 I am James Milan and this is a brand new and probably fairly transitory series that we are coming up with called Town Meeting Matters. And what we're doing here is just helping town meeting members here in 2020 in a crazy and truncated town meeting season to streamline their preparation. And we're talking to a number of the decision makers and folks right at the heart of the budget matters that need to be decided by Town Meeting in a single session upcoming here on June 15th. Joining us today is Alan Tosti, the long time chair of our finance committee here in Arlington and a frequent guest of ours. Al, always good to see you. Hope you are weathering all this craziness as well as possible. Thanks, good to be here so far so good. Appreciate it. That fact and you're joining us as always. So obviously everybody is aware that this is a budget season and a town meeting session unlike any other just like the rest of this spring. Why don't you just kind of start to set the scene for us in terms of what it is that you guys have been dealing with and how it is that you have altered the plans in order to reflect that. Okay, certainly. Finance committee was on the way towards its usual procedure of fact it almost finished it in February and March towards approaching town meeting in April. We had done all our work, we had examined the budgets, we had the warrant articles, we had hearings, we did all the work and we're ready to go. And then the world came to an end as we know it. I sort of described this in the finance committee's chair's report that's online now. So the finance committee report is online on the town website under town meeting reports to committee. So I'd urge people, you can go online and download it now. There will be hard copy going out on Tuesday from the selectman's office of the FinCom report and all the other hard copies. But the report is available for you now. Just let me interject for a second that we will be making regular reference to that throughout this conversation. So just be aware you can find the entire document as Al was just saying. So that, and sort of towards the end of March everything froze. You know, we found we couldn't go ahead. Usually we would go ahead in mid-April based upon the houseways and means committee's numbers and finalize the report and go to print and we'd be ready the first night of town meeting the end of April. But when this happened, everything just sort of froze. We weren't sure what the revenue numbers are. Both the state and the local have taken a hit in revenues. The state more than the local, we had hit and meals taxes and hotel motel on those. But the state gets it, of course, big time in income tax. So we put the long range planning committee which sort of over does a lot of discussion about this. We had several meetings to figure out, okay, where do we go from here? And it was decided at that point that we'd go to town meeting. And of course the moderators involved and it's his decisions to make. So he postponed the meeting from the end of April to the end of May. And then he postponed the meeting till June 15th. So right now, town meeting is scheduled for June 15th on the Pierce field behind the high school using every procedure that we can do to keep everybody safe. And my understanding is you're gonna be having the moderator on board. So I'll let him talk about how the actual town meeting will go and the procedures to keep everybody safe. At that point, long range planning committee, I pushed, we need to make some cuts. Whatever is gonna happen, it's not gonna be good. We don't have a precise feeling now but we can't go and hire people on June and July and then lay them off in December. That just makes no sense. So the long range planning committee accepted that we'll cut the increase. That's very important. We're not cutting the school budget and the town budgets by 10%. We're cutting the increase in the school budget and the town budget by 10%. So everybody agreed on that. We have some small warrant article cuts and we put together the plan on that. The town manager took all the new people, new hires out of his budget. And actually his cuts come to about 20% of the increase. The superintendent and the deputy for finance got together and they made some reductions too. And all of this is on appendix E in the finance committee report. All the new reductions. We also took a look at some use of reserves and so we've done some substantial use of reserves there but we felt we needed to make some cuts too. I went to the finance committee last Monday and we had our finance committee report heard from the manager and the superintendent and the finance committee voted unanimously to support all of the changes in the budget from what we did in March. And again, that's an appendix E and the process is sort of explained in the chairman's report. So right now, the report is out there along with the select committee redevelopment and other reports CPA. So what we're asking town meeting members to do is go online, download your report, download the report, go through it and ask questions. Any questions you have, please send them to the moderator. His email is online, send them to the moderator. He will direct the questions to the appropriate person. He'll get back and then he'll send it on the whole town meeting email list. So everybody will see the question, everybody will see the answer. What we're trying to do is we're trying to finish up an entire town meeting in one night when we'd usually go four to eight sessions. So that's why all the finance, all the select one articles and all the redevelopment board articles are postponed to the fall. We'll do the finance articles. So we're hoping to get as many questions out of the way as possible. So... Let me ask you a couple of things before we move further, a couple of things in all that you were just saying that spring to mind for me. One is really an aside, but let me ask you, is this one of those rare instances with everything that has happened with the pandemic and the specific effects of this massive economic lockdown? Is this one of those rare instances where our disproportionate income in this town? And by that, I mean a theme we have hit on countless times of having 95, 96% of our revenues coming from property taxes instead of commercial base. Is this one of those rare instances where that's actually working in our favor because we're able to retain more of our income than less of it is affected by this commercial shutdown? I suppose it might be, but our commercial industrial section is so small that whether we get 6%, 4% or 7% is not gonna make a lot of difference. The total taxes that we can assess is the same. And the growth is the same, the 2.5%. We might be impacted more in revenues from new growth, new construction, but it's not gonna make that much of a difference now. All right, and then more pertinently to our conversation here, the cuts that you were describing and that being reductions in the increases in the budget, as you were saying. So budgets that were going to be increased, let us say by, let's just pick a figure $500. It's gonna be 450 because it's 10% less than that, right? And so for example, the manager was gonna be increasing about a million too and he's cut 261,000. So he's cut about 22% of his increase. The schools were gonna increase at about 4.6 million. They cut 460,000. So they cut about 10%. And then we trimmed a few warrant articles and increased reserves or didn't appropriate money into reserves. Okay, so, and then further, I mean, part of the town manager's cuts, as you said, is that he has frozen his hiring or is not moving ahead with hiring, making some new hires. That's obviously gonna be disappointing and have an impact on those people. But as I consider what you were just, what you've described as the reaction to this dramatic reduction in revenue, are you pleased, I guess? Are you content with limiting the damage, so to speak, in this way? Because it sounds to me like that's a better outcome than we might have worried or feared, given, again, the fact that we are, this has been an unprecedented reduction in money coming into coffers. It's, we're basing this on the manager's best guess, best estimate from talking with state officials and other local officials. We're basing it on a 15% reduction in local aid from what the governor proposed in January. So that's a chunk of money. Between the cuts and use of reserves, we are going, if that holds true, we'll go into it with a balanced budget for fiscal 21. That's better than I would have hoped a month ago. So I am pleased the way it's going. The problem is when you look at, I know as you're gonna have Sandy Poo on and if he goes through the five-year plan, we've still got some big deficits out in 2024. They're too big. We need to reduce those deficits some more so that we'll still, I believe, have some reductions. But by not hiring people and then firing them, we're starting off from a better place. And you raise an excellent point. We will be talking to deputy town manager, Sandy Poo, or as part of this series as well. And he will take us through, as you were saying, the kind of five years out because as you just pointed out, there will be ramifications, clear and dramatic ramifications for the budget going out beyond 2021. So let's celebrate the fact that the news could have been worse for 2021, assuming things move forward, but understanding that they're still paying to come. Yes, there will be some hard decisions. Nobody knows where this pandemic is going to go and what the ramifications, both health-wise and financially, but I don't think it's going away anytime soon. So as town meeting members prepare for June 15th in this kind of marathon session, which a lot needs to get done in a relatively short amount of time, I guess there are a certain number of articles that will be presented to them that town meeting members, long-time town meeting members would be very familiar with because they see them every year and pass them every year pretty quickly, is that right? That's right, they're sort of in two groups. One of them, I mean, in general, and the moderator, if you have him, can go with this to more detail, but I think he wants to get rid of the measure of box and the assistant moderator right off the bat, just bang. And then we'll deal with the selection articles or the redevelopment articles within hopefully a couple of minutes and they're gone. We'll deal with those in the fall. And then we'll go into the two selection articles which are community development block grant money and the revolving funds. And after that, we're gonna focus on really four areas. The town budgets, the capital budget and the water and sewer borrowing articles because they require two thirds vote. Minuteman and the CPA. So those will be dealt with separately. The Minuteman should have a presentation up on the website if not now, very soon within a few hours. CPAs up there, town budgets and the capital budget up there in the finance committee report. So after we do those four main issues, then we'll take the consent agenda with sort of everything else. And on Westtown meeting votes to take something out of the consent agenda, we'll deal with those all at once with one vote, one more vote at the end, article 77 and we're done. Okay. So let me, I probably have asked you this in a previous interview at some point, but let me just clarify that a consent agenda basically is just a bundle of various items that can all just get a single vote because again, they're familiar, they are repetitive. It's just mundane business, I guess, that needs to be taken care of. Is that accurate? Right. It's articles that we've own on virtually every year. We pass every year. Very rarely do they have any discussion or debate. And therefore hopefully those can all get done. Okay. And it seems like a good idea in terms of structuring the session, that's the way that you said, which is the issues that need to be, if there are any that need to be wrestled with, those come initially and then at the end, you can just say, okay, consent agenda, let's just zoom right through this now. Right. I mean, the select one do it all the time. I assume the school committee does it. So you're not discussing and voting on 20 different items that just that process of loan, just the process of it, could take 20 minutes to do, whereas it could take two minutes instead. And so of the four major items that you were mentioning, are there any that stand out because they're gonna be, I don't know, just tougher to deal with or do you feel like, yes, each one will take a certain amount of time so everybody understands, but you'll be able to move those through those pretty quickly and uniformly. I think the CPA, the Community Preservation Act Committee has knocked out anything new. So all they've got in there, and again, that's on the website, all they have there are continuing projects. So their project town meeting is seen before, this is a continuation of those projects and that will be it. So hopefully the CPA will not be too bad. Minuteman, they're into their new school, their enrollment is pretty good. It's still a lot of money. There's a presentation there. The superintendent will be there in case there's questions, but hopefully we can get all those questions done ahead of time. The capital budget, I don't think there's anything particularly controversy in the town budgets, hopefully that we can go through those. But who knows what town meeting wants to talk about? Right, never know. And when you say town budgets, those are the budgets from all the respective different departments. That's correct. Okay. And they're considered as a, they're considered each individually. Is that right? Well, what the town moderator has done over the last five, six years is we open up the town budgets and then the moderator lists the budget. Budget number one finance committee pauses. Budget number two select one pauses. If nobody says anything, he goes on, those become part of the consent agenda. If somebody yells out hold, then we have to go back and do that. So he goes all the way through all the budgets and let's say five budgets get held. Then we go back to those five budgets. Somebody asked your question. Excuse me. Somebody asked a question gets answered or discussion. See those we hope to get the questions answered ahead of time. So we're not taking care of 252 people, maybe getting bit by mosquitoes or whatever, answering questions that could have already been answered and done. And then after that, once we go through it, we vote the whole budget. Sorry about that. So the whole procedure of getting the questions in early is probably always advisable and always streamlines the process once town meeting is gathered. But in this particular case, even more important that town meeting members go ahead and do what you've already suggested which is review these things as soon as they can, whatever questions they have, get them out there right away so that they can be resolved. Everybody gets to see that as you said and you're going in therefore to this session with a lot of that stuff already taken care of. That's correct. That's correct. That's our hope. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I wonder what you're going to do about arranging the appropriate weather for that evening of you. Well, that's an issue. We didn't have that when we were in the town hall, but the town hall was too small. We even started moving it to the high school auditorium but it's still too small because people would have to, even if you spread people out, people have to climb over each other to get to it. If you're outside, the risk is less because right, there's a breeze. There's air flowing. And we're going to strongly ask everybody to wear their masks. And hopefully we could reduce the danger to the town meeting and the other officials who are there and move through it. Okay. And then hopefully return next year to our usual pattern. So a couple of small questions and then we'll wrap things up. One is, my assumption is that the town budgets that you referred to before, they are all part of the finance committee report as well. Yes. And how about amendments? Are amendments made to business such as you have to conduct on the 15th? If so, how will they be handled? Well, the moderator and the town council have always asked that any amendments to any warrant articles or budgets be submitted ahead of time. So the moderator could first of all decide if they're within the scope of the article and the town council can make sure they're drafted in a proper form. I think that if anybody wants to make an amendment to the budget or amendment to a warrant article that that's even more important now that we get that done ahead of time. Sometimes an amendment is made because somebody doesn't understand something and maybe we can answer that question. And the person withdraws the amendment. But often the amendment's made because the person wants to have a discussion and make a point, which is fine. That's obviously legitimate. It's what they're there for. But we're just trying to reduce the number of it, the number of questions and the speed. So town meeting is not sitting there waiting for town council to redraft an amendment because it's done improperly. And the moderator's not trying to read an amendment that is borderline beyond the scope of the article but he still has to read it and think about it. We don't want that to happen with 252 people waiting outside. Right. And our amendments, I'm just not that clear on the amendment process but is that something that would be basically handled between the person proposing the amendment and the town moderator before, you know, again, before the session is held or is that also similar to the questions that you were saying before that are kind of, you know, made publicly and then responded to publicly and all the town meeting members have a chance to see them. Is that the same thing that happens with amendments? I mean, it would be the same thing as usual happens. We're just trying to get it done ahead of time. Okay. To sort of speed the process, get the procedural stuff out of the way so town meeting can focus on the substance of an issue. And then, of course, the amendment can be sent out to all the other town meeting members so they actually see it and understand it. So we avoid a lot of confusion, again, on the high school playing field. Got it, got it. You know, I had a number of questions going into the session. They've all been answered, but I'm not a town meeting member. Is there anything that you imagine that town meeting members might need to learn that we haven't covered yet? Okay. Well, for example, the appendix E, which has the reductions approved by the finance committee and the long range planning committee, the town managers ones in the school, the department ones are pretty straightforward. Again, they're 10% of the increase. I made some, we made some reductions in the warrant articles. I guess I recommended these. I went through any warrant article that is optional, that's over $25,000. I'm not gonna go into a committee that gets appropriated $2,000 and nickel and dime them. But anything over $25,000, I thought was serious. So we reduced $5,000 from the arts and culture, again, it's a $35,000 budget. We went from 35 to 30 on the grounds that they spend things for outdoor activities like town day. And they won't have to print things and hand things out. They won't have to rent a boot, things like that. So did that. Water bodies is appropriating $55,000. We cut that by 10,000. That's largely cause they have some carryover. So they have a fair amount of carryover. They could still do their job using more of the carryover. And then at some point, two or three years down, we might have to adjust that to get them back on line. We cut 5,000 out of town day. Why? We're not having town day. And we cut the Harry Barber program, the $7,500, largely cause this is a program for our senior citizens who can work in the town offices and make a little extra money to pay their rent or taxes. It seems at this particular point of view, having senior citizens exposing themselves by being in town hall offices or offices and other places, it's not an appropriate thing to do. And so the human service was fine like that. So we trimmed and cut that. We reduced the reserve fund by a little bit. We were not appropriating money into the long-term stabilization fund. We're using more overlaid surplus so that we can draw down the surplus there over a period of years. And we're taking about $2 million in change out of the override stabilization fund to finally balance everything. So those changes, and again, it's an appendix E and we welcome any questions. And that if the 15% cut holds true, we'll have a balanced budget for 21. We'll still need to do more work down the road. The deficit in fiscal 24 is still too high. We don't wanna have to go back to the people with a deficit that's just too big. Appreciate you closing things out here. First of all, appreciate you working through that cough of yours, which I can tell it's been nagging you throughout the interview, but you stuck with it and we appreciate that. But also the specificity with which you just went through a number of items in the decision, the reasoning behind choosing those particular departments or budgets and reducing them in the way that you did. Because again, I think that that is a further reflection for town meeting members and beyond of the fact that our finance committee as well as other kind of budgetary watch dogs here in town are really making thoughtful decisions that are gonna cause again, the least amount of palpable harm or damage, it seems like. And so I'm reassured. I hope town meeting members are as well. And again, any questions, email them to the moderator and we'll get them answered ahead of time. And pray for a nice, well, I won't say cloudy, but a nice clear day on the 15th. Amen. And not too long. Oh yes, yeah, June 15th, who can tell. Anyway, best of luck with that. Appreciate again, one last time you're taking the time with us. We've been talking to Alan Tosti, the chairman of the finance committee as he has been for a good long while now and we thank him for his time. We thank you. And yes, we all hoping for good weather for you. All right, I'm James Milan. This is town meeting matters and we'll talk to you again later.