 All right, it is six o'clock. Since we have a quorum, we can go ahead and call the meeting to order. Not sure if everybody has the agenda in front of them, but are there any requests to make any changes or additions? The only agenda I've seen is the executive session. Is there another agenda? Yes, the full board agenda should have been, was destroyed by Amy Jewel a little week ago. So you would have received an email from Amy with the full packet. Perhaps you can, maybe Amy can resend that to John. Well, let me first. I'm sending now. Okay. Thank you. Before we just kind of get started, one thing that I've been thinking about with now that we're only six plus months into this, is that to the extent that your internet connection can handle it, we do always appreciate if you can have your video on. I know there are other circumstances that may make it so that that's not possible, but it does help with the community feeling and also just, I think there's a lot of reliance on nonverbal language of like head nodding. And so to the extent that you can and feel comfortable and don't have other things going on that are distractions, we certainly welcome that. So thank you. John, did you have your hand up for something? Not me. Okay. All right. Do we have any members of the public on the call? We do. Is there anybody who would like to comment at this time? No, it has raised their hand to comment. So we're good. Okay. I might need to turn my volume up so I can hear you. All right. So the consent agenda, are there any requests to remove items for discussion? Hearing none. We will approve that. Um, the next item on the agenda is the preliminary budget. Tara, if you'd like to. Yep. This is a requirement of our charter to have the board, basically the board proposes a preliminary budget and essentially what it's designed to do is to alert our member towns to any assessments that may be coming in the next year. So we need to get this out for charter. We're a little bit late and it's supposed to be out by December one. Nola has prepared a memo that she can walk through with you, but is this is not, it's certainly not the final budget. This is what we anticipate starting with going into the budget season. This is essentially a requirement of the charter. So go ahead, Nola. So this is typically based on the inflation rate, which you can see from the other information is 1.2%. So it's a pretty basic calculation across the board. We're just saying, okay, everything is gonna be 1.2% more. And I averaged that where I'm sorry, I took the higher value of whichever was either in the actuals or in the budget, just to be sure that we were covering all of our bases within this, but it looks like we're covered. We still have plenty of money in the stabilization reserve. And like Sarah said, this isn't our current or what our budget will be at the end of this fiscal year. Does it have anything to do with that? I move we accept the proposed budget. I guess do you quote an interim budget or? So you appropriate? Yes, we have, there's a proposed motion on the memo, but that's a very good question Leslie to raise. So one thing that I want the newer members to know is that this is something that Nola and I have talked about. I also discussed it with our most, not our most recent finance director, but the one previous where I think we need to take a look at the requirements in the charter. It does require the board to present a proposed budget. We are offering a preliminary estimate of the budget, but when really in reality, the charter wants us to have the next year's budget done by December 1. That has always been a struggle for the 25 years we've been in the pleasant existence, yet it is a requirement. And again, mainly it is so that our member communities can make any adjustments that they need to do for their own budgets ahead of town meeting day. So we are looking at some budgeting processes and budgeting software that we feel may be able to allow us to actually meet the requirements of the charter, not necessarily for next fiscal year, but for the year after. So that if we implement the software, it will be able to get that information in and then in use for fiscal 23. So Leslie, yes, your question is appropriate to ask because what the charter says is proposed, what we are doing here is preliminary. So this is again, just our first snapshot based on rate inflation and CPI, but it is not exactly what we, I think are meant to do for the charter. The other option is to change the charter and that is not an easy doing. So the more that we can adapt our own processes to the existing charter language, I think that should be our goal. So there is a proposed motion and it says, be it resolved that the board of commissioners acknowledges the receipt of your preliminary budget to be further developed through the normal budget process. And I would add that for fiscal year 2022. So moved. Essex seconds. The other item that is important to know is that we don't plan on dunning the towns or any money out of their budgets. And that's what they need to know for their March budget. So that's the reason for us to have this bottom line number that we know we're gonna be able to make using our own incomes. Correct. So that is the intent that we do not, we're not proposing that we will be issuing any assessments to any member of town in fiscal 22. We haven't had the executive session yet. Well, true, but we are confident we will not need to do that, even with that. And we'll tell you why in the executive session. Any further discussion? All right, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? All right, motion passes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Nova. And the next item is personnel staffing. Yes, so I would like to bring Amy and Josh Tyler into this conversation. We had, I believe preview this for the board last month to let you know that we were planning to bring this to you this month. And this is an area where we feel particularly vulnerable and that is in our maintenance staff and particularly our drivers. So I would like actually Josh, if you could kind of walk through some of the highlights of the memo and then Amy can discuss any of the financial justifications that are included if there are any questions there. So Josh. All right. Can everybody hear me? All right, great. So historically the maintenance and rollout department had five employees working for them. We had four kind of maintenance and rolloff workers separated between the maintenance and the rolloff programs. And then we had a supervisor. After the departure of our most recent supervisor it kind of was apparent that it made more sense to kind of move that supervisory role into a project manager's position because it kind of that guidance and oversight was more appropriate to that position where the people who were doing the direct service that manager that supervisory role didn't really fit. And that was kind of an oversight piece on our part that we wanted to have a little more control. So due to COVID budgeting, we dropped that fifth position. We were gonna keep it in for potentially hiring a fifth in the event we needed a fifth person down there but we dropped it now under our existing conditions of people schedules with schools closing at a whim and just people needing to take vacations and just our kind of our increase in managing our own internal materials. It makes sense that we kind of add that fifth position back. We had planned on adding it back in FY22 anyway but just under our current situations it makes more sense to have a more robust department and that's doing that is adding that fifth position in. When Sarah says vulnerable, we only have four drivers right now. All our maintenance and roll-off positions have a CDL driver's license so that means they can manage our MSW, our recycling, our metal, things that they need to haul on a large scale. In the event that one of our, we lose one of our people to COVID it gets really tight really quick. We can get by with three, if we drop down to two it's pretty difficult to manage all of our facility needs and that would drive us to start looking at either reducing services at our facilities or reducing the actual number of facilities that are open. So we've kind of identified that this fifth position is necessary and it kind of gives us that flexibility in the event that one of our staff down at maintenance roll-off happens to get COVID. We don't have to go straight to looking at what service we can and can't provide or looking at what facility we need to close. So that's kind of a part of it and just the overall, we're running thin down there as it is. We're not, we're keeping up with our maintenance requirements but a lot of times our maintenance crew is pulled to do roll-off driving. So that's kind of the basis of this request. And again, to Josh's point, we've restructured the department so that this is truly, before we had a working supervisor, but we really needed a full-time working worker. So they will be kind of splitting time between also some maintenance duties, so some mechanic work. And that will also have another driver will free up the folks that we have on the team who are really good mechanics to do more of that work instead of doing the driving. So we're looking to play to the existing skills of the team and you'll bring in, again, that much needed security for the driver's position. So Amy did look at the wage benefit and chart that we have in the fiscal 21 budget. And we were really thrilled that the health insurance increase only came in just over 1% if it was one and a half percent, Amy. And instead of what we had budgeted, which was around 10%. So right there, there's significant savings that we won't have to shell out in January. So, Amy, I don't know if you want to fill in any additional info on the funding of the position. Sure, so when we create the budget and we start that in January, typically with the finance committee, we go through our wages and benefits. So all of the staffing and all of the benefits are laid out there. And then when it became apparent that we need another roll-off truck driver, maintenance operator position, we looked at that spreadsheet and it was great that we already had the MVP information in there as well. We also had budgeted for a project manager position, July one, and just hired that position. So there was a bit of savings available there. And then we've also had a couple of folks who have been out on leave. And so their salary has decreased. So looking at projecting from now through June, we knew that we had about $165,000 under budget within the wage bend. So we knew we could hire for this position if it was approved by the board, we have money there. And that of course assumes that there are any drastic changes and benefits that we don't have single folks who go to family plans given our structure, but that typically has not changed and open enrollment just happened. We didn't have any major changes. So we're pretty comfortable that that number is accurate. And this is an entry-level position. This is just straight-up maintenance and roll-off. It's not mechanic, it's just to carry, share the load. Literally. Yeah. Exactly. Any questions from the commissioners? Bren, I have a couple of questions. It seems to me the presentation indicates that there's enough savings in the current year's budget to cover the position, but two questions. Is there an estimate for the cost of the new position through the balance of this current fiscal year? And the second question would be what have you identified any savings from contracted services? Because that's identified in this justification memo. So I think both of those dollar figures would be helpful to know. I can help you with that. All in at an entry-level position with benefits is roughly $60,000 to $70,000. We did a quick look on wage-ben to see what that was. The market's a little tight right now, but that's kind of our expectation of where we're gonna land. The savings we'll see with this extra person is, we've got a couple of really good mechanics right now, but if they have to be on the road, then some of the equipment that we have, we have to send to out to a shop to get some routine maintenance done or some things that we can do potentially in-house. So there's that savings there. And on that same vein, when we send stuff to a shop, say a loader or even a roll-off truck or a service truck, we have to wait for the shop to get to it. So it can sit there up to a week, which could potentially limit some of our maintenance needs. So there will be some savings in there. It also allows us to say looking forward, potentially internally haul more of our own materials because we do contract some of those out right now. And we're taking a look at a few of them, particularly organics. It's looking like we're gonna spend about $100,000 this year managing organics internally, managing organics through a third-party vendor. And with this fifth position, it gives us the flexibility to potentially manage that ourselves. So that'll be a significant savings. It'll be a shift in operations and it will carry savings. We have to look at the capital expense to do that. But over a five, 10-year period, it's a significant savings. And Josh, is that what you're looking for? It's 60 to 70,000 is annual salary. Annual, correct. That's it for clarifying, yep. Other questions? All right, does anyone? There is a resolution that I can read. Be it resolved that the board of commissioners authorizes the executive director to hire for the position of maintenance operator, roll-off truck driver. I'll move that. Mr. John from Milton. Friendly amendment. I think it should say entry-level position. I'm fine with that. Okay. Is there any issues with that, Sarah? No. Do I hear a second? Second. Logan Richmond. Any further discussion? I'm just checking, is this required or is this a more of a courtesy notification that's? It's technically a change to the budget because we did not include the position in the budget even at a zero that we wanted to, I felt that we needed to get the permission of the board to alter the budget. Good. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Any opposed? Any abstain? Motion passes. Thank you all very much. Thank you. All right. Next, the swift. So that is Josh Estee. So Josh can pop on and use. Hi all, can everybody hear me? Yes. Apologies for looking like I'm working by candlelight. I'm not, I'm pulled up in a spare bedroom. So as the memo states, Kasella reached out to interested parties at the end of November and requested that the new B transfer station be re-included in our SWIP. If folks remember or those who were on the board, they came to us at the end of last year and requested based on an amendment they were sending to ANR to re-include their transfer station because they're adding their de-packager operations. So this second amendment to their facility management plan amends that further to reflect a change of operations for their de-pack operations, they have added some fixed onsite tank storage to their transfer station. Those are up already. And they're also looking to amend the total volume of organics that they're actually moving through the transfer station. So in looking at the red line strikeout version of their facility management plan, those were the two big items. I did see Brynn, you emailed me that I hadn't attached the red line strikeout version of the facility management plan. I'll be happy to share that if anybody were interested. It's a number of pages long, so it would take a little bit to scroll through, but I could provide the highlights unless you want me to just provide it after the meeting. One point I'd like to make, this is sort of the first step as a reminder for ANR to start the amendment process. So they need to check the box that the district that the facility is in has approved them in their sweat before they will go through the amendment process. I spoke with Dennis Feckert with ANR who indicated to me that it will be a major amendment. And all that really means is that they lengthen the period of open comment period to about 30 days. So this is, their red line strikeout of their facility management plan is something that we can and potentially will comment on. This, the approval by the board here tonight doesn't disallow us of having that opportunity. So we'll be meeting as a staff probably in the next week or so to just discuss the changes that they're proposing and talk about whether or not we'd like to comment on them or not. Okay, I have a question. Go for it. Yes. If I understand what we're doing correctly, it's really not our facility, but it's their facility. We have to approve it because we're kind of like governing body over with. Is there any act 250 implication here? Sounds like they're gonna be changing their capacity. And when they applied, I'm sure act 250 had a limit of what they were doing. If this changes that, do they need to or do we need to make sure act 250 is covered? That's a good question. As part of it, we will follow up and make sure that they will because if you read our facility inclusion plan, it talks about making sure that they are following all state and local permits. So that will be part of our due diligence. We generally like to go to someone in the host town of the facility to make sure that they know about the plan and something like this with a major amendment that the Casela will be, they'll have to make those parties aware. So we just double check with them. Act 250 will likely get involved, but that's generally not something that we heavily get involved in. I see that Mike Casela is on the phone. I'm wondering if he can is interested in responding to that question regarding act 250. I'll just give Mike a second here if he doesn't want to. Yeah, we're working through it with the state and all the permits that we need and are required. Thanks. And generally it's a conversation between us and the facility owners too, just they can answer any questions or concerns that we have on the permit side of things. But given that they did receive approval for managing an increased amount of organics through the facility at the end of last year, I don't anticipate there being many issues for them on these changes that they're proposing on this round. Great, thank you. Other questions? All right, Sarah, I see there's a motion. There is, yeah. The motion is the Chinden Solid Waste Districts Board of Commissioners hereby resolves that the all-cycle transfer station on Avenue B in Williston, Vermont be included in the district's solid waste implementation plan to incorporate their amended operations and facility food waste capacity as detailed in the solid waste certification application dated November 24, 2020, contingent upon all-cycle waste ink obtaining and maintaining compliance with all necessary local, state and federal permits. Second. I'll make that motion if nobody else wants to. I'll second that for Richmond. Any discussion? All right, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Great, motion passes. Thank you all. And I will send out the red line strike. I anticipate it to be up on the ENB in the next couple of days. So that'll become the official notice to go ahead. So I will share that for sure. Great. And that's the environmental notice bulletin, correct? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah, we have the loader bid results next. Yes, we do. Let's back to you, Josh Tyler. Back on. Bring it up. So we have two loaders that were up for purchasing this year that were part of our capital budget that was approved. One for the MRF, and that's contractually required that we replace it this fiscal year based on a prior agreed upon contract. And one of our loaders at the compost facility, which was also kind of brought to the board in February saying, you know, we had a significant rolling stock shift with our new operations as we developed that. We went out to bid for two large loaders, full size, I guess I can call them loaders. When we got our bids back, each loader was specific to each use. So compost had guarding in different places. While, you know, the MRF loader had guarding in different places. The compost loader has been presented in this memorandum. The MRF loader we actually pulled from requesting a purchase because there was concern that the larger loader frame wouldn't fit into a couple of our key bunkers. It was brought up by two of the vendors that were bidding. So we looked at it because the MRF has specific tires which are wider than your standard or normal, you know, kind of loader tires that are typically outdoors. And because of that, we decided to take another look at the size of the loader and we're gonna re-bid that and bring that back to you in January. Also, the larger size loader was above what we had budgeted in our capital. We're making a jump to a bigger loader at the MRF just because they could use more horsepower because recyclings, I don't think it's getting any heavier. It's just we have a pretty full tip floor at all times and pushing and managing that is important. We will get a larger one, just not make that full jump to the largest size we could get. So we'll be back to you in January. But for the MRF loader or for the Organics loader, we have presented the bid results. We have our grading system and we narrowed in on NordTracks which is a John Deere loader. And the key components were, they can get us the loader in 60 days. Their quality of service has been very strong for us. The Beauregard equipment, which is a case and the CRW Woods equipment, which is a Volvo, that was the kind of the determining factor in our grading system that put them below wanting to purchase the John Deere. And we've had really poor experience with the Volvo dealer in their service department. The machines are good, the service is not. And we've had an excavator in and out and a mini loader that we bought through them in and out. And it has been a nightmare. It has not been, the equipment's come back not fixed. It sat in there for long periods of time without any answers. So that's why we kind of decided not to go with the Volvo and same with the case Beauregard equipment doesn't carry a lot of equipment on the shelf. Its facility is a farther away than the John Deere facility. And so because this bid came in under our budgeted amount, we wanted to stick with the John Deere. So that's the distinction there. And then the cat came in higher than we budgeted. So that's our logic behind this. Another thing we're doing with this is that we've kind of mixed and matched different loaders through the years at our compost facility. And one of the more frustrating things is we use different buckets for each machine. But there are buckets specific to each machine. So we can't interchange our larger or smaller buckets for whatever it is we're doing at this point. So a portion of this, because we budgeted $270,000, $35,000 was to purchase buckets that would be interchangeable between the two pieces of equipment. So that'll save us operational time and money for that matter that we don't have to stop one thing with one loader and drive it somewhere else to use a bucket for that specific purpose. So that was important to us to do. That's why this is a little more expensive than we typically have in for a loader. That's our logic. Did you go with a quick attach system on each loader? Yeah, it's a JRB, I think 418, which is the one we have. We just bought a loader 644 in 2017, 2018, I think. So both those attachments will be the same. So we can move between a seven yard bucket, four and a quarter, and I think a three yarder, which just basically depends on where you're at in the yard and if you need to fill the screener, if you need to fill a truck or if you need to operate on our working pad. Do you have forks, too, that going on, or? Yeah, I'm with forks. Is there much difference in how each piece of equipment, the controls the same? How much different is their training difference? They're relatively the same. So when we purchased the loader I was talking about in 2018, we actually requested anybody who wanted to be taken seriously in the bid. They brought a machine on our site and we tested it there. So we actually demoed the cat, the case, and the Volvo in 2018 and they were all decent. The operators like some over others, but there wasn't a significant difference in all of them. They all kind of have the same format. Nothing runs like a deer. You get commission on here, Ellis? No, I'm a Volvo guy. That's why I was surprised when he was saying all that. We have both down at, we just bought a brand new case and we have a two-year-old Volvo. And full disclosure, I'm pretty sure the Murph loader is gonna be probably a case just because as you can see, the case is the least expensive piece of equipment and for the Murph loader, I think I might, I'm gonna go with somebody who we haven't truly tried and tested yet. But I have heard things with case as far as their dealer support and maintenance and availability of parts that I took that into consideration as well. Yep. Yeah, and we'll do the same thing when those... They run those loaders hard out there at the Murph. I've been there to dump recycling trucks and you want a machine that's gonna last your seven-year rotation. And I agree with you, recycling is getting, it's not getting heavier, there's just more of it. I was doing some calculations and our monthly totals have gone up 40 tons since COVID started. But he's home and recycling at home. Per month. Yeah. Oh, that's impressive. Oh. Yeah, these are pretty heavy production uses so we can't really afford downtime for either of them. That's an important thing for us. Are there any questions from commissioners? Josh, I have a couple of questions. Is there a warranty included in the six expense summary here? Yeah, it's a standard warranty. I couldn't rattle off the numbers off of the bat. We always ask for an extended warranty and see what it costs and what it looks like. It didn't seem like it was worth getting the extended warranty. And we also have our internal maintenance program. We'll keep up on a lot of the stuff as well. And was there any sense for, I don't know, I'm just thinking about estimated operating expenses, fuel maintenance, et cetera. They're all about the same category. They're all tier four EPA standard diesel engine. One of the things that I am excited about, which won't happen now is that a lot of these guys are looking at maybe a hybrid option. And I think the hybrid options are coming out the next year or two. So hopefully in our next round, our next cycle, I would love, especially at our compost facility, because we've got such a large roof area to have a charging station run off a solar and to charge a hybrid loader. I think that would be fantastic. But talking with multiple vendors, we're not quite there yet. But as soon as somebody cracks that nut, that's the next thing up. All right. I don't have any other questions. Sir, unless there's any further discussion, sir, do you want to read the motion? Yep. Here is all that the board of commissioners authorizes the executive director to enter into a contractual agreement for the purchase of John Deere 644L front end loader from North Tracks Equipment from Williston, Vermont. And that should be four for an amount not to exceed $255,000. So moved. Second. Any discussion? I think we got a lot of questions in there. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Motion passes. Thank you, Josh. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So at this time, we've gotten through the bulk of the agenda. We're now ready to move into the executive session. Sir, are any of you be willing to read the language that would be wonderful? Yeah, if you have that. I do. I move that the board of commissioners of the Chittenden Solid Waste District go into executive session to discuss ongoing and pending litigation where premature general public knowledge would clearly place the district, its member municipalities and other public bodies or persons involved at a substantial disadvantage and to permit staff in the Solid Waste District attorneys to be present for this session. Right here, motion. So moved. I'll move that. All right. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? All right, we'll see you in executive session. You and not the John's. Thank you. All right. Just let me know when we got everybody. We definitely have a quorum. All right. I entertain a motion to leave executive session. So moved. Second. All in favor? Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? All right. We now have left the executive session. Any other items for discussion this evening? Hearing none. I just want to, before we go through the motions to adjourn, just say thank you all for sticking with us these last eight months through the virtual meetings and adapting to multiple platforms and sticking in there and just hope you all have a safe and happy holidays and we'll see you in the new year. So at this point, entertain a motion to adjourn. Last six months. I've gotten a couple hands. Logan? No, Tim, I'm just, Tim, Tim, Tim. All right. Just a question, a follow up question on Sarah's memo about schedule. Did that require any action? No action needed. It was just a notification. Thank you. But thanks, Abby. Question. I just wanted to thank Sarah for that long explanation and I really appreciated her respect for the staff of CSWB. Yes, cheers. Thank you, Abby. All right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you to the staff. Thank you, Sarah. I have a second on that. I just not heard Alan as a first. Second. Second. Well. Second. Do we need to acknowledge that there was no action taken as a result of executive session? We do not. Okay. But great question. So we have a motion. We've got a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Happy holidays. And it's Sam. All right. Happy holidays. Thank you. Take care, everybody.