 for Monday, May 1st, 2023 to order. Are there any agenda additions or changes from staff? None from staff. Any from board members? No. Okay, so let's move on to public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time when those attending the meeting can address the select board on town business. It's not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, you can either raise your hand in the room or you can use the raise your hand feature in the Zoom application to find the button to raise your hand. You can float your cursor down toward the bottom of your screen and a toolbar will show up. If you click on reactions, the raise your hand option will be presented to you. If you're on the phone, we'll give you an opportunity to speak if you don't have access to the raise your hand button. Are there any people who would like to speak during public to be heard? Okay, not seeing no hands. Let's move on to the first order of business, which is interview volunteer to serve as the Green Mountain Transit representative for Essex, Paul. Come on up, introduce yourself. Give us any background you'd like to share with us and the information you might like to or that they think the board would consider. Campaign speech. Yes, my name is Paul Boney and I'll just give you a quick background on my recent history, work history. After 13 years managing the town of Shelburne, I retired in 2014 and I did several interim manager ships after that, twice in Richmond, and I did Green Mountain Transit for six months. I enjoyed that work. That was very interesting work. And certainly as a town manager, I got the chance to sit as an alternate mostly on various boards and commissions. That was a good experience as well. When I moved to Essex Junction, Marty Powers was your representative. And I became the alternate. And about a year after that, Marty decided he was getting ready to retire. So she asked me if I would apply for the position of, she would take the alternate position if I'd become representative. So I agreed to do that. She was chairman of the chairwoman, I guess you would say these days, of the finance committee for Green Mountain Transit. I was on the finance committee and she decided she would step down from chairmanship. So I've been chair of the finance committee now for about five years. So I enjoy working with Green Mountain Transit. It's a very valuable service provided not only to Chittenden County, but the Northwestern part of Vermont. And so it's an organization that is going through some trouble times financially. It's a difficult organization to keep afloat financially. But I see that from the inside. And we continue to provide the best service we can. And that's certainly one of my goals as a rep is to make sure we can provide all the service that we can possibly provide to our member organizations, our member communities. Any questions, I'd be glad to answer them. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Kendall, take care. I would just ask, as you are now a city-vesting junction resident, the town is separated. Is there ever a situation that could arise where there would be a conflict of interest between the city's needs and the town's needs in this position? I don't think so, Kendall. When you think about serving on a board like Green Mountain Transit, but first of all, it's legal. It's okay to have a representative not within the community that you live. But you have a fiduciary responsibility to a board like Green Mountain Transit, which means you're doing the best you can to do the best for your organization. That's number one. Obviously, you represent your community and try to make sure the service that's being provided is the most that we can provide for the best service as possible. But I think when you look at it from a holistic point of view, I don't think there's any conflict or any reason why I wouldn't serve the town of Essex just fine from living on Beach Street. Thank you. Anybody else? Questions? Okay, so Paul, how long have you been doing this? Excuse me? How long have you been the rep? A rep? See, six years ago, I think is when I was appointed as the alternate, and then three years ago as the as a rep. So I've been representing Essex as a junction for six years here. All right. Do you have any questions for us? I guess one question I'd have is, as a rep, I don't see you more than once a year. And is that enough? Do you have concerns about service and what's going on with Green Mountain Transit? Would you like to see your rep more often? Certainly, if you have any questions, you can always, always holler. But if you'd like a more formal, poorly or every six months or whatever you might like, I'd be glad to do that. Sure. Any discussion about that? Thoughts? Could speak up and say it is nice to keep an update on all the commission, right? Across the board, I think that's something that's going to come up next week at our strategic planning meeting. Yeah, we have a strategic planning meeting next week. And one of the things we're going to be talking about is a better interlock or increasing interlock with the boards and commissions and people we've appointed. So I think that's something that we would be looking at. Yeah, I kind of have a question that just sparked when I was listening to you talk. But is the city of Essex Junction going to have their own representative? And are you They actually do now. They do now. Yeah, they appointed their chair and vice chair as their rep and alternate. So at the current time, I'm basically representing Essex because that's how I was appointed and they're representing the city. We currently do not have an alternate. Correct. Okay, so the shameless plug here for anybody who might be watching this interested in being an alternate rep for it would be great to have a rep for a couple of reasons. One is the rep, even though they can't vote at board meetings, they're they're they're really encouraged to participate, serve on committees and get to learn as much as they can about the organization. And certainly, if I'm the rep is not able to attend, then they are able to step in and voice and vote. So it's a it's a it's a good way to get in and learn about remount and transit. How often are meetings? Once a month. But if you get active, there's several standing committees. Because finance, I mentioned we have one leadership, which is like an executive committee. And we have an operations committee. And then we have a strategy committee as well. So if people have interest in any of those committees that gives them another opportunity to serve. Okay. Thank you, Paul. Any other questions or comments? Thank you for your service. Yeah. So enjoy it. Yeah, great. We will discuss later whether or not to go into executive session. And if we choose to appoint you, you'll be notified, right? I know the process, Andy. Yep. Alrighty. Thanks, Paul. Thank you very much. Enjoy sitting with you. Paul, believe your the term ends on June 30th, right? That's correct. Okay. So we're just so you know, scheduling wise, we're planning to do interviews for all the potential boards and committees over the next couple of months. So you may not hear from us for a couple of months, but we will be in touch one way or another. Thanks. Thanks, Paul. Okay. Moving on to the next agenda item, interview volunteers to serve the Essex Free Library Board of Trustees. We have three candidates. Are they all present? I don't see Joan Allen or Allen and Emily. Okay, great. So before we start, I need to disclose a potential conflict of interest. My wife is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Library. I intend to participate in the interviews and discussion and the voting. Even though it's probably highly beneficial for me to keep my wife happy, I think I can make a decision for the best interest of the town in spite of that risk. So let's see if I don't see Joan. So let's go ahead and start with Allen as your next on the agenda. So come on up, introduce yourself. Well, it's what your background is or any information you'd like to share with us that might and don't touch the microphone to help us assess whether or not to appoint you. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Allen Ramsey. I'm a family physician. I've lived in Essex Town for over 42 years and I decided to apply to be a member of the Board for Essex Free Library because I've always felt like community service is a way to give back, particularly to those organizations that a person feels very passionate about and the Essex Free Library has made my life better over the last several years. And so I want to give back. Now, a little bit more about myself. I have quite a bit of community service experience on several different boards. I've been particularly intrigued after reviewing the strategic plan that was developed for the Free Library and the survey that was done in 2019 at a town meeting about the interest in ways that the library can support seniors in our community. I mean, just in the last few years, we've seen Mansfield Place, we've seen Maple Tree Place, two senior assisted living facilities grow in our community. And so that's kind of an area of interest of mine is to figure out ways to really support our seniors as they age successfully at home. So those are kind of the two issues that I feel passionate about. Just the value of having the free library in town, as well as what services or what policies we can implement to support different aspects of our population. Hey, great. Thank you. Any questions from the board? Go ahead, Kendall. I would just note that you have quite the legacy to uphold in your position. Hopefully it will be as interesting as your ancestors. Yeah, I never take, I never miss an opportunity to talk about my namesake. Allen Ramsey, spelled all A's, was a Scottish poet in the 1700s, who wasn't really well known compared to other Scots, particularly Robert Burns. But he decided in Edinburgh to open the first lending library, the first one in Britain, the first one anywhere in 1726. He had to trust, like we trust every day, he could lend out books, particularly to socioeconomically comprised individuals who never had access to books, and they would bring them back. And so that's my namesake. I don't know that there's any real relationship other than the fact that my mother and father knew something about this legacy. I don't miss an opportunity to talk about that. An amazing legacy. Yeah, so I've been a bibliophile for most of my life, and the SXP library has given me opportunities to really take advantage of that. So what else can I tell you about myself? Again, I am semi-retired. I'm still practicing. I took a job while I began work at the People's Free Clinic in Berry, Vermont when I spent five years on the Green Mountain Care Board working out of Montpelier. And now I'm the medical director, so I'm still a practicing physician. Other boards that I've served on, another board that I've served on during the pandemic, Agewell, Area Agents on Aging, you know, takes advantage of having a physician on the community board when decisions have to be made during difficult times like the pandemic. Thankfully, we're through that, we hope. Well, we're pretty sure we're through it. But I think that my experience and knowledge around community service would be a bone to the SXP library, whether it's budgeting, fundraising, I know how to do that, strategic planning, things that, you know, always come into play on a community board. Any other questions, Ethan? I have a question. I'm just wondering if you've had anything in mind, particularly about what you thought the library needed or if there was just the ambition to just help out on what's going on. Oh, no idea. You mean aside from handicap entrance, we won't go there. But, you know, again, I focus on seniors and how we can be better, we can better serve them. Those that might be confined, those that just don't have access to expertise that exists in our library. So that's kind of my interest. And a lot has happened in the last few years to do that. New programs have developed at SXP library. But there are always opportunities. At Agewell, we're best known for Meals on Wheels. We deliver 2,000 meals a day to our four county coverage area. That's outreach. And so, can we do more in terms of outreach? And again, there are always constraints. There's difficulties. But Books on Wheels is not an uncommon concept in other parts of the country. But again, I would, if I was, if I joined the board, that I would learn more about policy and procedure as a board member. And that's where, you know, I would, that's what I would do is to be a learner at the onset and a support person. Thank you. Any other questions? Tracy? So to take that one step further, do you have any ideas around initiatives or things that we could add to the, and by we, I mean, library, could add to the library of things that would greater support seniors? Right now, there are some basic things, knitting programs, games that draw seniors in. I like the idea, you know, and we have our separate programs for children downstairs and amazing book collection. We have separate programs for seniors. I like the idea of combining senior and children's programs in some way. And it, you know, and so that, that's the thought. But again, as, as a novice, not fully educated person, in terms of how policies and procedures are evolved from, from the board, I would be there to learn and listen and maybe think about some of the things that I've learned over my career. I was the medical director at Green Mountain Nursing Home in Colchester for 10 years. And, and it took me a few years to really understand how to make the lives better of people that really were in fully assisted dependent living situations. Most of them not wanting to, a lot of them not wanting to be there. But we were able to find little things that we could do to improve their lives. But I, I like, you know, I, again, I would just be a learner and, and maybe use some of my background to provide leadership of the, of the library with ideas. Some of them could be implemented. Many of them probably not. And we're not going to have a van, you know, driving around Essex, you know, that I'm based on the budget. I've reviewed some of the budgetary issues of Essex Free Library. I mean, it's amazing what they accomplish in terms of their budget compared to our other comparative libraries. I mean, it's, it's pretty interesting to see our, how much Essex Free Library gets paid for, for Patreon compared to some of our, some of the other Confederate libraries in Chitt County. It's, oh, there are always going to be budget constraints. So, but again, creativity can overcome some of those too. All right. Any questions? No, I'm good. Thank you. So, libraries in Vermont are, are unique thing where they're, the governance model is slightly different than the, than other town departments. The select board sets the budget. So you can blame us for that tiny budget you were talking about. But the, it's the, the library trustees run the library. So the select board doesn't tell the library what they can and can't do. We set the budget and it's, it's up to the trustees to, to set, you know, they're, to run the library. One of the other interesting aspects of the Essex Free Library is it has a foundation associated with it, the Friends of the Library. And there's a small bucket of money that is controlled by the board of that entity. And one of the bylaws associated with the secondary entry entity is that's, that a majority of its board members need to be library trustees. And so I'm going through all that to ask the question of whether you have considered that, whether you were aware of that and whether you would, I don't know if, if part of your interest would be to participate in that second board. Or if you're, if you're, you know, I, I, I, I, I mean, I'd be asking the question as well. Well, well, I don't, I didn't know the details. The board of trustees itself, I know, is the governance board and, you know, and so it has policy, it makes policy. So I, I understood that in terms of the philanthropic arm or the fundraising arm, I wasn't exactly sure how they two, how the two blended together. So that's good for me to know. Because, you know, that's an interest of mine. I'm asking for money. When, when you're dealing with something you feel passionate about is not hard. It's, a lot of people think, oh, oh, you get on a board and you got to go eat the bushes. And if you're on a board for an organization like Agewell, I feel very strongly about the services that Agewell provides to keep people safe at home and have them age well. Okay. So that's the way I feel about fundraising. Whether, you know, these two, what, how the two boards, you know, intermingle or interact, I, you know, I would leave that to you all. Well, we, we, we, we don't appoint members to the, the foundation board that's independent of this, but it was more a question, I guess, of interest. And it sounds like you would be interested in, and participating in the fundraising and being active in that. I, you know, I feel, my ratios, I feel I asked the same person five times and finally that fifth time, there's some money flowing, I'm successful. Right. Any other questions? Okay, so we may choose going to executive session later to discuss the candidates we interviewed tonight, but we, as Greg mentioned, the terms that are, are coming open, or that are being reconsidered or considered for appointment, I guess is the right way to say that, are June 30th, right, is the end of those, those terms. There are, there are three seats that are being considered. Some of those seats have the folks that are currently in those seats have not let us know what, whether or not they'd like to be reconsidered. We will interview them, them as well. So, as we're going through the next couple of months, we'll be doing more interviews. We'll, it may be closer to the, the end of June before we let you know whether you've been selected. Thank you for stepping forward. Great. Okay. Okay. I see Joan has arrived. So, Joan, come on up. So, Joan, introduce yourself. Oh, yes, I'm Joan Janssen. I'm on the board of trustees. I'd like to remain on the board of trustees. Okay. I love libraries. I go to, I'm just going to call it by the old name, Johnson State College. Okay. I've graduated twice, but I still am going for fun. And you may have heard that the president, the ex-president of the college, retired because he wanted to digitize all the books in the library. And Johnson, Menden, and Castleton. So, we protested at the state and emailed it. Libraries, you know, people need library. This isn't just where you go to talk. This is where you go to learn. Yes. And get help. And that's what the Essex Free Library does. Yeah. And gosh, as far as the things that Essex has, the Essex Free Library has for lending out, they even have sewing machines or sewing machines. They have all kinds of things for people that need, you know, the can afford to get like a new sewing machine or, you know, no shoes, something like that. All of that, you know, Andy? Yes. Right. It's a great library and it's lots of fun. And, you know, it's the community loves it. You can see by Caitlin's reports that it's doing very well as far as, you know, the people coming in and what they're coming in for. Yeah. So, I just don't, I want to be still a part of that. And I would like to be reconsidered to be, you know, on the board of trustees. And we have a plant sale coming up and a book sale coming right up. So, what other questions would you like to know? Any questions from board members? I don't know. My ignorance is showing, but can I ask how long you've been a trustee? I've been a trustee for, is it almost four years, Greg? I am not sure off the top of my head. Yeah. I'm not sure either. They're usually three-year terms. Three-year terms. So, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else? What do you do as a current member of the board? We talk about what we could do to make more friendly for the people. Okay. What things we can add to whatever we have to lend out. Okay. And we talk about different things like, for instance, at the last meeting, we would like to have some kind of security thing so that if somebody comes in, because apparently a couple of people have come in and been a little unruly, that you could get immediate help. I think that's very important. Okay. Right. We have the craft show and the bake sale as well as the book and the plant sale. We have somebody that teaches the not to file in. It's not the, it's something they play in Hawaii. You're playing. Yeah. Thank you. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's a fun place to go. And people are nice. You know, they can sit there and they can read the newspapers. They can look and see what the library thinks is the most favorite book. One time I saw the librarian's choice several years ago, and I had already picked out the books I wanted. Now I have 15 bookcases in my home. Okay. And I saw this book and it was a thick book. I thought, well, gee, do I have time to read that? And I took it and then I bought it and I've read it three times this year. And I've told everybody about it because it's such a good book. And no wonder it was the librarians, you know, it was before I was on the board. So it's been more than three years. So, you know, people tell you what their favorite book is and the librarians get a feel for that. I also think we had a table when you come in, there's, you know, a table wider than this. And it had a mere sampling of the band's books. Dr. Seuss's book. See that? Books we've read to our children, you know. Right. Show that not everybody can tell people what to their children can read. Okay. That's up to the parents. Right. And I thought that was really good. I took a picture, sent it to my family. Yeah. So I think that libraries, I've gone in and had somebody help me with my, say, homework on the computer. That's real important. You know, for people who are older, we don't all know how to use the devices like the younger people do. And that's really important to know that you can't avoid it now. It's just there. So, any other questions? Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody? Any other questions? Anyone? Because as an alum of Castleton State College, I appreciate your comments about the physical library. Thank you. Do you know, I went to, I went to a meeting, a button club meeting, okay, at the East Middlebury Library. And I said to the librarian, have you heard what they are trying to do at the state schools? Yes. He said, maybe you could contact, you know, I called Bernie and Bill, I know him. Okay. And other people. And I said, and she said, the librarians are working for this too. Yes. And I said, thank you. Yes. Right. And we got it. He's down and they're not going to digitize the library and they're not going to get rid of the sports. You can't do that. You know, you need to read real books. It's all right for some digitizing. But books matter. All right. Thank you, Joan. Oh, you're welcome. And thank you for pointing, reminding everybody that there's a used book and plant sale. Yes. The first weekend of June. Yeah, that's right. We'll be at the library and Memorial Hall. Yes. That's right. If you have any books to donate or plants to donate, feel free to reach out to the library. Boxes, a visit. Right. Okay. Thank you. Don't bring more to two boxes. Again, I have to apologize for being late. Okay. All right. Thank you, Joan. So again, we will be continuing interviews and we'll let you know toward the end of June. Okay, Emily, come on up and introduce yourself. Bear whatever you'd like with us to help us make our decision. Yeah, you bet. My name is Emily Gibbs and I moved here to Essex in 2019 just before the pandemic. And we love our neighborhood and I'm hoping to get more involved in the town. I used to live in Starksboro, which is a small town and was very involved to work to the school there and such. And Essex is bigger nutcrack as far as getting involved and getting to meet folks in town. And so I saw that we were looking for people for various boards and picked the library out of that list and thought that that would be a great board to be a part of. I go to the library with my son and we enjoy all that they have to offer and we learn more and more and more about what they have to offer every time that we go. I've a little bit about me. I've worked in various nonprofit organizations over the years. I just recently ended nine years of working at Common Ground Center in Starksboro, which is a residential family camp and retreat center. I'm stepping back to be more of a full-time, not full-time, mostly full-time stay-at-home mom. And I took on a part-time mentoring coordinator position at Robinson School, which is in Starksboro School. I used to teach that. So I was a phys ed teacher for many years. I worked for the South Burlington Rec Department for 10 years and then taught at Robinson School for a number of years and then landed at Common Ground Center. And here I am. So yeah, I love serving on boards. I also serve on a board, the camp exclamation point board, which is a one-week residential camp for rural Vermont kids who would otherwise never have an opportunity to go to camp. Everyone volunteers for the week to put on a week of camp for about 100 kids. So I've served on that board for a better part of two decades and I like to give back and be involved in my town. All right, great. Thank you. Any questions? Candles, see your hand. As a new trustee, do you have any particular goal that you might like to work on? Mostly learn more about what they're all doing and support the rest of the board and the staff in their goals and objectives. I heard from Caitlin that I met with her and chatted with her for a little bit and she said something to the effect of librarians are not very good at tooting their own horn or like being out there and telling people what's happening. And I very much like to be out there telling people what's happening. And so if I can help them get the word out about all the great resources that they have and bring more families in and adults and seniors and everybody, then I would love to help them with that. Thank you. Any other questions? As a visitor to the library, do you see any areas that need improvement? I had a feeling that question might come up. I don't know why. When you first walk in, it's kind of a jumbled, here's some free books, here's some other things. And then when I first got there, I was like, where do I go? Quickly figured it out. You follow the Legos down to the kids section with my little one. And I didn't even know there was a third floor until just recently after having been there for a year. So I don't know. I'd have to like spend a little bit more time in seeing that. I think that the staff, they're doing amazing things with the budget that they have and coming out of the pandemic, they've seen huge increases in numbers of visitors. But I often look at things with a critical eye and how to improve things. And so I would be excited to help them. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? I was going to ask, what's in your son's favorite part of the library? And where do you think there's some ideas or things to expand? All the great things that are happening over there. My son's favorite part of the library is the automatic trash can in the bathroom. But he also loves all the books. And he often likes to talk with Ms. Emily, who's the librarian there. He likes anything. He's two and a half and everything in the world is exciting to him. I think he'll be excited to join Lego Club someday and some of the other activities that they have going on. We're just delving into what opportunities they have. I've always been working full-time, so I haven't been able to take him to Story Hour. But next fall, he'll only be in daycare part-time, and I'll be home with him and we'll get to go. So I'm excited for that. But we're open to any activities that they want to put on. And I come from a programming background, having worked with the Rec Department and as the program director at the Public Ground Center. I didn't tell you what I did there. I was a program director in the facilities manager. And so I'm excited if they're looking for ideas. I always have programming ideas and I'd be happy to share them. I also, having had that facilities background, know that that building and while there's maintenance help from the town and as far as like what to do physically at building, I know that that would be, there might be some crossover with the board and the board assisting the staff with how to maintain it. And I have some background slash interest in that as well. Do you have any ideas on opportunities to either expand or improve the library of things or general programming? I just heard about the library of things with the sewing machine and that. So I'm going to look into that. And programming wise, depending upon the capacity of the staff, adding maybe some more weekend programming for little younger kids who can't make the during the week story hour and that sort of thing. But they do have a full calendar already, but there's always room for more. You heard me mention before that there's a second board that's involved library. Is that something you'd be interested in participating in? Yeah, certainly. I didn't realize that it was kind of two different boards. When I spoke with Caitlin, she mentioned the two entities and I said, well, does the board help with the book sale? And she's like, you can. Yeah, definitely. They kind of work together on some things. So certainly open to working with either entity and just helping the library grow and floors the best. Great. You heard the spiel about we're going to continue interviewing and we'll... You don't have to repeat it. Yeah. We'll let you know one way or the other when decisions are made. So thanks for volunteering or stepping forward. Yeah. And thanks for your time. You bet. Thank you all. All right. Feel free to stay for the rest of the meeting if you like or... I am going to stay for Allie's presentation so I can heckle her from the crowd. All right. All right. So we have one more position to interview for. That's the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Nick? Hi. Come on up. Introduce yourself and let us know... Gladly. Why we should consider it. Thank you. Good evening, select board members. My name is Nick Martin. I'm the current chair of the Zoning Board of Adjustment with the Town of Essex and I have been a resident of Essex since 2014 and been in the board. One has, say, five years, a little over five years, two years as chair, two years as secretary and one year as the add-on for the extra. I served briefly with our select board, Delphia, for what, maybe a couple years? I think two. Yeah, two years. So it was a great time having you on the board. We miss you. The other team members on the board are great gentlemen. Years and years of experience I learned our most senior select board member has been on the board really longer than I've been alive. So he is a wealth of knowledge. We have excellent board members. And so I'll add that continuing with the conversation that many of the library applicants have, I like to serve my community in some capacity and this is a great opportunity to do so. I feel like get to learn more about the community, more about the residents and the town itself and so it's a great way to meet people and see future developments, future plans for the town and see what's going on. Taking part, having a voice and making sure that that voice is fair, equal and representative. So with that I'll be brief and just say I would appreciate further service on the board. Thanks, Nick. Any questions? Board members? Ethan, go ahead. Well, thank you for your service and I just have to ask because it says here whether your personal aspirations, he said you will explore. So did you find anything? Didn't answer personal aspirations? You wrote or an answer will explore. Will explore meaning depending upon my time. Work schedule is pretty hectic. So yeah, that's always an option. I do have an interest in public transportation as well. So that's a possibility. I work in the public health sector. So I think I might have confused you a bit, but it's kind of like a conflict of interest question. It says do you have any personal aspirations that could be enhanced by serving on the board? So like if being on this board would help you in your professional career. Oh, I see what you're saying. At this time now. Okay. I wanted to hear what you had to say. Well, you all probably know our public health inspector recently resigned or has moved on. I don't know if that position has been filled yet, but it has. Sharon's been promoted to the town health officer. Oh, great. She was the deputy health officer. So today, probably nobody will see a difference because Sharon is already focusing on town anyways. Perfect. All right. So in that capacity then, yeah, it was it was interesting. I worked with Jerry for my public health masters program. And he was my community mentor. And so I worked with him briefly on several projects, though it was a great experience. Any other questions? I have a couple. Go ahead. What have you accomplished while serving on the zoning board? On the board or personally? No, on the board. Why have you during your service to the board what has been accomplished? I believe that we're in discussions with with the planning commission that moving forward, we're working towards the DRB, merging the two committees. And one big discussion or one item that has come up a lot is either these variance applications or conditional use applications for temporary rental units. So that's something that the town is in discussion in. And so the R, the Airbnb situation, town is something town that needs some more fine toothed regulation about it. And so it's something that we're in discussion with. That sort of leads to my second question. Are you familiar with what the DRB is versus the zoning board? There are several changes and the merge will happen, I believe, beginning in 2025. And so in that capacity, the board would consist, I believe, of seven individuals versus nine on the planning commission currently and five on the zoning board. And so that discussion will be had when time comes to who might be interested in serving on the DRB and who needs to step aside. And so that's part of it. Some of the changes might include more information about future planning for the whole community versus the zoning board, which is site-biced. And so there's, I would say, maybe a couple dozen items that have been changed and are in discussion right now about the zoning piece of it in the regulations. And so some of those are somewhat minor. But the discussion is definitely necessary. Okay. Other questions? All right. So again, since your term is till the end of June, we're going to leave the advertisement up that the position is being under consideration till that time, closer to that time. And we'll be making all of our appointments later and probably at our second meeting in June. We have two meetings in June. Yeah. So we'll be in touch. Okay. So thanks for your time. All right. So let's move on to the next business item, which is heckling of alley. No, presentation and discussion of Essex Parks and Recreation Fiscal Year 24 program budget. Emily and I used to work together when she was at South Burlington Rec. And now we're neighbors. So heckling is all in good. So I am here to present our fiscal 24 recreation program fund budget. Would you like me to wait for Ethan to come back? No, go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. So as you can see, we are happily in a positive position. We were in a deficit for a little bit of time primarily because of the pandemic. And also with ending a couple programs between co-location and moving back to 81 Main with staffing adjustments. This past year for fiscal 23, we've really focused on our cost recovery when pricing our programs. During co-location, the two departments did go through a cost recovery project together. So we have, as the Parks and Rec team, we've taken that project and the initiatives to really start diving into how we price things, because the way we used to price things, it's just kind of an antiquated way of doing it. And so we've really, you know, targeted our fixed costs and really counted in, even if it's operating staff who are covering a program budgeting for when that can transition to a program coordinator, which we used to have. And so really already pricing programs more adequately or accurately so that when we get additional staffing, as we continue to grow this fund, we'll have already priced our programs to support that individual. This cost recovery continuum, you know, for us, we feel it's right to take our time as we adjust pricing of programs so not to out-price ourselves and to, you know, set goals for getting the recovery back on programs, you know, over time. So not to take up pricing too much right away. See, this is one thing that we've also been working on this year, which is still a bit of a work in progress is really identifying our kind of big bucket programs and really honing in on those revenues specific to them, their expenses, because we have some really large ones throughout the year, in addition to kind of all the ones that are offered more as like a six-week session program versus our kind of large programs like La Crosse, Boys and Girls Across, the Bolton Program, our Fall Soccer Program that had about 500, I think 550 kids in it this past fall. And then we also just gained an opportunity to start of 23 for indoor swim lessons at the Spa at the Essex. And so that opportunity has been really great for us. We're about to enter our second session. Our first one was March to April. The next one is May to June. And it's all sessions are filled. So our first session we took in 80 young swimmers from caregiver and child age up to level four, level five, which is kind of around like a age 12 swimmer. And we were able to add in a couple other lessons, levels with this next session opening up just with staff availability that's happening. So we're expanding our aquatics and because it's not at Sandhill Pool, those levels, those sessions are in our program budget versus our Sandhill Pool operating budget. So that's different. I think that's for the most part my overview to answer questions. I know that there was a question to hopefully get a different sort of layout as what was attached in the packet goes into a little bit more detail and it's not as aligned. I wasn't able to figure that formatting now for the meeting tonight though. Any questions? I just just curious if item 561 credit card processing fees for $12,000, is that built into our programming fees? That is built into our programming fees. And so the finance department separates that out from all of our charges that we take. And so it's actually a line item between Indian Brook operating, pool operating program. And so we have factored in the 4% in the pricing of the program. So it's just itemized but covered in registration revenue. I just want to be sure that it wasn't at zero because everybody's charging that now. And if we weren't, it wasn't suggest, but thank you for that. You're welcome. Any other questions? Allie, there's nothing listed under natural, under gas, heating or electricity and is there, am I missing something here? Because I mean the pool's heated now, right? And stuff like that or am I not just... Great question. So that line item is in here from when we used to rent Sunset Studio for programming, which was a couple years ago. We no longer rent an outside facility for general programming. And this is only for... So any programming done at Sandhill Pool is in the pool operating budget that we see in the regular budget season. So that line item here in the program's budget was a historical line item from when we rented program space separate or when we were doing Zumba and more classroom style programs, things like that. My second question is you've decreased part-time salaries. Does that mean you've lost people or you don't need as many or you order somebody the full time? Well, we really want to come out strong from the deficit and hold on to that. In the last budget, we had a part-time program coordinator budgeted, but it was not trying to... Getting all of my years and my timing is a little bit murky after everything, but when our department moved back to 81 Main Street in November of 21, our program coordinator who was paid from this fund ended up finding a different employment opportunity. And so we have been down a part-time program coordinator and we are going to work within our current capacities until our program fund is at a more comfortable level and we are hoping the current part-time salaries noted for fiscal 24 is to hopefully hire a part-time program coordinator a year from now. So it counts for about eight weeks of the new fiscal year we're going into in hopes of fiscal 25 having that person regular part-time. Thank you. I assume the same, if I'm wrong, please correct me, but I'm assuming that the same comment around the heating and electricity is true for the machinery and equipment item as well. Yes, I'm trying to... I'm just looking at that. 750. 750. I don't even have it on my list, on this list, but in the detail. Yeah, we don't have any machinery or equipment. Yeah, it's in that detail. So same for 750 as well as the electricity. We don't have those expenses. So sometimes, sorry, sometimes they stay on there for a couple of years until we haven't used them for a good amount of time and then they disappear. How do you think, Ty? I was just curious and I may have to pick Dan's brain here too, but from budget season there was a couple of different things that were changed. I can't recall the dollar amount, but there was one of you that was going to one wine item for a different thing and I had requested that we do the same for Parks and Racks and the money was to be used for new community events. Yes. So I see 500 and 300 ones for regular programs which is 830 and then I see special or new programs which is 300. I was just curious if that amount only came out to be $800? Nope. So the community events budget that has historically been $7,500 for the Memorial Day Parade has always lived in the recreation admin operation operating budget. That was decreased to 4,000 going into the new year and that remains in the operating budget currently. All other special event programs have been paid for through revenue from the program fund, this program fund. So like this year, this current fiscal year, we did the ice out for Indian Brook in hopes of that sort of Joe's Pond aspect. We had planned on fire and ice at the ice rinks at Foster Road Park. So there's smaller community events that we are trying as we kind of get comfortable again back here. Some of them have gone well, some of them due to weather and the rinks not being good enough haven't gone well. We just didn't do them. And then other small events, it still says Easter Egg Hunt. It's our spring scavenger hunt. The Halloween which is as this past year was an enchanted walk at Indian Brook. It was basically like a live action story walk where the little old lady lived in the woods and we went on a walk. And so those small events are happening through this fund that $4,000 we've never our department has never had any bit of that money in the past. And so that'll be for something larger. So it is separate. It's operation, budget versus. So then they'll stay in the capital and operating right now unless you know some transfer to program happens. But our plan is to is to produce one or two large community events and use that money that's allocated in the operating budget. Yeah. Thanks. Any other questions? I would just note that I'm very happy to see a budget that has a lot more revenues than expenses. We're working hard. The team has really come together and we've been doing a lot collectively. Feels really good. I do have another question may not be related to your program directly, but Indian Brook Reservoir. How close to being self-sustaining is that? Great question. I will say I'm not prepared to answer many details about that. That's okay. You can get back to me. Yeah. I'm curious about that. Yeah. So last year, just real quick on that last year was the first year that everybody had to get a pass. They weren't as we used to offer a one-year pass or a two-year pass. And so we got through the whole sort of grandfathered in from those who had purchased a two-year pass. And so last year was the first year for everybody to purchase a pass. So we're going into that again for this year. So we'll have good comparisons. Not too much was changed in regards to access to the park and fees. The passes themselves, the season passes are priced the same. The daily access has changed. We plan to assess and evaluate this upcoming season in the fall in prep for all the budget work where we'll also be talking about what happens next year. As this 2023 is also the end of all shared service agreements. And so things will change in 2024. But I can get back to you. Thank you. You're welcome. Great. Anything else? Any other questions? Any questions? Anything you want to add, Greg? No. Just to make clear, Ali was presenting it tonight. For the first time, take your questions, comments. We'll bring it back to you at the next meeting for approval. But just wanted to make sure that you all had the understanding. Any public comments or questions? I've not seen any hands in the room. No heckling. I don't see any hands online. Yeah, there was no heckling that happened here. No. All right. Thanks, Ali. She just wants to borrow our air radiator. Thank you. All right. Great. Good night. It's hard to complain about a presentation that's making money. Right. Okay. Let's see. Where am I on the agenda? Okay. We're moving on to a presentation and discussion of water sewer operating budget and proposal for fiscal year 24, followed by the capital budget for same. It's going to stop making money. It's going to stop making money. No. There's not a room up there, any? Well, I don't think I will. You're going to come up too, Annie? I'm just here. I saw her agreeing with a lot of the stuff other people have said. We'll see what happens now. This is going to be a lot of this. I actually can't see through anyone, so I won't be on this. I'll keep it that way. We should be pouring tonight is basically the presentation of the water and sewer budget for fiscal year 2024. There has been many issues and curveballs thrown out us this year. We tried our best to put together a fair and equitable budget. For the water rates, we had a increase of 12.5% of budgeted line items, which resulted in a 4.74% rate increase on water. For sewer, we had a overall 14.2% increase in budgeted line items with a 6.28% corresponding increase in rates. There are a number of issues impacting this year's budget, the biggest of them being the significant increases in treatment costs for both water and sewer. For Champlain Water District, they had a wholesale rate increase of 8.89%. And the City of Essex Junction almost slipped up there. Their treatment, their wholesale sewer rate was 16.8%. Both of these increases are the largest I've seen since I've been here. And I know most of those increases are due to chemical costs, which we need these chemicals to treat the water, both going in and coming out. So there's nothing we can do about it. Those numbers are what they are. A couple other items that we had were system stabilization, unaccounted for water loss, water and sewer losses. And a new initiative that we're pushing for this coming fiscal year is the remote pump station monitoring for our sanitary sewer pump stations. The system stabilization, these funds need to continue to be budgeted for asset replacement in both water and sewer. And these values and this number has been identified through audits of what we require to make this happen. And working with finance, we've been adjusting that number accordingly and will in the future. Currently, we seem to be on target with what we are currently putting away for appreciation of both systems, water and sewer, unaccounted for water losses. In this budget, page four and five, we have tables of what we currently have for both unaccounted for water and sewer. I'd like to note that, and as I stated here in the memo, the unaccounted for water and sewage rate calculated for the budget represents an economic loss rate, not necessarily a volumetric loss rate for both. We measure, well, Champlain water and treatment plant, both we meter and measure and they bill us accordingly per the wholesale rate. So there is a volume there. We have trouble backing into it with the actual billing that we do kind of bridges the year. So it's two months to skew to one side, but the data we do collect is all based off of the finances, the actual budgeted or billed amounts for both water and sewer. And we end up calculating the losses. That way, in water, page four of the budget memo, we had a 15.5% loss rate. It did jump up from last year of 10, but it is within the long-term average of 15.4% for our system. There are a number of things that staff will continue to do to address the unaccounted for water loss rate, including when limited to monitoring of monthly billings from CWD, looking for errors. In the past, we have found a few physical inspections to the system. And the big one that I feel that will do the greatest good to the system is the completion of the acoustic leak detection survey that we are really will be in year three this year. That's going to be a big help to us moving forward in the future. I have been in contact with our vendor that's been doing this for us. We're looking at probably September timeframe. They're going to come back and finish up. We have about 15 to 20% of our system that requires further investigation. Moving forward, he did discuss a couple alternatives for actual monitoring of our distribution system after all the survey has been done. There is a charge for that, of course. We have monitoring points throughout the system and actually detect pressure drops within the distribution system where we can kind of triangulate where that leak potentially could be and then go after and start doing some acoustic survey in that area. I'm of the opinion that it's always better to attack these leaks and fix them on our terms, schedule them rather than having a major break trying to find a crew at 2 a.m. Christmas Eve. This really is not ideal to be fixing breaks or leaks within our system. Page five is the table of, we have almost 20 years of data there. The long-term average for the sewer loss has been 13.7. In 2022, we saw a 13.1% loss rate, calculated loss rate. Lastly, the other big push that we have this year will be to institute some remote pump station monitoring. We've invested a considerable amount of money into our SCADA system for all 16 stations. Yes, they do alarm and they do tell us when to go visit when we may have a cloud. But there's also a wealth of other data that we could be utilizing from our stations and via the SCADA system. We did enter into a service agreement with the vendor of our SCADA system to analyze some of the data that is coming in. They do this on a daily basis. They take a look at trends, see if there's anomalies in the data that they're collecting and then report back to us any issues or potential issues they may see coming. We've already had a couple instances where they've detected a few anomalies and had a certain pump station on a certain pump. It wasn't pumping to its max. It was only drawn a certain amount of amps. I was doing this for a couple of days. We dispatched our crew out there to take a look. Lo and behold, we found a clog, partial clog, removed it, called MPMP because the clog was in one of the intake manifold pipes, cleaned that out, and we did that on the clog versus off the clog over time. Trying to bring MPMP on over time is very expensive. With that, there's a push to continue on with this service agreement for the remote pump station monitoring and then add on to that an additional service agreement, which would provide 24-7 on-call services as well. Our guys know that INS announced some mechanics of operating sometimes diving into the electrical and the SCADA. They need a little help being able to have a licensed electrician. That could come in on 24-7 call-out. It's definitely a benefit to us to be able to get some of the work done if need be off hours. Nothing good happens after midnight, so the sooner we can get those guys out of there, the better, the safer. Age six, the budget analysis for water, the big takeaway here, is the purchase of water from CWD. It's nearly a third of the increase for the water budget this year. Moving down through the sewer, over half of this increase are treatment costs. The proposed rates, we're looking to increase the existing $5.90 per thousand gallon water rate to $6.18 per thousand gallons. That is a 4.74% increase for sewer. $10.27 per thousand gallons currently. We're looking to increase that to $10.91 per thousand gallons. Both the initiation fees for both water and sewer, we're looking to keep the same this year and to leave those as is, as well as the minimum charge of $190 for water. Moving to age seven, the methodology of rates. As you know, the water and sewer budget is made up of three separate accounts. We have a shared account where most of our fixed costs reside, a water-only account, and a sewer-only account. Last year, for the previous two years, we had a split of 55-45, which means 55% of the shared account was due to water and 45 to sewer. Historically, water has been the more labor-intensive part in use of the shared account. I did raise it to a 56-44 split this year, due to some of the initiatives we have for certain water projects. We're going to be, and they were out there last year, too, but I think we're going to have more labor-intensive water projects this year, which is going to increase that to 56-44. Moving down to the development of the water rate, this year we had a total water budget of $1,630,887. We are using some unbudgeted revenues, which I have Dan here to explain a little bit better in detail on what exactly we're doing here and how we're going to implement that in the future. So, yeah, so, unlike in prior budgets for this Enterprise Fund, which have not had budgeted revenue line items for new connections, penalties, interesting other transfers, for fiscal year 24 only, we were looking to budget 209,000, primarily to reduce the rates of our users to the 4.74 and the 6.28 that Aaron referenced earlier. At this point, with our net position in this fund, these unbudgeted numbers in the past have just been rolled over into the capital funding aspect of Enterprise Fund. At this point, I believe that we don't need to collect any more reserves for that. We can use this $209,000 among these line items to reduce the rates. Basically, we're using it this year rather than long-term capital planning in order to provide a more reasonable rating for our users. Outline years, fiscal year 25 through 28, we would go back to not budgeting these items and have these go more directly to the long-term needs needed for this. So, I'm moving along. Page 8, we have the calculation. Really simple. We take the total water budget and we subtract those unbudgeted revenues and we divide that by the estimated daily usage, multiply that by 365 days. Magic come out with a rate of $6.18 per thousand gallons. Again, we're not going to be changing the minimum water rate this year. We're going to leave that at $190 per year at this point. The total operating budget was $1,913,249. We'll be utilizing $100,560 from unbudgeted revenues. Throw that into our formula down here at the bottom of page 9 and we end up with $10.91 per thousand gallons. On page 10, we have the effect of the rate change on the current users. Historically, we've used 200 GPD gallons per day as the average residential household usage for water and or sewer. If you're connected to water only, your existing yearly bill would be $430.70. With this rate change, your yearly annual bill will go up for water to $451.14. That's a $20.44 increase per year. Those who are connected to both water and sewer, your existing yearly fee is $1,180. You're going to see with this increase for both water and sewer, your annual bill to be $1,247.57. This equates to roughly $5.60 a month. For your water and sewer bill. Bottom of page 10 here, we have a comparison of rates with other communities. It's always hard to kind of look into the crystal ball to see what other communities are doing or what their rates are going to be. These rates are based off of what was currently existing at the time of December 2022. As I was telling Dan today, it's kind of not apples to oranges, it's more apples to apples, but kind of like Macintosh to corals. They're doing the same thing we're doing right now at this point. But we've always been middle of the pack. The average retail rate at the moment is $5.97. We're at $6.18. I think we're going to find, as I go back and fill in the blanks with the rest of these communities around us, we're going to be around the middle of the pack, or at least the average of the communities around us. Same with the sewer rate. We're on the higher side of the sewer rates regionally. We're just north of the average retail rate of $9.76 with our 10.91. Moving forward, I guess we have two options here. I'm going to leave it to the board on how they want to proceed. I could press individual questions that you do have with the budget. We can go into detail in the sheets in the back and go through line by line. I'm just going to leave it to you, Andy, to tell me how you want to proceed. Any questions or any prefixes? Do you want to go line by line or do you want us to ask questions? That's kind of what I thought too. Okay, good. Anybody got questions? I do. Well, I have several, but the first of the sewer rate that you just finished talking about, why is there such a difference if we're our trice group, Wilson City and town? Why are the rates so different? There could be differing reasons why. I know both Dennis and I have discussed with some of the other municipalities around that some don't take into, as we do, we put away close to what, $320,000 between water and sewer every year for depreciation for asset replacement. I know there are some communities around us that don't put anywhere near that way. That's a balloon that's going to blow up an interface, but honestly at some point and once those systems have to start replacing some of their assets, the indebtedness that they're going to have to take on is going to be a lot greater than putting the money away now, be able to have the funds on hand to start tackling some of this. It's operating costs. Williston has, I think at last they were catching up to us, but we will have 18 pump stations to maintain coming the end of this coming year. They're adding two more, is that what you're saying? Yeah. We have one at Pinecrest, well, both ends of Pinecrest. There's a new residential development going in on the bottom of Pinecrest on 2A, towards 2A side, and then there's a Congress housing facility that was just constructed that's 28 or 26 in Crest. The other end. We have a larger system, more stuff to fix, more stuff to maintain. So the increase is coming, will the other two parts of the TRI agreement also be increasing or not? Yeah, the wholesale rate, we all pay the wholesale rate. So the town of Williston pays the same wholesale rate as SHS does. And my other thing is under the unaccounted water loss that you were talking about, does anybody, when they send the water bills, happen to check to see if somebody's bill all of a sudden jumps huge amounts so that would indicate there may be a leak somewhere? Is in like a residential bill? Yeah. We try to notify, really is pretty good about finding those bills. When people get them, they're like, whoa, wait a minute, this isn't right. Indoor, if the meter's not working, they'll hop. We run into those, probably more frequently than the leaks. But when we do that, we will go over, we'll reach out to the president and set up a time, we'll go over, we'll do a data log of their meter, see if there is a leak. The software we have, you can actually see when the leak, if it's a continuous leak, what time the leak started, what date of the leak started, and we'll help them try to find it, whether it be on their side or... Okay. I just didn't know if that would help with the unaccounted. Thank you. Ethan, I want to piggyback up with Dalton just saying, but aren't most of our meters on the house in the basement? So you wouldn't see a ground side leak anyway. We do that. We find those... Water coming through the front lawn. That's the way I don't like to find them, but... Right. That's how you find them on a house usually. That's why we're tracking it with the Acoustic Leak Survey, is to find all these small leaks and address them accordingly. And then my actual question was, and this is totally me learning here, but as far as it comes with the new developments, and when you assess impact these and stuff, and you make a recommendation, is that accounted for with water and sewer? And then to follow up on that part of the question, do you show it in the individual? Like, I see new connections and I don't know if it would be under, these are miscellaneous income, but I was just curious to, for me, to understand better and to correlate it with people who probably don't understand either, where do we, is that shown and where do we find that? Or is it, it doesn't exist. Where's the shown? You mean, you mean like the cost and how much it cost to, like say, hook on a house? Well, no, like say you did a, well, like there's a project, right? And I don't know if I'm asking this the right way or if it's even the right question, but if you like did a, I don't know what the pine grass was, but say there's a $10,000 impact beyond, I don't know if you do water and sewer directly or if it's public works as a whole. Would you show that in, in the budget as like miscellaneous income or is that? Would be under water, there's connection, there's sewer connections on new, that's right, correct? Yeah, there's new sewer connections and water connections that are within these budget line items. And so sewer connections would just be new sewer connections also. And every time they, you have to fill out the application, you come in for both water and sewer, and we collect the fees before you go in and connect and construct. As developments get constructed, they build all the infrastructure and then each individual house comes in and applies for a water and sewer connection. And that then, that money will go into. And normally speaking, the developer will put it in the infrastructure? Yes. And that's part of the fee that you would, you know, so is there a burden on the town? You know, obviously you have so many users that pay a set rate, but at a certain point, you know, there's a capacity to what we're equipped to do and then you have to add in a pump station. I guess that was my better way to direct my question. But is there a fee that's charged to fund the pump station? Or is that part of the development? It's all part of the connection fees for sewer. Each of the developers will pay for all of the construction. All the pipes are paid for. The developer will pay for those as part of the project. The fees are in addition to those. They're twofold. They pay for the actual capacity within both systems, water and sewer. And then there's a $1,000 initiation fee, which is Annie's time to review plans and our guys' time to go out and take a look and do a full inspection of the service before it's back. That's to ensure that it's put in for our justification. Thank you for educating. Kendall, can I piggyback on that and ask how long it's been since those allocation fees have been looked at or adjusted, increased? The allocation fee was adjusted two years ago? Oh, very, very recently. Yeah. Okay. You are keeping up with the cost. Yeah, yeah. I do have a couple of specific requests. In the budgets, what is the difference in the rate if you did not use those unbudgeted revenues to subsidize the rates? Because really, that's what it is. If you're looking at a one-time subsidizing the rates to lower them from what they would actually be, we know that it's very hard to get capital money, new capital money. So I would just like to know what the difference in the rate is because, I mean, you're talking $60 using that revenue. Is it $70 if you don't use it? That's a negligible amount over a year per customer as opposed to pulling 100,000 plus out of your capital funds that you get because it goes right to capital, right? Yeah. I don't remember specifically the percentages before. I know they were in the double-digit range. So it was 10% to 12%. I believe, respectively, between water and sewer. So the use of this, this is $209,000 actually being budgeted in this area has reduced those rates to 4.74 and just over 6% sewer. Still, I can't emphasize enough that you're setting yourself up because you're subsidizing your budgets, both of them, as significant, $5,000 percentage-wise. Are you going to do this next year? If you don't do this next year, you're going to have to find $100,000 in each department plus whatever you need to fund your department. So I just think you're better off to pull those unbudgeted revenues out of the budget, just like we've always done, to keep them going to capital. And just the rate increase is rate increase. There's significant costs coming in both the water and the wastewater for treatment. You know that it's coming in the wastewater. You've got a system that is going to require a lot of maintenance, a lot of projects going forward. You need the money. I just think it's not a hard sell to get folks to pay that $10 extra over a year. It's a whole year. I mean, a $60 increase in your water and sewer bill over an entire year, $5 a month. I mean, to fill your car, if the gas goes up, you pay more than one fill up. So to me, it's just I would really urge the board to consider not using the unbudgeted revenues for rate adjustment. And I just want to make clear and I'll look to Dan and Aaron to correct me if I'm wrong here, but it's not that it's, in this case, it's not entirely unbudgeted revenue. It's basically revenue that we haven't been budgeting. And so it's money that we've been getting and we've just been putting towards capital without really accounting for it or budgeting for it. And when Dan and Aaron are proposing here and that I'm in support of is rather than just taking that money and setting it aside, we're actually accounting for that money in the rates. And so I think that's a bigger discussion. We'll touch on that and capital to some extent in the capital planning to where that comes in. But I just want to make clear that it's not, we're not strictly drawn down from reserves. We're now budgeting money that we've been getting, but we just haven't been factoring into the rates in the past. Is that because it's been going to capital, right? Yeah, I mean, you're both correct. I mean, Kendall, we are taking this money and using it to reduce the rate rather than saving for capital. So that is occurring. But we are planning on it to be a one-time event. In my analysis, I was looking toward the net position of the fund and it has grown a lot over the past five years between Fiscal Year 17, Fiscal Year 22. So for me, that indicates a need for capital projects, which we'll get into in a little bit. But I think it provided the opportunity in this budget year alone to use that strength to reduce the burden on the rate payers for one year until we're actually using the capital funding as we're going to go to in the next four years. I do agree with you. I mean, we are eschewing. We're kind of moving it along, kind of kicking it down the road a little bit for this one year in order to reduce the rate. So that is a trade-off we're making. Yeah, I appreciate that. But it's unbudgeted revenues that have been going to capital that you haven't had to find. And using your money like that for your capital, correct me if I'm wrong, is the biggest bang for your buck long-term for the customers. Because if you use that and replace the water line that you don't have to repair or go back out, it saves them money. Whereas if you just reduce the rates in one year, and I know it's a hard increase, especially when the costs are going up, they're not going to come down. You've got to make that up somehow. You've either got to cut the budget back to keep your rate lower, or you've got to come up with an extra $200,000 revenue in your department. I just think you're better off accounting for as a capital, put it towards the capital, because then you can see that, look, there is money that's going to the capital, in addition to what you have. And it's not lost, because you do have a very ambitious capital program coming up, which I support completely. But you will draw down your reserves. And this is, I would wager a guess that this has been a major way that you've been funding some of your capital, is these unbudgeted revenues going into the capital count. So, that's my two cents. It's kind of anybody else. Any comments? Question is Tracy. All right, so we do have, we will be having a public hearing, but should we go to the public now? Are we done with the budget? Are we on capital now? No, we're still on the budget. Okay. Just asking whether we should go to the public comment on this. I have a couple of questions. I don't want to mess them. Yeah, no, we're on the budget. So, okay, if there's anybody who'd like to comment on the water sewer budget, I see one hand up. Lorraine. Thank you, Chair. Just quick questions for educational purposes. The penalties, what causes a penalty, or if you could give a little explanation of a penalty? Yeah, so a penalty, much like for a taxpayer, is just for a late payment on an account. So, you know, in the past, we haven't budgeted for penalties, and it's pretty common practice not to do so because we don't really want to incur penalties. But as life happens, people make late payments. And so the mechanism for the penalty to be enforced is made. So, meaning it's not, that's a deficit, not revenue, because we don't claim any of that penalty back from the customer who was late? No, we're collecting penalties on late payments for water and sewer customers. So, it's a standard for us. So, that's just flat then. We don't lose money on it, and we don't gain any money on it. Okay. Well, we do. Lorraine, there is a penalty, yeah. It's just like if your tax bill is late, there's a penalty associated with that, and that's generally not forgiven. Yeah. So, but is the penalty like a resident or for the town? I'm not understanding. Is that the town's penalty? The penalty is for the late payment of the bill, and the homeowner is responsible for it. Yeah. Right, right. So, I'm saying the town is not losing money on that. That resident or whoever pays for is paying the penalty. We're not, the town's not on the hook for that. We collect it. That's all I wanted to know. That's, that's neutral. So, and then, so the other question kind of bouncing off what Ethan was saying, just to understand what the developer in terms of infrastructure, when you say infrastructure, what, what does that mean exactly? That the developer generally pays for all the infrastructure, and then the connection is what the homeowner pays for typically, right? Not necessarily. The infrastructure at least regards to water and sewer are all the main lines, distribution lines, all the fire hydrants, all the service taps, service connections, for sewers, all the manholes and or pump station, gravity lines, and sewer services up into the homes. If the developer is the one that's building the house, they're going to apply for the water and sewer fees or the applications. If a homeowner or somebody, a resident wants to decide to build their own home in a development, and they're the ones who are going to be building the home, they would pay those connection fees as that, before that structure got a building permit. So, if I'm understanding it correctly, so the developer typically sets up all the infrastructure that you just mentioned? Yes. Like the fire hydrants and everything? They construct it for engineered plants, and they're approved by public works and through the zoning, or through the community development office as well. And of course, you know the timeline for what their average lifespan is, and having to replace that, I assume the town is the one, then that ends up replacing that once the development is completed? Yes. And so are those costs included in like any impact fees, or is there any, you know, once a town takes over when we're on the hook, that's part of where I get worried about how much we can handle as taxpayers, because how are we factoring that into capital costs, as I look at the capital budget and all the things that are coming up? Is that, are those kind of upcoming costs included in a kind of a connection fee, or in when a developer is doing this an impact fees, or you know, we're always forever on the hook? The rates for the water and sewer include the cost of replacement of the infrastructure that provides those services. So that's a tax payers rate, basically? That's not it, no, that's a water user or sewer user rate. It's not a town tax, there's no town tax there. It's only the users of the services that pay for them. And it's included in the water and the sewer rate. That's the $160,000, I think for each service, I think that was referenced earlier as system stabilization, or depreciation, whichever is the right word to use there. That thousand dollar fee, you said? The thousand dollar fee is the initial connection. Oh, the connection, I'm sorry. So you said $100,000 fee. So there's a $160,000, I think budgeted for both water and for sewer, that is added into the cost of providing those services that is included as part of the water and sewer rate. So part of your water bill includes the cost of replacing the water main that's coming to your home when it reaches end of life. So that's factored in. And so when I've heard Kendall in the past share his thoughts on people who are not on water and sewer, and for all those, like when we look at the 15% water loss, and it looks like some of that includes fire department and so on, none of that is picked up from people who aren't on water and sewer. Yeah. When fire department goes out. Yeah, I realized after I opened this up to public discussion, I never asked my questions. And that was one of my questions, right? Yeah, hydrogen flushing is paid for by the water users. And so although it benefits folks who are not on the water system, there's a question that could be asked there, should the cost of flushing hydrants or so forth, or using, connecting to a fire hydrant to put out a fire that's far away from the water system, it's the users of the water who are paying for that water, not, you know, fire protection is a general good access. Right, it's public good. Yeah. So I think that's the question you're trying to get to, Lorraine. That is one of the questions that I'm hoping that's something that in terms of some of the goals and keeping some of the user fees lowered, that to me certainly is to look for other revenue sources. And if the public is using that, I would prefer that the public helps pay for that. So, and I appreciate your explanations. Thanks, guys. So yeah, that's a question. Sorry that I had, I didn't turn to my own questions. And that was one that I had, is there any thought about having an operating expense somewhere that's associated with fire protection and, you know, an average, and, you know, I don't know how do we, I don't know how you would want to do it. Putting a meter on a hydrant before you put the hose on is not going to happen. That's this one more, one more thing where seconds matter, we're not going to request that. There would likely be some way to either one of their engines, maybe, I don't know, their fire engines are pumper to estimate and or calculate how much water goes through through a flow meter. And that could be in some sort of report and then paid for through the general fund, I don't know, through under the fire department. I don't know. It's really hard to kind of come up with or at least answer the question on how we would build for it because I'm just throwing parts at the wall here. And I would absolutely support that. And I think you would find that the fire department could estimate fairly close how much water they use on each fire. Those guys work with water all the time. And I know there's a fair number of fire chiefs that that's what they're required to do for the water department. And then they give you an estimate of the amount of water that they use over a year and that could be rolled into a general fund expense. Yeah. I'm not asking that you can do it this year. Yeah, I know. We don't know what we're doing there, but it's just something that I think Just to acknowledge it and make sure that we can address it in the future if need be. Ethan. I'm going to throw in my two cents on that topic because I think the opposite because most rural fires are set up with secondary water sources that are provided by our local waterways. And on the flip corner of that, when your well fails at your house, you have a $15,000 media expense to to fix it and your sewer fails and it's $30,000. So there's a there's a cost association to being connected to public water and sewer and the rate and the maintenance of the infrastructure that you don't take personal liability for. I don't think that it would be fair to penalize those who are liable for maintaining their own water and sewer. You choose where you live. Right. And I agree with you. You have to have a study on where the water came from before it went to the fire. Yeah. Where the fire was, the location, how many times they went to the brook. Yeah. If it's pumped out of a pond, then yeah. If they take the water from the brook on the backside of my property, you know, does that impact my property and and the value of the wildlife? Oh, if somebody else, if they pump water out of a pond for... Could be my neighbor's house. Gotcha. I see what you're saying. There's... I was I was misinterpreting what you were saying. Yeah, there's a and this in this conversations happen many times with many people. And I've heard this conversation from the outside and I've listened to the different, you know, understandings of it, but the very fine subject and from somebody who paid $15,000 for the first year I moved into my house, you know, it was a little more than, you know, $1,000 a year for I've been good for 15 years. I want to live there for three or one on five now, I guess, as well. But just just some some insights to share on that. It's a touchy subject for those wooded folks. All right. Anything else Lorraine? Sorry, we kind of dropped that conversation on top of yours. No, actually, that was very illuminating, Ethan. Thank you very much. I think to me, I don't want to do any charges that are unfair, certainly, because it's an equity issue. Certainly agree with what you're saying, Ethan, but I would like a study done, because certainly I think not everyone's having a pump dropped in their water that they probably don't have in the backyards, depending on where they live, you know, so it would be good just to at least take a look at it in terms of shared costs and public goods. Thanks for the input, guys. All right. Thanks, Lorraine. Any other comments or questions from the public? I have a quick question for, so these water companies that haul water around Aaron and they hook up to hydrants to fill their trucks, is that monitored? That's a better not to be allowed our permission. I'm just, I mean, I don't know if I've just seen, you know. So if it comes out of the hydrant, it's non-potable. And if we would meter, if it's non-potable water, they can, but they'll get a hydrant meter and they pay for us to put the meter on. It's $50 right now. And then they'd pay for any usage. But if it's potable water, we don't, I would never allow that much liability. Thank you. All right. So this is a discussion information. We'll come back potentially later to warn a public hearing on this. So let's move on to capital. Lorraine, your hand is still up. Is that another question or is it just leftover? Leftover, sorry. Yep. Okay. Just checking. That's why 24 capital plan and five-year plan last year management separated the capital water and sewer projects out of separate from the general fund. Thank you. The water and sewer funds are enterprise funds supported through a user rates, impact fees and grants. Moving forward, staff will continue to present the water budget, water and sewer capital program and budget separately. Being is primarily funded totally separate from the general fund. Capital budget and five-year plan will continue to be presented and approved with the operating budget. And it's the most logical time to do that. We're talking water and sewer and they both kind of tie into each other. So that's going to continue. Town through good resource management by both finance and public works has been able to accumulate a cash reserve that will assist in financing near-term work in 2024 without impacting the user rates. Also, with the passage of the Federal Infrastructure Act, there's an opportunity to leverage some of our funding that we have in these reserve accounts to position us so we can be more eligible to jump on board with some of that. I have done a fair bit of research and communicated with some of my peers regarding some of the SRF and infrastructure funding. I did put together a memo, but I did not have time to put it on the agenda for tonight. But for you folks, we'll see it moving forward. Basically, what the state uses at this point in time to decide where a community is eligible or not eligible for SRF funding, loan forgiveness, is based off of the median householding. The state MHI right now is $67,674 a year annually. The median household income here in Essex is $88,136. That's us well over eligibility because it's more of an income-based type of... They want to go after the communities that don't have the ability to take on these large infrastructure projects. With that said, there are three steps in SRF funding. Step one and two is scoping and design services, and then step three is construction. The town will still be eligible for the step one and two design services and scoping. With that, there is some subsidy out there. I was talking with one of my counterparts at the state. There may be some loan forgiveness there up to 50% for design services, but construction, they're not going to give us any construction loans and or any loan forgiveness. That said, doing some more picking. We could and by possibly have a pretty good chance at getting some funding under the emerging contaminant rules put in place with the bipartisan infrastructure law. We have certain portions of our water system that are fairly dated that possibly could have led service lines in them, and they are paying up to 50% of the total construction costs for these types of projects. Currently the oldest part of our water distribution system is Fort Ethan Allen. We do have a preliminary engineering report that has been completed. I talked to the consultant today. He's implementing a lot of our comments into that report, and it's something that you folks will be seeing in your reading file here moving forward. But with that report and this potential to tap into some of these funds, puts this project kind of back on the table construction-wise moving forward. That said, moving along here. So in conjunction with using whatever state funding we have and whatever monies we do have in the capital, which fresh my memory Dan, where are we at total wise right now? So there is, as of the end of fiscal year 22, the audit look we're at 4.7 million of undesignated funds. That doesn't include the net investment cents. And Kendall's right. We do have a pretty intensive capital program. I think the best way to kind of address this is looking at the 10-year or the five-year plan here at the spreadsheet and look at the 2024. Just about every project on our list is has an expense to it in 2024 proposed. If you want, I can go through each of the projects. I'm going to give you a brief review and or description of what it is and what it's going to entail. Or I can go line by line or individual questions, whichever you prefer. Reference from the board? Questions? Questions? Right. We've got questions. I'm trying to remember to answer them. Ask mine. I can start because mine's pretty simple. Yes, sir. I was just curious and I just lost everything. What's the Langfarm pump station site and is that a replacement or a repair? That project, we just had a capacity study done for the Langfarm pump station that was completed by our consultant that does our sewer study every five to six years. We'll go through and do a sewer study throughout the whole community to see what the capacity is remaining within our systems. I had him proceed with a capacity study for the Langfarm pump station and short of it is we have about five to six years of capacity left in that station. What we are currently planning on out there, in addition to any future development within the town center, we're going to have to address those deficiencies in that station sooner rather than later. This project is at its infancy and we're still working with the city on possibly rerouting that horse man and that pump station to discharge into a different point into the village which would open up in free capacity by stalling another station in the town center to pump into our existing system to pump back down and around. This project is kind of in its scoping phase. We do have a study planned. It's probably going to take place in two weeks. I think they're just finishing purchasing the equipment to do some flow monitoring in a couple of sections of lines in the city that would be impacted by rerouting this sewer. The funds that we do have or are proposing for use will be used to cover some of those design and engineering costs. Not actually any upgrades or improvements. It's just the work scope. Yeah, it's just engineering. I was just curious as far as comparing, not comparing anything, but to understanding what pump stations, especially the wireless ones on a main, all the pump stations that we have are pumping out of developments, new developments. I was just curious on life expectancy and volume issues and things like that as far as capital goes and what you plan for 15 years of growth or things like that. When I saw the pump station, I wanted to ask because I was curious as to what was going on. For the most part, the stations are, when they're designed by the engineer and or the developer, the capacity is designed into the station at that time. Hopeful. As growth occurs, no one knows how much growth we will have or what is planned in the future for the town center. We need to adjust and upgrade accordingly. That's another area where we would require developer fees to be used for any studies that may need to take place on those systems that they may be in. Thank you. There are sewer allocations that are, I don't know if it's by parcel or at least by area. There is reasonable knowledge as to how big you need to make a pump station if it's going to serve a specific area. Correct. And quite honestly, you know it was actually going to get built. Yeah. But sometimes you've also approved sewer allocation increases for certain lots. So it's in a constant state of flux. Any other questions? Oh, the $350,000 you mentioned, it goes into capital every year. Is that $160,000 from the budget plus the unbudgeted revenue in each department, the total $350,000, whereas there are additional capital contributions. I'm trying to understand how much you put into the water and sewer capital each budget. So really what's just happening, it's nothing to do with $160,000. We're just comparing revenues over expenses or the funds over a year's time. And basically that is what's being rolled over into the next version of unrestricted funds. So there really isn't an official like mechanism that says this is capital now. It's kind of inherent, you know, not like in the operating fund where it's a more structured, defined by the board to say this much is going to certain areas. This is just, you know, whether it goes into our net investment in capital assets, it's going to end up in our net position. So it's going to end up as unrestricted net position. So that makes it available for use for these capital. So the capital budget that you have is aggressive, great, going to have some great projects. I'm sure you've been waiting for for a while, but you are using a significant amount out of that unrestricted net position. I would just again, emphasize that putting that unbudgeted revenue that currently isn't really shown anywhere into the capital every year is going to get you that much further ahead, further along to build your unrestricted position back up or at least keep it even. There you go. Because I assume you're going to have a lot more projects after this capital program. Make sure that everything won't be done at that point. Ethan. I just have a quick question because he just sparked something in my head, but so you set $160,000 for each each year or just for one for water, sewer, capital? So the stabilization or depreciation is $160,000 for each water, water and sewer side. Okay. So if I looked at this chart, I know this is like the 10 year for spending, but does it show where that $320,000 each year comes in? It won't show it directly. It's really just kind of you know, as I just as I've just mentioned, I mean, we're just taking revenues and expenses at the end of the year pulling a mechanism and saying, okay, here's what's in your unrestricted net position. So we're not assigning $160,000 each time. We're just taking our overages and saying it's available for use. Okay. And then just to end that question, that's That's predicted into this for your four years. This is just what we currently have. I just wanted to know like in 2028, do we really only think we're going to have $150,000? Well, no, I think, yeah, I mean, in reality, looking at this capital budget, it really is looking like a four year capital budget. There will be other projects in fiscal year 28 and beyond. Okay. Some of it will be spawned by the results of these studies. A lot of it. Yeah. For any grant funding and stuff like that. Yeah. So this this look at the chart here is really just the most immediate needs and the, yeah, perfect. Don or Tracy, I'm good. So the question I had is in the town center water line, a discussion in the memo, at the end of the last sentence says this project may need a bond vote. If SRS, SRF funds are used. And the timeframe for this vote should be November 2023. We currently don't have an election plan for 2020 and for November 2023. Is it problematic if it doesn't happen then? Or do we have to have a special election or what's, what's the there? Well, it's, it's not going to, we won't be going for construction funding because we're not going to be eligible for any SRF construction funding for that particular project. So therefore, we're not going to need a bond. Okay. So that discussion about a vote is not really relevant. Okay. It's not, it's not relevant at this point. No. Okay. Right. And just to see folks know for the step one and the step two SRF funding that only requires support from the local board. So the select board would have to approve these main applications to go in for them. All right. So there's no bond. We've seen those come through and then yeah, you'll be seeing a couple of times through. Okay. Right. Right. And I have one more question more for the board than the department. Is there a goal for the unrestricted fund position, net position for the water and sewer department as there is for the unbalance on the town budget? I know we have 15% on budget. But I'm thinking that you might want to consider having an unrestricted net position goal because you are dropping it from 4.7 million down to 2.2 million. And it would be fairly easy to keep going back up or not stay level. I'm just saying that maybe the board should consider where they want to be with their unrestricted net position. Something we can bring up next week in our discussions. Yeah. And we don't, we currently don't have a policy on it. But I don't know where. Yeah. And just to clarify, I mean that 4.7 to 2.2 million drop, that's over the next four years, not just a fiscal year, 24 considerations. That answers my question. For 2028, instead of it being 150,000, there's still going to be 2.2 million. There'll be, with this, roughly, long-term five-year budget at the end of fiscal year 27, we're projecting for $2.2 million in unrestricted net position as compared to the end of fiscal year 22's audit, which was 4.7 million. So, you know, there is a lot of usage for capital projects in the way this long-term capital plan is spelled out over the next four years. Let's go to a clarifying question. Ethan, you mentioned there would be $150,000 left. Well, the spending, because I'm having a hard time seeing each year. Yeah, my question, though, is in the spreadsheet. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the cost of each of those projects. That's not the balance of the fund in total, correct? So, if I'm in the proper row here in the spreadsheet, capital expense items to burn is the way it's labeled. Yeah, those are expense items. Yeah, there's no balance line item in there. Right. Yes, the only thing that represents balance items there are the unrestricted rows. You know, combined one is labeled as designated and one is just regular unrestricted. And that's where I get the $2.2 million number from. Yeah, that's what I was really confused about earlier, because it says total expenditures. It goes from $800,000, which is roughly how this together with $1.9 million. That's almost $3 million. And another $1.5 million. That's almost $4.5 million. So, it's almost $5 million. There's $6 million there. So, I was just trying to understand, and maybe I didn't say what I'm not trying to say, because I have that happen to me a lot. But I was just trying to understand where the money is coming in each year. Like, because you're spending $6 million, but you plan on having only a $2 million reduction. I didn't understand that. Correct. Yeah, it's closer to a $2.5 million reduction in the unrestricted money. But we are starting, you know, we're starting from $4.7 million, getting to $2.2 million. But over time, I mean, the unbudgeted revenues that we've referenced before is back in play for fiscal year 25, 26, 27, and moving forward just estimating that $200,000. Plus, there's the SRF items that are in the line above it that are potential offsetting revenues for these expenses. Yeah, I was just having a hard time reading it in a sentence, you know what I mean? I'm sorry. I was having a hard time, like, reading it in a sentence and understanding. It's me. Yeah, no, I mean, it's not the best spreadsheet. If it was in the, so this is like when I was looking at the graph, I was like, I don't understand, but that's totally okay. This doesn't show money. That's what I can ask about. No, it's only, it's only expenditure. This doesn't show money coming in, yeah. So that would be, you know, I know you can rewrite everything, but it'd be a little bit helpful to have a more of a capital balance as we do with our capital budget in the general. Yeah, so another thing we can talk about next week. Right, I know, but that's where I'm like, what information do we want to see in our capital? You guys are writing this all down so you know what you're talking about next Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to go ahead. I just don't want to leave this discussion without giving a big kudo and come in to staff, both existing and previous, the fact that you could even consider spending that kind of money to do these projects without affecting rates because it's your capital project that you've saved all this time. So I mean, you guys, past and present, I don't know how you did it, but did a hell of a job. It's very impressive. I mean, there's a lot of towns that just to find a $500,000 project, they've got the bond for the entire cost. So I just want to make sure that the staff knows. I'm very impressed. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, any comments or questions from the public? I've not seen any hands. So let's move. Oh, Lorraine. Sorry about that, Andy. I can never find the button, so it takes me a while. A quick question on that pine crest, I have to switch back and forth to the screens. On the Painesville Gravity Sewer Project, just out of curiosity, it mentions an elevated water table. Was it always elevated over there? Portions of it. There is Jackson Heights, and then it goes up Abire and then Damon. That's all on a ridgeline, a hill section. Oh, there is significant groundwater up in there. Yeah, and also the lots in that development, at least in the older section, Jackson Heights, Stearns, portions of Pioneer, the lots are very small and compact. So there's little to no room available for any type of real, cheap alternative to replace your onsite system. And that was the big push for suing that section of Painesville. And that's why this project, that was the genesis of this project, was to address issues. Okay, so if I'm understanding right, because there is elevated groundwater, the sewer, the septic isn't the best option. But there's a high option for failures. And I would assume that's pretty concerning in terms of sewage going to drown water, too, or not, I don't know. And then the other question I have, because I live on Santa Road, what is the, because we saw the failures right across the street, what is that? What's a force main? Just out of curiosity, and what's a typical lifespan and did it fail earlier than you expected or on time? It failed earlier, unfortunately, three times. The force main itself is the mechanism of which the pump station moves the sewer from one location to another. That particular station heritage estates, takes on a sewer from the town center and it developments north of 15 and also the Langfarm Pump Station. So it takes on a lot of flow. What was the age of it approximately? What did you expect it to, how long? Well, we expected something like that with ductile iron pipe back in the day. The design life was 80 to 100 years. But we did some insight investigation when we did have those holes opened up. It's still inconclusive on really why, what, how it happened. But three times it was the charm. We can't do business that way. No. Repair that as it goes. So that was why we initiated this project. They get it on a capital plan and we are moving fast and forward with it. And so when you replace it, do you use the same exact model that you had before? Or do you guys have different vendors that you replace things with? Or in terms of it being a better product? It will likely be drilled, horizontal directional drilling. It'll be a different pipe, different type pipe material. It'll be designed by an engineer. And then once we do throw it out construction, it's going to be built by a contractor, professional contractors that hopefully don't put rocks on top of the pipe. Yeah, new engineer. So you would expect a longer lifespan again? I would hope or not on those. And also due to that, are there other force mains that you then change your mind about what might fail earlier than expected? Given what you guys found? That's a question. And that's something that we have been discussing in-house on how to investigate some of those. I know there are options out there that are low impact, quite honestly digging down and inspecting the pipe every certain amount of feet. Is this not a viable financial, financially sound solution to inspect the pipe? But there are other technologies out there that would allow us to at least get some sort of idea of if the pipe's being corroded, or if there are any leaks within the pipe. I know that they use some of this technology in water distribution systems, and we are investigating whether it is available in sewer as well. Right, because that's what I was thinking in terms of some of the new engineering out there. Of course, I always think about failures as you're building something. And how to make it easier to inspect and things like that. I don't know if there's any new technologies that can go into new things like force main that would make it easier to inspect as we go along and going forward. So there'd be easier to certainly be ahead of the curve than respond to how we did. But I just see a lot being in plumbing. I just see so many new technologies, especially around just computer chips and how we work now comparatively it's just it's a whole different ball game. So I don't know if there's anything like that in your world in terms of as we upgrade that we start adding things like that so we can check on things. I'm sure there are technologies available like that to continuously monitor. Okay, thanks. All right, thanks, Theron. Any other comments from the public? Okay, seeing none. Thank you, Greg. Anybody want to make a final next one, which is to warn the public? I make the motion to select would warn a public hearing on the proposed budgets to be held on May 15, 2023 at 6.30 p.m. Thank you, Don. Do I have a second? Thank you, Tracy. Any further discussion? All those in favor of warning the public hearing please say I. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to say nay. Okay, motion passes five euro. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. Let's move on to Dan. Don't go anywhere. Go anywhere. Business item 5H. This is a long deep into the alphabet here today. Discussion about tax sale policy and delinquent tax accounts. Sure. So on an annual basis, according to our policy, we need to evaluate the amount of delinquencies that we have. So I did that analysis about a week and a half ago. Finding that we were owed $523,000 of delinquent taxes as of April 20. That was for both city and town. Properties combined within our policy, we need to compare the amount to our current year tax levy. So that was my idea behind using that. Comparing, you know, those delinquencies against our current year fiscal year 20. So the percentage calculates to a 3.5% delinquency rate. Our policy states that 5% is the threshold for moving forward with tax sale. And then for kind of point number two, in terms of initiating a tax sale, whether any individual property to have a $50,000 balance deal standing, which we don't. There are a handful of properties that are over the $30,000 range. Two of them are city properties, three of them are town. We've recently reached an agreement with one of the major taxpayer owner tax, delinquent tax properties. So we have a new plan in place with them. There is another property which might be sold in the near future. So we're hoping that will result in a collection of that as well. Since the memo was delivered, we've reduced our number to $479,000 as of today, just to give an update on that. So our staff is continuing to collect and make phone calls and inquiries and continue to try and chip away at the delinquent fees that are on the list. So to be clear on what you said you included the city delinquencies as well, I suspect that's largely because they're in this tax year, this fiscal year, they are still paying town taxes. So we wanted to- Exactly. The policies compared to the tax collections, so that's the same. Yeah. So the policies looking to the fiscal year 23 levy, which is almost $15 million, next year we'll just revert to the town amount of $10.8 million to make the same comparative analysis. And so in some of the delinquent taxes that are due are city taxes, which actually aren't on our books because if they're current year tax delinquencies, they're on the city's books, right? Correct, yes. But they're included in the report for consistency with the fact that they're still collecting- For consistency with last year and it allowed me to kind of do some comparison as I kind of looked to last year and previous years of doing this analysis. Any questions? Any other questions? Don, go ahead. It says there are 12 total properties that meet the criteria for a tax sale. Of those 12, how many are in town? I don't recall that. I'll have to find that information for you. Yeah. Because what are your plans if they do meet the eligibility? I'm sorry, what's- What are your plans to do with them if they meet the eligibility? Well, if they would meet the eligibility, we would have to assess whether it's worthwhile to go through the legal channels in order to collect those on those properties. I would be curious to know that. Thank you. That was part of my question with Don Tusham, but I was just curious if you were able to see the town and the city in comparison. You didn't do it for this year, but to kind of project for yourself for where we will be next year? Yeah, I have done a little bit of that. So of the 523,000 in the memo, 271,000 is on the city side and 252 is on the town. So kind of looking ahead, the threshold for next year would be about $540,000 based on the $10.8 million of tax levy that we're doing for fiscal year 24 in the operating fund. So obviously, 5% of that amount, 540,000 is a pretty significant number to reach and compared to where we are now for the town on its own, I mean, it's not even quite half of that amount. So as we kind of turn the pendulum on to being on our own, that's how the numbers look at first glance. Good. Okay, yeah. I have a couple of questions. How much does it cost to have a taxi? Do you have a dollar number for that? I do not have a dollar number. I think the last time they were performed in the town was fiscal year 19, so I can go back and look and see the volume and the dollar amount for that. Because I think, will we have an opportunity after this to talk about the actual policy? We can bring that up as one of our strategic planning things to revisit those. But I just want to note it that this is a terrible disservice to our customers. If you didn't have that 5%, that big number, you would be having a tax sale. My point is is that to let somebody get delinquent $30,000, I mean, how many times have they been delinquent? I mean, to get to that amount with the town, it has to be a few years or significant property or something. I mean, to let it get that high before you have a tax sale is a disservice because at that point, it's almost impossible to catch up. You mentioned that you're concerned about putting people out and don't want to move out of their house. To me, my opinion is the purpose of a tax sale policy should be to help the people that need to get out of that situation. There's typically two kinds of folks that get there. One, they just don't pay their taxes. That happens. But there's also people that have real concerns, real needs that just need a push or help to get their taxes paid. And if you let it go to the point where they owe $30,000, $40,000, I mean, I could probably borrow $10,000 from my brother to pay my taxes if I had to, but $40,000, I couldn't do that. I'd lose my house. So I just think it's a disservice to our residents to let the balance get that high. And you have that in your tax policy clearly other than the 5% of the budget is that if they exceed $10,000 or they exceed, I think it's $2,500 or $5,000 over two years that they go to a tax sale. And the benefit of a tax sale is that you go to the tax sale, the town gets their revenue right off the bat, $200,000. That's double pennies on the tax sale. But it also gives the customer a year to get the help that they need to get right, get their house. So I just couldn't let it pass without making that point that I just really think it's a disservice to those well-residents to all properties that let them get this high. Is it possible to catch up? So to be clear, we don't wait until they hit the $50,000 mark to talk to them. As soon as they're delinquent, start talking and say, yeah, please consider getting out of payment plan. And I think we'll consider almost anything for a payment as long as they're trying to make progress. So we're not waiting and just letting the number get bigger and bigger. And during COVID, for sure, because there was money available, we educated folks on how to go forward to get that money. And I haven't done an exhaustive list, but I've seen the delinquent tax report, and there are many that were on there last year that are not on there this year. And so there has been progress in that regard. Yeah, there's definitely a cycle of mailings that go on after the due dates. There's definitely phone calls and reaching out by email, whatever means we can to try and establish contact. And if not arrange a media payment, try and establish an agreement so that people can try and catch up before it gets to those these points. But with regards to what the policy is today, we certainly can. And we should bring that up. I know it's been a concern of you, if you've trust this before, that we can we can talk about it in our strategic planning is to ask for a relook at it and reconsideration of what the numbers are and what the trigger is. Did you forget to sign it or did you disagree with it? So I probably wasn't here in the meeting when it was passed around. I didn't. I was just curious. I was wondering if it was left. Yeah, I was probably one of the strong proponents of having it in place so that we didn't do exercise it arbitrarily. And I also wanted to make sure that we satisfied our auditors by showing that we have this the first policy we've ever had this year. So yeah, no, I didn't. It's my signature is missing from the from the coffee that you have not only because I was absent in that meeting likely or think I was back. We were still having everybody hand signed. It was a physical signature. Yeah. I either wasn't here or I left early or I don't know. So you mentioned. I'm curious what it looks like if a property has a delinquency and that property gets sold. What is the process to recoup that money? Well, my understanding and I may not be completely right on this, but I always thought that there had to be consideration of tax status of a home in order to have a real estate transaction. I mean, there's going to be an analysis by your agent to be like what's due on this property, what's out there. It goes with basically the inspection of the home and just any possible liability. So so my understanding, maybe it's a little bit of a naive understanding is that that helps facilitate payment. If someone wants to sell their home, they're going to need to be able to make reparations in order to be able to sell or they're going to lose money on their real estate transaction. So somehow that real estate amount that tax amount that's due is going to be settled through that process. Okay. So I guess my underlying question was, is that delinquency then become the liability of the subsequent homeowner? And it sounds like it doesn't. It just needs to be sort of figured out during that transaction or prior to. Yeah. My my belief is that it would be made whole again. The town would be made whole again. It needs to be paid before the house can move as the house is part of the transaction. Yeah. So, you know, the seller could potentially lose $20,000 of their selling price because of this liability that's due and that would wash out just like a utility bill would be in a similar situation. Yeah. Thank you. And I'm just asking kind of, I don't know if you know this or not, but like if somebody owed money to the bank and the house wasn't worth what they owed, that'd be on the liability of the bank, right? I guess either way that if there was a transaction one way or the other, the town would still get would get paid. All liens get paid first before any other money goes out. But there is no money, just the lean holder. I can just, I know that we had a tax sale in my area. And what happened was is that the lean that was put on the property was paid, the people that was included in the sale price, but the money was issued to the association before the rest of the money was dispersed for the sale. The billing contacts are an asset. Yeah, I was just curious about with the bank, you know, if the bank had the liability or if there was any situation where the town would be possibly losing it. Yeah. Because of dealing with a home that wasn't owned by bank for the lean on it versus the town. The only inherited home may not fall in that same category. If if the delinquent taxpayer dies and their home is filled to somebody else, I think the debt goes to the new owners. There's no reconciliation there is associated with inheritance. I presume that because again, looking at the report, I know of an individual who had passed and I saw a different name on the property. And so it turns just transitions to this. I think it's the only case where change of ownership of a property would not resolve extra. Thank you. So this is this is a different question. Well, I was just going through a request that I am curious how much a tax sale actually costs. I'd also be curious if the delinquent payments that come up should get resident caught up over a period of time say just thinking we're not like a credit card company where as long as somebody comes in and gives us $10 a month and they don't have to worry all the taxes keep it coming. So you're asking what typical terms are for a payment plan? It depends on the review of the they present their finances to either if they're heavy. Trying to have it abated, they bring their financial information to the abatement board. If they go through the assessor, they bring the financial information to the assessor and it's determined at that time what amount of money can be used towards the payment. Usually it goes towards the interest to start before they actually get anywhere near their payment. That's where they keep falling farther. That emphasizes my point. The policy is very nice. It's just that number one where the total delinquent has to exceed everything because if you look at A and B in your policy, that would keep just about everybody manageable. $10,000 high, but that's a few years of taxes. You could probably catch up with that. $42,000. That's pretty daunting to come up with. Thank you. All right. So this is just a review. The policy says on May 1st. Thank you for doing it on May 1st. Sure thing. No, we'll move forward and we can talk on this. No change, no action on this. We can talk next week about whether or not you want to consider changes to the policy itself. All right. So our next two agenda. Thank you, Dan. Thanks so much. Our next two agenda items are potential executive sessions. So I guess before we move on, Greg, do we have anything other than discussions about potential appointments? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. As in the other, is the real estate you do have? Brief update. Okay. All right. Then we will come back to those. Consent agenda. I make the motion we accept the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? Go ahead. Yes. I had a couple of questions on the warrants. I noticed there were a lot of tax abatement. Refunds, I should say. I just noticed there were a lot of them, for a particular reason. I'll have to check into that. I asked, actually I did find out, because that was one of my questions. And it was because people are getting their, say why whatever that credit is, the rebate you get from the state, and now they're getting it. They'd already paid the whole amount, but the state was giving the rebate to the town, so they get the extra amount back. Thank you. I noticed that too. And the other question I had in the warrants was, I noticed that there's a green mountain power charge for street lights, about $8,000, $9,000. Is that monthly or is that for more than that seems like a lot? I'd like to get back to you on that one as well. Thank you. Any other discussions? Those in favor of approving consent, please say aye. Okay, motion passes 5-0. Reading file. Any comments? We're going to comment. We're kind of a question. I shot it in an email, but was there an update with the crossing over there, the 40-50? I don't know which way you're going. I'm trying to think of... I don't know if we got a response. Yeah, I don't know if we have either. Let me check with the iron on that. I can't recall. Thank you. So to be clear, this is the question about whether there should be some sort of crosswalk marking. Well, it was a approval for us to... I'm just just the way you said it. It was kind of obscure. Waiting for a response from V-trans to our query about whether there should be more marking of a crosswalk over there. Since there's a warning that there's going to be a crosswalk, but there is no physical. Right. Speaking of which, I stop for two people on my way in and stuff like that. I do it every time and I had my wife and my kids in the car and I like... Orderline wasn't focused on the crosswalk because I was having a conversation with my wife. I jammed on the brakes and she's like, what are you doing? I said, well, I said, somebody had asked me about this crosswalk a while ago, and if I ever forget to stop for somebody and they see me, I will never live it down. She's like, oh, I didn't even know there was a crosswalk here. I was like, see, that's my point. Anything else? Reading file comments. Thank you to Greg and the Department of Work Plan. That's a lot of information. Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot of good stuff in there. And on that vein, if you've got anything, I mean, that's a lot of what we'll be talking about next week. If you've got other things you'd like to make sure that are on that list, please send them to Greg. Staff can put some thoughts around those things without being caught flat-footed and have to come back to us. Should we share them to everybody who just hadn't sent to you? What's just sent to you? Or is it...? Yeah, why don't you send just to me, since it's kind of a discussion about what you want to be working on. It's materials that'll go into the packet. We'll get them back out. Discuss from there. So are we going to have an interactive, like, building the plan together, as far as how we did last year without a moderator percent? No facilitator this time. Marguerite and I were talking about it a little bit today. We want to flesh it out this week. We'll meet with Andy and Tracy. Later on this week we'll probably bounce some ideas off of you. A rough idea at this point is to kind of present you with the information that's in the packet, any other new information that comes in over the course of the week. Maybe we'll have a live spreadsheet where we can kind of make updates as far as what's prioritized. I think I'd like to focus on the special projects for Fiscal Year 24. The annual weekly, daily, monthly stuff is kind of there for information to give you a sense of work load, baseline work load, before we start adding extra projects. But I think, yeah, be able to run through any questions about the prioritization that's there, the projects that are there, and then talk about anything you want to add and based on your own desires and goals and anything that might have to come off or get readjusted based on stuff that you want to prioritize in the coming year. Don't know if that answers your question, but that's just where my mind is. I was just, yeah, I remember. If you had any more free flow than it was, I think that way we can focus on our contentious points and move on from the other ones. And please, if you have any questions after looking through that later on this week, we kept it very high level, just very simple. There's a whole lot more detail that goes into almost every single one of those hundreds of lines. So if you have questions about what's in there, I can get back to department heads. I know a lot, but I don't know every single detail by any means. So please ask ahead of time. And we're calling this strategic planning session. Will we be inviting public comment? I would say that's up to you. Something I guess we'll maybe in like intervals, like in the middle at the end. It's not every single thing we talk about. Yeah, we'll have to figure out how we want to do that. And so we can, the meeting's planned for 6 p.m. Projected for three hours. We'll see how it goes. If we can go through his whole list in three hours, plus what all these guys have here, it's going to be a small miracle. I'm not sure we need to go through the entire list because again, a lot of it is daily work that staff does. And I don't think it's our purview to tell Greg how to manage the staff. And I think we should focus on the major projects, prioritization of them, and I'm feeling that public input on that is a good thing. People are way through that next week. That was 6 p.m. here. Any other board member comments? I think you already did send out the testing that we had last year. Oh yeah, there's the spreadsheet that the facilitator put together. Yep. All right, so we need to select board enter into executive session to discuss the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee in accordance with one VSA section 313A3 to include the town manager and the deputy manager. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Ethan. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those say nay. Okay, motion passes 5-0. A minute. I have to wait for it to come back up here. You got it, Tracy? Yeah, I got it. You got it? I move that the slide board enter executive sessions to discuss the negotiation negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options in accordance with one VSA section 313A2 and to include the town manager and deputy manager. Thank you, Don. Do I have a second? Thank you, Tracy. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those say nay. Okay, motion passes 5-0. We will probably won't be coming back to make any decisions. I don't think so, so Scott, you're free to go. We will go to executive session and adjourn from there.