looking at, as far as the need for the frequency of the inspections in order to achieve goals of the bylaw. The other thing that Rob has to do is to be comfortable that he can step and manage the program of if it's funded at that level. I appreciate the responses that we've received from him on those topics and so I don't want to take this going too many circles at some point we just have to process the information but I'm trying to act like a finance committee and get into the question of whether the numbers work. I really hope that at our meeting next Friday, this is what we focus on, because it still has to go through a couple other steps. And to get it to the finish line by the end of this Council, which I think I've already heard that a cup that at least this one other big item is now being put aside for next time and I have the feeling that waste hauling is the same thing. Let's not do that to this one. Let's get this one done. Yeah, I think that the hauling will. Right, and if we need to put caveats on how do we evaluate it and are there ways in which people get waivers or something like that. Let's get all that discussed. On the 30th, I think that's when our November, whatever next Friday is, and so that we keep moving this one. Thank you. You know that's helpful because I think that we were trying to get an indication and they're now getting from your comments and from the TS meeting yesterday is to what are the issues that we have to keep moving on with the highest priority and which ones we can move back on a little bit and I think the other question that we need some input on in order to do that is to know what the AHRA and the reparations referral are going to be when is, you know, is that going to be a council action this year or is not going to be a council action this year and we're not, I'm not asking for an answer to that now. But we have to act. We have to assume that it is until we've heard that it isn't anything else for members of the committee about what we've done. Thank you. I think that we've done what we can do today. I think the next meeting. Our focus is going to be on two pieces continue the reparations discussion and a more complete discussion of the rental registration because we're those are the two that we assume are likely to require action and also beginning to think about the guidelines and the guideline process. So anything else that people would like to add or say and I don't know if it would be worth putting up for a moment the meeting plan just so there's visual to everyone on the screen. My own comment. Andy, you just list. You just listed three things that I think are more than two hours. So if we try to do guidelines and do what Lynn is asking on rental is get to get to put a period on it. And a hra so just thinking, you know, wrestling with timelines. I'm just not sure that's two hours worth of discussion. Because I think the guideline piece is really important. The other one that we haven't talked about. Okay, thank you for putting it up. The guidelines we can wait until after the 13th. The question at one point it come up as to whether there was any principles about guideline. And that's why it's listed there under November 3rd, as to whether there are any overarching principles that get discussed every year that we could put aside without actually having the financial indicators meeting and projections available to us. And so you members of the committee might look at the last year's guidelines and think that through. And the that would be the extent of the discussion if we have time to have it. And I think that the other things I would probably include on the agenda but I know that we need to move forward keep moving forward on reparations which actually isn't even guess it is the HR recommendations isn't there. And the rental registration fees are the items that we at this point are assuming will need a recommendation this year. And once we get into the guidelines, it's going to be more difficult. So, that's where that listing has come from and if people are comfortable with what's on the screen, then we'll keep it if you have suggestions or questions about the current plan. I'm certainly welcome input from the committee since this is largely been something that Athena and I have worked on together to try and help the committee but when any comments you have or welcome. So you have surplus real property distribution pop also for next Friday so my question is can you that one. Don't worry about we don't if we don't have enough time. Then we don't finish on each of the topics. So, I I'm not going to press. I'm not going to press. Athena to answer the question now but I think that would do really raising a question is within discuss to learn to this sort of surface surplus real property disposition is also an urgent item for the remainder of this term or it's going to end up being a holdover. Because what we're trying to do is getting the process ourselves at the council is going through a figuring out what are holdover items that are not going to be acted on or the inclusion of the current term and so we can differentiate and focus on what is the goal for this term. But I would like to hold comment on the surplus property issue. And Athena you started to say something so maybe you have some thoughts on that you'd like to share too. I think it's been leading this so I included this in the agenda plan because it was referred to finance the committee back in the spraying I think Andy. And so it was just a cleanup tying up that loose end there's not an urgency to I don't believe Paul is planning on bringing anything to the council anytime soon. It was just trying to tie up a loose end that was a referral so if it ends up as a carry over item. I don't see that as an issue. So you should let us know between now and the next meeting whether you anticipate that there is going to be a request for real property. There won't be any. So if there won't be this really, it can be held over to the next term. Okay, that's helpful. So people from the committee want to raise about this or anything else that it's not limited it's sort of the unanticipated question issues question too. Andy, did you want to keep the surplus property disposition policy on the agenda or do you just want to take it off and probably take it off. I keep it on the agenda so that we make sure it's in the carry over. Unless I just start making this. We want to start making a list of carry over items, which we've done before at the bottom of the chart. Thanks for a while or had been a list of outstanding. So we can move it there and it's still on the chart. Thank you. Okay. And of course ways taller and is probably going to end up there and street lights is probably going to end up there too for that matter. Because we don't think that there's going to be council action on them and there's no proposal that we can quantify. And they really hold over the next term. Anything else and looking for hands just generally because anything that people would want to raise before I adjourn. Seeing none. Thank you very much. And we are adjourned. We'll see you in the next meeting next week.