 You're good to go. Thank you, Athena. You're welcome. Have a great meeting, everyone. Have a nice night, Athena. Not sure we're going to let you live this one down, Paul. I kept saying, no, I can do it. I can do it. And then like the first button I'm supposed to hit. I have no clue where it is. I'm just calling. Well, that didn't work. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he's in the attendee section. Can you pop them over? Yeah. Thank you, Mandy. I just looked, he wasn't there a minute ago and now he's there. Maybe it's because when you hit the magic hour. Coming on. That happened to Dorothy the other day. So I think, I think we may be ready then. Yes. Hi, Andy. So Paul, are we all set to go? I think so. We are recording. Okay. Good. Good afternoon, everybody. Seeing a quorum with the committee and I believe everyone's here as chair, I'm calling the meeting to order at. Five 32. On Wednesday, Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting will allow us to hold this meeting. I'm going to call on everyone who's a committee member. By name. And just have you confirm that you're here and that you can hear. And so we can hear you. I'll just go down the list. Mandy Joe Henneke. Present. Andy Steinberg. President. Peter Demling. Present. Kerry Spitzer. Present. Tammy Ellie. Present. Alex Lafabre. Present. Okay. It, it looks like everybody is here. I'm going to ask you all to put yourself on mute until we get to the discussion period just to avoid background noise. There is no chat room. But if you get into some kind of technical discussion, staff will connect you figure out what to do. If we have to take a pause in the meeting, the minutes will recall it. We'll record that. And then we'll come back and reconnect everybody. So this meeting is being recorded. And we will be posting the video. Members of the public who are participating can also find a presentation. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. The City of Chicago member. Members of the public who are participating can also find a presentation materials on the town website for the JCPC committee. On the May 20th packet. As chair, I just wanted to say a couple opening comments before I call on Sean. Who's going to do the presentation and then back and forth. As I think everybody knows we're facing severe revenue cuts. We're looking at the capital budget. And as a result of the town council to get to a balanced budget, assuming no cuts in state aid, severely cut the capital budget on in percent terms, it's down by about 60% or two and a half million, almost two and a half million dollars. So the same budget we were looking at a short three months ago in March is now substantially less. We're also looking at a revised capital request for both the coming year, which is the year that starts on July, 2020. And the four years after that. So we are still looking at a five year budget as well as a one year budget. We as a committee will need to hear, ask questions, discuss and ultimately make a recommendation. And our report is due by June 1st. So I think we'll be able to do that. So at the end of this meeting, after we've had a discussion, we'll determine whether or not we are, have enough information if we need to call another meeting or not. Sean, if you want to put up the agenda, the first item on the agenda is public comments. We list them first. And the agenda up at the top will give the public. A public comment. If you're on Zoom as a participant. If you're on Zoom and you want to participate and make a public comment, hit the raise hand button and we will call on you. And then I will ask for your name and address. If you join the council meeting via telephone, please press star nine on your telephone. Are there any people in the audience who would like to make a comment? I see one hand. Uh, Felicia Mednick is, is on Felicia, go ahead. Paul's going to have to unmute her and allow her to talk. Okay, Paul, you need to thank you, Mandy. Hi, I'm Felicia Mednick. Do I need to say something other than my name? It would be helpful just for the record. If you give your address to Felicia. I'm very happy to give you my address. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So um, I'm, um, oopsie. I'm here to comment on the, the citizen capital request. Um, that was made. And I think saw how maybe have written a letter. If everybody didn't get it, I could read it, but I, Yes. I forward it to everyone that when I received it this afternoon. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm, I'm here speaking because of three people who did the request. Saho and Ellie have AP tests tomorrow. And Andrea is on the energy and climate action committee and is meeting right now. So that's why I'm, I just want to bring this to everybody's attention. And anyway, I just want to say that. I just want to say that the resident capital request is, it's the only one that's being made and it's still applicable because as we come out of this COVID, we need to be set up, you know, for, for a different kind of fuel economy. So we don't start into another big problem with energy. And so I guess my ask is just that you consider it seriously that it's the only one that's being made. And so I just want to say that I just want to make sure that, I just want to make sure that the resident capital request and climate action committee supports it. A lot of students support it. Other citizens support it. And mothers out front support it. And I support it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any other people in attending the meeting and the public who would like to make a public comment at this point. The next up is the presentation by staff for the revised. Current year budget and fiscal year budget. The next year we're looking at as well as the four years after that. And you have two documents that will, we will be discussing. One is a consolidated presentation. And I have great pleasure to welcome Sean Mcnano, a recently appointed town finance director back to the town who will, I believe, do the presentation, but we're also joined by Paul Backelman, who there are questions or comments and as we go back and forth on some of the proposals, he will be there to be responding as well. As all of you know, Sean comes to this role as our finance director with the deep knowledge of our schools as well as town-wide capital issues. Sean, I think I'm turning the mic over to you. Yeah, you have to unmute your mic, right? Okay. Can everybody else hear me now? Okay. I can. And everybody can see the screen. Okay. Good. Is everyone good for the screen? Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. So I'm going to bring you through a brief presentation. And then we're going to look at the full plan and go through that briefly and then we'll dive into more detail. So the three things we're going to go over right now is an update on capital funding, which Kathy alluded to a little bit earlier. We're going to review the updated capital requests, which is much smaller than it was back in March. And then we're going to discuss and develop the recommendation to the town manager. So quick update on capital funding. Town revenues are estimated to decrease between 3.6 and 7.7 million due to the economic impact of COVID-19. This is all based on the presentation to the finance committee and the guidelines of the finance committee that's developed to offset this revenue decline. One of the strategies that we're looking at is decreasing capital funding to 5% or approximately 5%. For a long time, we've had a target of 10%. And this was the year that we were supposed to get there. And it was a lot of excitement about getting to our goal. And of course, you know, what happened happened. And now we're, we're going back down a little bit. As a result, the capital request is going to be modified for FY 21 from what was originally presented back in January, February and March. And one of the things we've done, one of the modifications we've made is you'll see in a second, is create a funding source that allows us to respond rapidly in FY 21 if a critical capital need arises. And this, you'll understand this in a second, but the approach we're taking this year is really specific to this year because of the condensed timeline that we had to sort of readjust our capital plan. And because of the uncertainty of what revenues look like and even what operations look like, whether school returns to normal, whether the college students come back to town. There's a lot of unknowns about the needs, the capital needs of the town next year. And so the approach we've taken this year is reflective of that. So this is the funding side of the capital request. So we're going to do a quick recap. The top part goes over the levy, the funds that come from based, come from the levy limit or based on the levy limit. So in the past, our goal was 10%. As Kathy mentioned, we're back down to about 5%. For FY 21. Right now we're not proposing any new borrowings. There is one new other source of aid, which is the 62,000 that we'll talk about in a minute. And then there's 841,883 dollars of state aid, which is the chapter 90 money. And we're conscious that that could be reduced. And if it does get reduced, we'll have to decide whether we continue doing those roads or if the amount of roads and sidewalks and things that that supports, but that also gets reduced. So the total funding for capital for FY 21 at this point is 3,687,934. And you can see the years after this, we have not yet adjusted the four years after this. It's something that we'll be working on when we start working on the FY 22 budget, the operating budget, which will be much earlier than normal. We'll also have to work on the, the five year capital plan much earlier than normal as well. Because obviously this FY 22 and beyond may look a little differently given what's going on. So this is a summary of the expenditure side. So this shows. The large categories of the expansion requests. So before we get to any new projects for FY 21, we have to cover our actual debt. And that is the 1,377,400. That is a combination of. JCPC approved that or JCPC recommended that the regional school debt that's been approved. And a projection of some costs for bar, doing short term borrowings, which we typically have each year. Then below that you have the cash capital number, which ties to the budget. The guidance that was given earlier. And then 62,000 or other. So the goal here is that balances and it does. And then you can see in the out years, which is one of the hurdles that we were trying to resolve back in March before all this happened, we were, we still have some work to do. So we're going to go through each category. And I'm not sure if people can ask questions as we go, if we want to wait till the end, but. I guess we'll wait till the end or somebody can raise their hand. I'm not sure if I can. Let them speak, but. So the first section is the cash capital. So there's three sort of categories here that we're putting out there for right now. The first one is sidewalks $200,000. The second one is road repair $900,000, which is a reduction of 100,000 from what it was originally. And then we are proposing a capital reserve accounts, which could be used for all departments, buildings, equipment of 306,651 dollars. And so I'll go into a little bit more into those. So the roads and sidewalks have been a very public goal of the committee for a while. We knew there was a large backlog and it's one of the projects that we know most likely we can continue to complete that during whatever state home orders potentially come up in the fall or in the future. If things change, we can continue working on that type of project and it will keep working towards the backlog that we had. The capital reserve. So given all of the uncertainty about, about FY 21 and what operations are going to look like and revenues, it was really difficult with the short timeline to decide what projects, what specific projects we should fund, not knowing if they will be critical for next year. So what we think is a, is a reasonable course of action is to put whatever funds we can into this reserve. So that if anything critical pops up next year, we can react quickly. And we did reach out to departments already to see if there are any critical needs that they knew of at this point. And we haven't heard anything back yet. But these funds would be earmarked specifically for a critical urgent need that pops up next year. And in addition to that, I think one thing that's important to know is so they're, they're quite possibly could be some capital type expenses related to COVID. And some of the mitigation efforts and prevention efforts that town facilities will have to put in place. And so you may have already heard a little bit about this, but we do have some money now from the state through the CARES Act that we can apply for for FY 20 and FY 21. And these funds specifically can go to pay for things like that, which allows us to not have to budget for those things out of JCPC, which is crucial this year because we have limited funds to begin with. But between the CARES Act and FEMA, which we'll also be reaching out to, we can cover those COVID type expenses that we anticipate for next year. The next section is the other section. So a new revenue source that came in sort of late this year was a tax funding source from like Uber and Lyft and things like that. And the right now this is earmarked to fund downtown improvements such as sidewalks, new lighting, kiosks and things that will enhance the downtown. And then the last section is state aid and chapter 90. So this is the money that we get each year. And it typically goes into roads and sidewalks. And again, if this, if the state does reduce this area, the allocation will have to be adjusted as well. I did speak with Gilford about what happened in the past when we hit economic downturns. He doesn't recall huge reductions to this in the past. I think he did say it did fluctuate at times, but it's something we'll certainly keep an eye on. So before we go to the next section, I'm going to share the full capital plan because probably would be a good point to stop and do discussion. So this is the full capital plan that you're used to see by different departments. So you'll see FY 21. We've created a new column here where we've moved everything that was originally requested for FY 21. Some of those items may be things that can be funded next year because they become critical. And some of those items may have, we'll have to be, we'll have to reevaluate those where they fall in the future from FY 22 and beyond. So everything in the yellow column is what was in the original plan I was presented back in March. You'll see in facilities the $306,000 capital reserve. And if I could go on down, you'll see the public works and you'll see the money for the sidewalks, the road repair and resurfacing, the downtime improvements, which was the other funding source and the state aid chapter 90. And I won't spend too much time on the projects in FY 22 and beyond, but we'll see what we can do to make sure that this all feeds into labor. So I guess Kathy, at this point, do you want to turn it over for discussion? On the FY 21 plan. Yes. And what I thought for the committee members, just for a little point of clarification, we saw a library in schools on March 11th. And we did see the citizen capital requests, which is the meeting that was canceled. You know, we had a tentative end of March meeting. So it was on the book. So when you said, you know, so Sean, you know, we only saw it if you were various students said, Oh, look, here's, here's a long series. So I thought maybe a way of handling this is ask any clarifying questions on what you just went through very quickly. And then one thought I had, I just want to see if people think this is reasonable. If we look just at the coming year, the FY 21, and then you looked at what's being delayed to 22. Are there any that you're wondering why they're not on the critical list for now to, you know, focus on next year. And then focus on the five year. That was just an easy organizing principle for me, but I have no, I think people can ask questions or make comments in any way. They want to. So if there are any clarifying. Or other kinds of comments just to start us off. I see Carrie put her hand up right away. So Carrie. Hi. Yeah. Hi, Sean. Thanks for the presentation. Clarifying question about the cares act money, the 3.4 million. That you said was earmarked for Amherst. Correct me if I'm wrong. And I haven't had as much time as I'd like to go over all of this ahead of time, but I'm not seeing that reflected in the plan for the fiscal year. Is that because we're not sure how much it is, or maybe I missed it. Yeah. So that's a good question. So there's going to be two rounds of cares act funding requests. So the first one is due in a couple of weeks. That's going to be on everything spent through FY 20. So we'll begin a request and for that for everything that's been occurred today, we've reached out to the schools to get what they've spent on COVID related things. And we've got our own list growing. And for FY 21, I don't think we know enough about what those expenditures in total look like yet. And this is going to be another funding source. We can certainly include them in the future. Once we do find out, I think some of those plans are still being developed about what types of, you know, what type of money we need. Are there other things that are bigger ticket items. And the other thing about the cares act money, which complicates it is there's conversations going on at the federal level about changing the scope of what that money can be used for. Right now it could only be used to cover expenses. There's at least discussion around that money being able to be used as a revenue replacement type funding source as well. And so we were at a webinar a few days ago. So they want the, the state is saying use it for what you've spent on COVID. But also be mindful that it's potentially could be that the, the eligibility of what can, that money can be used for it could change. So it's sort of a balancing act right now. We definitely want to use it for everything that we need to use it for. Could I just clarify? Is it capital only or could you also use it on the operating budget? The cares act money can be used on operate operations as well. I mean, it can be used on overtime, for example, and things of that nature. I see Andy's got his hand up and Alex has her hand up. So Andy. When I was looking at the spreadsheet that you had for the multiple years, the one thing that I was curious about is it looked to me like things that were FY 21 and then delayed were not then repeated into another year. They just disappeared. Yeah. So I think the reason for that is we haven't yet had enough time to go through and say, if we can't do these items, A, we don't know which items we're not going to be able to do. But B, we also haven't had enough time for department heads to review, revisit their list and place them accordingly. One of the things where, where at least keep an open is that potentially more money could be available for capital needs. And that's one of the things that's really important. When we revisit things in the fall, if again, if there's another funding source or if the economy turns around faster and we can make more money available for capital, that could be an option. We're also working continuing to work with department heads around reviewing their old articles or outstanding articles and what hasn't been spent and turning back any funds that they're not going to need for the projects that were approved. And that money also can be made available to try to reduce the amount of money that's being spent. So the main thing is that what's been delayed is it may be done in FY 21 if it becomes critical and then the next planning process we're going to have to re-slot these based on the department heads perspective. Alex. It's a different spot than Zoom. I mean, Google me. I have a couple of questions. One is, I guess, what's the process or have we set up some sort of process for the department heads to understand what's going to be required so that, you know, our boiler breaks down and we think that's critical. And you guys think, oh, no, you should budget for me. Like I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page with how to access that money and how to prioritize and whether, I don't know, you come back. JZPC, if two things happen, you know, one at the school and one at the library, do we come back together? Like what does that look like? Yep, no, it's something we'll be working on over the next, you know, before July 1st, for sure. Make sure the department heads are well aware of what their process looks like. The other thing is that there's any catastrophic type capital needs. We'll go to what we would have gone to in the past, which would be, you know, going to town council immediately to figure out how to address that. So there are a couple of options we can use. To address something if it's really catastrophic. But again, we've already reached out to the department has to ask them if there's anything on their lists currently that they think is critical at this current moment. And we never heard anything back yet. Okay. Thanks. I think my biggest concern is that it's a relatively small number. And we know that all of our buildings are at end of life. And every single one of them is at the end of life. And I think that's one of the things that I think is really important. Is that it's a relatively small number. And we know that all of our buildings are at end of life and everything's good. As long as it's good, right? I mean, we just, we don't know when anything's going to happen. So my second question was, um, about, um, I don't know entirely, um, the cares act, what. Qualifies and this is kind of linked to the delay things that are being delayed. So for example, I'm thinking of, um, access to computer technology, whether it's, um, creating like curbside pickup at the libraries for laptops or whether it's the schools who supply laptops. Third grade and up, but K through two aren't currently supplied with laptops. And so I know the budget that we had was for 706. New Chromebooks that were replacement Chromebooks. And I know that that's being extended so that we can continue to use the ones, but we have a, we have a whole K through two group that don't currently have access to Chromebooks. So is that something that can be paid for under the cares act as an expense? Or is that something we need to be thinking about in terms of priorities under the capital budget? Since clearly it's a COVID directly related expense. Yeah. It's, it's possible. So I can send out the, um, there's a pretty nice guidance sheet on the cares act and the funding. Um, and the cares acts can be used on things much more broad than what FEMA can be used for. Um, and the thing I think we, uh, Paul can correct me if I'm wrong, we learned recently, is that the other good thing about the cares act money is it can be used as a match for FEMA money. So when you get FEMA money that covers 75%. Um, normally the, the jurisdiction has to come up with the other 25%. Um, we can use the cares act money as that 25% match, um, for the FEMA money. So the, but the, there's a pretty good list and descriptive list of what the cares act money can be used for. And it's pretty broad. Um, so we can, I believe that's without looking at it specifically in front of me, I believe, um, distance learning type things is an option. Um, the only thing I'll say is there, there are a lot of buckets of cares act money. Um, this 3.4 is the one that came to the town for sort of COVID related, you know, PPE and overtime expenses, things like that. Um, this has also gotten a separate, um, allocation. I don't know enough about that. You think I would, but I don't. Um, and, and there's other pots of money that have been given out to specific, um, health department or, um, there was one other one. And so I think the, during the webinar, I said there were 40 different pots of cares act money that were given out there for different things. Um, so the main thing is we just need to be aware of all those different pots of money and make sure we're using the money, you know, the type of funding that makes the most sense. Okay. And then the 62,000 from the Uber receipts, is that money that has to be used a certain way or have we just chosen to use it for downtown improvements? I don't know enough about that off to confirm with, um, uh, Sonya about that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't believe it's supposed to be used for. Things related to, um, The service itself. Okay. And then my last is just a correction on the spreadsheet. Um, under delayed cost. The it requests for library. It's actually 31,900, not 29,200. Okay. Yeah. Unless you guys, unless you, unless you made it a smaller amount. But if we did, I don't think it was intentional. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Peter, you were next. Thank you. Um, so, um, I'm a little confused, but I think I'm, I think I'm almost on board with, with process wise. So I have a process question and a comment. Um, so process wise with this capital reserve line that you're talking about, you're not looking for specific line item proposals from the department, from the various, um, department departments. Um, like we usually do, uh, for us to then review on a line item basis and say, okay, up to this amount. Um, And, and, and when you, when you showed that five year plan, I saw nothing for the schools. So I'm trying to square this with what we heard. Just last night, which is at the Amherst school committee, the superintendent showed us a line item capital proposal for FY 21, about a hundred thousand. Um, So when you say you've, you've talked to the department heads, have you talked with a superintendent since last night or like, how does that, can you just square those two things for me? Yeah. So I think your, your first question was, um, about how the reserve would work. Um, which I think, um, yeah. I mean, it would be available. It's not going to be for specific projects at this point. Again, it's because we don't know what that looks like for next year. Um, or what the operations look like for next year. Um, I have been in contact with the schools on their revised request. And, um, particularly with the business manager and facility director. Um, and basically we've got requests from all the departments. And so right now, all those are sort of in this holding delayed pattern. I haven't updated the delayed yet for their revised request. Um, but I've reached out to them about that. So same, just the schools would be in the same boat as everybody else where any of those revised requests, the, um, the computers, I think there was some vehicles. Um, and I know they had some COVID related expenditures, which I, um, updated them on that there, there could be a separate pot of money to pay for the COVID related expenditures. Um, they would be in the same boat as everybody else where they could, one of those individual items becomes critical or urgent that they could request these funds for that. And there is, um, there is a section that big plan for the schools, maybe I went through it quickly. Um, but there is a whole page on the schools that still has. The original March request and the delay, delay column for FY 21, and then has all their FY 22 and beyond. Okay. Um, so I guess the comment is, um, so this, uh, sort of two things. So one, at the Amherst level, we've only. Uh, seen the most recent proposal of what the superintendent facilities director or finance director considered to be. Our most urgent requests last night. So, um, myself and other members of the committee are still talking and providing feedback and input. We have next week to, um, to approve that request. Um, and, um, I, I, I don't think we can say right now that, that we'll definitely as of today or as of June 1st, have nothing to, to come forward with that we definitely know we'll need for like just one exact, I won't go through the list. I won't talk about walking freezers and whatnot, but just one example. Um, you know, we have a 70,000 for the Fort River roof. Um, I don't, I think everybody here understands the situation with the Fort River roof and what impact that can have. And that was 70, it was zero. Um, and just a couple of hours ago I was talking, I got some input from the facilities director that even another 10 or 20 on that line item could prevent an emergency kind of situation like we've had in the past where we have a sudden roof leak and we lose rooms and whatnot. And so when I, when I think about small, relatively speaking, right? Small items like that that might have huge impact that we're still having discussions as fast as we can. Um, and then, and then I look at the first thing on one of the slides where we have this pretty large item for sidewalks and roads that, that isn't touched all that much. And I understand it's a reduction, but, um, you know, I guess I'm just still in the throes of last night's capital presentation and the one from the region. We've brutalized our capital plans and we are really flying without a net on a number of things, not just the roof, you know, I won't, again, I don't want to go over 10 minutes, so I won't go for everything. But, um, I, I, I see, I see kind of an issue with, um, just saying, let's just propose nothing, put kind of a generic COVID capital project that people can then make petition for, because I think there goes, there's going to be some non-zero thing, um, that we're going to have to take care of. Mandy. Thank you. Um, Peter got to one of the things I was going to say. Um, I liked, but I'm going to comment since almost everyone else has, Alex's thought about how much of this capital could be claimed as potential COVID related expenses. Like if we need some Chromebooks and we were going to buy some to replace some there, if we really do need to buy them for K to two, maybe we don't assign them to the students we buy them there, and that can sort of at least cover a portion of what would normally be replaced in a capital year. Um, I think we need to start thinking creatively about things like that, that how much can we apply under, for under any of the COVID pots of money for capital. Um, it, especially if it remains very restricted to non-operating expenses, well, non-makeup of lost revenue. Um, certainly if it makes up lost revenue, our capital line might be looking different because we might not have to slash our budget as much. Um, but I'm concerned about the failure to do any equipment buys at all. We regularly have yearly requests for the replacement of police cars. Um, we had an ambulance on here this year at some point. We have PPE for our fire department where we replace their fire, um, proof suits on a regular schedule, and none of that is in here yet. We're pretty much keeping roads and sidewalks exactly the same, which is double the chapter 90 roads and sidewalks. If we zero those numbers out from cash capital, still get in theory around $800,000 of investment. Um, I get that maybe it's easier to say, well, we can keep that construction going, but we can buy a fire truck. Well, not a fire truck potentially, um, but an ambulance or a police cruiser or a dump truck in the middle of COVID for social distancing. It's a piece of equipment. Um, so I'm having a really hard time saying this is a capital plan. I can support and recommend the manager recommend to the town council because I don't think it's, um, something that, I mean, I know roads and sidewalks are important, but they're still getting chapter 90 is not going to go down to zero on Monday night. We heard from representative Don that they're going to try and keep the chapter 90 money and the chapter 70 money as close to even as possible. Um, if that's the case, we'd be cutting our roads and sidewalk in half, but if we don't do that, we're cutting everything else out. And I don't know, I look at too many of these capital equipments and I say that 300,000 is not enough for when two cruisers go and the Fort River roof goes. And if we have students back in the school, the, the HVAC chiller goes, we can't cover it all. And to say we'll take that out of borrowing and reserves in order to keep roads and sidewalks at a million a year. I, I don't think that's something I can support at this point. Carrie, you have another comment. Yeah. Um, I would like to echo both what what Peter and Mandy Jojo said. I think the, the thing I'd like to share is that last night we had a school committee meeting and it's very clear and we've received even today new guidance from the CDC that the classrooms are not going to look like they have in the past. And the social distancing that's going to be required to give people confidence in sending their kids back to our schools. I don't see a way it's going to happen without some necessary capital investment. And so this capital plan that we came up with was pre COVID. And so all of those needs were there and now we're going to have additional COVID related needs. And so it just, it makes me really anxious to like Peter mentioned the roof there and we could go through a lot of other things on, on here that have been delayed. And the other thing I want to point out is that I don't see fiscal year 22 being better. So if we're postponing things like fixing the roof, which we know is likely, if it doesn't fail this year, it will fail next year. And unfortunately the school building project, we're not going to get a new school in that timeframe. So to give the public the confidence to reopen our schools, I think we need to be willing to make that capital investment. And if we, because so many people rely on our schools for childcare and, and to the ability to work, I think it, it's also tied into our ability to, you know, raise revenue and have folks, you know, go back to as much as normal as, as, as it's possible in the next year or year and a half or so. I don't see other, Alex has her hand up again. I also have a couple of comments, but go ahead Alex, Alex in the same vein. Sure. So I also want to echo Mandy Jo's concern that definitely struck me. I know that roads and sidewalks have been a priority and I understand that. And I can say honestly that I don't have a feel from the public of where their priorities would be relative to roads and sidewalks. So anything I would say would be sort of my own feeling. And so I would be curious to hear the, the logic behind it. And then also, Sean, you had mentioned about if money was freed up either through unspent funds being sent back, or if we were to have additional funds that came in, we might look at some of the items on the delayed list. So does that mean we need to prioritize the delayed list so that we can determine how that extra money is spent or what's the expectation around, you know, the sort of delayed money? Yeah, I think your input would be helpful. I mean, we'll obviously have to work with department heads to kind of identify where needs are, if there's new money that becomes available, but I think your input on where your perspectives are would be helpful. Another thing I'll just point out, I don't disagree with anything anybody said. Another thing I'll just point out is that, you know, some of these departments still have projects and priorities that they can continue to work on. There's still capital articles from 19 and 20 that still can be, you know, I think it was well documented that there was a little bit of a backlog in getting some of these projects done. While this is not ideal, this year does allow the departments to kind of catch up on some of those projects that were behind. So it's just another thing to keep in mind. Again, it's very specific to each department, but it's just another thing to keep in mind. And that actually is a nice segue into one of the comments or questions I had when we when we met in March, we asked about any unspent funds in capital items that have been appropriated and we got some input from the schools, but we didn't ask townwide. So are there not yet spent funds for road repairs for others that could be happening? I know, for example, that we appropriated money for a study for East pleasant sidewalk, but there are a series of lines that equipment that was budgeted for is sitting there but not purchased. So can we can we easily, I think Sonya has an accounting of those looking across townwide. So how much is sitting out there? Not just savings because we've had lower costs, but for a variety of reasons things didn't happen. That's just a basic question I'm getting. Is it a few hundred thousand dollars? Is it five hundred thousand dollars? How much and where is it? So that was one question I had and a request to try to get that accounting. And then on COVID when I look forward, it's echoing what others have said is how can we define how much can we stretch that? The schools have high back systems that have been put on delay. And I listened to the discussion at the regional school where Kerry raised the point that air quality is going to be particularly critical when kids come back into the school. So if they are being held together by Band-Aids and we're judging the risk of failure to not be a hundred percent, something less than that, could you classify something like that as a COVID expenditure to make it safe for kids to come back to school? And there are a couple of those items. So it's what could fit under keeping circulation, removing dust, can those fit? And if we're bringing in hand sanitizers, new wash stations in the high school because they only had bathrooms and they talked about a particular line item for that. So I think getting some better sense of not just from what the text of the law looks like, but do we think that people are going to be able to stretch that? And are we suddenly well beyond the three million we're looking at? If we start adding all of those up so we can't grandly think that this is a pot of money that can be. So that's a question. And my last question until Andy had asked it. Does the delayed column mean if I don't see it in the FY 22, does that mean it's not anywhere? Yeah, so the delayed column. The delayed column hasn't, it's just, it was everything in FY 21 moved over again because we haven't had time to either re-slot it in a future year or it's something that still may be done in FY 21. So it's in a delayed column. It's just what was in FY 21 before it moved over. It hasn't been repositioned anywhere. So it's in FY 22. If there's an exact match to it. No, it's not even, it's not even in FY 22. If there's an exact match because that's the way I was reading it. Some things you're, because FY 22, you have a pretty high expenditure level on your summary tables for FY 22. Right. Yeah. You may remember even before all of this happened. The five year plan, we needed to do some work to balance the five year plan. Even when we got to the 10% funding goal, we still had a deficit in FY 21 or short, or a shortfall in FY 21 in terms of covering all of the requests. And then we had a bigger gap in FY 22. And then the out years got a little bit better where we might be able to move things around to, to even it out. So we had some work to do even before this happened. So everything got a little bit worse because of this. Okay, so just so to make sure I, when I'm looking at your summary slides, FY 22 projected had a $2.7 million deficit in it. That did not include the delayed expenditures is what I'm hearing. No, we have that. That's what was there before. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Tamsen's got our hand up. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. I'd like to echo what Mandy said. Yeah. Yeah. About some of the, the concerns with police and fire and some of the other capital requests, especially in the schools, I'd like to know the rationale behind putting all the. Money towards the roads. Just because. How did you arrive at this? Yeah, so. I'm just going to say that we have a lot of questions around. We could throw $2 million at this every year for the next 10 years. And we're still going to be behind in terms of roads. And I believe the roads were just described by counselors in the past as, you know, a fifth major project that we have to achieve. So, so roads has been sort of. Front and center for a while. We've heard a lot about it. And so that's one piece. And another piece was. For all the requests that we had, I think it's really hard right now to determine the best way to allocate the money that we have. I agree with you. The 300,000 is small, but it's very difficult to say, you know, the request from the schools is more important than the fire department. The request in the fire department is more important than the police department or so, so on. And partially the reason why is because we don't know what things are going to look like. If the college doesn't come back on. There's a different dynamic out there in terms of the capital needs of school doesn't come back in the fall. So, you know, I think it's a little bit different. Same thing. It could be a little bit different. So I. Again, one of the. Things I was mentioned here is we plan to revisit this in the fall, just like we would revisit the operating budget. And, and see what operations look like at that point in time. And also again, if there's new revenue sources available at that point. Do we, Sean. Can we get a better sense from DPW. If we go to lower on roads and sidewalks. What won't get done. I mean, I know we've. We've been talking about this for a long time. We've been talking about this for a long time. We've been talking about this a couple of times at the council level of the finance committee saying, is there a priority list? And we've been told the priority list. There is one, but it changes all the time. You know, and what's roads next, what project is next? Cause I think. Some sense of. What we're defining as urgent. For a year with a restricted budget. Would be something useful to get. You know, your favorite road. You know, and I have some questions about out years later, but I just want to stay, I think we should stay focused on what's being proposed for the next 12 months. Peter and then Andy, both. I'll just do Peter first, then Andy. Yeah, I'll try to make as quick as I can. So I know you're getting a lot of heat for this, you guys, but this is, you know, it's, it's what we have to do. I guess I want to hear that that line item has been scrubbed in brutalized as much as we've tried to scrub and brutalize our own capital proposals. The thing with the, I wanted to correct myself on a figure I mentioned earlier, I said that we had a capital request presented to us last night that was for about 100,000 from the Emmer schools. It's actually 220. And includes things like that plow from 2003. And doesn't include any money for the Fort River. And we have a meeting scheduled for Monday where we're going to have to vote this, right? And so the school committee on Monday is going to have some sort of formal proposal request to the town council. No, I'm assuming that that's going to get updated between now and the next six days. So, and, and, and that's what, what the way it was presented to us is that these are already urgent needs that have to be done. After they cut 500,000 from, from the original FY 21 capital proposal, right? And so maybe that can be cut down more, but there's going to be things like either pro actor roof, roof repair or vehicle purchase that isn't going to be a, come back to us when it emerges kind of thing that we're just going to have to decide on pretty quickly. So thanks. Andy. So, well, one thing is to just just follow up on one thing Peter said to make sure it's clarified, but then really to go to the point I was going to make the submission that's due June 1st is actually to the town manager, not to the council, because the town manager, the next step is the town manager proposes to the town manager. And so we're going to have to, we're going to have to, we're going to have to, we're going to have to, you know, the town manager, the next step is the town manager proposes a budget to the council and he needs to get those recommendations to incorporate. The point that I was going to make though is I, for a while, have been thinking about today's meeting and wondering to what extent today's meeting ought to be about trying to establish a little better understanding of the criteria that would be used for the cash capital that has to be invested in the coming year, whether the decision can be made right away or not. So a little bit more about what it is that we really think are the types of things that would have to be available for funding for the crisis reasons that were stated and then use those criteria to just double check to make sure that we have enough money available. It seems like the cash reserves was kind of a number pulled out after prioritizing roads and sidewalks as opposed to being developed and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed that way being developed in relation to, we've looked at what are the things that might come up and this is what we think is going to be sufficient to cover it. Yeah, I'll just reiterate that we did reach out to departments to find out what critical needs they anticipated this point in time from their existing request and we haven't received anything back yet. And did you give them criteria? Yeah, we said critical and urgent needs for their departments. I mean, so one thing we can work on, what I'm hearing is we could try to define that more, but that's how we framed it. Alex? So you reach out to departments you haven't heard back meaning they don't have anything or meaning they just haven't responded? Well, I think in some cases they haven't responded in some cases they don't have anything. But we did give them a, you know, I think they're aware of our timelines and our calendar. I just, I don't know what the, like I'm, I'm not even sure what we're supposed to come to agreement on today. I mean, I don't, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I feel like town is prioritizing roads and sidewalks, which I could make an argument, right? Walkability is going to be really important, right? When we're social distancing, you want the roads good for bicycles, you know, whatever. But I, like it, I feel like, I feel like there are so many unknowns that we're being asked to sign off on roads and sidewalks being a priority. And here's the leftover money into, you know, a bucket to deal with when we can based on, we don't know. And like I, like I just personally don't feel like it's a plan per se. And I'm not in any way criticizing because there's so little information and there's, everything's up in the air. I just, I'm, guess I'm just trying to wrap my brain around. What, what, what, what should we be doing? What are we doing today? Like what's our point? I mean, even the five year plan, the numbers aren't plugged in and we don't know the numbers. So I don't even know how we articulate around a five year plan. I guess I just, I mean, I don't know whether it's just too premature for us to do anything other than say, Hey, maybe rethink that roads and sidewalk and beyond that, and maybe come up with, you know, some criteria so people understand how to access that fund. But beyond that, I guess I'm just struggling to know what benefit I can really provide today. Yeah, I think our thing everybody said is helpful. I think one of the things we're looking for is feedback on your priorities. I think one thing that's come across loud and clear is that the roads and sidewalks is not the highest priority. So it's definitely something we're going to read, you know, relook at that being said. Again, I think your point about there's so many unknowns and trying to pick specific projects right now is going to be a challenge. Because what we don't want to do is say a project right now is really important and fund that. And then something that we don't can't cover becomes really important next year. So we're going to have to kind of walk that line in between. But no, I think your input on the roads and sidewalks is very important. If you have other thoughts on criteria for if we do shift more money to the reserve side of this or on specific projects, we welcome that as well. Again, this is your chance to give us input on this. This was, again, we have a very condensed timeline for getting this capital plan together. It's got all the same unknowns as the operating budget and in a lot of cases, the operating budget will impact this. And so we haven't done a five year or a projection of FY 22 yet for the operating budget, which will impact what funds are available for capital as well. So those things kind of go hand in hand and we'll be working on them in the coming weeks. I guess I would just say, I mean, that like, this is my, I don't know, fourth year on JCPC. And I feel like, again, I mean, I know that what this is in transition, but I feel like of the years that I've served, I have the least amount of information from department heads about what their priorities are. So I don't even know how to help you prioritize other than to say the bigger the bucket for critical needs and the more people know how to ask for it, the better. But I, I don't feel like I have enough information to prioritize because this year was just very condensed. Again, not through anyone, fault of anyone, just, that's just how I feel. Okay. I see both Carrie and Andy had their hand up again, and then I would like to say something to Carrie. So I just wanted to clarify that as Peter said last night, we, we did receive from the superintendent and the director of, I'm at beginning style, but from Dr. Slaughter, their priorities for the capital plan. So I guess my question is I'm a little concerned about why these weren't communicated to the committee or to, to the town manager and, and, and Sean, Sean, could you clarify when the, when the deadline you gave folks to get back to you was just because it seems like it's such an important thing. We need to make sure we did have over $200,000 worth of items that we identified as being necessary. And that would take it up over, you know, two thirds of what's been put aside for urgent needs. So could you just clarify that? Yeah, no, I mean, so the school request, they gave us a revised school request and, you know, that along with all the other requests that have been submitted for the overall plan have kind of gone into that sort of holding column. You know, the school specifically, you know, COVID was one of their big chunk of the request. And again, we're going to be trying to fulfill that from a different funding source going forward. I think a plow truck was one of one part of the request. And that's again, so I think we need to have more conversations around vehicles. I know it's come up in the past and how town and school share vehicles. So that one, I think just needed more conversation. And there's something about there. I think there's somebody for computers, which again, I think we need to look at, is there something from the CARES Act that can potentially help with that? So I think again, that's why that specific request hasn't shown up here is because I think we still need to talk through that more. And, you know, we can, we can, you know, probe department heads a little bit more and go back to them again and see, you know, you know, we can share the thoughts that we've heard from all of you today and see if anything new pops up. I think we need to, you know, some more direction on how to allocate the capital reserve money. Yeah. I think what I have been hearing was not that we don't think that roads should be the highest priority, but the question is how is the amount of money determined for roads and whether too much was put into roads and not enough was put into a discretionary piece that could then be used during the year for critical and urgent needs as they are identified. And they may be identified right at the beginning of the year or as year goes on, because this was pointed out earlier, if something happens to the roof of an elementary school or to an HVAC system that causes failure, that there may be a need to access funds for that. And I think that at this point, I would say that there's a lot of skepticism as to whether the 300,000 is enough to cover those kinds of immediately identified or identified during the year needs. And that's kind of how it's being put forward. And that's what I think the discomfort you're hearing. Mandy. Yeah, I think I agree with Andy. I mean, I'm looking at one of the things that Alex mentioned is we we got some information from schools and libraries about urgent needs and all of that in terms of what's on this list, but we never got the town presentation on why these things are on this list, which makes it hard for us to sort of say what's urgent or not. But I look at some of this stuff and in car video systems, police patrol bicycles, they say two per year and nothing's in any of them. So I don't know, but, you know, we know generally every year we replace cruisers. And so when you go to the police department and say what's a critical need, we try to replace them ahead of when they're totally falling apart. And they may respond back. Well, it's not critical until it is critical because the cars go down and they are beyond their useful life. And we don't know that now. We can guess maybe that those cars would be able to survive a year. But we then be facing potentially next year. We're a year behind in all of those scheduled replacements for all of that stuff. We're not even just like a half a year behind because we replaced half of it. We're a year behind and some of that year behind for protective gear for the fire department, radios for the fire department, police cruisers does really concern me that this plan, given how little is in the critical needs section puts all of our scheduled replacements to keep our public safety departments in particular, but, you know, our workers with computer equipment and all of that stuff. And we're looking at, you know, operating at near full scale without having to incur massive maintenance costs, especially for vehicles, massive maintenance. And I haven't really heard a plan for how that would be dealt with in the out years, even would we be looking at, if we don't replace any cruisers this year going back to our, I think it's three, three, four, or maybe it's two, or are we, or are we looking at double the number of cruisers next year? And so it's hard for me to, to, as I said, support so much into roads and sidewalks. When I look at 300,000 and say it just doesn't seem like enough to even last for what could be critical needs when a potential critical need could take up half of that with a failure of an ambulance, say, I mean, if our ambulance was on here for 355,000, if our ambulance completely breaks down, we're going to have to go serve for it. And I just, I want to build on a statement Andy made. And then Alex has her hand up. I don't think we were saying roads are a priority. As Andy said, it's right now if you look at the review of the updated capital request visually, it looks like roads are the only priority. And so I think, you know, roads and sidewalks is another way of looking at that picture because they swamp everything and the everything else is in the 300,000. So I think some building up of critical. Across the other towns is what everyone is asking for with, I mean, maybe just on Mandy asking, maybe the police would say, we can go to a different schedule here safely. But it's just not the same. So I think it's going to be a little bit more of a reassurance that skipping the year. Next year. They'll be fine. They won't be behind by some amount. So, so that kind of, um, in writing or through Paul information. And then if roads and sidewalks went down by some amount. And the capital. The emergency reserve went up by some amount. because I'm a little worried without a process, which is one of the first questions, you know, it's first come, first serve or we all come and favorite children or, you know, what would be Andy's criteria for the most critical, the most urgent, clearly are going to have to really apply to the allocation of a non-line item capital reserve fund. So it's just it's about the question on do we have the beginning of what that would look like, but if we went larger do we have what do we know what we're giving up on roads and sidewalks? I think Paul is trying to answer some of these so and then I see Alice to Paul. Okay, so I want to put this in a bit of context, a big context. So Sean's been here eight days. So he's bearing the brunt of this. This is not his product. So first saying that when we started talking about this, we were first trying to figure out how are we going to figure out our budget. We couldn't even figure out our operating budget for FY 21. That's why we're doing a one month budget and then the rest of the fiscal year. We balance that budget by taking a lot of 5% out of by having the amount of money we're putting into our capital. So until we know what our capital number is, which we just figured out a little while ago, we don't really know what is our menu of things. The directive to the department heads was what do you absolutely need? Can that cruise or last another year? Maybe, maybe not, but we can make it try to make it work. That was the kind of attitude I gave to our department heads to say, I know the schedule. We all know what the schedule is, but can you get another year? This is a really critical time of the budget season. So I'm not arguing back with anybody saying, well, if we delay it a year, it might be a problem down the road. Absolutely. There's not a question about that. But the challenge for us is how do we lower the budget? This is really positive feedback for us to understand that, as Sean said, my directive from coming in when I got hired throughout this entire process has been roads and sidewalks. How many times have I heard it? Fix my traffic, fix this bridge, do that. It was always the thing. No one ever talked about PPE before. But this is helpful. If you give us guidance to say, why don't you flip that, that's helpful information for us and we can work with that. The second point is we're not really going to have the capacity and very relatively short time frame to really go through the capital stuff. And that's why we said put it into a box. In the fall, we can look at this in a more comprehensive way when we really have a better sense of where our finances are. So we're not saying don't spend the money on capital, but we're saying we don't really know where a lot of things are going to be. If the university isn't in session, we don't need all those ambulances, folks. So it's like there's a lot of things out there that are in flux. And in the third, in all the COVID related expenses, there is money. If anybody says, because of COVID we have to, that is going to be a COVID related expense. We're coding everything that comes into the town, no matter what, even if it's legal fees as COVID related, because we intend to get reimbursed through FEMA for it or through the CARES Act. There's money available for that type of activity. So we need to make sure we separate and don't confuse this capital plan with what is required that we are going to be getting money for or fighting for money for through the CARES Act or through FEMA reimbursement. So a lot of the things that have to happen at the schools, there's different pots of money, again, for all these different things, we have to, whatever it is, I can get into details. So I find this meeting really, I know you're all frustrated, but to me it's been really helpful to hear that roads and bridges aren't as high a priority, and that we want a more balanced plan, and we can work with that. So thank you. Alex. Thanks, Paul. I appreciate the explanation. I think that's the part we were hoping is that somebody said, yeah, we'll make it work. We just don't know that part. But just from a procedural question, we normally wouldn't meet in the fall. Is there an expectation when we know more in the fall that this group would reconvene? Do you have any thoughts around procedure relative to that? Yeah, I mean, I would think that, so what we would hope would happen, I'm frozen, are people hearing me? Yeah, I can hear you. My computer's not working so well right now, is that we would actually allocate, appropriate this money, and then we would have to come back to the town council for an appropriation for specific things within that box. That's how you're thinking about Sean, right? Is Sean still on audio? Yeah, no, that's all right. Yes, that's all right. So it's not just a free box of money, it's money that the council would say, here's capital requests. We don't know what we're going to spend it on. We think we should allocate it to capital. Bring to us your proposals in the fall when you're more clear on what is going to happen. And part of that is because we need more clarity, but also part of it is just workload for our staff to put together the proposals that are going to change over time. Peter? Yeah, just a couple comments. So circling back to something Alex asked, which is, what are we all doing here? The existential crisis of PCPC. I think the notion of should we focus or advise or comment on a five-year out plan? My personal feeling is we should completely shelve that right now. I don't mean we shouldn't think long term. I don't mean we shouldn't talk about big picture of projects in general in the town. But I think for this group, I think if we try to get a detailed plan for FY22 and 23, it's too much. It's too much for the small amount of time that we have available and the multiple parallel threads that we're trying to run here right now. That's just one comment there. As far as criteria, I think Andy's point about getting as specific as we can, even though we can't completely quantify it to department heads is good. The kind of concept I come back to, and this is just having been based on my reaction to the last two, the region and the Amherst district capital proposals is, if you look at it and it doesn't feel too bad, then you're not cutting hard enough. So roads and sidewalks, I have no idea exactly what that current proposal or what your next proposal would actually mean when it comes down to details about service level. I'd rely on you and the rest of the town for that. But I think we all need to approach it as if it's not really painful, if you're not really hesitant to propose it and you're not getting a lot of complaints about it, then it needs to go lower. That's sort of like how we've been thinking through the school proposals. Because these meetings are happening rapid fire, and I don't want to get into a situation where the school committee votes on something that now the town council feels like we've made this statement, but it's not in line. If you and when I say you, I mean Paul and Sean, could just be in pretty fluid touch with the school leaders, superintendent finance director, facilities director about these things, so that when they ask us to vote on something next Monday, it's as in line with and as informed by this discussion as possible. Thanks. I want to build on Alex's question on would we or should we be beating in the fall and then combine with Peters, can we focus just on the coming year rather than five years? Because I think any kind of report coming out of this group recommendations, if you look at 22, 23, 24, 25, I had a lot of questions on line items there on given what were the slash and burn of this year and what we're likely to face next year, both in can we allocate 10% next year? Well, we don't know whether we can, right? Because of what our operating budget is going to need. And if the revenues come back, maybe yes. But if we're at something less than 10, substantially less than 10, some of the big ticket items and I confirmed with Sean, I mean, it's a question you asked Peter last March, so big buildings aren't on this. You know, in terms of the draw of, you know, if we take on new debt for a school, a library, the community fields, that's not even on this list. So thinking in terms of 22, 23, 24 and 25, that time horizon is very important to be thinking about all this. So I'm just wondering, I mean, the guidance came out of the council that we wanted a five year look. And I was one of the voices as the Kibbutz or last year on JCCC that capital plans didn't look like plans to me if they had $3 million deficits them in the year after the first year. It didn't look like a plan. I mean, it was, you know, here's a wish list but it's not a plan. So I'm just wondering your question on whether out of here could be something much more focused because we're in this type of year. And would that mean we want to come back earlier than we normally do late fall to take another look at 22, 23, 24, 24, you know, when we have a better sense of what 21 looks like. So it's a question for all of us but also, I mean, both Mandy and Andy are on the council and but Andy's on finance where we asked for the five years. So interactive with all of this because I had questions on these out years, do we really want to show some of these line items given what we're doing to 21 and 22? Yeah. Andy has his hand up. Yeah, so also I was going to add to that is that the charter requires a five-year plan and I don't think that we can use that language in that's later in the same section Mandy to make an exception but that's possible but in any event it is a charter requirement and it is good planning to at least think about it. We just don't have the wavelength to give the attention immediately to that issue but we should be thinking about the long range which is why I was concerned about having all these things we weren't funding this year just put into a column that wasn't then in the five-year plan because it didn't seem to be compliant with the charter vision either. So not going to solve it tonight because I think we've exhausted ourselves tonight but at some point we've got to get back and think about the question of what the charter requires us to do and make sure we get there. Is the emergency provision that's also in the charter which can't waive a state law? I'm just asking because I think putting out and Paul's the one who has to put out the capital plan and you're due to put that out on June I looked at the date whatever that is is late in June but an out-year plan that's unbalanced or has large ticket items in it when we've foregone some stuff you know I mean a lot of work would have to happen between now and that to have it have some credibility and meaning. I'm not saying that it's impossible but you know what your workload is like between getting to a one-month budget and a 12-month budget on these other things so it's just a question because I have as hard as it is to deal with this year looking forward to these other years when I went to the detailed columns I had questions on many of the line items on do we absolutely have to put this in and if that wasn't in then I get nearer to a balance in that year if the revenues were back up to the 10 percent of general revenues. So it's a question on how we write a report and how Pohl gives a capital plan. Those are just recommendations to the town manager. I mean I shouldn't say just but Mandy. Yeah we've already delayed the submission of the capital improvement plan from Paul to the council by approximately two months right because I think it was originally supposed to be submitted by May 1 and now we're down to July 1. The charter I can't speak because I don't know MGL. I'm not sure MGL requires the submission of an actual capital improvement plan or capital plan so that's a charter requirement so I would guess that the charter 5-9 that we allowed that we used to delay that submission to the council by two months could probably be voted for another delay if we wanted if the manager decided in terms of that the capital improvement plan if we is not set enough to be able to submit to the council he could probably request another extension that if this committee supported or you know put out support for the council might go for it because I think when we vote a budget and I'm sure Andy and Paul and Sean can correct me if I'm wrong we've changed from voting really specific line item budgets on everything to voting essentially bottom line budgets a bottom line budget on schools library and pretty much general government everything else and a bottom line budget on capital in addition to the capital improvement plan and given the proposal that we're seeing here that had essentially one general capital number and then a couple more specifics in terms of the line item maybe it's time for us to think about for the budget season voting a bottom line capital number especially if Paul and Sean intend for when those line items come through for that general number that's now sitting at 300 but by next week might be a different number given our feedback if they're going to get voted separately in September anyway maybe we think about voting or recommending that the council vote a simple bottom line of whatever that is 1.206 or whatever it is million without any line items to with a maybe specific vote of to be you know line item doubt later that would allow us time as JCPC to really deal with in the fall a little more information as to where revenues are what can be covered by potentially CARES Act grants and to move some of these delayed items into FY 22 if we think they can be delayed and try and work on a little bit more balancing of a five-year plan are there any reactions to Mandy's suggestion Peter Paul Peter Paul it's it's an interesting idea I hadn't thought about that I mean we sort of had proposed something like that by doing the one item line item for for the 300,000 and I think what you're saying is reserve everything for capital but just not allocate it I mean they're they're the reason we put roads forward because there was some time sense of civility to be able to use that during the construction season which would be gone be you know that those funds would become available July 1 and will allow us to sign contracts to move some of those projects forward this summer we know that the road construction projects can move forward because they were outside there were no when we start started talking about this there were no issues with you know this is other things were more constricted under the COVID issues but I just want to think about that that's it's an interesting idea anything off the top of your head Sean on that you're muted well I think one thing we're gonna go that route we could work with Guilford to find out how much of that money he would need for July and get that maybe bring that for approval first not and then obviously be a much smaller number than what was put forward and we could go back right right now the the sixth chart you had in terms of what adds up to the 1.4 million which you know and then as and then if you also add the 847 841 the other money the state aid roads and sidewalks are more than 50 draw on the tax supported piece if you add the 841 that's chapter 90 and the 63 you know even if we had something that said 50% of this total dollar amount would be roads and sidewalks and the rest would be I mean if we can get at least 50% you know so if if we can get some sense where how far does 841 of chapter 90 get us plus the 63 plus some part of the rest of this so that it's just I think what we're asking is the same level of scrutiny of what's on his to-do list um and yeah Paul yeah just I I don't think you can really count chapter 90 there's no clarity they say it will be signed but it has not moved one inch out of their out of the senate committee and I don't see the legislature moving anytime so you can't count on that for this I don't think you can count on it for this road season so I think it's not really you can't I think that's another funding source we should be looking at our funding sources when you're looking at this so I'll just stay by my statement it's 1.1 million out of 1.4 million on our the money that we think we've got to allocate so that's the question of and it's the only named item so Mandy's suggestion is to go to no named item and talk about it all reserved there might be an in-between point that could do up to or as much as or something so you wouldn't have all the people who have roads and sidewalks at the top of the list thinking that means nothing for roads and sidewalks I you know I don't know what the right um optics are for how this gets expressed Peter yeah um just like general reaction to Mandy's kick the can down the road plan um like I think it could be workable I don't mean it's disparaging I mean kick the I mean kick the can down in the most respectful tone possible um I think it does make a lot of sense in some respects because they're you know we don't want to pay for certain line items that could potentially get taken care of by other free money that's coming in right so that like we don't want just just in order to rush and say we did it we had a plan um the the timing challenge and and this Sean I think is something that you probably pretty quickly have to try and work out with the department heads is because what are the timing requirements like what are the cans that can't be kept so for example the schools the schools kids go back the first week of September right um and um and if we're going to plan uh in a major way for that when the COVID environment we're pretty quickly and I mean like next month we're going to have going to go from we don't know there's lots of possibilities to we have detailed CDC guidance here's all the stuff we have to have in place right so the school has a number of cans that you could kick a few weeks but you can't be in September talking about should we repair the Fort River roof or um you know should we um you know set up a plexiglass dividers and in the open classrooms that kind of thing um you know that being said you know you could maybe splice off some of that stuff maybe you don't buy maybe you don't replace the 2003 plow um until you absolutely have to maybe you run that risk um and and you know that's something that's a really high priority but maybe that's something that could that could be kicked and so in addition to asking the department heads what's super critical ask you you know you get a sense of the timing of like well if you don't decide on it by you know July 1st then you're just not doing it um unfortunately I think just because the the school season the the schools are going to have a fair number of those but um you know it's certainly a question you can ask. Mandy has her hand up again. I just have a process question as it relates to the CARES stuff as Peter was talking you know some of the stuff that might need spent between now and September to get the kids back in school as we've identified could probably be paid for by CARES Act money. Do we have to get that granted first before we buy it or are we pulling it out of sort of our cash capital and then assuming reimbursement into cash capital like how is that going to work you know so that you know the schools are going to have to buy plexiglass dividers for a whole bunch of things probably and maybe a lot more safety cones or or who knows what right um just to get the kids back in school um is that coming out of our cash capital now and then seeking reimbursement from CARES over the next couple months how long might that take and then does that go back into capital for sort of repurposing for non-covid related expenses in capital? So I'll confirm with Sony but we've set up separate funds for CARES Act type expenses and FEMA expenses and so as we incur expenses they get charged there and then we would seek reimbursement for those so again there's going to be there's two rounds of reimbursement one for FY 20 for things that have already been incurred and that just that the application window just opened up for that but we can also request things we anticipate to incur before June 30th so we can kind of do both at the same time and then another window is going to open up for FY 21 or we can request what we anticipate for FY 21 through December so so so from an accounting perspective it's not like coming out of capital funds first and then being being made available again we're identifying those costs now. I guess my follow-up would be what does that look like when the council votes the budget if we're anticipating spending that money and so one of the requirements for most part of these are unbudgeted expenditures in order to even qualify for COVID it's got to be something that wasn't budgeted as of March for this year it has to be something that wasn't budgeted as of I think it was March 27th or something like that maybe a little earlier so yeah there so you wouldn't budget it for next year because if you budget it then it would be tough to get reimbursement for it. So we're not budgeting essentially we're not budgeting for anything school related to get the kids back in school that we think could be reimbursed by CARES Act. I mean we'll have to talk about it but I don't think at this point we would budget for it in the general fund we would plan for it as a reimbursement expense from the CARES Act. Okay thanks for that clarification. Any other I'm looking at the hands up any other Paul you had your hand up I think before we float into this conversation or maybe not. Yeah again just what Mandy said if it's a if it's COVID related expense plexiglass which is now if you had invested in plexiglass a little while ago then it's a CARES it can be reimbursed to CARES Act or one of those pots that the school department the schools have different pots we have different pots everybody's got pots of money to draw from for this specific thing and Sean is exactly right it's unbudgeted you can't say oh I meant to pay this the one thing that we this the unknown it's still and that's it this is happening in Washington is whether we can use this to replace lost revenue we have significant lost revenue and a lot of the you know cities and towns and states are seeking to use some of the funds coming from the federal government to replace lost revenue they have not given us permission to do that so it all at this point has to all be new expenditures so it depends what Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell decide up there I guess. So I guess I need a sense of our committee members on where we are and including do should we schedule a follow-up meeting for a week from now where Paul and Sean and staff can get back with a revision of the revision with some additional information on the critical criteria I guess I think we did critical urgent and also the timing that we need to know now because we're going to have to do it in June July or August it's not a you can tell us in November so that's one question and are we if we're talking about um high level numbers Mandy you know rather than line items are we also talking about that for the four years the five years worth that we think there'll be this much money for capital and not going into the detail for those or we mainly focus just on this year because it's so that's question two and then question three is this committee has not normally met in the fall would we want to as the picture becomes clearer to at least address the multi-year side of this or are we going to assume that's just being taking care of someplace else so meet next week yes or no you know are we going to go of a focused route because we have the time you know our our report is due to Paul on June 1st so and then he has to put together the capital plan which has the multi-year side of it but he needs he needs at least some guidance or recommendations from us on what we think he can reasonably do yeah Paul I know this is advisory to me but my advice to you it would be helpful if you did if you would be able to provide time to meet next week so we could come back based on this feedback which is very valuable and give you a different scenario and think about a little bit more what Mandy Joe had talked about so I think have a follow-up meeting for next Wednesday would be useful does that work for everyone next Wednesday at the same time the 530 slot yes it looks like thumbs up heads are nodding yeah okay okay so we will schedule that and we'll leave it with an agenda that says follow follow up with information to come and Tamsen Ellie I promise that when I put your email in I'll do it correctly so you to the extent we get the materials in advance you will get them at the same time everyone gets them just so everyone knows the staff has been really good at immediately posting them in a packet so if you you can go back and if you can't find the email with all these attachments it's on the JCPC website under packets with the the meeting date so if the materials are there including the meeting we never had that had all the trucks and vehicles on it okay so I think we'll do that and then we'll figure out um I you know I I will volunteer to draft something and I know Alex you helped Andy last year on the draft of the report and we can do something if you're willing if we get to some more clarity next week we can send the draft out pretty quickly and just get people's feedback on it to meet this June 1st deadline yet Paul I think you might have a district meeting next Wednesday oh I do thank you I'm the only one who has a conflict you know so our our district meeting is at six um yes Paul that was from that wasn't from me that was from Lynn yeah no that's from Lynn so it um yeah we're we're I think we're scheduled from six to seven fifteen so seven thirty would be feasible or earlier than five thirty would well Kerry you can't do that right because you work um I don't know about Tuesday or Thursday evenings at this time slot last this week it conflicted with the school committee meeting so we couldn't do Tuesday night but Tuesday's open for me next Tuesday we also have a school committee meeting okay so no not Tuesday Thursday potentially Thursday would conflict with two district meetings but the other two counselors on this call while we would like to go are not we're at large so they are not technically our district meetings so well clearly I'm the one with the conflict next week and I can't I can't move it um so we're scheduled to start at six so we could either we could start this meeting yeah go on start this meeting at seven with our vice chair chairing it for the first 15 minutes till you can pop over Kathy that sounds fine to me would that work for people that works for me and I you know since we'll get the materials in advance I think that'll be that's fine yeah okay so we'll schedule it for seven next Wednesday and then Alex Alex it will be very important that we make sure you get the zoom log in so so I I guess I want to you know um Peter's got his hand up so before we do any closing remarks but Peter you have your hand up yeah yeah I just want to really quickly answer the you have three questions there um yes I do think we should meet in the fall um okay for all the reasons that you mentioned and on a related note to answer your other question I think as much as possible at least this body right now shouldn't pay too much attention and you I don't think you should spend a lot of mental clicks trying to cast some projection on the on the five-year plan um saying five year plans aren't good or required by the charter but I think as much as possible for us to focus on this year I think would be best okay any other closing comments before we turn to inspire thoughts next Wednesday um okay I think we um I guess I'm supposed to entertain a motion to adjourn and do we have a motion to oh Sean pardon oh minutes okay so here minutes I think um at least I'm pretty tired we posted minutes I sent you the minutes from the march 11th meeting we've also posted them from the other two meetings because we've never gone over them my suggestion on minutes would be and this is a suggestion it's something we use on finance is you all take a look at them send any changes comments just to me and you could authorize me to finalize the minutes these were all taken by our minute takers um and I made some editing changes so far mainly on people's names that weren't spelled correctly or they had they still had Eric Nakajima on the committee so you know just making sure the list of who's on the committee and not absent um so if people were willing to do that and there's three sets of minutes then um and you send them to me then we can just do a quick kind of consent agenda on final minutes next week rather than go over specific changes tonight is that a reasonable proposal I'm seeing everyone nod yes okay so that item on the agenda there are no unexpected in the last 48 items so that agenda item is gone so is there a a motion to adjourn so moved I second it everyone I think we can all just say aye we don't have to take a vote yes thank you everyone um thank you thank you Sean and thanks you staff this must have been extremely difficult to put together so we do appreciate it thank you good night thank you