 In order to save us all some time, I'm going to recite the open meeting law script here. Good evening. This open meeting of the finance committee is being conducted remotely with consistent with the point of Baker's order of March 12th, 2020, due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic. In order to mitigate transmission, we've been advised that, and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of the public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with the agenda for this meeting and the materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment only in writing by email to tgradley at town.arlington.ma.us.com. This meeting is convened by video conference via the Zoom app as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that the meeting is being recorded. Some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. While supporting materials that have been provided, members of this body are available on the town's website and less otherwise. The public's encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda until less the chair notes otherwise. Before we turn to the first item on the agenda is some ground rules. The chair will introduce each speaker on the agenda and then after they conclude that remarks the chair will invite the members to provide any common questions or motions. Please hold into your recognized your names call. Further, please remember the future phone or computer when you're speaking and please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. Let me also note that I have asked Tara and Annie to keep an eye on the screen if I miss people who have raised their hand they will remind me. Or any response wait until the chair leads yields of floor to you and state your name before speaking. Each vote at this meeting will be taken by conducted by roll call vote. So now allow me to confirm that all the members of the meat of the committee are present. When I call your name please state in the affirmative that you are here. Grant Givian. Here. Shane Blundell. Here. John Ellis. Kai Healy. Yes. Brian Beck. Arif Padaria. He will be over in just a moment. Who will be over? Arif will be over in just a moment. Okay, thank you. So if he may dazzle. Jonathan Wallach. Jaylene Pocrus. Darryl Harmer. Here. Annie LaCourt. Here. Allen Jones. Here. George Kosher. Here. Bill Keller. Here. Al Tosti. Here. Wanda Nascimento. Christine Deschler. Here. Dean Corman. Here. David McKenna. Here. Thank you. So for the record. Hey Charlie, I just joined Arif Padaria. Arif, okay, Arif is here. So for the record, I have John Ellis, Brian Beck, Jonathan Wallach, Jaylene and Wanda as not present at the moment. So let me make a couple of comments before we attend to the minutes. First of all, I think I sent a note out today. There's a budget and revenue task force meeting tomorrow at 9 a.m. If you feel like attending, please do so. It's a good opportunity to see our legislative delegation respond to questions about what they're doing at the state house and how it's affecting Arlington. So I'd like to address another subject of process that hasn't gone probably as well as it should have largely due to me. Earlier this evening, I sent you two emails, one of which was sent this morning and one of which was sent on the 11th of February. But due to some lapses on my part, email communication difficulties, I didn't get to see this until late Monday night. In addition, I received two relating communications several weeks ago, which I interpreted as communications to me as opposed to the finance committee, although right now I'm not certain that's the case. I should have made a clear determination at that time as to what was the case. But consequently, when we take up the planning department budget this evening, I will ask the committee after our deliberation if we should get through the deliberation tonight to take the budget until the next meeting which time we will vote on the budget. In the meantime, I'll undertake some communication with the writers of the emails to determine if they have specific recommendations for the finance committee or whether they're simply trying to create a general concern on the part of the committee. And in the future, I think I'm addressing this I guess to myself and to Tara, I wanna make sure and to anybody on the committee, if we get communications from the public, please make sure Tara gets a copy and then we'll make sure that they get distributed as soon as possible to all the members so that we can formally decide how to deal with them on a timely basis. The finance committee has an obligation to the community in general as well as the town meeting to carefully consider information from all quarters that affect or reflect the finances of the town, especially in consideration of our need for an override in the near future. However, in doing so, we must draw a careful line between evaluating such information in order to carry out our mission and interfering in or micromanaging town departments or other town boards or committees. So at our next meeting on the subject of the planning department, we can evaluate what, if any, actions by the finance committee are required or appropriate. The reason that we're not doing this tonight is that we haven't had the opportunity through the circumstances that I described to post that information on the website two days in advance of the meeting. So we'll take it up at the next meeting. So, minutes. Can I just make a quick comment, Charlie? Who is? I'm sorry. This is Tara, sorry. Yes, Tara, go ahead. Yeah, hi everyone. So we have been trying to work out a listserv in Microsoft as well as kind of like calendar invites within Microsoft. And in doing so, some of you may have received some links to a Teams meeting. And so we think that we worked out the kinks on that at this point. And it looks like there might be still a few more kinks to work out with the distribution list. So we will keep working on that. So that is just something I wanted to bring to everyone's attention. And then, Charlie, we just had four more people join which were Jonathan Wallach, Shailene Pocrus, John Ellis, and then Wanda Nassimento. Thank you. And I also note for the record that Don Seltzer, a member of the public is attending the meeting. So, minutes. Yes, let me pull those up. So first we have minutes for February the 9th and those have been sent out last week and then with updates just yesterday or last night. And then we also tonight have meeting minutes for Monday's meeting, which I don't know that everyone will have had time to review. So to start with February 9th, I have them up here. Thank you. Thank you, Tara. So are there any comments or changes proposed for the minutes presented for February 9th? Hearing none, motion on minutes of February 9th is in order. Is there a second? Or first? Motion and a second. Right. So it's been moved and seconded to accept the minutes of February 9th. Ed Givian? Yes. Shane Blundell? Shane? Oh, he's not here. He's here. That's what I thought. He's on mute. He's just articulating wildly. Okay. John Ellis? Yes. Micahia Healy? Yes. Brian Beck is not here. Arif Padaria? Well, I'm here, but I wasn't here for the last minute. I don't say yes. So you're going to abstain? Is that right here? Okay. Abstain. That's the word I was looking for. Thank you. Sophie Mikliazo? Yes. Jonathan Waller? Yes. Shaylene? Yes. Darrell Harmer? Yes. Annie LaCourt? Yes. Alan Jones? Yes. George Kosher? Yes. William Keller? Yes. Al Tosti? Yes. Wanda Nascimento? Yes. Christine Deschler? Yes. Dean Corman? Yes. And David McKenna? Yes. Thank you. There were all the votes were positive, except for one abstention. So the minutes are accepted. Do you have the minutes for a Monday night? Yes, I do. Okay. Is there anybody had a chance to review these minutes? And are there any? Pardon? Charlie, I wanted to thank Tara for putting all the voted taxation numbers into the budget in the minutes. It'll be very useful. And I pointed out in the table at the bottom, there was a type of the comptroller numbers. Oh, thank you. There's wrong. I just sent you an email, Tara. Okay. Sophie? Yeah, I was going to send Tara a little modification to that I haven't had a chance to. Okay, then let's postpone these minutes until the next meeting and she can take care of those in a orderly fashion. Okay. So the first budget tonight on the schedule is the budget. Darrell, is that yours? Yes, it is. Tara, I'm going to share my desktop. Okay. Yep. You should be all set to do that. Okay, can everybody see the budget book or police? Income questions. What page do you want to be looking at? Now you should see it. Can you see it now? Yeah. Okay, so it's page 113 is the first page. So the place budget is actually pretty uninteresting. I'm going to go into some of the other topics that are more interesting a bit later. So as you can see, the only on the salary side, there is a change on the personnel side of 1.6%. There was a question on the variances in court time that I'm going to talk about a bit later. So and then essentially most of the other accounts are just level funded. So any questions on the salary side? Any questions on the salary side for Darrell? Yes, Alan. I'm just wondering, there was a huge or substantial drop of about $400,000 from 2020 to 2021 actuals and then about a $900,000 increase in the 2022 budget, which is I assume because the patrolman's contract finally got settled. But I just wanted maybe a little bit more explanation on that, please. I'll actually have to go back and look at last year's budget. I assume it is because of the contract. But I'll have to go back and look at last year. Vacancies. Any other questions? So I have a sort of related question, Darrell. If you go to the next page, I think it's the next page. No, the one that has the list of personnel. Yeah, down at the bottom, you've already highlighted it. I did the same thing on my copy. So there are a lot of vacancies. Yeah, I'm going to talk about that. OK. All right. So are you going to pursue the answer to Al's question? Yes. Hi. Yes. On the expenses side, there's a lot of moving and shaking, but it's really just lining up new accounts and moving money into accounts that the comptroller is standardizing across state departments, town departments, old life creeping in. I just want to call out one of the topics, and you'll see this with the fire budget, too, is pulling back maintenance money into the central facilities budget that accounts for the $28,000 reduction. One of the issues that both police and fire are having is sort of working out what the dividing line between what facilities takes care of and then what each of the departments take care of. Facilities seems to be orienting more towards preventive maintenance, whereas police and fire are focusing more on actual expenditures on equipment or whatever, but they're working through what the dividing line is there. There was a question on parking fund offsets that I'm going to deal with later, too. So are there any questions on the expenses side? John Ellis. Sorry. Darryl, I wasn't quick enough on the salary one. The injuries went up from $40,000 to $195,000, but there's nothing in the $22 budget is that because the injury costs are completed and we just hope nobody gets injured or would potentially costs continue? That's $5,114. I'm sorry. I'll have to ask about that, too. OK, I'll get back to you on that, John. OK, yeah. Makaya, you have a question? You're on mute. Thanks. Just an education question about what stipends are used for as opposed to overtime. Just curious about that. I think it's just various amounts of money attached through the contracts for these various things. So for example, accreditation is for education, different classes that they take. Are you referring to $51.60? Yes, $51.60. I can ask into that, too. OK, because it's different. We didn't bring it up. OK, just different from $51.09, which is the accreditation. But thanks for asking. Sophie. Just responding to that, I'm guessing it's like in the ones we saw in our budgets, which is related to uniforms. So in our budgets, they were like $800 or $400 that we reviewed. So I wouldn't be surprised if it obviously is a lot more for the police department. It could be. It looks like they renamed some of these line items, too. $51.41 is clothing. But for all the people in the police department, $51.41 might buy, I don't know, not a lot of clothing. Let's put it that way for all of those personnel. OK, so Charlie, yes, I'm sorry. So I believe that at least some of that stipend amount can be explained by things like a pay differential for officers who learn how to use the portable heart starting equipment and other things like that. So a lot of those kinds of training things come with an agreed upon stipend or a pay differential in the contract. Thank you, Annie. Charlie? Yes. Just to add to Annie's comment, in certain positions within the police department have additional stipends attached to them. And additionally, there's stipends for carrying a handgun. There's a stipend for that, in addition to the salary. So it varies. There's always been different type stipends for different type positions within the police department. And it's all done by contract. So that's what the stipends are all about. It's not really about clothing because they have this separate line for clothing allowance. Thank you, David. Any other questions for Darryl? I see Allen times he has his hand up again. I don't know if we know this, but are stipends taxable? Are they part of their regular salary? Yes. Yes. The stipends are taxable. Okay. Are they considered part of your regular salary for pensions? No. No. Stipends? Yes. Certain stipends are included for pension purposes. I wonder then why we just don't include them in the salaries. Because they're negotiated. It's negotiated. We bargain. It's not a question of just sitting down and doing something. Any other questions for Darryl? Darryl, you're going to, I think we've answered the stipend question. And so we're interested in knowing about that major swing in the salary line. 5100. What was John's question again? Injury. The injuries. That's right. Is that, that looks like a reclass when somewhere. It had to go somewhere else, but we'll see. I'll ask the chief. Okay. And there's a new rule here. You can only ask questions that I can actually answer. Okay. Any further questions for Darryl? Okay. So let me go through. I think Al last week asked. For an explanation for. The wide variance in court time costs. That were. Much higher and. 2019 and then. Hugely 2020 21 and then went back up in. 2022. So when I asked the chief, she. The answer that was of course incredibly obvious once I realized that that. In 20 and 21, the courts were closed because of COVID. So I went back and pull some of the historical data and you can see that. The budget amount asked for this year, 37,142 was. Pretty much in line with the traditional spending. And was really 2020 and 2021 that were the anomalies. And also that the original budgeted amount for. 2020 was the 37,142. So it's really just. Restoring spending back up to just two traditional levels now that courts are opening again. And then there was another question on the parking fund offset. Parking control officers themselves are fully funded from the police budget. And the offset covers expenses such as ticket rolls and scanners and things. So does that answer those two questions. From the. Review we did a couple of weeks ago. Any further questions on, on those items. Sophie. I thought one of the questions on parking was why we have some parking control officers in the police department and some in a different department. I don't know if that came up or not. Yeah. What are you referring to? Are you referring to the parking parking budget? Yes, I think so. I think. Yeah. I had asked like, why was this other parking department there? And then, and how come the expenses. Were out there. And then I remembered that it's all a lot more complicated. And there's this parking fund that, that gets spent on redevelopment of our Lincoln center. And I realized there was much more. Complicated thing, but at the time I was looking at that parking budget and thinking it was odd that all of the parking expenses weren't in the same place. Well, the parking. Yeah. Traditionally that the parking budget. Was for the enforcement of the. Parking tickets and summons. The parking clerk traditionally was. The, the treasurer. Okay. And if you look at, if you parking budget. It's really one person. There's not a lot of a lot of people there. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Yes. It's Dean. Can I just add one Dean, Dean the former treasurer. Yes. Go right ahead. Let me just. I think to put it in like a really simple term. Parking enforcement. Is a police power. And so it goes into the police budget. Parking administration. So post ticket administration. Is a civilian disposition matter. And so it goes under the parking slash treasurer's budget. And so, you know, and the two reasons that go through two primary reasons. Administration is in the treasurer's budget. It's first. From a cash handling perspective, you want money going through the treasurer's office, not an intermediary step. And secondly, if you feel like you've been a grieved with a parking ticket. That's the most common grievance I saw. You really want a civilian looking at that. You don't want a member of the police force. Having to rule that one of the officers made a clerical error. So like, I think that's why you separate, that's why you separate. Enforcement and administration. Thank you, Dean. Makaya. Makaya, you're on mute. Sorry. Darrell, do you know why the firearms and ammunition budget has gone up by almost $6,000? That's concerning. 52 53. Yes. Mr. Chair, if I may. Yes, Allen. Just to comment that the 95 60 is the actual expenditure, whereas the 15,000 was the number of budgeted. So in other words, the whole, I don't know what the budget was in 2021, but it may not have been, but let's not compare actuals and budget. That's a good point. I would love to know. Sort of the breakdown of the calls that, you know, I know that Arlington usually gets a lot of calls. You know, substance use and mental health. But just if you could. Explain a little bit more, some more clarity about the. The use of. But that. What is your question about the mental health? That it's, that was a side, side. But just wondering about that. Actual budget number versus the actual. Actual. But I can't. I can't follow which actual budget number you're referring to. 52 53. 52 53. Okay. And what does that have to do with mental health? The, the calls that. Police take. The calls that police take. The calls that police take. The calls that police take. The calls that police take. Usually receive. And the dispatch. I would, I would be curious to, to find out. Sort of the breakdown of about the calls and the actual use of. Firearms in. Arlington police department. So the first thing I would suggest is. That. Christine and Darrell and Jonathan. Did a report on the police department about. About 15 months ago. I think a year ago, August. If my memory serves me right. So. I think some of that data would, they look back over 10 years. And that's pretty. It was pretty comprehensively discussed. So that report is on our. Sharepoint site. Under the last fiscal year, I believe. Is that right, Christine? Yes. And can I just make it. A comment. Yes, by all means. Makaya is correct that the Arlington police. We are fortunate that. They rarely ever use firearms. When they respond to calls. But the patrol officers are constantly. Needing to practice. And train. I, I, I believe that this is. 52 53 is. To pay for the practice. Ammunition. And firearms. That would be, that would be my guess. My understanding. Thank you. Yeah. The. The fiscal 21 budget was also. 15,000. Oh, good. Thank you for that. Any other questions. For. Daryl on the lease. Budget. Okay. If not, I'm going to go on. So. On vacancies. There are 10 total vacancies. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. On vacancies. Six are being taken care of with trainees currently in the academy. Is expected to graduate at the end of June. And then they'll start a 12 week training program. So they'll basically be on. Fully on board by the end of the summer. Counting for those vacancies to people retired. Couple of retired resigned to go to other towns. And one resigned to take a position in the private sector. There are four remaining vacancies. Three patrol officer and one sergeant. The sergeant's vacancy is going to be filled through promotion. Then in terms of filling the other three vacancies. One of the issues is. The department prefers to hire residents of Arlington. One they have priority. And two residents of residents of other towns. Usually prefer to go. Back to that, that town when openings come up there. So they've got 11, 11 residents lined up to. Take the next civil service test, which will be in March. And to. Help these candidates. Take the task Arlington is collaborating with Belmont, Billerick and Bedford. To offer a test prep class. So hopefully. The six, six of the vacancies will be filled by the end of the summer. And the other four. I guess it would be. Probably in the fall winter, by the time they get through the pandemic, they're just going to be filling the vacancies up. And they're going to be filling the vacancies up. And they're going to be filling the vacancies up. With the economy training and the training program. Oh, can I ask the question? Yeah. If you're going, if these are going to be filled by the end of June, shouldn't, they shouldn't be in the budgets as vacancies, right. I mean, I guess that's how they typically report of it. Oh, okay. spoke. Yeah. Then in while the 10 vacancies are close to being addressed, there is an ongoing issue in terms of hiring and retention. It's gotten increasingly competitive. Towns are offering signing bonuses and educational benefits about 40 towns, 40 police departments have left civil service, and I've listed some of the neighboring towns, which gives them more flexibility in terms of recruiting and retaining. If Arlington were to leave, desire to leave civil service, have to bargain with the unions or the town manager could propose a warrant article. And if department were to leave civil service, they could do their own exam, their own recruiting. At this point, it's just being considered. There's no decision been made yet. If they want to go that route. But civil service is one of the areas the police reform is addressing. I'm actually going to talk about that in a couple of minutes. So any questions on vacancies? Any more questions on vacancies? If I'm jolly, wait, anyone second? Can you have your hand up? Yeah, thanks, Charlie. Just curious. So how do we determine how many patrol officers we need? Is it sort of by like population or how was I know we're likely have a bunch of vacancies are holding in? How do we like? How do we make that determination of like, is it a per capita? Just curious if there's anything you can offer? I have no idea. I think I could answer that. But probably the best answer would be David McKenna. In the past, it's been what they call per unit of population determines how many police officers we have. We had police officers going back into the 50s and 60s that were almost patrol officers was over 60. And of course, that that's been decreased over the years for many years. But it's normally per unit of population determines patrol officers and usually there's a two to one split. For every patrol officer, there's a ranking officer, which includes Sergeant Lieutenant or Captain. The other thing I wanted to mention was historically you're going to see that there's always vacancies in both the police and fire. Going back to the well, he's frozen, but I do appreciate his right when it gets the interesting part. Okay, David, we lost you again. So Sean, Shane is one other thing that. Hello. Yeah, are you back, David? Yeah, I can't tell when I fade out. So just just again. Okay, maybe we'll just move on from that question. Is that good for you, Shane? Yes, thanks, everyone. Thank you. Okay, Darrell. Okay, then issue from last year is body cameras. So we went through with the chief with the updates on the current plans are. So at this point, most towns are trying to do pilot. So even getting the cameras is about six months out. The department has researched about three or four vendors. They've identified a vendor. They're they're met with the unions who seem to be generally supportive of using the cameras. They haven't bought the cameras yet. I do want to be clear about that or the associated hardware and software. I think we went through this last year, they will be using the asset for future fund to pay for the hardware. They can't use that fund for software or storage. They were funded $47,000 that last year's for software at last year's town meeting. And they were awarded a grant from State Office of Public Safety for software. They got the grant in the middle of December. They have six months to sign an agreement with both unions or they'll lose the grant. So they essentially have to get those agreements signed by around June. They've developed a draft policy on camera usage. You'll see there's an additional complication there. And it said the town is bargaining with the unions. So as part of police reform, the state has mandated a study to develop uniform policies for buying and using cameras. That study is supposed to be completed in June. So I think at this point, in everything is on hold waiting for that study, the state is going to mandate that municipalities follow uniform policies for both buying the equipment and then also the usage. I'm actually going to talk about police reform at a high level in just a second. So any any questions on body cameras? Oh, wait, Shailene. Yep, I was just about to unmute and say excuse me. Yep. So given that the state's doing this study, I'm wondering if that study will impact Arlington's ability to use cameras or like the technology itself and whether the finance committee should take that into consideration in terms of like asking the police department to delay an investment in cameras. But it sounds like they also have money from outside of what the finance committee can is it's possible. Most of the funding is coming from this grant and from the 47 K for software. But my general question is like if this is if there's still pending items guidelines, how does that affect? Are we approving money ahead of time for that? I don't think there's any new money in the in the twenty three budget request. And I don't think they know in terms of this study, what's going to be in it and whether we'll actually be done in June. I think there's there's some open issues there. And I don't know specifically whether municipalities need to wait for this study to be done in terms of the actual legislation. Or whether it's really just dependent on getting to agreement with the unions. I think that's really the controlling factor. Right. OK, thank you. Thank you, Shailene. Other questions, Alan Jones. Thank you. Do you have any idea of the cost of the hardware that's being paid through the as a forfeiture fund? And would that be a camera for every patrol officer or how many how many cameras would be purchased? I believe it's a camera for every patrol officer. And I think the cruisers as well. And do you have an idea what the total cost of that is would come out of the fund? Out of the asset forfeiture fund? Yeah. I don't know. And also some of that depends on the amount that's in the forfeiture fund. At a given point in time, since it varies, depending on whether they've gotten any asset forfeatures. I mean, do you think that that would be an ongoing source of funds for camera replacement? In other words, would that be the long term source of funds for the cameras or would that be added to the expense line at some point? I'm just wondering if that's that'll be an ongoing expense for the department and get an idea of how much that would be. I'll have to ask. Jonathan. Yes, thank you, Charlie. Following up on Alan's comment, I'm not sure Alan whether that would be ongoing. If it's not covered by asset forfeiture, I'm not sure whether it would show up in the operating budget or in the capital budget. I think you're right, Jonathan. I mean, we have some current police items that are purchased in bulk that are capital items. I think, for example, bulletproof vests, as I recall, right? And firearms, I believe. And firearms, you're right. So and they have to be, they all have a lifetime, five or eight or 10 years or something like that. And that's probably true of the cameras as well. So maybe in answer to Alan's question, it might be that it becomes a capital item. Okay, Andy, go ahead, Daryl. So I'm going to go through this really quickly. There are some areas of police reform that touch on some of the issues that we've talked about. I put some materials in our SharePoint site, copy of the actual legislation itself, Senate 20, I can't just see the galleries covering where the bill number is, but I think you guys can see it. So that bill had an emergency preamble, so it became effective at the end of December, 2020. It creates a ton of commissions and task forces to study and come up with recommendations on a huge variety of issues and concerns, structural racism, bias, diversity, transparency, increasing police accountability, establishing policies for use of force and the rules for use of less lethal weapons, limiting no knock warrants and banning racial profiling, limiting the use of facial recognition software, although not banning it, and another commission to study the use of it. And here's the body camera task force to develop a uniform code for the purchase and use of the cameras, develops requirements around storage and transfer, and then also discipline for not using cameras correctly. Again, the goal here is to come up with a uniform set of policies and procedures and requirements. One of the issues that directly touches on hiring and retention is a review of the civil service system and recommending changes to improve diversity, transparency, and better represent the community, and also updating policies for hiring and training. So that kind of goes to the concerns that the police department has about civil service, hopefully improving it. And then one of the major issues is there is one of the 18 commissions is called the peace officer standards and training commission or the post. And the goal there is to certify officers statewide. And you can see that the composition of the post and that it has subpoena power to investigate misconduct. Within the post, there will be a division of police certification that will create a mandatory certification process for police officers. All officers will have to be certified. You won't be able to be appointed as a law enforcement officer unless you are. And then the ramifications of being certified are huge. These certified officers would be ineligible for appointments to law enforcement agencies, police schools, and academies. Certification would be suspended if the officer was arrested, charged or indicted for a felony, fails to complete training and then other conditions. And then the certification can be revoked for conviction of a felony, misuse of force or engaging in the conduct of a hate crime, failing to intervene to prevent another officer from engaging in prohibited contact. And then there's a huge list of other conditions. There are processes for appealing both suspensions and revocations and getting suspensions lifted and so on. Then the other issue that the chief brought up is there's no, at this point, there's no sort of standard training curriculum across the various academies in the state. And the police reform bill is also creating a municipal police training committee that's actually within the state executive office of public safety. It's not part of that post commission. You can see the committee members and the purview is all municipal transit, UMass police officers, not the state police. And then they'll set policies and standards for the screening of applicants to sort of had academies, minimum certification and use of force standards. That is jointly with the post and then maintaining records of training and certifications and so on. So that is a really high level view of police reform. As I said, it did put the legislation itself and other articles and things. And there's a summary, which is actually longer than the bill itself, that the police chief of the city of Chelsea did, which is, it's more an annotated version of the bill. So it's very helpful in kind of going through and making sense of it all. So I have exhausted my knowledge of the police reform bill. So if anybody has any questions, I'll write them down and give them to the chief. Great giving. Yes, Daryl, I appreciate the Daryl Harmer rule. I'm gonna use that at the water and sewer about the only allowed to ask questions, you know, the answer to. And now you're gonna break it, right? Well, no, no, no, I'm hoping not to. Help me understand with the civil service that other communities have gotten away from civil service. And that's because it's easier to hire or they can hire, why is that better for those communities, I guess? So I'll speak to my experience with civil service with the state. See, you get an answer. A lot of times with civil service, you end up having to interview candidates that really aren't qualified. But for various preferences and other things, they come up on the top of the exam. So civil service, you know, goes back to the early 20th century and it hasn't changed much since. And so it's a pretty rigid system. Okay, so it limits the hiring pool, basically, right? Yeah, so I think the hope is that with, if Arlington were to leave the Arlington Police Department, it needs to be, that doesn't mean the entire town would leave. Correct. If the police department were to leave, they'd have more control over the task and recruitment and things like that. Okay, very good. Thank you, Chelsea. Very good, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Grant. John Ellis. Sorry, you said it was a bill, but it was a past, I missed that part. Yes, it was passed and signed by the governor in December of 2020. Okay. Okay, great. Yep, and regarding the body cameras, no questions, please pray for it. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, John. Sophie, you're on mute, Sophie. So I'm just making a decision about civil service because I thought town meeting just went back to civil service a couple of town meetings ago. And did the finance committee discuss this then or what was, I'm just surprised it's coming up so quickly. Well, it's a little complicated. I don't believe that the police are far forever out of civil service, but about 20 years ago or 30 years ago, when the, there was a Department of Community Safety and a police division, the chiefs were not members of civil service. They were just not in civil service. And about 10 years ago, there was an impassioned plea, Brian Sullivan, I'm not sure, but whoever was the town manager at the time to have the chiefs become part of civil service. So both the chief, the fire chief and the police chief became part of civil service. And then four years ago or so, the board of selectmen recommended that the police chief not be a member of civil service and town meeting supported that. So where we are right now is I believe the fire chief is civil service and the police chief is not. Okay, thank you. I just do want to be clear that they've taken no action at this point to leave civil service. Right now it's just, it's a point of concern and some frustration. Leaving civil service is an option. They have not decided, they haven't made any decisions about going that route. And to do so would require a collective bargaining of the issue. Yeah, she said collective bargaining or a warrant article. And I asked if the warrant article would essentially supersede the need for a collective bargaining and she said, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. All right. Thank you, Darrell. That's very, first of all, thanks for putting all that good information on the SharePoint site. And thank you for your excellent description of the police reform act. So any other questions for Darrell and police reform? I just want to point out that I believe Dave McKenna has joined with his telephone. So if he is back in and he can hear us, if he wanted to say anything, he could try to do that right now. I just want to, okay, can you folks hand me now? Yes, we can. Okay, I'm attaching two cans with a string. That's how I'll communicate. Okay. No cartons work better, Dave. Thank you, Dave. Okay. All right, so Darrell, go ahead. Okay, so I move that the 2023 police budget be approved as printed in an amount of 8 million. Can you show that page, please? Oh, I'm not. No. He is. This is. Yeah, it is. That's the page. Oh, you're right. Thank you. 8 million, 819,321 dollars. Second. So it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? So I just want to give the opportunity to the members to speak to hold off the vote on this. If they feel any of the questions that Darrell has agreed to go back and investigate for us, we'd change their opinion on this, on this vote. Any such objections? Okay. Hearing none, it's been moved and seconded. Any further questions or discussion? Hearing none, we will vote on the police budget. Grant Yibin. Yes. Shane Blundell. Yes. John Ellis. Yes. Kaya Healy. Yes. Arif Padaria. Yes. Sophie Migliazzo. Yes. Jonathan Wallach. Yes. Shailene Pocrus. Yes. Darrell Harmer. Yes. Angela Court. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. George Kosher. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Alan Tosti. Yes. Wanda Nascimento. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Dean Karman. Yes. And David McKenna. Yes. The vote is unanimous. Thank you. The police budget is passed as recommended for $8,819,321. So the next budget is the fire budget. Thank you, Charlie. Can someone put that up or can I share my screen? You can share your screen if you'd like to. I can also put it up. Everybody see that? Yeah. All right. Well, like the police budget, there's not much going on here in the fire budget. On the salary side, there's very little change. And that's because they're out of contract. And the process of negotiating a new contract. So every, there's no cost of living or other kind of across the board increase going on from 22 to 23. So the small increase you're seeing for salaries and wages is just a few minor step increases. And in the same with, you know, school credits and longevity, those are just small changes that are contractually required based on the former contract. Any questions? Jonathan, do you know how much of the overtime budget is actually used? I'm sorry, what your question again, Charlie? Do you know how much of the overtime budget is actually used? For example, last year, I noticed that it was 582,000 and 669. And the last couple of years has been 478, 478,000. Last year, the budget was 478. I do not know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know to what extent. Overtime. Is, you know, exceeds or is less than that. I guess you have, we're still in fiscal year 22. So. Yes, we are. Wouldn't know that. Yeah. Okay. I can tell you that. In 21. They were over budget. And they did not have to take a reserve draw because. They did not fill all the vacancies that they had included in the budget for fiscal year 21. So they offset each other. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to expenses. Nothing happening here other than. What Daryl talked about for the, for the police budget, which is that. They've shifted $10,000 out of the. Fires maintenance budget and. Shift that over to the facilities department facilities budget. And like with the police department, as Daryl mentioned. The fire chief chief Kelly is. They're trying to figure out how to make this work. They're trying to figure out how to make this work. And. Right now that the basic model is for facilities to pay for preventive maintenance. As Daryl mentioned. And the fire department would pay for. Equipment repairs or other minor repairs. But they are still trying to figure out how this is going to work. Any questions. Yes. So I'm just looking at this. And it seems like the budgeted amounts are always the same. And the actuals on certain lines, for example, 52, three or 52, six are much lower than the budgeted amount. I'm wondering why are we always, I mean, is this historically true? I wasn't on the committee before. So I don't know that. Did we always budget. The same numbers as we're budgeting now and they always spend less. And is that. The best practice. I can't speak generally to that. All that I can say is. Actuals rarely match budgeted. I think this was, this is a reclass. You'll notice that budget 52. 99 was in this several thousand level. And the repair and maintenance was very small. And now that the repair and maintenance went at 5203 went to 4,000. But the otherwise unclassified is zero. So I think this is deriving from the. The, the comptroller's efforts to have more accurate. Spend at your classifications. Okay. Thank you. Shane Blundell. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Charlie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. John. Hospital and medical care. What is that actually. Paying for, is this for, for, for medical care for the staff or. I mean, I see a spike in 21, but like, what is it actually covering? That's a good question. I'm happy to ask the chief. What that represents. Thanks. So this is a question actually retroactive for Darrell. I noticed that the. Auto and gas. Auto gas and oil budget. For. Fiscal year 23 is the same as fiscal year 22. And then we have a big run up in the gas prices in the last year. Like twice. You'll cause my understanding. We talked about this at one point. This is probably several years ago now. But my understanding is that. So the town buys. It's a centralized purchasing. And then the dollars are allocated. And so. You know, it's, it's. Why that they're, why they're showing a level allocation. To these departments and to other departments that I don't know. But my understanding is that. Purchases are centralized and then. And then the budget dollars are allocated to the various departments. It may be that they also have a forward contract that's taking. It could be, I just, I don't know. And earlier. Okay. Any, any other questions for Jonathan on, oh yeah, Shane, you still have your hand up. Sorry, I forgot to take it down. Okay. Thank you. There's Alan. His hand up Al Tosti. Yeah, I think also. The only vehicles that were using gasoline last year were the police vehicles because everybody was home because they couldn't go anywhere. So I think if you take a look, the gas prices were much lower last year. Then now, and to a certain degree, they're coming back to more normal. Maybe a little above that, but last year, the gas prices were just down. Bill Keller. No, I raised my hand and I'm trying to lower it. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Daryl, is your hand up or. Yes, it is. I have a question for you, Charlie. Actually, do you want. Do you want Jonathan and I to go back to. Chief fire and chief Kelly on the gas question. I think that would be a good idea. I'm just. You know, the. It seems to me the other day that the price of oil done up to $100 a barrel or something like that. It's been a 40% or more appreciation in the recent periods. So we should try to understand if that's going to have an impact on, on the departments that are doing, you know, running vehicles. So go ahead, Jonathan. Okay. Moving on to the last page. I just want to, well. Here's the last page. There are currently eight vacancies. I've shown here. On the, on the first sheet. All. Eight of those vacancies have been filled. And those. Future firefighters. We'll be starting in the academy within the next few months. Great. Good. Okay. Any questions on the personnel side for. For Jonathan. Personal side of fire. So Jonathan, are you prepared to make a recommendation? I am. I'm recommending as printed. The fire taxation total. Of 7,000,000 $742,205. Is there a second. Second. It's been moved second, second date for 7,000,000 $742,205. Any further discussion. There are two questions that were raised for Jonathan. One is an explanation of medical expenses cover. And the other was related to the fuel. Inflation. Is there anyone wants to put a hold on this budget pending the answer to those questions. Seeing no hands. I'll go ahead and take a vote on the fire budget. Grant. Yes. Shane Blundell. Yes. John Ellis. Yes. Mike. Yes. A reef peddaria. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Jonathan. Yes. Shaylene. Yes. Carol. Yes. Andy LaCorte. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. George Cozer. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Alan Tosti. Yes. Wanda Nascimento. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yeah. Dean Carmen. Yes. And David McKenna. Yes. The vote is unanimous. Thank you very much. Curiosity question. A reef. Where are you? I'm at my home in Mumbai, India. Greetings. Thank you for joining us tonight. Happy to be here. Okay. The next budget is. Okay. Planning and development. Planting. Planting board first, I guess. David and Sophie. Okay. You want me to call up the budget. I'm going to refer this to Sophie. She will present. Please call the budget. Thanks, Dave. Page 70. Okay. So starting the calories and the wages. Okay. This is explained in the budget explainer that we received during the town manager's presentation to the committee. Specifically that the staff roster now show now displays a CBBG. Administrator, which is offset fully by the CBBG. Funding. So. So that's what we're going to talk about. And then we're going to talk about the salary. Which you'll see there. In the additional changes in the salaries were just a few step increases. Then there was a position with some new hires. So they came in at lower salary positions. And that, that's why it doesn't come out exactly. Dollar per dollar. Number there because of those other little changes. I. The stipend is just in the union for the union employees. It's just contractual. And in there. Are there any questions on salaries? Can you flip to the. Salary page, please. There you go. Okay. Any questions for. Sophie on the salary page. Yes. Yeah. There's a new community development block. Right. For 71,000. Which accounts for the increase in. Budget. Position for. Don't remember exactly. Can you explain that or not? I didn't realize that that's, that's a new position. I believe that position has been around for a while. Right. There's a new person doing it. Right. I think. I could explain that. I believe that what's going on here is that that position is now showing in the budget with the offset. And it probably used to pass right through the CDBG budget. There's been a CDBG administrator since. At least 2005. Right. So it's not a new position. Right. It's not a new position. Right. So what I'm going to explain is this is part of the transparency and wanting to have everything out there because it was a hundred percent offset before they never showed it. It didn't show up on here. Even though it was there. So for transparency going forward now. They are showing it in salaries. And then we see the hundred percent offset. On this document. So it's not a new position. Per se. And it's, it's. Right. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on the. Planning budget. Shane Glendale. Thanks. I guess I understand sort of what the broad purpose of the. Department is, but sort of like. Anything to like say, like on the years ahead, and we have like a sort of pretty substantial change in like. The law around like affordable housing. So like, I guess sort of what's on the horizon for the department, like, what are they? I don't know. I don't know. That's maybe less a finance question, but sort of what, like, what are some products that are ahead of them? Just curious. Right. Well, there was a question from the committee. So I think John had asked about the economic development coordinator and sort of what's in the process there. And I think the discussion they gave us there gave us a broad idea of all the things they're working on, which. So if I can answer that now, that was, they're currently, they're currently working on, they're currently working on, they're currently working on, on Arlington Heights grant grant for funding, the various parklets that we've seen with COVID to allow for outdoor dining on parking spaces. They're very busy right now with. Loan assistance and an economic development task force, the permit processing for outdoor fitness, because Arlington actually has quite a bit of a few businesses that have had restrictions that was really affecting those businesses. So this department has been very busy, you know, making sure those businesses have help in the permitting process to have access to our outdoor space. They have been working on relaxing rules for outdoor dining. And right now there have, they've gotten at $750,000 to allocate through the AR. They've received a lot of money to give out grants of a maximum of 10,000. And so they've received 170 applications for those grants. They've been going through them. It looks like 83 small businesses and nonprofits are going to be receiving grants. The monies will be going out in March, I believe. The funds will be dispersed in early March. So they've been extremely busy. And I think that's just going to continue. Going forward on the economic development side. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Answer your question. Yes. So Shane. Sort of to add to that. Distributed to the committee tonight. Two emails. That I received. And also, as I mentioned earlier in my opening comments that I received some. Prior. Comments about the planning department. And. The emails that you saw. Had some various. Use the term discontent with combination of policies. And. I don't want to go into it tonight because nobody's had a chance to read them. And I haven't had a chance to research it myself either. And it was, they weren't on the agenda. But I think. I think we have to. Put those on the agenda at the next meeting. And determine whether we have a reaction or not. You know, that's just. Maybe we, maybe we don't do anything. Or maybe it requires further understanding. And that has. What I'm trying to address is your question about. What's the global view of the planning department and where are they going? And I think some of what, what they're doing is buried in those. E-mails. Thanks. Yeah. Also in the horizon, they did point us out that in our books on page 201, there are a couple of warrant article appropriations, 100,000 for blue bikes, 50,000 for design standards. And as a committee, we'll hear more about those when they come in for those warrant articles. But. Those, I guess, are projects on the horizon as well for that department. So we'll hear about. So. Should I move on to expenses? Yes, please. Okay. So quickly, the repair and maintenance is the same 500 because they did not spend the 500 on the desk. They were wanting to buy. So we're just seeing that same request over again, auto allowance is just mileage. As they go around to meetings. And that's a significant increase. And this is because they have new employees who are all members of the AICP American Institute of. City planners. And so there are increased dues and fees related to those, but obviously benefit from having employees that are members of that association. And so that's a significant increase. And so that's a significant increase. And it is additional dues for different associations and for training costs. Office supplies go up because now there's more in person. And so more office supplies being used. Line 52, 36 conservation commission expenses. This has to do with training specifically for the Massachusetts Association of conservation commissions. And so the economic development is specifically a costar software fee. Or for one of the softwares that they think that runs their site and information on all the vacancies in town store fronts that they manage and deal with. And also an economic development software fee. For the three year contract. This is the last year. It's not sure they're going to renew it on that one. But they're going to renew it on that one. That's still in discussion. So those are just really specific to software fees. One thing about vacancies is they did mention that obviously there are more vacancies now because of COVID. And store fronts and in the enforcement of, of some of the fees on those. They get storefronts. Then we're suspended, but they're not coming back into place. So they're busy. They're very busy with that right now. And I think that takes me through all the expenses. If there are any questions. Questions for Sophie. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for, for sometimes it's difficult to describe what planning and community development does, but I would commend people for that. I think it's difficult to describe what planning and community development does, but I would commend people to look at our award-winning annual report. I just counted, there's 26 pages on planning and community development. So it goes into hundreds of projects and things that they help coordinate. Well, give that a try. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. You get that chain. Okay. I did. Yes. Jonathan. I don't want to jump the gun on those emails, but. I just wanted to get a clarification. The, the costs for planning studies or, or consultant pay consultants to do studies. I thought that was in the capital budget, not in the operating budget. Charlie. Is that true? It depends on the, it depends on the studies. Okay. Sometimes they're in capital. Generally speaking, if a study. I mean, this is the way I recall policy. Okay. If a study leads to a capital project. In other words. Let me take the infamous Sims project, right? We. So we had a very expensive study process there, but it was leading to some capital project behind it. And I believe that the government kind of standards board says that. If it's not going to reach. Capital project. Then it has to be expense. In the operating. And if, if. Consultants are part of the operating budget. What line item would they be? Well, that's a good question. We have to. That's what I want. I didn't want to discuss this tonight. Sorry. A little bit of research. I can tell you that some of these studies come out in. Come up in warrant articles. Okay. They're not capital. They're just a warrant. Understand what we're doing. And some of them come from CDBG. So. We should. I don't want to. We shouldn't be sort of addressing something we haven't thought about. What I'm trying to say. Plus. You have to notice the public appropriately. Other questions for Sophie. All right. Allen. Did you have another? You see your hand. Allen. If your hand up. Is not up. Okay. So. I did. Charlie, there were two other questions that came up from the committee. One was whether any of these positions actually were temporary positions that were supposed to go away. And they assured me that no, that that was the case maybe in health and human services, but not in this department. So. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if those positions were ever temporary. And then there was, I believe you had brought up. A community comment about a zoning ward, working group comment. And concern that they couldn't bring up costs. At that meeting. And that was confirmed. My suspicions were confirmed and that that is purely a legal reason for that. I think that it was a, it was a statement of discrimination. On a variety of factors. And so when they are talking about zoning during the zoning board working group, they cannot address certain. Topics, including. Family makeup and composition and age, et cetera. Because that would be discriminatory. And talking about zoning. So it's interesting comment. So, so. zoning. Correct. When you're when you're speaking about specific. In other words, you can't you can't zone the district for senior citizens only or for single people or something like that, right? You're fair housing. You would you have to be in compliance with the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination. So okay. Good. All right. Thank you. So I'm going to suggest that we not vote on this tonight. We'll put a hold on this. We'll vote at the next meeting after we address the other questions. And the next budget to move forward on is also your budget. And I assume that David on his phone on his tin can and wire is David. Are you there? Yes, I am. So did you want Sophie to move forward on the redevelopment budget? Yes, if she would please. All right. Thank you. I do want to at least notice to the committee that I as a town meeting member have a warrant article up before the ARB. I don't believe there's a conflict because even if they vote no action, I would just bring it as a substitute motion. So everybody is okay with that? Charlie? Are there any Sophie discussing this budget? No. Okay. You're clean. Thank you. So the redevelopment board budget is pretty straightforward. No changes actually at all. No percentage change. Although we discussed changes between the actual and the budgets. Office supplies again, the difference being that they are now going to be in person. And my 52-28, it says ballots to the committee about all the town meeting costs associated with printing things for town meeting. Are there any questions? Any questions on the redevelopment board budget? You want to make a motion, Sophie? So I recommend, as printed, the redevelopment board budget, a total of 10,800. Second. So it's been moved and seconded for the redevelopment board budget for $10,800. Any additional comments? Hearing none, I'll take a roll call vote. Grant? Yes. Shane? Yes. John? I'm here. Sorry. Yes. Thank you. Makaya? Yes. Brian. Arif? Yes. Sophie? Yes. Jonathan? Yes. Shailene has just left the meeting. Darrell Harmer? Yes. Annie? Annie just left the meeting. Allen Jones? Yes. George Koser? Yes. Bill Keller? Yes. And Altosti? Yes. Juan de Nascimento? Yes. Christine Deschler? Yes. Dean Corman? Yes. And David McKenna? Yes. Okay. The redevelopment board budget for $10,800 is unanimously passed by all the members in attendance. So thank you, Sophie. The next subject is the reclassification and pay schedule. Makaya? Thank you. This is Makaya. I want to first bring up the two questions that were raised with the human resources department budget. Let me see if I can just find my notes. I won't be sharing my screen. I'll just be looking at my notes. Would you like me to pull up that reclassification document, Makaya? Yes, but not yet. Okay. So there is two questions that were asked about the training budget for the HR department. And so the context of that was if Karen Malloy was thinking that she was going to exceed her $50,000 in asking why not ask for the full budget request right now. And she appreciates that question. Knowing the members of the committee who have asked that and she would exhaust every piece of the money from every part of her budget before she would come back and ask for the budget for any reserve transfer budget. And this was in regards to the three-year benchmark study that happens every year. But it depends upon the timing of the training. So she's making her best estimate at this point. And she wants the committee to know that she wants to do as good a job as and ask for the money that she needs now. So I hope that answers that question. The other question that came up was around the assessors, around the conversation about the town clerk's salary. And I can break down both the town clerk's salary as well as the director of libraries. So first off, the town clerk's salary is set by the town meeting. So the criteria for the salary range for that department head is set by a different set of standards than an elected official. So if we wanted to make any sort of changes in that town clerk's study, we would have to go through town meeting. So that would be the appropriate way to address that salary. And she also wanted to make note that the HR director, oh yeah, sorry, to that point, the HR director doesn't manage the select board's budget or anything that's all. They're a different classification system. And the question was also raised, Makai, about the library director. Do you have any comments on that? Yeah, so that is through the Pay and Classification system. And that system was that design in the year 2000. And first of all, the way that she described it is that it's a living document that gets upkeated, upkept on a regular basis. She did review the director of libraries salary and did feel like it fell within the appropriate classification as it compared to the benchmark study that they did three years ago. She felt that the director of libraries also was able to, oh, I asked within the department heads, whether it like does, does she compare the department head salary with with with other department heads within the town, not just outside of the town. And then she does she said it's comparable. And in regards to the department of the director of libraries salary right now, she says it is very competitive. And it's second only to work line in terms of compensation. And her grade is in the same grade as the treasurer and comptroller and workers compensation attorney, and the director of inspection. So I'll go into the process of the paying classification. And I'll walk us through that document. But, you know, Karen Maloy absolutely respects this this committee very, very much. And so if it didn't, if that doesn't answer the question, she is more than willing to help one other point about the the town clerk salary is that the town clerk has only been with our town for 18 months or within that position, I should say, for 18 months. And the other managers that were mentioned, I think the town assessor was mentioned, comparing that salary, as well as another department, I think it was the HR director there. They, so those department heads have been in their positions for 20 years. So, and also they just hired someone at the same pay, pay grade as that manager, as the town clerk. So I hope that is thorough. You know, are there any questions about those salaries? Jonathan Wall, who's your hand up? No. Oh, that's, I'm sorry, that's me with my, my hand somehow is over your, your tile. Any, any questions for Makaya on the subject of those department head salaries? Okay, Makaya, I think you can go charging ahead. All right. I do, I do want to like honor that question because I think it's, it's very equitable with, and the encouragement is to invite any of our town department employees to participate in the pay and classification application process that happens every August. So, let me, like kind of wake myself up a little bit. The, so let me explain what we're looking at, just as a review for all of us who have seen this in town meeting or just been in finance committee for a while. So the reclassification process is really just a way to change someone's job description and their pay without using this step process. And the reclassification process is involves both the employee, the department head. It's like each person that submits their application to Karen Malloy is their own personal investigation. So they, the HR director goes into what are they doing? What are they really doing? They talk to their, you know, their co-workers and supervisors, etc, etc. So she showed me the stack of like papers that she has to deal with, which is great. You know, I'm glad she's very thorough. And so this year, Altosti, there were 17 applicants, nine were denied. So it was a very busy year. Seven people appealed the decision. And then the HR board did not overturn any of the director's decisions. So what we go through tonight is the process of this application process, of this reclassification process. And then I think I can kind of speak through the rest of this. Oh, so as we go through this, I also just want to point out what the acronyms and designations mean, because it is very confusing if you're not familiar with it. Or I can just send it to SharePoint. But they're, you know, the SEIU and the NTP, ATP, OFNU, the OA that you see, the MC, the L, those are, those are just service employee international union. Those are mostly mid managers. NTP is the non-union version of ATP. And ATP is the administrative, technical and professional. OFNU is the office of administration. That's the non-union. MC is maintenance and craftsmen and the laborers. And then L is the professional libraries, professional librarians. So are there any questions? So there are three pages that you see and the letters match with the corresponding numbers, or they should, in most cases. So number one, A is the administrative assistant and planning for community development. Someone tell me if that's correct. Yeah, planning and community development. Yeah, that's right. And then under 2A, if you scroll down to that, it should correspond. So number two is the positions that get added. And then number three are all the positions that get deleted. So they, the letters should correspond appropriately, if that makes sense. So we'll go through and then the amounts on the side that you see are the amounts that were not previously appropriated in last year's budget. And so what we go through tonight, given our, you know, if we have a positive recommendation that we submit to the town meeting, then that is the money that we will appropriate. All right. So I can go through this really quickly. Makaya, if I could just make a comment, please. Yeah. Just clarify your most recent remark. The 1644, so when we presented budgets at the town meeting, that budget will include the current rate without the classification changes. Once town meeting votes the warrant article that has the classification changes, then there may be a dollar impact on those positions that's not covered in our normal budget. So that's what we're voting here on those little columns. Not for the current year, but for fiscal 23. All right. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. High five, Charlie. Okay. So number one, A is the, and we've talked about many of these positions. So I think we can go through it very quickly. I'll give you the narrative and then if there are any questions, I'll take it before the recommendation of the vote. So one A, this is the administrative assistant position. And really what Karen Malloy is trying to do is to move, be consistent with both the library and the fire and just move these positions to be with their peers so that they're at the ATP for distinction. And this person, they looked at the town benchmark study and the range of our position is higher, but the current salary is not. So I think that they, like we make up for it within, actually I'm not going to talk outside of my knowledge there. So this person in one B, the title is being deleted and it's been moved and changed to the office management title. So when there is a vacancy, it is reviewed through collective bargaining with the unions. And they're working toward reducing gender neutral, creating gender neutral titles to be more inclusive. One C, as you can see, the manager's job went up three steps from an MTP-8 to an MTP-11. And the title is going to change to be the new title of sustainability manager. They looked at other communities and what they were being paid and they, in order to be competitive, they agreed to change the title. There was no incumbent in the position. And so they won't have to, we won't have to make up the difference for when this is reviewed and classified. But this request is subject to our positive recommendation and to the ratification of commenting. So just note that in one D, this position is still vacant. There aren't any applicants even though they changed the grade significantly. And they've gone to the school committee to review it, but they still aren't getting applicants for these tech jobs. In one E, the watchman laborer, they move that position. They increase the administrative responsibilities to match the daytime dispatchers. It is still vacant, I believe, and they are looking for applications. So again, the job market is just very challenging. One F, the recycling. So they reviewed this position outlined by the bylaws that they do every year in August. And this person has been in this role for over a decade, for about a decade. The justification here is that the role has become more complex, more demanding, the amount of public interface with, you know, cable television with the website, working with the state. They decided to change that position title. Oh, and they managed several volunteer events. In one G, I think I've already talked a lot about this in the Human Resources Department. The technical responsibilities are significant. They wire $2 million to the state every month for their affordable care reporting. It seems like so they were audited by the IRS. There's a lot at stake, a lot at risk. They're audited because there's a box that was not checked that was due to a software glitch. And so as a result, there was there's an audit, but, you know, they they managed a lot of the they managed all the payroll department and it's just a lot of work. So a lot of data, a lot of judgment, I should say. One H, the park and maintenance supervisor under public works. This person just has a higher level exposure to the public. And then one I and one J, both the electrician and the plumber, they just have been vacant positions for one year. One person just got one person just applied as of last week. And, you know, even though the town has significant benefits and stability, this graduates from vocation schools are just making double or triple the amount that they can lose. So are there any questions about? So any any questions for Makaya on these recommended changes to the paying classification system? You'll notice that she answered the the al-tosti question of how many applications were there? There were 17, nine. Nine were approved. And seven were not approved. Did I have that right? 17 were applied. Yeah, 17 applied. Nine were rejected. Nine were rejected, right? And they were unsuccessful. Seven appealed. Yeah. So two of the rejections were approved by the? No, so 10 were approved. Out of the seven that were not approved. Oh, 10 and seven, okay. Yeah. And none of the people at the field were accepted. Correct. And the total impact on the salary scale is about, what's that, $4,000? Probably $5,000 overall. Somebody has a mute problem I think here. It could be my computer fan. Ah, your computer. Well, we can't mute you, Makaya, because you're talking. Unfortunately, sorry, I'll try to move my fan. That's okay. I'll just hold it for a second. Any questions? Yes, much closer. And now, first George. Thank you, Makaya, for a very clear explanation of all these things. I was just looking, the first six positions in section one, reclassifying following positions, seem to have a corresponding deletion in section three. And the last four, G through J, don't seem to have a deletion. And I'm just wondering how this all works. If we've reclassified a position from one grade to another, is there a rule for deleting the former grade? Yeah, that is a very good question. Do you mean deleting the position, not the grade? Yes. In, yeah, so I left off a couple of positions like some in one, or sorry, in two J, for instance, the mental health clinician. That was added because there was no funding for the fee, you know, they were being funded by the fees. And, you know, just reviewing it, they had to add it to the pay plan because they're not contractors. So, the numbers don't always, the letters don't always correspond, but there is, there is reasoning. So, and then there's another instance where a position was deleted because they lost their funding. So, yeah, so as best as possible, they correspond, but I don't know if I answered that question at all. And then another instance in 2M, I didn't mention that, but they were able to coach another public public health nurse from a different community. So now we have two public health nurses, one that is going to now manage another nurse. And anytime the town host, like a clinic, we're working under, you know, the license of that public health nurse. So we feel really lucky to have two public health nurses, but that doesn't necessarily correspond with a reclassified position. That's fine. Thanks. Okay. Allen Jones. Thank you. This isn't a vote on a budget. It's money appropriated through a warrant article. And of course, we just, you know, we need a number to appropriate for that. And I noticed in the budget book, it's the numbers 11,891. And I think adding these numbers up, it's 14,660. So I just wanted to, you know, clarify what the number was. So we're recommending appropriation. Yes. I noted that too. Where did you get the 11,891? That's from page 196 of the budget book. Okay. You know, and to be fair, the budget book very often doesn't match the reclassification just because of the timing. But I just wanted to be clear when we vote, you know, what number we're voting for that warrant article. Thank you. Grant Damian. Yes. Thank you, Charlie. This may not necessarily a reclass question, but regarding to the difficulty in hiring, do we have any requirements that any of these employees need to reside in Arlington? Oh, that's a good question. Does anybody else know? All right. Thank you. Makaya, do you have the total number, Makaya? So I think, since we don't have a warrant article number, let's just say that would you make a motion that the paying classification plan be adjusted in a future warrant article by $14,660? That moved. Second. Okay. So it's been moved and seconded based on the presentation by Makaya on the paying classification plan, that the plan be increased by $14,660 under a warrant article to be designated in the near future. And any further discussions on this? Charlie? Yes, Alan. I always ask that question or somebody always asks that question about the number of applicants, the number approved, the number rejected and appealed. And it's nice to know that our long-term human resource director hasn't turned into an old softee and that the Board of Appeals backs her. Yeah, she's as hard as nails. We know that. Okay. Thank you, Alan. So it's been moved and seconded for $14,660. And there's no further questions. We'll vote, roll call vote. Okay. Grant Ibn? Yes. Shane Blundell? Yes. John Ellis? Yes. Makaya Healy? Yes. Arif Padaria? Yes. Sophie Migliazzo? Sophie, I think you're on mute. Yes or no? Are you? Yes. Okay. Jonathan Wallach? Yes. Shailene is not here. Daryl Harmer? Yes. Annie is not here. Alan Jones? Yes. George Coster? George Coster? Yes. George Coster? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Bill Keller? Yes. Wanda Nascimento? Yes. Christine Deschler? Yeah. Deaton Carmen? Yes. And David McKenna? Yes. So the vote is unanimous on the paying classification plan. Thank you very much. Charlie, I think any other budgets that people want to bring tonight? Yeah. I think Al Tosti and I could do the assessor budget. Thank you. Yes. I think I've apparently skipped over that before. Go right ahead, Bill. Okay. Al, are you there? Before you start, Charlie, I think you skipped me, but it's a yes. Okay. Apologize for that. No problem. I'm sorry if I jumped in too soon. Nope. Go ahead, Bill. Okay. So yesterday, Al Tosti and myself met with Dana Mann. Dana Mann is the interim director of assessments, previous director of assessments, Paul Tierney, that had that position for I think at least six or seven years. We left to go someplace else at the end of December. And president at our meeting were both Sandy Puer and Julie Wayman, our two deputy town managers. So before I jump into the budget page, I think there was one or two questions that came up from members of the committee. And I wanted to see if I can address them. One of the questions was, is the equipment on the town's utility slash telephone poles, like cable TV, internet, being captured for taxation by our assessors? And it's a little bit of a complicated answer in that Sandy said that 90% of the value evaluation of these services that are attached to our poles in our town are being captured by Patriot and also are being evaluated by the Commonwealth. They have their own system. Commonwealth figures out how much goes to the town and then the town of Arlington applies a tax rate for these. The problem is, as I understood it, is that this is all in litigation. So while we might have a value for the services or for the value of this equipment that's on our poles, we're not actually collecting any money at the current time. The other question that came up is, do we have funds set aside for the assessor's inspection of properties? And for this, I asked directly and got a response because sometimes this confusion, I know this confusion on my part, I still confess, I don't fully grasp all the times when we use things like assessment and valuation and abatements. But I want to say that the next, the town inspections are done every 10 years. We had the last townwide inspection program in 2018. So we'll have the next one done again roughly 2028. It's these townwide inspections of properties that are costly and cost around $300,000. The last one done had a remainder of cash left over of $29,965. So there's no appropriation. There's nothing we have to really decide as a committee in terms of funds to be used for an inspection at this time. So if there are further questions, I'll now be happy or I'll be happy to answer it. Yeah, there's a balance of about $28,000, $30,000 from the last appropriation. And these appropriations are taken from overlay surplus. So they don't directly impact the budget. All right. But the question did come up, I guess, from the floor. So that sounds... Yeah, but Al, I think occasionally they're in a warrant article, and it's a warrant article that can carry the money forward. That's right. Okay. So any questions on the assessors? Well, let's take the personnel first. Any questions on the personnel sign? No questions. Okay. Okay. Any questions for Bill or Al on the expenses? I'll actually was going to go down the assessor salaries. I'll go right ahead. In case any questions came up. But could you go back to the first page, please? Okay. Thanks. So salaries and wages, first of all, there was just a small typo. If you look at the 2023 budget, it says $287,118,000. The salary details is actually correct at $288,118,000. So they're going to correct that typographical error. It doesn't substantially change that line item. So in fact, there's a drop of 7.12%. And that is largely due to the fact that the previous Director of Assessments has left. And a new one is being interviewed as we speak. So they'll come in at a lower level and they'll be a savings at least for that for that line of $22,000 to off dollars. Over time, what is it? What is the new salary number for $5,100 for 2023? $97,892 is the salary for the next Director of Assessment. I'm saying the total salary number on $5,100. What is that number? $288,118. So as a typographical error, it should say $288,287,118. Before we go forward, though, let me ask, is the sum on the bottom $291,393, correct? Yes. Al Jones, do you have your magic calculator there? I think the $287,118 is correct because that includes $1,000 of longevity, which is down on another line above. Okay. The longevity is broken out above, but it's included in the $288,118. Right. The number that carries over from the salary detail to the summary sheet is the number under new pay, not the number under total. Okay. That's the $287,118. My mistake. Thank you, guys. So the $287,118 is correct. And the $288 down below is correct also because there, it's including the other items for longevity and so forth. Actually, the new pay column includes base step, but not longevity. Okay. Yeah, it's confusing. Base and step. Thanks. In terms of overtime, it's $1,000 and basically it's used for emergencies all the way. And there's no actual yet for year-to-date, but if emergencies or if the assessors have to spend extra time over and above their daily routine. Longevity, again, it's a decrease there and that was reflective of the prior director of assessments salary and longevity. Statements are used for cleaning in uniform. Wine 51-61 is an auto allowance and that was actually down below in in-state travel wine 5209 and was pulled out and given a new wine item for the first time this year of $1,000. Dropping down to expenses. The computer maintenance $20,500. This is the same as last year and roughly the same as the year before. The Patriot software is one of two software companies that works with assessors across the Commonwealth and roughly half or just over half of the towns utilize the Patriot software contract. And what this really is is the real estate values are market-driven using this computer system. In-state travel, meetings and conferences with other towns and Massachusetts assessor associations, office supplies, basically it's just a safe number to put out there for office supplies. Otherwise, unclassified. This includes the Acrobat Pro licensing fees for the assessors and I guess that's it. So are there any questions? I have one issue that I just wanted to raise. John Ellis has his hand up. John, I'll go ahead. I'll hold my question until you're done. Okay. I just wanted to make a comment that the assessors $4,900. I don't see any reason why they should make more money than the Selecman or the school committee. The number of meetings and the length of the meetings are I think far less than they go through. What happened years ago, probably 20 years ago, 25 years ago, the assessors made a motion to increase their salary to $5,000 and it just wasn't discussed. It just went through. And it got knocked down to $4,900 at the suggestion of the finance committee because if you're elected and you make $5,000, you're eligible for the pension. You get health insurance. It really is very costly. And so the assessors agreed to go down to $4,900 so they're not eligible for pension or health insurance. I don't know. You've got two new assessors coming on board this year. I don't know if the finance committee wants to pick a fight about it. I'm just sort of raising the issue that it seems a higher amount of money when you compare it to the Selecman and the coming salary of the school committee. I suppose the assessors would say that they have to go through a lot more training while the Selecman and school committee are just general policymakers. I don't know if that's true or not. The office is run by the general assessor under the control of the town manager. So I don't think they really have much to do with that process anymore. I just throw out the observation. I don't know if anybody wants to, like I said, pick a fight about it for a couple thousand bucks. But it was just an observation on my part. Now my house could probably be revamped by fire. But John Ellis. Thanks. So Bill, could you clarify the, you said that the telephone pulls the equipment on that was tracked by the state and also Patriot, but it's tied up in litigation. Litigation between who and who and what's the deal and how much money is it taken? And then I have one more question after that. Yeah. Well, I don't have a lot of informational litigation. Sandy Puer, as I said, sat in on this meeting. So when this question was asked, I'm happy he was there because he said that our Patriot system is by his nature capturing the value of this equipment that is owned, saved by Verizon or Comcast. And the Commonwealth also knows that this is an issue statewide. And they convey back to the town what they figure is our valuation for what we have on telephone polls and utility polls in our town. But then we have to apply the tax rate and we have to collect it. So I think the litigation is between the town or the Commonwealth and these companies that have their commercial equipment on our polls. I'm just going to throw out the term, the names for rise or Comcast or what have you. So I don't really know too much beyond that. And I'd be happy to inquire further if you'd like me to. I'd just be curious how much money it is. Is the town going to get $500,000 a year or $5,000 a year when this is resolved? I don't know the answer to that. I'll be curious. And then the follow-up question is related to gas lines. My street has been torn up. Feeny Brothers is a contractor for grid. Pleasant Street has just been torn up. I imagine these projects are in the order of millions of dollars. I assume the gas lines are probably fully depreciated since they went in 1900. Are gas lines and utilities underground a taxable asset that the town can get revenue on? And since we're getting all these new gas lines and there's all these changes, what's the impact of that? What kind of income will the town see on that? Was my follow-up question. I don't know if you know that bill or someone else. I don't know that, but I did make a note to see if the new gas lines that are placed underground, if the town can draw revenue from these. And I'll go back to our assessor tomorrow and ask that question. Thanks. I'm going to get an answer for you. Thank you. Before you go, I think I didn't have a question. I just wanted to get over to Dave because I think he wanted to talk. Dave? Yes, if I could. I just to go back to Alan's point on the assessors and the stipend. Okay. That goes back many, many years ago when the assessors, the three elected positions, which is still elected, that goes back when they themselves used to go sex the section of the town into evaluations and they put in that because they were putting so much time individually, that's why they raised the issue at town meeting. So if one would want to change that, they'd have to file a warrant article to reduce that stipend. I don't know if anybody would want to do that, but that's because they were elected officials. The job over the years certainly changed a lot of it's now done by computer and consultants, but the stipend came years ago when the assessors themselves would go view property after property. That's just a little historical where that all came from. That sounds right. So if you would like to make a motion to go after that stipend, no, this is the time to do it. Yeah. I'm just not sure. Is your house on the public list? Yeah. I just voiced a concern. I'm not sure it's worthwhile, you know, the assessing their primary role now is to evaluate appeals on assessments and grant exemptions. I mean, I think that's what their main job is now. I suppose it would be interesting to see how much elected assessors get in other towns. That would be a good project for the operations research group. Isn't there an altosty role about when someone makes a suggestion? Yeah, that's what I just did. Yeah, you did go. There you go. Okay. Second. We're very careful of the issues you raised on this committee. Let's go back to the budget at hand. So, Bill Keller, you have a budget in front of us here. What is your recommendation? My recommendation is that we move to accept the budget as predicted of $323,641. And do I have a motion? Is there a second? Second. So, it's been moved and seconded for $323,641. Is there any further discussion? Oh, yes. George Cozer, sorry. I did a quick look on the state website and the current valuation of Verizon and other equipment in Arlington is $18,872,300. About $12.5 million of it is Verizon, $5 million is RCN, and then there's little cats and dogs. So, that's the ballpark number is almost $19 million. Having worked for one of these companies for a long time, they're in litigation with states constantly, but eventually municipalities do get their money. So, it's not relevant to whether we vote this up or down, but trying to answer the question of, is this $500 or $5,000? It's almost $19 million worth of property. Thank you. I'd want to be a lawyer, I guess. John Ellis, does that answer your question? So, I was aware that the largest taxable business property in the town are those poles, and that's where most of the non-property tax money comes from. So, I was just, but I'm a little surprised. I don't think it's all held up in litigation. I mean, that's several hundred thousand dollars a year, I think. So, I guess I just, I don't know, it does not answer my question. I'm still wondering, because we are collecting, I believe we're collecting money, but maybe there's some discrepancy over how much. You want to know how much is being collected and how much is being withheld because of the litigation? What are we arguing over? Yeah, I'm sorry to say I made some notes and I'll make further notes to go back and get more information about how much of this equipment is being captured, how much is being taxed, and how much we're actually, the town is recovering, and how much might still be in litigation. Does that sound okay? Yes, thanks. That's good. Okay. Any other questions on this budget? Okay. So, it's been moved and seconded for $323,641. There's no further discussion in front of us. So, we'll move to a vote on the assessment budget. Grant Gibbian? Yes. Shane Blondell? Yes. John Ellis? Yes. Kaia Healey? Yes. Arif Padaria? Yes. Sophie Migliazzo? Yes. Jonathan Wallach? Yes. Daryl Harmer? Yes. Alan Jones? Yes. George Koser? Yes. Bill Keller? Yes. Al Tosti? Yes. Juan de Nascimento? Yes. Christine Deschler? Yes. Dean Karman? Yes. And David McKenna? Yes. Thank you. That is the unanimous vote for the assessment budget by all the members present this evening. So, we are eight minutes from the magic hour here. Are there any further budgets that people would want to bring forward? Seeing none, a motion to adjourn is in order. Don't move. Okay, it's been moved in a second and I can see everybody's hands up. So, the meeting is adjourned. Nice to see you, Arif. Have a good day. Have a good day, guys. Take care, Arif. Good night, everybody. Thank you, Arif. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.