 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. This is a meeting, a regular meeting of the finance committee and a special meeting of the town council on February 16, 2021. And it's two o'clock, which was posted time for the meeting. And this is a virtual meeting pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order to send certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30A section 18. This meeting of the committee and the council is being conducted. But so going to do just a moment is ask each member of the finance committee if they can hear the presentation and if they can in turn, if by their response, we will know that they are able, we can hear them. When I have done that, I'm going to turn it briefly over to President Griezmer, who is going to then make sure that the council meeting is called to order appropriately. And that she can confirm members of the council who have not already confirmed their presence through the finance committee. So, having said that, I'm going to see Dorothy Pam. Are you present today. I am totally present. Okay, Kathy Shane. Yes, here. And Lynn Griezmer. Present. I'm here at the Angelus that you're here. Present. You're muted so we haven't confirmed. Oh, great. Thank you, Bob Wagner. Well, I am present. I'm here. We heard you. Bob Wagner. I'm here. And Bernie Kubiak. Good afternoon. Okay, so I think that on Jane Schaeffler. Jane. I see you here now too. So I, we need you to confirm to unmute. And confirm so that you can confirm your attendance at the meeting. We just. We just lost her. I'll let Athena see if she can address that issue and why don't you pick up on the Lynn as council president. Okay. So I would like to confirm the following. Alyssa Brewer. Present. Manny Johanna key. Present. George Ryan. Present. Sarah Schwartz. Present. And I'm calling the town council. Committee of the whole meeting to order at Tuesday, two oh four. Back to you. Should I go back? Yep. So first of all, I want to just briefly preview today's meeting and then we will be on our way. The goal of this meeting is really defined by the town council. When it passed a provision that require that. Has the council wanting to have a plan for funding. Of the renovation or expansion or replacement of an elementary school accordance with Fort River MSBA grant application. The repair renovation expansion of John's library. The replacement of the central fire station, the replacement of the department of public works headquarters consistent with an October 21. 2019 council vote. That is the sense of the council, but it is committed to a plan that will address all four buildings in some fashion. And so we had asked. I'm going to ask Paul to introduce the presentation that Sean is principally making. And the presentation is going to be about a plan that would allow for that to happen. So we've called both meetings to order. I'm going to, in a moment, ask Paul to introduce the presentation that Sean is principally making. And the presentation is the core of the meeting. This is a meeting of the finance committees and a regular meeting and we are according to council rules have posted this also for public comment. So I'm going to come to that in a moment. But after the presentation. It is my intention to recognize members of the council. And the finance committee, so that's the counselors who are present resident members of the finance committee who can ask questions. And Mr. Magana will either choose to respond to them as they come or take a group of questions and respond to group of questions. That's something that I have left to him. I will be recognizing anybody from that group that I've defined counselors plus resident members of the finance committee in the order that people raise their hands. I am not going to try and distinguish. So it's just an order of raised hands that I will do recognition. If at the end of that period, then I will open it up to public comment. Public comment, and I will say this again later, is for comment, not for questions. If somebody's comment is, this information as they identify it will be helpful. That is something that we will be able to respond to at a later time. And so that's basically what the plan is for today's meeting. And with that, I think I will turn this over to our town manager. And Jane was able to reconnect. Can we quickly confirm that she can hear? Jane, could you just confirm your attendance? I'm here. Thank you. Thank you. So Mr. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Andy. And thank you, Lynn. So I'm joined here today by our finance director, Sean, our comptroller, Sonia, and our financial advisor, David Eisenthal, who's been advising the town on borrowing and other financial matters for. Decades, David, you'll have to say when, when you get to speak, you know what, how long you've been with the town. So I know it's been a long time. This is a project we've been at for a long time. We've put a lot of time into it and credit Sean. For bringing it all together in the presentation that we're about to give you today. I want to thank you for your time. The council has some really significant decisions concerning the town's infrastructure and finances. And your decisions will influence what the town looks like and how it's managed for decades into the future. You have important decisions in front of you and go to the next slide. So there's four key points we want to make today, but we're going to get into a lot more detail in a second. So first, I think we all are in agreement that the town's infrastructure needs considerable investment now. It's been three decades since the town constructed a new building. The current buildings are showing their age. And for many, if not all of them, renovation is not a good or financially sound option. Second, the town council asked me for a plan to do all four capital projects. The finance director manganese will show you that we have the financial capacity to take on all four projects during the next few years with two conditions. First, that the town voters exclude the debt from a new school building from the limits of prop two and a half and override. And second, that we have established and observe firm budgets for each of the projects. Third, in making your decision, the council and the public need to understand that while we have the financial capacity and resources to take on these four projects, there are consequences to your decision. Taking on this debt will limit the operating and capital budgets going forward. There are things that we may want to do in the future that we will simply not be able to afford because of these decisions. And that's okay, we can manage within that. But I just want to make sure that in Sonia and Sean and I all believe strongly that the council needs to be fully informed on the content of your decision. And lastly, though, on a positive note, and I know the town council knows this, but I think it's really important for the public to be aware that the town's finances are very strong. And David can attest to this if we ask him. The fact was confirmed by the town's auditor who just went to the town council's audit to the town council. We have strong reserves. We have declining debt, virtually nil at this point in time. We are addressing our long-term liabilities like OPEB and pension, and we'll be continued to elbow out room in our annual budget to accommodate the debt payments that we see going forward. So I'm now going to turn it over to Sean who will lead you through our presentation, which will discuss things like our guiding principles of financial, he'll show you the financial model, and the key decisions that the council will be facing. So Sean. Before you start. Lynn, there are two members of the council who have joined since you confirmed participation. I think that councillor Demont and ball mill are both present now. Yes, I'd like to. Ball mill can hear us. Yes, I'm here. Councillor Demont can hear us and we can hear her. Yes. Go ahead, Darcy. Thank you, Sean. Sorry to interrupt you. No problem. So as Paul said, I'm Sean, director of finance for the town. I too want to thank David Eisenthal. He's been tremendous help. He's been running lots of debt schedules, adjusting variables as new information comes in. He's one of the most responsive people I've dealt with. He gets back very quickly. And he always follows up on everything. So I just really want to thank David for all the work that he's done so far and for the work he'll do in the future, because there's a lot more work to be done. So thank you for that. So these are some of the topics we're going to address today. We're going to briefly look at. And what Andy already sort of laid out, which is what is the goal and the task that we're trying to address with this presentation. So we're going to look at the stakeholder engagement plan, which has been a primary focus of what we want to do here. We really want to be intentional about our, our plan for engaging decision makers and the public. And then we'll talk more about that. We wanted to kind of lay out some of the groundwork or, or working assumptions, which are the guiding principles and the working prerequisites. These are things that everyone should be aware of. They're, you know, it's what the model is based off of. And so again, we want to be as transparent as we can. We want to make sure everyone's fully aware of these things. We'll look at the financial model. And I don't, I have the tool available, the tool that we would share with the public. So at the end, if people want a quick demonstration of that, I can do that. I will just say that the model is at the point where it's beyond the tool in terms of what we're looking at here today, the tool has some limitations that, you know, we really have to work with our financial advisor, David, and some other places combining the capital improvement program and things like that. So the model you'll see here today, it's based off the tool, but it's really been, it goes deeper than that. But I can show what type of public engagement tool we could share at the end. We'll briefly discuss some other factors, which we'll just kind of, the things that people need to be aware of, things that we're thinking about as we put the plan together. But some of them are things we can't control. We don't want everyone to be aware. Cautionary considerations, these are again what Paul had mentioned earlier, things we want around our debt or potential impacts on our operating budgets in the future. We want to give you an idea of the magnitude of what that could look like. And then we'll wrap up with sort of pulling the key decisions to get out of there that are in front of you and talking about next steps. So I won't reread this because I think this is essentially what Andy read earlier, but this was the wording and the goal for the town manager about coming back with a plan for funding of the four projects that we're going to discuss today. And then more recently, there was a memo to provide an updated version of the financial model to determine options of how we move forward. And as I said before, just these bullet points, we use that model to sort of zero in on options that seem feasible. And then we've worked with our financial advisor to develop them as much as we can not, you know, the library, for example, is much, much farther along. So we're able to work much more of the financial advisor to develop financing scenarios for that project. So this is our draft plan for stakeholder engagement. And as I mentioned, we're placing a really high priority on this, this for this project. It starts with today with the presentation at the top. The next thing we plan to do is dedicate a webpage or a project page using our new bang the table software to this project. And essentially that would be a hub for connecting stakeholders and decision makers with all types of information related to these four projects and the financing more specifically the financing of these four projects. It would also be a repository for questions and answers. So questions we get today, questions we get on social media or other places, we would try to list them all there so that we have a running list. We discussed doing like a story map to help people kind of visually come along to see what the buildings look like and where we're at in the process. And we would also post the link to the planning tool here. And this is where I want to also thank our communications manager Brianna. She does a lot of this behind the scenes work. She's really great at it and really helpful at working with us to think about how we can best engage our stakeholders. And so she would lead a lot of this work. So I don't want to forget to thank her. And she would also help us with the second or the third item on this list, the social media and press release and community outreach. She would help lead that initiative of getting the word out that this information is now available. The next one. So because the tool was seemed to have a lot of interest in the past, we were willing to sort of set up some working workshops or some sessions. Once it's posted and live. Where people can come. We can do some demonstrations. People can ask their questions. And try to make it as engaging as possible for the public. And then the next one up to that. We did this with a budget and it seemed to work fairly well. So dedicating a couple of days to really just questions on this process. And the, and the model and things of that nature. Where we would get questions and try to respond to them in a very timely fashion. Not that we don't always try to do that, but we would try to do it. You know, within a half hour or an hour or something of that nature. So. Dedicated in a few days specifically to that. And those would sort of follow up on those workshops where the tool was being demonstrated. And then we're always available to support this. Our council meetings. And other groups as needed. Whenever we're asked. And so the, the chart on the right. I just wanted to highlight that's sort of the model we're following. For this process is we're sharing the information out today. This is sort of the big, first big update in a while. We're then going to use this plan. To engage. All of you and the public. And then we will analyze that feedback and refine it. And then we're going to do that. And then we're going to engage. All of you and the public. And then we will analyze that feedback and refine it. This model is meant to be fluid and flexible and, and adapt to. As variables change or as we get feedback. And so this is, this is the plan we're going to go forward with. So next we're going to talk about some of the principles that we tried to. Build into the model or we use these when we develop the model. So the first is that it's affordable. I don't mean that it's cheap or inexpensive. I mean, I mean that it's sort of based on dependable revenue sources. So when you look at this, it's based on. Property taxes or reserves or if a debt exclusion. Passes and that's sort of a known amount. We wanted it to be based on sort of our known revenue sources as best we can. Next is to minimize the impact on the taxpayers. We want to make sure that this model only uses one debt exclusion. And we do try to utilize our reserves to smooth out the peaks and the debt payments when we can. Probably one of the more important elements of the plan is that it moves the projects forward expeditiously or quickly. We wanted to kind of be aware that delays could result in higher borrowing costs right now. Interest rates are, are very favorable for the town. And the farther we push these out into the future. The higher the likelihood that interest rates could rise. And we also want to be aware of, you know, the potential for sunk maintenance costs. If we delay a project and because of that delay. Now a new roof is needed or a new HVAC system is needed. We wanted to try to limit that as much as possible. And lastly, we all, you know, we've heard lots about cost escalation and the price of building materials. And the farther out we push things, the more that could grow. And then we'll talk more about this later, but, you know, we're Paul and I lately have been spending a lot of time thinking very long term as to like the next round of buildings that might need to be replaced and really making sure we're in a position where 20 or 30 years from now. We can take on that next round of buildings, whatever those buildings may be. We wanted to maintain a focus on asset maintenance. And that means having enough funding set aside for all the other non-building project needs. For sustainability initiatives. For the accessibility repairs that we've learned about for keeping all our other buildings in good work in order. We wanted to make sure that there was sufficient funding for those things. And then the last piece is that I mentioned before, we want the models meant to be very flexible. Respond to changing market conditions, anticipated expenses. We want it to be able to adapt. So next are sort of the prerequisites. Pre-requisites. So Paul mentioned one of these already, which is this model is based on at least one debt exclusion being approved. And that one must be the school. And that's primarily because that is the largest. And if that project isn't approved for, that exclusion, there wouldn't be enough cash capital funding for the other projects. So that's really a, a must for this. Next, and also a very important one is that the funding of capital must be at 10 and a half percent of the property tax levy for roughly the next decade. And we'll see. I'll be more specific as to what those look like in different years. But it does mean setting aside a substantial portion of our tax levy for capital, which has always been a goal, but if we're going to move forward with this model, we really have to stick to it. Established funding caps as presented, which we'll see in a slide or two for the projects. And so this is around, set in a number for these projects. And when we work with designers to design these projects, have, have making sure that they have the number in mind of what the town can afford. It's not to say that, you know, there's not going to be more than that. But this model, you'll see what the numbers are in this model. Using 4.6 million of reserves. So we've been intentionally building up reserves for a number of years. And I'll give you more information in a few slides about if we were to use this, this dollar amount of reserves, what would that mean for what's left over? And, you know, how does that soften the impact on the operating budgets and the capital budgets? And then the last two, we're going to move on to the next slide. And then we'll move on to the, the operating budgets and the capital budgets. And then the last two are really again, just more about full disclosure and transparency of making sure that you're all aware of the impact on future operating and capital budgets. And I'll give you a sense on a little bit of what that looks like. And then the impact on the debt load of the town. And I'll share some information with that, with you on that topic as well. So onto the model. These are some of the, the basic assumptions where we're coding the model by date for right now, unless we come up with a better coding system. So we'll, we'll use the two 16 21 is the, the term for this model. And if we do a, you know, we're finding it, get information and we reshare it, we'll, we'll update the date. So we'll be able to keep track of the different models that have been presented. So at the top, you'll see the different, the four different building projects and the cost of the town. Those are the caps in this model. The library number should be familiar for most people. That's pretty well established at this point. The other projects are a combination of looking at what projects look like, look like in other towns and what, you know, the model could afford essentially. One of the hardest pieces to sort of predict at this point is the, you know, the approximate project end date for all the projects other than the library, because they're just not far enough along to know. So we did do some, we made some assumptions here and these could easily move forward, but, or most likely move backwards farther in time, which would push the debt payment out. But this is what we've, this model is using at this moment. And then you can see the column, this is where the debt payments would begin. And for some of these projects, such as like the school, there will be multiple borrowings because it's a long, it's a long duration for construction. And so it'll probably be two or three borrowings as opposed to a single one. Then down below, you'll see the borrowing terms and the interest rate and whether or not it's a debt exclusion. So for the projects that are near term in terms of when we would go out to borrow, the interest rates are lower as we go farther on time, we're more conservative about what those interest rates would look like. And the only one that's at 20 years right now is the Jones library. And that's because we have a more developed financing schedule for what that would look like. And the interest rates, we have a better sense of where that'll end. My desire would be to try to shorten the borrowing terms for the other projects as well. When we get closer to actually going out for them. And if we, you know, if we can get interest rates that are more favorable than what you see here, which we may be able to do, there's the potential that we can shorten those borrowing terms as well. And trying to keep our, you know, annual payment to approximately the same. And then as I mentioned, the only project at this point that's debt excluded is the new school. And so this model assumes a percentage of the levy allocated to capital will be 10% and FY 23. And 10.5% and FY 24. And then it would stay at 10 and a half percent until FY 31. And where it would go back, could go back down to 10% or lower. The total reserves, as I mentioned, is projected at 4.6 million. But it's important to note that this is over seven years. So it's not like that amount would come out all at once. And, you know, I did a look back at our reserves over the past several years. And I think in the last five or six year span, we added about seven million to our reserves. So there's the potential that with just what we add to our reserves on an annual basis, because we are conservative in our budgeting that the, that we might not have to draw this much out of our actual reserves. But if we did, if we weren't able to put anything back and we did have to draw this full 4.6 million out of our reserves and reduce it by that amount, we would still be at about 15, between 15 and 16% compared to our FY 21 budget, because we don't know what our budget would be seven years from now. But we would still have a good safety net as mainly what this is trying to show, which will be important for our operating budget in the future. And then lastly, this model assumes a minimum of 2.8 million in cash capital for new projects. So that's above and beyond what's required for for actual and projected debt. And this number allows us to stay around 6% of the levy for ongoing capital. So 6% would be dedicated purely for the non building projects essentially. And then the rest of that would go towards these new buildings. So this is the chart that most of you have seen at one point or another, adapted for these assumptions. So the solid black line is the percentage of the levy allocated to capital. So that's the 10 and a half percent beginning in FY 24. You can see it ramps up to from where we are today. The dotted black line shows the years where reserves would have to be used. And you can see it's about seven, seven years where that black line comes up to cover the numbers of the bars. And then the bars themselves, the green one is our existing debt running off. The yellow bar is how much would be dedicated to ongoing capital. The purple bar is the debt payment for the library. The red bars, the debt payment for the fire station. And the gray bar is the debt payment for the DPW. And so one thing to know for the ongoing capital for at least the next four or five years, we're using actual numbers from our capital improvement program because we're farther along and developing that. So those 2022, 2023 through 2026, that's more based on actual projects that we're aware of at this time. And just a reminder, the schools are not reflected on this chart because the model assumes they would be debt excluded. And so they would have their own funding source. So they're not, they want to be in this comparison to the levy. They would, however, be the one that hasn't impact on property taxes. So this chart breaks down the impact of the debt exclusion at different property value levels. So on the left, you'll see property values starting at 250,000 going up to 650. Next to that, you will see the average annual increase to property taxes and then the max annual. And the reason there's a difference is because the debt schedule currently assumes sort of a declining debt payment where it starts out higher and then gets smaller over time. And so there's a, you know, the early years is where really the highest, the greatest impact would be. And then it would wind down, but we wanted to give you the average too. And these are estimates. I want to be clear the, there's a lot of variables here. This is based on our current total taxable property value in town. So if total taxable property values rise through new growth, just price increase, value increases, then these numbers could drop a little bit. If something happens where total taxable property values drop, then these numbers could increase. So these numbers are good for a specific point in time, but as that total taxable property value changes, which it does every year, these will, will shift. And the other big variable is, you know, we modeled what we think the, the borrowing could look like for the school project, but that's still quite a few years away to when construction would actually begin. There's MSBA reimbursements involved in the timing of those. And so the, you know, the schedule of borrowing is another variable for the schools of what that would actually look like. And we'll be able to adjust this as we get closer to, to get a more realistic picture. But this was sort of a best guess at this point. And I also, on this slide, I just want to thank the assessor's office. They helped put together a lot of these numbers or review these numbers for me. So I don't want to neglect to thank them. So these are some of the other factors I mentioned that I'll just touch on really briefly. That are things that are, you know, sort of always in my mind when I'm thinking about the model, not necessarily things that have a right or wrong answer that we really need a decision on. It's just, just for you to be aware of one is the debt financing. That's where I've been working with David and our treasure quite a bit. There's lots of different things we can do there. And so, so he's been a huge help looking at our reserves and more from the standpoint of making sure that we have a strong safety net for operating budgets, especially if we move forward with these four projects, as we said before, that means we'll have to be more disciplined on the operating budget side and it'll be more important than ever to have a strong safety net if something happens. The sort of the interaction of operating versus capital and, you know, that we need to set aside a certain percentage of the levy for capital and that could have some friction with the operating budget, which we'll we'll actually look at in a slide or two. Flexibility that we can't predict all the variables or are lots and lots of variables as you can, you're probably starting to see. But just being aware of them and making sure that the model is flexible to adapt. And then, you know, if all four of these projects move forward, there are, there's the potential for either new revenues or cost reductions from several of them that haven't really been factored into the model moving forward that could either help on the operating budget side or potentially reduce the part of the debt. So just to be aware of that. So now we're onto the cautionary consideration phase of the presentation. You know, the beginning was sort of how we can do it. And this phase of the, the presentation is more about things to keep in mind. And so the first form we wanted to go through, run through a sort of a scenario with you is what happens if in the future, the town cannot maintain 10 and a half percent of the, the tax levy for capital. And so at 10% of the levy, the model would be about 2.3 million short between FY 22 and FY 30. At 9%, the model would be about seven and a half million short. So you can see what a big impact that percentage has on our ability to move forward with these four projects. The 2.3 million at the first bullet point there, that's probably not a huge deal that's spread out over seven or eight years. That's something that I'm sure we could work around. At the 9%, that's where it starts to become more substantial and a bigger challenge. And what we would have to do is use some of the strategies listed below to address that challenge essentially. So it could mean allocating less to ongoing capital in some of those years. It could mean allocating less to operating budgets in some of those years, using more reserves or potentially looking at a second debt exclusion. And in reality, it'll probably be a combination of one or two of them. So again, we wanted to just show, illustrate what happens if we can't stick at that 10 and a half percent. You know, what decisions would have to be made in the future because this is a long-term commitment and it will extend beyond at least your current 10 year on the council. The next sort of caution we wanted to put out there is sort of focused on that tension between the operating budget and the capital budget. And so we wanted to look at FY23 budget as an example because that's where there's sort of a big ramp up from eight and a half percent for capital going up to 10% of the tax levy for capital. And so we focused on that year because that's going to be a big shift. And so the first bullet points is showing if there was a 3% increase in the FY22 budget to get to our new FY23 budget, that would be about a two and a half million dollar increase in the funds we have available. And that 3% is reasonable. Again, this is just a hypothetical. I'm not forecasting that's where it's going to be, but it seems reasonable given where we are. If we do that and we move forward with this model, which increases capital again from eight and a half percent to 10% in FY23, just the increase in the capital will equate to about 1.1 million. So that eats up a big chunk of that two and a half million of new monies. And so what that would ultimately mean for operating budgets once we take into account pension increases and state assessment increases is that we would probably be looking at another year for FY23 of between one and one to one and a half percent increases for operating budgets, which is similar to where we are now. So again, this isn't a definite or not forecasting here. I'm just saying this is a possible scenario that could happen that would sort of highlights what that tension might be if we move forward with this model. And then the last one is around the last sort of cautionary consideration is around our debt. And so currently a very small slice of our debt goes to debt service or a small slice of our general fund budget goes to debt service around 2 percent each year. If during the peak, if this model is, if we move forward with this model during the peak year for the debt payments are the highest, we would be between seven and 8 percent. And that's from FY26 to FY29. And then looking at outstanding debt as a percentage of EQV or total taxable property value. We're currently about less than 1 percent. At the moment, as, as you all know, our debt load is very low. However, at the peak, we would be over 3 percent, which is would be somewhere around FY24 to FY28. And this second comparison, I just want to state that this includes enterprise funds, which recently had some new to authorize. So this already factors in some of the new enterprise fund borrowings as well. So the purpose of this slide isn't to scare anyone, but it is to make sure that everyone is sort of fully aware of, you know, the impact on the debt of the town when we, if we implement all four of these. However, I also wanted to say that not moving forward also has negative consequences as well. And, you know, use an example, the most recent example that I was involved in the school project, for example, if it was approved the last time it was in the MSBA process, it would have been substantially less expensive than what we're looking at now. And so delaying does sometimes lead to the project's costing more. The other unintended consequence of that project failing is that now it bumps up the school projects, the school project against the DPW and the fire station. So it makes it a much harder sort of challenge to take on because now you've got all three of these at once where if it was approved earlier, the school might already be on the books and we'd be paying down that debt. And as I mentioned earlier, Paul and I are looking, you know, 20, 20 years, 30 years down the road, you know, North fire station, the high school, some of these other buildings that are currently around 50 or 60 years old, the more we delay, the more we might bump up the debt from these projects with those projects. And so we just want to, we're trying to be cautious of that and be aware. So on to key decisions. So the big overall decision is whether or not to authorize all four building projects. These other decisions are sort of underneath that, whether to establish project caps, how many debt exclusions, how much of your reserves to use, what percentage of the levy to commit to capital and the timing of the projects. And just noting that we don't have complete control over the timing of the projects. Some of them are either part of grant programs or we're still, you know, an expert exploration phases, but definitely can influence the timing of these projects. And we've put in, you know, the assumption that this model uses. So you can see if we move forward to this model, what the answer to these questions are. And so near in the end of the presentation, we just wanted to talk about next steps. So, you know, we'll incorporate feedback today, but the plan is to move forward with some of the stakeholder engagement activities at the end of the week. There's a, there's a presentation to Joan, the Jones library presentation is next week at the council meeting. And then there's going to be more information coming up, citing for the fire EMS station and the public works facilities. And I'll also just note as well that the preliminary capital improvement program is being presented Tuesday night to JCPC as well. And that we tried to keep these, these two in sync as much as possible, the capital improvement program and this, this tool. It's actually Thursday night. Thursday night. Sorry. Yeah. And with that, I will see if there's any questions. Before we do that, could we ask just put David Eisenthal in the spot. If there's anything you wanted to add after seeing the presentation, David. Thank you, Paul. Through the chairs, I'll say it's a pleasure to be here. I've been working with the town for over 30 years. I, as a very junior advisor, I assisted with the financing of the police station, which is now about a 30 year old building. So I do have a long track record with, with the town. I guess the only thing I would say is I think that there is a plan that this plan should, if the town does decide to go ahead with it, it is, it does seem to me to be a feasible plan in terms of finances and in terms of how, how the town will cover debt service. I think that it'll, the town will retain efficient and ample access to the capital markets. I believe with this plan. So, and I can go into more detail if the members have additional questions. I'll hand it back to the chairs. Okay. One of the, all three of you have made a presentation. Paul, Sean and David. For your work and putting this presentation together for us. As I had said at the beginning of the meeting and I'm going to repeat now the next two segments of the meeting are questions from counselors. And then public comment section follows. So the public is aware that there is a public section, public comment section in the meeting. But during this next session, I am going to be recognizing. Counselors and finance committees in order that they raise their hand. And I see that when has raised her hand. She's a co-host. So it doesn't appear. So I will. If anybody from the council or the. Finance committee, resident members. Have questions. I'll try and adhere to that order. And I start with Kathy Shane. Hi. Thank you, Sean and team. This was. An all star performance. With a lot of questions that I might have had. At least partially answered. So I have, I didn't have a long time to look at the presentation, but I had a couple of questions on. Going up on the capital. To 10%. You show the impact. Operating. In the year that that happens. 23. So my question is, what about FY. 23? You know, the next five years, when I look at the graphic. These are the years where things are accumulated. And we're above. We're. What I think of as above the line. And you're drawing down reserves. What. Cause one. Just, just my understanding. As we've been looking at the regional school budget. That even if we didn't give wage increases, the step increases alone. If we don't cut staff out or do something about operating or in the 3% range. I know. So one, one to one and a half. Really tight. So if, is it one more year of that kind of pain? Or is it multiple? So, so that's the question on how many years out. And if we don't do that, where's the give point? So I didn't know. So my second question is how much flexibility do we have on reserves? I think based on what you've told us before on reserves. We've, we've amassed a fair amount. And the 15,000. Whatever 8% that you said, we'd be able to maintain. I think is higher than what we have to maintain. So would it be possible. In those tough years to draw down more on that. And what are the limits? You know, is it, you've said. A certain amount of reserves, you know, how much more could we do? Then can, should I just, I'll just list them all. You've got DPW starting soon. And I saw on the end chart, you said. On February 26th. So I'm not sure what where that is. We'll have some discussion about sites. So do we have a site? So that's just a question because it can't start before we have a site. So it looks like it's starting and finishing. So I'm not sure what that is. But it's just a question because it can't start before we have a site. So it looks like it's starting and finishing soon as it fire. And then the last. Is on the library, which is one where. We, we have a pretty good sense of the total. We know what we've been told. The town tax share would be. But there's a big difference between the two. So I'm not sure what that is. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that is. So a couple of questions on the impact. And I know you're going to let us use the model. You know, if. If we give a hard number and the library can't. Do the fundraising they expect to do. And or. Total project costs when they actually go through the current. Cost of construction turns out to be higher than the 36. So we have to say yes to the grant. And we have to say yes to the grant. And I think that there's not any flexibility in this budget. To pay more. So how much time. Do we have to make that decision on the library. Before we have to say yes to the grant sort of on, on knowing what that is. And in the, when we first, if we take on the grant, at least I think the terms of the grant or we. We have to. In the initial years. We have to say yes to the grant. And we have to say yes to the grant. So the actual project grant isn't coming in on day one. So if you already built that into the model, that there's a jump up in year one or two before the building is finished before we get the grant money. So whatever we're financing, then we get paid it back because of the grant. So it's that. The one we have that's the most imminent. You know, If we want to be super rigid on this, we have to be very rigid on the capital. And we have to be very rigid on the capital on operating. I could see the impact on other capital, just from being on the committee roads, roads alone. Start to approach the 2.8 million. But, you know, we will be tied on the rest of capital if we can hold it to 2.8. But that's a different question. Thank you. And if I probably prefer just to try to answer them as they come in. Okay. If that's okay. I think we can do that. Okay. I think Paul, the jump into a few wants to add any. So the library project. My understanding is if that is approved by the council in April, the town will receive its first grant payment. In FY 21 or this fiscal year. And so the model, we're looking at the model, a couple of different ways for the library project, but the first one is the grant money. And the second one is the grant money. And then we have to, and then the flip of that where we use town money first and hold on to the grant monies for the library and try to maybe earn some sort of interest on it and use those money's last. And David knows he's, he's ran both options for me very quickly. So thank you, Dave. So, so the sort of more traditional model, I think would be the first one, which is use the grant money's first. And so if the project is approved in April. We're going to be using the grant money for a couple of fiscal years. And that'll be talked about more at the. The library presentation on next Monday. The next one, I think was a question on the DPW and the timing. I agree. That's again, the DPW and the fire station, the timing is, you know, one of the biggest variables with those. I know we're moving forward and we'll get an update on this soon. About trying to identify a site for the DPW, but I think that would be a major variable that could push that project back. The next one you had was on reserves and whether I think we could use more potentially. Ultimately, that would be, you know, we'll be up to the council and sort of the town manager around planning. The 15%, you know, or I think our current policy guidelines or keep our reserves between five and 15%. And so it is a little bit above that. But I think it's a little bit over. I will just note that that 15. Eight four is based on our budget. RFY 21 budget. If our budgets keep increasing in the future, that 15. Eight 4% might be lower. You know, it won't be hugely lower, but it might be lower below the 15% upper limit that we, the policies set. And then the last one was around. The fiscal year. And then the fiscal year. And then the fiscal year. And then the fiscal year. And then the fiscal year. So there's, there are other years where there could be impact, or friction between the operating and the capital as we ramp up our capital spending. So FY 23, I focused on because that's really our. The big jump. That's going from eight and a half to 10%. After FY 23, we have a small jump going from 10 to 10 and a half%. The next fiscal year. In the next fiscal year. But that's where the equity tax levy goes up. So I agree there probably will be some additional years where there could be some friction between the operating budget. And the capital, but I suspect. FY 23 will probably be the, the most significant because that's where we're doing this big gap up to get from eight and a half to 10%. For capital. And our budgets are also, you know, of what the effects could be in our local economy. As we start to come out of that, we could see maybe larger than normal increases in our local receipt section of our budget as things start to return to normal. Okay, thank you. Dorothy Pam. Sometimes I have an inconstant signal, so just gonna put a plug-in for town broadband because I have a real hard time keeping this on. My questions are easy. It's a different capital project. Yes, yes, it's one I'm very keen on. How much new revenue have you been, did you count on when you put together these numbers? New revenue. So the primary new revenue that is baked into this model is in the property tax levy. So it assumes the annual 2.5% increase and then we have a conservative figure for new growth for the next, through the next decade. And then after that, we kind of drop off the new growth piece of it. But it's a conservative estimate for new growth that we use for our budget each year. So that's the primary source of new revenues other than the debt exclusion itself, which that too would be a new revenue if that's approved. Okay. Then where I didn't get straight was when would the ribbon cutting ceremonies be, what year for these four projects or are some of them 20 years away? I kind of missed when they actually come into offer. So these are assumptions that they won't be right or not right on, which the library in summer of 2024, school summer of 2026, DPW summer of 2023 and the fire station in 2025. Again, those will shift based on how construction goes That's very, very soon. That's incredible. Yeah. So that again, I said, that was one of the key principles of this model was trying to move forward quickly with these. Okay. Then the next one was the meeting that we were to hear more about something is that on the 26th of February, but that's a Friday. Is that the right date? So that's on a meeting under the council order. I'm to deliver you a memo or an update on the DPW and fire project by the end of December, end of February. So that's when I need to deliver the product. Okay. So that's like maybe a written communication. Would that be a written communication you're saying? Or okay. Yes. Yes. And so then my last one is, will sidewalks ever figure into this plan? Repairing sidewalks. So they are, yeah. You mean just generally sidewalks in town? Just generally, yes. I was just talking to someone who's in this room today about it's we're entering our third year and the sidewalks that I came in discussing from constituent complaints have not been touched. So just wanting to know if sidewalks will ever be in here. It sounds very tight. Very tight. So they're in here in the sense of trying to maintain a substantial amount of funding for ongoing capital needs. So they would come out of that ongoing capital need bucket. And so that's why we're trying to keep that as high as possible. And that's one of the reasons why quite frankly we went over the 10% that we, the 10% of the tax levy for capital we went to 10 and a half percent was so that we could keep investing in his ongoing capital needs. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. So I'm going to keep going with thank you Sean for continuing to respond. I'd said that I was recognizing people in order that they show hands on the raised hand function except that Lynn can't raise her hand because she's a co-host. So I'm going to, she's going to be after Bob Hegner who's our next person. So the next two people in order are Bob Hegner and then Lynn Bob. Thanks. Thanks, Sean and Paul and David. It's a really good presentation and very informative. I had a question about the limits on, you know, the cost limits on each of these projects. Are we going to budget them below that cost limit understanding that there are always cost overruns or cost paying costs or are we going to budget them at that level? And then what would the impact be of a 10% overrun or a 15% overrun? So I think what we would do is we would budget at this within the project. Typically they keep a contingency budget line item in any kind of capital project. So we would expect that the contingency would cover any of those costs on overruns. The purpose of this cap is that when the committees or groups that are looking at the design of the building are designing not to a strictly to a program but also to a number. And because we need, people need to understand there's a budget that they have to live within. And it's not going to be everything that we want. And, you know, we already know that our department heads and the people advocating for projects are going to say it's not enough and we're not going to be able to do everything. And we acknowledge that it's not going to be enough to do everything. So we have to choose the things that we think are most valuable or maybe we phase it over a longer period of time. Okay, thanks, that's a very sensible approach. Lou? Actually, I'm going to my first question actually builds on a question Bob just asked. And that was, is my assumption correct? There's usually a 10% contingency in most building budgets, at least I've been involved with that's been the percentage used. Okay. And then I'm assuming that the reason we don't want to stretch over more than 20 years or for instance, the library is because we need to be getting this debt paid off to be ready for the next round of buildings that some of us might still be here for. Yeah, that's one of the reasons. The other reason is just that, pays off the debt more aggressively. We put pay less interest costs over the life of the borrowing but also getting it off the books as soon as possible. And then, did the number that you used for, I'm sorry to be focusing on DPW and fire but spent a lot of years on these two buildings. Did the number that you used for the fire station, it would be in the South, it would be on the site where DPW is, would it also include the headquarters? So one of the next, assuming we move forward with this, one of the next big pieces that we need to do is re-engage the designers for these projects with these numbers and then see what we can get. So I think it's hard to say at this point until we do that, in particular for the DPW and the fire station. And then in all of these, I'm assuming you may give me the same answer but how have we accommodated for the net zero bylaw? Yeah, no, so when we re-engage with the designers really the two new pieces of information that we'll be giving them is these project caps but also that the design needs to be net zero. And again, that will inform a lot of our next steps once we get designs back. And then finally, I just wanna make sure I'm correct and that is the centennial water plan will be paid for from the funds for water although the debt will count in our debts. So the debt was included here for the analysis. David, do you remember if you probably don't know I'll have to double check. So there's inside the debt limit, outside the debt limit and depending on what type of analysis you're looking at it may or may not be included. So it is part of the town's debt but because it has a dedicated funding source being the water fees that the town pays it's treated a little bit differently than our regular general fund debt. So I'll circle back to just confirm whether that's inside our debt limit or outside or actually Sonya is here. She may know. If I might with the indulgence of the chairs water debt is generally outside the debt limit well 5% debt limit usually but the other consideration as Sean pointed out is that the water and sewer debt is paid for from water and sewer revenues respectively and as long as and from a credit point of view as long as the enterprises are fully self-supporting the rating agency expect to applying to S&P global ratings but S&P global ratings would not count enterprise debt towards the debt score in the credit rating of the town. So for what, so those two issues. Yeah, the council orders for the borrowing were flexible they were within section seven or eight. So whichever worked out with the financial advisor we would go either inside or outside. They were flexible. And before I pass my point off I just wanna thank Sean and Paul and Sonya for just the outstanding work. And David, thank you for being there for the town as they work through this. This is for me always been quite an amazing model and it's even better. Thanks. Thank you. Jane Shetlar. Hi, apologies ahead of time. If you hear baby screams, my five month old is a little grumpy. So the question I have is about the school and with the crop two or two and a half with having to have people vote on it when would it be presented to voters? And then when would the tax increase begin if it was passed? I guess that's the first question I have. The when, so the last time around it was near the end of the feasibility study phase. So I will have to circle back to you on the exact timing of that because the MSBA changed their process a little bit from the first time around. In terms of when the impact would be this model has the impact beginning in 2005. So the impact would be in the years that we have to make the debt payments on that project. And so, and just one thing I'll add to this this includes the debt exclusion would cover both the long-term principal and interest payments but it also covers the short-term interest payments while the construction project is going on which would likely be through a bond anticipation note of some sort. And again, that short-term interest will also be part of the debt exclusion. So the first payment this model has would be FY25. And I just, it'd be nice if we all had a mute button for a cranky baby. That's nice. I guess that one additional thing that I'd say and having been on the select board when we did the last override for school that's a decision that the council or the decision is made. We'll have to consider all factors because one of the things that we consider is when there's gonna be an election that is scheduled and whether we're looking for an election with the highest potential level of citizen participation. So that the last override was intentionally scheduled fall within the November general election date. And we went through a process in order to get permission to do that, but there was some effort made on the part of the select board to strategically choose the date. Jane, I can call in Alyssa and then come back to you if you'd prefer. You can just give me a thumbs up or thumbs down if you want me or do you have another question now you can ask. I think that helps answer both the questions I had because the other question I had is a little bit more in the weeds than we probably need to get at this point. So I'm good. Okay, if you need another question to raise your hand again, but I'll call and ask Alyssa next to recognize and Alyssa next since she was the other member of the select board who was involved in that decision I referred to if she has anything additional to say on that subject she can do so, but Alyssa. Yeah, Andy, that's actually a really great segue because so many of the questions that were raised today are gonna be terrific parts of an FAQ in terms of the outreach because that's been one of the things that's been really hard for people to get their heads around is like you say these things but what do they mean in practical terms? When will we start seeing ribbons? When will we start seeing it hit our debt service, et cetera? So that's incredibly valuable. And as Andy says, it is a complex decision to decide what to do associated with an override and I could speak at you for hours about how we came to those conclusions and the people who disagreed with us at the time. The thing I want to talk a little bit about here is a reminder for us to tell this story everywhere we go as this continues to unfold is that it's not just a couple of specific points of outreach it's something we talk about all the time because again, I bring the old history of 99 to the present and we saw the town manager goal at the beginning of this presentation that was a town manager goal back in 2012, 13, 14, 15 because we knew it had been a long time since we did the police station. We knew we had upcoming needs as Lynn points out she's been on a couple of different iterations of things associated with the fire station and DPW. We knew the schools, we knew the library. We've known all this for a really long time and we asked for this same information we're getting today numerous times in history and they were derailed for various reasons but partially the most recent derailment I would argue was associated with the loss of the school's project in that the taxpayers voted to increase their taxes for that project but representative town meeting chose not to follow the will of the voters. And at that point other than the schools continuing to put in statements of interest and trying to get back in the process and the library trying to get in the process and people continuing to talk about DPW and fire station there was not a laser-like focus on bringing these four projects forward on a continuing basis. What I'm hearing today is that there seems to be a change that way. There now seems to be a focus on this. And so I really wanna encourage all the town counselors as well as all the staff to continue to make this a focus of all kinds of conversations and newsletters so when the next thing about things comes up we all do that because the public outreach didn't really get off the ground except associated with each of the four projects. Absolutely, there was tons of public outreach but in terms of the overall we can do this. And the reality is we have to do this. We have no choice. We have to address all four of these projects even though it unfortunately means we aren't going to be able to put money inside walks the way we should have 50 years ago. But the reality is these four projects are in front of us right now for a good reason because they were put off for decades and we do have to deal with them as they're here. So we don't have a choice. It's a matter of how effectively we do it to be as cost-conscious as possible as we do it but there's not another opportunity to just fail to do it as we've done in the past. Thank you, Alyssa. Shalini. So what can we tell our district five people about Crocker Farm and like the current capital improvements that are there, is it part of this plan and what information can we share with them? So there are, I mean, so again, I mentioned earlier there's sort of a connection between this model and the capital improvement program. And so the capital improvement program that we discussed on Thursday night does have some elements of the Crocker Farm repairs on there. For example, you'll see like the roof replacement out five years and some HVAC improvements. Some of the other costs that were identified in that study, we've identified in the capital improvement program, they're not slotted anywhere yet in any particular year because I don't think we're at that point yet. I think there's still decisions to be made as part of the MSBA process about what happens. But we are trying to keep them on the radar and not lose sight of those potential costs. Great, thank you. Okay, Mandy. Yeah, two questions for now. But I guess one of them kind of relates to more than just one project. The first one is earlier in this meeting someone mentioned a 5% debt limit. I assume that's for the whole town but one of the slides said that if we did this we would increase a percentage of the general fund debt to seven or 8% and the EQV to 3%. So I guess my question is, what is that 5% debt limit mean? What is it based off of? And does this plan comport with that? And the second one is just to confirm. So we've had some preliminary cost estimates for repair only of the library that ran for many where I think if my memory search can write 14 to 17 million. And so if the MBLC project is not approved by this council this plan would still fund, well would still have that 15.8 limit on all of those repairs only that need done with the library, right? I guess that's my question. And so that limit is there whether it's the MBLC project or having to just repair those HVACs and carpets and everything else in that. Those are my two questions for now. Yeah. So again, we'll go in reverse order. So the repair only option for the library. I think you can sort of look at it that way because the numbers coincidentally are sort of in the same ballpark. We do, you know, Cune Riddle did put together sort of a draft timeline for how those repairs would be undertaken but it would still be up to the town to decide, you know how those repairs actually are undertaken in the future. But as sort of overall costs to get the sense of the magnitude you can kind of look at it that way. And then I'll look to David. I know that the 5% upper limit, it's not what you would compare to that percentage that I gave you. That's a different percentage or a different metric but maybe David can speak a little more to what that upper limit is. If I might through the chairs, yes. 5% of EQV is the limit on indebtedness that can be authorized within the debt limit under sections seven of chapter 44. As I mentioned before, water debt is generally outside the debt limit. Also MSBA funded projects are also outside the debt limit. So of the three projects, it would be just the library, DPW and fire station that would be subject to that 5% debt limit. And I think that Sean's projection was that, I think his projection included both enterprise and correct me if I'm wrong, regional school debt was at 3% of EQVs a year. And the regional school debt from a legal point of view does not count towards that debt limit. So I think this from a legal point of view and it is a legal distinction. This plan will work. You can apply it with the 5% debt limit. I may wanna follow up question to you, David, just on the same subject. The borrowings that we're having that we're doing for Community Preservation Act proposals where the repayment is from future Community Preservation Act funds, is that part of the debt limit or not? It is, it would be considered part of the debt limit. Okay, thanks. And that was also included in the numbers that you saw or the current outstanding that related to CPA was included in those numbers. And Pat. Naive question or two. The, we sending out an RFP about property for the DPW. Where is the cost of purchasing property placed in all of this? And if we move the sixth grade, I think I know the answer to the second one. If we move the sixth grade to the middle school, does that still remain as part of the elementary budget or are we moving them into the regional budget? So the first question on the DPW, that would have to be part of that budget for that project, the cost of the land. Thank you. And the second piece, so my understanding at this time is that if they moved to the middle school, it would still continue to be part of the elementary budget. The only way that would change is if there was some movement to change the regional agreement to include sixth graders, but that would be a much bigger undertaking. So they would be housed at the middle school, but they would still be treated like elementary school students from a cost perspective. Thank you. And anything that would be negotiate, have to be done in renovations or modifications to the middle school would be a negotiated question between the town and the region, I assume. Okay, so I'm just gonna clarify that too. Are there any other questions from members of the council or the finance committee, resident members looking for any additional race names? Because if not, let's see, Kathy, I'll come back to you in a second. We are gonna then turn to public comment. And I know that's at least one person in public who's asked to be recognized for public comment. So Kathy. Lynn asked a question I forgot to ask. The numbers you had for DPW and FIRE were a lot lower than numbers we've seen before. So what I wanted to know is, do you have any basis from looking outside the town of Amherst to think we can do, as Paul, as you said, make a decision and we're not gonna get everything we want. But do we think we can get most of what we want in terms of the ambulances and the fire engines would fit in the building? Do we have any basis for thinking those are real numbers or where they certainly make the model work better than the big numbers did? So I'm just wondering if we have some outside, more information than we had before. Yeah, so again, those numbers were a combination of one, looking at some other towns and what they've been doing and what the costs of those projects are and then also what the model can support. So we have looked at neighboring communities or other communities in Massachusetts as to what those projects would cost. I'll say that sort of two wild cards are the net zero by law and what impact that could have on the cost. And then also cost escalation of the projects being in the future, what pricing will look like and what that increase will be. So again, I really think that we'll find out a lot more once we work with our designers to see, you know, here's what we want, here's our number, here's what we'd like and then we can find out what we can actually get and then we can revisit it. Okay, so seeing nothing more questions from the council, the finance committee, I'm going to turn to public comment. I want to remind the public that they can, if they're watching this on the Zoom recording that they can raise their hand, use the raise hand function. Anybody who's participating by telephone can press star nine on their telephone and then they'll be recognized. This is a period for public comment. We didn't label it as public questions and I pointed that out earlier, but if your comment is along the lines of this is additional information that would be helpful to have, I encourage that kind of public comment anyway. It's really a discretionary question for Sean and Paul as to what they will respond to today. But information that the public wants and answers to certainly we want to know so that we can build it into future presentations. So with that, Richard Morse is the first person who's asked to comment and so I asked Athena to bring Mr. Morse in so that he can identify himself and where he lives and offer his comment. Can you hear me? Yes. Richard Morse, Mount Holyoke Drive. And I hope I'm within the guidelines that you've set out, Andy. My comment is in the form of a plea and a promise. And I think there's a fair amount of fear out there about our ability to take on these projects. And I think the fear is being promoted in various places in town. But you have an intellectual challenge to my counselors. You have an intellectual challenge in front of you. Now, I was in town meeting for 15 out of the last 20 years and we were in there and it was assumed that we all had a mangano-like command of the finances of the town. And it's clear that we did not. And now at this point, and once again, I emphasize the intellectual challenge here. I do not assume that all 13 town counselors have a mangano-like command of the town finances. But I'm asking you, this is my plea, that before you make hugely consequential votes in town council, I think you on the library in the spring that you do your best to get a command of the finances of the town. And so my promise that goes with my plea is that there will be no such thing as a dumb question, a dumb question from town counselors. I heard Ms. D'Angelo's being humble today. I'm asking you to ask all the questions that you need to ask, either in private or in public to get a command of this plan. It's not easy. So I'm asking, I do not assume and I don't think anyone should. Every town council member has a full command of these finances. What other towns do, what the numbers are here, what all the considerations are. But I'm asking you to figure it out, work your way through it before you vote, before you start making big consequential votes later this spring. Thank you. Thank you. So the next person, there's Tony Cunningham. I want to identify yourself and where you live and then. My name's Tony Cunningham. I live on Owen Drive. And firstly, I want to say hallelujah to assigning budget caps from the outset. I think this is something that has been missing in the past. And I think this is great that you're talking about assigning more conservative estimates for each of the projects. Referring back to Kathy Shane's question about the library project and what happens if the cost goes above the built-in contingency. The estimate I've been seeing for the library project is the same one we saw in 2016. It hasn't had any escalation added, despite the fact that that estimate was based on a construction starting in the summer of 2019. So I'm not sure if that number is still solid and if it is, maybe you could help explain why it hasn't gone up with cost escalation. And what is the plan if it goes above that 15.8? Where does the money come from? Whether it's because they don't fundraise sufficiently or the costs go up. Also for the library project, are CPA funds being counted as part of that town cost? And so would that number go down to 14.8 for the one million that's been allocated in CPA to the library? And then somebody mentioned the enterprise funds which recently had more than $18 million in new debt authorized. At the projected rates for water and sewer bills for FY25, I did the calculation and it looks like the average bill is gonna go up more than $300. And that's more than the debt, than the increase due to the school override. So just to make sure the public is aware, you'll be advertising the impact to property tax bills of a school override, but also make them aware that there's other capital projects that will increase. I know it's not coming out of property tax, it's coming out of sewer and water bill, but over $312 more I worked out, which is a lot for the average household. And then lastly, I just make a call for a forward looking approach, I didn't appreciate the comments made about the last school building project, it was a very divisive time and I don't think it helps to cast blame at this point. I think we could all cast blame as to what went on then, but it's in the past and I'd appreciate if everybody looked forward to the project that's hopefully gonna unite the town. Thank you so much. Andy, can I respond to a couple of points? Just two of the quick ones, for what's in that 15.8 million number for the library that it does not include the CPA portion. So that would be, that's part of the six million or so that the library is coming up with separately. It is, we are considering it a local share in terms of how we're tracking it, but it's separate from that 15.8 million. And then in terms of the cost itself for the project, I do know that they have been updating that total number for the cost of the library project. So that has been updated recently. And a lot of the questions or there'll be more information shared on a lot of those questions that were just asked on Monday at the library specific presentation we'll talk about just the project itself and where it's at. Lynn has additional information response. Just a note on the CPA funds, the town council has the recommendation from the CPA committee, but we have not decided whether we're going to fund it number one. And we have not had the discussion as to which side of the ledger goes on, whether it's towards the town debt or the library fundraising. Okay. So anything else at this point? I appreciate all of the comments. So thank you. Carol Lewis. Ward Street and Amherst and I'm hoping that the gentleman who spoke before and said stupid questions are okay. He didn't say it quite that way, but I hope that that applies to the public and not just the town council. Because I just have two questions trying to understand what in the world I've just heard. And one of them is it seems to me that debt exclusion is functionally the same thing as the need for a tax override. And so my question is just, is that true? And the other one is the presentation seemed to suggest that if we keep 10 or 10 and a half percent as the capital percentage, but what if that goes down? And my question is what makes it go up or down? Thank you. Do you mind, Andy, if I tackle those? So the first one, the difference between a debt exclusion and a tax override, they're similar, but the big difference is with the debt override, that only lasts as long as the debt lasts. So as the debt is paid off, that goes away. Whereas a tax override sort of lives on. So again, that's the debt exclusion specifically just for the debt for this project. And then the second question about what makes the percentage of the levy go. So ultimately it's what the council approves with the town manager puts forward in his budget. What could make it go down? Could be, if there's economic troubles in the future, there could be decisions made around that. But ultimately the percentage is what's approved by the town council and put forward by the town manager. Okay. Thank you. Thank you to Neil. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Just a quick question. Is that PowerPoint presentation going to be available to the public? Yes, it's in the packet. Oh, sorry. Jumped right into that. Sorry, Andy. Go ahead. Yeah, it's in the packet now. So it's available online. And I will put it on the project page as well. Once that project page goes live at the end of the week, I'll put a link to it there as well. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up because for other members of the public, I should have said that earlier. But if you go to the council page on the town website and then where it says committees and then go to the finance committee, you'll find meeting packets and then the meeting packet for today's meeting. You will find the presentation so that it is available. Thank you. Seeing nothing further from the public. Appreciate the public comment that we've received. It is noted. Anything that hasn't been specifically responded to is certainly been noted. I think we actually shown as pretty much responded to most of the questions, if not all. I will turn it back for just a moment to see if there are any other counselors who have questions right now. Because what we're going to do is the finance committee will continue to meet after this joint meeting concludes. So the joint meeting will conclude at Lynn's discretion as the general president. And the agenda for the remainder of the finance committee meeting will be planning for what our meeting schedule and work plan is for the next months ahead. And that was part of the posted agenda for the finance committee meeting for today. So I'm looking to see if there are any other comments. And if not, I turn it to Lynn because I know she wants to say something. Thank you. I want to emphasize something that Richard Moore said and that is there are no stupid questions. This is a very, very complicated set of issues. And I think counselors will be asking lots and lots of questions and we want to hear all of the stupid questions you think you may have. They are not stupid. They are necessary for you as counselors, for us as counselors and for the public to understand this. And so please just continue to ask lots of questions. So thank you, Pat. I just wanted to say I never said stupid. I never said naive. And I'm going to encourage Mr. Morse and everyone else to use naive. Kathy. I understand what Lynn said. And I also thought the challenge that was issued to us to really understand these when I asked about the operating budgets, this is not a small decision. So just Sean has made it work by saying, you know, I think we need to do this as soon as we can. We can hold it to one and a half percent, one to one and a half percent for another year. And then you said maybe a few more years. I think we need as soon as we can, knowing that projecting all of this is extremely difficult. Particularly in the, we don't know whether the town will be reopening soon. You know, who knows whether 65 year olds will ever get vaccinated. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not eating here. But, but I think those are the kinds of, these aren't nuances. They are. These are major decisions we're making. And the question about sidewalks. If you look at our spending on roads and sidewalks and say, what if we only had 2.8 million? You know, what's left for other things. This is tough. This is a very tough. All right, everyone. Go ahead. Thanks. And we're looking at the numbers. And you can see when we get under. So I think we all need to be looking at those interactions. And. Sean admitted that DPW and fire was both looking outside the town, but also these numbers make this work. We need to know, these are real numbers at some point, so that we can say, this could work. And I really appreciate that you in these slides had these cautionary words cautionary words, you know, like I don't don't think we've we've, you know, done it. So I really think it was very well done and we've got homework. Thank you, Sean. This was just to offer up if, if anybody, if you want a quick really quick two minute overview of the tool, I can pull it up for people if they want to see it really quickly what's, what's going to be available to the public on Friday. Nobody asked for it, which I was surprised and somewhat relieved but if, if anybody does want that I have it ready to do a quick overview. Okay, I'll look for anybody from the council raises their hands and ask we'll know. But thank you for the offer. Dorothy your hand was up before Sean said that though season. Well, I think that what if listening to everything that said and said today, that we realize that we've come to a point where we actually have to make the plans to do these projects. So anything that will see us through besides the fact that we have come to have great confidence in our financial team, and that we're actually counting that what they tell us is true, and we will believe them. Okay, is that the thing you mentioned the caps on the costs that we're going to have to spend our time really looking at what the plans are, what the costs are that we're going to have to go forward but go forward. In a very prudent manner, and because I think it's terrible that some projects have been on the back burner for 25 years. Okay, and I think that we really just don't want that on our conscious that we didn't help these things go forward when they had to go. But it has to be very streamlined and we all have to cooperate on keeping the costs down. That's actually a good segue to what I was I have not made comments myself throughout the entire discussion. And you get to exactly the point that I was going to raise. There were decisions along the way in recent years to not do significant renovation type repairs at any of the buildings that we're talking about, because we didn't know what the future plans would be. We were not wanting to spend money to make a correction to a building that would not, that would not have a long lifespan, unless it was necessary to do so. You know, a strategic planning decision and probably helped us get by these last few years in other ways, but a decision to not spend money on these buildings is no longer an option and I think that's what the council is recognized. And that's part of the message we want to put forward. So with that, I turn this over to President Griezmer. And then she has the discussion to conclude the council portion of the meeting the finance committee, as I said will continue to meet for a few minutes because we have to talk about the meeting plan for the next months. Take us through May. So I want to thank all of the counselors that joined us. We were a total of 11 today, and the overall council meeting is adjourned. Okay. Thank you. Members of the finance committee. I hope that you got my prior email that I sent late this morning. Linda's going to be in a moment be putting it on the screen. And what we want to do, what I wanted to do in this is make a suggestion of what we might want to attend to on the dates that we talked about we said we would meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month. Through the next couple of months, and actually have that as our permanent schedule, knowing that we had to add may as additional dates so that they're two purposes one is I wanted to get comments on this. And whether there are changes that people would like to propose either additions, deletions, or frankly just movements of dates. And one of the questions that come up in today's meeting is that Sean presentation pointed out that I think the second public forum would be on March 8, if I recall correctly. And so should the Jones library be moved to the 16th. For example, I guess just throughout one that I had thought about. So, Lynn. Yeah, I was actually going to raise that I, I would very much appreciate that the finance committee be a big year for those additional questions that are particularly related to finance as it relates to the library. I do not want us to just start sending off, you know, a question here and a question there to the library, but to consolidate them. And we will start on the 22nd with their presentation. And in fact, I understand that we're going to be receiving that tomorrow. And also on the third and the I know I've got my dates wrong. There are two meetings coming to two public forums coming up on the library, where I hope you will hear from lots of the public. And that would mean that moving the Jones library piece to the 16th, although we could start it on the second, and then add to it on the 16th of March. So, Kathy. I'm just, I'm just unmuting. I think that suggestion that Lin just made makes a lot of sense. And I would suggest that we put it both on the 16th and on April 6. Jones in two places. And my reasoning for that is, if we generate a set of questions in the finance discussion as we gather them, they may not have all the answers at the first meeting. And so we can give a coherent set and have them come back again. As it may require some additional analysis or information that's not at our hand, it's a, it's a big enough financial decision. I think we should allow more time to it. So that was just a suggestion of putting it in two places. And one of the right now on March 16, you have alternative ways of setting water and sewer rates. And I did send through a memo and it's, it went, you know, I made a mistake and sent it directly to Guilford but Paul has it but we have not yet had a discussion with Guilford. So what I don't know, Andy, whether what we suggested in ours as a way of looking at alternative whether he will say good start but here are some other ways you might want to do it. I haven't had that conversation so I don't know whether it will be ready by March 16, given that we haven't connected with him yet. So it's just the March 16 alternative ways might move to a later date and I don't know which what date. It's just pending I mean Paul Paul knows that request is in and I sure there are other things on Gilbert's desk. And I didn't, I think we need to be ready for that everyone saw the memo on what we were thinking about doing but there's what the hope would be is some what if kinds of analysis to see whether we want to go down this road it wasn't a decision making it wasn't informing us on consequences if we made certain decisions. That's it. So we need to come to that back to that in a second. There's two things that are out there now one is where to place john's library with suggestion. Also that we added on to we have it on two different dates. And the other that you just brought up which is a question of not analysis of alternative ways of setting water and sewer rates whether that can stand the 16th or needs to be pushed back. The OPEB actuary report is a fairly meaty subject, if you will, having gone through these presentations before the actuary explains what the current projections are for OPEB costs and the financial consequences of that. And that's going to be a fairly major piece and I was trying to only add one additional thing to that meeting. And that is already scheduled so I wanted to make you aware of that on March 2, the two proposed financial orders will not be complex orders there sort of housekeeping things to make sure where there needs to be approval of things that just are routine in the course of business that happened from time to time. So I don't think those will be very difficult. One of the other things I just wanted to point out and then we'll get back to trying to settle those questions is that the climate action adaptation resilience plan budget recommendations. And the taste of that in a presentation made at the last council meeting. And so there is some ability to have to start having some discussions and approaching the climate action committee to ECAC to begin that conversation. And they are talking about things that are starting within the next fiscal year. And I did make the comment at the council meeting about where we are in the budget process for the next fiscal year and the complexity of that. The actual plan itself is not due until May 1, I believe, and the problem then is we will be in that monthly crunch period when we receive it. We either have to deal with it in April or June, but dealing with it in May is not a realistic thing to propose. So I just wanted to point those out. Lynn, thoughts. Yeah, I thank you for pointing that one out. I actually would suggest we start formulating questions on March 2, and try to have them totally completed in an exchange with the library on March 16. They I'm sure I know they will be very present at the public forums as well. The other thing is we only have two meetings in April for the council. And unless we schedule another one at the very end of April. So I'm trying to stick to that idea. And of course the others that the regional school budget will be voted and presented the cycle it has to do with town meetings in the other three towns. Happened in late April, early May, and that is why our charter has a provision that allows us to consider that budget separately, and why we need to have it listed as an April item. Is there general agreement to have the library listed on March 2 and March 16. It seems to be so you're going to add that. Yes, I think so, Andy, and my only, I know Lynn is pushing for decisions in April, or the library is, but if we can't get some questions answered, I think we have to do a report that actually has vetted the kinds of information we're getting. So I think it's fine to put it in two places, but you just said March 16 will be a full agenda. I just think we, we're going to have to write a report and we. I'm hoping that we will be able to be pretty thorough and getting questions and answers. So, so, yes, for twice in those times, but we might need time on the 16th is all I'm saying if you feel like it's pretty crunched. Yeah, I don't know if Sean's experience is any different, but I would think that the OPEV report could take as much almost as much time as today's presentation took. I hope not. It sort of depends on what what you all want. So I so a good example is the audit presentation that we just had this year the audit presentation was relatively brief and you know we touched on the questions and, and you know this is a, I haven't seen what a presentation looks like from our new OPEV actuary. So it depends on what the, what the finance committee wants in terms of how long the presentation will be. Yeah. Having that, since you haven't been through it before. There's a lot of those is complex legal and financial aspects to it. In addition to the actual questions made by the actuary and in order to get a prior we've had previously waited separate actuary and he would try and explain a little bit of how the OPEV obligation is structured. But the difficulty is just the complexity of information on the subject that we really have not dealt with in the depth that we will likely get it presented to us. But I can't other than that and make a real projection. Back to the end on the, I don't have anything else right now for April 20. And we could move the storm water. We're not the storm water the one that's just highlighted the alternative sewer water rates to April 20. And if we wanted to do so because I think that that would fit there too. Kathy, I assume do you think that's the better choice to give it a little extra time. Yes. Okay, so we did that. Thank you. This is hand up and so does Bernie. Okay, Bernie. I didn't. I think I just, I'll agree with Kathy I think it's best to move that I was just looking at, you know, which of these topics are more pressing. If you've got the actuary actually scheduled to come in on March 16, then we need to honor that date but I would almost think that the opa, some of the opa of discussion could could be deferred. But if you got somebody coming in that that's that's it. Yeah. I think communities are required to have actuary assessments of the rope have obligation every other year. And this is the cycle that we're on. So the report is coming and that's when we have our expert. So that's why I think the other issue that we want to talk about, if we agree with this proposal, we can adopt it in a moment. But the other. I'm assuming that we're staying with first and third. Yeah. I'm assuming that we're staying with first and third. I'm assuming that we're staying with first and third. I'm assuming that we're staying with first and third. As Tuesdays is our regular meeting date and just adding. Made dates. And we can either try and do that today or I can make it have another suggestion. And that is that the major. Problem that. I think that we, that we have with scheduling is conflicts with other meetings. I know that. For example, the people who are on. CRC have some. Meetings that they have in conjunction with the planning board. Or it's a zoning bylaw. Committee. And. So if there's a desire to. Consult with other committees and come back. We can add our May dates. On the March 2nd meeting, but I think we need to make a decision so that everybody gets it on their calendar. In the people, if there's some comfort in. Adding May dates, then let's talk about it right now. In the, if you would like being a good health. People. Or. May dates. Beyond the given two dates. Last year, I believe we're meeting twice a week. Last two years, we've met twice a week during. May. We did meet twice a week during May. And I think that we did it for. Possibly three Thursdays in addition to the, and we did it every Tuesday. And the, and I think that the problems that we've got. Doing something. In the way of like a doodle poll is probably a good one. CRC has its, as its regular meeting date. The second and fourth Tuesdays, which is how we came to the first and third. And I think that. They're assuming that that holds for May. So that. We actually have problems in the. With, with scheduling. For meetings. Dorothy. Let me recognize you for a second. Well, the plan, the schedule. For CRC. Does in fact have a meeting. On May 11th and on May 25th. And you're right. That sometimes those meetings involve. Other people. Besides CRC. So it's, it may be something that if we could consider it. That on those two, those two weeks. That perhaps finance could meet. On the Thursday that we'd, we always meet on the second, you know, we always meet others on those Thursdays in May, but for the Tuesday meeting meet at a different time. Or. I mean. On a different day. I mean, for example, if. If. Finance did not meet at two, but met at. Four or four 30. Is that conflict with other meetings? I mean, or maybe you could just talk with me. I mean, that would be the easiest thing would be if you talked with Mandy. And, and said, where is your flexibility? Or, or do I have to be the one of flexible? And she may in fact be able to be flexible. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. I do have obviously spoken with her. And because that's where I got the information that I've already conveyed. So why don't we do this? John and I will consult as to the number of days that we think we need to schedule during May in order to get all of the presentations in. And we'll try and do that in the next day or two. And then. Either ourselves or with Athena's through Athena. Create a poll and ask for prompt responses to that. And I will also. Make sure that Mandy's consulted if. We're doing anything that's infringing upon. Times when she's likely. To think that they. The CRC committee will meet. Does that sound like a reasonable? Yeah, that's reasonable. Okay. So I, I will check with Sean and. Look for an email with the. Link for a poll. Sometime this week so that we can. Move this forward and then we'll try and do it. As quickly as possible and even make a proposal before the next week. To confirm at the next meeting. So anything else we need to talk about with scheduling. Seeing nothing on that. The one additional item. That I wanted to. Just recognizes that. This is in the unexpected business category. It was said last week when the audit was being. Our last meeting when the audit was being presented. That there was one part of the audit. That had to do with federal grants that. Now available. And it's fairly straightforward section. And I think. Is. Actually put in the packet. For the last meeting already. And so I just wanted to alert you to. The fact that if you go into the packet for the last meeting. That there should be an additional audit document that was added. Today. And. Take a look at it. And if you feel that you would like to. Discuss it. Is an additional. Item of the finance committee meeting. Let me know. So the. Sean knows that we can get it scheduled. May not be necessary. It's not. A complex portion of the. Audit. As the last one was. And. So, but it's a judgment that I think each of you needs to make. So we will add it to an agenda. If you think that it's necessary. Sean, do you have anything else to add on that? No, I think it was as we had imagined, which was there were no. Issues with it. So it's sort of the same as it always is. Also been added. It will also be in the council packet for Monday along. With the audit and the presentation. So that. People can look at it there too. So if any of you can't find it. What's the formal name on it? Just so that people know what to look for. Sonya emailed it to us today. It's a R 20. Yeah. Amherst. I'm a SAR 20. As the attachment. You sent it to all members. To the resident members of the committee, as well as the council members. So. But just be there. She sent it twice. The first time was the full 70. Three page audit. So just take a look before you print. And what she sent today is 11 pages. And it's also on the easiest way to find it for the public. And just go to the accounting page. It's right there. So if you would. Problems finding the. That additional audit section, please let me know. So any other business that we didn't anticipate that I. Need to add. Because if not, then I think that. We can adjourn. So I guess one last question. Your two members of the public still present. If there's any additional public comment. I'll give you about a minute to raise hands. If I don't see a raised hand coming. Then I think that we will. Treat today's meeting as concluded. And I want to thank everybody. This was a. Very intense and meeting. And I particularly Sean. When the. Thank you. For your presentation. Your presentation and your response to questions was really, really helpful. So thank you. Yeah. I second that. Thank you. I understood every word of it, Sean. At least I felt like I did. So that was really great. And the. And as I said, I appreciated the caution charts a lot. Okay. So we've had no request for additional public comments. With that. I thank everybody and we are adjourned.