 special rolling select board meeting January 6th to order the addition to changes the agenda none public comment hearing none fiscal year 22 budget discussion so you can buy that basically if you buy them the two loans Brad I'm gonna I'm gonna pull up a hopefully I'm gonna pull up something for us to look at here for that the is really we haven't had much discussion on that the I gotta pull it up here so I I'd like to talk about I think John asked for at the last budget meeting and we sent out it was what expenditures were increased that are really are fixed so we sent that Diane put together a spreadsheet for you all on that it's FY 22 budget expenditures increases starts in upper left with wages for the town administrator are we are we discussing the items are we just all open in the document right now what what's I just I just put I just put it on the screen now John okay it's coming up now my internet appears to be a little delayed tonight for some reason my finding it was more delayed than your internet so I know I think it was you John had asked for this and Diane put it together you could see where these are really fixed costs that we have little control over workers comp I mean workers comp we have some control over but likely the only one on here that we have much control over any control over how do we have control over that can you just explain that to us workers comp you just you know I think we need to do a better job at safety training make employees you know aware of safe practices I think we need to do a an audit of our shop I don't know if there's never been an audit of our shop done looking for potential hazards and I know there's a bunch of training for especially the highway folks with respect to flagging and lifting and and all that kind of stuff I just I don't have a real good comfort level on what we're doing Tim Tim's on the on the call here so he may he can wait probably more into what training that that they are doing and the same thing on the on the police side of the of the business you know there's I training that we could do for those officers as well to make them aware of hazard situations how to avoid them and how we improve them we're good with this is my mic on yes the M1 no don't come back now could someone explain that the anticipated increase with Northfield at the time Northfield also does our ambulance service so I know that Berrytown is 7% and normally Northfields will you know they usually go up one or two percent a year too so some of our residents are you know in the Northfield you know they're closer Northfields of the Northfield ambulance works with them right and we're so we're expecting them to increase their service by 8% no one the Berrytown is 7% oh got it got it got it okay thank you I appreciate that yeah so it's very town that doesn't seem to be controlling their costs as well right yeah I I think what you see that they had a then the subsequent years they came down off of that pretty significant but again the first year was was higher right and under the police wages it just said for reasons as Phil shifts 4% 33,000 or almost 34,000 dollars what what do you mean by Phil shifts okay so the way that James was you know telling me about that is that especially if people are on vacation or if for COVID if they're out on COVID then we have to have overtime people come in or people that we doing overtime or have to get part-time people to come in and fill those ships but I guess my confusion is is we have line items for both of those things and it was my understanding for the most part when you look at an a man roster the part-time was to cover really for the most part those those types of things yeah and and we do have an over we do have a over overtime line item that has money in it as well so I didn't speak directly with James on this but I'm gonna speculate that it's we're gonna be entering into a new contract for fiscal year 22 that that may be what his thought was as well I that's something I you know I don't know for sure but I'm just speculating and I was hoping he would be here at the meeting I didn't invite him to it well he he said that if we need him I could we should text him and he'll join so I understand the rest of the items Brad Justin flow are you guys good with this one yeah yeah I understand what you're talking about I understand it too the only thing that I would question to is is there any fluctuation there under the police wages and then is the health insurance is there any room for you know difference there well on the health insurance if people go from like the new town administrator for instance I'm assuming he's gonna be on family plan if he's not then that would go down so if people change in their plans just that we have more people on the family plan now than ever because the police they were on either one person or two person and they had children so now they're on family plans okay so that's the big difference so so here's a question for you Diane how did we end up with such a big surplus last year in the general fund in the general fund we had a hundred and fifty thousand dollar loan we had not anticipated so there's also grants but there was the hundred fifty thousand dollars for the loan that we had not anticipated which is a plus and like said there's a grants in there as well plus we underestimated the revenues partially because of the grants and then their expenditures were not as high there's a lot of things like when we started into COVID in March I think that we were I think at one point we were saying let's not if we don't have to do something let's not spend the money so in other words we don't have to repair this road if we don't if there's something that doesn't have to be done then let's not do it and I think that Dana really did make the effort to make certain that we didn't spend all of the expenditures that we had so that's why we ended up with such a big surplus okay and have you looked if we didn't have those grants if we didn't have the grants and loan would do you know roughly what our surplus would have been let's see when I was looking at it I would say probably we've been still hundred thousand another question I had Diane is in terms of abatements so later we'll be discussing the potential abatement for the next five years for the Grange how would that affect us if it was not approved to abate at offset the budget per se okay it I'm just not it wouldn't really offset the budget because what happens with that okay like that's the floor vote five years ago and they approved it and then the municipal portion plus the school portion at that point was abated so what happens is the school portion of it goes it's there's a formula when we fill up as a 411 report when they do the grand list and then when we do the taxes in that portion of the school is actually spread out amongst all of us if you look there's the municipal rate and right underneath it is another rate I can't remember the name of it right now but it's for the bet is mostly for the veterans of the veterans that we end up paying for the additional money that they have in other words a veteran if he's totally disabled can get $10,000 from the state the town has approved an additional 30,000 so for those few people that are in there and for that school portion that money is in that puts this build back to each one of us residents and I think it's a point zero zero zero eight is the amount and so there's the there's the municipal rate and then there's this rate I just can't remember the name of it for the life of me right now but it's in our it's on the tax bill so that's what happens with that okay thank you yep so it doesn't it wouldn't it wouldn't positively impact this budget but it would it would positively impact the time the tax bills are sent out yes I've been forecasting and looking at the future and and looking at where you can you know do potential cuts and I appreciate that I'm gonna pull up a another sheet here if we're already to move off of this one so Brad this is where where you started you get this is spreadsheet that Diane and I put together you'll see in the middle line brackets up there the total expenditures on 12 30 20 that's that's the last time we met and you can see that there was FY 22 expenses of three point four million dollars which equated to a five point nine percent increase year year over year so there was folks had some discussion I think Justin brought it up about can we can we buy down some debt the next day Diane and ask the questions to to the otters and I'll let I'll let her answer those questions what they said but so we looked at the possibility of buying down two loans and that's in that lower section and it's particularly where it's highlighted in yellow if if we bought down two loans if there's an FY 25 truck loan and it's there's the new grader I think that goes through FY 32 that the grader that we just bought if we if the town bought out those two loans to the tune of three hundred seventy six thousand dollars they would reduce the annual budget by sixty one thousand seven hundred twenty nine dollars and if if you all did that that's reflected up above in total expenditures on one six twenty one three hundred thirty three hundred three million four hundred thousand dollars which would bring the year over year increase the four point zero six percent what the benefit in my mind's eye of buying down debt is that this is just not an improvement for FY 22 the nearly thirty two thousand dollars there in the truck buy down would take slipboard through FY 25 so so in effect you are improving future budgets by doing this in the greater loan and I think it's FY 32 so you'd see an approval nearly thirty thousand a dollars a year for the next nine years so you so you by buying down debt you improve all not only f what the FY 22 the next year but also future years budgets and you can see Diane has a little block there that starts FY 22 on a designated fund balance nine hundred thirty one thousand or select has an obligation out there of FY 21 tax buy down of hundred thousand you all agree to these loans it's three hundred seventy six thousand which would leave a balance in your undesignated funds of four hundred fifty thousand dollars I thought the number was higher when we just got our audit numbers than the nine thirty one but I know I know Diane you like to keep you say you feel comfortable with the four or five hundred thousand dollars my question before was that if we say we utilized this say we had zero in there and we have trucks that are paid for we use in something urgent came up there is an option to possibly finance those trucks and replenish some of that cash you said it happens fairly quick why wouldn't why wouldn't we consider more and then putting it like a cab like an equipment capital equipment or fund or something along with the budget while we're looking at this well I guess if an emergency to buy a piece of equipment would be great but what if we had some type of natural disaster where it wasn't equipment it was some other repair that we have potentially we could go to you know a bank to get a loan but it wouldn't be an equipment it would just be different so I guess I look at that it's not for buying equipment as much as if there's a disaster for like a road or something so there's no way we could pay this that pay other debt down and then five refinance a truck say that was paid off to for an emergency like yes we can do that I suture saying yeah we could be financed right and then use that money in the emergency but in the meantime you know you could probably budget for your own equipment fund and things like that so that we were building into that so we're heading in the direction the she does have a capital budget in here Justin yeah 250,000 I'm sorry Diane it is 250 what were that said that 250 will probably all be used up for the match for the pain for the Fisher Road Culver loan which was 230 some thousand dollars that the town would have to come up as the 20% loan match there were a couple two or three other loans which had much shorter debts to them and that because they were nearly paid off we took the two ones we took the two loans that had the most debt service and in a turn the longer long so what were the shorter term long what were the ones with the smaller was that just curious two trucks two of the trucks and I think that they are going to end in 2022 I believe the other two do so we have two truck payments ending in 2022 and that's are those roughly $30,000 a year payments let me see well one of them is like 15,000 and the other 30 that's good thank you the interest rates Diane on the truck in the greater if we do the loans buy down what are the current interest rates oh let's see I don't have it right in front of me but I believe that the greater loan is under 2% and the others I think I had one it was point 2.05 and the others are right around that so there's nothing over 2.05 percent figure out why you guys weren't listening to me my I was on mute for the couldn't find the mute button so if we if we drew our rainy day fun for a lot for a lack of a better term down to 400,000 we could potentially pay off those other two smaller loans that you talked about as well bringing it down another percentage point right well they're already in there to pay all I think you're saying you put that in that loop yeah right they wouldn't be reoccurring next year so it's not like it would pop back up and bite us in the rear end right so yeah I'm just thinking of you know ways to get us down to you know a palatable percentage of increase and you know we're I think you know if the board was to agree on what's proposed here we'd be down to about 4% but if you paid off those two lower you know the the small loans too you'd still have $400,000 balance and you'd buy down an extra point there so you'd really be down to 3% at that point I mean which is getting there that right Diane or am I thinking about it wrong no I think that you are thinking about correctly you know I'd want to double check to see exactly how much we owe on these and I don't have that right here but I am predicting it's like you know under it probably be like 37 or 38,000 with interest I believe to pay off both of those what you could do outside of buying down those two short term notes now is just take that same dollar shot and and apply it to the to the FY 22 tax rate similar similarly as you folks it did for 2021 by putting 101 thousand towards the tax rate as as long as the it was the end of the loan right so that's correct next year that's correct yeah that's correct yep right the only difference would be if we paid it off early save a little bit an interest but it's not significant I guess it would be very low yeah and in that way I I'm not quite sure when you apply that monies but since we haven't applied the 2021 yet I'm assuming you've got apply that in June I don't so so so if you you in effect have 18 months still still hold on to that money and do something with the cash if you don't buy down see what up see what I'm asking Diane you have you have in here so I guess the rate the tax rate buy down is that worth thinking that if we were to spend everything in the FY 21 budget and get all of our revenues the way that we projected then yeah it would be 101 thousand six hundred however if we have more revenues than we determined and we don't spend as much money then we won't be taking we won't be getting to that 101 thousand six hundred it might be something less than that how are we tracking we were six months into revenue how are we tracking are we tracking on on track behind track as I was starting to look at it yeah we were just like at the halfway point in most of things I don't see what we really went over into many things right now so but up what I'm saying is it it is are your revenues tracking true to the budget or they higher than what you had in the budget or low budget okay so there may be there is a likelihood that you won't need the entire 101 thousand you're so is this is the suggestion however either loan loan take out these loans or apply towards FY 22 tax rate buy down to get this to 3% I like that personally I'd like to hear from others but I mean that gets us to to a 3% increase which is what we're getting there I think you know and as you said Tom you know those those two those two loans that we're looking at now here that's gonna you know help us in future years as well which is every taxpayer understand yes right if we if we take him by down down to the point of 400,000 and you and Diane you're estimating about another hundred thousand surplus at the end of the FY 21 I don't know the surplus if there's gonna be a surplus I don't know what it would be no I think when we're asking me we were talking about the FY 21 rate tax buy down to 101,000 that's hoping that we won't use that up but I don't know I really have no way of knowing especially we don't know what winter's gonna bring yeah it couldn't see a legally be worse than that but but I did is that a maximum number is the 101,000 a maximum number okay I mean for the for the town of this size and the budget of this size I feel pretty comfortable with having a $400,000 rainy day fund I think that's a pretty good number Diane you're more of the expert of this area but I know I'm fine with that and the thing is we are starting to build up that well I want to build up that $250,000 a year if we can you know if we can start building that up as well that's gonna really help us out a lot more in the future because then we will have something to fall back on for equipment or maybe an emergency but remember in FY 22 we are going to consume that entire to nearly that entire $250,000 for the Fisher Road Culver match right I think well I'm no I was talking to earlier I think number one we have some reserve money and then I think at FY 21 I'm gonna have some money I would really like to bring that up at the next board meeting and discuss the because I do think that we with FY 21 what I what I want to reserve and what we have in the reserves I think that we're gonna be we're gonna be able to meet that $264,000 unless you know unless we buy another piece of equipment or we have another capital expenditure and I think we're in a pretty good stead and I agree with Diane and I'm gonna play devil's advocate in terms of I'm just wondering what would occur if we were to take another hundred thousand from the four hundred thousand bring it down to three hundred thousand and drop the interest rate another percent how do people feel about that we're not dropping the interest rate a percent you're dropping the tax rate yes that's what I meant I think I think we're getting to the point where we would want to actually at that point start looking at each individual budget because I mean we're buying it down but I think the individual budgets would have to be more looked at at that point that's just my opinion and I'm not sure how everybody else feel no I think that's a good point and that's something that I was thinking of too and I think everyone's done a really good job of paring down their budgets in many different forms there are a few places that I think they could be pared down a little more but it's really hard to know and I think Diane does a fabulous job in looking at where it's best and where we need to be more proactive yeah I mean I think the heads of each department definitely know if where they would make budget reductions if they were we're going to we certainly wouldn't know that they're the professionals in that area for sure and I personally I mean I think we're getting there but I feel like we've made a lot of progress for the town but I do agree where you'd like to see it a little bit lower flow if possible I'd almost like to know if there was I just like to know we squeezed everything out of the budget we could yeah I've learned this lesson the hard way a little bit in past years to squeeze every little bit I know you're saying Justin I think you know being at 3% I think we could I think you know I'm interested in your thoughts on if we if we send it back to the department heads to look at you know some some of the departments one of the departments sticking out my mind is fairly high can we come up with another percent I mean what are your thoughts I'd like to see that that's that's kind of where I was going with that after flows comment yeah and I think that's exactly where it flows going and flow I'm up I don't want to put words in your mouth but I think that's where you're getting to is the 2% mark is that right I would be very comfortable with a 2% increase for the town based on what we've talked about here to kind of I think run our budget better with our loans and everything and maybe tighten up a little bit with the the department heads if we could get another 1% from each of them I think we'd be able to do we'd be moving right along and we'd be good so there was a mention John you mentioned a department so well you know the only one and it's not fair because he's not here and we didn't ask him any questions but the police department was still out of 7% increase and that's the only budget that you know I'm looking at that still I think that's the highest one out of all of them and that that's the one I was referring to I'm not talking about sloshing and burning police department budgets or anything like that but I mean if we could if we could get get it down a little bit to you know a 7% increase is a lot especially when we're only growing revenues by a half a percent you know through traditional measures according to the spreadsheet you know I want to give the chief every opportunity to you know make corrections in the department but 7% is a lot in one year and that's the area that you know I was I was looking at you were referring to Brad excuse me Tom well I just just my when we went through the the police chief hiring process we had a couple professionals on that hiring committee as you recall and and and they really called into the question some what they expressed was inadequate funding for for training and such and so my sense of James's budget is a good bit of that increase is there and having a full complement of officers which my sense I haven't been really involved in the police we really haven't had for a long time and so so I'm just I'm hesitant to to try to pull that away when when you know we learn I think we learned a hard lesson during the that those interview processes so that's my only concern yes it certainly shed some good light on the things that we weren't doing and that we should do I'm just I guess my only thought is is do it you know and we're I'm not saying we are trying to but you know we can't do it all in one year right right to be over multiple years and you know are we is that really what we need in the first year you know I know Tim went back in and shaved his budget more the roads are something that everyone used 10% of the population uses the police department right it's the 10% you know they keep us all safe they keep 100% of us safe but it's really you know 10% of the population get all the calls so so what 1% is about $34,000 here and I'd like to see if the police could bring their budget down to more in the 4% as opposed to 7% increase that's my thinking well again the devil's in the detail how about how about by and you don't have you don't know are there specific line items that the select word has yeah so I'm not gonna get into line items okay I can't I can't I mean right okay yeah okay so yeah so give us a couple days all right and we will we'll sit down with James and see what we can produce so just just to make sure we're all on the same page this select board members are you all in agreement that we can get down to 3% with the conditions that we've talked about paying off those two big loans paying off the two or buying down the tax rate to get rid of those small loans that should bring us down to about 3% ish and then sending the the town administrator and Diane back to see if we can find one more percent to get us down to two is that the direction we're giving just so we're all on the same page I'd be happy with that and and I just I'll just add a reason to to keep a rainy day fund and we saw that sort of manifested here in the last six months is especially with with the new town center there's gonna be I think a significantly increased availability of potential grants for for the town nearly all grants require some sort of match and so if you don't have a match you don't have a grant so that's that's a reason not to completely defund your rainy day fun right I think 400,000 but I agree with you I mean I was talking about going down another hundred thousand something 2000 that's all I'm saying yeah I think that's why we need to see some budget changes that's all yeah I think I think you know it's reasonable 2% increase with the pressures we're facing anyone that watches the meetings will will certainly appreciate that we got it down to 2% and we get it in a in a you know good this really conservative way you know we're not just passing the buck we're we're making good moves absolutely and looking at it in a thoughtful way too as are everyone we appreciate everything that folks have been doing to look at their budgets and decrease where they can so so let us go back and we'll have those conversations this week and we'll hopefully send something to you folks for your consideration by Friday that'd be great excellent thank you I'm gonna move on to the range if everybody's okay with that yeah so this is I put in my notes to everyone that five years ago that the range came and offered an article and I think it was approved at the floor at town meeting it was okay to to evade the property tax for the capital city range and at the floor that was voted by the on approved by the constituents the the the issue with that is that the town meeting folks voters don't have a right to abate school tax they technically can only abate the municipal property tax and so in effect for the last five years the as Diane mentioned earlier in the call that the individual property owners have been in effect paying the the school tax for the range as part of hires school tax which is to the to the tomb rosemary gave some numbers about five thousand fifty two hundred dollars a year so she received an article basically asking for this same consideration for the next five years from the range she edited that article to read as you see on the screen where she took out she added municipal property tax where before it was just property tax and with this article the the only debt that the town would would assume or abate is about twenty two hundred dollars of municipal tax she also went on to say is if that whatever the select board druthers are if it's if it's her wording here or conceivably you could say no we're not going to do any abatement on any taxes that she would need to go back to the Grange and let them know your decision because they have they have the ability to petition to get to get on whatever they want on to the on to the ballot so again this is what rosemary is is suggesting is that we at the town agreed to abate the municipal portion about twenty two hundred dollars but not the school portion of the twenty two hundred dollars and the she estimates the school tax was about fifty eight hundred dollars fifty eight thirty eight i mean just just from my perspective i have no problem with them putting it on the ballot letting the voters decide the full stop the full stop john or well i i would rather not but i'm i'm fairly cheap well i'm physically conservative and i and i'm not a resident of the town but if this was my town i would i would want to say the municipal portion i think that's fair it's definitely fair to place it on the but on the ballot for sure i'm not in favor of it in terms of another five years of abating it but that's just my own personal opinion but i have no problem with it being placed on the ballot in terms of the municipal just the municipal flow i mean i mean to expand i i agree with you flow and that that's the whole reason for saying you know or for me saying you know let's put it on the ballot i mean if if people want to eat that on their tax bills or you know pay more to offset that then that's what the community decides but i want to make sure that they decide on that not us right absolutely are you are you more comfortable editing this even further to a period less than five years i would be comfortable with going less than five years as well i think um five years is a long time and they definitely do a lot for the town by no means do i think less of everything that they've done it's just that i think in this time when we need to look at being more fiscally conservative etc i just am not a proponent of it this time one year two year how do other people feel i would say one year but i'm up for discussion doesn't cost anything to put it on the ballot next year does it no not at all no and and just where we are with everything i i think one year is fine i i have no problems doing it just for one year might so these guys are they not a 501 c3 i can only assume so jessa but i don't know for sure i'm not certain as well aren't they the only i'm not hearing half this aren't they the only non-profit or whatever that comes to us and does this i'm aware of yeah they're the only ones that have come yeah i was just wondering why that was that's all yeah i've never seen anybody else they must not be a a tax property tax exempt organization and they've always been wonderful about offering up their facility as it's stated here in this uh documentation that rosemary put forward but now given 19 in the pandemic that we're in etc i'm sure in my opinion it's the facility is probably being used less than it has been in the past and it's hard to say how that will be in the future as well i can't hear half this i think tom is helping brad i agree i think one year is fine yeah like that's enough with that right brad's audio was cutting in and out so i've invited him here into this room that makes sense so brad they're saying one year on on the um on this article with a grain with a grain and and taking rosemary's recommendation of just the municipal tax as long as we don't know before we yeah yeah before it goes through yeah i have no problems with that orders voted on it back in five years ago i guess it was it was put through as all the property tax if uh this year you can't really do it on a floorboard again because um so yeah i don't have any trouble with this but you gotta take much grain before we do yeah yeah before we take and drop that on yeah so i'm gonna i'm gonna keep it municipal property tax exempt for a period of one year okay everybody got that anything else on this anything else on this i'm sorry john half the stuff you were talking to half the stuff you were talking about i didn't take um but uh i'm fine with the buy down as far as the paying off the loans okay um the uh what i want to say the you get it down to two percent um i just don't want to take in uh end up you know shoot myself on the foot on this one here uh the usually historically it's been about uh two and a half percent increase every year so two percent isn't too bad if man's comfortable buying it down to four hundred thousand on the rainy day fund i can't see any problem with it she's the one that's got to live with it well we go we you guys don't need to have a motion on this i think this is just something i'll get with rosemary yeah i mean it was a final budget we don't need to do that there's a there's a concurrence with this though yeah okay we'll let it go um what else was there on this do we have to have it done before the 18th or can we vote on the 18th rosemary told me we have to vote on it on the 18th but so you you guys need to finalize your budget before the 18th yeah i think yeah i think i mean we're close enough if we can find that percentage point in the police department or you know in the in the budget um by next meeting i i mean i don't want i'm not going to speak for everyone but for me personally you know if we could get two two percent i'm good i'm good for voting um but the next meeting next select board meeting would be the 18th so i i would like for you guys to approve it before the 18th i would too yeah i don't want to get caught on the 18th what uh when when do you think you can get the uh by friday you guys will have something from us excellent okay so what do we meet on monday well on monday um isn't there um a utilities meeting yeah is there i also have a meeting with the fire department monday so tuesday tuesday works what time six yeah that's good that's good for me too shall we make it work justin he's shaking his head yes okay so tuesday at six uh motion to adjourn to move second all in favor hi thank you thank you everyone see you guys