 We're recording. So, thank you. I'm now going to call the finance committee meeting of February 15 2022 to order. It is three minutes after nine o'clock and pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted wire remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting. Access the meeting may do so I assume or by telephone. Instructions are in the agenda that has been posted. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. But every effort is being made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time, what a technological means. I now need to go through the process of making sure that all of the members of the committee can be hear me and be heard so as you your name. As I asked, please respond just to indicate that you are here. Then I think that we should try and to the greatest extent possible have everybody moved their microphone so that we can get on to the first agenda item of the day after that, which will be the audit presentation and I will introduce Tonya Campbell to those who don't know Tonya in a minute. But first, let's go through just to make sure that everybody can participate fully. So I'll go by first names. When present. And Bob. Very present. Present. Michelle. Present. Kathy. Here. Okay, so I we have four of the five members who are Council members and we have all members who are resident members in our less council member will be joining us in a few minutes. We have a busy agenda today and I'm going to do my best to adhere to our agreement on time limits for meetings. Last two meetings gone over by about 15 minutes, but we've stayed well under the three hours that had been last year's habit and I'm still driving to make that happen because I appreciate the daytime meetings are difficult. And so I thank everybody. So with that, we also serve in addition to being finance committee, the finance committee was merged with the audit committee. A couple of years ago and we have the responsibility of being the audit committee and receiving a presentation for from our certified public accountant regarding the findings of the audit and I therefore would like to introduce the new members, somebody who's presented for several years and was here last year from Molanson, which is our firm that has been providing these services. Tanya is based in Molanson's Greenfield office and does a lot of work with cities and towns and we benefit from her experience. Tanya, nice to see you again and welcome. Nice to see you all, thank you. I'm going to share my screen. Can everyone see the Tanya, can I just clarify one thing? Sure. Tanya is too nice to do this, but it's Tanya, right? Tanya, so I want to clarify this for everybody. Not the first time that's happened, it won't be a lot. Not a problem, thank you. Can everyone see the full presentation? On the screen? Yes. All right, well good morning everyone. I'm here today to present the results of the town's fiscal year 2021 audit. And I wanted to start by giving kind of a brief overview of the roles and responsibilities of everyone kind of involved in this call in terms of us as your independent auditors management as well as the finance committee's responsibilities. And then briefly discuss the town's financial statements and some of the key numbers in those statements and then talk about the comment in the town's management letter briefly. Please feel free to stop me at any time as I'm going through here if you have questions. Jump in. Now, in terms of the roles and responsibilities of my lance and as your independent auditors, we are ultimately responsible for expressing an opinion on the town's financial statements. We're also responsible for planning performing our audit to provide reasonable assurance not absolute assurance that the financial statements are free of a material misstatement whether caused by error or fraud. An audit does not provide 100% assurance we do not come in and pour through every single transaction. We don't look at every bill that was paid we don't trace out every single receipt that's not what an audit is assigned designed to do, and we would be there for months if that was the case. Instead, our audits are conducted on our set of standards known as government auditing standards. The standards require that we plan to perform our audit using a concept known as materiality. Now materiality will vary based on the size of the entity, and it also varies based on the different funds in the town. So for instance, in fiscal year 2021 materiality for the town's general fund, which is your main operating fund was about $600,000. That doesn't mean we don't look at anything below that amount because we certainly do. It just means that auditing standards say we should focus on the balances at or above that level. Now as part of our audit process we perform a variety of different audit testing procedures. The first of them being internal control testing. And as part of that process we evaluate the town's internal controls, and then test those controls throughout the year to make sure they're operating effectively. So for instance we'll look at vendor payments and select a sample of payments made throughout the year trace to make sure that they're properly approved they're in the right fiscal year. They're charged with a correct account things along that major all those internal control processes. We also perform what's known as substantive testing so in that case will take a balance that's recorded in the town's general ledger ultimately in the financial statements and test to make sure that that balance is supported by detailed support so for instance, the cash balance in the town's can be traced back to reconciling statements from the Treasurer's Office. Well, and lastly, we perform analytical procedures. So we look at balances year to year see if something looks unusual, or if it agrees with what we know is going on with the town or just the world in general, what's going on now. It's been a little crazy this past week two years doing analytical procedures that's for sure everything's kind of all over the road. So within a nutshell that's a kind of a brief overview of the different types of procedures and testing that we do during the audit process. Now in terms of management responsibilities management is responsible for the town's financial statements. They're also responsible for establishing and maintaining effective internal control over the financial reporting process. Making sure, you know, reviewing the financial statements and making sure those agree to the town's internal reports that were provided since we do prepare those on behalf of the town the finance statements. But the town is the management is responsible for reviewing them and making sure they're accurate and contain adequate or accurate information, excuse me. Management is also responsible for ensuring the town complies with the various laws and regulations that are applicable to all of his activities. And then as part of the audit process, they are responsible for making all the financial data and records available to us in a timely fashion so we can complete our audit efficiently and effectively. And at the end of the audit management is responsible for providing us with a letter that confirms the various representations that were made to us as part of the audit process so essentially confirming that you know reports that were given are true and accurate. And any inquiries who made the responses are accurate to the best of their knowledge and ability and that they've made us aware of anything that we should be aware of as part of the audit process itself. And that's the source of the finance means responsibilities, you know the finance means responsible for oversight of the entire process, which is why we're having this meeting today and discussing the results of the town's audit. Responsible for oversight of the of the financial statements themselves as well as the internal control process and where needed any risk assessment evaluation. If you come up during the year if there's issues that need to be addressed responsible for oversight of that process as well. And because you are a subset of the town council you're also responsible for helping. You know them understand the finance statements if need be if they ask questions you are kind of the go to in between to help them and educate them as well. You're also responsible for reviewing management letter comments and recommendations as part of the audit process. I would have any questions before I move on. Now in terms of the financial statements, they are presented under rules established by the governmental accounting standards board, also known as GASB. There's a committee that creates the standards that tell us how things should be reported in the town's financial statements and you'll see a multitude of references to GASB throughout the financial document itself. Now, there are essentially five components to your financial statements. The first is the audit opinion. Now, the audit opinion is actually the only couple pages of the financial statements that belongs to us as your independent auditors. The financial statements are ultimately the responsibility of management, and we are responsible for expressing opinion on the statements. In fiscal year 2021 we issued the town an unqualified opinion, meaning that based on the results of our testing we found that the town was in compliance with generally accepted accounting principles. Next comes management's discussion and analysis, which is a required narrative. It kind of briefly summarizes the financial statements and what's included in the statements, as well as some of the key numbers and results of operations from the past fiscal year. So if you didn't want to, you know, scan through the whole 100 page document, that's a kind of a good place to start. It gives you kind of a brief overview and, you know, a summary of what happened during the year. Next you have your two sets of financial statements, your government wide statements and your fund basis statements, and we'll take a look at those, one of each of those in just a minute and kind of touch on some of the key numbers on those statements. And lastly you have your footnotes and your required supplementary information, which provide more detailed information to support the actual numbers reported on the statements themselves. So for instance, if you think about the town's net OPEB liability, that is one line in your financial statements, but there's a great deal of information and disclosures related to that liability which can be found in the footnotes, including information on the assumptions used by the actuary information about the town's OPEB trust fund, things like that that provide much more detail to support those numbers themselves. Can I ask you to pause for just a moment while we confirm that Councillor Walker can hear us and be heard she just joined us. Hello, yes, I can hear everyone. Can everyone hear me. Yes, Alicia. And I wanted to make sure we got Matt as well I'm not sure if we confirmed that he could hear and be heard at the beginning of the meeting. I confirmed Athena thank you. Thank you. Any questions before I move on. Thanks to you please go ahead. Okay. All right, so next I wanted to take a look at some of the, the numbers on the statements themselves so you look at the financials open is page 17. If you have the PDF it's on page 20 of the PDF itself. And the first page I want to look at is the town's balance sheet. Now the balance sheet is one of your fund basis statements and these statements more closely resemble the information that's reported in the town's internal records. So, there's very little differences in terms of the numbers that are reported in these statements, versus what the town has in the general ledger. You know, mainly the modifications that we make are in terms of how things are presented in the financial statements were, you know, we never have to make a ton of any really any audit adjustments but we're making for adjustments are things that just kind of make things that they need to be disclosed and that is important. It means that the numbers that you are looking at as council members and making decisions on on a day to day basis are true and accurate. And that has always been the case of the town that you know always had good financial, good financial department, everything is in order reconciled, you know, no issues, no issues there. Now, in terms of the balance sheet there's a couple columns, and I only have one shown here because I just want to talk about one of these numbers but the columnist labeled general fund is actually the town's general fund and the stabilization fund combined. And that was a, a GASB statement result of a GASB statement issued back in 2011 that required them to be consolidated in order to align with how states report their rainy day funds. Those are part of the state's general fund. So, as a result towns have to show their stabilization funds in the general fund column of the financial statements. On the whole page itself there's a couple other columns there for the ambulance fund and the offer fund which are what are considered major funds because of the volume of activity or the balances in those funds. And then the last problem is your non major governmental funds which are the rest of the towns, special revenue funds your grant funds, capital project funds, as well as your trust funds. So, in terms of the key number I'm going to look at this page is the unassigned fund balance number in the general fund. And that, that number just your almost $25 million is made up of two balances. The first portion of that is the town stabilization fund, which was about just over $14 million at the end of fiscal year 2021. The balance represents just over 25% of the town's tax levy, which is a very, very healthy balance is probably one of the highest balances I've seen in terms of the audits that I do and I do close to 40 of them a year. Very healthy balance you know the town has made a concerted effort over the years to set money aside into that fund. It used to grow on an annual basis so definitely kudos to town for that it's it's a very, very large number and it's very prudent of the town to do that and have that money set aside if need be. Now that balance it's a town's unreserved general fund balance, which if you think of it it's essentially the starting point for the town's free cash calculation. So that's what's left in the general fund after any reserves or anything that's required to be set aside has been set aside. And at the end of fiscal year 21 that balance was just under $10 and a half million dollars, which represents 18 and a half percent of the town's tax levy. So it's a very, very healthy balance. The town has always had a fairly big general fund unreserved balance, again, because of the financial policies and procedures that the town has in place. So, you know, you do spend free cash and use for cash but on a yearly basis you are, you know budgeting your revenues conservatively your budgeting your expenses conservatively, and that allows that fund balance to replenish yourself on an annual basis. So, again, very healthy balance the town is, you know, doing doing things right to that. Again, one of the highest percentage wise of unreserved fund balances to the tax levy I see as part of my hours. The town had certified free cash at the end of fiscal year 21 of just over or just under $9 million, which equates to about 11 and a half percent of the entire annual operating budget. So the PR recommends a minimum of three to 5% minimum. So again, that is a healthy number and that's a result of having good financial practices in place. Anyone have any questions on this page. You just tell us where the unreserved balance can be found the unreserved balance and the stabilization fund balance so that 10 million and the 14 million make up the unassigned fund balance number there. The two numbers together are combined into that unassigned 24.6. Thank you. Just any of my question would be whether you're aware of plans for the especially the stabilization fund to use for major building projects that we see ahead of us and to some extent stabilization fund was intentionally increased in order to allow management of those projects. And that's that's a good practice. I mean the more you can set aside to fund with stabilization fund without really putting a dent in your stabilization fund, the less obviously the town will have to borrow in in long term debt costs so you know the town, a lot of the towns I audit have a stabilization fund and a capital stabilization fund so they distinguish between the two. The town ever says always just had one stabilization fund which is, is fine. But you know, putting aside money into that fun to use for capital projects at a later date makes sense. You know it's a good. It's a good process it's a good use of the stabilization fund obviously you don't want to drain it to the point where you're using, you know, 10 million of the 14 million and kind of one shot because then that will be that will shrink your stabilization you know won't leave you a cushion in case something happens in future years but it is. It is a good strategy to use to set aside money and then use it for capital projects. And I'll just conclude that thank you by pointing out that at one point towards the end of the former town government which was a town meeting select board government town meeting was presented with the proposal to create a stabilization fund for capital projects and a town meeting. Decline to do so they did not want to decrease the commitment to the stabilization fund but they did not understand or support the purpose of splitting the funds so that was rejected by a town meeting and that's a decision that has not been revisited. You know, it's, I guess town preference in terms of what you want to do there if you want to specifically say we're going to be sending these aside for capital items in the future, you know, in the sense it makes way to create a sense, make sense, excuse me create a capitalization fund but it's not necessary. Thank you. And then you have your hand up. Yeah, just one more piece with regard to the stabilization fund. We also in our financial guidelines have a requirement that it not go below a certain level, regardless of how we're using it in this case as a float for our various capital projects. So the next page I want to look at is the statement in that position which the page we're going to focus on is page 15 of the finance statements and it's page 18 of the PDF document. Now your statement in that position is one of your government wide statements, which is consolidate the various funds of the town together and only distinguish between governmental activities and your business type activities. So your governmental activities include things such as your general fund, your stabilization fund, all the funds that were on the previous page so your major funds like ambulance, ARPA and all the other grant and capital and trust funds of the town. The business type activities represent the town, the town's enterprise funds. So your water your sewer your transportation and your landfills are all consolidated together in that column. Now, the intent of the government wide statements is to take your business operations and show them are your government operations and show them like a business. So, when we consolidate all those funds together, we also add items such as the town's long term assets and your long term liabilities which aren't reported on your fund basis statements. So what these statements do a really good job and show in terms of showing the true assets and liabilities of the town itself. They're not the statements you want to use to make decisions on a day to day basis because this is not how the town operates on a day to day basis. You do have these liabilities they are out there, but you're paying them as you go. Every year is part of your annual operating budget so these statements are good they are looked at by you know the the boundary agencies and such, but they're not used for kind of the day to day decisions of the town. Now, in terms of some of the key numbers on this page we're going to look at to the town's biggest liabilities, your net pension liability and your net op ed liability. And then to the town's net pension liability is your share of the handshift county retirement systems unfunded liability. Last year that number was right around $54 million and this year it ends up at just over $47 million so there was a $6.6 million decrease in that liability from last year. So the whole factors that contributed to that your share of the whole liability itself so that there's a bunch of different towns and entities that are part of the handshift county retirement system. And every year, your share of the whole liability itself changes slightly. And this year it decreased slightly from the prior year. So because your share of the whole system went down slightly your share of the liability also went down. The whole system itself had better market results last fiscal year, which was consistent pretty much across the board for all retirement systems. So as a result, they had more assets at the end of the year, making the overall liability itself smaller. So therefore your share of the liability went down as well. I have any questions about the net pension liability that you know that liability the town is funding that you do have a funding schedule so ultimately that should continue to go down over the years as you're as you're paying your annual assessment. Obviously there's different factors that play into that in terms of market results and things like that because the actuaries is predicting what's going to happen and then you know every two years looking back and seeing if what they thought was going to happen did come to fruition in terms of market results and stuff like that so you know the liability does this trend downward typically, or should trend downward but it kind of, you know, slowly I guess over time because of the different factors using the evaluation. The next number I wanted to talk about was an OPEB liability, which represents the town share of retiree health insurance costs. Last year's liability was almost $68 million and this year, the liability ended up $74.6 million. So that was actually a $6.6 million increase in the liability. The reason for this change was the change in the discount rate so the actuary has an assumption for investment rate return, which is averaged with your municipal with the municipal bond rate as of 630. And that's what they use to, to determine what the discount rate is, because your, your, your trust is not fully funded at this point in time so they average those two numbers together and and just generally in the last couple years, the municipal bond rate has decreased. So as a result, your discount rate went down. And when your discount rate goes down, your liability goes up. So that was the main reason for the increase in the OPEB liability from the prior year. Now, unlike the pension liability, there's no requirement to, to fund this liability at this time, but the town has established an OPEB trust fund. And at the end of fiscal year 21, there was a balance of about $10 million in that fund. The OPEB fund contributed just over $400,000 in fiscal year 2021. And, you know, similar to the retirement system, the OPEB trust fund had a very well, a very good year and in terms of investment returns in 2021 as well. So that helped that balance grow. At this point at the end of fiscal 21, the OPEB itself is about, or the trust is about 12% funded. So if you take a look at the whole OPEB liability, your trust represents about 12% of the total liability. So that's, you know, right on par and or above the levels of, you know, most of the cities and towns that we see the town has made an effort again over the years to put money aside into that trust fund to grow that balance. So, it is a big number, but the town is making efforts to to set aside money and, you know, hopefully get that number to go down, continue to go down over the years. So I don't have any questions on that. Tanya, can I give a little just context, looking forward. Okay. Yep. So the Hampshire County retirement system, as Tanya mentioned, we're about 70% funded. That system, the unfunded liability and that system is supposed to be completely gone around 2033 or 34. I'm not sure if they've changed their date officially. But at that point, the expectation is that the amount we pay the Hampshire County retirement system should go down quite a bit. Right now, the majority of our payment to them is for that unfunded liability and not for the actual the current year costs. So once that unfunded liability is gone, we should see a sizable reduction in the payment to Hampshire County, and a lot of communities and I think what we're thinking as well. We are going to kind of re divert those funds from going to the pension into OPEB to start making greater progress on the OPEB front. We're trying to still make progress at the same time but it's hard to make significant progress on both fronts because the liabilities are so large. So again, once we get the Hampshire County retirement liability address which we have to by law right now. We would then sort of turn our attention to the OPEB liability and start focusing more funds there. And again, I've seen or heard towns discuss that, you know, at some point when that pension liability goes away, we can then, you know, take the money we're already raising in the budget every year and kind of shift that over to OPEB to really reduce that liability and bigger strides. I don't know why I've never thought to ask this question before, who holds this liability. Is it the state or who. Which I'm sorry which liability we're talking about. Both pension and the OPEB in other words holds the liability per se so the Hampshire County retirement system hires an actuary to determine what the, what the liability of the system is so how many people they have as active how many people are retired and what you know how long they're going to live and what the benefit payments are going to be to the all those members at that point in time. And then they say okay well you have $100 million liability 50 million in assets that are going to be used to pay those which means you have a $50 million unfunded liability out there. And then that gets distributed to, obviously those are made up numbers but those get distributed to all the different members of the retirement system, based on their, their share of the liability. So, you know, thank you. Actuarials. Yes. And adding to what Tanya said these are the town's liabilities so these are, there are liabilities are our, our financial statements. They are more reflective of our staff specifically because they do a deep dive into our staff. The Hampshire County retirement system is more because it's a group it's more aggregated and there's more sort of allocations, but they are town liabilities. So if we were to close up shop which we can't but if the town was to close up shop, we would have to pay these liabilities because these would be the, the estimated benefits that are due to current and past employees. Sean for the new members of the committee and for public who are watching this. Just to explain the difference between pension liability you know of liability. Yeah, so the pension liability. We're from Amherst. There's a, we're part of the Hampshire County retirement system so there's a certain percentage of your, your average salary that you get paid. And you have different options for how it gets paid to you but you get gets paid to you until you pass away. So that's sort of what you think of it's you know sort of our version of Social Security because we're not eligible for Social Security through the town employment. So that's what the pension liability reflects and so again this number reflects. If we were to close shop today, the people who are currently retired and the people who have who are in our system that could retire how much is owed to them. And, you know, using actuarial tables until they pass away so that's why it's such a large number, because it's more than just our current employees. And then OPEB is specifically health insurance, health insurance and life insurance and some smaller, smaller things but primarily health insurance. So the same thing it's, what are we paying it we when people retire from the town of Amherst. The town continues to pay a share of their health insurance. It's the same share that we pay as active employees so it's 75% or 80% depending on on what plan you choose. And so the town maintains a liability for retirees until they pass away. And so that's what this number reflects that same sort of thing for both current and past employees. And for people who are just not aware. OPEB stands for other post employment benefits and others other than mentioned. Yeah, while you're on the topic, can you also just refresh my memory and for new members. Talk about what happened when Hampshire County was dissolved. And how that all worked out. So, do you add a Tanya you may have a better that's fine. You can start all fill in. Here's what I think happened Tanya correct me if I'm wrong. So, so when Hampshire County Council of Governments dissolved that liability for their employees was sort of being split proportionally among all the members. And in the past year or so the state has agreed to take on that liability so it's no longer being spread just among Hampshire County. Members it's the state has taken that completely and it was a relatively small slice of the overall system so it's not a huge impact but it was a positive impact in terms of what we had to come up with. Right, and I do think that the state did intend to take that over at some point it just everything takes forever so they were kind of getting that figured out in terms of what that actual number was again like Sean said it was not. It was a very insignificant dollar amount overall. It also had very low impact to think to the members itself but obviously it's not your responsibility so you shouldn't be required to pay it but the state is essentially going to buy that out of the system. Um, this may be in the longer report Tanya, but on OPEB, what we're covering what I understand what we're paying for but we're paying for a premium are we also paying the employee share of the premium and, and then my question actually goes with that in the longer report can I find that is that in the report so I don't need you to cite numbers I just wasn't sure what where to look for it. Yes, there is a footnote that describes the, the liability what the town covers what percentage the town pays of those costs like 70 or 75 or 80%. That is in the financials. There's a there's a specific OPEB report as well. So it's in the audit report sort of as a summary but we post the actual OPEB reports on the accounting website. And that's from an actuary who does a that goes into much deeper detail about everything you might want to know about OPEB tables and medical inflation all that sort of stuff. And I, you know, because what I was looking for is I think, I believe we were told, either last year there before we pay the commercial supplemental insurance but we also pay the Medicare, the federal requirement for the Medicare premium but I just wanted to look at that again. So, thanks. That's it. Okay. Does anyone else have any other questions on this page or these numbers. I briefly talked about the issue noted in the town's management letter and I believe you all have a copy of of that report it's the much smaller report, which is good. There are briefly just three types of comments that can be recorded in the town's management letter. The first is a material weakness, which would be a deficiency in the town's internal control structure that is so great that a material misstatement could occur and nobody would have any idea it was going on. There are none of those recorded in the town's management letter nor have we ever ever had a material weakness in the town's management letter, which, which is good. The next is a significant deficiency, which is also deficiency in the internal control structure that is not as severe as a material weakness but it's still important enough to bring to the attention of management as a major issue. Also none of those in the, in the town's management this year and again, I don't believe we've ever had a significant deficiency in the past as well. Last is the other issues which is, you know, as part of the other process, based on our testing we've found if we come across something that's either a suggest suggestion for internal control improvement or an issue that was noted as part of our compliance testing. Not a material concern but silver mentioning, that's the type of comment that's reported in the town's management letter this year, and that's typically what you see, what would you have a manager letter. Now, there's one comment in the town's management letter I don't have it on my presentation I apologize for that but I had to do with complying with procurement regulations, and as part of our audit process we randomly select. A few vendors vendor payments made throughout the year that would be subject to the procurement process based on the dollar amount that was spent by the town. And then we test to make sure that the town followed the right procurement procedures and they have all the proper retaining supporting documentation stuff like that to make sure that they're complying with master laws related to procurement. And we found one instance where the school department contracted with a vendor for building improvements. They considered it a emergency procurement based on the timing that the modifications need to take place in the summer before school got back in the session. So, you know, in instances like that master law allows you to not go through the full procurement process, and actually just solicit three bids even though it's that normal dollar threshold would be subject to the bidding process. And in order in order to do that you have to file a written waiver with the state, and then document your reason for why it was considered an emergency procurement. And just because you wait too long and can't get stuff done in time that doesn't qualify as immersion, you can't like create the emergency yourself but you do have to document why it's emergency that you kind of complied with master laws to the best of your ability so if you have a local RFP process and solicit bids, you know the next step down would be to solicit quotes three written quotes, which they did do, but they didn't retain documentation to support why it was emergency or file for the waiver so we just recommend that, you know, going forward that all that documentation is maintained and that the proper procedures are put in place to follow to meet the national law requirements. So quick follow up to that. So, since that time we have, we have put in place a new sort of control around procurements at the schools and and for all really all staff but primarily for the schools to make sure that they're following all the steps. We also are going to be having sort of trainings with them and ongoing sort of reviews with them. Just so everyone knows or that the school has their own business office that they handle 99% of the stuff that happens at the schools and then we have handle everything else that happens throughout the town. So we do work closely together and so, and they are technically they are under the town so. So, we'll work jointly with them to make sure there's no further issues. I don't know who at their hand up first Bob or Kathy. Bob. Hi, on it in the management letter. It's on page three I don't know if you have it in front of you or not. The second paragraph on page three starts at the school department contracted that sentence is a little bit confusing and I think your explanation was very was very concise and very. I understand what happened, but it says that only so only sought quotes for the project, which confused me so maybe clarify what the school department did and didn't do in that paragraph that would be much, much more helpful. Did you understand what I what that means based on the conversation we just had like what they were supposed to do they were supposed to go out to bed. I understand I understand you explained it very well but it's okay in the document here it's a little confusing. Okay, I got you. I just want to make sure. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. I just, I thank you for the explanation. So, I had a question when I read that on the actual regs that oversee this. It's an emergency, and then you need to apply for permission to do it in a different way. Does the state have a process that they respond right away. You know so in other words, you know are you waiting a long time to get that. I mean is there an expedited process when a town or school in this case asks for doing something differently. You can speak to that. There is an expedited process we had to do it. We did it once in the past when we had the gym floor when we had the pipe burst at the high school. A few years ago flooded the gym is during the school year there was you know concerns around mildew and things like that because it was kids were using the gym and it really destroyed that whole, that whole area of the high school so they do get back to you pretty quickly it's not. Again this is something we can clean up and fix it's not. It's not that the states fall or anything like that. Thanks that's that you're answering because I thought if it's if it's an emergency it means you need a quick answer so yeah there's there's a whole process for you basically send an email with a narrative of it and then they kind of get back to you. My recollection wasn't within a few days. Letting you know if it's been approved. So any other questions. So this is my contact information I can provide Sean with the PowerPoint so you guys have that just as an aside as part of the you know in the town, or when the town went out to bid for audit. We got it these next couple years, they did request that we have a change in principle so I won't be doing this presentation next year it'll be Scott McIntyre, who has been with our firm for over 30 years probably 3233 years. You know he's going to provide kind of a fresh look and a fresh set of eyes on things. You know we work for the same firm but we all have different experiences and run into different issues so next year you will be working with Scott, who you will, you will absolutely love but I include his contact information here as well. And I'm always available obviously. As the town has questions and things like that right here it's not like I'm going to completely disappear but just a new principle in charge of the audit process next year. Yeah, I had a comment I this was excellent, Tanya and I found the reports extremely easy to clear. So what I saw in the report that I'm, I think it's the first time I've seen consolidation that I believe shows us the covert money we got and the grants that are coming in on both on revenues both schools. And so that is a process that when we see this again next year we'll start to see the ARPA funds so that's my question. I'm talking about the, the third report that we don't usually touch on in the presentation it's the audit for government on and standards. Yeah, and it just it provided a lot of useful detail that showed the flow flow of funds and you have the, and you had grant lines that were restricted unrestricted, and I saw the big jump up in that and, and we, and just for reference. I don't know we see that in our regular general fund report because it's, it's, we know about it but I thought that was a really useful to know that it is in these reports and will be regularly there. So, yes, yes, all the, all the towns grants are in there. And the other report that we issue is on the town's federal funds and the federal expenditures that happened during the year. An increase in federal funding as there has been throughout the country these past couple years in terms of COVID money. And we did audit the town's coronavirus relief fund this past year that was one of that was the federal grant that were required to audit. And we had no issues no compliance issues with the results of that testing. You know, depending how the town spends down the opera funds, since that's such a big dollar amount that you know if they, if you spend a big chunk of that next year, 2022 this year you guys are in this likely will have to audit those expenditures as well. And the next fiscal year audit so there's formulas in terms of figuring out what we need to audit and whether it's high risk and things along that nature but we did not, we did not find any issues with our audit of the coronavirus relief funds this past year. Thank you. Sean, you can take Lynn first. I just wanted to say thank you to Tonya. And having been on the group that did the selection for the future audit, nothing regarding the fact that we asked for a change in principles was a reflection of your service and we wouldn't just thank you for your service. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Lynn stole my thunder I was going to, I was going to thank Tanya to and just let everyone know so throughout the year we're constantly in contact with Tanya even when they're not doing the audit. You know they are great resources for us whenever things come up that we have questions you know we we try to make sure we don't ever have an audit issues by making sure we ask the question before we do anything. You know it's not 100% clear to us and Tanya is amazing at getting back to us with, you know the right way to do things clarifying, you know any any confusion we have. And they're always very forward thinking in terms of giving us heads up about changes in Gaspi rules there's you know there's constantly new Gaspis coming out. They're very good at giving us a head up heads up on that so that we can make sure we stay in compliance. So, I've, and I've worked with Tanya back when I was at the schools and I've always appreciated how much they really try to keep towns on the right track, but but also fair if they find something they let us know. Well we're handing out. Thanks and congratulations. Sonia, Sean, the whole finance group. You know this is all Sonya all Sonya. I mean, this is just an outstanding report. It should give everybody a great deal of security and insurance that our funds are being handled properly. And, you know, having lived through these audits I know that they're pretty comprehensive. They're a lot of work on staff's part as well so. So thank you. So I think that we need to come up with some sort of report back to the council itself. Motion really does not need to go into great detail. But I don't know what we did last year in the way of a exact motion. I did not come back and look at it, but I was thinking in terms of something like finance committee reviewed the audit report with our principal at the Lansom and found that it was a report of a fair reflection of our financial management and give us great confidence in our financial management and leave our report to the that be essentially what the core of the report be. So moved. Just a question do we need to recommend adoption of the report or is this it you know once we report that out of the council doesn't need to look at it. Am I correct. I think we don't really adopt it. Yeah, that's so I'm fine with the month I'm fine with the motion was a question. I didn't ask Sean or Sonya prior practice either. Yeah, it just says, I don't think it has to be voted it says it will be filed in its final form of the town council, I think in the past there's maybe been a little finance committee report that goes with it. I don't think it's been voted in the past. Okay, so Bill do you have a motion motion done essentially. Yep, I have a finance committee reviewed audit report with principal at Lansom and found that it reported a fair reflection of the town's financial management. So, is there a second to that motion. I think that seconded. Yeah. Lin moved it actually. So we do need a second. Okay, Shane will second it. Okay, so we have a motion that's been made and seconded is there any further discussion on the motion in. If not, then I will just go through each member to indicate whether you're voting yes if you're a council member and if you're a voting member putting to the charter provisions, or whether you supported if you're resident member. So I'll start with Bob Hector. Did you hear that I support it. Okay, thank you. I did that. Thank you. Kathy. Yes. Thank you. Felicia. Yes. Yes, Michelle. Yes. And Bernie. Support the motion. See Matt. Support. I think that's it. Thank you. So it's unanimous vote with support of all three members who are resident members of the committee. So with that, I think that we have, we're done with the first part of our agenda and also want to thank Tanya for, Tanya for all of the work that she's done over the years and the fact that she's made this presentation. Many times to many different committees and I've served on several and I've served on several, and I, you know, really look forward to hopefully seeing you around again but I think, you know, I agree with what Lynn previously said. Thank you. Thank you. Take care everyone. Thank you. So with that, the next two, three items that are going to comprise most of the next hour. And we'll need to divide them up appropriately. We need to have some discussion of the transportation fund. And then we have public comment and community preservation act recommendations and so that's how we're going to divide the time. I wanted to put public comment in before we get to the discussion of the of the actual CPA recommendation that we need to make to the council, because there may be members of the public who are here to offer comment on that. I wanted to make sure that they have the opportunity before we have our own discussion. I don't know how long Sarah is Marshall is going to be able to stay with us, but I noticed earlier when I checked the audience at Sarah is here also and I don't think that since she's a member of, you know, resource to the finance committee, I probably will want to have her brought into the meeting when we get to that discussion. Sean, have you do you have an initial presentation that you want to make on the transportation fund. The portion and the portion that really needs to be reviewed by this committee in order to have a presentation for the town services not reach committee before the public forum that's required to be held. Sure. And what I was going to propose if it's still okay with you or it's okay with the committee just so we make sure we have time for CPA. I was going to go over really quickly some of the documents that are available, and then I was thinking we would talk about the process to submit questions. And I think it, we still have time for the next at the March 8 meeting to have sort of once those questions are in come back with responses to those questions and have a detailed discussion. Before anything has to be given to TSO or sent to TSO. So, is that sound okay if I go over the materials quickly and then we talk about the issues and how to send in questions TSO they're sending all the questions in currently but I don't think we've started that with finance committee. That's a good suggestion. So, okay, go ahead. All right. So, let me share my screen. So does everyone see the immerse permit parking regulations on the screen. Okay. So what we proposed. Oh, you don't see it this do other people see it. Sometimes there's a little lag. All right, seeing Bob shake, shake, shake his head up. Okay. So what we proposed was increasing pretty much all of the permit fees related to our permit system and so the permit system primarily covers the parking areas adjacent to downtown it's not the lots downtown for most part or the meters. So the side streets around downtown where we try to encourage people who live or work in downtown we try to encourage them to park there to live to leave the parking lots and the metered spots downtown available for for residents and customers of the businesses. And the other reason we propose these increases that there haven't been any adjustments to these levels. You know, Jen can correct me if I'm wrong but since the permit system was created over 20 years ago, there haven't been any changes to the price levels there. The one area that is in downtown and that's also covered by these regulations is the garage parking. The lower garage there's some reserve spots that are permitted spots as well. So there's a number this what you're looking at right now are the actual permit regulations themselves that were in your packet, we kind of kept them in a red line version so you can see what the proposed changes are from the current. A lot of the changes are just minor sort of cleaning up of language to make it consistent with the current form of government. So I'm just going to focus quickly on the, the more substantial changes that we're proposing which are the prices. So close your eyes that this makes you sick. Almost there. Okay, so what we proposed. So there's a few different types of permits there's the resident permit fee. There's the resident permit if you live or work and live in downtown there's the employee E employer permit if you work in downtown, and then there's the reserve spot as I mentioned. So the resident permit we proposed increase in the fee and also splitting the permit into two different categories one if you have your vehicle registered in Amherst one if you don't have your vehicle registered in Amherst. And the rationale for that is if you don't have your vehicle registered in Amherst we don't collect the motor vehicle excise tax related to that vehicle. They're sort of identifying themselves as a resident by buying this permit but we're not getting that tax revenue which helps support roads sidewalks everything else in town. So, we've seen some other places that do this where there's a higher fee for that to reflect that loss of revenue. We also proposed the fee increases over three years. So that people have time to adjust the new levels. Currently it's $25 so what we proposed for vehicles registered in Amherst is that would double to $50 and FY 23, it would double again to $100 and FY 24, and then go up to 150 for FY 25 and sort of stay there. And for reevaluation doesn't mean we couldn't change it again after that point. The vehicles registered outside of Amherst, the fee would. I don't know what it is when it multiplies by six but it would go up to $150 from 25 and then go up to $300 and up to $400. And the intent again is that that fee is significantly higher than if your vehicles registered in Amherst fee to reflect that loss of revenue. On the employee employer side we wanted to increase the fees just because again they haven't been touched in a while and the costs of the transportation system are more have increased substantially since these were first put in place. But we also wanted to recognize that there are low wage earners in this in that group of people that worked in downtown and that we don't really want to make this a huge burden. But we still want to encourage them to park outside of downtown and this fee is still substantially less expensive than if you were to pay for the meter on a consistent basis. And then the last one here are reserved is the reserve spot permits currently $1000 this would raise it up to 1100 1200 and then 1250 and some of the feedback we've heard, which I don't necessarily disagree with that, you know and hearing all the feedback and getting some more comparables is that this fee maybe should go up even more than where it is currently at their end at a higher spot than 1250. Those are the substantial changes those fees increases. And then the one other thing I was going to show people. Do you all did a change to the budget for all of you on the screen. Okay. So in our budget book this is the FY 22. All these permit revenues go into our transportation fund which is an enterprise fund so it's separate than the general fund. Most of our parking system come out of the transportation fund and then all the revenues meter revenues, parking ticket revenues the permit revenues go into this transportation fund. And there's a few page few pages in the budget book that summarize the activity. So you can get a sense of what what it looks like. So this is just a summary of the revenues that have gone into the transportation funds in the past few years, the expenses that have come out. Some service level information if people have questions on on parking related service levels that we collect every year, and there will be a new version of this coming out for FY 23 when that budget is presented. This is sort of a nice breakdown of the revenues that go into the transportation fund that you might find useful. This breaks it shows you how much comes from violations and finds. One of the things I wanted to point out here is when you look at the parking permit it's a currently it's a very small sliver of our overall revenues. So the, the parking permits, the resident employee permits only account for, you know, 25,000 of a mil, about $1 million per year so roughly two and a half 3% of revenues that go into this fund so it's been a sort of an insignificant overall piece of the revenue picture. So those changes would increase this to about 100 $150,000 and allow us to invest more into capital improvements and things of that nature. The other thing I wanted to point out is how the parking permit fees relate to the garage the reserved spots in the garage. So we have, I think, how many spots 28 spots is it, Jen, that's done in the garage. So those 28 spots in the garage bring in more revenue than all of the parking permit permits that we issue for the adjacent area so just to kind of have that relationship that that we generally will get more revenue out of a spot if we make it a reserve spot and and sort of walk in that revenue relative to the other permits. So pie chart. And then these are the expenses so you can get a sense of what comes out of the transportation fund. We have a number of staff parking enforcement. And then some staff and staff member in the collector's office who deals with all the permits that come in and doing hearings when there's when there's appeals of tickets and things like that. So we have a number of operating expenses. PVTA comes out of there's a portion of PVTA that comes out of here. There's all the supplies and we want to end within this section to what we're trying to achieve is capital and debt. So in terms of the amount of sporadic in terms of the amount that's been spent, we're trying to get a dedicated amount each year to capital slash debt because it depending on how big of the project is, but like we do with sort of the general fund capital we're trying to get to a point where we say 10 or 15% per year is dedicated to capital. So that we can do things like replace lighting put up new lighting where we've where we've heard requests, put up the better signage we'd like to be able to pay for signage around parking out of here. I think that might be yeah there's a little bit more detail about capital which we haven't done a lot of in the last few years. And so the other documents I'll stop there the other documents that are in the packet. There was a presentation to TSO which goes over the basics of the permit system a little bit that you could look at. And then there's also a memo to the, I think to the council that goes into the sort of where the town is that with implementing the recommendations of the downtown parking working group and how this revision to the permit system is within those sort of what we're working on with those recommendations. I think this discussion discussion specifically on the changes to the permit system but I know there's a broader parking discussion that's also going on. And so sometimes, you know, it kind of bleeds into the larger discussion. Sean, do you have the memo of January 14 available on your computer to show the. I think so hard on the bottom of page two. Yeah, let me. Let me share it. This one here. I'm not seeing it yet, but what it is is it's a spreadsheet at the bottom of page two. It's on my screen. Yeah, so what we did here was we were trying to show. Transportation has been the fun that has been most one of the funds have been most impacted by the pandemic so FY 20 FY 21 or not good examples of what a normal year looks like in the transportation fund so we looked at FY 18 to get an average roughly of what our revenues were at the time what our costs were at the time. And then we sort of extrapolate like what do we want to have going forward if we were able to dedicate a fixed amount to capital and fixed amount to debt. And then on an annual basis which I think I use about 15% was what we were trying to achieve. This is what it would look like so we would need to increase revenues, roughly $120,000 per year in order to achieve that. And then on an annual basis review fee levels and potentially adjust them on an annual basis to keep up with inflation of expenses. When we were talking about changes to the permit system we were trying to. Those fee increases have them be driven by the needs of the transportation fund not, not just increasing revenue for revenue sake but having it be tied to what we're trying to achieve in the transportation fund. So let's see the questions. Michelle. Sorry, my box was moving around. Disabled persons with handicap permit from either the state or the town are they required to pay these fees as they're outlined. Jack. Anybody that holds a handicap placard or permit can park pretty much anywhere except for like the restricted areas that are like commercial loading zones. But they can park at any metered space if it's closer than a handicap parking space and they don't have to pay for parking. Okay, and that would be true are they are they still so could they get a permit in one of the spots and park there at no cost or did they if they wanted to have. I don't even think they'd require a permit because they have the handicap placard. They would be able to park there. Park anywhere. Okay, great. Thank you. A couple of questions or one question the. The non hammers registration. Residents, who are these people. So, so two things on that so we haven't been able to collect good data on that in the past in terms of how how many of them are there, and just more information on maybe why the vehicles not registered in Amherst. And I think we can maybe guess that it's probably it could be college students who live somewhere else for sort of their regular you know where they came from, and then they come to college, and they just never switch over the registration, even though they may be living in a dorm or or an apartment somewhere for 10 months of the year they may just never switch it over because you know you just never think to do it potentially. If you don't plan on being here forever you may just never think to switch it over. But when we looked we did a sample of our resident permits. I think we sampled about 20 or 25 of them. And we usually are sorry we sample 20 or 25 of them and about 75% of the ones we sampled were not registered in Amherst. Moving forward we have a new online program that we can collect that information when permits are applied for. I assume that they were probably short term renters like college students who, as you said just never bothered to switch the registration over. But I mean I think it's something to consider as to whether we should require them to do that if they want to park downtown. But that's really discussion for another time. The other question I had was, could we accelerate the increase of the fees I mean we we increase them over three fiscal years. Could we increase them over two years for example. You know, we're already, I think below market rate on a lot of these in fact I, I checked on this UMass I think UMass cheapest parking lot is like almost $400. I don't know if that's a year or a semester but so we're we're we're definitely debt, you know, and especially for the permits, we're definitely kind of below market rates as as as we are now and we don't have enough money to pay for the capital improvements that we need so that's another thing to consider. The other thing I have it's more of a comment on the parking permits as they're laid out. And this is this is just me coming from the for profit world, typically in the for profit world, like at a mall, the employees don't park right outside the entrance they park further away. So that the quote unquote paying customers get the slots closer to the mall entrances. And I think we ought to reconsider how we're where the permanent spaces are and where the employees spaces are, in order to think about how to make the paying customers so to speak, give them more access to parking close to town. So just a thought. It's not something that can be done overnight but it's something to think about. Yeah, kind of that real quick Andy. So the areas for the employee, employee permits they are sort of away from the storefronts and downtown that for exactly the reason you described there again they're in sort of the side streets away from downtown wherever you see those signs with the blue. You know they are sort of away from the businesses to make sure those spots are freed up for for customers and other people visiting downtown. And, you know, for example, the street by the police station in there that's pretty close to downtown. In other words, I would make that, I would make that parking meters and move those spots somewhere else personally. That's just a thought. I mean, you know, I recognize that there's the parking downtown is complicated. You've got residents you got employees you got paying customers and you have to kind of deal. You have to kind of design your parking to, to meet the needs of all these people, these different people so I understand it's complicated. I just wonder whether we can especially given that we've got to try to rebuild the economy downtown if we could kind of re jigger things a little bit to get more people closer to to the to the businesses. Another thing I'll say on that Bob is there are other. There are other initiatives that we're working on for going towards that same idea, looking at some of the private lots that are available and seeing if we could work with them as partners to make those lots available to the public during certain, during certain times of the year certain times of the day for the, yeah, for exactly what you described. Yeah, no, as I said, I understand it's complicated. I was just kind of throwing in some my some thoughts. Thanks. Okay, just want to remind everyone that probably it's a good idea to try and be brief and this section because we're going to come back to it at the next meeting. The request is that questions that need investigation or more information be forwarded to Sean promptly but after the meeting, and we want to get on the public comment and CPA to and still keep an eye on the two hour promise so Kathy. I'm going to slide by that Andy. I'm going to build on Bob's comments and I do. I'm going to amend. I send Sean a laundry list earlier this morning like an hour before this meeting but I can amend it because you've answered some of those. In addition to Bob's comments on do we want to go up more on the fees sooner. I had a question of can you differentiate on the resident residents who have a license plate. I would potentially say that seniors might get a less of a rate, you know as we go up on those rates. So that would, that's a question. And what would that do if only 25% of them are actually downtown residents. I didn't know whether we have a limit on the number of permits, we, you know, we have a certain amount we're issuing but is that we won't issue anymore. And then for the resident, the residents, I think we're talking just about downtown parking. So you have to live downtown to be called a resident, correct. So the residents who didn't register their cars. Can you do a proxy. If you do your sample. They have to register and they have a I've got a 12 year old to sort, for example, you know, like the best guess on what the excise fees would have been that we're forgoing because by we didn't get a registration fee we didn't get a excise fee. So with Bob's benchmark of what does UMass charge, I would go up faster on those like from this next year, and look at two justifications one, this is what they'd have to pay at UMass, and or this is what they would have otherwise paid for us and it's lost because I think so I'm going to send questions about that. And then the last one is the bolt would underground garage parking spots to come once a comment. The current policy memo you just showed us doesn't mention reserve spots so you need to add a definition of them somewhere. So the second is that both can we go up more, but is, would it make any sense to differentiate a share of those that aren't 24 seven. So that you're buying it from not eight in the morning till seven o'clock at night so we can open up those spots for evenings and weekends, because my casual observation is they're often empty. And it's 28 spots where when people are coming to downtown events where you cannot park there, the rest of the garage under garages full. So I don't know whether we have a way of kind of taking some photos, and whether that would make any sense, you know so go up on the fee but you could pay something less if you were willing to take it just for the work hours, you know to secure a place. And my very last question and I'll send this in is can you differentiate between someone who lives downtown buying that reserve spot and someone who works downtown, or is there restriction on eligibility you can't just get a reserve space if you live downtown do you have to be not living downtown you know what what's the eligibility to secure a spot that you can always park in that it's an I will just send that in so we can get answers back. I think we've got the, the whole list of questions so it's probably better just to answer those all together. Yeah, and I'll redo my memo so I just focus on questions. Yeah, I want to respect that request. I will send my questions and I also want to mention that in addition to us talking about this again on the eighth of March that on the 10th of March, the TSO will have a hearing and they will also and that will be a committee of the whole meeting so that all of us are welcome to attend that thank you. And real quick on that. I think one of the things we're hoping to do it, I think TSO at their next meeting they're going to work on what the notice looks like. And then what we would like to do is, once that notice is identified use the emails that we have from permit holders to inform all the permit holders that this is coming. I think a lot of them probably don't have any idea that this is being discussed and we want to make sure that they can, you know, voice their side of this at the hearing. So, so we are going to do outreach hopefully to every permit holder to make sure that they can, they have their chance to give feedback. And the other thing I mentioned since I'm also a member of TSO is that when TSO discussed this, the desire of TSO is that if finance committee can get its comments regarding the financial implications of the proposal done for the 10th that can be presented at the beginning of the meeting in the section of the meeting where presentations are made before it's the actual public forum, but then there's information available to the public and to the committee during the public forum itself. And that's why I have it back on the agenda for March 8. Kathy. Just a quick note on that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I miss somebody who had hand up because of the color on my screen. Thank you. Thank you. So I also my first impression was that the increases that were proposed were kind of low. But my question is, do we offer any accommodations for vulnerable, vulnerable population like disabled low income. So like do we offer any sliding scale fees or any payment plan options. So disabled again I think would fall under would have the access to free parking wherever they need it. The income is a it's a tough one to think about because we do it with a lot of things I think the issue that we've talked about is some like for if it was a student for example they may not have income but still may have another source of income that maybe is not directly from work. And how do you kind of reflect that. And the other thing we've tried to do is we try to keep the permit system sort of simple for people to understand and enforce. But if we you know I get your point that if we are going to raise fees. More substantially it might be something we have to start to consider more in the permit system before the fees were so low that I think it, you know, that's why it probably was never considered. Jen, do you have any other things you want to add to that. We've just never had the question come up to offer anything like that. My ask is that whatever is decided we keep it as simple as possible because we have to communicate it to hundreds of people through the open gov program and in person on the phone. So I just want to throw that out there. Thank you and I do thinking about it that I think that maybe, especially if we're trying to use this to reach a certain goal that maybe a sliding scale fee might not be a good option but maybe payment plans might be because sometimes a large amount at one time might not be possible. But if you could stretch it out across like a couple of months that that might be an option and that might actually make it so that more people can hold permits. Yeah, I think that's a good suggestion I wonder if we can look at other communities and see whether any other communities have developed similar systems of sliding scale and how they're administered, whether it be before parking it for other public services because administering the system is complex, but the goal is clearly understood Kathy. I just, I did, Andy, I just have a comment on March 8. I would really like to be in the meeting that puts together our recommendations, and I have jury duty on March 8, and I, it's not I'm not going to be exempted because I am being called as a witness so the police had to bring the summons to my house. So I can't, unless the trial is settled out of court, I can't be there so I didn't know whether we could meet on March 5, which would be the week before I understand trying now that we're trying to meet before the hearing. It's still two weeks from now so so that is, if we can't we can't and I will do my best to say what I think absent the information we're asking for which is anyway that. Well, thank you for reminding me because you did indicate that you had questions and problems with the schedule that was tentatively proposed, and I wanted to come back to that later. But after we do the Community Preservation Act discussion, but it does need to be discussed today and so thank you for the reminder. Is there anything else on parking right now. If there's not. I just urge all members of the committee to review the material and think about the financial implication questions. You don't have to repeat ones that were presented today. But if there are other questions or detailed questions. You can just get them in to Sean, and he can be a copy to me and certainly get him to Sean. So if there's nothing else, just looking at the screen and there's no hands up, then what I'm going to do is turn to the public. I have a question and we do have some members of attendees, and if any attendees are interested in participating in public comment, then please use the raise hand function. And we will proceed from there. And if there's any questions about how to proceed for people who are on the top. There's anyone on the telephone. I think you participate by pressing star nine. So, but I see three hands up and I want to go ahead and ask you to limit your comments to three minutes. But can we bring Sarah Marshall into the room and Robin Fordham. Sarah is in the room also as a principally as the chair of CPA, but she also has their hands up to make a comment later but I want to call in Robin for comment now. Robin. Can you hear me. Yes, we can. Okay, I don't see myself so I'm assuming I'm not on camera. Right. That is correct. Okay, that's fine. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I did send. I'm basically going to read a written statement that I sent in any this morning but I'm not sure if everybody has had a chance to review it so I will just do that and then I will complete my comments. Robin Fordham. I reside at 15 Taylor Street in Amherst. I'm a member of the historical commission. I'm a previous historical commission representative through the CPA committee. And I'm currently pursuing a master's degree in historic preservation of the University of Vermont. I'm here. Excuse me, I'm here to speak on behalf of the application for CPA funding by the owners of the conchie Stevens house. The application has been reviewed and recommended by both the historical commission and the CPA committee, including an adjustment to the proposed scope of work to eliminate those expenses, which are not directly related to historic preservation. In the finance companies prior meeting. It was established that CPA funds may be awarded to private entities improving those that are for profit. And my understanding was that Amherst has made such awards in the past, thus establishing a precedent. I would therefore assume that members of the committee would base their votes on the merit of the project as it relates to the preservation of an established historic resource. I would like to address members concerns about the question of public benefit in regard to this and any preservation project which receives CPA funds. It would be challenging for those outside the preservation community to understand the public view of an historic resource as sufficient enough reason to fund a preservation project, but it is a critical concept. In the pursuit of my studies. I've often had to explain this concept to others. And the best metaphor I've come up with thus far is to think of what we call the built environment as a winning museum. As we go around or driving through Amherst, one is able to view the collections of this museum. We might experience aesthetic pleasure, curiosity, or intellectual connections as we take in the historic fabric of our town. In Amherst, the Conkey Stevens house is a prime example of this kind of specimen in our collection. In Amherst, deliberative choices about preserving such resources allows us all the opportunity to experience this museum every day. Further preservation of the collections of our museum yields other tangible benefits. Today, people choose to explore or even relocate to areas where historic preservation is valued. Tourism, pride of place and cultural enjoyment all contribute to the economic and general welfare of these communities. It's true that there is not an easy way to disentangle the benefit to the private owner from the benefit to the general public when considering the funding of these publicly visible resources. Any work completed in the public view obviously benefits both parties. Historic buildings present unique challenges to their owners and often historically sensitive repairs exceed the costs of those for more contemporary structures. It is for this reason that CPA funding is such an important resource for private owners. As noted before, the applicant's funding request has been modified to make sure that only those repairs would benefit the public funded through the CPA. As was noted in the prior meeting many other concerns about this project can be addressed through the provisions of the required preservation restriction. I strongly encourage the members of this committee to support this application with the understanding that the community of Amherst will benefit in multiple ways from the preservation of this historic resource. Thank you for the opportunity to provide my comments. Thank you. You're being here. Can we have Jane Mald brought in and Jane, welcome and can we hear your comments and try and limit the three minutes. Okay, yes thank you Andy thanks everyone for for giving me this opportunity to make a few comments as chair of the Amherst Historical Commission. I know that the finance committee at its at its last meeting had a really robust and thoughtful conversation about this particular project and about all of the projects forwarded for approval for CPA funding. You know Robin has has just I think made one of the best statements I've heard about the public benefit of historic preservation, whether a structure or a building or or resource is a public or private one. I just wanted to comment very briefly on, you know what is eligible for CPA funding. And how can those funds be used. What is his, what are the aspects of historic preservation that apply to this particular proposal for the conky Stevens house. Some of this also is going to be relevant to the to the Amherst women's club. And how is the public purpose purpose served by this project. Okay, first of all, I believe that you all had arrived at this conclusion that you know the CPA act does doesn't prohibit use of funds for historic preservation projects on privately owned properties and nor does it distinguish between privately owned and publicly owned properties and eligibility for CPA funding. There is a substantial precedent across the Commonwealth and indeed in Amherst for CPA funding of projects on private properties, as long as a public purpose is served. The Historical Commission certainly supports the eligibility of pride private projects for CPA proposals and has actually been looking for ways to encourage owners of historic resources to access those funds. In order to protect the overall significance of his of Amherst historic resources. This proposal, it addresses preservation and rehabilitation as two of the allowed categories under CPA the others acquisition and restoration or not, not precisely applicable in this case. The majority of work items contained in their proposal match these definitions and we've tailored as Robin mentioned tailored the specific funding areas to align with the importance of preservation and and rehabilitation. The public purpose and the public benefit in a way are slightly separate. Bear in mind the time probably. Okay, thank you I just just will mention that the public purpose typically is served by the acquisition of a preservation restriction. The public benefit is broader and I think since Robin has described that so so so well and so carefully, I will just leave leave her explanation and description with you. So I'm urging urging you to support the Kunky Stevens proposal. So we can take care of one of our national register landmarks in town, and the other CPA proposals as well. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jane. I think Catherine Lombardi is also asked to be recognized. So, Catherine. mute. Okay, am I unmuted now. Yes, you are and we can hear you welcome. Okay, well thank you very much. I'm Catherine Lombardi and I am the current president of the Amherst women's club. And considering the process of applying for the CPA grant that some people really do not know much about the women's club, and what we actually do. We were founded in 1893. For the purpose, besides of providing at that point in time, a place for women to gather. Felt it for the purpose of community service and education. Those are two of our most important charter obligations. We've had the occupant we have owned the Alice mod Hills house since for the last 100 years. Since 1922 when we were willed the house by Alice mod Hills. Since then for the last 100 years we have maintained the house we have preserved the house, and we have. made it more beautiful inside we've done a lot of decorating besides preservation and maintenance and way we make our money is renting the house that has been very difficult the last few years. I just wanted you to know that our meetings are open to the public that we provide scholarships for high school students every year, and that we provide grants to community services that needs some money for children, or students, or senior services, mainly. That's just all I wanted to say a little bit of information about the club itself. Anybody has any questions I would be glad to ask them but that's all I had to say. Thank you very much appreciate it. Okay. Sarah did you have any initial comment that you wanted to offer, or before we jump into the conversation. Thank you Andy, I would just add that. Starting the weather review is the sufficient public benefit. Family member put it succinctly this morning by saying isn't that the whole point of an historic district. So I would suggest that the fact that Amherst does want to have historic districts is an indication that it cares a great deal about the public having views of an historic collection of buildings, as Robin put it. So that's all I'll remain on the call in case you have questions. Thank you. So, can you just leave Sarah in the room so that we can proceed. I did watch the last meeting and it seemed that there were only two of the proposals that had significant questions last time this one and there were some questions about pickle ball which I also note that there was a whole thing on today about pickle ball. Coincidentally, for those who are learning additional listeners. Are there any other items on the list of CPA proposals that any member of the committee would like to enter for discussion. Besides those two. Lynn. That's not why I have my hand raised. Okay. Therefore, I'm going to assume in unless there's objection that there's agreement and support for all other proposals so that we can just quickly focus on those two to the extent that they're questions and I. So Lynn back to you and then I want to start recognizing his hands. You're on but you were first. Andy, thank you for stating it that way. I in fact agree that there is serious question on these two proposals but I want to be clear about why. I don't question whether they're eligible with regard to CPA funds. I don't question the work of the committee, or the earnestness of the various organizations that have come forward. What I have to say is, we have to decide how best to spend our tax money. And I think Bernie made some excellent suggestions about and Barrington and so forth last time. If it would be easier at this point to go ahead with the rest of the recommendations, then I think we should do that. And I think we should examine whether or not we might want to set a limit. Obviously it would be informal because we can't formally do that on how much we would put forward to privately owned and nonprofit buildings with regard to historic preservation. And I would mention that one of the most recent ones that I remember was 50,000 that we gave to the JCA for their preservation of their steeple. And I, I just have to say that I, I, I really struggle with saying this to our community. But at last Thursday we sat in a meet for towns meeting where we're talking about the use of CPA funds for our track for our youth for the health of people in the community. And that's, that's just a budget buster for us. We don't even know if they're going to come forward, but we have tough choices to make an Amherst and CPA isn't immune from those tough choices. Thank you. Bernie, I just wanted to sort of clarify what I was talking about the last time. And, you know, and I agree with Lynn completely that we do have to make some very difficult choices. That's part and parcel of public management is always more demanding as money. I'm not second guessing the opinion of the Historical Commission or the CPA committee. I've helped establish CPA into communities. Stu Saggenord has been known to say nice things about me. I trained as a historian, so on so on so on. What I'm concerned about is that we are that we have adequate protection for the town's investment in these properties. And we were making capital improvements to these properties. And so, to be told that preservation restrictions would be negotiated down the line. I can appreciate that in some regard, but I would prefer to know what the preservation restrictions are up front. And I prefer those restrictions has some enforceability and teach them. So we're going to put money capital improvements into a property, then I want to know that if the property is sold that maybe this money comes back to the town, because it will be sold for profit. But there's a proposal to, we want to make sure that if there's ever a proposal to demolish the property, that the town has some real say in it beyond a year stay and so on. So I'm not opposed to the, you know, the CPA committee has, they've made a decision based on what's in front of them, not what what may be all that might be out there. I'm not opposed to the the proposals. What I do want to say is adequate and substantial preservation restrictions upfront as part of the proposal. Okay, thanks. I'm going to build on both, what Lynn and Bernie just said without repeating, particularly without repeating Lynn's opening comments, which were, were pretty much what I was going to say. I would like to separate these two items out so we don't hold up the rest and then come back for discussion. If we don't have time to do it today. I agree with Bernie on trying to adopt a policy about an upfront. And my then I have a more general question which goes to Lynn's comment is, I think these are, it's clear these are eligible. It's clear that all decisions I can understand the arguments for this. But my observation is that the tendency then is whatever happens to be in this year's queue has a chance of getting a green light, even if we know right behind it is a project that we probably would have wanted to find they just weren't ready. And CPA has the ability to reserve money. You know, so it doesn't have to spend out or spend up. So, we could be thinking that way we could be thinking about a two year or three year horizon and what I'm saying we it may be the council. So my question of both Lynn and the Sonya the people who know about how this functions, if the council wanted to create some guidelines that would say these are we voted as a town to impose the surcharge on our taxes. There are general guidelines on what CPA money can be used for we're not disagreeing them but we want, we want some policy that we would like to adopt as guidance. So I don't know what the limits are of our doing that and that's one of the reasons I want to table these points to just to anchor the discussion on knowing what we can do as the council, as opposed to what the CPA committee does. And I'll just frame this that there was a two or three years ago there was a suggestion that the council how much should go for affordable housing every year and use that as a guideline for CPA and we didn't decide to do that, but it was proposed that, you know, we, we designate that we would like a substantial portion to meet housing needs, whether the and then you could reserve it so that's my question on, can we do a policy like that and then the Bernie question I think it's well within our powers to implement what he's suggesting in the short term, you know that these could be funded provisions, but I don't know how to go about doing that either. So I want to separate these two out because I don't have any questions. I think everything else for me is a total yes vote without questions. Thank you. I'm going to hold any responses, their thoughts that I have until we hear from Michelle and Matt shop. Yeah. So building on all of that. And maybe this is another step or a different approach. Should we consider recommending that our town attorney, write a brief opinion, essentially on what options we have in order to satisfy the public purpose of the anti aid amendment. That's one thought. And in the little bit of research I did about this. It says that many municipalities do do that so they have something on record that indicates what those options are. And that could include the, the preservation restriction public access repayment upon sale all of those options that we've been throwing around. The other question I have is, if there is to be a restriction placed on the conky Stevens house, given it's a condo. And in my experience with real estate, I'm certain I think are fairly certain at least that the individual condo owners would need to vote or have some sort of, and maybe it's different when it comes to this particular property funding but it seems to me that individual condo owners would need to approve probably by a majority vote, adding a restrictive covenant to their HOA covenant agreement. So those are my thoughts for right now. Thank you, Matt. And just real quick, you know, being new and like Michelle doing a little bit of research. I was just surprised to look over time at the variation and how much the state was chipping in on on CPAC I mean, and Sean was helpful in that but I just was surprised I mean, at a glance and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I guess 7 or 8% that the state might contribute to the to the towns overall, and up to, you know, some really high years in the high 30 and 40% and that that surprised me that wide of a variation when I think about the incentive for the CPAC. And I mostly probably knew that already. And then I guess a question, although I think, again, previous speakers have said this are better than I but but a question is, would offering low interest loans to for for for profit entities be or private entities in general, being being available use to the funds but I agree with Michelle that we should ask the town council to let us know what some of the options would be but that's that's one question I would have is that would be a better place. Okay, thank you. I'm not going to separately comment on it because I can't add to what has already been said. As far as what the state has provided is its portion. That's complex topic and sure, we can give it for complete presentation but basically there's numerous factors involved in that because the number of towns that are participating in the Community Preservation Act program has increased. The number of towns have increased. That means that more towns are have a right to a piece of the state portion of the money. In addition, there's other factors of legislative decisions. And I think that it's combination of those two things that have caused the percentage to decrease over time either Sonia might have a clear better explanation than that. Sonia do you have anything else to add? I think you recovered it, but when we first started off we were at 1% here in Amherst, and we increased to one and a half and then we went to 3%. But when we were at 1%, we were getting 100% back and that's really unusual from the state. There's so few municipalities and cities in the mix, but as we keep adding, like Andy said, we keep adding municipalities, it does increase. It does decrease the amount that state versus and it is. That's why we budget very conservatively each year on the state because we don't know. We've seen it be way up and then drop down to single digit. Andy, can I say something else? I don't think there's a way where the council can direct the CPA on what the recommendations are. I've never heard of that in any of the municipalities or any of the meetings I've gone to. Basically the CPA makes the recommendations to the council or town meeting and town meeting can reduce that amount if they feel, or council, if they feel so, but they cannot change your recommendation or change it or add to it, but they can reduce the total amount. I just want to bring that up. I think that's an important point. The other thing I was just going to say and then I want to get to Bernie's hands up, is that last year, we made a decision to recommend the council adopt all of the programs in the fell so except for the library grant and consider the library grant on a separate schedule. And we created a date certain in which we were going to. And I think this was a decision of the council president, not the committee, then to do the library grant and at a specific date and established what the date would be. But we can make that recommendation. And there is precedent for Bernie. Yeah, just to, to echo a couple of comments that have been made. So it just was correct about what this council could do with the CPA recommendations. CPA has a pretty wide latitude to determine this stuff. And, and, you know, Michelle's right on target and saying that we need to go to the town attorney with this. The statute gives a considerable latitude in terms of interpretation to the town's legal counsel. So if we want to discuss what's reasonable in terms of preservation restrictions or can we can can help either the CBA committee or the town might adopt some additional targets in terms of spending. Those are really questions for the town attorney in fortunately we've got some pretty adept council. And it's particularly in terms of land use. So, you know, I think we should look to ask couple KP law about this. Sarah your hands up. Yeah, thanks. Sonya will correct me if I'm wrong but I think that CPA funds could be used to pay for an attorney's, I don't know work to design some model. So, you know, some kind of restrictions or some, you know, some kind of preservation requirement that that I think it would would be burdensome to ask proponents to do that work ahead of time. It's expensive and they don't can all perhaps pay for that advice before they even know if they're going to receive a grant. Thank you I think that there was one other question that was raised in there and this is not anything I've had any familiarity with, and that is setting up a loan program through with CPA funds as a loan program. I don't know if either Sarah or Sonya have ever heard of another community doing that, or any experience we've had of doing that. I have not. I don't think that it's allowed, but I can we can check. And I would say I don't know why that's one would feel more confident about that then. Then just putting a restriction on to recover money in case of sale or whatever. There's only a question that was asked and I was trying to cover. I don't really think it's is allowed, but we can ask. There are a feeling of the committee that we recommend a group of proposals for adoption immediately and with hold others I'm not going to make the motion. Because I'm not going to pick the programs, the grants that somebody would want to include in the motion I have to leave that. I want to leave that to whoever's going to offer emotion, but I want to proceed so we can keep on time. So I'm don't have the list in front of me. But let me, here's the motion. I move that we recommend that the town council fund the CPA projects as recommended by the CPA committee. But hold aside the two related to historic preservation, specifically the women's club and the. I want to get the name right. Please go. I have a question. It's Conkey Stevens house. Conkey Stevens house. Thank you sale in place. Until we have obtained additional legal counsel. Shane seconds. So just for my clarification, we're, we're changing in the bottom line and only funding. The remaining projects. Correct. Or holding on the whole thing. No, we're funding all of the other projects. on all the other projects. And that will be the subject of a public forum in March and we'll be able to proceed. Can I ask for a clarification? Sonia, which line is the women's? They're both under historic preservation. Is it AM Hills House or Samion Strong House? It's AM Hills. Thank you. Somehow I got thrown off of the creek call and just did reconnect, my computer reconnected just now. So I missed, but I assume we have a motion, understand we've motioned on the floor that was offered by Lynn. Is that correct? Correct. Bill, did you capture that? Yeah. Lynn moved that the finance committee recommends that the town council fund the CPA projects as recommended by the CPA committee and hold aside two related to historical preservation, the women's club or the AM Hills house and the Conkey Stevens house, which is also the Salem, whatever is homeowners association until the council has obtained additional legal counsel. So Athena, if I could help you out here, the total historic preservation on that council order is now a total of 81,700. And the bottom line total is 2,015,739. And that's the total of this appropriation order. And I'll make the changes and send that to you. Thank you, Sonia, I appreciate it. Mm-hmm. Was there a second to that motion? Okay. I can do it. So we do have a motion on the floor. Okay, Michelle, I'm sorry. Thank you. So do we meet again before the public hearing and is there, if we were lucky enough to get a legal opinion quickly, would we be able to sort of bring this back into the fold for full review, to be part of the full review again? The answer is yes and yes. Great. Have you set the date on the public hearing on this? Can I also just offer that removing both of these brings the total of historic preservation projects down to, well, I'd have to see what there is in debt. So I'll hold that. But if it's under, if we don't program at least 120,000, I think that's new revenue, then we need to put the remainder of that, make that up in a reserve for historical preservation for future use. Just so everyone knows that. To meet our 10% goal. Question, Sarah? Yes, I don't know how the motion language works, but is the finance committee is committed to returning to those two projects and potentially recommending them? It's unclear when you say, like putting aside or does that mean you will come back to them? Or are you rejecting that? May I just clarify? It's my intention that we come back to them, that we take the various issues that have been raised here that Andy and I work with our town, with Sean and the town manager to see what questions we wanna ask of legal counsel. We are not rejecting them. We are putting them aside for the moment until we have further information from town council. If I understand it correctly, that the goal of this is to give assurance to all of the other applicants that have submitted proposals that have been recommended by the CPA committee, that the finance committee is recommending them to the council, so that it removes any anxiety on their part. And we, as a committee can focus on the ones that have been identified by committee members, which I gather there are two. And just to be clear, the earliest that we would be holding the public forum for the council, it would be on the 21st of March and the vote would possibly be that, but that can be changed. We try to move it as early as we can. So, and take it out of cycle with the rest of the budget so that people can start counting on the money they are receiving. And I think there was another purpose in that was to make sure that the JCPC on the earliest possibility would have an indication of where the council is going on CPA so that it could do that, have that information as it developed the capital improvement plan is required by the charter. Sean? I just wanted to let you know, I have to sign off for another meeting, but Sonia will stay and she obviously can handle anything that you have for questions. So thank you all. Okay, I think what we want to do is go ahead and vote on this and then quickly return to the date question that Kathy raised and the adjourn because we are way over time at this point. And so at that point, is there any further discussion on the motion on the floor or can we proceed to a vote? Seeing no hands. Let me just go through a vote. Prostas, Kathy? Yes. Alicia? Yes. I'm a yes. Shell? Yes. Bernie? Yes. Let's see. Matt? Support? Lynn? Yes. I have to recuse myself because my son's getting married at the Amos Women's Club this October. So I think that we have everybody and that it's the unanimous of the voting members and two members are supporting and one member has declined to indicate a position because of personal reasons and we'll just leave it at that. So that I think ends the discussion for this point. We will get it back on a future agenda for the remaining pieces in the meantime. If you have anybody with suggestions, please send them to me and to Sean as to what you would like, how you would formulate that. Otherwise we will meet with including Lynn to work with Paul Backelman and get the appropriate questions to the town attorney. Is there anything else to be said on the subject of CPA? Then the one thing that I want to do really quickly is that I had put forward some dates for next meeting and then I was asked to send them for next meetings and Kathy already explained the problem that you can't be there for the eighth. And I think that the 22nd was a problem for you too. You don't have to explain the problem but I just want to confirm there was a problem. The 22nd is a problem but the eighth and I will correct my statement, I'm not on the jury. I'm being summoned to be part of the trial. And so I'm not likely to get out of it unless they settle. The other is an appointment that I don't think I can switch. But just on the 22nd, it is possible that I can be there for most of the meeting on Zoom but I want to be there for the parking discussion and I looked, Andy, the fifth would still be before the forum, which I think is why you scheduled it for the eighth for the discussion so we can get answers back to some questions and we can provide a recommendation or we can participate on the March 10th forum. So I just looked at what, am I, no, not the eighth, it wouldn't be the eighth, it would be the first, sorry, March 1st would be a Tuesday. I'm sorry, I had the wrong calendar up. I was going to ask about that. No, no, no, but surely it was March 1st is still two weeks from now. So it felt like there's enough time for Sean to get back to us if we submit him. And so that was my suggestion. And I don't want everyone to bend just around me. If we can't, I will just do my best to see what answers come back and I can't participate in the meeting if I'm, sitting on a witness. Let me, let me move this along. Kids, people look at their calendars real quickly and raise their hand if March 1st is a acceptable date in which people can meet. And that way we will, we'll just look to see if we have raised hands using the raise either. Sorry, Andy, I have a quick question. So we're moving it to March 1st, from which date? The 8th. So it would be the 22nd and the 1st, not the 8th? I was going to handle this 20 seconds separately. Okay, so we're going to join, okay. And I have a suggestion for that but I want to get the next meeting done. Okay. So I think that we can, we have agreement to just go ahead and move the 8th to the 1st and to have the next meeting. Matt cannot meet on the 1st. Is that correct, Matt? The 1st, I'm sorry, 1st of March? Yeah. Yes. I cannot, but you know, you guys can sally forth without me. Thank you, everyone. Yes. Okay, so Matt, I'm sorry that we've gotten into this problem. What I'm going to do is work with either a theater, Sean, to get a doodle poll out for the other meeting, the next meeting, the 22nd. And I'll see if we can find an alternative date for that but I didn't feel that it was compelling to do it now because it's so late and we're so beyond the two hour limit that we've set. I was wondering if anybody would object to putting them in this into the next meeting and make sure that we make that happen and that we can adjourn today's meeting. Kathy? I agree with that, Andy. And I was just going to suggest using the process, Lynn and Athena have, if we see a change in the minutes that we want to suggest, we get that too. I guess these came from Athena or Bill so that we don't have to spend, I just had one change, one edit. You can send changes to me and I'll put them into the next packet with those changes. Thanks. So yeah, I think that's a good suggestion and I appreciate it. Thank you, Kathy. So as you've read the minutes that were any amendments you were planning to offer, please just send them to Athena and we'll see if we can get a new set of minutes and get that cleared up. And that's how we've been dealing with council minutes of people identify things in advance. So is there anything, I have nothing else that is not anticipated if nobody else has a request. So I think we need to adjourn. Thank you, everybody. So we are adjourned. So thank you.