 we call the meeting of the second meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee to order. I want to thank you all for being here and we've got a bunch to do including going through the 82 article warrant. This was really scary until I realized I went into last year's and we had between the regular town meeting and the special town meeting we actually had 83 articles so then we managed to get through it in six nights of town meeting. So that goes pretty good. I want to thank Charlie for taking over last week. Got into a conflict. Might have a couple more of you try it out for over the next couple months. So let me go through. Contact list. So all of you had the contact. I should have the contact list now. This is our basic communication so if there are any changes please in the next couple days get them back to Liz. Any corrections, telephone numbers, emails, things like that. Please get them back to Liz and we'll get that set. Now one thing to keep in mind I say this every year but especially for the new people. We have an open meeting law and so there's certain things we cannot do on this email. So the email can be used to the whole group only for administrative issues, timing of meetings, things like that or sending out a contact list or things like that. We can't have any policy discussions on the email list because it's it's that'll be a violation of the open meeting law. The only policy discussions among the whole committee have to take place right here. Obviously if you want to talk to somebody else individually that you're free to do. You're not supposed to poll the committee. I used to do that occasionally in the old days. Can't not supposed to do that. But you can talk to other people and get a sense of you know if an issue that's upcoming and you want to get their opinion that's perfectly legal. So again please get any corrections to the contact list and to Liz and we'll get that straightened out. Now some of you I know I've met with department heads and already general thoughts on meeting with them. Understand what the changes are in the budget and why. Do they make sense? Can the increases be modified primarily looking at increases obviously here. I don't think our job is necessarily on a professional level to substitute our judgment. You know for how many pickup trucks or raw things are needed for a certain department. But is to evaluate are it's what they're doing is it reasonable. And if it passes the reasonable test and within reason so what you see as far as the increase or the change then I think that can pass through. But if you can see well you know can you get by with X dollars instead of Y dollars you know and they can buy into that that's fine. We can use all the money we need. Last year or last week the manager and the deputy manager presented the five-year plan. Now in the five-year plan I guess let me just take a little divergence on this. Now for you people especially the new people the five-year plan is really the heart and soul of the financial plan of the town of Arlington. And it's been that way since 2005. But what's for you happen to have it if you're not. One of the goals now since we just passed a debt exclusion a massive debt exclusion. The biggest this town and most other towns have had to pass. As well as a substantial override. You'll see down the bottom as far as balance revenues versus expenditures and zero balances that's the goal. When you get to fiscal 24. Which will be dealing with in a few years from now. You have a deficit. And then a bigger deficit and then the deficits keep going. So at some point. And two thousand and twenty three we're gonna have to have another override. Unless you know the town wins some watery tickets or something like that. Now well we passed over rides fairly successfully the last couple of times. Amazingly so. But I want you to keep in mind that the taxpayer is about to get hit over the head with a two by four. When the high school bond issue debt service starts hitting it. It's going to be two hundred million dollars even spent over 30 years plus interest. It's going to have a big impact. I think they projected about eight hundred bucks. You know for the average. Taxpayer so. The next override might not be that simple. Might not be that easy. You know. People are looking at their mortgages plus that kind of an override. So. Any additional monies that we can save. And stay within the guidelines of what was promised to the tax to the taxpayers in the override. As far as increases to the town increases to the schools. Should put away in the override stabilization fund. So that. We can get the override. Down. To a. Ten percent increase. That's what we've passed the last several years. A ten percent increase. You get over that. Plus the two and a half percent. And it starts to you know get a little cumbersome. Right now and over a three year override would would be about a thirteen point three percent increase. Approximately. So. Need to get that override now there are some some conservatism. Built into the five year plan. So it's it's not wildly hard to do. But anything we could do. Would be helpful. Ask about new employees. Above entrance. So new employees technically in the in the plan which is in your budget. Should go. To entrance. Well you know with a three percent unemployment rate. You might not be able to hire somebody at entrance. So. Simply ask the department heads about that if you see some. But he was a new employee at above entrance. Ask about it. Talk to him. If they have it at Max will look. Can you try a step three or something like that or step two. On. Make sure that all the numbers are accurate according to the paying classification plan. So you have that in the book. You don't go down and check it. And just make sure. Department heads make errors. Sandy makes errors. Sometimes. So. If that can be corrected. And the last thing I want is somebody a town meeting to jump up and say wait a minute that. That's not correct according to the paying classification plan. Shows maybe we're not keeping up. So. Make sure the numbers are accurate according to the plan. Once they pass. You come back here in the entire finance committee passes it. Just give Sandy a call. And let him know we've passed the public works budget. We've passed this with. You know as presented. If the. Health and human service budget. You know we cut by two thousand dollars because the pay plan wasn't quite right. Let Sandy know that he'll pass it on to IDA the controller. To make sure that everybody's on the same page. So those are the things. Please be looking at it. As you're going through the plan. Emails. You should get a for those new people. You should have a town email address. We like to do all the communications through the town email address. If all your communications on town business with anybody. So if you're sending something to Liz or sending something to me just to me. That has to be saved somehow. If you send it. You know if you use the town email address it saved automatically. If the manager sends something to you. That saved automatically on his. On the other hand if you're for some reason using your own email address to send something out. What I do is I CC the town. My town email address. If you. If you don't do that somehow on your. Email. You need to save those. Just. Move them over to the. To a save file. Will anybody ever ask for these things. No. But. That's the law. That's that's what you need to do. So again the easiest way is just. You know CC the town email address if you're sending it from from your own. Okay. Okay the. Finance committee appointing authority which consists of myself the town moderator and the chairman of the board of trust fund commissioners has a policy out that finance committee members should not actively be involved in politics. Actively publicly involved in politics. So. Local politics. If it's involved in state politics federal politics don't care. You're you're a citizen you have all the rights. If it involves our referendums debt exclusions overrides you do anything you want. With the appointing authority does not want you get involved. It's a school committee moderator clerk selectman. And there's a history to that though I'll explain especially for the new people. Now if you want to support a select reference candidate. You want to stuff envelopes for them. I don't know if people stuff envelopes anymore but. If you want to stuff envelopes for them behind the scenes that's fine. We just don't want you on the corner of Mass Ave and Mystic or Pleasant Street waving signs. Or sending email sending no letters to the advocate or to a website you know that's public. Just don't do anything public. If you want to give money just make sure it's below that threshold whatever it is. Does anybody know what the threshold is? 50 bucks. So 45 max. And the reason is to keep the finance committee out of politics. So when we take a strong position say for example against the selectman. Selectman can't say you know what you just had it in for me you opposed my election. And long long time ago. The five of many members of the finance committee including the chairs and vice chairs took a strong position publicly in support of one candidate for treasurer. He didn't win. And the selectman who was running for treasurer at the time did win. It took it took probably 20 years for him to get over that. And he only got over it my hopefully. So it's it's that might be an extreme case. We don't want to get involved in that. Our position should come up before the town meeting with nobody having suspicions that you were for or against any particular group. Any questions on that. Yes. They have the same name as you do. Your spouse is an independent citizen. I would discourage it. But I know they can do what they wish. OK. Conflict of interest testing. I think Charlie went through that with you last week. And then now is forward you an email from the town council. So everybody's going to take a conflict of interest for those of you who have never taken it before. It's really not very you go on the AG's website and they give you examples you answer them. And then you take a little quiz at the end of each section. Yeah it's really tough. But I guess. OK. Well if Charlie can pass and you know anybody anybody can do it. So you have to do that when you get your little certificate of achievement forwarded to is or give it to is and she'll keep a file of them. So we have that. And people who are signed up the new people or people who grew up reappointed this year. When you got sworn at the court's office they usually hand you a information on the conflict of interest in open meeting law. Now for the new people there is a finance committee handbook. Liz do you remember how to get copies of those. I'm sorry. OK. It used to be we would hand you a CD. The trouble is most people have laptops these days with no CD drives. So there's a way to get them off the Mass Municipal Association website. This is produced by the Association of Town Finance Committees. It was updated about two years ago. It has everything you want to know about being a finance committee including things that you probably didn't want to know but it's there. So as could you work out with the new people to get the handbook. OK. Minutes. OK. Now in order to try to reduce the amount of trees that die Peter or Liz will send out the minutes after each meeting. And I ask you to review them. And if you see a correction now especially when we get to your budgets and you give your budgets out check the minutes to make sure that they're correct because then they go on the website and they're very difficult to correct after that. So check that all the numbers especially if your budgets that come in just you don't go through and check everything make sure your attendance is is correct. With that are there any corrections to the minutes. You know there's this filling here that Shelly told me about. Her name starts with a P not a D. My last name has carried through by starting with a D instead of a P. OK. So he is correct. He is correct. Not D. OK. Now Peter sometimes will be tricky. He'll put a couple errors in here deliberately just to see if you catch them. So any other corrections. OK. Does somebody want to make a motion. OK. Move that the minutes be accepted as corrected and seconded. Any further comments or corrections. All those in favor place the I place that please say I. OK. Opposed. OK. The minutes are accepted unanimously. OK. Review the calendar for the next. Now our job is basically to have all the business for the Finance Committee report complete by the end of March. So. Liz did you get this to everybody or just me. Everybody OK. So if you look at these minutes or the calendar by the end of March and you'll notice there's a hold on will not have any hearings on March 25th or March 30th. So please you don't get get the work to the greatest degree you can done right away. All the articles on the warrant which are about to go through will try to get all those hearings done in February. On. Now March you'll see the CPC. That's the capital. I think that's just planning. Reservation losing that capital planning. So they're coming in on Wednesday the 4th. That usually takes a good chunk of the day of the night. And then minute man that usually doesn't take the whole night but we'll have there. And then the school committee. So all we have left is the Community Preservation Act. Right. Liz. Oh you got him early. OK. I'm sorry. I was just focusing on March. OK. So those are the those are the major ones. Even if you get you know one article done or one small budget done. You know presented so we could just get out of the way. So we're not trying to cram everything into the last two nights. Now. Going into April. Go to Wednesday April 15th. And I want everybody to put that on hold. We might meet on April 15th. Now the reason for that is. We we've got the governor's budget. So all those numbers are plugged in. Alan Jones there at the end of the table. He's the guy who does all the budget. So all your budgets go in. He fills in the finance committee report. And he also has the revenues the expenditures everything that goes into the finance committee report. He's doing. So that's why he has that funny little machine in front of him. But the next time the state will give us some indication of local aid numbers which is really what we're looking for is when the House Ways and Means Committee reports. The House Ways and Means Committee reports. The Wednesday before the Vacation Week the Patriots Vacation Week. So that should come out on the 15th. Invariably it'll probably be pretty close to what the governor's numbers will be. I don't anticipate nobody anticipates. They'll be different. And we haven't had to meeting had this. We haven't had to have this meeting. In years. But just hold it there in case we do. You know. So if they do something really drastic and we need need to make some major changes. We can meet that night make the changes and then get ready to go to print. What I try to do is go to print like the Thursday or Friday the 16th or the 17th. So we can get them to the town meeting members as early as we can. A lot of times by electronic means we can get to the get them to the town meeting members who receive it electronically. At least a week ahead of the first town meeting. And then we have the hard copy available for everybody else that that Monday when town meeting begins. Now town meeting begins the 27th. We will meet from 730 to 8 o'clock in the Lions hearing room on the second floor of the town hall at 730 every night before town meeting. Now 90% of the time we will sit there and chat. If if I absolutely know there's nothing that we're going to be doing then I'll email people and people who are not town meeting members you know don't have to come in. But at least hold that from 730 in case something comes up that we need to deal with. For example all the contracts are settled through 2021 through June 30 of 2021. There's only one contract still outstanding and that's the patrolman. The patrolman have gone to binding arbitration. I talked to Sandy today we don't expect to have anything before the end of town meeting. But if it does that's when we're going to have to meet to vote on that contract. OK we're going to try to have to have hearings on Annie's been meeting with the on all the committees and commissions. Recycling conservation is the whole bunch of those. We generally send out a notice to all of them says if you want the same money that you've got last year just tell me and you don't have to come in. That's you know if they want the same money they got last year we're fine. And we just vote that. Usually these committees and commissions just get peanuts two thousand five thousand dollars or something like that and give three times that more in the amount of work that they contribute. There is one example one committee though that we've heard to the last couple of times and that's the arts and culture that Annie has been communicating with. And that that's that got up to I think we appropriated thirty five thousand for them last time. And I think most of the committee has. Do you have. OK. But still most of the committee wants to hear them anyway. Because I think many of the committee felt that this is something that we're giving seed money to. But we don't want them to be a permanent reliant on the town government for this money. So. Annie will coordinate with Liz to see if they can come in and get that. Also later on this month. I want the town manager to come back and give hearings on all his articles. Not all was sort of non regular articles that we have questions about. So that's the calendar. Yes Charlie. Two things on the 17th holiday. The second thing is you have retirement down here. We haven't met. Why would we hear the retirement board before the subcommittee meets with. OK. Actually we weren't going to hear them. Yeah just take it off. Take it off. Usually we'd hear from them if they had a different article. You know then the then the two standard ones. And this they only have the regular two articles. So. I had already told them they don't have to come in and you guys are going to meet with them. You're going to meet that day. No. OK so just cross off Monday the 17th. So the next meeting will be next Wednesday. When we'll hear the water bodies and then anybody else that we need to. OK any other questions on the OK. So that's the hearing. The calendar. OK. Warrants. So the last not last year but a couple of years before that we were down below 50 articles. And now we have 82. So I called Marie and asked her if she could just arbitrarily shave 30 articles out. She said she couldn't do that. So what I want to do now is go through the articles one by one and see if there's any articles that we want to have hearings on. Now the selection articles which are the first article. So they probably noticed they made a change now. They have the selection articles first and then the redevelopment articles and then the finance articles. And they they had their reasons for it and doing that. But it's not our job to hear something because you know one or two people might think this is sort of interesting here. You if you're a town meeting member you're going to hear it all then. It's only if it's going to have a substantial impact. Now a zoning article could have a substantial financial impact. They usually don't know. And it's rare that we ever want to hear zoning articles. Believe me don't want to hear zoning articles. And then select one articles. You know if they're modifying a fee or some by law changes usually we let those pass. If it's something that we think might have a significant impact you know then we'll invite them in to hear it. Financial financial severe financial impact. OK so article two everybody have their things on article two is the state town address board of committees. Now I'm going to go through these and just read them. So if you want to ask about that you got to speak up appointment of measure of Wooden Bark. Election of assistant town moderators. So those are boy would play we get finished by law regulation of outdoor lighting. By law amendment minute man bikeway hours. That should be interesting. By law amendment canine control fees and fines. Mr. Chairman could I don't have a hearing on this. But could we ask the finance programs of committee to get the top for like the small fees. We asked them to get what they are. So someone asked what they are. OK so this is to reduce late fees for dog registration from 50 to 25. So Peter is that yours. That's mine. Oh the. Town clerk. I think the treasure of the office would have the numbers. The easiest. You mean what the total income is. Yeah what did we collect in these late. Oh OK so you want to hear dollar figures. I just want it so if we're going to have it. OK OK Charlie thank you. OK and then. No did you want to hear. How much. The resident has to pay or do you want to hear what the. I just want to hear how much the town collects. How much OK. So Charlie will get that from the treasurer's office. Now have you met have you met with the town clerk. Yeah OK. Just for curiosity. Could you just ask why they're reducing it. Just give them a call and ask why reducing what reducing the from 50 to 25. What is that question against. OK can I control fees. See if the town will vote to amend to reduce the weight fees for dog license registration from 50 to 25. What somebody knows. Why I was just curious. OK Peter if you could just ask why article eight. They're reducing the fee. Yeah one of us will write. OK great. OK. And. Yeah Charlie. On article seven we know if this is going to require. Any additional town services like. Police coverage or something like that. I think right now does anybody know what the bike way hours are. I'm sorry. Theory closes at night. And then opens at like six or something. Yeah. So my recollection of the hours is that the reason they set the hours is so that police patrol can ask someone to get off like that. OK. Effectively if you're riding your bike home from 11 o'clock at night you're not causing any other trouble and there's nothing going on and he's going to stop. But if you're disordered me on the bike path at nine thirty then the cops can ask your buzz off. That's another reason. That was originally. The issue about lighting the bike path. And. It's not lighted with the understanding that it wouldn't be used at night. Yeah that's why I'm so asking if there's a financial impact to this change. That was my question. Well this is by an ad of McNeil and 10 registered voters. My guess and is it a guess is they wanted to close at eight o'clock instead of nine o'clock or something like that. I'm just to extend to extend the operating hours. OK the opposite. They're probably bike riders who want to be able to use it later. Which is why the question of financial impact comes out. Well. We inquired the town manager whether he has concerns. About financial impact. OK. Maybe we could ask him whether or not he wants us to render an opinion and has an estimate. OK. Article seven bike hours. OK. So I'll be one of your questions. We could ask the manager when he comes in. So apparently this bike way is managed by four towns. But for the Xington or the Xington and Cambridge. So how do we take a decision or they take a decision. We depend upon the other town. Well we control our own bike path. I understand that. Yeah. What are the other towns doing. There's already some precedence then something that's the basis of this. But anyways. So you know we just care if there's a financial impact. What happens. OK. So I'll ask the manager when he comes in. OK. And then no article nine. Is reduced fines for violations. OK. So I'll say our article nine why. I'm sorry. You said. OK. That's. That sounds like a reasonable answer. If all else fails redirections. OK. 10. Street performance definitions. 11. Stormwater management update and such bylaws add remover definitions clarify the procedures that sounds pretty mechanical. 12. So the just fees. Pardon me. I don't say just fees. So financial impact. Again probably just a question that's on there. OK. Just fees. 12. Fossil fuel infrastructure. OK. You can thank Brooklyn for that. Third. Of course we're in the process of building a new one. Which will be all like that. It says major innovation solution for us. Just provide for exemptions. I just want to go to change the cost of our goals. Well you have to. So it's a big question. I think this is. Yes. I'm not sure but it doesn't just have costs to the citizens and to the consumers. I mean if you have a contractor or a developer that's going to build something and you know they can put in a natural gas heating system for X Y Z or they have to put in a underground subterranean heating system with. Each thing tanks at four times the cost that has some impact. I'm not sure if it's a. I don't believe this affects electricity Charlie. I'm thinking about developers. Yeah they're not required to geothermalize the solution. They can just do electric base port. I'm thinking for example D.P.W. You know major rehabilitation project and we'll apply that might have a cost impact. I don't know why don't we ask the manager about the impact on municipal buildings. K. 13. Procreation school committee members. Well it's not. The simple answer is going to be they can do it but they're going to take it out of their own budget. Yeah they'd like to steal money from kids they should do it. Yeah well the school committee is not talking about this. So this isn't another point is this isn't going to be there. This is a ten registered voter article. No in other words like this would never be an outside warrant article every year. No it would be school committee members would be paid to the school committee budget. Sure right. And so if the school if this was whether it's a pre let's say this was approved the school committee wanted to be paid they would reduce another line out of the budget. Calories increase the budget. Well that's an element that we control but you know that's why it's set in the five year plan. The big I the big issue I had the big issue of concern was health insurance. And so I had a long talk with Doug Heimer town council on a couple of times. It used to be in the old days this was you know a select one is a select one for like 30 years. Retires or gets defeated a select one go gets a state job for three years for you know fifty thousand dollars and then retires based upon thirty three years at fifty thousand dollars or highest three years. But that was cut out so you have to make at least five thousand dollars and be an elected official in order to get in the state retirement system. And the GIC which is the state which is the system we do our insurance health insurance through as stated that unless you're in the retirement system you don't qualify for retiree health for employee health insurance. So if the town is the town meeting decides to pass this and this and the school committee puts it in their budget then it wouldn't affect health insurance. Unless you are already have a retirement account in other words you've been a for a long period of time and have set up a retirement and have been collecting their sort of grandfathered in but new people wouldn't. So it would just be the twenty one thousand on that. Doug Hyman said the same thing the other day. OK 14. Question applies to this water body is that it has an it's an article that has an absolute dollar amount and it suggests maybe they change the article their article. I think it's too late at this point. I've been telling people not to put dollar figures in their warrant articles for years and for some reason they keep ending up there. OK establishment of town committee. We have the vote on this or not. I mean it is a financial article. Now that doesn't require an appropriation. I'm sorry. They have to take 21000 from some other place in their budget. Do you think the school committee will support this be interesting. But it doesn't require an appropriation. So I think it falls wonder or under the policy areas unless the school committee asked for 21000 dollars in addition to cover it. In that case well it consists of an annual stipend but there's no appropriation in it. So even though the titles I'm just going to ask them if they could take appropriation out of that title just so they don't get confused. OK 14. Establishment of town committee on residential development. 15. Establishment town committee on auto and property insurance claims and losses. OK. 16. Establishment of police civilian advisory board study committee. So this is not to establish a board but establishing a study committee. That should be interesting. 17. Update vision 20 20. 18. Acceptance of legislation municipal affording housing trust fund. Well I guess my only concern is where the money come from. OK OK well that's where the money is coming from. So do we need to hear it if we know where the money is coming from. Do we need to hear it if we know where the money is coming from. If it didn't say where the money is coming from it might be a good idea. But it did say that it did say. Yeah. Yeah I said under appropriation. Right. Affordable housing trust fund. Affordable housing trust fund. They should have put those two articles together. 18 and 25. OK. Now I'm going to keep going and when somebody says now let's hear that. OK. 19. Election modernization committee. 20. Homeroom legislation Justin Brown. I thought we had stopped doing this. OK. 21. Chairman do we want I don't think we want to hear this. But haven't we historically put a writer on this for life for a better way to put it. I can't recall what you attached to it before. Yeah we haven't heard one flaw in this appointment mechanism that we had identified several years ago. And when we would put the article before the town meeting we would attach something to it. I can't remember what it was. I think we would mention the person's name. That was the other the old going back. It was nameless. So it was almost like it was open for anybody. Go forward. I think when they did this particular article now mentioned the person's name it's only for that person. There was something I thought with either pension credits or health care or. Yeah there was something that they did. Then I thought the select when of course keep in mind anybody can put an article before a town meeting if they get 10 register votes. So I could ask the select when what their. Or I could ask Marie or the manager what their intention is for the new people. The problem is that what's the law now for 32. And the purpose was that if you train somebody you're going to get a long period of time from them before they retire at 55. And younger men and women have fewer accidents than older men and women. And so you hire somebody who's 48 years old. You know they go out the next day get hit in an accident they go out on disability and you've got virtually no use from all the expenditure of cash. So that's sort of the reason why it's a 32 age thing. Oh. And it's dropped at 31. Stops at 31. Yeah. To be a firefighter or a policeman it's 19 to 31. Yeah. Oh. Okay. I will check that out. Home rule legislation consolidation of town meeting member elections. I thought this was sort of an interesting thing to do but we'll see how it involves. 22. Ranked choice voting. I don't know if there'd be a cost I mean a paper cost it would be fairly trivial. My concern is the minute you start making elections more complex things. I don't think it's a good thing but software change cost. I'm sorry software change cost. Yeah. We might want to ask the clerk. That if our current software assistant can handle this. Not require you paint for something new. Not true. We're so soft. Well the voting machine. Which we'll have to tally in a certain way. You have to tally a different way. I think you have to ask whoever is procuring the new voting machines. I don't know as the clerk's office would actually answer your question. I was also offered there's a ballot initiative I think to implement rank choice voting. I think it's the legislation right now. So. Voting machines come through the Selections Office. Right. That's what I'm saying. I can't hear you sometimes. Sorry. I've heard that a lot. We need to ask the Selections Office what they know about this relative to the new machines they're purchasing. Does that make sense? They're already planning to purchase new machines. They're already planning to purchase new machines that believe they've selected them. And so we just need to know what their internet question is. You know we've got three articles here from the Election Modernization Committee. The rank choice, the 21, I don't think is all that controversial and 19. Do we have them come in and talk? I don't think we need them. I don't think they'll know anything about the financial aspects. Well, they're better. They're presenting it. No, I don't think they're thinking about the money. As I said, I think that if we are concerned that the voting technology will be able to handle the chain in how what we're asking people to put on the ballot, we should ask the Selections Office whether or not they know. Does the technology we're about to implement handle this? Well, who's on the Election Modernization Committee? Is the Selections Office on there? At this point, no. Do you know who is David? Just in town, moderator. His name is Jim Conner. Jim Conner. I believe he's the chairperson. They were looking for more individuals to participate. Originally, under the town, what town meeting passed, there was a representative from the Selections Office, a nine voting member. And there was a conflict as people felt, why should I have to go to all these meetings when I have them say it's a decision. So it was a conflict. So I believe they want to change that in one of these bylaws to allow people that are on to have full voting rights. So it's been a conflict when I understand. Okay, so okay, so 19 is not that big a deal. 21 is not a big deal. Ranked choice voting. Okay, any since you were sure. By the way, just as a warning to new people, if somebody shows a great deal of enthusiasm and really is interested in this, I consider that voluntary to follow through. So Annie, if you could check on get as much information on 22 as you can. I'd appreciate it. Okay, 23 legislation, financial estimates, budget documents. Now, this one I have a big concern about and I've expressed that to the manager and tell you what, let me apparently it was one of the select men because the manager comes before the select men on January 15th or 16th or something like that presents the whole budget with the caveat that of course, the governor's numbers to come out at the end of the month and they could be adjustments and one of the selectman well, why don't we just delay this whole process until February 1st so you could have final numbers and present it to us the next week. Well, of course, that cuts down knocks out about two or three weeks of finance committee time to get this done. So I would like so I'm going to call the selectman who proposed this and see if I can get them to back off on this. I won't say who it was. It was a former finance committee member. Oh, that narrow is out. It's out too. Oh my God. No. Okay. Homeroom legislation, senior water discount homeroom legislation, real estate transfer. That's tied to that. We not usually hear things about water discounts because that's enterprise fund and just balance or what's our view on that? Well, what usually would happen is if a certain number of people got a discount because they're old everybody else who's young would pay pay it. So it's a wash as far as the as far as the department is concerned. Authorize request to select board to fly home legislation. So I assume they know that the real estate transfer tax retired police officers to details. It wouldn't really be a financial impact. Okay. Okay. Okay, we'll have I'm sorry? Like you say, Senator Farage by any of everybody knows when a police officer works that outside detail the town in addition gives 10% they charge a 10% fee that police office work that outside detail. They do not charge a new office that works a town detail. The town detail would be like work public works covering a town meeting something like that. It's outside details. The state allows municipalities to collect that the 10% of the total cost of the detail. Now, if you don't yeah, now, if you don't have enough Arlington police officers who are willing or able to do the detail they go out of town. They do now. They have agreements now of some communities allow it and some communities don't. It's not a volatile has agreements for other communities as far as my knowledge to Larica Watertown so you'll see other offices. Yeah. But that's to a street. So this would be an effort probably rather than to go out of town to be able to hire their own retired people. Yes, but if you took if you read this proposal Yeah, you limited on on on what how what retirees could could do this if you're 65 years of age know the point is despite this close by law you can't do it. So it's only between 55 and 65. It's it's it's okay when the manager comes in we'll ask if there's a financial if you see any kind of negative financial impact. Okay 27 okay now we're into zoning on a version of commercial definition of foundation. I was hoping we wouldn't have any zoning articles this time but that was not to be zoning residential sustainability. Okay, I don't see anything that what about the parking stuff? 3435 parking requirements and B all of these so changes are can register over articles. Right. The redevelopment board not decided not to submit them. They wanted to work more on some of their articles. So other people who have 34 and 35 especially in support of the new pub. Yeah, right. There was a holdup that remember where Baylux is up in the heights cried when that place closed but but when Baylux closed there's a pub that I guess a there's a Winchester pub and they're going to open another one and one to open one and for Bayluxes but there's no parking there's no outside parking on it and that's holding up the zoning board of appeals from improving it and so to my knowledge the only restaurant in town that has their own parking is Jimmy's I don't know of any others that has their own private parking Scoocher Scoocher that's right. Scoocher share share on the grill space uh also share yeah sharing with a lot with a lot of that so I think that's that's all about uh this is one of the in the zoning article in support of the so less anybody wow a lot of mm-hmm okay well uh this is all going to have to go before the redevelopment board I'm sorry I'll wait I'll wait I'm sorry go ahead no I'll wait it's good okay uh okay so let's get on to article 47 that is finance committee so Caroline will work on that collective bargaining uh well there's only one union out as I mentioned and we'll have to appropriate like we did last year appropriate a sum of money to be used in future town meetings but we because it's not in the budget because we don't have an agreement we have to set aside money to pay for it when they do get it settled so we'll have to do that the same as we did last year um and we can ask the manager if there's any updates article 48 uh now article 49 and 50 are so equine articles okay 51 is parking benefits so that'll be ours can ask okay so 51 parking as the manager about parking because they'll present a budget to us that we'll have to put in there okay budgets will hear capital budget we've already got them set up for March 4th so they're coming in and recision of prior articles that'll be from the capital budget committee uh bond premiums that should be from the capital budget committee also or the town treasurer one of those two Charlie well this is I think the capital budget should be should be there okay um appropriation transportation infrastructure fund so that'll be the manager patient fund and peg this was an article that we started last year for public access it used to be that the funds coming in from the cable fund that we get uh would just go right to the cable access and we didn't have to deal with it but the department of revenue division of local services which is sort of our regulatory body uh decided that this money really needs to get appropriated so now with this article we'll appropriate we'll find out how much money came in and then we'll appropriate it back to them so that's what that is about we'll hear that from the manager uh Water and sewer okay Minuteman is that all set many at uh yes um I will meet with them before they meet with us and we will meet with them on March 9th okay and again remind him that we'd like to get the budget presentation uh a week ahead of time yes okay yeah so uh can we also ask him to bring some documents that separate the operating budget from the impact of the increased debt expenditures okay any excluded debt okay um okay the school committee and Dean if you could remind them that we'd the superintendent we'd like to have the budget about a week ahead of time okay and CPC um Liz could you touch basis with the chair of the Community Preservation Act and say that ask that if we could have their budget their presentation materials a week ahead of time there's your little you know at least a few days ahead of time CPC and that's good okay okay so the committees and commissions so Liz you know all all those ones that we appropriate money for CV you know you'll probably have to beat on some of them especially historic commission um we just want to hear back from them so they don't all of a sudden pop up in front of a town meeting and say finance committee never gave you a chance to yeah yeah so I want to email or a voicemail or something from them okay and we'll hear the arts and culture okay article sixty two those should be in the budget appropriation miscellaneous those should be in the budget and the water bodies fund okay so we're hearing then from the nineteen um Liz could you let ask them if they could um email the materials to us uh a few days ahead of time well probably if they could get it to us like by Friday because they're coming in next Wednesday theirs is usually just a big simple spreadsheet so okay water bodies set preserve community preservation plan so we're hearing them on the appropriation community preservation fund okay so we got two articles for them okay appropriation Harry Barber did you hear from them Liz Council on AJ okay who's meeting you meeting with the council on aging well we'll meet with Christine okay tell you what could you just give them a call um and see if they want the same seventy five hundred dollars just you know a quick call on that Charlie yeah if I if I might I just want to comment that on articles sixty five and sixty six these you know while they're here we're not a approving body for the community preservation act it's a sort of a endorsement as opposed yeah right yeah Charlie made a good point the community there's there's three groups that traditionally reported to town meeting redevelopment board the selectman and the finance committee um the committee of preservation is a fourth so they have the direct access to the town meeting so the the selectman and the finance committee people are not they're endorsing it as opposed to approving it it's a little bit different but keeps them honest when they know they have to come before for us okay so Mary Margaret you'll confirm the seventy five hundred because what I'd like to do next week is go through an action you know if we have an hour spare something just go through and vote articles that we already know about the harry barber program is where older people I'm always careful about that these days who rent can work up to a certain number of hours and get a certain amount of money that they can actually I think they can use it for whatever they want but when the program originally came up people started doing it it was only for owners people and the finance committee actually was the group back in the eighties I think was so well how about renters you know why shouldn't they get some help on so this is sort of our baby to a certain degree okay appropriation bike share infrastructure that's actually in the budget for a hundred thousand you know Mr. Chairman yes John so this is something I think I I don't want to speak for the capital bank at least it wasn't endorsed and it's it was contentious because Kelly can you speak I'm sorry this was a subject I think that was discussed at the capital planning committee and and was not supported and the issue is that it's it's paying for some infrastructure to store bikes but it's only for one company the town doesn't make any money on it so I think this is something the finance committee should review so developing a bike share infrastructure so this is basically bike racks specialized bike racks for one company buying their equipment putting in the town the budget actually says one bikes right a hundred thousand dollars that's something for a while there that's funny because for example I go over into Somerville and this whole bike racks there like right off mass have this this whole bike racks there I always assumed that the company but those are company bike racks not the city of Cambridge or Somerville to I I don't know what racks are there I mean I know they're blue and green or I think the issue is that we had green bikes and they have gotten out of the I can't remember it might be lived by my bikes line bikes might have been owned by Lyft I'm not sure but they have exited the bike scooter business so the the other provider of bikes whoever is has come up with a program but you have to pay to get in okay so I have that for article 68 bike infrastructure for the manager and now and you said it was 100,000 100,000 why do I remember when when line came in there was some debates and you know one of the requirements of new bikes was that the town would get some skin on again the thing that impacted me about the wine bikes is they were like litter yeah people would just leave them all over the place but so so um what were some of the reasons that the Capital Budget Committee was because it was financing a private corporation yeah and the town wasn't getting any return on it who would own the racks the company okay well I'm not sure I can't I can't recall exactly yeah okay we'll ask the manager about that 69 is OPEP so 69 and 70 we'll wait for the your group to get back to us for the new people 69 is OPEP as other post employment benefits the town has been funding those for probably 20 years now I'm not sure how much money is in there but it's got to be 12 15 million can we get a reports up against the liability yes okay it's in the actual it's in the auditors orders report that came out about a month ago it is substantial but not in terms of the liability no no I I know it's not subject compared to the liability but you know we've always said the thing we fear is the day that we're told we have to fund it for funding the pension system and then we'll have a minimum amount we've got to contribute and so it'd be nice to know how bad we've got stuck with that we'll have that okay so the fiscal 19 audit is is uh on the down website do you know if they I believe it is yeah okay I think we all got a copy of you know they're kind of email at least a month ago anybody else get copies of the audit by email if I don't remember okay well and I went to the audit meeting and you know all the papers were out and then there were some mistakes so they asked from the paper fact okay watch in January wasn't it website okay so it's on the website the website got it yeah so we could check the website or else I'll have to I'll ask to have it emailed email a link okay okay uh and 70 is for um people who retire and then over a long period of time because when you retire only the first day 15,000 of your pension gets an increase each year and so um if if you're retired over a long period of time the person who has your job now their salary has gone up much faster than your retirement and article 70 basically is there to prevent you from going below 50 percent of what your position is um with a caveat that um this is not of before a certain time okay uh local option taxes overlay reserve use of free cash so we can vote on a lot of this stuff at the next meeting long-term stabilization fiscal policy yeah we can okay and then we have resolutions lots of resolutions now resolution has no legal binding effect usually they're sort of national issues or something like that um since they have no legal effect to select when put them at the end um I'm not sure there's anything there that has a significant financial impact anybody have a burning desire to hear stuff on resolutions nope okay so I've got one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve articles for the manager so I'm going to Liz I'll call the manager and see if I can get him in for the oh not one of Bonnie's well I'll see if he's available for the 19th but he'll just have to come waiter okay well I'll see what I can do um on that now are there any budgets ready for Dean I found my engine article 20 we'll go back the article yes so prior to 2010 the then board of selection would vote favorable action on these articles they would send them to town meeting as open authorizations so there was no time moment so you received a permanent waiver and so you could have been 33 years old you could now take the test until the day you can retire in 2010 the finance community said why to sack you can't allow an open-ended authorization and so we requested the still that board of selection to put an end to these so you get in 2010 they allowed the person to have one exam in appointment cycle which might be two years or whatever it is but then it closed that they wanted to continue the ads come back again fully stocked from being you are now away from this statute you know until you're out as long as you're out in long as you're working age yeah okay that made sense yeah um and this was totally so so the start for we just have to make sure that the article that goes before they have to put if they go back to like 2007 eight nine they're going to put the open-ended article in right they approve it they go to 2010 they're going to put a closed-ended article in it so I think the finance community would want the 2010 language that was closed-ended and stipulated that the person was eligible for do do do do do do do do shall be eligible for one consideration for appointment to the position of fighter fighter in the town of Arlington when his name appears on the next certification list for the position so that was in the 2010 annual town meeting Yes What article? It is Article it's on the prior page of course registered Article 23, do you have any favorable action for four out of five members of the board at that time? I won't tell you that any voted no. Yes, you will. As a point of honor, I would like to point out that while I was on the board, so like with none of these articles came to town by meeting, and I think it's anonymous. I don't know if I can sense unanimously, sorry. Excuse me, so flustered. Okay, good. I'll talk to the select one. How about that? I haven't seen any of these in years. Nope. So after we put this, I wanted to continue through. After we put this one cycle in, and I don't remember, I don't think it's one here, I think. Yeah, how long did an exam cycle for the exam? Two years? Yeah, it varied sometimes. On average, every two years, sometimes every three years. So once we put these in, they kind of all, they flooded off real quick, because it wasn't. Okay, good. Thank you. Are there any budgets to present tonight? The library. You have? The library. Okay, great. She got her hand up first, everybody. Thank you. Sorry. That wasn't what you were gonna do. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll try to talk. So I will send you a little presentation that Andrea did for us, but I didn't yet. But generally, she and the library staff are really doing some wonderful things and trying to serve all different members of the community and managing all her people and all the money and moving parts. So in general, I then have a lot to say about the budget. If you're wondering about overtime, a lot of that has to do with Saturdays in the summer and the Sunday librarians. And a lot of that has to do with step increases. I'm sorry? I thought that the salaries increases have more to do with a number of people getting stepped in. Plus, so the cost of living next year, if I remember correctly, that was a 1%? Okay, so 1% plus steps. And 1% is in the stuff. No, the 1% would be your cost of living. I think it's built into the steps. No, two separate things. Everybody gets it. Yeah. I know there's separate things. But that also includes, if you go down to about three quarters of the way down in the personnel, there's a new Fox Librarian. They need a full-time librarian. And down where that vacancy is, higher. Is it a Fox? So. Why do we need a Fox Librarian? No, we do. Which position is, because we might want to move on? Children's Librarian. Is this Coleman? Yeah, Coleman line. We haven't hired another position yet. Okay, I'm sure. So what is the title rule we're gonna have? They need a head librarian. They haven't hired one yet, but they need a head librarian at the Fox. Right now they have one person who works part-time and then they wanna have another librarian who works full-time. I'm trying to see what line that's on. Yeah, that's T-O-R-O-H-A, that line right there. I'm sorry, John? Troll hop, three quarters of the way down. This one's got a kind of a reading. T-O-R-N-A-S? T-O-R-O-H-A. It's at the bottom quarter. There's a vacant and then there's all it's too little for me to read. And then how it's done, there's a trauma. It's in a previous column where it says next to wearing, or is that it? Yeah. Where it says, we're Ash Librarian? They're wearing, there's a left and then one new librarian. Actually Troll hop has been there last year, but then they, from last year, but wearing left and Troll hop has been there. For, was there last year, but then they want to hire somebody for the Fox, which is where Coleman is there. But they have a part-time person. They want to have a full-time librarian, but start him or her at the entrance. Okay, I mean, I just see somebody going from 67,000 to 70,000. We were the wearing wine. So where's somebody going from, or where's the position going from part-time to full-time? Yeah, that's the vacant. The vacant Coleman? Yeah. So they have a seven hour per week child librarian for the Fox, the total annual salary for a full-time children's librarian position at the minimum step is 52,000. They have now funding a part-time for 39,366, so that 39,000 is what it's needed to add on to get to a full-time. So it looks like now, if you look at the fiscal 2020 budget book for that line, it's 12,631, and 21 is 53,790, so that's for them. So is somebody going from part-time to full-time? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, 12,631 was the first one. Okay, then it looks like you've got a new children's librarian. They have to hire one, hire a... Okay, it's not in the budget book, it's a blank for the budget book, and then it goes to 21912. 40% time. So are those the two? Well, they haven't hired the person, they're just putting the money in. So what they have is they want to hire the person at 52,536. They have the 39,366 from the part-time, and so they will just add the difference to make up for the time. And then it works down below, third from the bottom, like there was no... There was O'Connell, see it's blank for 2020, and then 21912 for 21. So it looks like they're promoting, they're increasing one position and adding in a new part-time position. Well, ultimately, if the children's library, they want to have one full-time and a part-time. They don't have a full-time person right now. Okay. So that's going to be the... Well, previous, now it's vacant. And then they're going to make... So it looks like capital's replacing colon, basically. And it's a new position, right? Because the new full-time, would that be a children's library or a head library? No, children's library and Fox. Okay, so everybody else is either, is getting steps or 1%, and or 1%. And this is all with the Fox? Because there's a lot of people and a lot of hours to be covered and then having two part-timers as they could never, they never collected because they were always working different times. You need somebody to supervise, come up with new programs because a lot of people go to that library. Okay. Let me see what else I want to touch. So, in the budget itself, just, people were wondering what books and materials were. A lot of that was offset to the Minivan Library Network for digital content, which was a hundred and four years ago. I'm sorry. Okay. If you look in the library expenses. Five, two, two, seven. Yeah, five, two, two, seven books and materials is the offset to the Minivan Library Network. We wanted to know what tech supplies were. That's the technology. I have a question. Why does the eating fuel go down? That too. I think that she had to make an estimate and then based on previous year afterwards. They realized that it was not that. She was asked to put it in anyway. And next year, so it was a more real number. So the current use is 7,250 to date, in case you wanted to use that to measure. So the 30,000 one is not. It was just the baddest one. Well, to give them 3.4% of the handling with the personal increases and the kind of expenses, so I figured I'd go back to the phone. Mary Margaret, could you say again, what the extra books and materials are? They're offsets to the Minivan Library Network. Oh, five, two, two, seven. Yeah, that's what we're doing. So is that like a fee we pay to be involved in the process? Yes, it's the digital content. The fee we pay to the Minivan Library System, is that what you said? Yes. Thank you. Okay. So everybody pays in too, so that we get use of a number of things. Other questions? And the tech supplies is the technology that, it's things like the toner for the staff, the printers and things like that. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the things they've accomplished. They went find free and we talked about that last time. And because they've done that, they got a lot of publicity from WBUR and the different libraries and Facebook and Forbes, there's also an article in Forbes about it. You talked about that there are a lot of increases in the circulation and hours at the Fox Library now. A lot of people are using that library, which is why they need to have someone who works full-time. Circulation is triple the last 10 years. Circulation? Yeah. So during the school year, the Fox Library's now open 40 hours a week. The little Fox shop is operating and generating like half a thousand dollars a month before then. Also, it's the sixth largest library in circulation in the state, not the Fox, but overall, so. Over the last year, they did reinstate a full-time librarian. They have a head of team services. They now have weekend hours at the Fox and weekend hours at the Robbins. Plans for the... Yeah, building out the two libraries. But that'll be presented in the capital plan so we can really say anything about it. So are you recommending this printed? I am, I just wanted to see if there's anything else. I mean, she talked about a general number of things. I mean, the library has a lot of public events and the community room is used constantly by people who have a lot to offer in all kinds of spaces and rooms and librarians who specialize in different age groups and different technologies. I don't know what else to say. Does anybody have any questions? We did ask, I'm sorry. Finish what you were saying. We did ask about that. Remember that DX session of the photographs? They're still in the process of doing that. In case you were wondering what happened to all those prints. Yeah. They were trying to get rid of it. Yeah, they're still being assessed for value and figuring out how to, what to do with them. I think I saw someone else in the face and we said, remember that print you really love? Just come and take it. Well, I mean, they do have value. It's just establishing that value and then establishing someone who wants to pay that back. I remember town meeting never sort of said that now. The valuations were so low that the thumbstone was cheaper. Right. So, I think I don't want to. They're still working on it, but trying not to take up too much time doing it. Good. All right, questions, Charlie. Yeah, thank you. So, I answered one of my questions, which was about the print, the accession. I was a little confused, Mary Margaret, about the books and materials. Is that whole amount, the Minuteman or is there a portion of that Minuteman? In other words, if that's all going to Minuteman, how do we acquire new books? Did you mean just an increase was for Minuteman's increased cost? The 10,000? No, because I think it's books and materials by the larger part of it is the offsets of the Minuteman library that we're looking at. Was that $10,000 increase, though, primarily because of the Minuteman cost increase? I can't say that. It could be all the things that that covers, not just Minuteman, but I can ask for that. Yeah, because I got the sense from what you said that was the 10,000 was Minuteman's sole cost, but it doesn't sound like that's, so out of the 200,000, how much do we pay Minuteman? We've got the 46,000 I got. Really? Minuteman, really? I can't. It seems hard. Okay, well, I will ask her again. I mean, that would be, how much do we pay to use the Minuteman system if we can't get a bill here, we can get it someplace else. Right, but we do, I mean, we use the Minuteman system for. Well, how much does that cost us? I'll ask her if it's more than the 146,000. Okay, so you'll find out how much of that 200,000 goes to Minuteman, because we gotta provide, you don't gotta buy our own books and magazines. I assume that comes from that category. Right. Okay, Charlie, did you have other questions? No, that's all, thank you very much. Okay, so you'll get back to us on that. Are there any other questions? Okay, so you're recommending the budget that was printed 2,000,583,807. Oh, it costs, is that your motion? Yes. Is this your second? Okay, sometimes we'll pass these, knowing we'll have a couple of questions, we'll get back to us afterwards. Are there any other questions? Okay. I think I have a quick question. Okay, Bill. How come they're like point, point? Because they found that people were just not returning the books. And this way, without the fines, people don't have to worry so little bit late. And it encourages more use of the library. And there has not been, Is this new? Is this fairly new because? They've been doing it for a year. They're not the only library in the system. What if somebody's really late? I mean like, you know, they're late when they wait like a month or two months. That's okay. They're more likely to get the books back when they come in. Alan? Is there, if a book doesn't come back within a year or something? Is there a penalty when they go after it? I don't think so. I guess people who go to libraries to get books don't steal them. Well, what happens a lot of times, particularly with the children's books, the children lose them in half in the house temporarily or whatever. Yeah. Dean? So it doesn't affect the vote, Mary Margaret, but just for management purposes, they don't think they have a different budget number. The Fox office on the top half of the book is correct. It's a credit that reduces your raw budget on the bottom half of the book. When you go into the Fox office, there's a current year. It's a debit, which is adding to the budget, which is wrong. So they don't actually get that 2,500. It actually comes out. So if she's looking at it, she can't go off of that bottom number. Personal spreadsheet, not spreadsheet, really, man. Okay. Okay, the motion. Okay, the motion has been made and seconded for 2,583,807 for the library. Are there any other questions or discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, unanimous favorable action. Okay, Mary Margaret, do you have any other budgets? No. Okay. David. Thank you. The current turn of page 60 and 17, our financing budget, what I'm going to do is I'm going to defer it to our chairman for an explanation on it. Okay. I'm making a recommendation to the finance committee on our salaries. The rank and file of the back ventures, if I will, get $50 per year. The vice chairman and the recording secretary get 450 and the chairman gets 650. Now, since we reduced the back ventures, I'll use that term, from $100 to $50 back in the 1990s, no person coming on the committee since then has ever accepted the 50 bucks. I think one or two people might have gone up, saw the paperwork they had to fill out and said, forget it, it's not worth it. Not only that, you get your $50 and they take like two bucks out for your pension. I'm sorry? They take out $40. Right, so they take out $4 and they put it into a retirement account for you. But the system the treasurer got before Dean. Not this one. Not this one before me. Before him. Set up a new system where they moved, I think it was from ICMA to a new company. And they charge $18 annually fee for each account. So each year you put in four bucks and they take out 18. So, if you get 50 bucks, now the vice chair and the chair usually put in enough money to cover the 18. So they're sort of holding steady on what small retirement account they have. There's only six of them. Now, I think receiving a certain amount of money is a certain validation. We've sometimes talked about the Selecman and the amount of work they do. And obviously they're going to be at the town meeting. We'll be talking about the school committee on such that. And having been your chairman for 25 years, as I announced last June, this will be my last year, I figure I could make this recommendation without being in the conflict of interest. I think it would be better to move the chairman up, starting next year, to $1,000. Selecman get $3,000, but there's more meetings. They're meeting all year round. And the assessors meet all year round in meetings. So it's a little bit more limited. But I think $1,000 would be reasonable. And you get to the end of June, you've been busting your butt for the last several months and you get a real piece of money. Might even be able to have a dinner at Jimmy's or something. And then to move the vice chair and the recording secretary up to $500, I'd recommend for the vice chair and $550 for the recording secretary. And that's the same amount of money that we appropriate now. So in other words, it had still come to $3,050. So we're not changing the amount we're doing. We're just moving it. So the chair, the three vice chairs, the recording secretary gets some more money. And nobody's losing any money except for two people, both of whom I've talked to. One of them complained, it messes up his taxes and doing that and the other doesn't care. So both of the people who get the $50 out don't care. So I think it would make more sense. You'd be paying five people instead of 21. You'll have no impact on the executive secretary, but it would seem to make a little bit more sense. So I've asked Doug Heim to see if there's anything in any official documents that set the Confidence Committee salary. It's not in the bylaws. It's not in the town manager act. It's, I think we just decide it. And when we reduced it back in 1990, we just made a vote. I notified the payroll and that was it. So it keeps the money the same. Rewards the chair starting next year. A little bit more money. The vice chairs get a little bit more money. Recording secretary gets a little bit more money. And I think it makes more sense. So I'd like to recommend that to you as part of this budget. Bill? It's a great idea. I mean, $50 that none of the committee members seem to take every year is just, where does it go? It just goes away. It doesn't get used. So I mean, if you could just get out and show it's like, yeah, cash is clean. I mean, you can, so you want it. If nobody's taking $50, it's nice to have it go someplace that's benefiting, especially with work that you guys do with the chair. Okay, so are you recommending that as a motion as part of the approval of this budget? I'll make, yeah, I am. Second. Second? Okay, second. Any discussion? I just want to make a comment, I will. That Alan had run this by both myself and Peter. So we knew we had the time. Okay. Charlie? Can we just take any ethics course? Can we vote on this? We voted when we reduced it. I don't see why we can't vote it when we increase it. Well, it's the committee. I mean, I guess you could say it's the committee voting on the entire committee. Right. Yeah, I think that's the case. Legislature tours can vote on their own salary rise. Their reason to avoid it is an ethical, it's political. Okay. Any others? Just checking. Nope. Good question to ask. Any other questions or discussion? David, is there any other changes? No, that's it. In total it's 10,701. Okay. All those in favor of the finance committee budgets as presented with the restructuring of the committee membership salary, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Okay, two abstentions. Okay. Kind of stand to it, please. Okay. You're losing money, so there's no conflict here. Okay, how many people in favor? Please raise your hand. One, two, three, six, seven, eight, nine. Opposed? Zero. Abstentions. One, two, three, four, five. Okay. Passes nine in favor. Zero and five. And call. Okay. Any other budgets, David? We can go to page 19 to select one. He and I had met with Ashley Ma. He was filling in for Marie. Marie's been out against sick. Sickness has hit the town off. There's a number of people that are moved to gesture and all that sort of stuff. Another good reason to pay your tax bills? Yeah. By electronic way. So, we met with Ashley today. And there isn't a lot of change except for salary adjustments in the select man's budget itself. The stipends stay the same for the select man. If you remember a year and a half ago, almost two years ago, there was a realignment of the positions within the select man's office. And that is now leveled off. Everything is okay, everything balances. We had a little discrepancy on salaries before. It's virus, but that's all over the work out. So, this is what it is. As far as selecting, it's like a little bit. The, and again, did some salary adjustments due to the contractual agreements color, cost of living. There is an increase, a slight increase in dues and subscriptions if you've noticed in the column of $400. That's because the prices of these have gone up and there are already realizing that the appropriation for the current budget is closely getting to the max of what we appropriated last year. So, that's why they put them in the column later. And the offsets, roughly stayed the same. A little difference than last year. 3,908. So, on the board of selectmen, the total amount of appropriation would be 327,049. And then with the offset of 30,000? Yes. 30,337. Okay. For 296,712. For 296,712. Okay. Is that your motion? So moved. Is that a second? Okay. I'm sorry, was there a second? Okay, second. Okay, questions or discussion? Dean? For the vote, don't we have to put the audit report in? What was that thing? The audit report was 78,000. Yeah. That's the way I think. Don't we have to put the audit into that recommended vote? Oh, the audit is a different line item. I think we've always done that as a separate vote. As a separate vote. Any other questions? Okay, so all motion, the net number is 296,712, and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Favorable action, unanimous 210. Okay, audit? So the audit report is same as last year, 78,000 votes. Okay, is that your motion? So moved. Second. Okay, second. Any discussion, questions? Charlie? Yeah. So, in a way, prior year, while there was this big variance, I mean, apparently it was back at 63,000, and then it went to 49,000, and now it's 78,000. If memory serves me right, we're going back three years. I believe there was a new process in relation to the way the audit was being done, and going back to previous control, and it did something different than the previous control before him, and that's why that went up in 1990. That's a vague, remember that? I remember too, the auditors who were asked to do more than they had been doing before, by the new auditor. Between fiscal 15 and fiscal 16, the town switched from doing a set of audit financial statements to a comprehensive financial report. During the comprehensive financial report, it was incurred the cause because the vote goes from this to this, and to that with the preliminary in the reason for the increase. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? Okay, motion's been made and seconded. Any further discussion or questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Anonymous? 210. Okay. You're saying 210 is the date, because I used to get to 12? That's 38. Oh, I'm sorry, 212. Let me correct the last time I said that. I'm sorry, go ahead. So, D, implemented this new munis system. I think you were a part of that when you were a curator, right? Yeah. So, shouldn't the auditing cost be less over time with this new system? The audit itself now would be kind of. Allen? Is this something that's just for the capital printouts, or does it also include the powers and solvents? They're one of the same. Well, they don't do the cap, they don't produce the cap. The town does, but the power itself and audits it and so on. So, 78,000 includes powers and solvents, do you think? Yes. That's the primary cost of that. Okay, elections. David? Yes. One of the things that was discussed with the elections, they really don't know the cost of the coming election because of a number of different factors. Coming up in the current budget, there's gonna be an early election for the presidential prime. For this budget purpose, as it stands now, after July 1st, there'll be an early election for the presidential election. And in that presidential election, there's also a state election, and there's a state primary. They don't know at this point what the state is gonna ask for an early elections for the state prime. There's definitely gonna be early elections for the presidential, and that would normally run two years ago when they first started. That was the 10 straight days. The special early election coming up at the end of this month is gonna run five days for the presidential prime, which will be from Monday through Friday. Town hall hours with the exception, Friday with the town hall closes at noon time, it will now be open to five o'clock. According to the Secretary of State, we cannot open on Saturday. So, these are best guess estimates in the past. Adding to that mix is the minimum wage has gone into effect as of January 1st. According to the deputy town manager, it's not, minimum wage applies to election work, it does not apply. However, across the state-divided happenings, so it's now 1250, it's gonna go up again. The cap is $15, but I think it's a couple years down the road. So, that kind of adds to the mix. Okay, so I'm sorry, I was a little confused. It was declared that the minimum wage does apply or does not apply to? According to Sandy, it doesn't apply but they're gonna apply it. State minimum wage, which is correct. It's now 1250 as of January. The federal minimum wage applies to it as well. So, it's a lot of the stuff, especially with these early voting now, is in flux. To give you an example, if I can decipher it. Clerk's office has purchased two new type of, a lack of a better term, iPads, that they're gonna try out on early election. Rather than, I hope I can go in and give you a name, you're right, well these are now gonna be done by computer. And they're trying it out, so that's something. Not connected to the internet, I hope. However, you cannot use these machines on a general election on presidential elections. Because a state constitution, master's of constitution, he says, has to be a paid ballot. What do you mean by private? Do you want something else? It's a lot of this in flux. That's true. So, the election total is 186,001. So, we'll have three elections next year. We'll have three elections after July 1st. Right. The state primary, the general election which includes the presidential election, and then our own town election. Yeah. The, Marika Palka, who normally does this budget, has been out. And Sandy Cooler says that he took last year's budget and scaled it up to account for the, for the increase in all worker salaries. And, but as Dave says, so the other new features who are, the cost of those is pretty much unknown. So we may, we may have a transfer request eventually. So, this next year will be three elections. This year was two. Right. Towns and the presidential. Yeah, super Tuesdays, right, super Tuesdays. This was, yeah. So it'll be the town election in April and the presidential primary in March, and that's it. And then the year before it was probably, because then you'd have the state election, the state primary in the town. So that would have been three. Okay. Troy? Will it be any need for another, maybe it doesn't fall in this category, but a town meeting in the fall? Jolly, I don't think so. Will it be a need for a special town meeting in the fall? Does that fall in this? It's not in the budget. Do you want to follow here? What? It's not in the budget. It's not in the budget. But the regular annual town meeting is in the budget. And also remember, we get some what reimbursed by the state for these elections, but we never know the dollar for it until they send us the jet. And then money goes into the general fund. General fund, right. Okay, so are you recommending as printed 186.011? Yes, I am. Second. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, favorable action, unanimous 212. Okay, page 49, so that would be the legal. The legal department is, I think if you don't know, the retirement of Ed Mollingwood, he retired at, I think it was around January 12th, January 15th of this year, so there's a retirement there. And just to give you a heads up, that position was, Ed did 41 and a half years of service to the town of Allian. So he was here when Mr. Purcell was the town council. And I was only five years old, so. Anyway, he is one of the employees that participated in the deferred salary payment. So that deferred was 5% in 1984 and another 2% in 1994 that adds up to 7% and then you go times the three highest consecutive years of salary that then jumps to 21%. So there's a possibility that they might be coming here for transfer of funds, but I've said that costs. There's not many of those employees left that have been here since 1984. There were a couple that he was one, but he did have 41 and a half years of service. And having said that, in a discussion, Peter and I and Doug, town council, Doug Hine, you're taking a look now currently as to perhaps if you will revamping or re-aligning that position if you will up to the 21st century. So it still inflects, you're not quite there yet. So that that would be coming eventually as to what he was the workman's calm legal lawyer for us. And ironically, his position and council position were equal. One wasn't over the up, it's been that way for years. So in taking a look at this now, if you're looking that it might be a cost savings in the future, if they take that particular job that Ed had and kind of blended into other duties pertaining to the legal office. So that's in the work, it's not etched in stone. So again, there's not a lot of difference. That's what's happening in the legal process. They're kind of somewhat of a transition. And Ed is coming back on a consultant basis when needed for now, but we understand that he lessen in pretty good shape as far as, which is duties and responsibilities for all these years. Doug is right on top of that in the office. He's been still our own employee. He's been a great employee. So having said that, after the offsets, I'm presenting by the 480,923. Is that your motion? Yes. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Questions or discussion? Charlie? Dave, do you know if there are any looming workmen's comp settlements or whatever that are in the wind? Currently, my understanding is that, no. In fact, some years it's up, some years it's down. Right, right now it's down. That doesn't mean that they might be one, but nothing. Nothing that'll break the bank through it. Right. Doug said that Melinda had worked hard to achieve that. Other questions? Okay, motion has been made and seconded for 480,923. All those in favor, further any questions or discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, favorable action. Unanimous, 212. Okay. Okay, right to the town clerk's, starting on page 54. Peter and I met with the assistant town clerk. That office as well is in transition, if you will. So there's some factors that are unknown at this point. The office, for all intents and purposes, there are new employees in the office. One is, I think it might have been her second year, the other one that was in her first year, that those are new employees that they buy it. And that's all balanced out. I don't know if the current clerk, what type of benefit package she's in, she would be entitled to, I'm not sure about that. For full retirement. It's somewhat in flux and we'll find out as. So this is sort of a status quo transition budget. Right, right, it's, like I said, we'll all find out eventually. You can't understand what I'm saying. So that budget is total clerk's half, that would be 268,219. Okay. There's not a lot of changes other than adjustments, a couple of adjustments here, due to the fact that some things, the price of it is going up a little bit. You can notice something. Okay, I'm sorry, did I ask you if that was the motion? Yes. Second? Second. Second. Discussion or questions? So as you know, there's an election, that I think there's three candidates, so they'll be changed or we'll see how it goes. Any questions? Discussion? Okay, all those in favor of 268,219, can we say aye? Aye. Opposed? Favorable action? Next. Okay, the next one is the board of registrars. This is the salary adjustment again, like you have the salary adjustment for the assistant registrar. So that would be a total of 7,008,12. That's what I'll present. If you notice there's stipends in here for the register of voters, they receive a stipend. And it also includes the moderator stipend. Where's the person who takes the minutes for the town meeting? Is that in the select one's budget? Yeah. Yes, yeah, yes, it's in the select one's budget. See what we have here, and it somewhat can be computed. The select one's side is responsible for the elections, but yet the clerk side is responsible for the voting in the board of registrars. And then I guess it follows back from the old blue bars. And then it goes back to when the board was selecting, it was three member board. And they had another board called the Board of Public Works. I don't know if that was a five member board. And then somewhere along the line, they did away with the Board of Public Works. They created two more positions on the board of selection, and that's why you have a five member board. And they held on to their election due. That's where it stands today. Okay, so is 72, 812 your motion? Yes. Second? Okay, Charlie. So is Miskis still providing tech support for this department? Is Miskis? Yeah. I believe it's still, I don't necessarily know if it's him, his name is still on it, but I didn't see him the other day. I think he retired, I'm not sure. He did retire, but that 150 was a separate thing. And I don't know if there's still a use in him, because he was there the other day, that's why I said it. I see, okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, all those in favor of the 72, 812, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, favorable action. Now I'm going to defer it to my friend Peter for the town manager's budget. We're starting from page 23. There's really nothing new in this budget. All the salaries are correct. The manager is on the middle of a contract, so his numbers haven't changed contractually. I recommend the bottom line of 756.21. Is there a second? Second. Now is there records, access coordinator, that looks new. The 32,200? That's true. What does that position do? My understanding is because I was a tens of late last, I had a lot of requests for on the Freedom of Information and a lot of records and it's cumbersome to go back and check them in. So what they decided to do is to actually have a person assigned just to do that. That's my understanding. Just to fulfill the FOIA requests? I mean. Just to fulfill the FOIA requests? Or is this to make sure that the records are electronic so they can be used? Yes, the whole, the whole thing. So it's more proactive, it's not just reactive. Right, right, exactly. It's a combination of hope and it's reactive Well that's what I'm saying is that it makes sense if it's proactive position, if it's just somebody sitting there waiting for a FOIA request, that's a little crazy. It's more than this, by layman's terms. You're gonna make an attempt to get on top of it. I hope they do. Now is the assistant town manager still over in the facilities? His person is there. I don't know, I don't know if you don't know. I know he's there but he's still listed as assistant town. Right, but he's still, have they replaced the facilities manager yet? No, not that I know of. Okay, so because the assistant manager was supposed to be the public access officer. I guess he's doing a couple jobs. The CPA committee's preservation act committee. That's what that offset is. It says CPA but 20% of the assistant town manager's salary and 20% of the administration admin assistant what make up that offset. Okay, questions, Christiana? I'm not clear on what the difference is between the public information officer and the records access coordinator. He didn't know. Public information officer is a webmaster. Yeah, so it's web and social media communication, marketing communication, so on and so forth. Joan Roman runs the website for the town. And she's now full time rather than a part time. And now we're adding a half time. Well, so what Joan does is a little bit more than just run the website. I mean, she's really in charge of communications for lack of communications. So she's also maintaining the town's e-list. Annie, a little bit louder, please. She's also maintaining the town's e-list and sending out notices and other forms of communication. She's sort of a communications person, not just the webmaster. Like it's broader than that. She also runs the question and answer list too, right? Yes, yeah. Also part of communications and customer service. If I'm understanding correctly what this record's access coordinator will do is make sure our records are in good enough shape that we can respond in timely fashion to FOIA requests and proactively provide public records as needed. And that this position, as Al points out, is taking over from Jim Feeney? Because that's what he used to do. I think it's, well, I mean, these guys were in the meeting but I could see it, why it's a separate position, right? There are lots of records that are not accessible through the internet now, through the town's website, in particular the one of the building inspector records. Now, well, this is largely because of the public access, public records access law that was passed to you a couple of years ago now. Right, and also the fact that, depending on the nature of the FOIA request, if you're required to respond to a FOIA request and that FOIA request has to do with all records that we have stacked up on paper that we don't really know what's in them, somebody can have to spend a lot of time responding to that FOIA request. It sounds to me like we're trying to get ahead of that by making more of our records electronic, which as a former member of the Board of Selectment, I can tell you it was a very good idea. We have a lot of paper where we don't even know what we know. Is that what the position is doing? So. Rick? So I have a question on this clarification. This management analyst looks like a new position, is there a question? I'm sorry, I can't hear you. The management analyst, what does that position do? Just don't understand. Is it a new, because it says there's no longevity to it or is it a new person? It's a new person, but the position's been there for a while. Five or six years. It does all sorts of odd jobs in the office. Lots of data analysis. It's one that also works on the budgets with Sandy. That's what it is one that's kind of... Yes, well, yeah, Julie works for Sandy, right. So that's what we're buying now at Analysts. Okay, Charlie? Yeah, I would just note, I think the management analyst supports the Community Preservation Act Committee, supports the Capital Planning Committee, supports a whole bunch of boards and commissions. But I will note that I think the position, I mean, I know the position is new, the occupant is new this year, but also I know it looks like that person was hired at Max. She moved over from the Planning Department. That's right. So that may simply have been a matter of what staff she was at in the Planning Department. Okay, Reeve, was your question answered? Yes, thank you. One more question. Sure. There's no meaning in Max for the town manager position. Is there a reason for that? I mean, he's under contract. He's not on the EM schedule. Yeah, he's not on the EM schedule. He's under contract by the board of selection. So it's a bit of a different. Any other questions? Okay, the recommendation is 756,021. Yes, Peter. Oh, Peter. Yes. Okay, is that seconded? Seconded. Yep, any other discussion, questions? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, unanimous. The last one I have real quick is a Sony one. Oh, okay. That is page 72. Again, this is another committee that has been involved. I'm all going to adjust it. The committee itself selects their own chairman by state statute. They've done that. So it's a committee of five and they have two alternates that attend every meeting and fill in when needed. In addition, if you remember last year or two, we've had some adjustment problems with the, if you will, the recording secretaries for the zoning. It was kind of a shared position. Now it's settled, if hired a person to work 17 hours, that's the salary that they hired him at. And he's very familiar with the zoning in the building. That's what it is. So the figure is 32,934. Okay, is that your recommendation? Yes, it is. Seconded. Okay, any questions? Discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Favorable action unanimous to 12-20. Okay, Dave, Peter, that's great. Thank you for getting moving these along. Now, our next meeting is on Wednesday the 19th. I might see if the water bodies usually takes a little while. I might see if the manager's willing to come later on that. Now when the manager comes in, I'd like to vote those articles when he comes in, if you want to. So the manager articles, just for those who didn't write them down, the manager will be speaking on articles seven, 11, 12, 26, 48, 51, 56, 57. Now I'm going to throw in 58 and 59 just so we can get the dollar figures. 68 and 71. So it's seven, 11, 12, 26, 48, 51, 56, 57, 58, 59, 68, and 71. Now the reason I, one of those is that take a look at them. If you have any questions, call them. If you have some concerns and you want further study, that's fine, we don't have to vote the article. But just to move the process along, I'll go through it, say okay, now the first few articles are going to be, do we want to hear them at all? Or do we want to vote on them? And then the other articles like collective bargaining, it's a dollar figure, we put it in, we just confirm it. Parking, you should have transportation, of two of these other ones, we could just go ahead and vote. Okay, so you got Monday off to celebrate President's Day, Wednesday we'll hear the water bodies and I'll see if the manager wants to come in. And now, do we have any, what budgets could people get next Wednesday? Okay. Okay, and that was, that'll be it for you guys? Okay, anybody else have any budgets? Even small ones. Okay, I'll see if we could fill that day up. Okay, is there any other business for the committee? Okay, maybe it's adjourned.