 I'm just letting folks know John has a work related event, so he's not going to be here tonight. So, is there any public comment on items not on the agenda? Hearing none. Additions or changes to the agenda? Do you want to have anything? Alright, let's get started. Usually Alfred comes, but I don't see any spirit. Let's do the road cleaning thing first, and then maybe Alfred will show up and be here for the discussion on which part it leads. So, this is perennial fields, many fields. I'm actually going to repeat myself. What? I'm going to go in there, do the orders come in? After you repeat yourself. Oh, okay. Anyways, so perennial fields is getting ready to get up and going, and they need to have us approve their road name, and they would like to have it called perennial fields or perennial field? Field, one field. One field. Perennial field lane, and it has to have PVT for private. So, I want to make sure I got the spelling right. P-E-R-E-N-N-I-A-L. P-E-R-E-N-N. Tender on the keyboard. Yeah, I know. P-E-R. Two Ns. Two Ns, yes. Okay. So usually what we do, we've had several of these from the last year. I think you're either number three or number four. And the sign has to be E-911 standards for emergency services and so forth. So the town buys the sign and installs it. And just so you know, we're also working on a policy now so that going forward, you know, we probably will have the same consistent protocol where we do the purchasing and the installation. But we're looking at probably having it so that if it's more than so much long, the owners have to pay this additional amount. And then if it gets stolen, that you would replace it. Because we have one particular sign in town that gets stolen all the time. And if we leave it spelled wrong, nobody steals it. But then we get complaints that it's spelled wrong. So anyways, would anybody like to make a motion to approve the signage? Second. Any, anything you want to add, Mike? No, I just, you know, want to make sure you had mentioned the length of it might impact. Is it, it actually has to be long? Oh, it's going to be. It's going to be really long. That big at least. So that sign would require two posts because of the length of the perennial field. So it would require two posts. And I don't, well, we don't have a policy yet about the extra cost would be so we don't have it up. But they haven't set the policy about what a standard cut number of letters is before there's any additional. Right. And that would only occur for you if it got stolen. This time around there'd be no charge whatsoever. So if it was shorter, if it was just perennial lane. This has been ad nauseam, you can imagine. That's 11 people. Have fun with that. Then it would only be one post versus two. Again, it's about how long it actually is depending on that size. I could find out for you whether it's personal or public. Well, to me, I think I would like if it's okay. You have another meeting coming up. This is not dire that we have to get this done right now. Oh, okay. I thought you said you wanted to. Oh, I did. Because just so I could check something off. What a really long list. The list that I have to do. But to me, it just seems very imposing to have two, you know, it's like, it's just a little, six houses are down there. It's going to look like a super high, you know, it's already going to be a big change. And I just wonder if the group really understands the implications of that name being so long that there'd be two posts versus maybe one. So I would request actually that I go back to the group and explain that to them. Okay. And maybe take a look at a couple of sites that have two posts so you can see what the impact of it is. Yeah. You have a, where would you find that's the sign that keeps giving stolen. Oh, I see. Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to steal ours. But anyway, I just want to name. But so if you could double check Toby, though, to make sure that if we went down to Perennial Lane, because that was, I think, the second name. That would be helpful. And then we have to have the PVT on it, right? So if you could clarify, that would be fabulous. Okay. Sorry to take your time, but I think it's worth revisiting. All right. So I guess we're going to table the motion. Okay. Next meeting, we'll be ready by the next meeting, which would be. The 24th. Okay. Sorry to take your time, but it's helpful. And I just feel it's worth. I don't know. Do you want to withdraw the motion? It may be easier than just dealing with it. No, no, no. I'll check it. If they felt it's here, you might know the actual number. Okay. Great. Good. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to be doing something the whole way, but I'll try to be quiet just with some of our other stuff. And then try to do it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're welcome to stay. I know, I know. It's really warm and cozy in here, but I think I'm going to go home. Okay. Thank you. I understand. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about lease. Talk lease options. Thank you for doing this. So I was confused because it says here 2012. Well, that was the truck that we were replacing. So that's why it's. Oh, okay. I think the truck is going away. So probably the first thing you ought to talk about is what you want to buy for warranty because there's, I give you a list of options. Right. And we sort of have to tie that down before you actually get a real quote on what the value of a lease purchase is. Is the warranty. So if you look at this warranty page. Okay. And then I sent you the copies of what those things included. Each one of the levels has a different inclusion of what it does. So the, the EW is for engine warranty and engine warranty for is the top most comprehensive. And that's a seven year warranty. This is the 4315. Correct. That's probably what we recommend on the engine. So we've never in the past had a truck coverage warranty. So there's another whole level of things on the truck, not just the engine, but on the truck. And we've never had that in the past. Why, why not? Well, because it just wasn't offered and it wasn't around and it wasn't a seven year. So it's hard to know whether we should go full bore on the truck coverage or not. I mean, essentially, if you look at truck coverage four, it includes the steering, the exhaust system, the emissions, supplemental devices, the cabin hood, instruments, and gauges, transfer case mounts. So we've never had a problem with any of those items. So if we want to save a little bit of money in warranty, maybe we go to TC three. So that has breaking, wiring in the fuel system. Again, we have had occasional break issues, but they're not super expensive. And, you know, brake pads and stuff like that is probably not warranty. So again, that may be something that we don't need to purchase this time around. How often do we have to do any of these under TC three? For instance, brakes, fuel systems. So we do suspension work, you know, shocks and springs on both the front and rear. Is that something we do ourselves? Sometimes we do, but if it's under warranty, we wouldn't have it. Right, right. It would be paid for. Cooling is really important. That's sort of a big thing. You know, when the radiator has issues, that's, you know, that's an important thing to make sure that we have the cooling piece. Is that also affects the engine performance and the engine reliability? So you might get away with TC two and not have to worry about breaking and wiring and fuel. We've never had a fuel issue that I don't wear out in the 10 years that I've been on the board and supervising the road crew. So I would say EW four is a good selection. TC two is a good selection unless you want, I mean, that's your decision if you want to up it a little bit. Axles, we've really never had any issues with axles for $240. That's really nothing. Transmissions, we've never had an issue with a transmission. And so the towing, that's probably, if the truck breaks down and we have to tow it to get warranty work, that's probably worth putting in as of every night. So essentially it'd be $43.15, $26.20, and $800. And that would then give you your total chassis price, body price, and the warranty pieces. And that would give you roughly a total of $192.560 for the actual lease purchase figure. So $43.15, for instance, that's for the full seven years. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, so if you break that down into a year, it's not that bad. Right. And what did you say the price was $192.560? So the total cab chassis, body, plow, and warranty would be $192.560. So that's the number that you would then want to get a quote on. That's just EW four and TC two. Correct. And tow it. And tow it. And tow it. Right. That's probably a smart recommendation. OK. Alfred stated a preference. We've talked about these. Yeah, I think he was just saying we should do TC four. We can change that number. That's up to you guys. I haven't had that discussion specifically with him. I think TC two makes sense. Well, you want to get the cooling at the very least. And the other issues are things that you might not ever get your money back on it as far as warranty issues go. But if you want to ask one more step to Alfred before we commit to that. And we had asked a question before, but maybe you could verify it one more time. This is a transferable warranty. So if we sell it five years down the road. I'll find that out. I don't know that fact. Yeah, that would be helpful to know. But that was one of the questions we had. We had an impression that it is. So it would be good to go down for sure. Right. So. Yeah, I think if you buy it, it goes with a truck. But I'd have to clarify. I'd have to get that confirmed. Thank you. So are we keeping trucks for five years or seven years? The goal has been seven years. And we've actually been at eight or nine on some trucks. We've been beyond the seven-year target. The trucks actually last well through the seventh year. And in the eighth year, they fall apart. And that's really, you know, sort of the. Yeah. And, you know, the only difference, if you shorten it up to five, you have maybe a higher trade-in value, but it's hard to know on a truck that's been used that hard, whether those extra two years devalue enough to make it worth making the swap. The other thing, and again, I didn't have anything to do with this, but right now we have two trucks that are only two years apart. And what you want to try and do is stage them so that you're buying one every three or four years so that you're not having to carry forward. I mean, that's part of what the capital plan is. Right. So I think, you know, our experience in Elfie would confirm it is that seven years is a good target to keep the trucks. You know, they're not trouble, they're trouble-free for the most part for the seven years. Except the one we have that's at 11. Well, it's, yeah, but it only had a five-year warranty when we got after we bought it, and it expired 30 days before it blew up. So that was just, it should have been painted yellow from the beginning. That's seven year numbers, actually. Good one. We looked at that, and that seemed to be about the magic retirement. Seven. Yeah. Beyond that, your value, I mean, it was, like Toby said, that return, you know, what you actually get on trade and promise fairly quickly. And that also was where your repair curve really started catching up with me. But if we were to do it in five years, we would save money overall. And it would only be like $12,000 difference in the budget per year. Well, there's a difference between the lease and the replace. Yeah. So you can lease for five years and replace it in seven. And then for two years, it costs you nothing. And that's part of the capital plan is to have a nothing payment for three or four vehicles so that you're not paying for all five or six vehicles at the same time. And that's part of what, by looking at the capital plan, you try to understand so what's the what's the debt cost every year total for all of the things that are still, you know, in the fifth year and the seventh year or the first year and the eighth year and how they stack up. And that's really what you want to look at is, you know, is seven years a good mix over time to keep that number pretty level for the budget or is five years better because of when you, when you change the... I don't think so. It's annoying. It is. So essentially I punched in, and again, the lease value is not an actual number based on what we've gotten from a vendor. But there's an online calculator from one of the, from one of the lease vendors. And they say, you know, calculate this in different prices. And actually the one in Vermont was the lowest value cost. So, you know, they're all pretty much the same. It's a lease purchase agreement. So you want to... This was this municipal leasing. Yeah. And I don't know where they, they came out of the blue. They came to us. I don't know who told them that we were looking at the truck, but I got that off. That came out of the blue. I didn't solicit that. I solicited the community leasing in the, in the based on. Okay. So do you want to, what do you want to do folks? You want to decide or do you want more information about that? So let me just sort of, so the two, the two charts I gave you, the five-year lease on this. Yeah. And the seven-year lease. So if, again, what you're looking at is the bottom line that says total, essentially across the bottom, and that's the total of your indebtedness each year. So right now we're at 97,000. If you do a five-year lease next year, it'd be 142,000. So that's a $40,000 increase. But just remember, we are selling the old truck for about that amount. So that actually would cover that one bump in the five-year. That much out of it. Right. And then if you look at the following years, you know, you're down to 124, 83, 109, 120, 111, 111. So it's pretty consistently in the 100,000 plus or minus going forward for the entire seven years. If you go to the seven-year lease, what you see is you start at 97, you're only up to 130 in the second year. You have a couple of low years, but then in year seven and six and seven or seven and eight, you're up to 140 again because you've got multiple trucks that you're paying for in one year. So the five-year lease actually would be a better capital plan procedure because you wouldn't have them all stacked up in those last two years. Right. And again, so if you do a five-year lease, there'll be less interest too. I don't know, the interest difference was about $8,000. If we do a five-year lease in the truck last year. Versus the seven. And the truck lasts for seven. Right. The truck is always going to last for seven. So the point is to keep the truck for seven years. Right. Just however you want to pay for it, what we're trying to do is balance that into the capital plan so that you're not having those ups and downs. Right. And then plenty of four or five trucks all being paid for in one year or four or five pieces of equipment. Right. So that's the goal to then only go with a five-year lease but keep the truck for seven years. So let me ask you this then. When we get into budget season, are you going to be asking for any equipment that's going to jack up these figures? Not that I'm aware of. We don't need to know, we don't need any freighters or... Nope. They're not quite in the plan yet. We're trying to extend the life of them because they just keep going. Energizer buddies. Yep. As long as we're not replacing motors they still do the work. So we'd still be on track basically with what we're doing here. So the rest of the plan is pretty much, yeah, unless something has a big failure. Maybe it melts down. I mean, I just think it makes sense to do it for five and then we keep it for seven. Right. And that way, it just makes sense to me with interest rate savings and that kind of thing. Well, again, it level funds that budget line for five years or almost seven years. Right. It stays at 100,000. That debt payment out of the highway budget would stay pretty consistent. Consistent, right. And that's what we're looking for. Well, again, these are just estimates. I mean, these are ballpark figures. They're not interest. Who knows if it's debt on or whatever. Right. Because every loan has a different interest rate. So it's all pretty much... It's a big picture. Look at the numbers. It's not the exact number. If you put the exact numbers in, there may be a shift up and down. Yeah. But not significant. So for this select board, do you have any more questions? The lemon truck, is that the one listed on the top line? Yeah. 2012. 2012. 10. So that still shows payments going out. No, those payments are the ones that we would get from replacing the replacement truck. Okay. Yeah. And you estimate you're going to get about 35,000? Well, Alfie's been talking to somebody that has mentioned that they would get up to 45,000 worth. Whether or not, that comes to fruition. But it's running okay right now? Yeah. It's on the road. Today? Today. Yeah. Squeeze some lemons when you get home. Got it. Scott had a question? Yeah. How many file, gravel trucks do we own? Well, we own... Can I have a snoopin'? We own four large trucks in one town. Large trucks in one town. And how many drivers do we have? Not County Alfie. Right. We have four. Well, three in County Alfie, but Alfie plows in one town. Yeah. So you said we had four? Right. We've always had a spare. Yeah. We've always had a spare. Which one's the spare on here? The 2009. How much money have we saved this year if we sold the spare and took it out of the notation? Well, the problem is that every time a truck goes down in the middle of a snowstorm, now you only have three trucks to plow four routes. Yeah. And that becomes an issue. So the spare truck actually is a great asset. And I think it was Junior Singleton that decided to keep the truck one year instead of trading it in. And we've always had a spare since then. So it's been a historic advantage for the town to have that extra truck. And it's totally paid off. And essentially, it's there to be used if we need an extra truck. Which we have recently because of the one truck that the engine blew up. Right. And it's, that 2009 has been getting a lot of work right now. And there's a lot of work we would not have accomplished. We would have had to rent a truck in order to replace it if we didn't have a spare truck. So it's essentially paid for minor maintenance on it unless something goes wrong. You know, you just keep, just again keeps going. And the big truck went down in March. Excuse me. It went down in March, right? The big truck. I mean, any truck in our stable as you well know totally cost us one-seventh of the cost of the new truck every year, right? We're depreciating. Are we not depreciating anything? Well, we may not land the drive at the new base. Well, that particular truck is, well, and one of the reasons that it's a gem is because it doesn't have the emissions controls on it that are problem with all the new trucks. Right. But owning five trucks means we're going to be replacing five trucks. So we need to set aside every year budget, money for that replacement, which is coming in seven years. And for a $200,000 truck, how much is that? That's a lot of money. And that's what it's cost. That's what that truck is costing us every year. Well, it's not what we can get by selling it. Again, the spare truck essentially is a truck that we don't trade in. So eventually one of the other trucks will become the spare and we'll sell that spare because it's that old. And so they'll just... Come on, Toby. It's a real truck. We're going to replace it. We have to consider the annual cost of that truck. And that's one, seven of its replacement value. Are you talking about the spare truck start? Any truck. But don't call it the spare truck. It's the excess truck. It's the truck that... Truck number five. Yeah, it's the fifth truck crew of three. Crew of four. What do you call it? Alfie never drives those trucks. He only drives at one time. Well, he does. He drives them to the beer shop. Yeah. But he never gets in them to plow or deliver gravel. Toby's position that is also... There's a different side to that. And that is, you know, you take a truck down like that and you kind of take a crew down. I mean, how much labor gets... You have a truck down in the summer. It doesn't slow your workload, your productivity down too. So, I mean, it is a double-edged sword. It's not that uncommon. I mean, I don't know what our... What's not... I mean, to have something like that if you can maintain a cheap way mouth, which because that... You've got the equipment when you need it. They go down and it's not there to use so that generally impacts your workload. I don't know what the frequency is that we have with trucks, you know, out of service. I think that's the way you kind of look at it and say, when is it costing us, not just on the mechanics, but on the labor? Well, and the other thing that's really sort of most important is in the middle of a snowstorm when a truck goes down. Now you only have... In your scenario, if we only owned four trucks, we'd have three trucks to do four routes. And it would double the time that it took to clear the roads for the public. That's why we do such good labor. Well, but no matter what, we do great maintenance, but things happen. I mean, when was the last time you couldn't drive your car around 10? Well, Mike, I don't pay as much for my car as we pay for that. And this whole concept of this is a cheap, spare truck is just bogus. This truck will be replaced at the same cost as a brand new truck. And we're committed to that. You see that? I mean, if we've got this truck and it gets to the certain age, then we're going to buy a brand new truck to replace it. We'll push one, an older truck to the back of the queue and call that the cheap spare. There is no such thing as a cheap, 10-wheel, $200,000 milk truck. There is just... It's just a bad concept. Is that worth it to us? I don't think so. You can rent trucks. You can borrow them from other towns. Well, that's what happens with our spare as other towns have borrowed it. Does the warranty give us any... Like, if the truck breaks down, does the warranty include that they will provide us a truck to use while the other one's being fixed? No such thing. There is no warranty with that. There's no... We'll give you a car to drive while we're... You know, a plow truck is a very specific piece of equipment. It's designed for each town. They choose their plow and their transmission and everything else. So it's very specific to the operators. A plow truck is very hard on trucks. Even though it's very hard on them, right? Is everything about it? So that's why they tend to be more prone to problems, too. Yeah. Thank you for listening. I'm going to take out some more of this. Yeah. What I was hearing from Tobi, though, is that before we had this... I'm going to keep calling the spare truck so we can... So we all know what it is. Which truck we're talking about. But before we had that, we would have sold that truck right away as soon as we finished... We would have traded it. For the newer truck. Right. And now we have one that isn't necessarily directly part of that cycle. Because we've got one that we're using as a spare and one that we've paid for and we're not trading. Right. So the spare, quote-unquote, spare truck is a 2009. So it's well beyond its seven-year life. Right. So it's hanging in there, hanging on with its little knuckles and staying in place when we need it. But it's not getting used every day other than the fact that if there's a truck down but we can't be doing a project, then we jump in the other truck. So it gets limited use. It's not being fully... To Scott's point, to frame it would be just looking at that truck in isolation, that spare truck, whichever one it is in the life of spare trucks, versus the cost of maintaining that truck and ensuring it whatever else we're doing for it, versus renting a truck when we need it. That's really the math. So the issue is we cannot rent a plow truck in the wintertime. There's no such thing. So it is a life saver for the road crew in the middle of winter when a truck goes down. For whatever reason it might go down. In the summertime for hauling gravel, we can hire trucks to come in and haul gravel. So it's not as essential in the summertime. It's total winter it's an insurance policy for winter. And we have more plowed roads in this town than any other town in the state of Vermont. And this winter, the truck that we're looking to lease isn't even going to be available until January. So we will be using that spare truck only if there's a breakdown. More town? We have 73 miles of road in the dark town. That's one of the most back roads of any town in the state of Vermont. That's what we're saying, a town plows more. Right, get about the state. No, it's all out of town. I think Woodbury has 18 miles. Is the truck that's currently broken down the lemon or the 2012 whatever we're calling it, back in service now? But it's been back one hour. Right, it just doesn't So do we get it off the road the better? Well, and also we're concerned that if we keep using it and it breaks down again we're not going to be able to get much out of it in trade or sale. No, we're using judicious use of it. So is it a grounding issue with that new engine DCN and there was a lot of darts they were throwing at it to settle it down? You mean the 2012? So international when the emissions started to really be an issue nationwide tried to program emissions through sensors and heat recirculation in the regeneration in the exhaust system. Everybody else went to the DEF fluid and they didn't and those motors for a span of about three or four years were just crap. They didn't solve it and they had these continuous problems over and over and over again. The cooling fan doesn't come on what it needs to, it's just a whole bunch of issues. Unfortunately that was a truck we bought that was available then and it was just a bad truck. But every other 2012 we had exact same problems. So I'm not sure they've ever solved them in any of their trucks. Doesn't sound like it from what Alfred's told us over the last several meetings. It's just been a real problem. So board members what's your pleasure do you want to think about it or what do you want to do? Well I think you had an important question just to make sure that when if we sold it at five years there's still two years left on the warranty. Other than that I mean I think it's a good idea to go with the five year lease and those warranties. The ones that we talked about. EW-4, TC-2 and the towing. So that gives you the number. I've actually talked with Sandra about contacting those vendors because she's going to have to give them all the information anyway so she can get the quotes for Are you okay with that? For the leasing the five year leasing we talked about that. I thought you were going to do that initially. Well I did do the seven and I talked with her and she said she would be because she's going to have to give them all the financial information once you get the quotes back. So if you want I can get the numbers. I mean it's very simple to get the quotations. She's just bogged down with taxes and audits and all that so if you could do that that would be helpful. And then like you did with the seven I'd be interested in your evaluation once we get the proposals. Define five versus seven as far as the interest in it. I think Toby makes a good point looking at how the five year lease affects the capital plan and the expenditures and I'm going to take it right now. And you know you want to look at the savings, the interest savings which I don't think is a lot between the two. Well just the estimates I looked at there's almost an 8,000 dollar difference between the two. Seven versus five. And I know it's a lot but spread out over seven years for five years but I think the big the question that bears the greatest scrutiny is how does it affect the financial plan over five years I think he's got that. Yeah I think it actually looks like it makes it more stable. Over five years or seven. So I will reach out to the vendors and give them the new number and ask for a five year quotation and I'll get that all to you guys and you guys can go from there. I'm going to have to choose whoever your vendor is and she'll have to have conversations with them about the information. And you're going to find out about the transferable warrant here. Do we have a definite answer? I don't have an answer. All right. Perfect. That'd be great. Thank you Toby. Is that it? Thank you. Oh I have a question. Do we have a warranty separate? Is that a separate vendor than the truck vendor? No it's through, they sell it through the vendor and we can purchase it up to like 30 days after the original purchase so it's but it does go through Java voice. All right and then that's how that's going to get coped into the lease payment. Right. I think we should just do rapid all up into one. That way it's all in the place. Yeah that makes sense. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Madam Treasurer you're on. Just for clarification there was a temporary order over here to sign. For information purposes? Right. So you can check off the check numbers. Yeah. Short of getting them their separate checks that would start with a different number and be a different color. So they just come out on the same run? Yeah. There's a couple of orders that were in with the big thick pile of orders that were cemetery but they have already approved those orders separately. Yes. All right so we're going to talk about trucks again next meeting. Hopefully get it resolved. I think we're in good shape with that. We're trying to get some things crossed off our list of things to do before we start talking and getting into our reports and all that fun stuff. All right. So I see here some art stuff. FY17 is there is this enough? This is a copy for everybody here? Yes. So Denise is passing out the draft of the FY17 audit. The auditors were in on Friday but they were in for a work day not to discuss the findings of the FY17 draft letter. So those findings we would discuss with them at a later date. So this is not from the audit? That is the draft and it does not have the management recommendations for internal controls. They were the numbers. They simply did not have the time to sit with me. We worked right through until 4.30 and they were still acquiring I would say testing information in FY18 to complete the FY18 audit. They believe that the FY18 audit will be done by this week the end of this week by the end of next week I will be reaching out to them Wednesday to see if they are on track with their own deadline. So maybe in two weeks? Yes. So my thought would be that a small working committee of the select board would meet with the auditors to have a discussion and pose any questions that you might have or exactly what does that audit mean? In a nutshell, there are several pages there where are we financially what is our condition and another question I think that bears asking is what might be a good practice or practices for developing the highway fund balance? So there is some that the fund balance has been variously defined or calculated over a period of time. When I talked about that particular question with the auditors, their first question is the highway fund balance is a legal concept you have to ask your lawyer so I think the better way of asking that question is what are good practices for developing or identifying the highway fund balance with the numbers that we have and then the select board in the highway department could select amongst those practices and make that part of your accounting policy going forward so that the calculation of that is predictable and it would alleviate conversations between the treasurer's office and the left board and the highway department as to what the numbers really need. So Fred DuPlessis would come in if that FY18 is ready Fred would come in as the partner who has reviewed it all and discuss these matters with the board as I said if you wanted a more intimate conversation just to kind of prime yourselves with what your board might have in mind and rather have him come in and talk to the full board because a committee might think of some questions but then you get everybody together there's more questions and you have to go back and forth and back I think just having him come in if he's available on the 24th would be good and you were going to ask him about that availability if they have it done if they have FY17 they're almost done with that this is draft FY18 when we're having discussions I don't want to get confused which fiscal year we're talking about it is up to the board if you want to discuss each fiscal year with Fred or focus on FY18 that is the most recent fiscal year that was rolling into FY19 and it would be up to the board and Fred exactly what it is which audit you wanted to focus on or if you want to see both audits the same focus I think I'm interested on FY17 because that's when we transitioned and I want to see what the management letter has to say about that and we've made some changes since then since we're in FY18 I'm curious to see when you're doing your work with them on FY18 knowing how things were in FY17 hopefully we've made some improvements already that they might note in FY17 but say in FY18 we've worked to correct some of these deficiencies or whatever they call it material weakness that's it well and it bolsters our most of my understanding of why we switched and we all have a stronger basis of understanding what we have now we don't have to spend as much time on it but just to kind of stop and say okay here's some things we found that we don't have to talk about fixing because that fixes them and I want to make sure we devote enough time to that meeting on the 24th if we're going to do both we might not have much of anything else on the agenda other than perennial the sign and then the truck lease I will keep you posted to the information that I receive as I get it I can see this discussion taking a while for us to really understand it's a complicated document and it looks at the financial position of the town from an auditor's or through an auditor's lens which is very focused well it's a different focus than we're used to looking at numbers so I think it would be important to understand their concepts but really from a lay person standpoint what do they really mean right we have to be able to explain it in a lay person I'm sure they'll be able to do that I think so I think so based on my conversations with Fred over the years I mean this is part and parcel of their work they work for municipalities we're not there only a municipal client and I think they are used to conveying accounting concepts to select boards and terms that I understand one nice thing about our auditing process now is that we are on a cash basis and I did post the question how will that affect budgeting and the question is you know checks in checks out July 1 to June 30 that's your year there's no booking in there's no booking out what goes in and what goes out and that fiscal year is what builds is the information that informs the audit so your budgeting would not change at all you would be budgeting exactly you'd be looking at your line items and projecting just the way you always have it's the accounting process that changes but not your budgeting process especially important that we get this done because we're going to be starting to look at the next fiscal year I think it would be very important to the board to know what their general fund balance is and what the highway fund balance is because that gives you a feel for the well for the position that we're in if we're in a deficit or not do we move monies from the highway fund balance into the capital equipment fund or not how much right and the cutoff is June 30th whatever figures are there as of June 30th that's what you go with it would seem so yes so that's coming up and I look forward to that I look forward to understanding what it is very interested in getting opening balances for FY 19 right now the computer does not reflect any opening balances at all so I keep an eye on the checking account and on the checks we're in great shape no nail biting is required at this point and I think we're going to be fine so I guess for this part of the discussion you're going to let me know if they're available to come on October 24th to do both if they're not available to do both then maybe they could at least do the 17 but the goal would be to get this audit stuff wrapped up I think they've been working really diligently on this by the sounds and the amount of hours that you've put in yes Friday, Saturday just so you guys know so we're really getting after it and I think that we're going to bring this to a conclusion I would also want to schedule our audit for FY 19 right away so that we can get it done and it would be done hopefully by now next year well and I think that's kind of the schedule we're on with FY 18 so that's I think that gets us in the I think so and once they've been through our books I think it gets easier for them and I also know how to best set up the files for them to get at them expeditiously sounds good so on to your memo you said that you had a deadline for us that you worked out where so at the last deadline at point three the memo is as really it is I don't know what it might be called budget discussion there it is okay thank you so so the first item is just a review of the budget Matt can you scroll through that a little bit and I use the whoops there it is I use the highway budget as an example this is what the numeric budget looks like very similar to what you're used to other except that it has different numbers and it also groups expenses together so general highway expenses are in your first category and then if you scroll down you'll see there are road maintenance expenses gravel sand salt chloride and then again vehicle maintenance expenses in your quick books vehicle repairs were in at one number I asked that each vehicle be reflected in the budget so that so that they and the townspeople can get an idea of where we are where repair monies are being spent exactly I think that's helpful and if you would scroll a little bit more please and you're going to see the garage has its own set of line items and then we go down to insurance that pertains to the highway long term debt which we don't have any at the moment and then capital expenses similar to the repair we have the expense line item that we actually just finished talking about with Toby and Hal that would fluctuate over time so this year at point 19 was budgeted at 96,000 highway asked that that we break that out and break it down in principle and interest and actually that's just simply done for accounting purposes so you're going to see and you can see we've already made two payments in this fiscal year with 16 in the 17 yes with the principle and interest broken out and it helps in the accounting process to figure out what our debt cost actually is so when the line item says new equipment so new equipment was the line was the singular line item used previously and now it's just broken down that is what we budgeted for our payments for FY 19 so it doesn't we're not adding to that line item we're just broken it down into smaller pieces so where do you where's the bottom line of how much is left of that 96 so of the 96 we've spent 37,308 77 and what is left is 59 3423 I want to make sure I understood that so if you continue to scroll Cliff and Denise thought it might be helpful if you could kind of see how things line up so the numbers on the far left are the old quick book numbers the new numbers are the numeric numbers and the descriptions just simply flow through any description that doesn't have a quick books number beside it did not have a quick books number we simply added those so you can see the more detailed breakdown of the budget this way and then we used to see it in quick books it's a lot of information but I think it's helpful and is there a commitment to I think this is great but it means that the expenses have to be tracked right through the end so when I get highway orders and you've seen them they they code to the line items on the to the numeric line items what we didn't budget for if you flip down just one more time the one exception to this is oh no it's not an exception excuse me you can see that we've added MRGP fees we've added security we've added radios and paging and unemployment insurance those items we did not budget for but highway but we know they're coming I mean radios and paging they must have gone in somewhere but I don't know where no I think they picked up pagers they've always had pagers huh ok well because I saw pagers and stuff on the orders what is MRGP fees municipal roads general permit fee which is $2,000 a year which we hadn't previously budgeted for but now we need to correct and we just barely got the sign off that ours was approved because I signed it send it in and we got the approval so we don't have a choice we have to do it it's a state so I think that is the end of that just a comparison so you can see that while the budget will visually appear different it is lined up with budget items that we that the town has had historically I think they pagers and that stuff went under communications before it was a request that's fine they want it broken down like that as long as they're coding it in when they give you the orders and if they don't I'm assuming that you say hey what do you want this under and they fix it right that's exactly right we work very closely together to get their expenses into the right line to help them keep their fingers on the cost of their budget so if we scroll backwards a little bit are there any questions on that as I said it really has a different feel I'm getting used to it but it lines up just wish the figure yeah we all do and wait hang on which one is the spare it's not there because it's also paid for it would only be there if there was an expense for a repair then you would probably create another number to show that it's the 2009 whatever kind of truck it is I believe it's in the repair the repair category so when the new truck comes on it would be added to that there is an equipment capsule and spells oh there it is 2009 yep I think that's supposed to be flipped dump the international dump the international very funny okay that's great like I said I'm getting used to it because you know I come in every few weeks and do this and the first time I was like ow no I kind of clump up the fault process clump up is that an official term I understand those kind of terms clump maybe it's a gardening term but just to get expenses that are related together so that they can be looked at together so if we scroll back we've hit so you said number three the deadline it's January 22nd I don't want to hop over number two just a quick the memo really is designed to refresh the board's memory as to what you do during budget time and to also if you can see there are other things that you want to do this time that you haven't done in the past but you want to try that you make sure you make room for them so you might want to shortly reflect on your historic approach to budget development we've talked about that there won't be any changes because we're on a cash basis as opposed to an accrual basis you'll be reviewing the condition of the town to help inform the board as to you know the ongoing budget process um to you want to take maybe take a look at a preliminary schedule and get one going your final budget numbers will need to be developed by January 22nd so we are what we work against in staff is two things when does the warrant need to be posted and then last day for that is February 3rd and then also when is the what is the outside date to get the town report to the printer and of course that is driven by the statute that requires it to be mailed within so many days of town meeting ten days or two weeks before town meeting right and during that time we get a proof back we have to review it make changes the final proof hopefully comes back and then it goes to print so that's the I took a real good look at the schedule and at previous printer deadlines and January 22nd I think is your really your drop dead rating it's good that there's school board members here because they have to get us the information as well well the school board information comes from the district yeah I know but just the same we that means they have to work on their budgets and I'm sure I'm sure they are so you want to take a real you know good look at the frequency of the meetings that you may that you're going to schedule any additional meetings of course there's special meetings they need to be warned my brains already thinking about meetings that's right I think it would be really great for the board to feel that you have your budget well defined before we get into December the days are short holidays families are traveling there are holidays and gathering might be more gathering as a group or to have a forum might be more difficult you might want to consider you know how or the order department had presentations and what departments are going to come and who you want to see budget appropriations for various committees and programs such as you know the trail funds conservation commission swim program they may you may want to invite them to come to a meeting and make pitch that's what we usually do to see now that typically conservation commission planning commission typically that's what we do so we're on the same page your social search agency appropriations that happens with a town clerk and I think those are identified by December 15th but there may be new ones such as Kellogg Hubbard Library actually may come in they always do come in via an article we're going to need to look at projected revenues any grants or programs of interest for FY 20 and again articles requesting appropriations if the cemetery comes in again requesting an appropriation via an article you're going to want to see them so there may be other considerations that you folks want to add to that list to make sure you hit I only thought would be it would be great if you gave a tip took some time at a meeting that soon the next couple to develop your calendar if you need help with that let me know okay so what I would suggest is that I look at the way we've done it previously come up with a calendar who to invite in when you guys and that means more meetings for you Sandra too but I would anticipate that if you could share that calendar with me what I would be able to do is get out a budget a blank budget for those departments so they can scribble in or actually would probably be live spreadsheets that digitally then they could work on their budget so we could further discuss it at a staff meeting the details of that and then present it to the full board as you know does this schedule sound like it would work things I don't want to be like we've been in the last last year and even the year before at the last minute having to drive stuff to the printers and I also want to see if we can get somebody in town I got to check with Judy about the name of the person on the county road and he did he did the flyer for the town hall and do you remember his name right to see if maybe he might help us with the graphic design piece I think that's what he used to do right possibly yeah I don't remember his name but already can tell us who it is so maybe we can get some cheaper help but otherwise we're going to have to find somebody for the graphic design piece because it's got to look better than it did last well you might want to reach out to your printers and ask what cost what additional cost might be incurred if you use their graphic design department as opposed to using them simply as a printer the other thing you might think about as a board is how are you going to approach your budget you could there's all sorts of methods and approaches you might say to everyone go out with a flat budget and then pitch us why one item or the other needs to be raised well I'm going to ask them to do a what do you call that when it's not there's no increase what's that called level funding level funding on the school budget side and this is a very typical year in no idea what's happening we've already had discussions around that potentially we're forced to consolidate it's a very different scenario than how we move forward now we've talked there's been discussion about if that were to happen and that's forced we may run individual budgets for the following year but that is a wild card for us that we can't really control for the time being so I don't know what that's going to be maybe not until the end of November that we actually know what direction we're going so and if we don't have something for the town report you may have to hold you know a special school board meeting or something but I'm sure that we work closely enough together to be right in the loop on this I think we'll have something on time I need to because I think my last recollection of the conversation was that with no way we could ever put together a budget that would be for like one district and we were just going to go forward individual budgets that's been the discussion I think we'll have that in hand and then find a way to make it or go together and there's always a hope that we will have to Sharon you were going to ask going back to the level of funding I would like to hear from each of the budget owners if you will certainly certainly the understanding of any proposed increases but I would also, especially in the case of an increase, want to understand where there are efficiencies we're hiding behind that flat budget there are actually savings that we're not seeing that are offsetting some potential costs does that make sense? well I'm going to suggest level funded and pitch why you need an increase and for what? so what I'm saying is that when you start when you make the assumption that you're going to start with level funding you're not understanding where within the level funding there are efficiencies where things maybe are cost less or you have fewer people and how does that create savings that are helping us as a town there's not really much for departments conservation commission planning commission gets $800 so I don't want to make this I think I understand what you're saying and we can ask them that but I don't know that there's they get a lot of money other than highway that's huge conservation commission has the conservation fund cemetery that's up to them to sell it to the tax payers really but really there's not nobody else really gets much for an appropriation even though we don't it's like four dozen there are items that are simply bills that there are dues or the county taxes or your contracts with your emergency service providers that we don't have a lot of control over but I hear what you said you're looking for efficiencies maybe what Sandra is saying is another way of saying it understanding what's in the level funding and why are we making an assumption of level funding for expediencies you can go that you could start with a blank slate start with zero base start with a zero base and say come in with your wish list but you want to leave if that's your approach then you want to leave enough time for discussions to where we want to be there's more consensus building in that between the board and the departments so you might say let's try and keep the budget down to a 1.5% increase and I just grabbed that out of the air I can just as easily say 10.5% increase that number that's a scary number I should have said that I didn't where are the efficiencies but you might start out there are various and sundry ways of approaching it and the board is the master of that that might be most expeditious it's a difficult time to budget as you're going into the into the dark months when january 22nd that is your real deadline December could really be a bust and I just wanted to also remember when we're asking these groups all these questions and asking them to do things they're volunteers just like we are so we can't put them through the you know and I remember last year we met every week in December and January and Sandra's suggesting that we might want to start that process earlier which I'm fine with that maybe start the Monday extra meetings in maybe in the middle of October by the time we get to January maybe we don't have to do so many meetings also it also takes that sense of pressure off if we do have questions I just want to feel like this is the one time a year where we actually do kind of look under the hood not at the budget and we have to go and defend it at the time I think we have a new plan let me come up with a draft of something I'll work with Sandra on dates and different things like that and then come back so it sounds like we should look at our own calendars and consider a possibility that from the middle of October through December anyway we're blocking Mondays and if I might say the other strategy you might consider is holding your business meetings you have to have regular business meetings of course on those extra meetings that there is no other business schedule that you keep them just budget just budget and that's what we have done so so anyways just so you know that is what we do and it usually just so we focus on that and that way we have our other meetings to do the other stuff and these meetings are really just that kind of stuff then they're done thank you for your advice just trying to bring an awareness so we can move forward and not feel terribly pressured at the end I think we're on the same page nobody likes to have it the gun at the last minute that's maybe not a good reference thank you thank you so much for your extra time I know you've spent a lot of extra time working with the auditors getting auditors and taxes all in the same time how's the taxes going? oh swimmingly good they're coming in and it's looking good we really won't know what the tax effort what the net tax effort is going to be until after September 18th after the grace period but there it seems to be doing very well steady flow very steady flow very good thank you so much okay up next act 46 what that is join us at the table are we not going to talk for tonight? there's nothing in town hall there's nothing in town hall on Thursday it's going to be lowered back down I think that's an employment on Thursday the town hall will be back on its foundation that's worth thinking about that is worth thinking about I mean when that happens everybody connected with the project is going to be like it's up there and it's moved three quarters of an inch since it has been jacked up right? some people say they've moved no just settled settled I mean depends on on Thursday you know gravity still counts not on Thursday I did hear that they just discovered a super volcano under the town hall oh no we were hoping it would be straight hold act 46 anyway I'm really glad that Dorothy and Rick Scott do you want to pull up? no I just come on pull up well you can leave I know you're interested I know I'm glad you're here I don't even need to make anything tonight oh that's okay we don't need anything yeah this is sort of in the misery of love's company I guess yeah you got that's a very unproposed what I just wanted to do is kind of touch on a number of issues related to act 46 that either will definitely demand your attention or you may decide that you want to be involved and I guess this is one of them of the potential lawsuit this is a litigation of old matter that went to the state board the lawyers group that's working with Vermonters for schools and community is essentially running with this and there's some really good people involved in this effort many of them are volunteering their time there are a few regular lawyers I think I mentioned to you Denise that if this does go to trial they're expecting that it could cost up to $50,000 this would be a statewide thing and both school districts that have signed on or towns, municipalities that sign on would be able to decide if they want to contribute but I think there's also the idea of a legal defense fund can we use the current don't you currently have a legal budget in the school budget can that be used for this or does that have to be separate I don't know the idea from something that was said somewhere I don't always remember those little details that we could use fund balance money the current funds because each town and U32 and I guess even the central office all have basically you know there's less funds but in the profit I talked to him briefly last week he didn't think it was going to be more than $2,000 or $3,000 you know for for digital you know that was I mean that's not I'm sorry to interrupt you the calendar for us is the carousel meeting on the 26th right and then so that's the meeting that the little towns all meet separately in the board and hopefully they'll all vote to be part of this legal battle this is our hope because if we are forced to consolidate which is what the state essentially has teed up and if the state board approves that it's may have what no matter what happens I think you will feel budget shocks to it what the state the default articles of agreement that the state has is essentially imposing would involve the pooling of assets in debt and what that would mean is essentially just the debt would be on the order of $150,000 more per year than what we pay basically a dump truck a dump truck a year so that and that would be you know for 14 years essentially for the duration of East Montpelier's debt all that would be for the minutes I think so but we're also looking at the possibility of options that would allow Calis to avoid having to take on the other towns debt all of these options are messy they would involve for example if the town takes control of the asset of the school building then the town will assume responsibility for for negotiating leases with the supervisor of the district the capital you know you mean currently that's done by the supervisor? yeah, by the school and on the education side all of that would shift to the town side if the other options include a lease that would essentially what would happen is that school taxes, our school taxes would rise to the level of East Montpelier's but the district would essentially make us whole by paying us something on the order of $150,000 because we would again we would have to pay $150,000 more and then because of the proportionality of the thing another $150,000 in taxes would have to be collected in order to reimburse us and Wister fully so from higher taxes everybody will be on the other town on the other town and they will be reimburse there's a way to reimburse them as well so that they're only essentially paying for their share of their original debt and that's going to make it and that's going to be done through the state department of it? no, it would be our district Washington Central we have about four options that have been laid out that we can consider the first job is to make sure they're legal so we got that to go through but my biggest hope is that this legal teams will make put enough pressure and bring some injunction so nothing actually happens they say we have to consolidate but it would all be put off and not happen right on their schedule until everybody forgets it what? until everybody forgets it on it? no depending on who gets elected on November 6th if we can get these other towns I know down south as most of you know my daughter is the chair of the Donnerston school and they're working at making sure people get elected to the legislature who support their position and we're hoping that the towns in the northeast kingdom and all of those places do the same there have been a significant number of people like Dave Sharp chair he's not running again they've taken quite a beating on this so that wave that wave of resistance is arising they counted on it going the other way and it just has improved and what many many people don't realize is that those towns that consolidated they were given a carrot and they have money taken off their taxes well that money comes out of the education fund so there's less available for all the people who haven't done that it's really been we're already being punished is there going to be an opportunity for the towns that jumped in immediately and consolidated I know some of the stuff that I've seen they wish they hadn't now are they going to be able to go back? well I think after people work on this present problem and get past that they may work on what they call an off-ramp for those who already jumped up they didn't think they could fight it and they just happened to notice that's what happened in Maine they ended up making it volunteer and a lot bailed out I just noticed in the Valley there's so many different Valley newspapers and Harvard Union they're now proposing a $21 million fund right to add and I'm going like how is that saving money you know and what rules are going to be closed? well yeah because they're having to take this those schools are going to be closed and they want all these kids to go to this one school but the school's not meant to handle that capacity so now they have to do all these renovations it's probably the same article I read that you read well I read it in the Valley and I only read part of it because my order was ready at the red hand and I couldn't open it I got the gist of it that's all I needed it was the cross that broke anyway Denise I know that you are you generally try to you know do your budgets so that the impact the overall impact on taxpayers is minimal and you're under pressure when school budgets go up well they just blame us for the budget as a whole yeah no they don't and so this is probably going to really complicate things for you I hope it doesn't I hope we don't have to deal with it the state board will see the light end of that but I guess one has to be prepared for the worst I mean I don't see our select board even if our school say taxes actually the same and that would also depend on the rest of the state of course but I don't see our select board doing anything different than they always do in keeping them passed down especially again I don't strike it the costs are coming from that's where I mean the town budget generally does not go up a lot and the school budgets are generally driven by administration and these days more and more of a special education but also by not keeping up with maintenance and capital replacement and having to bond but they did a lot of good things at our school this summer we're carrying right now we have a really good building and really good shape thanks to the school board I tell you we're carrying probably $200,000 right now capital fund which if we're forced to consolidate I would recommend we spend it to zero because it goes to East Montpelier if we don't but that capital fund becomes part of the greater good and if we're frankly that's not why the town's people of Cala saved it that's why East Montpelier had to spend $8 million because they didn't do it and so that's going to be my recommendation when the time comes now a couple of questions the whole I'm going to ask one on something you said and I can't remember what it was but the whole idea of I don't know what it is is there any way through all this act 46 stuff that they're looking at the supervisory offices themselves maybe you have a washing you know you have a transportation agency has like six different districts or something in the state instead of I don't know is there are they looking at all ways to cut costs in the supervisory union budget because every time that comes up that gets passed over really really quickly so it appears they've been kind of held harmless in all of this I don't know Scott if you've come across I mean some of those super tenants make a lot of money well they're over what four salaries are more they're over 100,000 and that's going to get into the superintendent's office and I'll I'll be making more than an assistant attorney general for everybody else you know our superintendent makes $125,000 a year and you got a $20,000 $17,000 we paid for his PhD and we you know and the time I wasn't on the board I wouldn't have I wasn't on there either and they gave me five-year contracts at the same time they did that which is really unheard of but right oh well that's where we are and there's pressure maybe they keep coming oh well you know the average in the state is 140 you know so well that's where I think some of the pressure needs to come back down to is let's start looking at some of that stuff and pointing that out and I know you've tried but it gets like it gets pushed away every single time I kept it down below the big one I think largely when you look at it and I think the superintendent's association you know the state school board they seem to all be in bed together they're kind of holding each other harmless and all this right and that's what I've noticed and it's like I don't know how many other people notice that if I do probably everybody else does too yeah well I mean I would look you look in even urban areas I mean I'm their superintendent said there were 100 schools they manage 100 to 200 schools in other states but a superintendent is a superintendent I mean my god if if that's the case why do we have the superintendent's office that I mean I know from my prior time on the school board like Lauren Biva as accounting staff was running at a small percentage of their ability we were looking at the possibility of taking in contract work from nonprofits and things like that as a revenue source because they they shared they were running so efficiently that there wasn't enough to do so you know to me that says something you know because they're basically an administrative body right and they they also pretty I don't know it turns into some policy level decision-making but increasingly I think the power you know and largely lobbied by AOE has been going away from the town and going to the to the food market you can't even have your own website now which I really object to that trying to find anything on our district trying to find anything on that website is really challenging well I think it's the point is whenever I go on that website and I want to look up the school board each town has it some buried not just somewhere else is buried somewhere else because you cannot find it I know I'm trying I spoke around and then there was a time when somebody in the center whoever does EIT wasn't doing the right stuff and I guess they're gone now but takes a while to straighten everything out and it's all tangled up now this what about our our school building itself and there's all this talk about if the mergers go through that the state would then own our building is that and that's not part of the school that actually is part of the takings sounds like a taking to me taking all that and the funds and the funds that's right right now but back to what you were saying about this there is sort of an infinitesimal move in that direction with us we're starting to talk with twinfield well I would love to get involved with the studio there great twinfield is more passive I have the feeling sorry twinfield but anyway that would entail the liquidation of the Washington northeast I thought that was being liquidated anyway it is so they're looking for a new home a new solution they're looking for something a dance partner right well another guy there was one meeting I went to and there was a gentleman there from either twinfield or Cabot that stood up and spoke it was one of the meetings at U32 when it was really hot I think on one occasion they were both there one of the meetings you and I visited we went to the convention there's got to be opportunities for sharing different things there are definitely opportunities I mean the only good thing about this whole thing is it's made people start to think about what other opportunities there are out there what can we share, what can we do different that's about the only good thing the bad thing is it ties your hands into really not being able to do that and do out of the box I mean that it's almost scary how this has been directed down and funneled it funneled so let me ask you about this litigation whole thing you guys are going to talk about it on the 26th and then will the school board vote to join in or not it would be helpful if we could get any the select board doesn't have to do anything the select board doesn't have to however if you want to that would be good that would be helpful it's entirely up to you it shows solidarity of town I think they've shown solidarity right along but if you have it in piece of paper with your signatures it means more well I don't know it certainly doesn't mean more to the agency of education because the towns that voted three times no and once it was unanimous no and they said that was just sentiment so they obviously were not paying attention here about the votes but I mean what a lot of the other districts who are fighting this are getting their legislators and senators to write letters in support of what they want their AGS and of course all our Kim Jessup got drafted a letter that all our legislators and senators signed way back in December when we had to file our AGS well I don't know she spoke at the meeting on August 15th I was at that one thank you it just always helps to have something so this is a something because there is the resolution that we we literally saw the resolution that counts too I had forgotten about but there's something else if you guys vote to join into this and we can do a simple letter to say we support our school board members we can do that I think the reality is in this too they keep trying to undermine the idea that there is not community support this is just a road board anything you can put in there this is clearly not that actually if some of you could come to that meeting I'm planning to add on the 26th I can never find the agenda the merry-go-round part with all of them starts I think it's either 5 or 5.30 well that's all gotten changed because they messed up the invitation I just got an email but then does local school boards meet in their individual rooms at 7 or 7.30 that's the way to go around meeting is I do too but that's first and there will be discussions there because if that's going to happen I'd like to be there for that and you could probably speak at that I don't like it when you speak it doesn't matter I'm just saying they open up every once in a while they say does anybody want to say anything you do it let me ask you this is the full Calis school board on board with this do you think? I would Susanna because the rest of us are I would I'm fairly certain that Katie is and my guess is that Chris is because he came back to Calis because he wanted to go to that school and his mother so as long as the school property for our leech we're not very involved I would say I have a copy of a D with that so I would say there's at least four of us and Susan I think doesn't fight it the U32 board is a much bigger question I wondered about that because I know there's a couple on there that some the U32 board is pretty split but I'm hoping this is not about merger the U32 board is split on merger this isn't about merger this is really about rule of law I hope they can see was appointing this out as rule of law is a good way to go at it because it really really is I just I'll never forget they were in Newark for that first meeting of the school boards and Margaret got up to speak Margaret Meacham and she prefaced part of it and I didn't really hear all of it but she had like a comment about Trump in there too but she said that she and her husband had taught behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s and that's where she was kind of talking about voting and I missed that but then and she spoke for her allowed two minutes she's really good at it at that and at the end she said votes count democracy matters and she said it twice and by the third time the whole room said it in unison I mean just gave me the chills it really really well it speaks volumes the whole gymnasium which was about I would say it's about the size of Calisthenes wouldn't you? Scott you would where was this meeting? it was in northern north east king way way up way up but not way way kind of the middle of the way up and real east the one comment I wanted to make Scott going back to when you were laying out options which is appealing is it would go way too much into the weeds for you to actually answer a question but I just want to say out loud that I'm sure you're considering the fact that once you've taxed and you know we've all paid that tax even if there's a circling back and a refund how do you redistribute that back into the taxpayer's pockets is another huge messy question so it sounds good on the surface I don't think it's okay that's it that's a good statement but that's a good statement that you said because everything that was thrown at us about Act 46 at the very very beginning those 706 meetings and they would we would say well what about this and they would say whatever they had to say which made it sound good on the surface unless you drilled in and then it was like oh no after five years they'd follow the dollars that's what they say and I want to know how I get it back well I know the select board in Richmond is sorry that they ever their school ever decided to merge it's going to cost them more money the flip of that though is that they walked into that and they could have opposed it and this is what towns make a choice and you know that's the but their lessons learned are to our benefit so that's another follow the money why are they sorry what is costing them more is it because they have the passing the bloated administration and that and you know now they're finding out that their school isn't big enough and we're only a few years in it's going to get towards I mean there's a lot to this and that's why I wonder you know this off-ramp thing you know if they've tried if they were going into this now and finding out wait a minute this is going to cost us this much more then that should be a valid reason for being able to say never mind we changed their minds I think they've tied their political skins to having to have parties all the schools have now been reded or whatever they did and redistributed and the other thing too is that you know we've been getting a small town's grant that what they say has to go away right as long as all the places that consolidated they still get the small schools grant it doesn't go directly to that school but it goes into the general pop but the rest of us are not going to get without having applying for it every year and having to jump over a bar so they're making all these things that is another punishment just like the punishment that you talked about earlier yeah there's much money in the education fund now right well and also that you're going to have to do your own lease of this and the scheduling of that and hiring this and that one because that's another punishment one thing is still close to the school you know I'd leave you with a shell you know essentially which is and you know government is not about punishment there's one thing that we the one thing that we never are able to hear from the one sector that I have never heard from because they're afraid and that's the teachers never hear from the teachers but aren't some of the teachers through all of this going to lose jobs well so but oh yeah but my if I were a teacher what I would be worried about is that well I'm doing a good job here in Canada so if I kid it and so forth it's not so bad a drive and when somebody is directing all the schools they can say okay Darcy Miller we want you to teach in middle sex right here and you don't have much to say about it at the same way with the principals what happens now it doesn't happen now they are forced to do it if there's an opening they can apply for and a lot of them do but they not the choice they have a choice they can be offered it or whatever but they they get a contract for Calis unless there's some reason they can't or a reason I see you're saying you have a district or something it would be a district-wide contract and they would point you we're fried to everything which we're protected to go teach in Berlin for instance oh my thank you you guys are amazing stick in there with this and some more this one answers all it does I'm sorry to have to torture you with this but you guys meet every week a lot more than we do we can meet every week we can meet every week well you've been out there regularly and it's made a difference and we appreciate it I don't know if it's made a difference you know what one club they are using in this is not having public votes all of this is just rogue a few rogue board members but when we have select boards show up and towns people I mean that was when Mack stood up for that meeting that was that was I was watching their faces on that but it was great oh I know Jay Denal is that the right guy's name filed that the meeting was great when she was doing that she didn't do that and I was thinking well in April that meeting we had there were 50 people at that meeting people sitting on the floor and everything else and then all of a sudden it was not okay to do that and then when he tried to get back in they were empty seats and they wouldn't let him in give me a break I don't know what that's going to accomplish other than maybe they got to do a redo I think what he wants is that they have to admit it in public that they did it they're just obnoxious they are obnoxious well the fact that they gave an hour to that you know while we watched that dog and honey show from while they're giving the schools who are actually asking they're giving them 10 minutes and then they're giving a suburban school system an hour which we've heard time and time again yeah sure it might work for you there's some of the towns that it didn't work for well well being one of them you know that's the thing that I find really bothersome it was they didn't need that time we needed that time I thought what Susan Clark said at the meeting at the state house was really good yeah there's violence it is violence to do what they're trying to do yes it is alright so well I've got written down 5.30 but if you guys could let us know actually what happened is that they inadvertently told us it was 11.30 to 12 well and the email came out today cancelling that and we'll get another one tomorrow but that's the right name it's the 26th right that's on Wednesday last Wednesday of October we're going to have to miss another meeting I guess there are oh yeah you guys are with the playing field right because we don't know I wanted to know we're talking about something that we probably have to be there for that's a problem we might be able to be there we could be there from 6 to 7 and be a little late for our meeting we might be able to be there for the 5.30 p.m. maybe not the individual school board meetings it's fine I mean you're so present at these things you have to be present at a whole bunch of things so if you're not able to make it it's really okay we can say that you were going to come but you had this other meeting to come because you were interested in what we're doing I could write something I'm just going to say we did that resolution we spent a lot of time on it and I don't think you guys should be afraid to bring copies of it everywhere you go I just talked to the State House our slide board had a conflict tonight but they asked us to bring bring the resolution again that was a good idea so we can't be there then yeah because I need to get from you I have to go to the Plainfield Health Center tomorrow because I lost her name again she's been a PA over there for 30 years then she did that Faces of ACE and I saw that and I asked because U32 was putting on the resilience and having a resolution and I wrote to Bill and Kathy Bushie or Kelly Bushie about Faces of ACE I said it really, really it's shorter and it just really it really puts a good face on that resilience film and Kelly said well we've all already planned everything which I expected that from her but I got an email from Bill tonight Bill Kimmel? Yeah can you get a hold of it for me so I'm going to call over there tomorrow to see if I can It was well done but when I saw it it was Capstone had put on this on the 23rd I think it was mostly for lost one of those the E.G.C. on the E.G. No it was a head start people, mostly for head start people and she said that when she showed that film on the 23rd it was first public viewing she had of it and she showed it around to various people but it's just very proud of it one of the guys that she became began to use this Faces thing on and he anyway bottom line is right in that show he says he quit drugs and then at the end after it was over he said that she was the only one he had confided in not even his family and once he confided in her and made the decision then he told everybody because that helped him stay quit and he's now and he's now several years clean and Kim's heart and soul she's going to see that she just said she started out by saying she'd been there for 30 years until she saw in her 3rd or 4th generation of families and she sees the same thing and where they need help are you on the board over there too? no she said you have no idea how bad it is thank you thanks guys thanks we appreciate all your hard work don't get our dust thing we're going to decide on a grant now an opportunity for a grant because you guys haven't given us the answer about the are we going to miss the grant we're trying to get this there's an opportunity for the grant what's the date first so we why don't we start filling it out and now it's ready to go we'll try to I'll look at the grant stuff again so what was the thing about the recreation field isn't good for the winter it's not maintained yeah in the winter really it's the school I thought we had talked about that I was thinking Chris said I'll see about that but I remember there was a discussion around it just not being maintained in the winter it made sense to and also part of it was to get people to the school that don't normally go to the school yeah I think the main concerns were just they're worried about needs to be dropped on the ground I don't think there's any problems like that at the current level I take it right it's not the school people might be more respectful right if there's some contingency in place where it does that we do find that I'll take a look at it again because there's an opportunity for our composting something else I can't remember now what because I didn't really focus on it because you heard that I apologize we've had a lot on our yeah it's like dump isn't one of the most important things but we didn't have a super dense part super dense part I've read that article by I don't know it might be a little bit harder it's too hard that's right alright thank you so much thank you alright I like this thinking alright so we're going to hopefully talk about the draft room naming policy next meeting yeah can you get a draft ready? yeah alright and then I'm going to do my chair update and then I'm going to ask that we do the minutes and then I'd like to go into the second session to talk about a personnel matter at the very end alright so here's my update and you guys are going to need to make some notes so you can get back new dates we need to do a joint meeting with the cemetery commission and representatives of the popular cemetery which is currently privately owned cemetery we need to ask Jim Barlow to join us the poplar cemetery group is out of business or I don't know what the right word is but dissolving that's the word they're looking for the town to take over poplar cemetery and so anyways I think we should meet with the cemetery commission and somebody from the poplar cemetery because I think there's a lot of questions that need answering and it sounds like it's in pretty bad repair the poplar cemetery so if you could look at dates I'd like to get that scheduled sometime this month if we can doesn't have to be a doesn't have to be a Monday necessarily and you said you're going to have Jim join us I think it would make sense don't you yeah just because I think there's there's deeds, there's a transfer of ownership there's money there's already we have to do it I already talked to Sandra you know do they have some kind of money left over that they're going to transfer to the town and how much and is there cemetery perpetual care do they have enough money and there are funds to continue the perpetual care or is that going to be up to the Cal's taxpayers now so I think there's a lot of questions as I'm thinking about this and I've talked to Jim some and I've talked to the Cemetery Commission some but I think we just need to have a joint meeting and get it all out there there's a meeting on September 18th at 7 o'clock at the Atomat Community Center that the Planning Commission is hosting to meet with the Atomat residents because they're looking at changing zoning and maybe parts of that will be in the Shoreland Overlay District so that might if you have nothing to do the evening of September 18th which is a Tuesday and it's a meeting with the Planning Commission residents you know the residents that are affected are getting a direct invitation there will be a regular Planning Commission agenda as well but this is going to be strictly to talk about this 7 for meeting stuff but just like I said check the calendar so when I start seeing if I can round everybody out for this joint meeting with the Cemetery people Cliff and I as you know still meet with the staff and they mentioned as part of their discussions that there's a lot of keys floating around people have keys to the to get into the office there's not very many people have keys to get into there and the vault is locked after hours and on weekends but they just feel like they don't have a list of everybody in town that has a key so they don't know keys have been headed out and then sublet to others then somebody can't remember who they want their key to so now they want another key so it's not a very good process so as we're talking about this they mentioned something about we talked about a keypad when those things you punch a cone into and we have to be changed every quarter or every six months or something like that and if you get the code and you forget what it is you're out of luck so anyways just know what that discussion is going on that makes a lot of sense code? yeah so that discussion is kind of in the works about what to do about that they tried to come up with a list of everybody had keys I have because I've been on the board a while I have like ten different keys because this lock's been changed once that bolt was changed once the lock at the town hall was changed then there's the key to here so there's a lot of keys out there it doesn't make a lot of sense could only start from scratch that's what we talked about the plan is to change the locks but the question is keys or the code punch the codepad I think it would be cumbersome to change the code to get the codepad if it had to be changed every four months who gets the codes and then one of the ideas was that well only the chairs of commissions would have keys or the code but that doesn't really work either because if somebody's out sick or on vacation or in France then they can't get in that doesn't make sense either anyway it's for further discussion and thought either way it seems like it's whether the code gets changed or the locks get changed there needs to be some way of just like the credit card who is authorized to have a key well initially we had a paper when it was all kept track on because of all the changes I think that didn't happen then it's not going to be okay for somebody to lend their key to somebody else that's got to be you right so now that we have Barbara in the office she's doing a lot of these kind of things so she's been helping Katie with the appointment spreadsheet getting additional information so now's the time to do it anyways I didn't want to make it a huge discussion but I'm just letting you know that's in the works phone system yeah it's conceivable that we could get a phone system established in here a multi-line type system the staffers were tasked with coming up with their wish list of what they'd want and I said you know start with the skies and then we'll talk about what is practical and real that we could achieve and it looks like we could get a decent system at least an upfront one-time cost that's going to be $4,000 or less and the bigger cost is really what is the recurring charges going to be for having multiple lines coming into the building and if we can get any kind of bundle package or something from consolidated so I am researching that and in the meantime they made some Judy specifically made some calls to other townships to talk about what they're running and what works for them and what doesn't and how they achieved it and what they would do differently yeah yeah let's check with these small pillar and I think we have the ability to put in I think East Montpelier ended up with a use system that they bought from some guy who contracts out and does this kind of work and then requires the old systems and refurbishes and sells them I don't know if that's an option we need like you say we could get AT&T style multi-line system which is a lot less complex like the PVX style system which is what you typically associate with when you've got the phone closet with all the tags trying to keep it as simple as possible yeah we just need to be able to have a couple of lines that can talk to each other and be able to forward calls to other outside lines and for a night service and check your moment check your messages yeah I don't know if they can do it now or not they can check but it's only on one line and you know any number of things we wouldn't the consensus is that we didn't want to get into a totally automated call in person has to punch in a bunch of numbers and why not they still get a person and the exception would be if we need to put it on night service because there's only one person in the office for whatever reason and they're in the middle of something have the ability to do that but that's not the default stance a real person is the default stance we all agree on that we still want a live person to answer the phone well and what you're describing isn't push a bunch of numbers exactly which there's nobody available and at the most you might have a friend in that says you know if you want the listeners punch one if you want the town office clerk press two right when you get to voice mail and night service may just go to a general mailbox then whoever the operator is it comes in and checks those can push them to the appropriate part right so a few things that I have on my list for next meeting our um road naming policy draft doesn't have to be draft I'm going to work on a draft credit card policy when I was doing when I was working with um Alvin on what we're going to discuss in the executive session I realized that the road crew job description did not include a reference to the road um road and bridge standards so I added that to the job description to include it but I think we need to re-vote on the um job description and then I think we also need to decide that we're going to make sure that each road crew person has that job description um right um I'm going to go back to where we left off on the personnel policy and hopefully get another draft of that available um I'm not promising by the 24th but I'd like to get it done this year no there's a calendar here um Jay Copping has agreed to be the town health officer oh good I've been talking with him back and forth so we'll do that appointment next meeting he was one of the names we listed right right he works at um the health center oh us? yeah he was at CBH now he's there um on the 24th we'll get an update from the center Vermont ISP either David Healy and Scott together or one or the other see where that's at because it's been I think they've had a quarter's worth of meetings now something like that so we'll get an update we just don't want to let that fall off the radar we have things happening we don't know about hmm um we want our 100 we want our thousand thousand dollars or a thousand whatever per minute multi-million megabyte up and down okay and that's what I have for chair's update then we'll do the minutes and then ifs we'll entertain the executive session I hope the minutes we have are the minutes of last meeting and if you made changes I looked at your changes it'll come to me me I made too much anybody else have anything I made some changes on paper okay just because I I wasn't having how you do yeah I wasn't so anyway under right at the beginning under public comment the first sentence Scott Baschage commented on the status of the grant dot dot the historic preservation was formed to get as much as Calis designated as a historic district as possible so the historic preservation was formed many years ago and it has its own mission and that was not why it was so I don't I think either we should look at what the mission was and probably is to preserve and maintain the historic structures in town so that's why that historic preservation one of their can I yeah one of their things is that they go after grants and you know blah blah blah important that so that we could wrap them in a sky just striking and say Scott Baschage reported that the historic preservation commission received a grant or did they receive it or they were planning for they received a grant so just go straight to that yeah that next sentence yeah after research yep then I have a case that mm-hmm page 2 number 8a the town hall renovation committee mm-hmm so the first sentence John McCullough and I proposed that it says John McCullough reported that the necessary demolition of the town hall is finished and then under number 12 approve the hiring of John McCullough yeah that was one place I could have made a change if I wanted if I thought about it so see if you the first sentence reads the bids for hiring an architectural consultant and I proposed to write the town hall renovation project came in at 48,000 yep and then in the next sentence when you call John put his last name there if you would please John McCullough has voted to this project blah blah blah and is having and then and is having not an and instead of his it is is it declined or declined how does that read now you could say it is declined and or has had to decline and it has had to decline and has had to decline yep and then I guess it went to the next page but just changed the word committee to I mean the same topic but changed the word committee to project so we officially hired him as the consultant for the town hall renovation project yep and then I think and then the last page number 24 for old west church right there it is on the right hand side right out the word west for old west church and then the very last sentence on number 26 the chair updated the board as the details of the situation including the requirements and then right after requirements right to obtain a burn permit from the forest fire warden and cross off the rest of that sentence yep thank you no thank you just want to say snail mail so is that did you make a motion to oh yes I make a motion to approve the minutes of August 27th and cemented is there a second all those in favor please say aye aye thank you thank you Katie you're welcome to make a motion the board to go into executive session discuss personnel matters in accordance with one BSA section 313 a3 so move at 917 all those in favor aye thank you Katie I'll email the other