 Okay, so let's let's begin the meeting Call the meeting to order the first item on the first agenda is the minutes from November 21st Is there a motion? Move to approve the minutes of November 21st 2020 for a with any necessary corrections. Is there a second second? Go through it page one I don't number five the the heading this the twenty twenty-four grant grant list. I'll look it should be grand list Okay page two Page three with the one change on page one All those in favor of approving the minutes with that change say aye. Aye. Aye. As opposed nay. The ayes have it Next on the agenda is public comment This is a time in the meeting where anybody in the audience or anybody participating online is free to make any comment or Alert us to anything at all Sure Yeah, is it about something that's on the agenda, okay Okay, great just Yeah, please have a seat if you could tell us your name and yeah so I am Mia Moronovitch and I am the Will security justice for executive board president Great. Okay. Thank you great We appreciate the opportunities and proposal general fund operating budget for fiscal year 2025 draft submitted By town manager Eric Wells and town finance director Shirley Goodell lackey We know that it's a heavy lift to produce the annual budget draft given all the considerations therein Second we want to acknowledge the hard work Put into the recently submitted police services analysis report written by Jim Baker We recognize the considered thought research and analysis Jim Baker put into this report That said the Wilson community justice center executive board wants to express its deep concern over the underfunding and under The understaffing and underfunding of the WCJC's given what is expressed in both the draft FY 25 operating budget and the Jim Baker police services analysis report It is clearly stated in each That will astens community safety needs are rapidly growing in the face of the town's residential and business growth retail theft is Confidentially increasing mental health crisis is occur daily and coexist with the current substance abuse crisis Williston is experiencing the ripple effect of the lack of available and affordable housing Leading towards a public health crisis of homelessness All of this has affected and strained the services that provide critical elements of the community safety for the town of Williston We are here tonight to speak directly to how it affects the WCJC The WCJC provides much more than restorative justice panels Which is a core component of our overall program, but only part of what the WCJC does on a daily basis Beyond the restorative justice panels the WCJC provides crisis intervention resource referrals related to substance abuse homelessness Homelessness hunger domestic violence and a multitude of complex and co-occurring social justice issues These events can occur at any time of day any day of the week, and they do day after day and week after week Currently the WCJC is operating with a full-time executive director and Three part-time positions that equal a total part-time support of 40 hours per week The WCJC's workload exceeds staff capacity Resulting in the executive director regularly working 70 plus hours a week This compromises the WCJC's ability to deliver the level of service excellence that Williston deserves It has also led to staff burnout And challenges to recruit and retain staff At a minimum the WCJC requires two full-time positions filled by properly trained and skilled professionals to support the executive director To be clear what we are saying is that instead of three part-time positions at a total of 40 hours a week the WCJC Should be staffed with two full-time positions totaling 80 hours per week to support The executive director The WCJC's executive director's position is massively overloaded and woefully Undercompensated with the volume of the work and the type of skilled expertise it takes to successfully run the WCJC The WCJC's executive director salary comes in about 30 percent below peer level within Vermont To review the current funding structure the WCJC's greatest source of funding comes from the Vermont Department of Corrections Much to the town's credit Williston has stepped up to supplement the unmet needs of the WCJC in the town's operational budget Despite these efforts the actual needs of the WCJC are not adequately met The WCJC's service areas include Hinesburg, Richmond, Huntington, Bolton, St. George, the Champlain Valley School District, the Mount Mansfield Union School District of these entities Only the town of Williston Provides funding to the WCJC We recommend that steps be taken to request funding from these service towns in either annual allotments or fee-for-service model The WCJC executive board urgently requests The Williston Select Board to consider the necessary steps to properly staff and fund the WCJC To meet the increasing community safety needs of Williston as we face the demands of our growing town Those immediate WCJC needs would include The WCJC executive director received a proper pay grade leveling in compensation equal to the training skills and expertise required and Comparable to peer WCJC Comparable to peer CJC executive director's compensation in Vermont We would like to see this change occur in the FY24 Utilizing any appropriate set-aside funds that could apply and subsequently funded in the FY25 budget Also two full-time trained and skilled staff members to be included in the FY25 operating budget These considerations address the very floor of the operating and ongoing successful WCJC Which contributes critical components to the comprehensive community safety program in the town of Williston The WCJC executive board is ready and willing to provide any additional support And helpful input to the select board regarding this request Again, thank you for this opportunity to present and Listen to our request Thank you I I just wanted to add like a testimony from someone who Had the privilege of coming to the CJC and being Introduced back into the community I was going for a walk around Maple Place and I ran into this very young Gentleman and he said oh, I know you And I was astonished. I didn't really I didn't recognize and then he said Willis stands And I said oh, and he told me his name so And then he went on to explain to me or in fact to inform me That he was able to keep his driver's license And I've been going to details as to why he was involved in but he was able to keep his driver's license And now also he is registered in the vermin tech college You know, I bring this to your attention just to show that This young man, but he assumed if he went to prison that would have be a cause the society and attendant college He is now sort of informing himself for Rehabilitating himself making himself more useful to the community You know, I I see this as economists call it the multiplier effect You know, you do you do a good And it tends to have this cascading effect because of the good That it does the other people because this young man is going to do good for other people in the community It is difficult to measure the cost Of when you sort of redeem somebody from their transgression in the community When that person is contributing to the community that cost is very difficult to measure I am I used to be a cost accountant And I know all the complexity that you have to go through sometimes to do that I just wanted to mention not to show you how useful The cjc is it's growing as Is being around here and if it's growing It means also that I look at the budget I saw that The wpd budget is increased by nine percent But the the section for the cjc seems to remain the same So, you know, if it's growing if the see if the Town is growing I would assume That the cjc should grow with it also Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you very much Are there other public comments? Come on up Good evening. My name is laura jeering and i'm from the wilson woods cooperative Above north wilson road, and I don't know if this is the right place, but I understand there's some ARPA money That the town is deciding and my question is Are we could we be eligible to maybe piggyback onto it? As you may or may not know wilson woods co-op is for a low to medium income senior citizens Only and we have two septic fields that are failing currently We are applying for everything, but additionally We just had to send in twelve thousand dollars for our three acre fund Uh, I mean the three acre project, um, that's going to cost us close to Between a half a million and seven hundred thousand So we're looking for any opportunities You know that maybe the town has that we can piggyback on Unfortunately, the state of Vermont does not recognize mobile home parks as non-profit So we are also looking to change that but again, that's going to be more money down the road that Unfortunately, the senior committee, uh, you know community does not have And i'm wondering if there's a resource or are you the resource or what we may Need to look into Because I don't Think we're going to make it One of the storm water request Was part of the public input The request for help with the three the three acre storm water. Yeah, that that's on our list to consider with alpha Okay, I didn't know about sewage, but that's yeah That's something you probably Yeah, Bruce or reached out to you last week public works director. Who did the Bruce reached out to Some woods or he may have caught I asked him to follow up with some folks there If you did, I'm not aware of it. Okay. Oh, that's fine. Um, okay Yeah, I certainly would the select for considering alpha funding and looking at different state opportunities as well There might be something in this for the septic. I was if you haven't looked into it already Okay, there was one that we did apply for a grant. Um, that will know the end of january Um, but that was for the first septic field that just failed And now a second one is failing So we're really, you know reaching out every which way. So who do I need to is bruce. Who uh bruce for director of public works Public works. Okay, super then I will reach out to him and uh, see where we go for that. All right. Thank you very much Thank you Any other public comment Okay I don't even need that Yes, you do you do for that Needed for television I first off want to thank all of you for your dedication to williston and um I don't envy your job because everything seems to require a little bit more green but I Wanted to come and thank you from the bottom of my heart for Allowing me to be part of the steering committee for the williston community center. Um, it was very It's an important It's an important project for me and I think with everything that was Presented at our meeting you see that it's something that's very much wanted and I know you're going to talk about it But I'm kind of planting seed And I'm going to water it to say that we have some momentum going and I just I'm going to help you however. I can that we don't lose that momentum and I think Seeing the needs of williston This is going to have to be very creative So we got a lot of creative minds of williston, but I mostly wanted to thank you and say Let's keep pushing forward Thank you. Thank you Lynn. Yeah Anybody else with a public comment? Eric? Is there anybody online? No, no, okay So next on the agenda the public service report continued discussion. So, um, Jim Baker is here in chief Foley you could Come up to the table Eric, could you give a little bit of an introduction? So the the board in the community heard Consultant Jim Baker who we we hired in task of taking a look at our police Department service delivery Jim delivered a report the select board back on November the 7th Jim's back this evening along with chief Foley to continue discussion with questions the board has any questions from members of the community Set off so it's had some time on the agenda and see if we continue that dialogue Staff will take any direction for it has to be further information discussion Welcome So, I'm not sure if you have more of a presentation or an overview or if you're waiting for us to ask Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't have anything else besides what I spoke about at the november meeting So, I mean I'm open for questions or feedback or you know any follow-up that needs to be done to answer questions for the board Okay Are there any questions comments or feedback from the board? I have a few but I may be there. Okay, so A little bit for chief a little bit for you either one. Um, so, yeah, obviously we're talking about the hiring Many new staff and and having a satellite facility possibly was one of your recommendations to it Intouring the facility, you know, um recently chief, you know, you mentioned that there was the the capacity to have new staff Assuming that we hired the the full gamut of staff Um, that that was being recommended. What is the capacity of our current police facility? Could we house that many staff would we would that be another additional cost? Expanding the facility that we're looking at My my feeling is is that we can adequately staff the building with the additional staff Um, again, you know, it's not the way we've discussed this is not going to happen overnight We're not going to dump 14 people In our lobby and saying go to work, you know, we're talking about a five-year plan out So you can gradually add to those positions the uh, the storefront operation at maple tree places It'd be like a satellite office to meet and greet people Offers, but you know, do their work in that building and still patrol on court And all that um, we have uh, various this office. You saw the office space upstairs that we can accommodate You know, uh Different offices up there. So again, it'll be a work in progress. But you know, I think uh, we can make it work And and see how it works in the in the beginning And I think by just doing a piecemeal, you know, maybe three four first year and then You know the second year maybe just add one just as we plan to build a cell So you're you're not really getting the entire You know massive, uh, growth at the same time. So it gives us time to plan move people around Chief just on that, um, thinking about different increasing shift size You're talking about different people on patrol at once Any of the officers room downstairs for that and the other space more specialties for serve for uh, Division, so I'm just thinking how people would be going about that middle Thinking about the officers room downstairs for how capacity support shifts up more than And we started that, you know, we have an officer up there for the lieutenant's position and uh, you know, it could be We're shared with both of tenants Where the canine officer is we've got adequate space with bci in there Put the traffic unit in there and we have additional office space upstairs You know, so we we can make it work. This is what you know, there's Rooms in there that are utilized as conference rooms. We don't need two of them We have two of them up there right now We can down down size one and use that as an office space. So, uh, you know, we're creative You know, and you know, what our plan is is that each shift would be a supervisor plus four So it'll be a five, you know So we we'd have enough space downstairs to accommodate The uh, the supervisor an additional manpower when we had the pandemic You know, we designed that so we had adequate spacing We went from 200 square feet to 600 square feet. So there's adequate room downstairs Okay, thank you My other question was was relating to we had I had asked the last time about, you know, the We've had a challenge just hiring for the open positions that we've we've currently had Several of the recommendations are to hire kind of supervisory positions or kind of senior level positions, um, is the outlook for hiring for those positions different or You know, um, would be would be along the same lines. Um In terms of, you know, everybody's trying to hire from the same pool and there just isn't You know the the capacity to fill those positions Well, I think what we've done is we, um, sent for the officers sergeant Two patrol officers and my ministry of assistance to to a class on recruitment retention and all that So they've come back with good ideas and that we've implemented, you know, at at the Um beginning of the summer we're five positions down. We're currently two positions down We have one in the queue right now that the time manager and I need to sit down and interview ourselves I've been told today that there's additional people um that Are interesting coming in To the agency One of our newest highest and she'll begin the beginning of january. She has no law enforcement experience but she's going to go to academy in february and She came out of rod island and we advertised in a weekly newspaper in rod island that attracted her um I'm not sure they they believe that i'm believing because I've taken a lot of calls since everybody thinks i'm retiring And But I've I've been reached out by uh by senior command people that uh be willing to to join us here So, uh, you know, uh, we look at our in-house staff first to see our strengths I always tell them that we we look at our strengths and weaknesses and continue to build on our strength and work on our weaknesses And we have a good staff here. They're all sticking together. They're all working hard So it's going to be a work in progress. So that's why I I wouldn't recommend dumping 14 new positions on us Even though it's not all law enforcement Um, you know, 11 of patrol, you know law enforcement positions and then you have the data analysis You have the help each um, and uh another assistance for the For my administrative assistance, but you know the law enforcement everybody's in the same boat You know, and I think once people see our plan here and how we're going to build it out I think people see the growth in this department the chance for opportunities Um, the new uh programs that we're going to implement and try to get people in specialized units I think we're going to have people knocking out of doors overwhelming And then um, the last one i'm sorry. I'm sure you have a question So thinking about the satellite facility, and you know, we've talked about it, you know, um as well, you know In our open discussions, um Um, I just kind of want more specifics about how the logistics of that work I know that the you know, that would be the location for the cjc and you know, kind of the the satellite office, but um in terms of infrastructure You know, um, will you would you be able to dispatch officers directly from there? Like would they be permanently located in there? Would they um You know, I know when we moved the um dispatch to sx. There was some some infrastructure needs in terms of you know, um uh communication stuff and and Computer i'm obviously i'm so computer proficient. I'm um But like computer and data needs and things like that that had to be you know transfer there So would that be difficult to you know, is I'm not quite sure the you know, how that would work It's not going to be difficult. It's going to be an office. We have cell phones. We have water balls We have mobile data terminals and our cruises the cruises will be closed by it's basically allow a spot for the officer Could be there walk around maple tree place We don't have a bus line that comes to seven nine two eight willistan road anymore So the people that cjc are dealing with that are homeless that uh unhoused That have issues, you know, they might not even have a cell phone They don't even have addresses But if they get on the bus and come to maple tree place where the bus line is It it brings them there so we could that's one of the concerns we had that they're not getting you know transportation down here so Let's have an office. Let them set up a time, you know one day a week or two days a week that Their clients can make a meet with them, you know set up the program understand what they need We can have outreach people in there offering services And then you know people can walk in and file a complaint with the officer All he has to do is call on the radio to dispatch or call on the phone to dispatch or enter the call in MDT so It's it's a lot of departments have a lot of agencies have them where you can see it's a store for an operation Do you have Are there other towns that like just for comparison sake like Locally or statewide that have that that that we could model the kind of that actor or Yeah, I think not necessarily a remote spot like that, but there are models where Non-traditional resources are embedded inside an agency. I mean Rutland's one of them. I mean when I was the chief there Project vision came online I'm doing some other work right now for the state and I know that springfield is moving towards the same model Looking at taking non-traditional resources and embedding them in in that case would be inside the pd2 But it's a different set of circumstances there as the chief said One comment I just kind of go back to your original point about staffing, you know the chief and I were chatting And he shared with me. He's getting phone calls already and I just I want to remind you when we talked the last time I mean I I believe that People are going to want to go to places where there's stuff happening to face a difference And I think he's starting to see that already he's getting phone calls based upon the report coming out with With the recommendation about public safety public health coming together And figure out and mitigate some of those issues in the community that's affecting quality of life Really concrete question and then a broader one that um I'm looking at your recommended organization structure And you have three patrol A corporal and a sergeant. Are they all patrol officers? Will they all be out making calls or It looks like it looks very top-heavy if you just said that only only you only have 12 people No, what it is with the uh corporal and the sergeant is the supervisor on the shifts So the way he has it drawn up is that we have two divisions. We'd have an administrative division that would oversee, you know The l post cjc personnel making sure everything's getting done and then the patrol side So we divide up that uh in the collective bargaining unit We've added, you know discussions for corporal's position because since we have limited rank structure and growth This is a way to reward somebody. So they're still patrol officers So my plan would be it'd be a sergeant to shift supervisor A corporal and probably two additional officers there. So they're all working officers. Okay. Yeah um So I I think this is really exciting and it's um A great direction and I appreciate That you're not asking us to do it all next year Uh, because I think things are changing really fast in bramont right now and I think are whether it's adding 11 sworn officers or eight sworn officers and more I don't want to say social work like community outreach kind of Prices professionals, you know, I I could see the community going that way Instead but I think it's great to have a structure. Um That you could start down and change from rather than not know where you're going. So um I think that's all Great and I was just kind of wondering is there other things on the radar that you think are changing In policing in vermont. I mean, we kind of know where we are right now, right? We have Uh substance use disorder issues everywhere. We have homelessness issues everywhere. We seem to have a huge You know varsity or retail theft going on but Things change. So how do you kind of adjust or how do you how would you see this plan adjusting for future issues? so I think And I I don't want to I'm not going to say this because I don't want to scare people right because it's not a situation but you know The chief and I go that then in law enforcement for a very long time If you pick up, you know, all you have to do is check the news every monday And there's a lot of gunplay going on in the state right now There's there's stuff that I have experience and I'm not active law enforcement right now, but I'm pretty active in Interacting with communities, especially down south right now another project. I'm doing so I think Thinking about how to do violence intervention in communities And I'm not saying wilson is there But it wouldn't take but one incident to really put the community at a level of fear that you've got to be able to mitigate that fear again and I think on the horizon with this conversation around public safety and public health emerging together Where the conversation has been going on for a while other areas around the country There's going to be more conversations about how to intervene in violence and prevent violence Especially with younger generation because you did notice a lot of this violence That has been happening in the last year or so He's really involved with folks of an age range from anywhere from 16 up to 20 to 23 years old and there are a lot of research Well, research well documented violence intervention programs that in fact Are effective so going back to the structure So when I'm you know again, I try to share with you last time my thought processes as I collected the information It was thinking about delivering report to you This structure is designed to be flexible like that You know, you you could change that outreach piece on the fly right now the issues shot with And larcenies well that could change that role And it goes back to that conversation about co-production and safety and how you Engage all resources you can to include community members to engage in addressing as a specific issue If you started seeing that type of situation with young adults I think this structure could adjust very quickly to come up with strategies to be able to deal with that Any sense to you? I think so Um, this you know continue the discussion. What you were saying is that Two weeks ago my staff met with the business committee and we had a we invited them through our building and uh, what we have about 30 businesses that was representative and We we had a good session there explaining what we needed from them and what they expected of us Um REI they reached out to us to have our officers working details there, you know seven days a week During the uh, the black friday weekend. Uh, wal-mart reached out to us and all that we just couldn't staff it But we're doing creative, you know, we're we were going in and out of the businesses We're doing foot patrol in business just to be the visible to maybe stop it But it's a combination of things, you know, everybody's saying that it's it's the homelessness problem It's the mental health problem. It's the drug problem But who is coming up with the solution to stop it? You you you create a An excuse for what they're but these people we're dealing with it It's not you know, I understand cgc and the purpose of that and that works with somebody who just lost their job I need to get me on the table and all that but these career criminals that are doing it day in and day out It's it's got to stop and you you got to you know, say enough is enough And I think it's it's it's an entire state problem. It's not just a wilson problem or triton county problem and all that, you know, uh Chief murad was on the court right show the other morning and he articulated, you know the same thing we were talking about It's we've got to have an answer and we have a half the solution. Don't make an excuse with no consequences It sounds like you having a cut and you say, oh, it's bleeding We're being there to stop it and they'd rather see it still bleed And not fix it. There's there's a lot of fixes that everybody needs to work to get like Jim was saying it was just two comments while I was reading the burly the 2021 burlington police analysis report similar to this um, and and then a couple other places too with some without without Um Citing their evidence. There was some comment that I read that was like the It's a better deterrent for a person to think they're good to be pretty sure they're going to get caught in the act Then it is too for them to worry about having to go to jail for it So, you know, so being able to capture them as opposed to there's a lot of studies out there to talk about It's not It just goes to the chief's point. It's not so much about what the punishment is It's how quickly the consequence comes the incident That is a deterrent This the state clear continue that behavior and I was actually the second thing I was going to ask you was that uh, I understand you were at that Rutland town meeting and there was I was a little um I was intrigued with the representatives state representatives saying that there's they're trying to some things at the state level to This is my bt jigger one sentence, you know, but it was basically if you in some situations You could take a lot of this demeanors and make them into a more serious crime with one court date I don't know if there's um, is that my I'm understanding it right there Yeah, and we tried that we tried that probably three or four years ago You know, so so many so many hypothetically goes to best buying steels Then they go across the parking lot to dicks and steels and then goes to another store They've created three different last last any the retail thefts. It's the same person to same It's retail thefts They should all be combined into one and make it a felony And that was that was turned down three years ago. So at least maybe it's on the radar. Yeah, it's on the radar again I don't know Vermont League of city in towns or something if we can, you know, get tuned into that because I think this whole retail theft thing is I mean, it's it's related people are stealing for a reason and sometimes it's drugs So that's back to your point how you stop it at the source, but Anyways, I guess my point is that I've been thinking a lot about there's this is a much bigger than one report This report's awesome. And I really appreciate Having a structure that we have something to look forward to I like that with flexibility and realities of life that super helps But I I don't sure this is the be all and end all and I'd be interested in what else we can do because we I mean, we want this place to be safe. We can't afford to have stores leaving because Things aren't safe. We can't afford to have people moving out because we're not safe Public safety is pretty important. So, you know, that's the other point I think I think I mentioned this last when I did the presentation But when I've been speaking with the chief and Eric Recommending that the criminal investigator positions are filled sooner than later because to your point to the chief's point From what I understand from talking and interviewing folks for this report and working in other parts of the state This shoplifting is very organized. I mean the people the folks that they're catching are not the organization There's someone behind that and there's a level of organization to that That's not getting addressed now because agencies have been counting their short end If you had a criminal investigator could follow up on And get to the source of the folks that are directing those folks to shop It would have at least an impact on the behavior that's affecting your community It's probably an unfair question, but the Not in your report But we have numerous fall towns around us that have Not not quite the same type of problem, but they do have problems with coverage and Would in part of the five-year plan What would your thoughts be about incorporating towns like Richmond and Tynesburg into an overall type of police force just for For Wilson a strong in area Wilson The assessments I've done in Vermont. I never missed the opportunity as you'll see in the report To talk about regionalization You know, I I haven't given a lot of thought. I mean chitin county's a little bit different Can't picture a Complete regionalization of policing in chitin county, but I can envision Down at your side going south regionalization To take it out of chitin county for a minute I did an assessment of chest of vermont police department about a year and a half ago And when you go down to that part of the state There's five police departments that touch each other geographically that that run anywhere from A two person to a five person to an eight person to a 17 person police department Multiple chiefs multiple policies and procedures multiple purchases of equipment multiple purchases of cruiser They can't keep staff there because it's not big enough To keep people's interest and grow and do different things And so I never missed the opportunity not to talk about regionalization Now it's easier said than done because it always good. I mean you all know this I mean, I know eric sits on on the commission that's looking at regional dispatch Can't even get regional dispatch done because you worry about startup funds Who's got the authority to oversee but there are tons of models across the country Regionalization is done. It's more effective It creates a More comprehensive response And I believe it helps with staff So I don't know terry that answers your question I never missed a chance Thank you And terry we had discussions with richman eric and I And when we got close to full staff And they were short staff, but we I we just couldn't you know pull pull the trigger and say okay It would work or we make it do because we started losing people again. So, you know, it's you know, we help out as much as we can Likewise with the state police But you know, that was that was a discussion probably 40 plus years ago here in china county discussion of regionals law enforcement It works it's works in fire services But a lot easier than I think the only place it really worked good was down in new jersey camden Where they eliminated the police department and rebuilt it as a county police department And it's still functioning today Other questions or comments We are a couple of minutes ahead of schedule and I don't want to Turn this into a Brief for all but are there is there anybody here Who would like to make a comment or ask a question if you could I don't want to be rude, but if you could discipline yourself to be brief If you do have something to offer Please do come forward You don't have to but you can if you want Okay They have lost prevention within their building but a lot of the major corporations now don't allow them to engage So a lot of stores don't even report it. We get civilians reporting it to us So that's why we usually have lots of stuff out in the uh the parking lot watching and all that That's kind of sad Oh, sorry, that's kind of sad, you know, it's it's a liability problem for them And sunday night we had uh an employee of wal-mart get assaulted by this So again, it's just it becomes a force for them for liability I learned a couple numbers this week that for kind of a staggering two million dollars For one being for the law since last year. I don't know that's accurate But I heard that from a I think a pretty reliable source two and a half million from Walmart And I guess, you know It's not like wal-mart's but I consult with anyone in this town whether they're going to pick up shop or not But I guess do you have any sense for Like how they've been issued it or Company with wal-mart will leave you alone Are you going to make power for most of these companies for really doing All those major losses, you know You know, it's like, you know, sir. There's got to be examples and that is I mean, I think like in chicago like Walmart left like So, I mean if that happened, they're kind of made your tax relocation People can't shop or just pay them so So obviously that's the concern Well, I think both, you know, rei and wal-mart has stepped up to the plate and hired us You know, I know rei if we can't do it the sheriffs department is doing it Chittany county sheriff is doing security at the hannah fridts on North avidman burlington and shelbourne rodent south point So the corporate is reaching out to a law enforcement. I guess it's A lot easier for us to get hurt then have one of your employees get hurt, but uh, you know, again We hear through the great vines, you know, again, we don't talk corporate. We talk with boss prevention here And we see it day in and day out, you know, uh, that um, you know, a prime example was uh, a week ago last monday where We got calls for uh, home depot people scaling their racks and stealing things off that And uh, our officer pulled up in the front and somebody came out with a shopping cart with uh, over a thousand dollars He wasn't even the one they were reporting on We happened to catch them in that so So She knows how feelings and uh, we understand her concerns. Um, I think it's a combination of things that we're talking about, you know Place and blame, but uh, we're still looking at a two-year backlog On cases. So that that's a big concern and last week, uh, so we bought the uh, State's attorney la morel county stepped down. So they only have a pot time state's attorney there now So it's just it's an overwhelming effect not just, you know, the businesses society, but law enforcement is a combined problem You know, um, we we've spoken with uh With the lake shampoos business community and gave them some, uh, you know, our concerns, but, um We have we have to follow her direction and we send the cases there. It's in her ballpark So Well, I think I think we're talking about is the legislators need to look at the laws look at the laws on the books change them. Um, you know Our bail laws need to be looked at unfortunately. It's in the constitution So it's a constitutional change if we ever go that way and takes well over two years So get that done because both uh, it has to be presented twice in the legislative year to be voted on to make changes But I think we need to allow the judges more opportunity of all people Um, we need to have them include, um on conditions, um not to commit a similar offense And that's not being checked So again, it's just we're frustrated as well as everybody else Okay, thank you. So there is no formal Uh action that we would take but um, this is going to be an issue that we are going to be taking up At least in part in the budget So I that's all I had to say That's the end of my speech, um, but uh, anyway, so, um, Eric I'm sure with um You know, I think Jim again for all his work here and people in his staff are supporting that work See, there's number of recommendations some before you. I think as as Ten says the board works through this some some of the fiscal Will be coming after the budget If you want to fund some additional positions coming up for the next fiscal year One thing that the board considers one of the recommendations is the task town manager with the planning of a five year designing a five-year implementation plan. So the board could think about it doesn't want to take the formal action or direction at a meeting for you know, that might be one of the first recommendations you could think about I think that sends directing the board and wanting to move forward with an implementation plan based on To get that step Something So using the chair's Privilege for a moment I I would think that maybe that's something we should seriously consider because my concern is that When you get a report like this and apparently the town has had two of them before any of us were Members and before some of us even lived here Um, but nothing happened. Um, so, you know, I really don't want to see that happen here. So um, uh, I think what I might recommend it is that we we set such a um We we set a decision on whether to direct the town manager and how to direct them at another for another agenda Uh, another shortly in a future meeting coming up quickly. I would probably like to have a more thoughtful discussion around the scope of that because it shouldn't just be police clearly should probably be public community safety Just the cjc's it was part of the police department, but you know, how do we include that and um, it could be It'd be it'd be an interesting discussion to talk about scope. Yeah Yeah So, um, I think what I'm hearing is that we should put this on or as a discussion item in another another agenda And um, make sure that it doesn't go away. Yep. So yeah, okay. Is that the consensus of the board? Okay, okay. And again on behalf of the board, thank you very much uh to both of you. I know this is a lot of work and uh Thank you to everybody who contributed information and time and energy. So Thank you. Thank you I'll remind you sad you during budget hearing The next item on the agenda community recreation center and library edition project um John and jane can you Come up and Todd I agree. I agree. I didn't see you know, it's funny. I I saw Todd come in, but then I didn't see him there So I didn't register. I apologize. So Yeah, let's get uh I think it's off. Yeah, please do So the The board had a special meeting at the end of October Steering committee on the community center and the library Recommendation from that report is to consider a fish on the library and a community center recreation facility in town um Realize, you know, that's a little over a month ago and force had a law on its plate here. So it's a big topic and It's on the agenda this evening. It's time for the board to debrief and ask questions on the report Um, certainly no decision needs to be made by the board at this point Staff Questions make sure we get that information to you Potential next step here with this project is to consider Funding for a next phase or suggestions with harpa. It would be for schematic design elements for these um facilities and other Certainly for a community center, uh an analysis of a potential site for that So that would be your decision point the short term. Should you like to sue that on our fiscal ends here? I know carlor karstens is also here and and blend who served on the Steering committee as well and certainly Um, just this discussion as well from the steering committee standpoint We've got john hemmelgarn. Um, our leap and saw the blackboard design and Todd golden or preparation parks director and jane currents or library director as well this evening, so great So did you folks have preliminary Comments you wanted to lead us off with or did you want to do what the police people just did and just leave us hanging You can say I'm afraid we're probably going to do the same. Okay. I spoke for quite a while the other week Okay, um, so are there any follow-up questions and concerns from the board they're really short meeting if nobody I was reviewing the uh, the big book that uh, you took the slides from and uh, And I should have brought it tonight, but uh, there was Particularly about the library and uh, what was the the final design was for a two-story building Uh, but I was confused as to what was going to be in the older part of the library Was that things going to be moved around or changed in the older part of the library? Yeah, I mean that's interesting And we only we only took this design so far to make sure that we had an adequate space in the building to To house the the programs In essence a lot of that was going to remain Similar, I think there were a couple of different designs that we came up with that would accommodate the program It was If you look at the the the plan diagrams that we did, um You'll see that the historical society certainly was going to stay I think where it is or that's our that's our current leanings And I want to I want to stress that we've done essentially a conceptual or feasibility study here to to to really Make certain that all of us feel comfortable that this can happen um What we haven't done is really gone into the the multiple different design options that we would go back in case the library to Jane and her staff and the and the trustees and say, okay You can lay it out this way or you can lay it out this way or you can lay it out this way And we would have a really in-depth conversation about which serves the community best We did a little bit of that At the phase that we were at but we didn't want to spend too much time until we got kind of passed a couple of these hurdles like You were you're you're joining us for I understand the you know the original concept and and and that's fine. So and Eric mentioned the The costs that will now go with doing the specifications for any idea of the cost for that To actually design to do the design to the remainder the well, I think I gave Eric A little bit of a rough proposal for approximately another hundred thousand dollars to get us From here to a bond vote for both for two buildings to two fairly complex programs one A new a new building where we don't even know where it goes exactly and that's another significant piece of work Is the find the site for good news is the library with the recommendation that we've given you We're pretty clear on where as a group you think that should go So that would get us to We're assuming a bond vote unless Eric can pull a lot of grant money out of this That would be a lot You know, so that's really the next step is that we would go there and then Typically design fees are Frequently a percentage of the construction cost That percentage is actually going down a little bit right now as construction costs have gone through the roof, but it's still You know We started about a 10 on on a on a decent sized project and Frequently as the project gets bigger it goes down From there Terry we on that list of possible artwork projects, I use those figures from john as that placeholder Potentially Right, but again the next phase is just to get you through to that the bond vote beyond that Those costs for the design and contingencies and everything else we talked about would be built into the bond somehow Um I just have to say that I was reading over the 2006 task force report of which terry and Others in this room were on that task force and at that time it was only going to cost us two million dollars to do all this so Literally karla and terry if you'd gotten this done in 2006 To save this town 40 million dollars um So what struck me as I was going through it is I I can A little bit like you're saying john I can wrap my head around the library. I think it's really Valuable, I think it's really needed. I like I like leaving it in the village. I think that meets a lot of the town's strategic goals um And then when it goes to the community center Well, I totally believe we need a community center to leave leave it there, but It gets really amorphous for me as to what That would look like it and um one So I was reading through like um, there was let's see The I forget which survey it was but there was a lot of interest in a pool But then after the pool it dropped off really quickly now I see the pool sort of in our expansion future expansion thing so i'm I'm feeling a little bit like If we plan I don't want to see them say phase one because that sort of implies there's a phase two But the the pre the what we call the base the base the base plan Doesn't have a pool in it. Do we lose a lot of interest from the town? Or not that's that's That's that's a really good question and it's really hard to get We can You know as I I draw on some of my experience You know the pool is a very specific purpose It doesn't it doesn't overlap very many of the other pieces of this project I mean to the extent that we can combine locker rooms. I think we talk about trying to do that But you know, so pool or not pool is kind of a dividing line Once you're not cool, then there's a whole lot of things That can fall into that umbrella Phase one survey results if you can find the the graphic on there It was recreation requests. It's our page. Uh, well in this it's page 10 Yep, so that graphic over on the right there. It's like it's so dramatic that people wanted a pool And I think if I'm reading this right these are actual request numbers. They're not percentages or anything, right? They're just request numbers Yeah, so like half the people who responded wanted a pool. Yes, does that mean we lose half of the support If there's no pool that That's a question for people who put the survey together No, that's a question for all the people who are going to vote. Um, the The other thing is I think there's a word cloud in here That is the pool is pretty big, right, but it's it's like the only item in there that also has a Unbalancing no pool that shows up on that Yeah, and so that was a concern and You know and and this is another component of this is is kind of the revenue generation piece or the cost of maintaining the pool Of operating the pool is actually significantly higher right than Maintaining a gymnasium space right or a yoga studio space Those are a much more multi-purpose They serve in in some ways in that space that costs a certain amount of money Serves an awful lot of those other bars that you see On the on the chart, right? Whereas the pool is one space that adds. I don't remember the number. I want to say 17 million dollars Right here So So and that's and honestly did the committee spend a lot of time kind of talking about that and they recognize this um so but but but You know and then Mary Claire's here, but she talked off into two You know that would come up. There would be people that were just absolutely Adamant that they did not want to pull and that and putting a pool in there was going to essentially lose And I'm sure there's people on the other side that would would go the other way around and not having is going to lose that boat so Um, in some ways it becomes a matter of where as community do you think that the The money is best spent to serve the most people in town I think I'm sort of landing on before we Get too far along we probably need to figure out how to get an answer to that question You know if there's no pool then you know kind of things I and I don't know how we would do that Well, we need to go back to our We had someone design the service for us right or handle manager that will reach for us So one of the things I can you know speak to as from being on the committee You know as john said we we really did wait. I mean because the pool a lot of the kind of community catalyst for At least the community and recreation center process stemmed from community input that they wanted You know these things And so we wanted to make sure that we laid out there, you know that that this was the the costs and that You know when when we did that first part of the survey a lot of the The kind of sentiments not not specific to spaces that were needed, but you know, they wanted a place to gather They wanted a place to to be together and and so you know the Community center design Accomplishes those goals without the pool And you know, I think in in piecing the two sections out You know, we wanted to Show people the the cost of us there were the reality of what this will mean for the town And and that we can accomplish some of these goals with you know, the other goal in mind The option does exist to have Two separate, you know Items ballad items on the the bond boat. I mean, you know really could say Okay, you know, let's here's community center phase one, you know, let's vote on that bond And here's community center phase two like, you know, they they could be they could be pieced out On the same ballot potentially But you know wanted to Do really get to the crux of of the that the Space needs more than anything, you know, we because Time and time again, that's what we heard, you know, from the same people who wanted the pool. Yes pool pool pool But the same people were also saying well, you know A place to gather a place to have intergenerational meetings a place to share a meal together a place for The kids to go after school, you know So we so they were all saying pool, but then, you know, these are these are overlapping things It's not because they could choose so many things. They were also saying all these other things that they wanted Yeah, yeah, that's why I had a question on this. It's like if You could ask a pro pool and walking track, right? And they and they were very they didn't they didn't only ask for the pool Well individually everybody was saying pool But you know not everybody said walking track, but a lot of people did or not, you know, every A lot of farmers market into our farmers market. That's fascinating But again community spaces allow, you know, some of these things to happen. So I mean, it's interesting that I the The concept of a of a double decker, you know bond vote Would be an interesting approach. I just want people to be really clear what they're Getting if they vote, yes, and I don't get a pool and they say you said there was going to be a pool That would not be not be super good. Um This uh, I like um when we were talking about public safety. I was thinking, um That a community center with a teen center could be a really important part of a public safety plan. Um And maybe I guess this may be for you Todd, but do our teen centers Um I don't know of a lot of teen centers in vermouth that are effective outside of maybe the king street Center or Right, but outside of burlington is there No, not really. Um Most rec departments even with their their senior centers, it's not Based down a little senior center or a teen center. It's multi-generational And and facilities or rooms are being multi-used Not just single Yeah, I get the facility, but can you build a teen program without But there but there aren't any really We don't have anywhere for that But do we do we have examples in vermont of successful teen programs? Both the places you just mentioned, yeah Boys I think that's exciting So teams like to get away from school and you know go go hang out somewhere and that kind of thing But no, there's no the rec departments are doing teen programming but You know that having to try to find facilities or whatever else or if they have facilities They're doing in space that they also have to do class Definitely with facilities you can do Sounds like what you're imagining is like just a more of like a free form like place for teens to hang out Is that what you're well, I guess I'm thinking if you're if you're targeting a teen center to give kids positive Activities and positive role models and mentors and intergenerational and all that kind of stuff. That's a that's a heavy lift Programmatically, you can't just it's not just build a building and they will come The staffing is definitely one of the things we talked about if you build a building That's gymnasium They woke up and you can have the teen time Of an open gym We have an open gym for men and women right now for basketball and ball you can do that for teens But it you know, that's happening at seven o'clock at night They're not Getting there at seven o'clock at night. They get there right after school That would be good for them to Come up and wait lift or Site or whatever else and you make a teen time to do that and you have a specific time That it's for teens so that that time frame is for teens They will come and use it And when that's what you're doing is you have these open programs that are just Teen time and You know, it can be weightlifting and it can be Using the machinery or whatever else and you have a staff member that's just kind of You know walking in the background Not interacting or whatever else just kind of staying away and making sure that they're safe and doing what they're supposed to do And then you have some specific teen programs where you're saying Or we're going to you know, do this or we're going to do that kind of thing But if you have a building Welcome to they'll come to and there's the things for them to do Definitely if you have a fitness center Room or whatever else you could have teen fitness at a certain time and that time it's going to be right after school You know, there's that group that's going to go out and play sports and such but there's that could be that group that isn't Fitting in wherever they just kind of want to hang out and do their own thing or hang out with certain people We certainly see the teens in the library after school But when we they are a challenge to to engage They're pretty busy teens in williston. Right. That's a yeah my experience But you know, you just have to plan accordingly Give them the space was there any Reach out to other communities in chitlin county that have a community center or family Center is to know what their their facilities are like and what kind of population they serve Burlington had the miller center Which is the old armory behind cp smith school that they Years ago now I've created turned into a Community center and max and Colchester just broke ground about a month or two ago and has really been a new one Probably within the next year to year and a half. We've seen something both there They have a they have a base program as well with the future Pool expansion But it's not anything that they felt that they could afford the community could afford at this time and they're looking to build that and grow that and then So over time have that on the down those expenses go down to build to build a pool and save up That's wrong. So to answer your question about, you know, should we go to pool now or later? depends on how much money that's going to cost and what the town is going to pay for that same year that's really it And should I believe a town of milltons looking at a community facility as well There's a lot of your park area. They're building a new highway facility there. And I I just for me they're slack work minutes Work for previously that uh, that that's discussion up there having up there at the manager's conference a handful of other towns I was chatting with after the north, I think high gates Cambridge and smaller towns, but it was a common topic about community Community Center Recreation Center. What does that really mean? You know, similar municipal service facilities So I say it's on the minds of a lot of I could add that I have seen the the preliminary plans for the the centering Colchester And the program is remarkably similar So what we've developed here Let me have some issue with that. Did they under budgeted or something? There was some Some astush with I'm not familiar with that portion of it. I am familiar with from my work These public projects are frequently under budgeted. Yes You're trying to match the scope with what people can afford and you know And then the goal of design teams is to get as much into that building as you can for the amount of money And that's that's really our goal here Adequately budgeted and then maximize the benefit The final piece of this original scope too is we have some hours with a financial consultant and design a scope of work with them Just really helping us think about the financial aspect of this As we look at things, we you know, typically we go through the Vermont municipal law and bank great partner in funding useful projects but I wanted to know more knowledge about what's out there on a national scale and we started to talk about 20 million plus dollars for a long vote There is a significant amount of money. So if you have a quarter percentage Point on your interest rate makes a huge difference on the payments Are there other financing options out there that Bit the talents before this could think about you if they're capped in a certain amount You could layer the debt to lenders things like that just to be creative about this and think Have a structure from a fiscal Everything we asked them to do is kind of think about some initial potential revenue modeling generation as part of this I think we have A few thousand dollars at their scope just to give us some preliminary ideas for some folks use That's expertise we get to have When when are we expecting that? January, yeah, he said mid-January mid-January should be available Yeah, the whole fee no fee is like really important To know how we're thinking of moving forward before people get too serious about it because I I I like that you have not having any fees, but I know that that would be a huge That would turn a lot of people off from voting for it if they know it's also going to be the operations budget's going to go up by 20 people I think there were part-time people I think you said something like 20 20 staff members or something to staff that but they were part-time. Yeah, well probably around 12 or so, but then you build in your contracted instructors and any part-time staff and If you want to open an facility at six or seven in the morning and keep it open to 10 o'clock at night So one person can work all those hours Just talking about the people Jane I think I I saw that the library did not feel that they could staff a satellite but If we're going to add 12 people for fitness, I think we could add a couple people for satellite I do feel really bad that we don't have a library presence in tap's corners. So Maybe just keep the mind open. Yeah Well, we we still do have the book for bill that you know does outreach and you know It's filling the gap for a lot of people who can't get to the library So that's an option too is to have regular hours, you know add a new facility. Yeah It's not just the staffing for the satellite You know, you're also duplicating your collections and People would really want the full services that you have at any library So you're really duplicating the whole thing They might not get the full the full library experience But you know, it seems like if you're a mom with a couple of kids You don't have a car, you know, if you could walk to the library that would be huge So it's just something I know you said no in the report but just think about a little bit because Like like I said, if we're adding you said something about like we couldn't do it with our staff We'd have to expand staff. Well, you know Bring that to us. I think it's I just think it's an important service to provide Since there's no transportation up here anymore. So And it's it's true There's also fairly limited transportation even to the growth center And so I think we heard repeatedly Both in the outreach and and amongst the group that we were meeting with Is that that public transportation access to any of these facilities is absolutely critical Right and it needs to be improved From where it is now regardless And once those additional pieces are in place Then it's an addition of jump from the growth center to the library But again the infrastructure is barely there For the discussions or comments people in We're on the Carla looking at you You don't you don't have you don't have to say you can say no no, I'm good. It's fine I wanted to give people an opportunity Can you step up to my please? Well, I I think actually I think that the committee and The the library trustee the town's right people We're very supportive of the final recommendation from john and the committee presented and it's it's going to be You know with this time in physical responsibilities and everyone's kind of hurting and It's a big decision as to what's going to happen Next but We're hopeful the committee especially That we continue on this momentum and keep things both and have something happen as a result of this And so I think that that is what we want to see going forward. This is the next steps and things moving on and you know Maybe something comes up. Maybe it doesn't pass. I would hope that that doesn't happen But then that informs us about what's going on And and I think what we don't want to do is just sit on this We want to keep moving forward and And and I think that's the time for this to happen and hopefully we'll continue this That's against my heart Well, I'm going to just say So And actually gene you brought it up. There was a step this We went through this process in 2006 and through and actually I was on the recommending in The 1900s So Long interview process and even with the people in But the people that have been here for a while That have been interviewed three times They've been given the same answers three times And nothing's happened that We've all brought up. We're in very tough financial times and that's why I think You know, you have to be careful how we bring this up but How much we wanted this to at least three Surveys from three processes like we've been through and There was a couple people that I talked to that were a little bit that You know, they've done this three times And nothing's happened And so that's why I said earlier, you know, you've got momentum going and it's in You know, everyone that's come and talked to make a presentation They all Gosh, you know But I don't you know, we need more than just people coming to say, okay, be your time because we need one of that And as I say, we have to kind of be creative and I I don't know the answer, but I think To get as a group we'll free smart town, huge smart And people that were in the committee were very, very thoughtful and I Was grateful to be able to spend time with them because everyone had a different viewpoint And I'll say the one I do want But I know when listening to The wise people in That As much as you want it's a huge expense And when you're talking about fees, well, maybe if you wanted to use the pool, that would be where there'd be to be Whereas other places you don't have a membership, but I just hate that time And it's not I don't know about my time when I think about the people that gave me their time And the students who gave me their time That wants them and they're asking for this I think you've got to just, you know, David put in his company for all his time Into coming up with a very good product. I think I just wish we could find a way to do it that That's terrible what I have to say And I just think you keep asking those questions That some people at some point they'll be saying why ask me But they're told you this It's very kind, it's enough to tell So I don't know if it's worth it I think it would be a promise I think the question before the board is what do we do to make sure that we don't lose momentum and to keep this on our immediate radar we do have the Financing report that's going to be coming in in january Yeah, we should have that in january and I try to sequence all these information for you as you think about YARPA fund is the pool of money to much of the draw from for this next phase of this project It's kind of as some of the themes would be the impactful projects that We have that pool of money to think about pool of no pun intended So the you know a lot of budget decisions to make here in the next Seven weeks or so This is something you could align as part of the process Certainly if there's questions you have from staff to staff It's it's a it's a checkpoint in a process that has many different checkpoints in it. So Decision right next for you is a fiscal one because there needs to be some additional work done to advance the project There you go Sufficient for people Okay, so See what the financial report does and we'll make sure that this is on our agenda In the near term. Yep. Yeah part of our And I mean what I heard was the next the money for the next phase is part of our budget decisions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Okay, thank you again. Thank you Next on the agenda the fiscal year 2025 manager's budget transmittal Always a Always an exciting part of our December. It's good. I've made some slides here that I typically try to do. So let's get this going Surely do you want to join I just review for the board. I um transmitted the draft budget as we do every year last week That's a binder Find who does have the digital version So a lot of this I'll kind of go over process here For you the town manager is part of the charter on the task of drafting a budget It's a starting point every year We take a lot of thought into the expense revenue side and there's usually you know, some critical decision points to make Here so what we try to do is give you a starting point of delivering the municipal services that this budget reflects Costs to provide those services and thinking about additional or enhanced services and what those are well balancing Limited and challenging of frankly, um revenue sources Certainly property taxes people are closed So surely does a huge amount of work as part of this I'll say surely it's a team But generating the numbers probably 75 percent or so surely generates for departments. These are wages benefits operational costs splitting contracts among departments devising department heads on current year spending and projecting spending So surely really helps guide the formation of those numbers that surely and I work together on kind of big picture proposal with different elements for the board at this point So so what you'll receive tonight, um, I have a transmittal memo in front of your budget packets I'll kind of hit some points from that just to have it under radar as we think about this Then Saturday is more going to reach the public budget to hear As department has to really hit the highlights there And we don't have any more questions about their operating expenses and capital expenses there Another element we started a couple years ago is the planning department produces a growth report And I think it's just the third iteration of that report So that's Matt and me and planning pick the lead on producing this and it's uh We're trying to think more indicators for services and trying to suggest, you know, what's our service needs moving forward? It's an art and science trying to Look at these this modeling each year So I've asked Matt, he's here Saturday to probably probably spend a good amount of his time with you kind of walking you through that report And we can have more time as well He's operating operating budget as big as All So I'll go up to these slides and sort of open up for any questions And she's here and this is The road ahead So I'll go through some general themes some assumptions and policy levers you'll look at Look at our general capital funds on a real high level talk about some revenue Doing our fund balance for our option tax our performance of that next steps So review the schedule we're at the beginning receiving a transmittal overview Our Saturday is our budget review session Then in january, we'll kick off a public hearing the board will begin deliberations Dedicated meeting 10 and new plan of an extra meeting on january 9th And then the 17th 24th round out the month between those two nights to finalize the meeting and get that posted for town meeting When in january the general themes of this budget Level services budget is what I asked Problems to come to me with how much it would be to continue operations for the services they provide This represents that level funding. I think the only exception I built him A few after thousand dollars of library requests for special library hours off Kind of service level changes There's been All over here with some possible additions for services mainly positions that I didn't include in the initial budget I'll move back to the board's discussion deliberation Based on where we initially landed with the bottom line As every year and even more pronounced this year's wages and benefits of driving our expenses And we have just under 10 million dollars of our budget of wages benefits Our police and fire wages are tied to union contracts yet further work to evaluate yet fire staff in 2021 Rejecting cost based on overtime and certification attainments during the year The police mou last spring um to increase wages our police officers facing some staffing challenges there be competitive That's reflected for the first time in this budget year as that was a change for FY 24 That was previously budgeted that we've worked out for this fiscal year. Now we need to budget that for 25 in addition ongoing Our health insurance um increase that we've changed our plan to make the increase not quite as bad But it's still in that's built in as well But other themes and it's been similar. I've had this the last couple of years employer group and retention Maintaining a competitive compensation structure and a challenging one at market Service delivery from the town is centered on town staff Maintaining costs of living and marriage increases for for all staff whether So when we build a budget we have to make some assumptions And trying to draft some numbers together how budgets are our physical spending plan and revenue plan Things certainly always change during the year, but we work to try to arrive at our best Our best draft of where we think those trends are going to go So as we previewed to you a couple weeks ago with our assessor We're projecting a flat grand less growth that certainly correlates throughout our potential tax estimates here And this is a conservative estimate based on We know there's going to be utility reevaluations that will decrease their valuation Also, we have a couple other recent sales that may have that effect as well Then we have some added growth that's going to add to the grand less But those we feel as two factors are but I can't see each other Our local options tax It's surely and I were thinking about the methodology a bit more as we put this together taken It's a volatile revenue source. So we've always taken a really Concerned approach that especially coming out of the pandemic We've seen the last couple of years really robust returns and we've been a little more aggressive in how we bottle this Think of a growth factor as well. So that's something sort of the board to think about here and Trying to decide how we want to predict that revenue and Oh, we've we've been tending to have a lot of Access revenue there. So how do we want to focus that in the cell? And then the town's unassigned fund balance and the carpet funds as components of the operating budget Working to step down the use of both of those funds There's certainly short term pressure to where those can help alleviate tax increases in the short term But that's surely and I spoke about this Our roles to alert into the downstream effects of these things to not just a short term effects of a budget over time So as I said my direction the staff back in august was to submit budget proposals to provide our current level of services If someone had a newer expanded service request that was made separately to take under consideration And the manager's budget reflects that level of services This continues to eat challenges with increased costs, especially What the cost of the capital side By So by the numbers I'm pull pull up few of these exhibits for my transmittal bottom lines by 8.7% expense increase Increases in property tax revenue in this model of about So we're 760,000 We're increasing our local option tax revenue model by over half million Our other revenue categories with an overall decrease. These are what we contain with our fund balance and ARPA also other things we're seeing there with recording fees have certainly gone down a bit We also see amnesty revenue going up a bit our investment revenue higher return rates we're seeing as previous years we've seen these money market accounts and trying to predict some of that as well This all comes down to a through this model of tax rate increase of just over three and a half cents um Rounded around 34 dollars per 100,000 of assessment, which means a median home assessment in willistons about 300,000 dollars You know my book said the median is you take all the homes and you line them up and value them That's the middle number. It's not Half half of the homes conceivably are going to pay graduated lower that and half higher than that I've taken this um just Metric the last couple years to try to put some dollars with percentages here folks what what's the number being to them So that tax increase for the median home would be about 106 dollars or if you think about that on a monthly scale Say your taxes are s pro 8 85 per month So one thing we like to do is look at the general plan a couple different ways I just pulled out here the buy object expenses. It's kind of Truly did a lot of work on this one this year to help Kind of help me break these out to be able to update it quickly in future years, but We'll kind of just hit some of the highlights here on on the budget side the expense side rather Certainly the wages and benefits are the primary driver here Those reasons I mentioned mentioned earlier the cost of living 2 percent step merit increase police department mo you fire department wages As we as we true up the the impact and conditions can I enter um, is this in our materials? Yes, mm-hmm. What pages 11? Thank you um It is chewing up with the fire department actual cost of overtime the minimum staffing was out of certifications attaining to Surely did a really detailed dive into that with a couple years experience on those numbers as well Our health insurance change we would have seen a $250,000 increase for the old plan It's 130 thousand dollar increase with the plan change. So We're able to save a little bit from the increase with that plan change, but it's still a significant increase We've seen our property and catch of the insurance from plcd passive increase It's really driven by multiple factors our workers compensation is calculated On a factor based on position based on wage predictions. So increased wages increased workers compensation premium costs We value our property every year. Um, we reviewed it closely this year the work of the assessor's office We needed to increase the replacement valuation of some of our facilities really based on the current market factors for building replacements to make sure our premiums are Accurate for like the over-assuring and then some claim exposure as fact of the matter as well We've had a couple a couple claims that other fact it's bad I think as we we focus on those to see if there's something that Something that that we can work to prevent in the future to make sure staff is trained on that Say they do a modification based on your exposure for workers, especially work You're limiting your exposure to get more of those all those are factoring into that piece of it general goods and services Triple down here to other things that we contract for our it Contracts legal costs a little bit. Um, and then other outside contracts like remount and traffic that their assessment has increases this year as well Our capital and debt This is It shows a decrease But overall we we thought about how we accounted for a couple things We chatted with our auditors too about it We typically have used fund balance and the capital fund every year as a component and we load that money through the general fund as a revenue to then expense out to the capital fund and suggestion this year's think about Just committing that fund balance to part of your adoption of the capital budget rather than flowing it through the general fund Because as we thought about that we were essentially moving that money through the general fund and increasing the general fund spot on line That is canceled out with that expensive revenue. So I I built that into this modelized Something And this might be one of those structural things I should take offline, but I guess that's I was going to ask for the on the revenue side, there was a 147 Okay That disappeared fund fund balance capital Yep, that was last year. So that's on the revenue side and this is where it's on the expense side That's I've just looked at the other side It was not in revenue the US has been spending it on some what something on the expense side It was part of the transfer in back to the capital fund We can yeah, we'll do a structure So, yeah, the end result was that we felt like we can cut to the chase without having that money That's what programs are number four programs. There's a lot of big number. I just didn't know what it was I understand what equipment is A lot of it's Todd's programs Oh library programs. Oh that kind of stuff pieces. Okay In our overall our debt service We're seeing a little bit of increase there of our outstanding bonds Our interest payments go down a little bit every year as the principal's paid off We have our new ambulance is being reflected there for his principal payment. So that that increased a little bit Our years to come. I think in 20 there's a debt schedule you have in capital packet, but The police and fire station bonds were three series and those are going to start to pay off But I think starting at FY 26 or 7 the first year We also have a sidewalk bond about the same time. So that's that's going to read those Those debts are going to be paid off. Um, so that liability removed potential new debt in the future You've been potentially replaced some of that old debt with the same amount of money you were spending on debt it won't cost the same as that's 20 years ago, but Um structurally, you know, if debt is replaced that's one thing if there's a year without new debt coming off That expense is going to fall off the books for a couple years down the road here as we get closer Overall our debt ratio is about 6.8 percent of our objective fund is debt service You see as part of this discussion for a new debt is the idea of the parking lot improvement project here around town The fire suppression system will break church. That is also part of the argument discussion as well It's a too long Also in our buildings and grounds this year, we've made a change to reflect everything within that vision of public works So that's why we see that our public works increasing a lot We allocated these out to every department percentage wise and we we brought that all to the public works Those are pulling from everywhere to put it to the park That's good The environment reserve funds certainly um important tool the town has used since 1990 We've been able to serve our 3 000 acres of land. We have about 470 000 in the erf right now We we invest that in the cds and money market accounts as well Call last year we funded about $50 000 to transfer in I started out without putting funding there with another Challenging year we had last year. I've initially put it at $10 000 And that's a result of just need to make some difficult decisions in this draft Where the spot of life was originally just needing to find some things to trim before I transfer this to you is higher than I wanted to be But I like that. I think you'll certainly hear I don't I don't want to under underplay its importance It's just there's a lot of tough tough fiscal decisions to think about here And this isn't your only opportunity to put money in that fund fund balance the watch and tax receipts you always have To uh commit those funds to that So it's the budget's not isn't your only shot I'll just flag that I'm sure you'll you'll hear some more thoughts so then The next piece I alluded to I've put this in my transmittal So try to think about possible additions in staffing. There's certainly a doll There's a price that goes with that staffing costs are one of the leading drivers here So I've illustrated these that think about the recommendations from Jim Bater's reporters in the first areas to focus on the second police lieutenant the police detective and that detective is achieved by putting the current officer into that role And then backfilling with a new patrol officer. So we've modeled out what those costs would be as an operating cost that's inclusive of wages benefits for those positions I think our fully loaded benefit costs per full time employee so ground 20,000 per fpv health care zone for no driver I've also included the HR director position in here And then this third buildings and grounds parks full-time employee We have a year-round part-time position at about 27 hours a week That position has been open for Since April since last April There's certainly a lot of work in buildings and grounds and parks One thing we're Suggesting to think about moving towards the next few years is to expand that division They have two full-time employees plus this part-time employee plus a seasonal parks person We weren't able to fill the seasonal parks position last summer. So Todd spent all summer mornings outside the parks What else to do? It was a good job. It was helpful for him to be out there, but we don't want our recreation parks record So part of this is going to be thinking about expanding that division over time here Certainly focus that When the parks aren't open, there's a lot of deferred That we didn't have to focus on In the future, um, I'd like to recommend we contract custodial out for the police library right now I think as we're staffing there, we can absorb those tasks and house views don't have the capacity right now for it So those are things that those are pressures on staff I broke those out as an additional think about I used a funding mechanism as the property tax to think about here Just to illustrate for you that same idea the median home cost per year per month with positions Those have an option of starting a position partway through a fiscal year if you want, but you're going to defer that full cost to the next fiscal year Some things that have occurred in the past Also for police positions, there's a federal program called the cost program The town can apply for that if New positions are authorized by voters at town meeting The reward for that is $125,000 per position in three years given our Number here to start a position that's essentially About a third of that position each year or so so it can be helpful and defer things, but it's not It's not a good fuel money and You could structure in a way where you're graduating that funding in granted if you get the grant City of virgins was awarded a cop's grant last spring. I connected with their city manager Let's take recommendations here thinking about you know, what's the payout like on it? They're certainly happy to We would have to put that to a vote at town meeting You would have to have the positions Okay Just the position Feels like our fire positions that we did a couple years ago. Yep. Yeah, they'd have to be in the budget That's part of other expenses to think about I think I might have froze Wow, I think I froze my slide Eric outside the police department where there are other Position requests no other position requests you know public works and Recreation parks both have the request for another full-time person The way we did it last year was to take a seasonal we we try to just tack on to Seasonal or all re-budget positions between them a full time. So For this instance The lesser cost was to advance this seasonal this regular part of the full time but Surely that that one's that one came up and I said to the two of them, you know, I'll recommend make one more full-time position that we'd have to sharing So another one on the radar is continued about fire and staffing We have the right to try and report from four years ago That community-based strategic plan. I think it's really important and helping a lot of that future of them Think about that kind of five-year plan to public safety And suggesting Absolutely Those those are what I received for request. It wasn't a whole lot Staff understood where we were so I have to ask because they were here. Did the CJC ask for a position Or is that the board that's asking for a position? That's that's from the board, you know There's been challenges there too with staffing. We had a second full-time position that left and We're unable to fill that position. So we we've helped with the ridge here with two temporary part-time staff June Just to clarify in in the budget now what we've done is we've funded two full-time positions the director sort of justice specialist for the full time I've also reached out Heinsberg Richmond about an allocation For next fiscal year Richmond had a discussion with their board earlier last month and they were certainly Wanted to make a contribution into the next budget. So they're discussing that I shared a similar communication with the Heinsberg town manager and they were going to have that discussion We were trying to talk about you know percent some formula to share it and we started out with population We don't have back to data. We don't have good data based on kind of the cases per community But also trying to think beyond just cases just the availability of service and service indicators So I have a meeting tomorrow morning as we're talking about some CJC operational items case referrals and we're we're gonna I'm gonna talk about that as well as kind of a data collection. I think on On the CJC, you know, certainly make making sure we have that second full-time staff We think we try to increase the starting wage for that in this budget proposal We also know the state grant funding is going to be there, but we think it's going to decrease a little bit So I think that's we were projecting maybe 120 ish from the state and yeah That we overmatched for years. I think our contribution budget was about 62 thousand dollars In general fund plus our overhead FES to me, I've got about a 40 thousand dollars Both those elements about a hundred thousand dollars per year That's where it is right now. So this the state funding is why we are obligated to support other towns. Yeah Yeah, it's kind of catchment area. That's also, um, you know, we an original version of the budget we just Said okay, we get rid of the grant because it does tie our hands Some aspects and just serve most and we went through that because we were waiting to get DOC funding But that does make it hard the last so We had a sort of justice specialist who was full-time and the wage was a problem But it's also the you don't know from year to year whether you're gonna have a job Because you're always waiting for are we going to get DOC funding or not? So hopefully with this legislative session as well, there will be some new information coming along as well So it's kind of hard to fill that Sure full-time position even though it's full-time with benefits because of the unknown Sure I think certainly over time the town To continue with the the CJC programming will likely to all come out of the town in combination of surrounding towns general funds The challenge I have is the state is still gonna fund it with a hundred twenty thousand dollars next year We can start weaning off that I think it'd be good to start thinking about that the next few years That was my original intent with this budget was to kind of wean that percentage off from the state, but Maybe not this year. Yeah As we got through this in the last month or so just It didn't make sense That's going to be something that's there. You know say this the state pulled the funding Here's something to continue the program, you know, we can look at the reserve funder See how we're doing with revenue to you know to pick it up at that point of year if we've got a kind of back straight there We could find creative ways to not say well the funding just went away all of a sudden But then I've got uh, then it's the last two years Just to give you an idea in the county kind of where our principal problem We went from second lowest to third lowest we passed st. George's You know, this is the snap chitting county and certainly a lot of these towns are small I don't provide the level services Winston does but But the think we provide a robust Public safety services here we use fire EMS public works Uh, you compare other towns that are at that level you know the south Burlington's the Really a lot of Burlington those are the other towns kind of above us on this rate list that have career fire EMS person A lot of these other towns are are all volunteers That's certainly a service investment and the towns kept the rate low primarily use the low clock attached offset that for Probably 20 years right now Just to show that kind of keep it perspective with our neighbors kind of what that that rate looks like And this is the current fiscal year. So when this proposal would increase the next fiscal year And I I thought with the grand list discussion it would be interesting to look at the effects on This current draft tax rate increase based on say the grand list was going to be projected to grow a certain amount So this table and the transmittal just kind of take does that exercise to show you Kind of what that effects would be on the median home per month with the grand list to increase We don't expect this to happen But just give you some perspective on that if the grand was was growing even a half or 1% we'd start seeing those You know that that impact goes down a little bit. It's not We're not talking about adding 20 30 000 million dollars value It's going to impact you you see that more when you have a rephrasing Essentially the rephrasing happens the valuation And this finalizes in the summertime some and When does the grand list get finalized? It's like in the summer, right? Yeah, they have to finalize the tax bills Don't go out. It's values out of April 1st, then It's finalized early in june or so by the listeners. So that's reflected when you improve the tax rate It's based on that Then the ENOs that you just completed last month was that opportunity for I have a calendar to adjust that So I'm going to the local option tax here That include the manager's report our first quarter receipts. So We brought in 1.2 million dollars in the first quarter made over a million in sales tax and that's after the state keeps their So that was about 330 000 rarely been budgeted for the first quarter of the year We like to see this play out over the year, but It's interesting that quarter's a really high the last couple years this quarter We're in the hall of the pre-holiday quarter tennis historically been the highest and then earlier in the January to march has been a little bit lower, but We're seeing especially the rooms and meals alcohol tax receipts We're exceeding the pen the pre-pandemic levels Think about things like a couple new hotels in town We're getting option tax every night for each room Fy 24 receipts for seeded budget by five hundred sixty thousand dollars So we continue to take this kind of rolling three-year average by quarter of the receipts And in addition, surely and I looked at the growth per quarter I'm a three-year average to come up with what we're calling a A growth rate that we want to add to this because feeling we could budget a little bit more than we have here Trying to balance our revenues So our this factory came up with was adding an additional eight percent the sales of 12 percent for rooms meals alcohol Still feel this is likely a conservative estimate. We just we moved it a bit. We don't want to move it too much It's kind of that Trying to decide certainly is that your discretion if you want us to change the model Say that's too aggressive. We should budget lower We can take all your dirt we'll take your direction if that is the budget In the dependence of this transmittal you'll see kind of our history the last 10 years or so that looked by quarter and I included a percentage change by quarter So you kind of see that those But we were taken under advisement as we thought Because you pointed out in your notes, there's Yeah, that's a mistake like what's local and what's online. So what's driving that? So we have that historical information and that would give us a lot more information to forecast from but we just see We'll not share it Yeah, there was some discussion last session about Providing an information to say that chief executive town manager and select board Even a kind of non non publicly disclose because The concern is always someone will figure out how my health's businesses are Tank the walmart stock market. Yeah. Yeah So, I mean if we could get anything else, you know, we do our best to model my prior history We try to think, you know, what's the macroeconomic indicators out there in the world right now, but That's all we have to do with this a lot and you know, we're sure when I say, oh, okay, and that reports soon Hopefully it's good still You know, we don't you know, not to that extent, but you know, we see these trends We want to make sure these trends continue if we see really Large-scale departures from the trends that starts to make us pause a bit about what our what our forecast is going to look at I like to share this the local option tax receipts Would offset our property tax rate for this model about 19 and a quarter cents for f by 25 so Without that revenue source taxes for the level of service today And that's the approach the town took with the local option tax when it was implemented Other towns, for example, colchester with costco They their approach was to really use those receipts towards capital primarily We do in a park because we use general funds Colchester saved they used A lot of that money towards that, you know, big projects like the community center So their bond vote was the net of what they had saved with Actually This is kind of where how wilson's approached this historically You know, it's it's That's part of where we are with a low tax rate, but there's other things you could think about doing with that one Not something I waited to Well, I mean one would I think people would argue I would argue that if we didn't have all those businesses We wouldn't need quite as large a police force either. So, you know, that's why I think it needs to go against the operating It's to a high degree though. It's nice to and I appreciate the The sentiment that I hear it's like well, if we have to put up with all this traffic We ought to get something for it, right? So as a citizen I ought to get my community center for the fact that I got to deal with all this traffic It shouldn't all just go to supporting the but It only goes so far. Yeah another thing Surely, I look at every year is the unassigned fund balance. That's The board has a policy to keep 10 to 20 percent of the operating budget in this unassigned fund balance What we've tried to do the last few years is Model where that can end up and again, we have to take some assumptions when we do this We have our end of that by 23 audit financials. We're right about six 3.6 billion dollars that fund balance We budgeted an FY 24 to use some platform 50 for tax reduction Just a revenue source of the general fund About 150 towards capital projects We backed those out We estimate what the fund balance would be if we needed to use all that money as budgeted And granted for about for many many years the town has not needed to dip into that as budgeted as a result of Option tax coming in over budget Expenses that are under and was the way the books ended the year Say this every last three years. I think at least that's not going to always be the case So we have to be prepared for that's going to change us In this fund balance model for the end of this fiscal year, I built in and we built an additional $325,000 exceeding local option tax receipts Based on that first quarter based on this kind of growth model That's how we modeled this this projection And then we've entered In this budget proposal just over 510,000 for tax reduction And about 170,000 to use for capital as part of that capital discussion And that leaves the estimated fund balance of just under two and a half million And it's about 16.3 of the draft bottom line We had to make a lot of assumptions there, but This is ultimately the board's comfort level within your policy of how much fund balance you want to allocate That's this is an area if you could you could use it towards differential tax reduction, but Again, trying to be mindful of the downstream effects here Originally we had this at about 460,000 for tax reduction and then in our final days of budget model I need some additional expense information that came in we needed more revenue We're just a little bit. So that's the budget We're trying to lean that down This is essentially your rainy day fund if you have a big expense, that's a function to come up And thankfully with the July flooding We're getting some FEMA funding for like a button up road with the damage up there We just have a small local match that will be spread over a few years here But we had a real catastrophic event that wasn't insured or funded in another way We'd have to work here That's always kind of what it's intended for is to make sure we have some backup So using our Budget that we have presented and using the government finance officers association model of Two months of your budget. I just took the 15 million divide by 12 times two and that's 2.5 million Would is how they anticipate the minimum you should have in your reserve. So we're in that ballpark The same with ARPA funds. We've built some ARPA fund use in the general fund the last few years 300,000 and FY 23 stepped it down to 125 and FY 24 In this draft, we've included 75 for revenue that we we have to use it this year. It's the last opportunity to use some ARPA We were the board used it to help with the impact of the additional fire staff first year And with the intent of stepping it down over time Again, we didn't need to use the 300,000 and FY 23 could fall to half because the way we ended here But again the board could think about using this amount a lesser amount greater amount But has to be spent next year and it's going to go away So it's going to create a revenue Hole for operations Within this budget mask built with other revenues in FY 26 continue to step it down We'd like to eliminate it if we could this year, but just based on where we were this this particular model in the draft What we landed as a starting point for years And then we I think I mentioned one binder this year has the capital of the second half We've highlighted the capital tab that has a transmittal two of the different elements You know the real big impact here is cost of appointments, especially public works. We have the eights Dump trucks and every seven years we had replaced two of them. This is that year added cost with these trucks So So suggestions use ARPA towards that second truck purchase this year And then we use these sinking funds. We try to see the like the asset and what the replacement value is going to be We updated a lot of those numbers this year based on the current cost by trucks I've tried to smooth that a little bit with some ARPA allocations like towards exclusive funds, for example Just to help with the cost of these things The two There's over a billion dollars in ARPA's suggestions and then the capital budget those mirror a lot of things that I transmitted to you Including the parking lot project Church So you'll see in there That's a that's an idea for ARPA You know, there's discretion I can have to how you want to spend it, but some of these things that are more operationally replaced those are Short-term needs where if we didn't use ARPA for it and we want to continue that equipment replacement We continue to look at our energy plan goals in our capital equipment We have a 75 000 year mark From the federal government's based on our population to spend on climate change mitigation So melinda's been working on some ideas there and what we're looking at probably this current fiscal year is to some electric mowers for our parks and buildings and grounds Spend the fleet anyway and then thinking about a potential staff fleet vehicle Somebody's go to a meeting go to a zoning inspection go down to a pilier for something They take big take the EV instead of their personal vehicle and get mileage We think that might be a good initial step to start showing a proactive notification of our services here So those aren't in this capital plan because that that would likely hit the current year's budget I'll come back to the board to approve any purchases for those funds So As you go through all this I like to highlight the policy levers you have to pull here Both sides of the budget. So the general fund expenses where you want to land there Where your bottom line is going to be As you go through each department Ask questions you have an apartment for their wine items. I'll ask them to highlight the larger variances. I won't ask them to go line by line It's going to be a long day Saturday, so I don't know what that but there's room for you to ask any questions The property taxes the projected amount to raise and the draft rate here That's that's something to do the side. How you want to build that? Use of fund balance the ARPA for capital needs the operating budget This idea of any new debt for the parking lot or the fire suppression system of the old great church in terms of a bond vote Unless there's opposition from the board, I'm likely going to ask the town attorney this month just to draw up There's some legal documents. We would need to accompany a bond vote. They get very busy in january with that I'll have those on hand should the board want to proceed if not we could save them for future time Is a presidential election year in 2024? So if there was Bottom delaying a bond vote you could have a special meeting next november to the large potential the voters as well The challenge with ARPA there too to supplement it would be that that deadline Might be a structural question, but it's because I don't have this much revenue to play with my other budget, but so If the school budget the voters authorize a spending level And if and you're not really supposed to spend above that sometimes you'd have to right but you don't spend above that So if the town if the town votes a spending level And then you realize you Your grand list really did go up 2 and you have You have more headroom. You could spend more. Can you are you really not supposed to spend? I mean by statute you're not supposed to spend more than the voters authorized Or is that not a thing at the town? It would depend. I think I'll be the other scenario too where you have Unanticipated expenses that come up and you're going to go over. Yeah. Yeah I mean if you have an emergency, what are they going to do? But yeah, but we couldn't make a decision that we're going to spend another half million on something because that's a beyond What the voters authorized, I guess is yeah, essentially that that bottom line is the target every year You know it is it ties in the tax rate The the warning itself will say a budget of x amount with x amount be raised by taxes, right? So even if the grand list went up and Come back in july's. Oh, the grand list went up. We don't want to raise as much of taxes You have to raise that amount of money because that's what the voters authorized I guess I was thinking more like if you If you're conservative on the revenue, then you have to take your expenses down If you're not conservative on the revenue, I'm not talking wildly But you know, if you're not concerned if you if you if you lean in a little bit more on the revenue So that you can afford more things in your budget The worst that can happen is things don't materialize and you have to move the dump truck out another year I'm not know if I'm articulating it. Well, I think so Like you don't want to be too conservative because then you if you get the money you can't spend it Right. Yeah, so that's that's kind of the thought it sounds like it's kind of mid-year budget adjustment The revenues are hitting their targets and then deferring something right at that point that works on the downside because No one's going to argue if you spend less than was your authorized, but spending more than you're authorized Yeah, we get you in trouble, right? Yeah sounds a little bit like Well, I was going to say and that would be if it was something very specific That's what we might have a request to you to to authorize us to use the unrestricted fund balance And if we haven't done that for because luckily we had revenue in excessive budget or the expenses We used a little bit when the fire staff was added. We We had them start at the end of this year and in April or May we used the fund balance to Basically come to the payroll for two months Oh We can ask them questions now that we're going to have them all day Saturday Great Okay, great managers report. Yep Just and You got the quarterly report distributed Doing a great job putting those together reminder for saturday nine three We have a lunch break built in I'm just gonna ask you the same question For people think It'd be easier if we ordered out something, but I'd be happy to chip in for it. We could just do that first or something Yeah, send someone down to Jeff's corners. Yeah, okay. Let's do that I'll uh, I'll bring a menu so we can Have everyone Laser specific plan it'll be january 16th. So we'll get that word here So EV charging station is going to be in So I got back yesterday, but uh, they should be working to install that soon if they haven't already Where is it because I drove by with my needle going down and I didn't see it. Where is that supposed to be? um When you go towards the village community park right before you get to the the gate there on the left Oh, maybe they maybe when oh, there was a partner. I didn't go all the way up that far. Okay Um, so this is I mean you may not know the answer to this very specific question. Um, I know that obviously There's different types of EV charging. Is it like the universal supercharger or is it like do we know what? I'll ask I'm guessing that Okay Should have option tax. Oh our pro worksheets so included in your packet um from the retreat The worksheet I basically added a column to give you kind of a workspace Um, and then I distributed tonight a report from Bruce our public works director kind of an overview of our infrastructure and then just kind of Is updated thoughts on kind of private works for projects I asked Bruce on saturday if there's time during his budget discussion So understanding kind of your homework or the next month I was able I was able to cut and paste your document into an excel spreadsheet so that I could so that it would add up for me Send it around if anybody would prefer excel. Yeah, but I also it would probably be good if we I think you said there were a few other things that came up like donations to our food shelf or a Our committee or something for nonprofits, so it'd be good if we all kind of had a The same understanding of what those were So I'd be happy to send it my list around and you can add or subtract or whatever But it would probably be good if we all the same list sure and I can what would I did with putting this together We had all kind of those community generated ideas too. I can certainly add some of those in In the food shelf request. I asked first of all with those requests from a fire district quarterwood Wilson woods, so we've reminded that made him aware of this ongoing discussion as well Kind of new thing that was brought off Mm-hmm Would you be willing to also update it to indicate which items you have included in the budget? That way we know what you know Assuming that the those the items got past the budget That then what other money there is to be spent separate from that I Like those two G Yeah, because it was one of them like I think I remember I'm thinking one of your line items was like The 75,000 that is in the budget, but it was also on the sheet So I was thinking that if I didn't put it on the sheet you'd give your budget a problem It would yes, okay I just I put it on I put it on my total. It's a good question. I just Had the bill and some assumptions here. Yeah, these things are in the budget and so right either. Yeah, okay Don't take them. You have to count them or you're gonna You want to keep in the budget? Yeah, you don't want Eric to have a heart attack Those things in this company says And I know for like the other social services committee They get a request from them to increase that line item. I increased in the draft budget $2,000 for the channel funds It's 30 that's been 30,000 for years. I know There's certainly a lot of There's part of all these things Yeah, I mean the ARPA thing would really just be we know you did a lot that trained down your funds During COVID. This is a one time. Don't get used to it. Don't build it in your budget. But yeah, this is a one time Would we need to give them stipulations? To spend it like if we say designated $50,000 like the social services would they still have to like physically spend that money before 2026 like they would have to You know, we need to make sure that they or once at that of our hands Money's money's fungible. It's month. Yep. It's out of our hands and we've spent it We do not have to make sure that they spent it. We essentially granted it out. Yeah Yeah The police numbers in the quarterly report were a little frightening Going up and up and up. Yeah I think we had 20 consensus of retail that one day Other business any Okay Final thoughts on agenda items from this meeting any Hearing none, I will declare us adjourned. Thank you