 I think we got everybody will call the meeting to order. First on the agendas to approve the agenda. I know we had one amendment to the agenda. We wanted to move, well, we wanted to add an executive session and then coming out of the executive session, we'll move Paul's resignation pieces towards the end of the meeting. So we come out of executive session then we can make the motion on the mic. Okay. So the executive session is separate, but we'll move Paul's stuff out. After. Or it's regarding, it's the discussion of. Do you mind if I move forward? Yeah. Okay. Okay, or we could, yeah, we can just move to the end. Yeah, just before the agenda. Okay. So move Paul just prior to the executive session. Okay. Move to approve the agenda as amended. Okay. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. We do have a appointment for 605. So if Owen is on, I see he's, but. Hi y'all. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Loud and clear. Okay, good. Good. I'm actually unfortunately driving right now. That's just why my video is not on. But thank you so much. Yeah, I think the application speaks for itself pretty clearly, but I, I, we've never done this before. So I don't know if the board has questions for me on behalf of the equity inclusion committee. I think just briefly, this is a really exciting grant opportunity. It's the first grant of its kind that's being offered through the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and the state office of racial equity and inclusion. It's the money is being funneled through the Vermont Community Foundation. And it's essentially gonna help us be able to do some of the larger community conversations and learning together that I think we've talked about with you and have heard your suggestions on doing, doing that type of work. So hopefully it'll be able to open, open up those opportunities. I also think it's one of those grant opportunities that as you probably know from other grants, once you apply for one thing, it kind of opens up the door for other funding opportunities, both through these, through the state office and through the Vermont Community Foundation. And when I did talk to the grant manager at VCF, she was really, and I think we kind of fit the town that they don't have a lot of applications from. Anyway, yeah, I don't know if folks have questions or what's needed as far as on your end for this process for a committee grant. So I made the change on our copy of the 2022 grant because you had a amount, I had requested, it had been 6,740, but I changed that to the 10,000 like we talked or emailed about, Owen. Great. No matching funds required. Since you haven't done a grant with the town, I was looking at your project budget. I'm assuming that a lot of the money where you do food, childcare, presenters and facilitators that you will be hiring people to do that work. Yeah, so some of the presenters are folks who are already either in the committee or regularly attend their meetings, but we'll also have some outside contractors like the person who could facilitate the history of Vermont's connection to slavery and the abolition movement. We're talking with some historians at different colleges about that. The childcare, yeah, it would be somebody from the community who has experience with childcare just setting up wherever the space is that that event's happening and having some fun activities for kiddos to do. With food, we would wanna work with local food vendors. We'd probably be doing a lot with cockadoodle and the sandwich shop. So yeah, I realize that's probably a lot on your end to have that many, that many, yeah. What we'll do is this. If you are awarded the grant, then you and I will sit down and go through the grant agreement before I sign it to make sure that you can in fact adhere to all the, because it's gonna be, you're gonna need to get, if there are businesses, proof of insurance, W-9s. So what we'll do Owen is if the select board approves your application and you get it, then you and I will go through the grant agreement line by line, make sure that we both are in agreement and understand how the money works and all that. And then that'll just be easier for both of us if we do it together. Sounds great. Sound okay? Oh, good. Yup. So I don't have any questions. I don't know if the select board does, but thank you for filling out the summary document. I appreciate that. Definitely. I thought the descriptions and the scope of work read really well and it was clear, it was concise. It fills the gaps that I think your group and this board have identified that we wanna work on. And yeah. I hope that you do get it. Go for it. Yeah, my only concern is that we establish the rules and regulations about how the money's collected and distributed and all that kind of stuff to make sure it's all eyes dotted and teeth crossed. But yeah, it's a great opportunity. Go for it. Do it, you're going to be a busy boy. Yeah. That sounds, sounds like we've just seen a motion to approve or I don't know if we need a motion, but. Yeah, usually do. So just a motion to approve the PIC's submission of the grant. Hey, all in favor? All right. Looks like you're all set, Owen. So drive safe. Thank you all so much. We're really excited. I appreciate you all. All right. So you're gonna submit this, correct? And then just CC me when you, because, or actually no. Yeah. I guess actually you and I need to talk. When are you coming? Yeah. When does this thing do? It's a rolling admission. So the sooner, the better. But yeah, anytime this week or next week, I think would be great. And we're gonna have to set up an account with the Vermont Community Foundation just to be able to submit it through their portal. That's right. I saw that. So I will do that at the end of this week, beginning and next week, because we're short staffed. But so yeah, I saw that. That's right. So I'll take care of that and get it submitted. And then I'll send you an email once it's done. Okay, awesome. And I did update the Google Doc. It does have the correct grant amount, but everything else is the same as what I sent you. So we're good. Yeah. Perfect. I got it. All right. I will be sure to do that, sir. Okay. Thank you all. Have a good night. You too. Good night. That's right. All right. I'll move forward to public comments. So public comments, an opportunity for anybody that wants to comment on whatever, usually that's not associated with the agenda. So if there's anything, I don't see anybody else online. So if there's anybody in person that has any comments or suggestions or. Good job, sir. Oh, there you go. Oh, good. I'm not sure you heard you. I hope that was improved. No, no, you're fine. And then if you have anything for a public comment, just make sure you state your name. So we have for the record. Oh, thanks in person. Oh, okay. Oh, he's on that. That's right. With the mask, I didn't, I see him. Do you guys have any questions or just wanted to see what we were all up to? Or. We recently moved here. Nice. Which I went, recently moved in. Okay. Yeah. And we're just looking to get involved in the town. Great. And yeah, I'd have an interest in the trail building stuff I've seen. Oh, nice. You know, I guess kind of historically for many years now, it seems like you're kind of plugging away a little bit on that. And then the Bethel Better Block. Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah, we did. We got a, we were awarded a $330,000 grant. So we will be doing some trail building and stuff. And if you look on the website, I'm Teresa Kirby. I'm a town manager. If you send me an email with your information, I can get you looped in with people that, you know, that do the trail building and stuff. If you're interested, I know a little bit is coming out of the WREC committee, but certainly that WREC group for the outdoor grant will be looking for people and the more the merrier. Oh, we have openings. We have a shooting range that needs help. We have equity inclusion committee, planning commission, development review. You name it, we've got a spot to put you in. Energy committee is looking for folks. The energy committee, that's right. You name it, we have a committee, but if you just go on the website or call the town office and there's send me an email and I'll definitely connect you with those folks if you'd like. And pretty much all the committees are open to new members at any time. We are not in a position where we say we have too many and we get turned away. And if you really are, you know, aspirations are into, you know, maybe some outdoors or trail type things then, you know, I would definitely suggest either conservation committee or the WREC committee would be good ones to look at. And I know both of them, you know, seeking members. So they usually need like once a month formally. And then, you know, they go about doing, you know, little projects on the side and stuff like that. So. Yeah, cause two of the guys that do trails are on conservation, Baron and Chris. But yeah, so we have all sorts of stuff. Sure. Much like this, their meetings are open to the public so you can attend a meeting and kind of feel out the group to see if it's a good fit. Yeah. Usually that's what we suggest is go to a meeting or two and see if you're interested before you like formally and stuff. Yeah. So, but if you need anything, swing by the town office or call the town office, somebody will point in their direction. But I'm so glad you guys came. It was great. Welcome to Bethel. That's right. Absolutely. Are you hiding your head now or? Yeah. Where? Where, yeah. Just down past Bethel mills. See Heisen? Oh, nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Nice neighborhood. All right. Anything else public comment wise? I don't still don't see anything online. So here none will move forward. We did have the resignation from the EIC, David Fair. So just need a motion to accept that. One move. OK, all in favor? Aye. All right. And then on the opposite of that, we got Vincent. That's what he's saying. To be a part of the energy committee. So anything in particular you want to tell us about yourself or what the energy committee, you know, why you're interested in that or? Well, yes. It's, I have some ideas on how maybe Bethel can improve it. You have more green energy, but it's nothing I can do alone. So I would like to join the energy committee to help out and be held. OK, that's great. And then the energy committee is for you guys is not not every town has an energy committee. So for instance, our neighbors to the south and Royalton, they don't have one. So they actually have a resident of Royalton that that volunteers on our committee. So and I think we have four active members right now. I think Vincent would know because he goes to see there's Vincent. Then there would be. Yeah, I was going to say. OK, he might say four. So and a lot of times the committees, they fluctuate. They, you know, they get as low as two or three and maybe as high as six or seven depends on, you know, the ebb and flow of things. So so unless anybody has any. Comments or anything with this just need a motion to accept. Vincent on to the energy committee. So move. Hey, all in favor. I welcome. That's right. Thanks, Vincent. Take care. You too. Have a good day then. Take it. Reveal, I sent you on the set. We move Paul's down the road. So next we have Bethel Library Association. Request for a coin drop. They must really want that spot because it's out there. So April 22nd, I guess it's there. I've opened it. Yeah, I was just going to say we have a small day. That's kind of a I saw the date. Yeah, I saw it. And I said, wow, they're doing one kind of late this year. And I said, oh, that's next year. Yeah, I don't know. They weren't. So that's funny. So I guess as long as that works in the calendar that you guys keep. Yeah, yeah, they, you know, we, we talk about this a lot. So I motion to accept there's permit conditions that not everybody always file. So we need to the only thing I want to bring up. And I doubt that they'll have anybody out there. But the, you know, I'm trying to think which one it was. There was one of them that happened. Wasn't the auxiliary, but the one before that had some underage individuals that were right away. That was the wreck city. And I spoke to Ellie and reminded her of rule as it is the conditions that they're signing off on the Kathy signed off on it and here to, and they also provide a plan because I told Kelly no more slacking. Everybody's got. Yeah, I think that would be the only. Yeah. And I did speak with Ellie about that. She had no idea it wasn't when she was there. So I just told her moving forward. The select. I mean, there's no reason why underage can't be present, but can't be in the road. Yeah, it specifically states no one underage. Yeah, I told her there was a couple of issues and she was on it. So yes, because they are not a town. Mitty, there are their own. And we just going to make a motion to accept just saying that. Yeah, right there. Yep. Yeah. Hearing to the permit conditions. Plus insurance. Yeah. Okay. Just need a motion to accept the Bethel library association to hold a point drop on April 22nd, as long as they adhere to the permit conditions with proof of insurance. Second. Okay. All in favor. Aye. And White River Conservancy baseline documentation for the Bethel floodplain restoration. I spared you sending forward or I saw river corridor in my heart skipped a beat because I'm like, Oh, this is a flashback. I'm like, how many meetings is this going to take? Yeah, this is not quite the step where it then becomes townland or is this now this, are we now at the phase where we're sort of finalizing this note? What it says here is during the closing acquisition, they Vermont River Conservancy neglected to bring copies of the final baseline documentation report, the BDR and closed. You'll find two signed copies of the BDR. One is for your records and the other needs of design for us. So no, this isn't this is that it's not. No, this is not I think if everything goes well next year, it's on it back over to us. Yeah. So we have so many years exactly. It was like, it took us like two years just to put the ship in the right direction. Yeah. So no, so I, they gave us two copies. So Chris has to sign in both places. But I just gave you the pertinent information. I didn't send you all these like photos and I just figured you're like, no, no, it doesn't make a lot more sense because there were parts that referred to it as the Billidoo property, but it is no longer sent you the cover letters. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good. So yeah. So you just need to. So you need to make a motion authorize Chris to sign. And six. So I'll come back. So I just need a motion to authorize myself to sign on behalf of the board. It's the property across the firehouse. Yep. All in favor. Yeah, so we went through a big battle to serve that land because it's a flood plain. So it's been multiple years in the works of getting it conserved and part of that is the Vermont Conservancy is doing a ton of work to repair and then conserve the riverbank. So eventually when that's all done, it'll come back to the town for ownership. But at the moment, it's not our land. So it's sort of we're in a weird phase, but it's a weird phase for multiple years. So a lot of back and forth and. We are. So, yeah, yeah. An excessive. Wait a minute. No, that's right. You did. Well, I think chunk of property. Right. So we're going to sign it again because we have their copy plus our copy. I saw this back at home. She took one look at it. Oh, God, this is yours. She said, like, nice. Nice. That's great. Perfect. Yeah. It's just like this. Unbelievable. Great. That's all the fun. Really? That looks like a really cool cloud. Good. And then we'll just move forward continuing our budget discussion at this point. Now we have the complete first run of the budget put together. So everything we've been throwing against the wall that we wanted to have. So this is I also gave you just because of us. And I had also given you the tax rate. So obviously I don't have the school tax rate. And I based this on the municipal grand list, which is something called the 411, which the listers generate. So I think I did the math right, Chris. I don't know. Something's not adding up to me. So not to, I didn't have a chance to give you just beginning stuff, but busy. So I something in the numbers doesn't add up to me. And I don't know in three ninety. Well, a combination of the percent of budget, I'm not sure my math is right. So I need to dig into that. I mean, I think around that last time as I took that, I basically divided the general fund budget by the. Yeah, because I can't remember my math. But I, anyways, I think we were about nineteen thousand of pennies as it stands right now. If if the numbers are correct, which there's some things. Yeah, because you have to buy it by if it was, you're looking at 17 cent increase in tax rate. All right. Yeah. So I mean, I know it's steep, but it's. Yeah, it's something in the numbers doesn't make sense to me. And I know it must be then this number is as of today. Yeah, before the addition to the grand list that they're anticipating, right? Well, this is at the grand list that they have right now at seven point. And the thing that doesn't make sense to me is up until about two or three years ago, it was nineteen thousand six, OK, nineteen eight per penny should be higher. So it should be. So my math I had divided again, I was on the road. But I yeah, well, I came up with maybe twenty thousand eight hundred. OK, that could be better because I took that. So doesn't put that only puts a set and said seventeen to twelve cents. But it's still because we average about a percent was about a penny. Yeah, OK, that's what I thought. So that's fine. Well, it gets challenging because some people talk pennies and some people talk percentages. So and they don't always follow. So even without that, how much we raise on a penny for the tax rate? This still works. The still the general fund amount, the local agreement is going to depend on who actually got a Beckins exemption. But if you look at the general fund, that is our current. That's the proposed budget amount. And if I take that amount mine and do the math for the most, you know, the current municipal grand list, it is a four point seven six percent increase. Now, I talked to Mo and Judy and they are expecting a bigger increase than what they have than what I've currently based used for a grand list number. So I guess my point being is it's not horrible because last year we ended up adding more money into the budget. It was growth in the grand list. So our normal three percent we were actually under. So when I knew you were going to see the budget and be like, but once you multiply it out on the tax rate, it wasn't as bad as as we thought. But yes, so this is basically taking everything. And I had some questions for you to answer. I mean, I was just looking at just inflation related. Yeah. Well, I wanted to just use the name inflation, but things like increase in benefits over last year and then some things like salt and things like that being more expensive diesel stuff. Just those increases that we will say don't have control over. Right. Exactly. That that right now is like three to four cents increase on just that alone. And we've been part of work trying to make sure that the volunteer positions those stipends are more reasonable. Right. So I know we always kind of look to see what are those uncontrolled costs that are going out. Yeah, look like. So I mean, right now we're I know usually our goal on the board is is to keep ourselves at three pennies or less. Yeah. Kind of is what we've kept to over the years. I know this year is a you know, an extraordinary what does that different year translate to if we're we're going to just be speaking in sense, can we? Well, well, right now if we want to seven six, which usually we're usually saying if it's percent or cents are usually interchangeable. So you'd be looking at almost a five cent and see I come up with higher than that. But that's how I just want to know. Yeah. So we'll have to look at the math again on the I come up with higher because the well, the net cost if you take the cost difference is three hundred. Three hundred and eighty seven thousand over the previous year. Yes. Also, and then the revenue is going to increase by forty four. So it's it's a net difference of three forty three. Yes. So when I raise like 17 cents on the so when I calculate the taxes, obviously I'm looking at a thirteen point two percent over last year. But once I put my number in here against the increase in the grand list that I was given by the Lister's recently, then that's how I come up with. I'm saying four point seven six over last year. Gotcha. So so yeah. So if you look at the difference, yes, is a right. So if you see here's our current column, here's last year and the difference. So I'm looking at a four point seven six percent increase over the last years. Right. Right. Is what I'm saying. And like I said, I was just kind of doing that because when I look at thirteen point two percent, your hair stands on end. So that's before we've done any adjustment. Absolutely. Yeah. That's just I just thought you should know. I got a lot of questions about that's fine. We'll go through them all. I just wanted you to know when you saw thirteen point two, what we were looking at, but what are the revenues first? If everybody is good with it, I guess the way I was thinking about doing it was why don't we try to not dive into the weeds, weeds tonight, but let's hit the higher level thing. So I'll make an example. If we think that the costable budget is too high based upon the options that we have, should we at a macro level figure out what, you know, do we want to increase it in the budget? Do we want to keep it the same? Do we want to essentially warn that as a separate item? You know, and then the little stuff like a thousand dollar correction here, a $2,000 correction there, we can probably dive into, you know, in the next one, minor role figures. Well, and that's fine. So are you guys good with that? So I wasn't thinking. All right, let's talk about the separate each of us. I know I should calculate her on his computer. Don't have to have you switch you and Paul have to switch seats. And we can trouble. We're just talking tonight now that we finally have budget put together is that we will just hit it at a macro level tonight. High level corrections that maybe that we want to see as a board to the budget. And then at the next one, once those are made, then we can look at the thousand dollars here and two thousand dollars there type things. So and there are some things that will make a big difference, right? Because some big things could make a difference of individuals that may want to come at the next meeting, the voice their opinion. If we decide to not do something, you know, the other thing is to once you decide on like a cola, you know, slash merit, there's some things that are going to change the budget completely. So I have some stuff in there I can adjust. But I needed you to answer some questions before I could do that. So you want to start at the revenue page quick? Yes, the big thing that I just wanted you to see only the real big change on the revenue is the fact that we have the proceeds of the sale of the RTS. The fifty four thousand five sixty other than that is nothing. Which Tim, I guess the way I look at that is two things. One, in the short term, it can help us with some of our inflated costs that may happen here, you know, that we're seeing now and maybe for another year or two. But we also have to be careful that anything that we fill in there now, we are going to have to work. It cannot be a ten year item. Exactly. So I mean, if it's a literally if it's a three to five year fix because that's the money that's coming in is only five years, then that works. But if this is something that goes out there, we're going to have to come up with two extra pennies on the tax rate at some point, right? Exactly. That's the big one. Obviously, think about that when we look at that one and you lost the admin reimbursement from Solid Waste, the Green Lantern lease. So some things because we sold our interest to the transfer station to Royalton, a couple of those things that you lost and not that this helps us. But we talked about the delinquent taxes, penalties and interest pieces. And I have reduced the delinquent taxes prior by five thousand a year. That was our agreement. But I have kept the penalty interest because we still collect it. Yeah. So I mean, should we reduce the delinquent taxes more or less than twenty five thousand? Because I mean, yeah. What is twenty five thousand dollars three percent as a percentage of what's all of it? Actually, I can't tell you right now, but I'm and I would ask that you project because of your experience, what this next year is going to have. I'd say less than 10 percent. We should get rid of that line entirely. We should not carry a delinquent tax bill because we did a tax sale last year. We'll do another tax sale this year. We're getting stuff, some money through, you know, the VHFA. There's a lot of loan programs out there, VWAP, VWAP, VWAP. And I'm telling you, it's been an nightmare. This is where the state gets you. They tell you they give out all this aid, but it's another unfunded mandate because our staff has to make sure applications go in and where you get the money and help people apply. So, frankly, it's it's something that we should get rid of because now we take in all of our taxes as a receivable. So if it was me, we'd get rid of that line entirely, only keep interest and penalty. But the agreement I had with the board since I came was we just reduce it by five thousand each year. So there wasn't a big hit to the budget and eventually it just goes away. Ideally, you should have zero. Like it shouldn't be anything, but. And we are drilling down on that. We've. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we we are. I mean, we had we had a tax sale last year and we'll have another tax sale this year. And then that will be our every year we'll do a tax. We didn't do obviously during COVID because there was a lot of parts. But we'll do another tax sale. And dropping it all together. Nothing. Well, well, it's delicate because it's still what happens. Get on your is this. This is something that you're you're assuming revenue for for right now. Right. So right now we have. You know, thirty five. We have fifty thousand dollars worth of delinquent taxes. Penalties and interest that we assume as revenue. So if we just said this is zero going forward, we're already in a two and a half cent hole. So what we've been trying to do is because it was probably almost almost double that about three or four years ago. So we've been trying to ratchet that down. But. Therese has been so efficient with collecting that money that she has. She has collected that that tax is faster than we have been able to ratchet that down because we can't just go from one year saying we got fifty thousand and revenue to next year saying zero unless we're going to make that up somewhere in the budget. I mean, you could write question is, do we? You will sort of say we're indicating five thousand a year, but do we look at maybe making that ten thousand? That's how it is. Let me look at the delinquent tax list. OK, and you can see like the the penalties and interest you can see, like, you know, last year we collected, you know, a little over eleven thousand dollars in penalties and seventeen in interest. So you can kind of see where you're budgeting on that. You know, so we're ratcheting that down a little bit. But on the delinquent taxes, that item is a little bit harder to figure out. Yeah, because you're carrying that money. So, yeah, and the thing too, to keep in mind, but I think we should bring that down as low as possible. All right, I'll look at the list. But the other thing to keep in mind is penalty is penalty every year because you have there's people that miss the payment by a day or this one payment and it's eight percent. So that penalty hasn't really changed much, despite the fact that we've sold, you know, sold properties and done stuff at tax sale, but because people are delinquent, it's boom, eight percent. So that's what happens. So I want to be clear. This is anticipated revenue revenue. Yeah, but you're saying that because we've done so well, we really don't anticipate that revenue or potentially not as much of that. Or it's or it's, you know, we do try to write. We write some of it off when we do the audit in the sense that we know we have possibly two properties that are uncollectible. So but so that's something we carry on our delinquent tax list. We tried to sell them at tax sale multiple times. No one bids on them at some point. It just becomes pointless and there'll be an issue where we'll end up, you know, going to support someone to clean up the property, basically. But I'll take a look at the delinquent tax list currently and see where we stand to see if it can drop further than 25. And this doesn't help our the direction that we want to go on lower. But I was thinking of my notes, anyways, from looking through it was maybe cut it another 10,000. Be down to 15. OK, my question is coming from does it. I'll base it on does it hurt to keep it in the budget? Well, the only thing that does hurt is if you anticipate that as a revenue and it doesn't happen, then it hurts you on the backside of your budget. So then, you know, in the last quarter of your budget, you now have make it up $20,000 that you get a fine in your budget or else you're going to be off. Yeah, so so and taxes receivable are just an interesting thing anyway. So I'll just look at the list and that's fine. I think whatever the realistic number is, if you come back and say 15,000, then maybe we just put 15,000 there. I'll look at the link the tax list, but that was really a revenue. But now we got to find an extra half of pennies. Now we're already more than half of any that's OK. But also on that in that same area, the BRTS, is there some way to separate that out from the general fund revenue? Um, so that we don't get ourselves into the we committed now, this money is not coming in. Issue are really at this point, because I think that when we accepted I don't know where else you could put it, because I don't think that you could put it into a capital fund because it's not a capital issue. I think it has to stay in the general fund. We just have to be knowledgeable about where we're budgeting as to what we're going to do. The only other option I suppose you have is you could make a if you don't want to fund anything in your general fund, you could put it in as a general fund revenue and take it out as an expense and move it to a capital fund immediately. That way it's in out and it it's not offsetting anything like right now. It'll offset, you know, the 21 and a half percent, you know, insurance rate. Then it's in a capital fund. Yeah. And it has to get used for whatever that purpose is. So I feel like it's almost more advantageous to leave it as the general fund. But as a as a note, whether it's this board, whether it's Teresa's manager five years from now, that that's very understood. The only thing we all know there's a lot of turnover and it may not be any of us sitting here five years from just the danger of that is you can't use it beyond five years, right? Right. So I mean, it's it's a it should be a short term fix or or not a short term fix and you could do what Gene's saying. And you could if if you're recognizing fifty four thousand a year, we could allocate fifty four thousand dollars a year to whatever capital fund or whatever. You could put it in there because or to a program that is a short, a limited program. That was something we expect to do for no more than five years. In this case, with this budget, we're in such a, you know, twenty one half percent increase in health insurance premiums that we didn't ask for. We've got an increase in time. Well, a slight, I mean, I only budget a slight increase for time because we don't know yet what they're going to do. We have an increase. I mean, white Revelli ambulance from eighty eight. We settle the eighty eight and they are already at like a hundred and five because they said we didn't submit our paperwork. I said, yes, I did. And I proved it to them and they had to stay with the eighty eight. But they so I'm sure the minute we spend the quantity of salt, we requested that we were going up to a hundred and five. So I mean, I wonder if this year isn't a good year to keep the fifty in to just help us. So maybe the budget kind of levels out next year. We see what inflation does and diesel prices. And because this is a, I don't know, my crystal ball is a little rusty about pricing and and stuff. So anyways, that's the big deal for revenues, which really wasn't much just a reminder to you that that was five years. So this is the second year of five years and we can tackle that issue later. So the first page of the budget is obviously public works. This is some big stuff. This is obviously, you know, as I just I use salt as an example. And I budgeted 10 percent increase over the hundred and five. So there's some other stuff we want to move towards away from organic material for sand and get, you know, manufactured sand. But one of the things we need to talk about is wages, because as I reported, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, whatever, a couple of meetings ago, looked like the social security increase was going to be about eight percent. It looked like the federal government maybe was at four point seven six percent that they may be that the Biden administration was recommending. So hard to know what the actual, you know, cola is right now. And we also with public works are running into a couple of issues where certainly Woodstock palm fruit just went to thirty dollars now or if you have a CDL, obviously, we do not have the grand list of palm fruit and Woodstock. So there's some of that. I mean, I do feel like our current wages are, you know, in the running. But yet we also don't have applicants, you know, people with a CDL are hard to come by and, you know, going to go places and yeah, make money. But I'm just saying what that will change my whole budget because I have used eight percent across the board. So if we settle on four, six, whatever, that's immediately going to change the entire budget because that will change FICA, METI, retirement. So everything changes once I know what you want me to face the budget on. That's something I do want to know tonight. Um, well, I know this might not be what you like to hear. But no, it's fine. I don't I mean, I just I looked at the budget as a whole. And then I said, saying, what do we really need? Where can we make some cuts to get to what I would presume to be more reasonable, right? Just giving the circumstances we have. So and I don't know exactly what this would be. But if we right now, you have a budget for four full time in one seasonal for public works. Yep. And if we went back to the three full time and two seasonals, how much I roughly came up with about seventy five thousand that we would save that sound about right? I'd have to be between I don't know. I'll have to look wages and and benefits and stuff. I mean, I know it's not ideally what we know. I know. I know. No, it's not practical. I mean, like Randolph only has three people. We we have to. That's all they have right now. I think it's, you know, we're going to have three seasonals, three seasonals, Lord willing, this right now. And but I mean, currently we have two full time. So three full time would. Is where we were before. So when I had at one point, I did have three full time and I had a seasonal. So and then I still had member at the time that I had the seasonal. I also had the person. It was Morgan. And then it was Richard, who did the Park Parks Park. Yeah, public work. So that was still a full time position. Is that part of this or is that in the parks and rec? That's going to be that actually is in parks and rec because if you could see that what I had, what we did here is if we change this. So that was one of the conversation pieces is what are we going to do? So if we go to three full time and two seasonals or we go to three full time and then we hire one full time person that does mowing, parks, water, sewer maintenance and does that in the winter. You know, works for the public works in the wintertime. So we have that I mean, I kind of looked at it as one. Well, one, we're trying to budget for four full time and one seasonal. We only have two full time now. So yeah, I mean, what what is the chances of hiring two more full time individuals between now and then anyways, right? I mean, that was the first part. Yeah, thinking back to, you know, I was just doing some work in Randolph and they have three full time workers right now. And, you know, they got more than that because they get two garages. They might have three in Randolph, but they've got. So I'm just, you know, like, so I'm just starting to think like, well, we had three before, you know, we may not even get four. So and if we got to make a cut somewhere, why don't we? Yeah. And I mean, and you'd be right because two singles and two families are what I budgeted and I budgeted. Because I was just roughly thinking that you're going to save. You'll save about 50,000 in wage and then another 25,000 in pennies. So it's like roughly 75,000. Yeah, because I'm looking at. It's not like we're talking cut in a position. It's a position. We didn't have. We don't. We don't have, you know, nobody for her. But yeah, no, because I'm looking at twenty three. So yeah, I'm looking. I budgeted about twenty four thousand for two families. So you're right. There's twenty two thousand right off the top. So I wanted a different perspective than we've, you know, you look at the budget as a whole and then see where we can go now. I want to look at what do we need? What do we need to do the job and to do it right? And then if it's too much, what are we not going to do? That's a different question than how do we just how many staff do we have or, you know? But what do we what do we the least amount of dollars that we really need to do the job? Well, and we we add that all up and it's going to come up to too much. So then the question is, what is it we don't do? Not where do we do we cut staff or but do we do less with public work to keep the level of service that we have set for the community at the public works? We need to have four people doing work at all times. Now, that could be a mixture of full time and part time. So so that if we keep it the way it is, like doing sidewalk cleaning and all that stuff. I mean, we could go and say everybody's going to clean their own side. So we could save a part time position right there. But but if you do the level of service that we have right now, you need to three full time and you need a part time person in the winter and a part time person in the summer to do. Yeah, because we have the lenient stuff. So then my argument is that we budget for that. And then at the end, we decide, well, no, we're not going to do sidewalks because we can't afford that extra person. Right. So that's a different argument to take to the top. Right. So this budget is, you know, obviously I meet with all the department heads and this is what what they have come up with. These are their budgets and either we've talked about them or we haven't, you know, depending on or we've talked in certain sections of but I went through this whole budget with the road crew. And so this is just so this is their request. This is what they would like. They would like for full time people and one seasonal. And as I said, I budgeted. Thank you so much for coming. And so that's where we're at. Some of this stuff, obviously Social Security, Medicare, Retirement, all that is bank workers comp and unemployment is all banked on wages. So, you know, and then they made some other changes in here. So I don't know what you want to talk about here. Do you want to just talk about public works? Did you I don't want to I think the big, the sclaring thing is that, you know, public works budgets up 110,000. So, you know, in your case, you're saying we need for the ease and not. Four and a half. There's what we are saying. Three impermanence ideal. Yeah, we get to come in and say a final yay or nay. And I think Chris's point is sort of a good one to explore. But it looked like whether that's two full time and X number of seasonal or three full time and X number of seasonal. What are those differences? So we have something to compare because the reality of even by 2024, we may not fill four full time positions. So I mean, we've struggled at keeping two to three. Yeah, true. And, you know, I don't know, I just I just want one. I don't think we get a fourth full time person if we wanted them unless you work on that increase wages and so I can change the budget. I can make another column for three full time and two seasonal. So you can let's just to see what that looks like. That may look like if you look at the next section down, you've got, you know, repairs. Before we go to the next section there, the overtime. Uh-huh. You know, it shows last year we were 13,000 over. Yeah. Should we put some more in? Well, one thing has changed is that the road foreman is no longer getting overtime. The road foreman is on salary. So that should help us. That will help. That makes some changes that was calculated into his salary. So it's also hard to tell in the year you get. Well, we had, we just, I mean, last year we came through one of the rougher winters that we've had in a while. Doesn't necessarily mean precipitation, but it means all the all the pieces, the ice, the snow, I mean, the rain, the we had kind of a rough, a rough winter. And we actually came in under budget on public works personnel. We budgeted 405 and came in at 373 because we also knew we had some savings in health insurance. Because so at one point I did allow for some overtime that because I knew I had a savings in. But wasn't there basically like a half a position that we never filled last year? Yeah. So we had that buffer. Yeah, we have half a position we never filled. Yeah. So, so I guess two before we go is what is the COLA? I mean, that's going to change the entire budget and knock. I just need to know what to budget here. We have done three in the past. The as I just said that, you know, we know I always look at social security, keeping in mind that social security may go up, but they're also probably getting hammered on their insurance premiums. So. Exactly. That's what I'm so pays and deductibles are up. Yeah. I haven't heard about Medicare yet, what they're going to do in theory, it's supposed to be zero increase or maybe a decrease. But there's been no asking on that. It's the thing in the back of your mind or it's up in the front of my mind is that the guy who's getting social security might get that eight point seven. But they're making fifteen thousand dollars a year. Exactly. Now you put eight point eight point seven on a guy who's making forty thousand dollars a year, that gets a shitload more expensive. Yeah. That's why eight percent. And we also have to calculate the the fact that, you know, that affects your OT rate and stuff. So and as I have said, you know, and everybody knows it just because it's budget, it doesn't mean that's what's getting handed out. So as I said, last time I looked in the article I read, it said that, you know, the feds were looking at, you know, four point, whatever. I have no idea what the state's doing. So I'm happy to drop the obviously changes percentage. I just need you to tell me what you want me to. I would like to make a few phone calls around some of the employers around here. Who who are we competing with for employees? Well, you're competing with the state of in the construction trade. Yeah, with whether you're in the streets, whether you're contributing with Pike, whether you're competing with the state of Vermont, the state of Vermont last year gave all their CDL employees a four dollar an hour race. But I've looked at there, but I looked at there. I got a hold of their chart. I looked at the one guy that I had that seemed to fit the criteria and we were in the money. And recently, as I've said, the state, but the state was the listserv came. They were behind the state was behind they were behind a ball and the listserv came out. Don't forget, there was two years at the state. One year they retracted his people's pay and one year they gave him nothing. Yeah, exactly. And we were still giving three and four percent those years. Yeah, I'm sure you were. So, I mean, it goes deeper than what happened last No, I agree. And I'm, like I said, when, and I think, and I know I told you guys this, but I'll tell you again, when recently through the state listserv, there was a question put out there saying, Hey, who has positions open and what are your wages? It would have been easier to say who doesn't have positions open, but I read every single one of those to see where we were. We were in the money. I did a salary survey last year or year and a half ago, and we're right where we need to be. But what we're competing for are people with a CDL that have the opportunity. They can haul from Burlington to Boston at night and they're going to make a ton of money. We can never touch those people, people that are going to pike people that maybe need the mandatory or not mandatory, but I can't get, I won't give anybody. We don't do OT in the summer unless we have to. And then you have people that are, you know, plow and snow all winter is tough, you know. And so I think we're competing with the state and other people. And right now we're competing with everybody. If you look at indeed the biggest thing, if you have a CDL, you're good to go. So we have talked about, I've talked to AJ and Morgan about contracting more out. That's why we had gone to three people before was hire three people and contract more work out because and I, yeah, they do. And when we lost, you know, when Hazen went, went, um, when Hazen left, I calculated how much we were paying per week in Benny's and everything instead of the guys. We can contract out this much per week in work. So if we have something else to have somebody do, let's do it. And, um, so it may be that it may be that we are with three and that we contract work out, which is what we've done in the past. And we may just have to do some more of that. We also thought about doing a little more creative and saying, okay, um, instead of just giving somebody, you know, like a section of road and having them just do the grading and this and that, maybe they do the planning, you know, maybe we, because if this is our future, we need to figure out, you know, if we're going to enter some contracts with people. Come to mind is there's 75 trucks that go through town every day that are lawn mowers. That's when they're making their living. Yeah. Grass don't grow up with shit in the winter. Maybe they would clean sidewalks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, when we did have somebody that worked for the town just to do sidewalks and that may be something that we, we do. But, um, so yeah, so I mean, if you want me to figure this out, 4%, 5%, whatever, that's fine. I just needed them. The challenge is like, I'll say in the private market anyways. It's tough. This year we gave our employees a combination of 7% raise. Now we're private. So, um, our employees pay in a portion of their health insurance, which is roughly about 20% they pay in and the company does 80. But that was, and I, I've heard other companies given much more or, you know, truck drivers that used to hire for 22, 23 bucks an hour or 30 bucks an hour. You know, so, um, I do see that public works may be different than the rest of the budget that public works. We may have to budget. We may not get somebody for what we used to get people for. So we may have to maybe that section of the budget. We keep the 8% just for play, you know, in the case that I have to bring somebody in, then you bump everybody else and then maybe others. Well, yeah, and I'm not a fan of this. Nobody gets a cola in Bethel. We don't. You get what I consider a merit raise. That's what everybody gets, because if you lasted another year, congratulations. Your bennies went up, your retirement went up, but what have you done? So if you have worked for the town of Bethel and, you know, or employing, even doing some stuff and extras and this and that, then to me, there's an increase involved. If you just hung on, then you already got a 21 and a half percent interest or increase in your health insurance, Benny. Plus you've got an increase in your retirement. So Bethel is never, I mean, perhaps they were in the past. I don't do colas. I figure it's pretty much all just merit. I was looking through the numbers and if you, you know, granted, our people get paid. Well, when I say our people, town versus private, get paid a little less on the wage side, but there's a little more of the benefits that are picked up. And if you look at the trade off, let's say in this case, where employers were given seven or 10 percent raise bonuses. But I was looking at, I think you still could do the three percent and that keeps you in that middle ground with everybody else. When you're talking about industriality, you're not going to compete with the private dollars. I mean, I'm just wondering if you never, you never go see in private is fifty four thousand dollars, say that again, the one fifty four thousand dollars for retirement before four guys. Aha, I know that's why I said it was that does not happen in private because just remember now, because you can go cross state boundaries. So like my company's at Georgia, so they deal with Georgia stuff. Yeah. You know, you have an open market, let's say, to pick for your health insurance where, you know, if you're no, he's not about retirement. So no, no, but I'm saying like here, whatever the state tells you is what you get a budget for. So let's talk about retirement for a second. So because Bethel chose visas a long time ago, that's what you're with. We can't remove ourselves from visas or do anything else. I've asked if we could go to Vemors. I asked when I got here, they said no. So we're currently at 19.5 percent and I increased it to 20.08 just because I don't know what the state's going to do. But you're right. And that's based on salaries. The employee has to put in based on their salary, either 6.75 or 7.12 percent, depending if you what they changed was if you make over a certain amount, then you have to we have to contribute more. And if you make under, then you're at the 6.65. If you're over, I think I think it's 7.12 or something. So but you're right, it's all based on salary. So if I go to this 3 percent, then that's that's going to change this whole equation. And I understand it was a problem with our employee. We lost this summer, but I'm a big opponent of total compensation. And if you talk up to somebody, walk up to somebody who's making twenty four dollars an hour and you start adding on these things. One hundred so they're making forty five dollars an hour. It's true. And you and I don't understand why we don't have everybody in Royalton working for us because insurance sucks. They don't. What happens is you you get obviously we're old enough to have figured done the math and figured it out. But there are people who it doesn't buy them bread. So if you have a young person with a young family, you know, some they make those. But we do talk about this. I mean, are you kidding? I've, you know, track down you just look at and talk to them about the Benny's trying to get them to even apply here and went through the whole thing and just said, you know, I can do that. You know, this I can do better than what you're making right there. Look at the Benny's. Look at this. Look at that. But, you know, I mean, roughly and you do what people do. How much is one percent dollars? How many dollars is one percent? I mean, how much are we talking about here? I mean, as far as a raise. No, instead of what's our labor, what's, you know, from three to five, we're talking five or three. Individual salary. So it's but we still have a total percent. You know, I have to do it individually for every single person. So I have a spreadsheet on salaries. Calculates current salary times one percent. So we have a some place this is what they do later. You know, what are like within the budget? It's like this right here. As a whole, what are we thinking or my weekly payroll looks like? This is a number. About twenty six thousand dollars. So roughly, you know, just not say that everybody gets paid the same, you know, but roughly, you know, three percent would be like fifteen hundred dollars raised over the course of the season. Because it's about five hundred dollars a percent. Yeah. Our bi-weekly payroll that we take out of the check book is about twenty six to twenty four thousand currently. And we're not doing any overtime right now. That was your question, Lindley. Yeah. So any who that's fine. Let's do three percent and see what it looks like or and go from there. I did have one other question I need you to answer, which was brought up by Dave Eddie. So David made a good point when we were talking about hiring people and stuff. So we currently do a payment in lieu of insurance. We talked about this when we did my contract. Currently, the payment in lieu of health insurance is only three thousand dollars when we are going to pay twelve thousand for a single plan. So Dave had a good idea, which was to say, OK, maybe you have someone who is married and can get their insurance somewhere from a spouse. Three thousand is not a real big incentive for them to take our health insurance. Whereas if you say ten thousand dollars, you're going to get a payment in lieu of health insurance for ten thousand dollars. Now there's an incentive. Now it's not based. It's not you don't have the OT on it. It's just a flat stipend by weekly. So it doesn't change your, you know, overtime rate. So that is something to, you know, think about now we can for us and we've done that before. You can kind of say, OK, I'm going to be under on payroll or under on health insurance, but we have currently one employee who takes advantage of that. So if you want to go to a ten thousand dollar a year payment in lieu of or something thereof, that's fine. I just I also need to know that because that also is going to affect this budget or their town office with the employees that we have. And granted, we don't have a lot of employees out of the employees that we do have. How many of those employees have the option to take insurance somewhere else? Currently. Before we even talk dollars. I mean, if we have ten employees and only two of them have an option is, you know, at that point, doesn't make sense for us to talk about. I have. We need some new employees. Exactly. Dave is talking. Oh, right. So I'm thinking recruitment. One. I could think of one currently because we apparently would affect it. In fact, roughly one, one, maybe two people that we have now that could one person could take advantage of that. But like Dave was saying, it's recruitment. It could be an advertisement tool, right, or somebody that's coming in. Yeah. And you're still going to save money, even at ten grand, you're still saving really anything under twelve thousand dollars, you save money, right? Exactly. So the condition would be that they can have insurance from somebody else. You would offer help. Yeah, say you're married and you're you could get health insurance with your wife. They may say, great, I'll take it from my wife. I think the condition is that they just choose whether to take it or not. No, because they have another option they can do. They have to their force to the state requires. Yes. If your employer offers it and you have no other option, you have to take it or be penalized. Yeah. Or they'll have to take it. And we have a significant deal about it. So it's sort of like your your hand and the employer, we get penalized. We have to pay a monthly or a quarterly fee on. So so there's another thing that some employers are doing and that is saying if. Julie were employed and she gets family health, but she has to pay the family side of it. Yes. That's that that does not. It covers me, but it covers me out of her pocket. Exactly. And that's it. Yeah, sure. To the school. She got coverage. I got coverage, too. But yeah, and in Bethel, like a lot of municipalities, this has been the way it has been for a long time. It doesn't mean it can't change. My recommendation is always if you are going to change something like that, because let's face it, you're trying to make an inequitable system equitable, which will never happen. I've had this conversation for 15 years and but what you could if you're going to do that, then you should change it for new hires. You know, in this market, we cannot take away benefits from employees. I mean, we'll be, you know, two people left working for the town. So but it is something you can think about. And we're going to be I'm working currently on the new draft of the personnel policy. So it'll be a conversation to have at that point, I think. And then she can build our health and our health system around employer based yeah, insurance. And it's a sticky wicked. It seems to me that so crazy. Are we done question? Are we locked into our current health carrier health insurance carrier? No, we can I've it's just the once a year. I haven't signed the paperwork yet. We, you know, we have done this for a couple of years. We kind of went back and forth one to the other one to the other one to the other. We went to MVP. What, four years ago? I think so. Yeah, because we went from Blue Cross Blue Shield MVP. They both got a significant increase because the state is one of the things Chris was talking to Kurt about. I have MVPs. I don't have Blue Cross Blue Shield. We can look sometimes that it it doesn't make a difference. I even looked but I can look at Blue Cross Blue Shield. Remember, we came over to MVP. Yeah, shouldn't he help be doing this for like all municipalities and get the bigger group? They don't anymore. No. And you also before when they kind of looked at where you could go, whatever, they actually charged us a fee, which to me was so I thought I'm like, no, we can we can look at the chart just as well as anybody else and not to figure it out. So we have flip-flopped back and forth before. The company and people are you going to the company with 10,000? Yeah, the rates are Yeah, they're not a broker. Our rates, I mean, they're not a broker anymore. So and of course, too, there were state law changes and Obamacare and all that, but I can look at Blue Cross Blue Shield. I mean, we have 60,000 employees at my work and over over 48 states and they I pay for a full family. Two hundred and seventy five dollars a month. Yeah, but that's not cost. But what I'm saying is that's what I'm saying is I pay 20 percent, which we were just talking is right now, I think Trees said she budgets like let's say twenty four thousand dollars a person. Right. And that's and that's like that's cheating. If you're paying you said that's like twelve thousand dollars and we're paying twenty five. What I'm saying is like at my at my he only pays a portion because it shows every year because they give us a total compensation thing. And so our company pays about seventeen thousand dollars a year for my package. So he's where they where you pay seven thousand dollars more for that same package. Right. Because he can shop on the open market and you're stuck with whatever is in Vermont. Very true. And that's the. Yeah. So I so are we comfortable? What an option is a family or medical leave plan or a family medical savings account. We don't love her. I'm saying for those who have other insurance instead of doing a cash in lieu of because they don't need that benefit. They've got it. The question is can we do medical savings plan that picks up costs that their other insurance is not picking up. I don't know. I will say because I know that someone who currently does it that they're you know they have a lot more out of pocket. I don't know. I don't know how we would manage that. And I think as Dave's point is it's really people want the ten thousand. They want the cash. They don't. They don't want the cash. And what they use it for is up to them. They may be using it to pay co-pays and deductibles and whatever. But I'm not sure. I don't even know if we could do that because they're not on our plan. So I don't know how our company our insurance company that we contract with would even manage an HRA or HSA for a non enrolled employee and we don't have we can't do it. Well again we can we can do a little more research on it because we don't need it for budget. No I just want to know about the ten thousand if we're comfortable. Paul's question of what would a one percent increase be and I know I know that this is a very loose number and it does not include the increase to retirement, the increase to overtime, the increase on workers' comp and all of those auxiliary pieces. But just just based on the twenty six thousand a pay period, it's about sixty seven hundred a year for all of the employees to go up one percent. It's about twenty thousand plus a little for three percent if that help just to give you that metric. You know and it's not it's not perfect because it's missing. Yeah it's a big difference. I appreciate that you asked that because I'm that to now to put it into a percent breakdown of what's one percent versus three percent versus five percent was actually really helpful for me to do the math. Yeah just remember when you start giving out percentages that that is a kind of word. It's always there. Yeah exactly. So that's why I like the the it pay to loop. That's a one shot deal. Yeah it doesn't affect their salary. They don't get more salary. Exactly. Where if you give a three percent and a three percent three percent pretty soon that raise is well I think we're talking about that different what it was. Well I get what Dave's talking about too is and I believe Royalton does it right now where they don't give out percent raises. They give out they put their board puts aside a certain amount of money every year. We'll make it up. They put aside thirty thousand dollars that they will pay out to their employees for Merit and we'll call it Merit Awards. Yeah I didn't want to use bonus but yeah so they don't actually say that you've now increased a dollar an hour. What they're saying is you did such a good job here's four thousand dollars or whatever. Yeah. However they ran into some kind of issue this past year with that and I can't remember it. Federal laws have changed. Yeah you have to be careful of that on. They changed all the federal laws about so they got they got in trouble over there. Yeah. Now the other thing too is you take a look at you know when I do it I know what everybody's hourly rate is and you obviously look at you know seniority and who's where and what if you bring a new guy you know so you it's not like everybody you don't get them a flat you know sometimes you have to look at them and you budget three percent for say the road crew then you have I have a dollar amount and so I sometimes have to change that around so maybe this one gets more this one gets less and you kind of look at the whole picture and again it's you know the fact that you hung on another year is great but it doesn't entitle you to more money per hour. So is everybody good with the ten thousand and payment in lieu just because that's going to affect my one of my budgets in here you're not okay you don't want to go from three to ten. I just don't believe in them but that's okay so I wouldn't raise it. Well I'm going to leave it in just for we can discuss it when we get into the fine tuning. I mean I mean I had one boy who I'm one boy. I know you're five. I just know we offer the benefit and a person decides to take it or not. Right. I think Dave's point is it's just more of a recruitment tool because if we are losing people at times because of money and I can't you know give them 60 hours a week of overtime year round I can't. I mean three might be light but ten might be a little steep at least on a jump basis. Yeah that's why I say is there more of a contract. I've expressed myself and been heard. How do you budget how do you put that in the budget if you anticipate how many employees you might hire and has to put that money. It's going to be an offset. They take it it's budgeted for as the expense to the town and if they don't take it it's an expense to the employees it's just. It would only help us in this case for the most part would be if we budget for another full time person and we budgeted full bennies sports that's what I do. And a person came on and they took the in lieu payment instead we would come out ahead by whatever that difference would be on the benefit. And if they took the single however if somebody. Not participating necessarily right now I think that maybe we'll hire. No what I put in the budget under health insurance whatever it's there is there. Yeah I budget for if I I know what I currently have. So if I currently have two singles and I'm going to do two hires I budget to family plans right now we don't want to cause the one who's a single because you might be right. I might end up saving. So I mean I got a single and they get married. Boom I just got a health insurance I just got a family plan so I you know you try I mean I don't have jobs. I haven't studied the numbers enough to see what would be I mean obviously you want the number to be high and that is the pricing to want to do it. But I don't want to see how 10 hits the budget but close to our 10s in here now you know I think we yeah it only affects one small point when I was negotiating with the school and stuff. Dollars are not the best human motivator. There are a lot of other things that are better. I'm not going to say that we have a lot of time. But Chris's favorite yeah there's been national studies that you can give a guy $1 an hour every year and 10 years later he certainly the same job he was when he was getting 20 now he's getting 70 he's not doing anything more for you. No I agree but well that's because it's union. Other motivators are there's no more there's no union. All right so what do you want to talk about town owned equipment. So the repairs parts and what we'll call tires chains and cutting edges so I actually said this to this has been spiraling higher and higher and higher every year and it drew we I think correct me from wrong but I think as a board we anticipated some of us to continue to go up a little bit while we figured out our equipment issues and we've been working through this yeah and I would think at this point we should be seeing some efficiencies from us not be asking for another 20 plus thousand. Well I talked to AJ and I mean so that's great if they want the tire chains and cutting edges for 20,000 then I think we need to take 20,000 now the tire the other items change used to come out of the repair yeah was all but don't forget that one year. Excuse me Alan came to you guys for capital money for tires so I do know that Morgan and AJ have a different take than a prior road format about how tires work so when they're buying and this and that's what's happening right now is while we have a plan from the equipment committee we have a plan on how to do equipment we are still we have an international that is having issues and it was last winter and we have already replaced three computers in that thing put a call out on the Vermont you know entire state of Vermont feed to find out if anyone had problems with this brand of international because we're still trying to keep it on the road and we have had issues with it the you know the greater the equipment committee dumped about $10,000 into it a couple years ago because they felt like some stuff on the market was junk and they want to keep it but we're having you know we've had some issues with the loader remember we had to put in a it completely unexpected transmission to the tune of $13,000 so we are not where we need to be at equipment yet on that being said yes when Morgan and AJ gave us looking at them I said guys I think that's the right number I would have to go back and look at tires we spend on that I see you know I'm payables all the time it's kind of a I don't want to say dumping ground but it's kind of a catch all place that has tools it has it has everything you know that all the miscellaneous budget but now which they didn't yeah they do now but I mean just just for four to five years ago we were at $50,000 for everything now I think we can all do that 75 probably wasn't the right number at that time right because you were spending 75 with this budget right now we'd be looking at 90 yeah you know and I all right I'll put a question marks here and we'll I'll speak to them and I can look at the history of chains and say the board has approved your line item of tires chains and cutting edges and they have directed you to find $20,000 with the cuts on your repairs right I mean it's fine they knew that you know there's repairs that you know they blow up radiators and all that gold that's an answer where we can get it fixed and all sorts of minor things are going to improve exactly because they don't they certainly don't fix everything yeah changes that's higher in the gas oil grease and diesel so when you say I just want to make sure I got this right when you say oil that's heating oil no that's just like oil for oil changes in recent lube and stuff yeah so I looking at research anyways last year at this time versus this year the now I know we had budgeted 8800 and ended up at 13 something you know I'd have to look was that 13 really a true overrun on me look increase costs or was it like you've got a shipment of gas or you've got some stuff that receded right before the budget or something because if we're just talking about the budget of last year of $9000 if we if we went with the true increase right now that would probably put us more like 12 not 15 now I know it's only $3000 difference but now now on diesel yes and no I mean it like the only one that's really staying high right now is diesel and and and some heating oil like gases within striking distance of each other as it was last year at this time high threes yeah a lot of that stuff really hasn't somebody know and you guys think of like the quantity that you use versus you know like I agree with the diesel field you know if it continues to stay at $6 diesel fuel then then you know that $70,000 you know unfortunately the right number but I just thought the 15 was a little high maybe just look at that and yeah because we have I can like 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 14 it could go down on a flower every three snowflakes that's true well I think I think that's I think sometimes I did I see Rambal going through and I don't see anything coming out the end of it so this is I'm looking ahead Texas refinery that was 2001-22 Texas refinery 1265 CV oil looks like I'm looking at CV oil CV oil CV oil under gas oil and grease obviously we made you know we we pay for the oil for and get reimbursed for conspiring please but yeah you can see these are all CV oil Texas refinery which is grease somebody from preventative maintenance preventative maintenance I don't know if that's death Texas refinery here's like for instance here you had an invoice that came in at 715 because it was $1,000 you know I mean that yeah it was for the prior you know leaped over that it was a budget season and here you pay now I guess so some of that so that might have knocked 1,000 might have put you down to you know 12 grand but so yeah so that but anyways I will look at the so yeah as far as diesel I don't know what's what was your take on diesel you think 70 is if you kind of take the 70 is probably pretty close no as a budget number I wouldn't go down you know roadside mowing you know we did have some complaints because you know I obviously haven't been able to to do all the roads so I did this is an increase I don't know it's great yet but this is a number I put in from 14 to 17 because I'm just trying we have all this road mileage I'm trying to do more that's the question I was asking really what do you not do you don't do all the roads for 17,000 I'm not going to get all the nice the nice thing with some of those items like roadside mowing ditching gravel and stuff is depending on what your winter looks like right if you come out of your winter really heavy on your cost you could always say well we're going to cut back and only ditch half or yeah I'm just saying that's an example gives us a little bit of that different kind of budgeting it's going to be I think we need to maybe I hate to use word lean but lean on our road foreman to like the roadside mowing that personally was a personal thing for me when I drove my truck now a class three road and both sides that are being scratched that hasn't been mowed for three years so what I'm saying is okay we mowed it next year it doesn't get mowed yeah it doesn't need to be mowed and I did do and that's what I'm saying is there's roads out there that get mowed every year exactly maybe they don't meet it and that's what we did last year I finally created a spreadsheet for the road foreman of all the roads and then made a note on what we mowed what we had and what percentage of the road we mowed and so that we could look at it better I had someone call and they didn't want theirs done and then you know so we do I will say we're trying to cut the budget and we've also been very happy with this new guy who does a great job for us the best job we've had and so he was more money but we that's kind of what we're doing I did try to put a little more money in it because I don't know if he starts charging us a fuel surcharge I may not get any more mowed than I did last year for 17 versus 14 but what he did on that road that I'm planning about will probably go at least two years oh yeah and we'll be back in that yeah so once eight foot wide broke yeah I can honestly ask him to if he knows his numbers for next year but if but I've received quite a bit of positive feedback on the ditching pieces a lot of people have been very happy with yeah tell you one the one would see gets down to dimmux or just past that's like holy shit that road hasn't looked that good since I was born yeah we got a yeah I've got a lot of good feedback on the ditching so I think I think that piece is going a long way in people yeah so free sleeping yep which one not doing more well that we had had complaints yes people people complain I know you find hard to believe people complain no people complain they want us to sweep twice a year well I will say this the gentleman who used to sweep for us doesn't you know stop doing it and then we end up piggybacking off from me I think the state because we were trying to find somebody and I told you something about the Bradshaw guy that you do excels and we it's rough like Burlington but he comes down does a bunch of them yeah and um but we may so I don't remember he's pretty reasonable he could probably sweep your whole town and and one day which is probably like 15 or 1600 bucks well the other thing too is we we had we didn't do East Bethel there've been times when I do East Bethel because they hadn't been done in years and um but in the mainstream people have come it's true they hadn't so we so we had you know people do it but we had um so we have had complaints about that and people saying that they think we should sweep like spring and fall and so I put more money in here but but the I mean the the only point the only real point in sweeping is to get rid of the winter sand yeah I mean unless there's an unforeseen thing that happens like let's say you have some type of flood or something where deposits on the street but the winter sand sweep up if you do that in May you should be good so we'll cut that back check with the exactly what can we do and it's true we can cut that well does say that gene cut it that's right gene said get it well he said he lives on dirt road just get used to the dirt straight from him that's right so you see about cutting that in here I live on the ground hold on I'm just gonna let the hang so um so materials you know materials are crazy but as you as I said I took the current 800 ton at a 10% increase over the current 105 that they wanted to charge us um was their new rate and that's how I came to the 92 so so you lost me on the 92 4 so last year we budgeted 60,000 yeah and that was based on 800 ton I are we talking apples honestly I don't know I'd have to because see what Allen's contract was I because it's 10% over last year the no what I'm you know you budgeting is this we currently locked in for 800 ton at 88 bucks right but they is that is that 88 bucks we were paying like 70 something 78 so it went up 10 dollars so 10% on 800 mm-hmm right well Hank so here's so it should have been that 60,000 is really 66 67,000 possibly thousand so then where's the other 15,000 increase so you're thinking we're gonna use more salt at the higher rate no what I'm saying is we we Bethel settled in 88 because we turned around on the paperwork gotcha but I think they made a mistake they wanted to charge us 105 and because that's the current rate so the minute so basically if they hadn't made a mistake and sent us a price of 88 we'd be paying 105 right now so what I'm trying to do is based budget 105 times 10% for 800 ton and see if I'm because I don't know I mean I've just took current number so unless my math formula is wrong 800 times whatever at 10% so 105 times 10 it's like 24,000 increase would be yeah 4,000 but so but at that point you know do we have to reexamine our salt procedures in town again like we did a couple years ago to limit some of that I think that's true and we also have different people now that have a that are going to use less salt so we may not so anyways that I can I'll double check my math so okay sure I think I think you could use 84 there okay so I'll double check my math and then chloride is fine gravel just looking to add more material to the roads so when we spent a 43 last year do you know that on that 43 that we spent again I meant to catch up with you that's fine against these things but on that 43,000 you know how many miles of roadway we got out of that no do we keep track of that no so that we can figure out how many miles we're because remember when we talked about a gravel road plan and I think I want to say I think the recommendation was like grappling seven miles a year that's all right because we have I'm not sure we don't have a plan my opinion the plan should be all of the road should be done so many years whether that's seven miles a year or ten miles a year whatever working on a I printed it out so we have a binder so that and I was gonna make one for you Chris so Ryan you and AJ and Morgan all have a plan and I went through in detail all the work we done on it since I've been here what was on each road how many miles on each road so that we can do a 60 miles on dirt roads is that what we had 60 miles see 80 you're not about that yeah I'm just gonna say because we have 84 miles a road and about 28 or so is paid so we should be working on a capital plan based on that based on that info I gave you we should be doing eight and a half miles a year all right there you go it should be a seven what I had looked up Dave a couple years for her was 8.5 like paving for instance you try to do everything in our 10 to 12 year cycle and gravel roads because there's more erosion that happens on the gravel roads as they the gold standard is seven years so every you should be putting gravel new gravel base on well or adding to gravel base every seven years so so that's eight and a half eight and a half miles a year that we should be doing some gravel you got gravel on the gravel house on the diary so I guess what I was curious if we spent 43,000 you know did that go to actual gravel grading maintenance or did that go to we had to fix this road that washed out or we went and did this or that you know I can't answer that question I don't know so sand is a change because we're going to move to away from the organic material we've had a lot of complaints about the sand over the last few years we're trying a new material this year and then if we move oh we just we need to stop buying sand with organics in it that's kind of the consensus that I know Chris has said the road crew has said because what happens is if you get too many fines and it becomes very slimy and you put the sand on and you end up just you know pushing it off into the ditches where if we use a better material we'll actually help build up the road and they have learned this a few years ago through a gentleman that taught the salt class that's when we started dialing all the salt back in and making sure the salt spreaders were calibrated et cetera if you if you use a great a more granular sand or some rock base like we're going to use this year the benefits to that is one it prevents the what they call the 200 just the fines yeah from building up which then you don't have to chloride your road is as heavy so it saves you on chloride it also it also in a weird way it adds to your base rather than rather than you're putting you know sand out there and you're getting no benefit other than just for winter purposes mm-hmm so when we get that same vendor same same no so there's no we bought this year from pike we can also buy is it twin valley twin valley they're a little bit more expensive a little more expensive this year so we did look around and basically taking the natural sand and blending it with some three eight stone to give a bit of mixture now it'll it'll work really well on dirt roads but but that mixture shouldn't go on paved roads right so if you go back to the paved road is there if there's a paved road that we are sanding and not salting we should just use the regular natural sand not the three eight stone because then you'll be sweeping up those stones all some you know then you will need five thousand dollars they'll go sweeping stone different trucks with different sand and well I talked to the guys about that when I was doing pothole patch whether I'm going to quiz them on that and they they said they they figured out a system that they were going to use that on yeah because I said just make sure you don't don't put that down on paved road geez well that's right yeah we don't have they said they've already been thinking about how they would manage that and we don't have a lot of people like today like today you have Gilead yeah well Gilead usually they salt you know sometimes we because they had been saw going back and salting Gilead and then we talked about using sand but maybe just salt on the very apron just because people are coming out under a busy intersection so but again you have a different this should also cut down on road crew this time too so it'll be interesting different person in charge so we'll if it's managed right it should help with our salt cut down too because often a lot of the salt that we use we use for cutting rather than yeah ice control so it might be there's a build-up on a road that we need to add salt to so we can cut it so that then we can scrape that tape deal so that should help out as well but so some of the stuff culverts patching guard rail or just the prices are crazy I did a guard rail project what are you thinking you have something in mind for guard rail or you're just budgeting to budget well I'm budgeting because like we need to do because if you can skip it for a year maybe benefit that's a commodity that's gone up quite a bit it has yeah I just did a project I just finished watershed but like last year we got us built you did bridge rail which the bridge rail is normally probably double the expensive of regular WB ram we have sections of campbrook that need guard rail the upper amount that need guard rail and I also I have a and there was a so campbrook is right right there we could spend just might those might be one of those things that you may may want to pass for a year if you can do it because because it's gone up by so much I know it's not and same you know culverts are up we need to do more patching material so we need more material more hot mix you know highway rehab that matches ERAF I'm looking at right now if that bridge comes in a Ponello at 1.2 million then this gives us half our ERAF this year and hopefully the final half next year so that's how I came up with that number the sidewalk improvement item yeah I added 10 grand just because I don't know what you want to do should that best go under like highway rehab or something because that's going to be one of those if you don't use it inside the year you're not going to be able to carry that $10,000 over that's true and I mean I mean we're not going to go around just do $10,000 with the sidewalk here you're four squares you know so yeah that might be better I just wanted to talk about it but but if we don't if we don't well we could move it to highway rehab and change that to 130 the problem is if it goes into another place then we never pay attention to side books well you can't well we have a you can't financially you category or something financially you could put it in let's say the highway fund and you can tag it $10,000 to sidewalk you can have a subcategory it's like we do bridges yeah I just I just you know one of the things we discovered with the Bethel for all thing is we haven't done much sidewalk work you've done any many maintenance because part maybe partly because there's no place for it in the well that they just what I came here budgeting $1,000 I said what we can pour a square I'm like you can't eat like you do on it so mobilize for that no we're doing we have that big sidewalk project that we got the grant for but yeah we'll just do it as a subcategory I can move the 10 to the highway rehab and just well they're making parking on they don't even need to do them just true oh I need sidewalks I talked to just gonna park on I talked to Father Grant the other day so we didn't have a good conversation maybe when we do that project of the sidewalks that we get the grant money for it might be time to address at the same time address some of those bad spots well like the ones down here by the library one with the jump up here future thinking could if we had something like that where there's the 10,000 set aside for sidewalks specifically and there was a grant opportunity that had matching could we use that towards matching because it's slated for a sidewalk absolutely so yep absolutely um I think putting it into more of a capital fund so it doesn't just go away at the end of the year you may you may also want to have it more of a maybe the wording of it says sidewalks maybe like streetscapes or something because then it gives you a little more opportunity to use it for great other things things that do come get in sidewalks because it yeah we're carrying the ADA ramps off yeah it gives you that opportunity to use it but yep all right so fire department is you know really not up much those guys get it stipend because just the laws of the way that volunteer fire departments work they have not had an increase in a while so I worked out 1080 to 1166 but I can change that also increase the stipends see there's a stipend amount for chief fire for fire chief assistant chief we're done so that's all in there so their budget is 4.56 over some of it is a little bit of the heat a little bit yeah it's heat and there's you know not the major there Constable is still the same budget that you looked at before I haven't really changed anything there this is about the Constable yeah I'm a little confused about these additional items that are in the column next to the yeah that's if we went with the if we went with the Sheriff with the Sheriff yep I can add a label no I just want to make sure there's a text with that one and we might want to just not to say pass on the Constable one but now that there is a newly elected Sheriff in Windsor County he had reached out to me in regards to sitting down with Therese and I because I had talked to him prior and he had one of the one of the things he campaigned on was an outreach to the smaller communities so you know where you would have a Sheriff that would patrol maybe three small towns or four small towns in a a rural area and that's that's one thing he really wants to do so there might be because like right now when we were budgeting it was basically saying you know on the old school system of saying we kind of want somebody to be patrolling in our town but this might be more like the older days of the Constable thing where we might be able to share it with I don't make it up Rochester Hancock and Beffle or something you know one Sheriff that would patrol the only thing there is we would have to figure out the animal control piece of it you know we would have to appoint somebody or hire somebody or something like that but you're retiring soon yeah you can't afford me we'll just we'll just put a shutter cage in the back and you'll be all set we'll get you a long poll of the fit the newest thing in it and you'll be you'll be a you'll be a I got a poll about this got a herd down the middle yeah yeah yeah oil on that one yeah they and their new building they had a pretty efficient some Sheriff's fuel efficient heater or furnace when they built and two they keep it it's cold over there that's wrong and I also think Dave might know that do they have radiant heat don't they do they have radiant heat in the floor of the fire department I believe yeah yeah I think they do yeah I think so yeah so the fuel question and the costs both in terms of dollars and in terms of carbon something that I think we ought to be looking at every place we're using fuel oil let's go get electric a fire truck they're gonna get three electric school buses that are going to be broke down out in the middle of God knows where I can't wait for those buses to get here I just can't wait Dave I'm not looking forward to it because I already get like two messages a morning saying this bus has been delayed 45 minutes in this one an hour can't imagine if your kids were taking the bus and then or burnt the bus up it's only more than 45 minutes I can tell you well I think I think that'd be one thing that we could task the I mean at least the way I look at it is those are things that we should task the energy committee with it's coming up with alternative you know solutions for our municipal and their grant that they just got was for some manpower to look at some things specifically so I think we may have those answers and like maybe you switch over to a wood chip boiler or you have a and I mean the the biggest you know so obviously we're gonna when we build a new garage that'll take care of the garage like the fire station would be would it would or would it be I think a good candidate to have solar panels on top of that because it it has I mean where it's positioned you get like the longest amount of yeah and that was one of the things I mean those are some things I think are just kind of no brainer things that you could do to there and to that would take care of a lot of energy use and if it takes care of their energy use then it frees up more of our net metering for others from other stuff so you know that you know calling help so I agree and I know at one point I think the energy committee was looking at that but I don't know you know it's to just run out of volunteers well they they have said they don't have the people yeah to do that over the expertise yeah to do that kind of an energy and we could bring in somebody to to do an energy audit I think would be worse I think it would be worth certainly learn a lot that's for sure so the rec budget obviously the right here the rec facility improvement fund I have it at 10,000 but I don't know what they're going to do they could want 30 they're still looking for quotes from vendors and you know and talk to Michael Parker Ellie sent me an email I mean I would say at this point anything above 10 then we probably got to be looking as a separate warning on the yeah so I just want so I don't know what that number is going to be but I just left it at 10 put it in a towel because I just don't know somebody had told me and I didn't see it on your budget that increased but somebody had told me that the chlorine prices went up quite a bit is that not true or did I don't know that or something but think you dreamt it stayed within budget we I had told I was told that the chlorine stuff went way up well we also try to piggyback with the water system if we can but that wasn't Dietre didn't mention I don't if she did it I don't recall I didn't retain it but we stayed within our budget so I don't know I can look at the you know the record that you know that recreational new building that we installed there help me take sure after Irene that like that would be another good candidate to have you know solar power or something for that on one side because there's so many trees there are too much on that one yeah and so I don't think you could do that because it's such a low into the shade well lower energy use building that it could probably sustain itself so once you be talking to GW before they start building because they've got a huge footprint there that I don't want they're gonna put on for a roof but it's gonna be a a big roof and in the architecture they could build it so that it would take panels and that's they must be very good trees I don't know about that because you're they're a Swedish company now oh that's right I forgot don't forget they got they got a different different so top echelon so with the the wage difference with the rec department you just take me through that so I understand that yeah sure that's a change so D tree is trying to phase herself out of the pool and basically we'll bring in somebody else to be the pool director so her and I sat down whatever week or two ago and went through it and she what we had budget for her was eight weeks at 40 hours and the new person 12 weeks at 40 hours in the past we had done 17 weeks at 40 hours for D tree so and and is in this excuse me phasing her down phasing her down and it may go faster than this depending on the person if we don't get somebody that's interested in the position then D tree will stay and do it but maybe what we do is take one of the perhaps other lifeguards that have been there a while and give them some additional duties and try to maneuver it that way so cut down her workload or she's trying to cut cut down her workload out of the pool yeah but is she still going is it going to affect our overall budget she's still going to work same number of hours only under a different department exactly she'll work more in the office and less at the pool and which helps in a couple of ways for sure so we're just kind of waiting to see obviously what we get for you know for applicants if we get someone who wants to take over the pool the other thing is what we're we're thinking is if a new person comes they can take over family fun fridays if they don't then D tree won't do family fun fridays we'll open it up to all the committees and say conservation commission you could do it night if you guys want energy you know people want to do a night they could do a family fun Friday and then sponsor around their issue or their you know thing so that's what I've done so that's why that looks different and again that's why the wage changes so again D tree gets works 30 hours a week so she gets benefits the new person at the pool would just be a seasonal so no bennies no payment in lieu of no bennies so back to the and we're at about eight weeks as far as the pool being open sometimes it's six sometimes it's seven it you know depends on for the recreational fund improvement fund money so if I remember right we have 60 or 70,000 in there right now so it's 80 so based on I haven't seen a schedule in a while so based on the 80 that they have in there what what are their plans for the next phase like I know I know there's the skateboard park conversation going on but yeah like we used to say it's so different than the capital and like Ellie was like like we have this project coming so we need to budget this much and well I think the pool well Ellie is going to be the next issue would have been normal would have been if the pool didn't come up I understand it that it would have been tennis courts but the pool is going to trump the tennis courts right now let the little stuff get broken point where it breaks you there you go I mean come on you don't drive your old car until you're pushing it everywhere just so you can have a a new bicycle exactly so I know I don't know so I guess at this point I'm not sure their master plan ever had dollars attached to it I never saw a master plan for there with dollars attached so currently it's and it didn't have a timeline you know I mean it was just this is the plan it could take it's five years it could take 20 years but that was planned well this is where it's going to park now and well I guess my question is hoping to get grant money for the pool you know the 10,000 just seems like we're just just putting money in the fund to put money in the fund currently like like if they have nothing scheduled like is it zero or if we do know that we're going to have to foot the bill on some pool stuff uh-huh should it be more you know I mean right well we just throwing 10 in there to throw 10 or you know yeah or being it's a tight year you know should it be zero and then if there is a good argument for a skateboard park or a pool or something else like do we just put that as a separate warning item maybe we should ask them for a more comprehensive wish list you know okay you want this this and this how much does it cost and when are you going to well because because if they told me okay I want 10,000 a year and I'm going to put straight park and then I'm going to put a test court but then six years from now I need to I need $200,000 to put the pool I'm going to say no no no no no I'm not going to prove any of your money and that's something I could ask them pool is under and currently under the office domain we're dealing with that Deetree has had measures and measurements pictures and everything to gunite then she got a she had told them look we don't care if we square off the edges like we don't need to round this you could square it off we could do but we need to make it a true zero entry because it's not right now and so she she got laughing because she's a look at this picture she the guy didn't have the dimensions quite right and he made this like very fancy she's like $800,000 she so she was emailing the guy back saying no can do this is I sent you you're going to need to take a zero off the end of that yeah so she currently is dealing with a gentleman from gunite which is we talked to a local gunite vendor they recommended this one for commercial for for like for municipalities so she said and I think he sent her multiple designs but she was like eight she's like two towns over exactly so we are currently working to get pricing for the pool updates that's nothing we tax the rec committee with but you're right is we should should nail them they should be nailed down yeah a little when they're taught the kinds of mind they're looking for yeah but I think they should be nailed down to more stringent timeline yeah all ask her exactly what they're going to do especially like right now for instance I mean we have to make some master harder decisions this year than normal just because of the cost of things have risen right and if we want to keep things that is reasonable rate for you know our citizens then we're going to have to have some tough conversations with things and like for instance if we if the next thing is to put in a tennis court or a basketball court or whatever it is and they have 80,000 in there right now 80,000 is enough money to build a tennis court or a basketball court so yeah but if the pool is going to break down well that's what I'm saying it's like so is it going to fall for whatever yeah but I think the pool is going to end up being a its own item right I mean it's going to have to be well we also have to look and see if yeah no no I think here then I think that's what that's what I'm the question I'm trying to ask is the pool needs to be rebuilt this is no it sounds to me it's not yeah for the most part yes it's not a maintenance it's not a deferred maintenance thing no is that the kind of expense that the town we need to take to the town and say the pool needs to be redone it may be and we're going to have to we're going to have to float a bond for it well so I don't we're going to ask for great money to take it out of the rec budget and let them do it yeah so we'll and we won't honestly we're not going to have any of those answers before you pass this budget we're just not but you're a couple of years away yeah because we're we're going to have to band aid the pool for another year and hopefully through this winter we figure out what we need we're going to try to pass a bond vote in March currently for the two point whatever million dollar second phase of the water project so also we need to have opportunity to even look for grant money for the pool which we haven't had a chance to do so that's one of the things that'll be nice about transitioning detreat as away from being pool director into the office we're actually going to have a little more staff time to deal with some of this stuff and I'll ask her about pouring costs parks and public places that is up just because I had this question if you look at one person if you go full time right exactly yeah so if we stay with two seasonals a seasonal for the summer seasonal for the winter this was just my option because you know I had one we only had a couple of applicants for the mowing and it may be that we end up having to outsource that and not have an employee in-house doing the mowing but the issue with that is it's nice to have that person because they might you know like he was able to repair fence for us and he you know pressure wash the deck over at the at the fan shelf the floor and you know we can help Richard you know do hydrants and things like that so it kind of that was the nice thing about having a summer person that actually worked for us because they were doing more than just mowing I think we just got to stick with a part time yeah seasonal that's you know at least for this I mean I just no I just try to put it all in there so some stuff for other basic replacement or repairs munia also okay so obviously municipal office this is reducing I just said we're gonna add the trees hours here I had left the 10,000 in contract labor because frankly I could not remember what you said but we remember that Lindley we talked about this and whether we were going to do we talked about instead of energy coordinate you know I mean like adding more hours this do we say to leave this at 10 or are we going to go to 20 I honestly I could not remember what was this for this was we were talked about if we ended up being able to take advantage of something with two rivers like other contract labor or a regional coordinator that was we were able to pick up hours for you know I can't remember if we said 10 or 20 I would like to see I would like to see a little more input from the people we're going to be in the regional group with and where they're going because I would hate to say okay we're going to do this and then all of a sudden whooped out rain out doesn't want to do it oh I go after this oh it's just you and Rochester and so far we agreed to nothing but what we had you know two rivers had put out that survey which was great and we're hoping that they're going to you know change their model do like a little bit of fee for service so we could pick up some of their you know opportunities for stuff from them so I'll leave this at 10 for right now and just going to put a question mark beside it because I just could not remember so to see if I can kind of quickly get us notes but my brain is not recalling what we said oh I got you so if we're going to if we're going to increase the payment of blue that will affect this budget so I'm going to leave it at 10 and just we'll go from there hold on I want to just report there have been conversations between Bethel's energy committee Randolph's energy committee the town of Royalton and Rochester yeah and Brookfield about a shared position so those conversations are happening but but what do you put the I said be wrong is those conversations are happening okay at this level three this can make it these people have to think about this I'll have no money try to get those questions though it's next level where all the money is and are they are these people having the conversation I am yeah so currently you see what I'm saying Jane yeah because we had some I had a lady in here talking about all these wonderful things that we're going to do when we asked to where it's like I but we haven't got the yeah for you to if you got no money it's a short conversation yeah true so yeah at this point we just had a number in there it's always in front of the horse yeah it was yeah we just kind I couldn't remember if we said you said you would add something to it I don't move yeah I thought it was going to be a lot more than that yeah I'll put a question I put a question mark beside it because I couldn't remember when I was doing this so I'll if we'll kind of put our heads together plus two ones I make some changes to the budget overall poll is which affects everything town officials you guys have been working on that for a while the Listers I made the appropriate adjustments there went through the government operations budget with Pam so that's pretty much that tax sale expense is really anticipating yep we're not do we have well we have more that we're selling this year a higher quantity is that why I don't know it's also offset by some revenue so when you see the because well last year yeah under budget we were at 7600 and it is offset by a revenue because on the front page reimburse tax sale expense we made you know five last year I'm saying three this year so but I obviously under budgeted last year so I'm just trying to make make adjustments the local appropriations I've made a note if I had seen it otherwise I'm telling you it's italics are just estimates I did not know what to do with warba I added an 8% increase only because I have just heard that they're looking at possible large budget changes I don't know what that means well they gave us a pretty what I would say pretty hefty one last or the one we're in now yeah because normally they only gave us like a one 2% maybe and then and then I want to say the one right now and they're looking and they gave us 5% this past year or something like that which was the first time in a while well I think they pretty much held it straight for a couple years and then they gave us 5% last year I just have a all that was kind of a bit of a big deal all I know is what they're saying that they're looking at big I've just heard it so I just threw something in there as a placeholder your debts your debt is your debt can't really help you there school and then county taxes I haven't heard yet so I just did a little bit of increase over last year our alliance fee also I'm hoping they're going to hold fairly steady but I did budget that so that so let me make these changes and do a little research and hopefully have some you know we'll knock it down a little bit and hopefully it's just a little more palatable did you say did you say that the individuals for the library we're going to come in speak with us back in two weeks in two weeks in our next meeting the library is coming they have an appointment at six o'clock okay gotcha so yes so they were good I did run that by the school about the combination of a yeah it didn't go very well but you know I thought it would be kind of a neat idea to have a you know I thought so the library at the school is on the corner of the school so there's an opportunity maybe to make it a little bit bigger and you can make it a community one but yeah no I mean I wouldn't say it's a dead conversation on arrival but it wasn't well received but no but I thought it was an interesting idea and you know what they were they were going to talk about I mentioned it too but you got to do something that could would you say we got three years they thought they were going to run out of money in three years something like that yeah we'll find out for sure I had a great conversation with Bennett Law he's on their board now and really took a hard look at stuff for them so he's really good so you'll get back to us with some of those tweets we'll look at that again yes excuse me what it's in there you didn't see it in there the select yeah I did on time went way out oh no I did I did I went to Dave oh just Dave not select it's just Dave Dave Dave Dave in town just Dave gets away how do I get that state that's great we need to we need to uh we need to oh you know what you think it's good it's good American rescue plan money so um I had told you the last meeting what uh now come my conversation was solvent and powers so if we took the list which we had you know all looked at I put in your packet all the time if we take $162,135 which is going to be the general fund surplus caused by the ARPA money for wage replacement and we move 20 oh that's not right what 162,135 is not the right amount of money um it needs to add that's funny I apologize it's we're gonna add the 396 and the 20,000 well what a way not good lord how did I the 162,135 is nothing yeah I'm just thinking but how did I come over with that yeah listen to him the slush fund yeah I was gonna say it wow the statistics okay that stays in Greece I apologize for that so it's the 396 plus the 20 would be our ARPA money good lord Therese let me take a look and tell you what's in there sorry about that was that 162,135 was that the money that we paid to date for the pumps and stuff or oh that was probably we probably the one motion transfer 160 the pump and the generators was that that was the 162,135 because that number sounds about right yeah so that would be oh okay so here I'm saying okay so 160 that's 162 I'm sorry that's what it is okay so 162,135 I'm sorry I was right which was the general fund goes to the capital sewer fund so period and then 20,000 dollars to the highway capital equipment fund yeah 396,069,688 to the capital road fund I guess I'm just thinking my math add to that so once we put that money in the capital road fund it's not eligible to be used on other items right it would be used for roads right now making a decision to lock that money into that yep because what we've been talking about for yeah yeah yeah so the so yeah so we would pay the 162,135 we'd have already you know that's the would go to sewer 20,000 dollars in the highway capital equipment fund and then the rest goes into roads so that becomes roads ridges you know class for a road main and so I mean we had well don't forget what we had talked about is also Chris had asked about covering are not for the local match for the 1.6 million dollars with the grant how much money were we sitting on how many of those grants could take ARPA money and those grants all get run through the capital road fund so like doing the sidewalk you know I asked so I've asked everybody on that list but we can also table this until next week but you also like right now to move that ARPA fund money into those categories now let's I'll just make it up let's say let's say we wanted to use five thousand dollars to upgrade the website the website for instance it's already in here but I'm just saying if there's something that maybe we haven't 100% officially maybe there's something we want to do with some of that money you know we could in the next budget cycle we could theoretically take a little less reduce the capital yeah you could reduce the capital road that we're gonna put into to use the general fund money I don't like that the five thousand dollars for the website I left in the general fund budget so that we'll deal with that you know to take care now just remember technically the select board can has the authority move that to another fund if we wanted to you could you know we just thinking all of the other ones that were suggested all the other folks that suggested various things we're basically saying yeah we're not gonna do that right now right that's exactly what we're saying let's before we go moving this all to the capital road fund is do we look at some of the things like the ten thousand dollars towards sidewalks that's some of that some of this go towards that to offset the budget amount so like as we're looking at our budget amount for we take the ten grand and cycle and say that we put right or even the other question I had was from the road funds like you're talking about the the match could we do the Pinello Bridge ERAF the forty four no thousand we can't do that from this no because that so I guess it's the creative thinking of what what can we do well we I don't understand that money get put to offset stuff for the so remember that spreadsheet that I gave you guys all about the one point six million dollars with the grants that wrote and I had written on it what we could do for ARPA why don't we table this till next week I'll make sure you get that in the packet as well as the list so you can see that the majority of those funds allowed us to use ARPA money as our match which is basically gonna come out of this fund and run them through so why don't we just table this for next week because someone could make a motion but we very well could do exactly what when we get that is you know instead of funding ten thousand dollars for sidewalks in this next budget absolutely some of those ARPA funds could yeah would they're in that you know could be used in case we wanted to do something on sidewalks or something like that yeah sure so if someone makes a motion to table this we'll do that all right okay how long favor all right town mayors report anything left that's we did budget a tree so we got that grant civil court decision I vacated the all delinquent taxes and water sewer charges what is that maybe yep that's good we do per state law because that trailer was abandoned it tricks into some and obviously I didn't do that without legal advice well again I guess that I don't know I mean how we talk about that but because we were on the wrong side of that yes we were and it's not fair so now I I just assumed that if you let's say own the trailer part and there's I'll make it up let's say there's 15 plots on that that people lease right whatever yeah right is is why wouldn't we as the town want to bill just the owner one bill rather than bill each individual tenant you know I mean because in this case we have we have no recourse you know I mean other than a trailer it's not worth anything right so we don't it's not like there's a a building that we can go and tax sale or something we have no recourse on that is that the first trailer we come yeah closest to school see that's a bug to hell I mean because like the person who took it over is going to make a profit yep so there's going to right so we lose that 100% and we lost everything is that and this person's going to come in there and make money right well that's why I'm saying well I say that because don't forget the the landlord or the owner of the property also spent significant money going to core and you know we're trying to get ownership of it and that whole thing but to answer I'm not I'm not I'm not going to take that person out either but I'm thinking the people that are getting hurt where now a private person they want to come in and well I guess the the only thing I say is now I can make some money and I could be wrong but there is one line that goes from the main line to the park I believe so and then from the park it's then split into each individual residence or maybe there's more than one main so I think there what I'm again is I think there's an opportunity that water system and my aunt has their own water system so the opportunity yes but so there's right so I'm saying why couldn't we just build there's one valve could shut everybody off and exactly you'd have to and why couldn't you just so you can answer both one is you can let's backtrack to your first question about taxes we cannot because the trailers are unlanded we cannot send a tax bill to the owner of the trailer park for the trailers because they're not owned by the trailer park they're owned by the individual so they're unlanded trailers we could possibly install a master meter or two at the road and then bill Richard's trailer park for all the water usage and then they would have to individually do that and then they break it up individually right how they're set up and of course you know with 10 paths in the way I'm exactly and you just actually just redid the leases and put in abandonment I'm sure you did wording it's just it's just a weird situation because we it is we lose 100% on the deal we know we don't know I wonder if if it makes sense to talk to Tim about putting in some language into the lease that talks about their responsibility to pay water and sewer and taxes and whatnot because that's what they did and at a trailer park in other town they did so that once they became delinquent about a sewer I said to them you can get evicted because you're now in violation of your lease with the trailer park so I can all toss on Tim an email and and see what he knows the leases here they're not flying yet all right I'll ask him so anyway so anyways so we'll that was done so that's it for town managers report oh just taxes are due tomorrow if you've not paid your property taxes or earlier tomorrow is the day all right meeting minutes for the 24th anybody have any and the other one had a question about I was wondering if the L.A.D. like this sort of talked to Brad or Rick well it looks like that whole setup there is too close to that pump and station and I know they've already proved the garage that's there and then another small shed that's there and now there's going isn't the small one gone now no there's something changing when I drove by this weekend there's going to be a pole barn and he's putting up a pole like a two-sided pole barn thing off of the big shed yeah it all looks like it's I don't I don't know what the distance is that it needs to be yeah but it's right to you know right next to that pump station yeah and oh well we have an easement well I think we would have to double check because we I don't believe we own the property I think we have an easement yeah don't think it's ours it's not our property we have an easement with I think Bergeron and Mr Tracy and um so we don't yeah I think that's that's not our land for us so we had we had an SNF plug in here you know if their vehicle's a certain distance away from that pump more like on an environmental thing you know they had an environmental bill knows because they didn't adhere to the zoning because they had an initial permit that granted them X amount of spaces and then what they were doing was they were blocking our easement to enter into where the pump station was so basically they just had to move their they just had to give us access to our easement yeah they can't be in the wellhead protection area either so I think that's how that shows out but you know certainly I thought that I thought the I drove by I'll have to look tonight when I go like the shed that was closest to the road I think that's gone you know the small one behind you know the one right by the driveway there yeah because I drove by and I was like not something's different here then I drove by again and I was like oh that's gone like this weekend or something huh I don't but he did a lot of work on the the new garage yeah this weekend yeah yeah but the shed that was close to the road look I I was gone or maybe he moved it on another property but I was not behind where wasn't in that corner anymore I think we okay that yeah so were there any changes to the minutes here none just the emotion to approve the minutes hey on favor um I think you had plenty of minutes you had some oh we got to do Paul's thing too well yeah we're still done so we had financials minutes and we got that thing under NASA's thunder we got to fix December yeah December's calendar unless you want to meet on December 26th oh just I don't mean I think we should move the 1226 to 1219 and just do back to back but I don't know your school board schedule was third Tuesday 20th that's when I meet all maybe back to back 19th hmm yeah so he he's free on the 19th he's just busy on the 20th but yeah so are you guys okay with going back to back yeah yeah we have to oh what do you want to do you tell me at least one thing the yeah the 26th would be our meeting so she's saying going and doing the 12th and then the 19th yeah the day after Christmas so so on the 26th so on the 19th mess up this week because of Thanksgiving no that why don't why don't we December we have December we're talking about just I know that yeah but we're not we're not saying if you are if you are we are just Thanksgiving's here that's not Dave's there to be um I'm fine with so we're not meeting on the seven on the 24th I mean the 21st or we are no the 28th this our meeting 28th oh okay any time about November well he's he's working his way to December oh we're getting there just give it a sec we found a calculator no we're finding December careful we have to split them up next week I don't yeah no it's not like school we're gonna uh um change the assigned meeting and not sit together let's do it okay so ideally we'd be moving the 26th meeting to the 19th yeah so we'd meet back to back is everybody okay with that yep I can do that yeah vote next two meetings all right I'm gonna write that down the 28th and the 12th so November 28th and 1212 Lindley will be remote okay because we have problems with that when it's fairly so do I we text you we think you're we're holding the meeting you're having then I'm like oh she's having zoom issues I got the orca setting up another speaker thinking you're coming I'm like we are bad really got to get a handle on what she's on too so I'm writing it down on what I'm up to I'm sorry so I'm writing that down so I think we're that's fine okay all right so that's what we'll do without all right when do we have to have the warning so right by I've got the first of January yeah but I can I got a well and I'll die because don't we have to because the warning wise we get a what we get put the marijuana thing on this year right and then yes and then we were still talking about the we're gonna be asking Samble to do the vote I have to get out of the school yep still pass it on I believe me so so wait so say that again yeah because we have that and then we were we're gonna talk about the Australian oh we haven't heard anymore about that did we agree to do that can't remember did we agree to put the out we didn't agree to put decision and we haven't made a decision okay well then we'll have to talk about but I'm just saying we got a couple of decisions to make for the warning which may not be just one time it might take a right discussion or so we may want to talk about the warning sooner than later I'll draft it with the opt-in for marijuana just because and then I actually spent some time this weekend rereading the updated zoning bylaws that we were working on I looked through the street escapes you know for both streets and parks and read the marijuana both the local cannabis board and the packet that I gave you guys last time and I actually sent Rick Benson an email because there's a couple of things you have if we don't form a cannabis control board then it kind of causes some issues you know we may have to go with what the state says and but there was some wording about zoning and it makes whoever's on the cannabis control board which if it's a select board then you all have to become a lot more burst in zoning regulations than you are right now which no so punt it to the DRB yeah right exactly I know so it'll be interesting but that's only if it passes we'll have to but so yes the warning is going to contain you're going to spread that word that I don't like have they done anything to that wording about where if you want your grant personal license say you can't take it away no they have not changed that law I don't understand why everybody's okay with that well it's the state we don't have a choice remember we're in Dillon's rule state why are they okay with that I don't know I can break the law but can't take your license away yeah now that if if somebody they can be well that's like black or something yeah they can be fined they could be you know there's things but basically what that state but if you're a good standing if you opt out so say Bethel ops in wheels come off the bus yeah we and then Bethel ops out two years later that person does not lose their license if you know if they're running a as long as they're on good establishment they're good if they're not then they're going to be fined and dealt with through another manner but basically they're saying you can't this person gets a nice business going everybody opts out you can't you can't revoke it just because the town said no I don't want to revoke it I just want someone else to even I be responsible and I agree with Dave I just well it doesn't make any sense because like if all of a sudden I don't know within our rights if the town decided to be dry town then you wouldn't be allowed to sell alcohol right right I mean but in this case if we decided to be a non marijuana town afterwards it's you still the person will be telling the cannabis control board but still have cannabis sales happening yeah I would say yeah there's a conundrum it doesn't make sense like Dave says it doesn't make sense yeah and then they haven't changed any of that from what I understand they have not I read it this weekend yesterday as a matter of fact both the one I gave you and the local cannabis control board and I actually emailed Rick Benson because there's some zoning gray area that it may have to follow with Kevin Geiger on and in order to advise you correctly get some information there but all right then we had Paul's resignation from the trustee of public funds Bethel's representative to two rivers and the deputy health officer even though I know he really wants to be the deputy health officer except that he's he's still in I think he's that's the great thing about it we just say ah sorry I think you're right I think he's the one who started that yeah probably one or nine tough just you know oh well bad so sad for service it was a lifetime appointment he just didn't know yeah so we'll just just need a motion to accept that that's right Jane came right so move do you see a second I think second Dave's all in favor okay do we have any individuals that are interested in those positions do you know well trust me Paul or Teresa I think trustee of public funds will stay open until March till town meeting that's an elective position and I don't currently have but we wouldn't need there's no need to appoint somebody between now and then I don't think so I think that's that's a three person board yeah and you so you got two people it's Rick that's a pretty light sand job right well usually you need two signatures on a checklist Sandy Carol essentially got the whole thing on control if we could you know convert open garrus methods and food right spreadsheet electronic so basically you know signatures and I thought his book bookkeeping was pretty neat it is he just used to do it on paper yeah he's all just created a spreadsheet so yeah I met with Sandy today we don't need don't need to have a deputy don't need to have a deputy and no and um so chocolate's got yeah really under control we're just really did you find out going to help people what we have to do about the motion okay you'll never get out it'll take you hours and hours of phone calls and you'll still never get out I can email mary else I tried and tried you're all set and then people are a bit I'm like how do you keep calling me oh I found you know where it was on the state site I'm like yeah that's not supposed to be there anymore I still get calls every once in a while so no point them in the right direction yeah so nobody knows about the vacancies so no one has to afford but the trustee of public funds you can leave vacant until I just didn't know if we had to point somebody in no I don't think so and then the audit in the two rivers I have no idea yet once we we can just wait until after election and then point somebody again or we can maybe now that we somebody people actually going to know it's open maybe someone will volunteer to do it I don't know we'll put something out on front much more okay well if you want the job jean my advice to jean is this attend one of their meetings before you sign up did you say those were remote meetings they have both remote and in person oh they do yeah yeah so their in person meetings are in Woodstock at the senior center that's what you know if I look into it yeah I could be I'm just saying I could be talked into it well let me let me I'm over with you well and I can not have to send Peter Gregory a note um yeah I guess let Peter know that he was well that if you send him a note maybe just give him jean's email and maybe he can invite jean to the next meeting jean could go say yeah your name and yeah well the next meeting is a Christmas party on the 14th that he's definitely okay that he's then he is gonna he's gonna sign right I don't suppose that's gonna be I haven't heard if that's gonna be zoom covered by zoom okay so if you just mention you know give him jean's email then he can invite jean and then jean can attend a meeting or two and see and then let me know if not interested we'll advertise okay that'd be great thanks jean all right so anything else before we enter executive session no so just need motion to enter executive session in a second second okay all in favor so this will be for yeah paul yeah so I'll make it I'll just I'm gonna spell it out and quote the statute for you because I don't I didn't perfect have time to write it down today and then we won't need anything coming out of it so yeah