 Okay, so this is finance committee meeting of May 30, 2023, and I'm calling the meeting to order at 5.30pm. And this meeting is being held by zoom members, the public have access to the meeting. I assume and they, we need to just remind everybody that the meeting is being recorded for both audio and visual purposes. And with that said, I'm going to follow in each member of the committee to indicate that they can hear me and I can hear them. So I'll start with Anna. Ellen. Present. Bob. I'm present. Matt. Present. Bernie. Present. Kathy. Here. And Alicia, we don't have any indication. That she's in that she's present so. This point, we will not count hers. We're counters absent for the moment and hope that she's able to join us. And, but we have a quorum present and we have one additional member of the council, but insufficient to. That's to the quorum, but Jennifer's is also with us in the call. Jennifer, I assume that you can hear. I can thank you. Okay, so. Lynn, if you notice a quorum, the council at any point. Let us know. So with that said, I'm going to start by seeing if there's a member of the. Public who would like to make public comment and remind anybody wishes to make public comment. I see a hand up. So I'm going to have that person. I think what I'm interested is brought in is into the meeting. And just remind you that we asked the public comment be on any issue relating to the finance committee. It does not have to be something that's on the agenda tonight. We want people always to have the opportunity to speak to finance committee about any issue that's relevant to us. And with that said, Birdie, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and say what this trick you live in and then please offer us your comments and try and stay within three minutes, but please join us. Thank you. My name is Birdie Newman. I'm calling in from District 3 and I'm commenting to urge you as members of the finance committee to guide the entire council to slow down, revisit and revise the FY24 budget. Remembering back to the 2021 report by Seven Generations Movement Collective, BIPOC accounts of policing in Amherst described fear, dehumanization, distrust, lack of cultural competency in the APD, lack of diversity on the police force, and disrespect by police for communities of color. Still, the proposed FY24 budget continues to fully fund the Amherst police department, even while press cannot operate 24-7. Thus, folks who are not safe or comfortable with police are left to wait until the morning to seek help if they experience a conflict or concern outside of press's hours of operation. That's not the racial justice I want to see in Amherst. I think that it's time for a budget that moves money out of policing and into initiatives like press, DEI, a youth empowerment center, a BIPOC cultural center, a resident oversight board, and anti-racist trainings. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I do need to observe, and just for the sake of anybody who's president of the meeting in any form, that we are, as a finance committee, limited to responding within 30 days of providing the budget. So we are required to make a recommendation and submit it to the council by tomorrow. So the finance committee is under a time requirement that is built into the charter. And so we are, that is the task of today. And I mention it because while we don't normally respond to public comment, it is really relevant to what our task is today. But just prior to the meeting, I've been having a conversation with Sean that I wanted to make public to the committee and make public generally. And that is that we have an order that we're being asked to consider. It was part, apparently, of the original presentation for borrowing authorization for one of the enterprise funds for a capital expenditure of one of the enterprise funds. And if we are going to make a recommendation on that today, I think we need a little bit more explanation than we had previously. And someone asked Sean to please explain what the order is and where it fits into the process, because it's not in our report. And I think that we're being put in an awkward position now if we don't get this rectified and added to the report that we will be needing to make recommendation in order that's not reflected within the report we've drafted for the council and are going to be discussing in a minute. So Sean. Yeah, so I think this is a somewhat of a symptom of our process was a little bit different this year where we didn't do department head presentations, partly for the sake of time, where department heads could give a little bit of an overview of their department and what was coming up. We sort of went straight to FAQs. But yeah, from the beginning, in the budget presentation, we proposed that there were going to be two debt authorizations, one for the pumper truck and one for pump station number four, which is a project within the sewer fund is in the budget to an extent it's not really in the sewer section because there's no cost implications for FY 24. It would the repayment when it start until later on, but it's in the upcoming objective section of the sewer fund, you'll see the to complete the replacement of Southeast pump station number four. It is on the back of our budget where we list all the actions and all the appropriation requests, it's listed there. And it was list explained not explained very well, but it was listed in this executive summary saying under council actions on page 11, which said that we would be asking for two debt authorizations. So all that being said, and the last thing I'll say is in the financial summaries, the committee reviewed as part of the enterprise funds those five year summaries where we looked at the inflows of revenue and the outflows of expenses. It's been factored in there and the sewer fund there was a projected debt repayment, it's part of that projected debt repayment column. I can't remember if we explicitly discussed it when we went through the enterprise funds or probably went through the water and sewer rates, I have to go back and look but or listen, but it's been part of the plan from the beginning. I won't do as good a job as Guilford when it comes to explaining why, but essentially we have a pump station that's part of our wastewater system that is not operational and we've had to sort of begin preliminary plans because it's somewhat urgent to replace it and repair it and this would be the remaining cost to completely replace the pump station number four. And if the committee feels like it needs additional info, you know, I could try to get something from Guilford prior to the vote from the council or you know, whatever you guys ultimately decide you want to do. It is somewhat urgent so I don't want to delay it too much, but if it had to be postponed, I could get something from Guilford quickly. So I guess let me first see if there are any questions now from members of the committee. I saw your hand wave. Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't get to it fast enough. When I do remember this discussion, I'm trying to find a document where it's described and I wondered Sean whether you can find that or if in fact we have a financial order for it. Yeah, you've had a financial order for it in the packet and it was in the packet back on May 1st as well. So it's been part of the but there's no memo accompanied it because we haven't done memos as part of the budget process but there's an order for it and it's in the packet tonight. Thank you. Yeah and I just as indicated but it was looking over the orders this afternoon that I was suddenly said wait a minute, I don't remember this one and that's what started this conversation. Kathy, I'm going to turn to you. I'm just going to I think it's sort of building on Lynn's comment. I'm basically fine with this but we've made at least one recommendation for the format of the budget book that in the future we figure out a way Sean to show fringe benefits in a table not necessarily down to the finest piece. A couple times in the Joint Capital Planning Committee it's come up the the Capital Plan should include the Enterprise Fund as an explicit section of it and if it did have that we would have had the pump station in there for dead authorization and you know I looked across the Northampton one it gets very long if you do that but it's it's basically putting something in if it's specific to the Enterprise Funds and then Lynn we would have had it as a section of the Capital Improvement Program and you we could decide whether we wanted to formally have a discussion at JCPC about it but at least it should be when I think of a capital plan it should be all capital not just general fund capital so it would be a way of capturing for people that the Centennial Plant we had to do in a special one one year the first year I think that suddenly oh we forgot the plant and it was 11 million dollars then but so so I just it's a request to think forward on this we don't find a it gets barely mentioned on page 11 it's sort of mentioned but it's not mentioned in the way Lynn just said and then then you could also avoid a separate memo because there would have to be a section in the capital plan that was a paragraph on this so it's I am fine with it because it's come up a few times but it would be hard to find the written document around so so that's that's a looking forward suggestion I see Bob was shaking up and down head you know I just I like things packaged in ways that's logical for me regardless of how it was done before the council happened you know whatever the history was of why we've done it this way I I just think it's cleaner thanks sorry I'm my hand is down I have found the financial order in the May 1st documents and people would like I can bring it up and show it to people I mean it's there and it's also in the packet for today's meeting I think I mean you can while we're talking maybe it is worth bringing it up now because maybe and maybe we should just go ahead and then consider whether to vote on it while it's on the screen because we don't have to do all of the votes in the same order the question that I have was is whether there's any objection to doing a slight amendment to the section on the this particular enterprise fund point out that there's one capital expenditure that involves borrowing from the center price fund and is reflected in an order that is being presented to the council just so that there's something even if it's just a sentence or two in the report that acknowledges that it exists and ties back ties the two together and if I could get a hold of Amy or Secky tomorrow and or Guilford and either of them have a few sentences of explanation that they would propose that makes sense I could add that too so that would be my suggestion of how to handle this and so with Bob your hands yeah I was just going to suggest that in the in the report under the sewer fund at the end of the first sentence we could add a clause to the effect that you know the rates are going up partly due to you know the request to for for debt author or the debt request for pump station number four and then you get an explanation from Guilford or Amy to as to why it's important to replace this thing just a one sentence that's what I would recommend um yeah I think that the other thing that I was hoping to do is also tie into pointing out the order so that when the council is looking at the orders the four orders that there's reference to the order in the report that would be the additional piece because I think that there's enough knowledge about the pumper but this one is taken the group by surprise so that would be the the other addition that I would make and also if I understood um Sean correctly this will not affect the this is not a factor in the rates we're approving for um FY 24 this is a future because the barn wouldn't be repaid during the year that's correct so it's actually a future rate question out of not a rate for the year that we're approving Kathy um so just following up on that comment I think that sentence needs to be in there too I like what Bob said is put it in that um there is a debt service authorization then you can cross-reference it and this will not affect FY 24 but it will starting in FY 25 I originally put my hand up because as I'm reading this unless I'm missing it it never says the sewer enterprise fund so this is this is all and I don't know what our normal you know this is this just reads like regular capital but the sewer enterprise funds revenues for that would be paying for this debt so do we not need to somewhere say that this debt is Sean I don't know how they normally you know what did Centennial say you know are you talking about in the report itself no I'm saying that the order that I'm looking at does not use the word enterprise fund anywhere sewer enterprise fund it just appropriates um debt service so do we not need somewhere to say this is uh the you know the service for this will be repaid by the sewer enterprise fund so I'm just looking for a way that this isn't being paid out of somewhere I'll say um yeah I mean so we we list it specifically under the sewer fund in our sort of our appropriation table at the end but let me just double check um yeah I think the question is actually a good one I appreciate you raising a cap because if in like the Centennial borrowing there's reference in the order to the Centennial fund and that's a common practice for borrowing related to enterprise funds then the question is whether there's a problem with the order not being sufficiently clear and whether the order might be revised before it's actually on the council agenda yeah so so if it makes anyone feel better we have had Sonya review all the orders this year that's one of her one of our lingering responsibilities is to still review them up let me just pull up the Centennial so you can see how um how that one was done so this one is a little more um I'll share my screen real quick I don't believe they typically have the actual fund but this is how um Centennial looked so this one's a little bit more robust because it has the clean water um revolving fund in it is that too small can you see everybody see that we can see it so I believe pretty much we copy and paste of the same language to to prepare the order this year except for this part here because it doesn't apply yeah so it certainly doesn't there either so I missed it I missed it that time around too um you know I I understand what we're doing I just think it's maybe we need to figure out whether we should generally do that so that people understand where the debt should be paid you know I don't need to change it right now if this is the way it's been approved but it it's that's what my question is because it's treated differently in the tech and the way we pay for it yeah we can look at that I know in the past um it's been a point of contention with Sonya because there's lots of words within we can do to orders and sometimes it does more harm than good to to tweak them all the time we have we have a format that's been generally uh workable and we haven't had any issues with dor so I would I think the piece um that we're doing right now which is important is talking about it and this being memorialized in the report to say that this is an order from the the solid waste or the sewer fund and that it's you know the plan is for it to be repaid by rates I think that's the important piece is that it's covered in this report um because we do have to show that it was discussed at the finance committee yeah I would be fine with that and I just then maybe take another look at it for future yeah whether if we keep having millions of dollars for these two enterprise funds take a look at whether we ever need to reference where they are so Bernie I'm sorry your hand is up yeah Bernie yeah um it's a matter of bookkeeping the the bond holder is sort of these bond issuers and going to care where the money comes from because it's an obligation of the town yeah so you know for our internal purposes we've identified a funding stream for this but I don't think it's necessary to to have it in the order and certainly wouldn't be necessary for the bond holder to own that matter of fact the bond owner might be a little bit anxious if we pinpoint a specific fund which could run dry um you know this basically says a ton of Amherst is going to pay you back four hundred thousand dollars right um if we say we're going to pay you back four hundred thousand dollars only if we have it in the water or the sewer excise fund um that could be that could be troublesome that might actually cause a premium in the rate right well my two cents yeah um I note that the uh other order that we're going to be approving this evening is does specifically mention the fire department pumper truck in the in the order um so that there is a differentiation but I think that the point Bernie's making is unrelated Paul yeah I just want to emphasize what Bernie said these are general obligation bonds that we don't tell them where their funds are coming from the bond agency is rating the town not our our funding source so we can pull the money from wherever we want um and we can say how we're going to pay for it but it's so we're saying that out loud to the council now and I think we could put that in writing certainly which I think we've done um but I think if we start to put in language it says we're going to fund it this way the the credit agency the bond agency bonding authorities might have problems with that that that helps a lot that makes it so as long as we've written these verbal sentences clearly and in writing I think it makes it clear to everyone where this is where we think it's coming from so with that said I think that uh I think we have an agreement that we will do an amendment to the report to the enterprise fund section just to make it clear somewhere in the report that ties this together and uh we can get back to other business but I'm going to go ahead and make one of the four motions that I've written out on the motion sheet right now because we just talked about it and move that the finance committee recommended the council approve appropriation and transfer order f y 24-05 a an order appropriating funds for a portion of the town of amherst capitol program equipment buildings and facilities second second on a seconded um sorry further discussion if not i'm going to call for a vote andy can you just confirm the number you read the order number um what f y 24-05 a the pump or zone nine or the the debts the debt authorization for the pump station is oh nine oh nine a yeah were you looking to do the pump station andy oh wait a minute um maybe back up on the screen so we are all looking at it i'm about to do that thanks yeah okay okay so um apologize for the error but so um i'm going to amend the motion to read i move the finance committee recommend that the council approve appropriation and borrowing authorization ordered f y 24-09 a an order approving the authorizing borrowing to fund capitol projects honored you agree to the amendment of the motion i absolutely do okay so having said that um then let's go ahead and proceed to vote on that and then well has his hand up i don't know he doesn't he just didn't take it down okay okay um so if that's said i'll just go in alphabetical order on it i linn i bob support matt support bernie support gaffey yes uh i'm a yes and alicia is absent yeah she will not be here tonight so the vote is four to zero for the voting members with one voting member absent and three resident members in support so that takes care of that now where we are should get back to the agenda in general and i think that we need to talk about specific pieces of the budget and basically you know um what we want to do is make sure that there's if there are any questions that remain about the budget or any sections that we need to um specifically discuss that we do so and i'm going to raise one to begin with and then after that see if there are others and i don't think unless somebody makes a motion it doesn't need to be dealt with as a motion but having said that unless there's a specific motion the town manager has has made a recommendation to us regarding funding for elementary schools and um the we know that the school committee has made a request for additional funds it was referenced um by the manager in his budget and very specifically stated that um he's did not recommend the additional amount as we've talked about there's a couple things to note one is that when it was explained to us by the chair of the school committee that the funds that were requested were calculated on a basis of taking the amount of money that was the difference between a half a percent or two and a half percent and three percent increase and taking that difference and applying that entire half percent increase to all of the operating budgets solely to schools and then dividing proportionately between regional and elementary schools and that's how that number was calculated and therefore varying from the practice that has been one standard practice that we've had of allocating interest of the any increases to operating budgets under proportionate basis across the board and the so that said it has two effects if it was to be voted one is that it was it's not consistent with that policy that I just described and secondly it is not tied to any specific expense or any any specific position which the committee the school committee also identified so those would be the reasons that I would put forward that it's I would I personally would not make a suggestion of changing the town manager's recommendation we did not I did not include that in the report section that I wrote because I was one of the schools but would add that if there's agreement of the committee but I wanted to make sure that today we had the discussion and provided an opportunity for somebody to make a a different pursue a different position or even offer a motion so with that I'm going to stop talking let my colleagues speak so nobody is asking to speak I'm unless somebody says something now I'm going to assume that there's agreement that I can make that amendment to say happy yeah Andy and you explained this last week last Friday but if you're looking for what we should do with this I wasn't sure quite what you're suggesting but in the report it talks about the 84,000 so are you saying in that section report we consider this and decided we would not recommend it is that what you're looking for to separate it from the financial orders because you have a one two three four kind of list here and were you thinking you would I'm in support of that let me say that but I wasn't looking I'm trying to ask you what it is you're asking of us thank you well what I'm suggesting is that it seems that it needs a statement of policy in why we're not recommending a change because it was very specifically requested by the school committee that's that's what I was saying would it be in this elementary school section right up yes that's where you would put it okay that's where I would put it right where you said and I would probably boil it down to a couple of sentences because I don't think that I think it's adequately explained otherwise in that section Matt right so this might be similar to what Kathy's asking the rationale you just gave that the point five should be spread across all departments that doesn't currently live in the report is that accurate um yeah oh it is explicitly because it's it really is it's explicit in the sense that when you look at the town manager's budget that the percentage increases for each operating budget is the same percentage and we adopted we have been questioned the consequence of that well and that has certainly been in council guidelines consistently right so I mean the sentence on there's the sentence that says just before the first table budget adjustments table the two paragraphs up from that from that table says this amount was not based upon our request for a specific additional expense it was determined by suggesting that the additional point five percent of operating budget increases to be allocated solely to education and allocated proportionately that so that's I think that is from my my reading it which is you know pretty cursory that's the most on the nose you might be a little bit more specific on that if you wanted to if the guidance was to spread it across departments that might be you know the place but I I think it's adequate as is to be totally honest with you but since you brought it up and you brought up that rationale I just I just point out to that to that sentence yeah no that is where I would put it and as I said it I probably would add more than two sentences but if there's agreement unless there's I will draft something and send it send it out noting very clearly where the change is before and give you an opportunity to comment before I send it to the council I think that if I as long as I get into the council sometime tomorrow can be very late tomorrow and I intend it to be late tomorrow so that I have you have the opportunity if you have comments on any changes this or other changes that we discuss but there's a little bit of time left so Lynn I made note of both the need to add something in that paragraph I'm keeping the view will the record on draft three and I also made note about the previous financial order or borrowing order that we just voted on so they're both there for you Andy when you get to that okay okay thank you so is there anything additional that any sections of the report that people wish to raise met and I apologize I may have missed this as well but I believe in this meeting we talked about the potential for free cash once that's certified but I don't know if that bullet going towards the school's budget to make up whatever shortfall but I this mean this report may not be the place for that I think I'm just maybe adding to a mat so I think the conversation was when we go to certify free cash like we did this past year looking at our revenues and if appropriate you know the town manager might recommend something I'm not sure at all and that or I'm not sure the same way it'll play out the same way that this past year the governor's budget or the final budget coming in so much higher but I know we had that discussion about evaluating that again in the fall so I guess Matt that since you've raised the question then should we include somewhere in the report either in this section or more generally that if additional funds become available because there's a significant addition to free cash when free cash is certified we would suggest that the manager consider a supplemental budget providing additional funds to operating budgets as preview is done the prior year the only tweak I would recommend is the supplemental budget this past year wasn't because of free cash it was because operating revenues actually came in higher because state aid came in higher so we were following our policies we were lining up and you know a recurring revenue with a recurring expense so just a slightly different than using free cash so you didn't it didn't happen at the time after we knew what the free cash was likely to be we did it I think we did it that same time because there were a number of financial orders there were some appropriations from free cash for one time capital expenses but it wasn't I think it was just because we try to bundle that stuff together for the council but free cash usually increases only because you either underspend by having not been able to spend all of the in this case FY23 expenditures or additional revenue but our but again the the extra half percent we allocated in the fall was because the state state revenues from what we built the budget on came in or came in much higher because the the final state budget doubled on restricted general government aid which was kind of a you know surprise yeah I think that this point we probably know since the senate budget is a non commodity you know what our maximum is at this point Bernie I would be reluctant to make promises that Paul might not be able to keep and and mention the fact that there's you know you know I think you're always open at any point in time I think you're open to having them in the budget if something occurs but I I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to start a another bidding war for if we get free cash we must do this for one I think we need to wait and see what happens I'm very anxious about this next year I think there's going to be it's I think there's going to be a recession I think we're going to see that we don't know what exactly is happening with a number of federal programs now because of the the so-called agreement I would just be very reluctant to open that open that door you know we have a good management a good management team and stuff gets monitored very carefully and if there appears to be bumps on the road I think we can trust our our staff to recommend to the council that changes be made I was going to say basically the same thing I would be I'd stay silent on this I mean we although Sean you said you and Paul have come up with something creative for our EMT firefighter line item there's there's a lot of demand if we miraculously have extra money to spend in the fall and I'd be leery of doing this you know the only comment I would make is that extra point five basically just came to us we never came back together that came from you all so if there had been any thought of something more on the education line that might have been the time to do it you know whether if everything was 4.8 and something was 4.1 but you know so it's a better time to do it when we do the the indicators if there's a reason going into a year that we whatever again I want to say whatever we've done in the past I wouldn't say just because that we've done it in the past we should always do it that way so if there's a good reason to depart from that we should be looking at that carefully in October November when we're looking forward so I'm putting my hand down I am agreeing with Bernie and not opening up the what we might do when the fall should something positive happen I'm hoping our ARPA money is totally protected by the way it's that's so yeah for what it's worth we have received word that that was not part of that's not part of the it's not at risk as part of the current deal that's being worked on which is good news not that not that it may not be a risk in future deals so it's something we still need to be mindful of but okay hey Lynn um and I'm just going to say I agree with Bernie and Kathy's possession on this so um Maddie are you okay with the way that this is concluding oh yeah I mean I you know as I said at the outset I I don't know this document is where the point is I just recall our discussion and thought it was worth asking yeah I'm fine and I think I raised it initially so I am I'm moving away from what I said Matt that was in fact you're you remembering completely correctly okay I remember too well other issues that people would raise Matt you just hit your hand to still up no it's a it's a new one okay go with it then yeah and and yeah I'd ask you you're the one to share the information with me but this is a question for Sean when we heard the public health update we had not had the news yet about the health director resigning and so I wanted to ask that question of you first if there's any uh budget obviously you know obviously it's a it's a budget slot that will be held um and I'm kind of I'll talk slowly so Lynn can scroll down to that section but I wanted to ask if there was anything within this document that should reflect those challenges of Jennifer you know resigning or I don't know I'll just kind of open it to you and just and bring our attention to it because it would feel a little tone deaf to write it as written now with that news yeah I don't know if anything needs to be added to this document I will say it's never a good time to have a transition but it is a it is a time where the health department has some additional staffing in terms of they've had some ARPA funds allocated to maintain sort of administrative support position and to bring the public health nurse up to full time so I think you know in terms of your larger question about the transition I think the budget and the resources there are sufficient to handle the transition I'm not sure it needs to be mentioned in this document unless there's something to your point that's written in a way that maybe we should reconsider it because she wasn't able to attend but no budget direct budget implications in FY 24 there'll be some staff turnover you know costs or savings depending on who fills that position but no major impacts on the FY 24 budget right related question actually I'm sorry Andy go ahead no as I said we didn't speculate about the financial implications of other changeovers in staffing um like police chief right we certainly did know about it yeah and as of May 23rd she was in fact you know the public health director so it's not it's not inaccurate so I you know she still is until um Paul May of the exact day July yeah yeah um but since we're on the section and this is I promise the last piece I'll ask about this um I could not tell and maybe you know you don't want to tease it out any further but if you look at the very last sentence there it says from reviewing the website these appear to be infectious and either is that known the either or is that known now or is it okay as written this is related to the additional staffing within the department yeah you had mentioned that some of the staffing um I think he said two uh I feel a little awkward talking about positions that quite this yeah um I think I think so um yeah so we could be more broad in the way the positions are described I think these aren't necessarily wrong um you know one of the positions there's one of the part-time positions that we were funding uh with ARPA was sort of a case uh manager you know related to COVID um and that that piece that position is actually starting to wind down um the other position is the administrative assistant position um and then part of the public health nurse so I think you could say I think you could just say the administrative you could lose the public health program assistant or pick one or the other I think they're both accurate I think you just delete that sentence I'm not sure what I would do yeah okay it reads really well without that sentence on Kathy you handle us up separately so yeah mine mine is I I'm gonna if anyone else has anything substantive mine is just a structure a structure issue and it's a labeling so I'll just wait and there's one typo but I can send you there's probably more than one typo but I saw one typo which is pretty and I one other flash by me and I'll send those later so I'm gonna just wait and see if anyone has anything else substantive um Andy I'm just gonna go to the one place that talks about inspectors and I hope I'm here yeah of course from your prior comment there was a modification this year where okay the number of inspections has increased okay got it I'm fine totally fine yeah no I just want to acknowledge that I had invited people uh members of the committee to send any suggestions to me but not do it to all and then I had to combine and I had two different members point out a problem that Lynn was just referencing because she was one of the two and so I just because two people according to the problem I just came up with a solution based and as we are um anything else otherwise I'm gonna go back to Kathy since she had something I've I've read it plenty times now Kathy okay if you go all the way up to the top Lynn I I like uh a reader's guide just structure so you've got um you've got a section that I would call process then you have a section called recommendation then you have a very very very long section so budget sections I would label them with a capital letter a b and c or roman numeral one two and three because it you know and maybe you can just say you know we summarize these in three sections it's it's purely uh um yeah it's what Lynn's doing you know so there's three sections because the they're they're different enough yeah that's it that's all you know and you can figure out exactly how those lay out but it's you know what we want what the council will focus on is section two um and hopefully they'll just yeah that's it I tend to write things longer reports with executive summaries and have the action be as soon as possible in it and and you've done that where our recommendations will be by page two and then it will go on for quite a number of pages yeah actually that gets into an interesting question as to whether you think that um the recommendation about the school even though it's not it's not it's a negative it's not doing something but would you include that there um I I could you know since we're about to have to vote on um orders that get preceded by words and said I could put see putting a sentence there we also considered the request by the school committee for an extra $84,000 and are not recommending it and just plunk that sentence in and say see you know page whatever of the education but not make it a big deal of it in the recommendations just a quick reference to it so people don't have to plow their way through the education section to find that it would just be I would do do order number order you know with however we're going to do it and I said we also considered the request by the school committee for adding $84,000 to the elementary school and are not recommending that um and I would just end it there is since technically we're not even allowed to do it under the charter um but I wouldn't get into the we're never supposed to increase anything we are allowed to oh we can increase yeah okay the schools the schools okay yeah forget I said that I don't I'm I'm just suggesting a really quick way to reference that in the recommendation as the very last a single sentence so I'm I'm done yeah and no I think that the references that uh the Charter says accept is provided by vast general law and vast general law provides that council on the request of the committee and with two-thirds bug can increase and then there's some there's some other language that follows about the limits of that because you have budget balance I forgot and I misspoke so yes yeah so that's uh just everybody on the committee is understanding that that's why I wanted to make sure I said it but I don't want it in the report because I don't think it needs to be there is there anything else um regarding the report draft as we had it that hasn't already been discussed I assume that everybody had an opportunity to read the paragraphs that were added for capital improvement program and there was nothing there because that's the only new thing since graph two okay and everybody knows what it says about the additional recommendation about roads that is incorporated in that section which was brought up in our last meeting those actually implementing a statement made at our last meeting so with that said I'm not sure that we're not ready to just go on to the other three orders and uh to a conclusion I just want to make sure I share this meeting really quick in there because there's one other thing I just wanted to let you know but maybe I'll just tell you right now we have for Monday's council meeting which is not the budget meeting the budget meeting will be later in June but there are two things that are on the agenda for Monday one is the water and sewer rates and the other is the optional tax exemptions so I started a separate but committee report just covering those three items which I anticipate is going to be no more than a couple pages this more analogous to how we're handling prior you know our usual reports this one's a very unusual report so I just wanted to let you know that I was working today on a additional financial report to go in the packet that just covers those three issues in reference to the fact that they are on the agenda for Monday so having said that we're back to needing to go with our orders and because we're recommending then the plan as presented and so with that said the motion would be I move that the finance committee recommend that the council approve appropriation and transfer order 24-04A in order appropriating the town of Amherst operating budget for fiscal year 2024 second so that motion has been made and seconded by Lynn and there's no further discussion and I always look for hands before I call on it I know that Anna was going to have to leave the meeting at 6 30 and she may have left I'm still here you're still here I'm still here I'm calling your thank you Lynn you vote aye Bob support Matt support Bernie support Kathy yes and I'm a yes and Alicia's absent so it's four members voting yes one absent of the voting members and the three resident members in support and so then the next motion and is there any questions about it is as you can ask them now because we're getting into the two that have to do with the capital improvement program one is a general one and one is borrowing so I move that the finance committee recommend that the council approve appropriation and transfer order 24-05A in order appropriating funds for the portion of the town of Amherst capital program equivalent buildings and facilities second so the motion has been made and seconded and again I'll look to see if hands go up for any additional discussion or questions regarding the order seeing none I'm just going to go down the list again give votes you see no hands on Anna aye Lynn aye Bob support Matt support Bernie support Kathy yes and I'm a yes and Alicia's absent so again it's four members voted one members and voting aye one voting member absent and three resident members in support and the last order is this motion I move that the finance committee recommend that the council approve appropriation and borrowing authorization order FY2406A in order proving and authorizing borrowing to fund the purchase of a new fire department bumper truck second Dublin got here so we have a second the motion has been made and seconded is there any questions or comments about discussion about this motion give it a moment to see if there are any hands and if not I'm going to go back and call for a vote seeing no buddy has raised their hand Anna aye Lynn aye Bob support Matt support Bernie support Kathy yes and I'm a yes and Alicia's absent so again the vote is for voting members voting yes one voting member absent and three resident members in support so that takes care of the orders that we have on the agenda and I don't think that we have any other business did already announce that I'm working on an unrelated committee report so that you wouldn't be surprised by that and we don't have any minutes for this time and I don't think I have anything else is there anybody else who has anything else that they'd like to raise it's unanticipated Bernie just very quickly I'd like to offer thanks to Paul to Sean and the whole group for waiting through and creating a pretty interesting document and a detailed document and managing a very difficult situation so even though we at times we get testy we do appreciate work and and recognize and recognize the difficulty of that has to be overcome to produce this product so thank you gentlemen and please thank the staff well we'll do that but also thanks to the finance committee you guys really go about this in a very diligent way create a very big document in terms of your report which I think gives comfort to the other members of the town council to know that you've done your due diligence and you always ask really good questions I mean you know your stuff and we appreciate it and the fact that you've been doing it for a number of years helps us do our job better and Sean really deserves to meet he really carried this weight no thank you yeah thanks and again we appreciate the feedback as well every year we get feedback and we try to do things to make it a little bit better all the suggestions are good you know from the benefits to the end of the capital improvement program in ways we can make that better so keep the feedback comment we'll keep trying to make things as best we can yeah we're concluding time in a moment be happy um I want to echo what was just said but I also want to thank you Andy um you uh you pulled together a lot of information and I know a whole bunch of people wrote sections and it's pretty invisible if the style that we all submitted varied a lot you've managed to smooth it over that doesn't look like we had an eight member authored where everyone writes differently and so I know some other people I didn't this time I'm just reading but but thank you for it and I do I do think um you know that somehow we should capture Sean when you said things improve we should maybe at a future finance committee just capture some things that go by and passing like next year this you know I still would like an index to the budget book to tell you the truth in the beginning so I can find the police page I've figured out how to thumb through it and online I can type the word but if I'm carrying the book around but just a set of things that are on the document so that we um don't we don't need to talk about revisiting them doesn't mean you need to do them all just that we have a record it would be and I think that's up to us just to generate a we talked about the following things to be considered in the future we do a little bit of that in jcpc you know but this would be great so another year another million dollars is that where we are we're gonna take that we're gonna get we're gonna get that printed book out of your hands Kathy no no no more nope you know it's it's really helpful if you're um yes it is if you're trying to put stickies in to go read something but yes you're right um I can read online I'm good at it thanks um so I want to thank everybody here too um thank members of the committee and everybody just you know all all of you who are here just really plugged in and did your part and and wrote a section and it would have been impossible for one any one person no matter how much time you have to write as much and it really did work it was uh something that was a community effort and I think we shall take pride pride in and you know so I want to thank everybody and I want to thank Matt is uh for Matt I is the one person I asked to do a little bit more on the section and he did it very quickly and promptly and didn't even at least audibly grimace that I could see so I appreciated everybody just doing the making the salt possible because I as I was putting it together in its final form I really thought that we had come up with a very good process which gets into one other comment that I have and that is that when we think about this I would seriously recommend to the committee that's going to be the reviewing the charter next year that look at that 30-day requirement I think that it's really unreasonable expectation to try and do this in 30 days it put a tremendous amount of pressure on this committee and you know I appreciate how we all banded together and rose to the occasion but you know it's harder for us in the first years and there's turnover which eventually will be on the committee and there's learning curve for people I think it's um something that ought to be re-examined is to how that time is divvied up so that's the only additional comment that I have about the process which isn't anything we can do but we can ask that the committee that's going to be reviewing the charter next year give some thought to it so is there anything else that anybody has that they want to raise? When are we meeting next? Good question and thank you raised and I have to see if I can find my I know we're not meeting on Friday up to we are not meeting on Friday we originally had planned it but I canceled it a while ago and I hope that everybody got the message that there is no meeting this Friday that it is Scott Livingstone's not his last day but the time that we're going to take some time to get together and thank him and I know that all the counselors know about it um all if you feel like uh resident members should know about the two events um you know please take the opportunity I would like to think that they're essential parts of our community I'll make sure they know by email and um the uh it's we we talked about I think and oh there's one other item that we do need to talk about but I'm not sure if I would do it in a meeting where Alicia is not present but we do need to get back to this question of when it is that we are meeting because we had set up twice a week things but Matt had raised a fair question about not meeting on 5 30 again our excuse me again I think it's important to go back to three I mean it's it's asked a lot of people to be eating through their dinner period um well I think that if we didn't Alicia's statement to us that we were operating on was that she's not available Monday through Thursday until 5 30 and that she's available on Friday generally during the day so that if we're going to do daytime meetings so the logical um resolution to this if 5 30 is not a good time and we want to make this our last 5 30 meeting is to at least for the time being go towards Friday meetings and um so if we did that I think I'm going to need to get the calendar up because we do need we will need to schedule another meeting um would be um the uh June 12th or June 19th I believe would be the so not next Tuesday I should take off my calendar the 6th I think that's correct so it's June 9th or June 16 or June 23 and you only have the Fallon Council meetings you have June 5th June 12th and June 26th and the issue of the salary of councillors has to come before the council no later than June 26th and we also have a CPA recommendation that should be very quick but we were trying to get it acted on before get to June do we have to do a public form for that one I think um it's unclear so we decided to just do it um to to be safe okay it's a it's a request not for a specific project but just to establish a reserve for FY 24 all right I'm meeting with Sina Tamar about our agenda I have a preference for June 9th but Andy we don't have to decide right now I can just put a soft hold on the 9th and the 16th is what I think Lynn is telling us I I cannot I cannot do the 23rd so it has I I absolutely can't um so both the 9th and the 16th are inconvenient to me and for me and I prefer standing you know we're going to change schedules and the reason for changing the schedule should be present at the meeting um so the sooner I hear about that the more I can the more I can make arrangements from my own personal schedule that if I had a forced choice of those two dates I'd I think the 9th would be preferable and Athena send out a doodle like like previously I for me I really talking through this is it's tricky I think that that would be good for me too and what Bernie is raising is you know do we really have to switch off of Tuesdays to Friday so just a poll that put the 13th in which would be that week or the whatever but I I'd rather not do this right now um I'm just if it's later than the 16th I can't do it so all right so I will talk with Athena tomorrow about polling and also I believe Alicia might be available tomorrow to find out when she's available so uh why don't we leave it at that and look at uh either Linda or I can get back to you or Athena kind of so with that said I don't think we have any other business today thank you you've done a good job thank you all thank you thank you very much you steered this process really nicely you get a lot of time it's always a pleasure to work with you thank you we're adjourned