 We have a quorum and it's 730. Good, so I am gonna, you know, if I keep doing this, maybe eventually I'll have this recitation completely memorized. So my name is Charlie Foskett. I'm calling the meeting to- This meeting is being recorded. Chair of the Finance Committee, please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. So members, when I call your name, please answer the affirmative. Grant Gibbian, Shane Blundell. Here. John Ellis, Carolyn White, Barry Margaret Franklin. I'm here. Arif Padaria, Jonathan Wallach. Here. So I'm asking Brian Beck. Peter Howard. Here. Shoreline Pocrus, Shane Lane Pocrus. Daryl Harmer is not gonna be here. John Deist. Here. Alan Jones. Here. Annie LaCourt. Here. Bill Keller. Here. Al Tosti. Here. George Koser. Here. Christine Deschler. Dean Corman. David McKenna. Here. Thank you, David. So, Peter, I have that Grant Gibbian, John Ellis, Carolyn White, Harif. Grant Gibbian is here. Grant Gibbian is here, okay. Brian Beck isn't here. Shaylene isn't here. And that's it, okay. Charlie, I disjoint. Oh, Shaylene is just here. Welcome, Shaylene. Thank you. Brian Beck is joined. Okay, so. There are 20 people in the meeting right now. Oh, the stragglers are coming in, okay. Dean here? That's yet. He wasn't one I called, no, one I called. I don't see him yet. Okay. Okay. We're also anticipating, Liz Diggins is here. Yeah. We're also anticipating speakers, Erin Zwerko and perhaps Jenny Rae from the planning department. Devin is online. I'm here. This open meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state emergency and the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of COVID-19 virus. You know, in order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we've been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, all the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all the meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of the public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order, which you can find posted with the agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment only in writing by email to edigginsattown.arlington.ma.us. For this meeting, the finance committee is convening by Zoom conference, by Zoom app. That's posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join and comment. Please note the meeting is being recorded and some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, peace be aware that other folks may be able to see you and that you care not to share, screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. All supporting materials been provided to members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. The public's encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless the chair notes otherwise. We're now turning to the first item, the agenda. Some ground rules for clear and effective conduct of our business. The chair will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks. We'll go down the line of the members inviting each to make any comment, questions or emotions. Please hold your comments until your name is called. Further, remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking. And please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. Please wait until the chair use the fourth view and state your name before speaking. If you wish to engage in a colloquy with other members please do so through the chair or taking care to identify yourself. Finally, each vote taken in this meeting will be conducted by roll call vote. Thank you very much. So, good evening everybody. Let's see, a couple of items. First of all, I wanted to thank Liz for preparing the detailed agenda that I sent out a few minutes ago. There's a comparison between the old warrant numbers and the new warrant numbers. You may recall there was a final warrant sent out on Friday and then there was a final warrant sent out on Monday. And the list of warrant articles with the old and new numbers are attached to that document that I sent. So we're still struggling with the issue of whether we're having a meeting on March 24th or 31st. Apparently there are two candidate nights. Originally my announcement about the 24th was so that members could attend what it has been referred to as the town meeting candidates night. I don't think we can afford to not have a meeting on both nights. So I don't know if anybody has any comments or preferences here with respect to which meeting they would want to attend. Any thoughts? Charlie, do we really think it's two meetings? Well, I think Shane, didn't you send me a note to that effect today? Yes, Charlie. So on the town website it reflected that there was a March 31st, but I looked on the League of Women Voters of Arlington and it seems that to reflect the two different dates. So the 24th was the town meeting member night and I believe the 31st is the sort of, I assume like the select board and other town-wide offices. Yeah, that's the debate night then. Apparently since a lot of us are running for town meeting. Yeah. I mean, my preference would be to be available for the town meeting candidate night. And the other one is probably hopefully be recorded anyway. Yeah, that would be my preference and I'm running and I have a raise. Okay, well, can I, oh, sorry. Go ahead. So it's Dean. So I think there are, I'm in general agreement with the prior two people. I just have a small nuanced point. Because, so I agree that I think we should be available for the 24th. The other challenge we have is because of the pandemic, the school committee is voting on their budget this year, the latest that they ever have, which is Thursday the 25th. That doesn't put them in front of the finance committee until that second candidate's night. And two of the members of the school committee need to appear at that candidate's night, one being the current chair of the committee. And so they have, I think they've talked to legal women voters and they'll put them first, but they won't be able to show up to us until eight o'clock. Yeah, I've already communicated with Jane Morgan and arranged that. So I think we're good there. So, okay, so let's plan on not having the meeting on the 24th, but having this meeting on the second date. Okay? All right. I also, anybody who has not yet submitted to Liz that you have your budgets ready, please do so. And a member had asked about our policy about supporting local candidates in local elections. And the issue that was raised was that the Arlington Housing Authority candidate's race is really independent of anything the town of Arlington or the finance committee or town meeting does. Is it, and so it's sort of a theoretical question. Is it really a local race? Because we don't have any prohibition against supporting one person or another from governor or whatever, state attorney general or so forth. So in fact, the Arlington Housing Authority, from my viewpoint is essentially a state agency with some local representatives on it. But we don't, as a town, we don't have any impact on its budgets or their rules or whatever that's all managed by the state. So I consulted with another member of the appointing authority. And I also consulted with our former chair who's had many years of experience in these matters. And the conclusion we came to is that it's not a problem. So if you wanna support somebody for the housing authority race, it's not in conflict with our requests that you not participate in, not comment and support local candidates. The only restriction or request is that when you do so, you don't identify yourself as a finance committee member that you're a private person, okay? All right. Minutes, Peter Howard. Thank you, Charlie. The minutes of March 10th and March 15th have both been made available for members to review. I've gotten feedback from Charlie, but nobody else, I've made Charlie's changes. I move that they be accepted as. So released. Is there a second? Second. So for the minutes of March 10th, it's been moved and seconded. Let me take a vote, Grant Givian. Aye. Shane Blundell. Aye. John Ellis. Aye. Barry Margaret. Yes. Arief. Jonathan Wallach. Yes. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene Pocrus. Yes. Darrell Harmer. He's not gonna be here tonight. John Deist. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. Annie LeCourt. Yes. Bill Keller. Aye. Anantasthi. Yes. George Cozer. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yeah. Dean Harmon. Yes. David McKenna. And then on the minutes of March 15th, so I know that everybody is here. Is there anybody who's gonna vote against the minutes of March 15th? So I'm gonna assume that we took the roll call vote on the minutes of March 15th and we have approved both of those minutes. So that brings us to the next item on the agenda. And we're happy to have Aaron's work out with us tonight. I don't know if Jenny Ray is here or not. Also, is there anybody from the public? No, okay. Yes. Pardon me. There is one person from the public. Is it, I'm sorry. I don't remember your name. Oh, Micaiah. Micaiah Taylor and Karen Kelleher. And Karen Kelleher. Sorry. Okay. So we have two. And Elizabeth Carr Jones, it looks like is also here. Yes. Yep. Elizabeth Carr Jones. Yeah. Oh, I thought that might have been Alan. Yes. Well. And Aaron. We're closer related. Hello, Karen. Okay. Hi, I'm just listening in. Okay. Thank you. So, well, we always are glad to have people attending. So, Aaron, the floor is yours on article, the new article 25, am I correct on that? It's the newly renumbered article 25. Uh-oh. Do we lose Aaron? Well, I'm here. Thank you. I wasn't aware that the articles were being renumbered. And Jenny will be joining us very shortly. So, but yes, the home role legislation, a home role petition for establishing a real estate transfer fee. And I'll point out that Karen Kelleher is one of our housing plan implementation committee members. We've been working on this article diligently since 2019. So the real estate transfer fee was originally looked at by the housing plan implementation committee in late 2019 as a companion article to the affordable housing trust fund. The both had been submitted to the 2020 annual town meeting. But of course, the annual town meeting last year was delayed and then shortened and condensed. So the real estate transfer fee was resubmitted in the fall for the 2020 special town meeting in November and was adopted overwhelmingly. So we, the housing plan implementation committee is now turning their attention to the refiling of the real estate transfer fee, which is the article that's in front of you tonight. And so the real estate transfer fee is a home role petition. And it does require, you know, should it be adopted by town meeting would require the submittal of it or the filing of it in the legislature by our delegation. So that would be the next step. But essentially what a real estate transfer fee does is to assess a fee. It is a tax on the arms length transactions of real estate in Arlington. It, the home role petition is written to give flexibility to the select board should it be approved by the legislature to focus in on three major pieces which is the threshold of arms length transactions that the fee would capture, the actual amount of the percentage amount of the fee. And then the third item would be the, whether it's the buyer's responsibility, the seller's responsibility or some sort of division of responsibility between those two entities. The home role petition is written to establish a number of exemptions from the fee. This includes transfers between household members, transfers due to life events such as a death or a divorce, transfers between the town of Arlington and other municipal or, you know, jurisdictional entities like the Commonwealth or the county or the town. Other exemptions include the between, transfers of affordable housing properties that are subject to a deed restriction and among others. And then the home role petition lays out how the town would assess the fee giving the ability to the treasurer to put means against property if the fee is not received at the filing of the deed. And other sorts of mechanisms to effectively manage this type of transfer. And then finally, it does require that all of the revenue be deposited into the Arlington Affordable Housing Trust Fund again, which was adopted at the special town meeting in the fall. And I'd like to acknowledge that Jenny has joined us. So I'll see if she has something to add on to my brief introduction. And then of course, we're happy to answer questions. Hi Jenny, go ahead. Hi, thank you, Charlie. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Erin. I'm Jenny Raid. I'm the director of planning and community development. I think I'll let the finance committee, you know, ask questions at this point. I don't have anything to add but I will jump in when necessary. I'm guessing you already talked about the housing plan implementation committee and Karen is also on. Okay, so that's all. Thank you. Thank you. So are there questions for Erin or Jenny on this subject? Let's see. Jonathan Wallach. Thank you, Charlie. Erin, Jenny, thank you for being here tonight. I just wanna say first of all that I am wholeheartedly in support of the warrant article to put forward the home rule petition. But am I correct in my understanding that it's the decision for whether to adopt the real estate transfer fee is ultimately up to the residents of the town that it has to go before the residents in a townwide vote? Yes, that is correct. Ultimately, should the legislature approve the home rule petition and it be sent back to the town of Arlington for the development of a bylaw, then yes, ultimately it does need to be added to a ballot of a local election. So it is within the, it does require, you know, a vote of the community. Okay, thank you. Alta, Jonathan, is that all you have? That's all I have. Thank you. Alta C? Yes, the budgets for the human resources and the Arlington Community Preservation Act both have funds in it for homeless that go to the Somerville Homeless Coalition to support homeless people in the town of Arlington. Could these funds raised through this transfer fee be used for that purpose? I believe that it could be used for that purpose as was probably discussed when the finance committee learned about the Affordable Housing Trust in the fall. Once the Board of Trustees are appointed and get rolling, they do need to establish an action plan. And within that action plan, the Board of Trustees for the Affordable Housing Trust can set their priorities and goals. So within that action plan, it could be any activities relative to providing affordable housing for folks that are along the income spectrum that is established by the trust. So, and that includes folks that may be homeless and need to find affordable housing. So I do think that it could be a use of these funds should the Board of Trustees of the Affordable Housing Trust select that homelessness is an action that they want to address through their activities. Al, anything else? Thank you. Thank you. And George, no, I'm sorry, Peter Howard. Thank you. Is the thing that you explained, Erin, is that available in credit version? I'm sorry, I didn't follow your question. The document that's going to go to the state for approval. Yep. So once the should tell meeting authorize the submittal of a home role petition, it is anticipated that we would work with our local delegation to format the essentially what is the main motion that was provided to the finance committee in advance of this meeting in the format that would be acceptable for the legislature without changing the substance of the actual text of the motion. So that has been posted on the housing plan implementation committee's page throughout the course of the development of this. So it can be found by the general public there. Peter, I think Liz distributed those documents a few days back. They're in your email and I think they're also on the SharePoint side. I'll be looking for them. All I found was the video. I have another question too. Does the trust fund have members yet? It does not have members yet. The attorney general is still completing their review of the action of the special town meeting. I understand from Ms. Brazil, the town clerk that that review is required to be completed by March 21st. So once we receive that approval, the town can seek appointments for or seek volunteers that would be willing to be appointed to that board of the trustees. Thank you. George Koser. I'd just like to ask what the timeline is likely to be for this, assuming for the moment that it's approved a town meeting. It sounds like we have a town meeting vote, a home rule petition, then a bylaw change, setting the rate and then, or sorry, setting some of the criteria of who pays. And then the select board votes to set the rate and then maybe something else that I've missed. So could you just walk me through please when these things might happen? Are we talking about a year or more? It would likely be a minimum of two years. The legislative session has just opened in January. So the home rule petition would be submitted by our local delegation to the legislative session. And the legislature could take it up within the next two years or by time town meeting completes the next year and a half. So, and it's uncertain when the legislature might vote on a home rule petition. I will note that there is some groundswell around real estate transfer fees. There are a number of other municipalities that have submitted home rule petitions. And then there's also a local option legislation that was also filed both in the house and in the Senate. So there is some coalescing around this effort, which might shorten that timeline. But I think at a minimum, the town would be looking at two years. We have home rule, then we need another town meeting for the bylaw change. Presumably the select board wouldn't require a huge amount of time for their action. Thank you. Just wanted to get a sense of when this might be actually something that's in a budget. Dean Karman. George, could you mute your microphone please? Thank you. Dean, you're on mute. Sorry about that. Two questions. One, how many other municipalities have this type of fee in place right now? No other municipalities have a transfer fee for affordable housing. Nantucket has one for open space. They've got the land bank tax. Yes, exactly. But those are largely residential communities like Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard. And are they attaching it to real estate in the way that you guys are doing it? So Nantucket, Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, Concord, I think Brookline and maybe I'm missing one or two other local municipalities all have pending home rule petitions for a real estate transfer fee on all types of arms length transactions with the funding to go directly towards affordable housing into their respective affordable housing trusts. Right, but no one has it. So you have no proof of concept of how the mechanics would work. The proof? So let me ask you a question. Let me ask you this question. I read your document. If a citizen's bank, a multi-billion dollar company is sold on its controlling interest and they own either of the land parcels for the bank, they owe you money. That's correct. But even though the, so how are you gonna value the consideration given in, let's say, a $20 billion transaction to the town of Arlington? How are you gonna collect it? Like it seems like you've created a, it's very broad, I'm getting to the point, it's very broad, but I don't see how you're gonna implement it. Yep, I understand. So there, it has a similar effect as existing, the existing stamp tax that the Registry of Deeds collects on arms lane transactions now. But it doesn't help because in the example I gave you, they sold corporate shares of an entity. The asset of a corporation, meaning the land, is incidental to that business. It's not their business. They're not, citizens bank is not in the property management business. They're in the banking business. But your specific wording here says that if shares within an LLC or a corporation are transferred. Yes, transfer of a controlling interest to a trust limited liability company or other entity that directly or indirectly holds an interest in any real property situation in the town of Arlington. Yep, so I guess I'm just not sure how that would actually, in your example, how that would actually, occur on the, should that transaction happen and a fee is in place. I can certainly find out more information from some of the other communities that I've been working at with and perhaps they've looked into that question in particular. Cause that would also agree, like if Trader Joe's owned, or Walgreens owned their real estate or CVS. And cause like, so CVS does acquisitions all the time. I wouldn't say the building is, you know, what a $10 billion deal of what they're buying, but you're saying it's gotta be subject to a tax now. It seems like what I'm afraid of is you're, you've, with good intentions, you've created unwittingly a bureaucracy for commercial transactions that we're then gonna be back here talking about how the general fund needs to staff like two people to do appraisals and business valuations. And we have to have consultants and all sorts of stuff. And now I don't know how we're gonna do that. That's my concern. I understand the question. I'm certainly happy to dig into it and provide additional information to the committee. Thank you. There any other questions for Aaron or Jenny? So, so I see on your chart there, you have different thresholds of taxation and you have different percentages of the transfer fee. So in the mid-range, with a roughly a 450 or $500,000 threshold, it indicates of, I think it was $4 million raised. Is that, is that based on the average how number of housing transactions in Arlington? Yep. So I worked with the assessor's office to access the data that they have related to arm's length transactions, both commercial and residential transactions in the town of Arlington in 2020. And using that information, which included the sale price of the property and some quick math, I filtered for transactions that were above the variety of thresholds and then calculated what the revenue would be based on the percentage fee. So you can see there's three different thresholds that I included. The statewide median single family home price for 2020, which was $445,500. The Arlington state, excuse me, the Arlington median single family home price, according to banker and tradesman, was $860,000 last year, and then a threshold of a million dollars. So we selected these thresholds based on the other home rule petitions that are out there and the local option. And then filtered for those transactions that exceeded those amounts and then applied the percentage. So for example, if the fee were to be assessed on transactions that were greater than or equal to $850,000, and if a fee of 0.5% was assessed, the revenue would be $1.3 million as an estimate. And you can see the range of thresholds and percentages here. And on this question, it would be interesting to hear if the finance committee members have an opinion on any of these thresholds or percentages as we continue to refine the article for consideration by town meeting. So as a follow-up question, and Dean and Peter, I'll take it back to you in a second. So at the 1% level, which was one of your columns on the $400,000 threshold, it looks like it would raise $4 million or so in annual taxes. So I think our tax raise every year is about 100 million or something in that order. Does anybody remember what that number is? Dean, do you know? I think it's, we have a $150 million budget, but I can't remember how much of it because it's state aid versus the local tax raise, but I think it's in the $110 million range. About a $120,000, this year. Is it 140? Okay. So I would say that that's, looks like something equivalent to a 3% increase in taxes. What would you, I mean, if you did that every year, this is quite a significant amount of money. What is going to happen to that money? So hopefully it would be used to create affordable housing opportunities. Again, the Board of Trustees in developing their action plan should this proceed, they can think a little bit grander and a little bit bigger than they might have been able to think if they were accessing revenue from another sort of fee that the town has imposed, such as the community impact, the marijuana or on short-term rentals, which could be transferred to the trust, but with $4 million, certainly the projects that they could envision are grander than what has been developed in the town of Arlington to date. It could include acquisition of property, or multiple properties for that matter. It could include partnering with a developer to create more affordable housing opportunities at acquiring property and actually putting the funds into a development budget. So this level of revenue really does unlock the ability to actually create units on the ground quickly with partnerships. Has your group done any studies of what the impact of this tax is on real estate sales? In other words, the taxpayers' homeowner value? The Housing Planning and Limitation Committee has not done studies in that detail. However, based on my conversations with staff in the city of Somerville and folks in the town of Concord, both of which have done more detailed studies in their efforts to establish a home role petition. And both groups found that there is limited impact on the real estate market and that this is the best resource to create continuous and sustainable revenue to fund affordable housing activities. Annie LeCourt? Yes. So I'm hoping you'll know the answer to this question, Erin, or that maybe Jenny knows the answer to the question. We provide through CDBG and through the CPA funds to the Housing Corp of Arlington to build affordable housing in town. And my recollection from my time on the Board of Selectment was that when they receive funds from us, they are able to leverage that money 10 to one. So for example, that if you had $3 million in the Affordable Housing Trust and the HCA was contemplating a project, they could turn that $3 million into $30 million of additional funding with which to build housing. Am I order of magnitude off or am I in the neighborhood? I'm not sure of the magnitude but you're certainly accurate in terms of being able to leverage funding. Often the local sources of funding are the first committals into affordable housing development. And it does enable, for example, the Housing Corporation of Arlington to position themselves to leverage the local funding for funding through the state or through other federal government grants. Perhaps Jenny wants to add anything to it. I think that actually summarizes it quite well. I mean, it's both a leverage but it is a multiplier to your point, Annie, by a lot. And in doing affordable housing development, you need a lot of resources, usually more than 10 resources going. I mean, it's not, you have one resource and you just go to the bank and get private financing and maybe a grant. It's over many, many years to do development. Even the nine units at Westminster in the example of Housing Corporation of Arlington took many years to put together and many different resources. So it is a leverage and a multiplier, but it is also something that could be banked for bigger acquisitions as well because of the nature of depositing the funds into the trust where we would be able to, if we had a bigger opportunity to preserve or create affordable housing, the town would be able to pursue that when it's ready at a certain time with a sufficient amount of capital in order to either assist with such an acquisition or move forward with something. And there could be, there's a lot of different examples of what that might mean. So I think it's a really good question about where the money goes. It also is a reflection of the limits of our existing resources and how it's important to add to them when possible. Okay, so let me follow that up with another question. One of the warrant articles that'll be before town meeting this year in addition to this article is one to locally force our affordable housing efforts in the town, our inclusionary zoning, so on and so forth to only fund projects where the area median income of the tenants is at 60% or less. And that, from my experience at affordable housing is a very difficult number to deal with, but it is a number that we might be able to achieve in some projects if we were able to provide this kind of funding to those projects, particularly potentially 40B projects because every time you reduce the total investment that is mortgaged and has to be repaid, you increase the cash flow on the property and therefore allow for those affordable rents to be lower than they might be otherwise to make what's called the pro forma that is your balance of financing and your ability to repay that financing work, which is part of why affordable housing is so complicated because of those pro forma plans. Am I correct in my assumption that it would give us that kind of flexibility in assisting someone in developing affordable housing in town? Absolutely, it's a very good example and the pro forma is everything to affordable housing development, both when pulling together the deal to ultimately walking away potentially with a fee so that you can then capitalize on another project in the future. Great, and so in addition to giving us financial leverage, it might give us some leverage from the kinds of affordable housing that are developed because we would have skin in that game. Absolutely. Great, thank you. Any, anything else? I guess not, okay. Alan Jones. Thank you, Charlie. When we're starting to look at these numbers, it's an awful lot of money and I'm not sure how that translates to a number of units that could be made available as affordable housing, but it makes me start thinking about land use and density. We're always complaining about the lack of available space for commercial development, density traffic and the school enrollment, things like that. So have you taken these numbers and translated them into the number of units we're talking about and how that impacts land use and density, school enrollment, those things? In other words, I'm just wondering what the impact of, how many additional units we're talking about and what the impact that is the general feeling of the town. So I have not actually done that exercise to say like, you need X number of dollars to create an affordable unit. And if you did the quick math, this is the number of units that you would come up with. I can look to the examples, the examples from the housing corporation of Arlington, see what their total development cost is per unit and apply it to the information that we've provided. I just don't know off the top of my head what the all in cost is per unit. And I'd asked if Jenny wanted to jump in if that's something that she knows. I was just thinking of our recent memo to the ARB about development costs actually and the average cost per unit with the land. So we'll take a look at that in a minute. But I think to your larger question about the impact, I guess I kind of go back to the funding would go into this trust and the trust is going to have an action plan. I will look at how they wanna allocate and appropriates the funds towards affordable housing. So it's really the trust will need to adequately understand and prepare for how to plan for that type of development whatever they're planning to pursue. If we're talking these amounts of funds, they'll need to have a very strong action plan to move forward with. But weighing every single one of those impacts right now I'm not sure would be a helpful exercise because it would be quite speculative at best. Okay, I guess I'm just looking for sort of an order of magnitude. It's potentially a lot of money a year that could potentially go on forever. And I'm wondering is that five new units a year, a hundred new units a year and what are the limits to growth just based on the density of the town we already have and the lack of space for commercial? I think, yeah, sure. I think it goes back to Annie's question a bit which is you need a lot of funds to capitalize affordable housing preservation as in acquiring a building and making sure units are affordable in perpetuity. And creating new housing, either one of those situations. In the first example, there isn't necessarily new development happening. The second example may include new development, right? So there's two different scenarios, the here potentially with different outcomes. In either one of those cases, there's also different costs per unit depending upon what you're getting into. So we can give you some averages in terms of how much it typically costs per unit which is upwards to about $400,000 I believe. Is that right, Erin? Yeah, so the recent research that we did do it, we found that it's about $250 per square foot of affordable housing to develop affordable housing. So if you're looking at a thousand square foot unit just to use round numbers, that is a $250,000 unit. So then if you were to divide that by sort of the mid-range of the fee, the table that was in the memo, if we go with $2.5 million, I can't do math that quickly, but you would be able to create ten units. That sounds like ten units. Yeah, so ultimately, as Jenny has pointed out, the cost of developing affordable housing is great. And it is expensive and it does require many different funding sources, all leveraged together. But ultimately, you're not gonna need to be yielding units as many units as maybe the dollar amount would suggest. Yeah, okay, I guess I would like to see an order of magnitude estimate of, take the forecasts based on what you're doing and some sort of average cost and just roughly how many units per year this would produce. And again, I am starting to be concerned about land use intensity, thank you. Alan, let me just interject the thought here. Aaron, I think your calculation is, I'm not sure, but maybe missing something because typically housing is financed, okay? So a $250,000 as your example cost, if you had $250,000, you might get four to eight times leverage on that. So you're really talking about not 10 units a year, but maybe 40 or more with that money because people are, it just doesn't disappear. People are gonna be paying money for that living space and there's gonna be some sort of leveraged financing. So I think you're off between a factor of five and 10 on those numbers. Yep, just keeping it simple, but it is a really great point and a point that has been brought up during this discussion about how leveraging funds does open up additional funding. John Ellis? Oh, man, it's okay, I'm sorry. Let's let John Ellis get up. Okay, all right, I'll, if you don't mind coming back. Thank you. Thanks, John. I'm also interested in the answer to the question that Alan asked. And I do understand it's probably pretty quantifiable for the town to know how many portable units it's created and can project how many units it might create. I'm interested on the other side of the equation, which is the town tracking how quickly we're losing low and moderate income households and whether that rate of change is slower or faster than we're creating units. And I also wonder if the town is able to map the reduction in low and moderate income households to things like tax overrides and debt exclusion. Those numbers would be interesting to me to learn as well. Yes, so it's not something that we actively track in the department. However, this year we are undertaking an update to our housing production plan, which is to look at the demographics of all families and households across the income spectrum. And within that study, that plan, there's a requirement to assess the housing needs of different types of households across the income spectrum, but also understand their demographics and the change over time. So I think that effort to update the housing production plan will illuminate some of the questions or some of the data points that you are looking for. And of course, with the lengthy timeline of a home roll petition, as that should this be adopted by town meeting and as it moves its way through the legislative process, more of that information will come out to inform the Board of Trustees for the Fortabaugh Housing Trust on where to focus their efforts. Thank you, that would be interesting. And I think that kind of information would be interesting more generally to the town as we consider tax overrides and things like that. The town head was able to estimate what that might mean for our ability to keep low and moderate income housing. That's the kind of data which would be very useful in a political discussion. Thank you, John. Jenny, you wanted to add a comment. Yeah, I'll add to what Erin is saying right now and then I'll go back to the other thing I was about to say, which I think, John, you raised some really interesting questions. I'm glad you're thinking about them actually. So I'm glad to hear those as being, you know, it's just really thoughtful to consider the issues of all incomes in the community and the impacts of any changes that we're considering. So I appreciate that very much. The housing production plan of course has a limit to how much we'll be able to study and get out of it. I wanted to understand though, when you asked how many low or moderate income people are impacted or have moved as a result of any changes, did you mean like living in deed restricted housing or did you mean more generally? Can you just clarify that for me? No, I was thinking about long-time Arlington families that are moderate income and maybe fixed income and make a decision that Arlington is too expensive and sell and move to another community. And so reduce our population of moderate income people and everybody makes decisions for many different reasons. But you might see trends or you might see as the tax burden changed that those households were reduced. So I wasn't talking about people in moderate income housing. I was talking about moderate income people in regular Arlington housing. Yeah, I'm not sure we'd be able to track that by income but we can certainly follow up on that to learn a little bit more. What we do know is that there have been a significant number of condominium conversions in Arlington. We researched that and published it in our current housing production plan and a very high magnitude of units that had been rentals and presumably market rate affordable rental housing was converted to condominiums. So we have information like that which doesn't necessarily tell us about the income of the people moving out but I think we can probably dig into that a little bit more. So I hope that answered your question. It's sort of like a half answer. Well, it sounds like these are related to questions you're asking. Yeah. Okay, yeah, as long as that's understood. The other thing I was going to say before just to add on is that the housing production plan that we have indicates that if we were to try to produce enough affordable housing to meet the 10% threshold which is of course a different way of calculating how much affordable housing we have as a community we are hundreds of units away from that number. We only have 5.7% of our year round housing inventory designated as affordable housing. So we actually have if we were using that as a benchmark we would have to produce a lot of units in order to get to that number. So I think when we do the research that was requested by a couple of you with regard to the order of magnitude I would want to couch it in the terms of how much affordable housing we actually need. So we can provide that certainly to the committee. It's a great question. Thank you, Jenny. Altos. Yes, two questions. Can this, and I apologize if I missed this answer before could these funds be used for rent subsidies? Yes, they could as long as it's something that the affordable housing trust fund Board of Trustees would be interested in taking on that certainly would fall within the scope of activities that a trust fund could undertake. Second question. The Board of Selectment decide the level of sale and the rate, do they do this annually so they could adjust it if they need to? They certainly could do it annually if they want to take on that annual requirement. Okay, thank you. Dean Karman. Yeah, so quick follow up. You know, you had said earlier that other towns, so nobody's implemented this, but other towns have or have homeroom legislation. And I'm trying to get my head around why we would want to be pioneers in doing this. And let me give you why I would think we wouldn't want to be pioneers. So the first thing is we could pass homeroom legislation and then get sued, right? So now the town is in court with litigation with somebody saying it's not constitutional, it's this, it's that, it's the other thing, right? And now the town has to pay for litigation defense in a matter it's not really, it doesn't have a lot of history at, right? And then the second thing I'd say is, you know, people with lots of money hire lawyers and accountants and professionals and people like me to not pay taxes to people like you, right? And so one thing I do here is I start to go through the document and my instincts say like, well, okay, well, how would I get around this? Right? And the first thing that comes up is I think to myself, you know, you're, you say that for collection, we should tell me use existing methods for collection. So if I'm selling my house, I'm just not paying it. I'm gonna tell you that upfront, right? Because your existing method to collection would be to collect it from the guy I sold it to, guy, woman, man or woman, I sold it to. So that's their problem. I'm out, I'll go live in Florida and good luck to you, right? And I could, I could keep going, but why I'm gonna, again, it's not productive for me to keep going, right? But I guess the point becomes since this hasn't been implemented before, you would now be the one who would implement it. You'd face the wrath, you'd face people like me who are trying not to pay you. The town's gonna be in litigation, the town's gonna be suing, and it's gonna take five years, let's say 10 years to sort it out. So why is it worth all of that? Like what's your pitch to say, we're willing to face lawsuits, we're willing to be in court. Why is it worth all that? And then obviously the side question, Don born is how are we gonna pay for the lawsuit if it hits? So the first question about what's the pitch I think that as has been pointed out in the conversation so far is that this is a way to create a renewable and sustainable revenue source to dedicate to affordable housing. But why be first? If other people are willing to be first and take the brunt of hammering it out, why should we be first? Sure. So there's no need to necessarily be first. I think it shows a real dedication to looking at innovative ways to fund affordable housing at the local level. And I think that there is some groundswell around this. I think the home rule petition could potentially languish and these sorts of questions may come out in the review by the legislature of the local option. But I do think that there is an opportunity for Arlington to say affordable housing means a lot to the community. And through this type of tax, we can achieve a level of funding for affordable housing that we have not been able to achieve in the past. The CPA and the CDBG funds are typically oversubscribed and are at a different level of ability to fund projects. So I think that the pitch is that it really does say Arlington is dedicated to this and finds that this is important and that this is an innovative way to create that funding source for affordable housing. As it relates to your question about how to pay for the lawsuit that may or may not happen, I think that that is potentially a concern with anything that is passed. I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of municipal finance where the town of Arlington may be able to pay for that type of lawsuit. So I might look to Jenny to help me answer that question. I was going to answer the first part. Oh, okay. For the people who know that we had a warrant article for paying for funds for the MuGar property, for example, for maybe three years now. I'm not sure. Some of you are long-time town meeting members. So when we need to seek special counsel for things, I think it becomes a special appropriation is my understanding outside of our typical legal counsel, you know, regular budget. So can I just say, can I just say to that? Wait, wait, wait. Dean. Okay, sorry, God. Sorry, God. We're trying to get information from our guests. Okay. So it's not a debating contest. And in that spirit, I was just going to say that Arlington has actually been first before in advancing priorities that are important. For example, most recently when we, when town meeting adopted the fossil fuel free buildings, essentially, you know, that's an example of stepping in first by the way, I think it was maybe what, one of three or four communities, not even maybe just Brookline was the only community that had actually done it. So that's an example of stepping in to potentially hot water without knowing where it was going to go, but doing it because it aligned with the community's priorities to address greenhouse gas emissions and, you know, to advance a plan to get to 2050 net zero. So I think that that's a great example of Arlington has, you know, certainly stepped out in front before when the priorities align with the goals. So I think it makes sense in that regard. In this regard, I think there's actually a lot of examples of Arlington stepping forward and addressing affordable housing already. This is about ensuring that we have adequate resources and not relying on the municipal budget in order to get there. So I think it's another solution. Okay. Thank you, Jenny. Dean, did you have any other questions? No, I think I'm good. Okay, thank you. Any other court? So Jenny, let me ask you a quick question or Jenny or Aaron about transfer taxes. There is no community in Massachusetts that has a real estate transfer tax but we're not inventing the idea here, correct? There are other communities. My recollection is the city of Philadelphia has had a transfer tax for a long time. Am I? Yep, you're absolutely correct. These types of transfer fees exist in many different jurisdictions, whether it's statewide or city or county specific across the country. So presumably then they've been legally tested at least with regards to any applicable federal law and probably with the local state law. So we would have some kind of idea, some kind of case law that tells us what the likely challenges are to be and hopefully our legislative delegation would also pay attention to what past challenges may have been and assist us in adjusting our home rule petition to avoid those kinds of problems relative to the state constitution. And then there's just something outset about rent subsidy that I wanted to make sure I understand clearly, Jenny. When we invest in an affordable housing property, part of what makes rental properties affordable is there is a rent restriction. So in that sense, all of our investments in affordable housing are essentially rent subsidy. What we're doing is creating units where we're guaranteed that the rate of rent will not exceed what the federal government has designed that has defined as an affordable level for people at a certain income level. Am I correct or am I absolutely correct? Yes. Yes, everything comes with a deed restriction and a restriction on how much the unit can be rented for which is essentially, which is a subsidy for the individual or family that is residing in that unit. If it is just simply a voucher to live somewhere as sort of a rental subsidy, which is sort of like the tenant assistance program that the town is operating right now because of COVID, that is also a possibility and not necessarily tied to a deed restricted designated affordable unit, but simply just a subsidy to help people with maybe limited income to be able to afford their rent for a limited period of time also. Right. There's some interaction between what we think of as Section 8, which is a federal voucher and rent subsidy and the development of affordable housing because portable purpose built affordable housing is more likely to accept Section 8 tenants or to have access to federal programs to build those units, correct? Correct. I think that's everything, Charlie, thank you. Thank you, Annie. Did I, Brian, did I see you raise your hand? Brian, back. No. Okay. Dean, do you have your hand up? No. Okay. I'm just not quick enough to put it down. I'm sorry. That's all right. So thank you very much, Aaron and Jenny. Are there any other questions for Aaron and Jenny? Oh, John Dice, yes, go ahead. Jenny, you pointed out that this is essentially a really state transfer tax. And can't you just simply place a lien on the property to assure that that tax is paid? Yes, you can. The home roll petition would authorize the town to use existing or to set liens on properties to ensure that the fee is paid. Yeah. So we're probably talking about quite a bit of money and a pretty effective way of collecting the money. Is that not true? Definitely true. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Very good. Well, thank you very much, Jenny. And thank you, Aaron. Aaron, a very nice presentation. Very comprehensive. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So I guess the next thing is budgets. So is Arif here? No. Okay, so we'll, he asked the, that's right. He sent me a note that he wouldn't be here. So in the finance area, we have a parking. Brian, are you here? I'm here, I can do that. Okay. Okay, I'm going to attempt to put up something. So would I be allowed to do that? Yep, you're all set. Okay, let's see if I'm capable, technically capable. Hope this is it. Close, but not close, hang on close, but no cigar. Manager's budge, there we go. Okay. The parking budget hasn't changed very much. If you go down to the page below on the salaries, if you look over here, you see the total for last year's salary was 429.27, but it doesn't add up. That's because there was a $500 stipend in 2020, pardon me, 2021 that hit for whatever is no longer there in 2022, but if you're comparing the numbers, it's not there. So that's just in the arithmetic. So that's that $500 reduction. That's a stipend that's gone. There's an increase in longevity, which is statutory. So there's really not much change on these salaries. There's nothing in the expenses. Except when I looked at it, I asked about the printing. How much printing could there be for parking? And Phyllis, the town treasurer said, oh, that's the parking tickets. So that makes sense. The contractual services are for a VPN for the meters to talk to the town and so that they're all coordinated. So that's a contract with Verizon. And that'll come in about $5,000. The offsets here are from the parking district and we'll go over that budget after we do this. And actually, I'll show you very quickly if you want. Right over here is the expense for the 37,276 and there is the 37,276 is in that budget. So I would move that the parking budget be approved as printed at $58,056. Is there a second? Second. So the parking budget has been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? So hearing none, I will take a vote. Grant Givian. Aye. Shane Blundell. Aye. John Ellis. Aye. Mary Margaret Frankelman. Yes. Are you still here? Jonathan Wallach. Aye. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene Pocrus. Yes. Darrell Harmer. John Deist. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. Annie LaCourt. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Altosie. Yes. George Kosher. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Ian Gorman. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. So the parking budget has been passed unanimously. Charlie. Yes. In addition to that, there's a warrant article for the parking district expenditures. Yes, please go ahead, Brian. Okay. This is what we were waiting for this time. What's the new warrant article number on it? Hang on, I have it right here. Of course, I turned away from it. I mean, I have it. I believe it's, is it 52? Let me see. 52. 52, yes. Okay. The expenditures for the current, for pardon me, for fiscal 22 is projected to be 324,673. Let me go back to my book that has all the explanations. It's mostly software up here. This IPS is, and by the way, Dean, correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm sure I will be. This is system software and costs associated with parking meters. IPS says yes. Okay. Then the next line is credit card fees. Yep. And that's software for that. Coin collection is self-explanatory. That's collecting the actual cash. There's a lease at the first parish. That's $6,000 a year. The $46,000 below that are actually for the lease of the parking meters because we do not own them. We're leasing them. The line below that is the parking enforcement, which I will take you to right now, which was the first page here, which was the police budget. And that's down here. That's the parking funds offset for the police department. Brian, you're getting pretty good with this zoom stuff. Yeah. You know, once you do it up and you don't screw it up too much, actually learn more from the scrubs than otherwise. We discussed the 37,000 from the parking meters. Then there's the upgrade of the modems. And this 20,000 on the bottom line is what next year's expenditures are gonna be for seasonal planting. Now, that's the expenditures. That's what I believe we're gonna vote on in the Warren article. Separate from that. The current, here's a little bit of concern, but not dramatic, but is the current year, $47,000 is the actual collections to date. They were budgeting about $500,000 for that. So that's because of the COVID. The actual receipts are way down. So hence, the amount of expenditures that they're doing is gonna be substantially less next year. Phillips gave me two estimates for the revenues. One is if everything gets back to normal, which is possible, but I wouldn't expect that. That would be $556,000 with the revenues. In addition, pardon me, separate from that, if there's nine months of normalcy, that number would drop to 459. In either case, the next year's expenditures of 324 would still be covered by the 459. Now, the final piece in this puzzle is the actual cash on hand. Right now, there's $524,000 available in that revolving fund. There's incumbrances and expenses that are projected. Now, these expenses are from, the majority of them are from 21 and from 20 that haven't been completed. They actually expect to happen by the end of the year, $106,000 worth of revenue. Right now, I showed you it's about 47,000. So the actual cash balance at the end of the current year should be 169. And if you add that to the cash that they would expect to receive before 59, they should be flushed with cash able to handle all their expenditures. So I assume the number that we're voting, I believe, is 324 673. Yes. And I would make a motion that we accept that number. Is there a second? Second. So on the Warren article 52, the parking district revenues and expenses. Is there any further discussion, any questions for Brian? I don't have any. Charlie. Yes, I'm sorry. I lost my participant screen here for a minute. There are three questions. I lost it. First one would be John Ellis. So the revenue is down 10X in this picture, but maybe by the end of year, only be down 5X. Would any of the expenses go down? I guess lease payments would stay the same, but maybe coin collection in the previous fiscal year was also less. And I'm also curious to know, given that the parking people did other jobs in the police department, how that offset worked for the previous year. So I'm not phrasing this very clearly, but we collected a lot less money in fiscal year 2021 because of COVID did we also have any reduction in spending or change the way that we account for a parking district given that the enforcement officers were other jobs in the police department. Does that make sense? I believe I understand your question. I don't know the answers to the current expenses, except to the extent that they might be included in here. I know that they don't spend everything each year, even though they have requested it. So I can't tell you the exact numbers. I, like I said, I was more interested when I was talking to her about the actual cash that they had to pay it. Because if they were spending the cash and didn't have the revenues, they'd fall flat on their face and come up short. This tells me that indeed that they either have cut back and or are not spending it. But if you're looking for a specific line item, I'm happy to ask. I don't know that on the specific number, I was just sort of like a general explanation for like. Well, the general explanation would be they wouldn't have the cash if they paid the expenditures, okay, and didn't really have the money coming in. They wouldn't have the cash. John, I think the answer is that they paid it out of retained earnings, that fund balance. Hey, Brian, can you go back to the budget? That budget page, John, so the first three line items are variable costs. The now on the expenditure is the rest of fixed costs. So I think what you're trying to get at is like Elevon is the credit card processing fee. So if revenue is a product of credit card processing and you process fewer credit cards, you'll have lower numbers there. Coin collection is when it gets filled up. So you could cut that down if you're not having to collect the coin. And IPS is also a variable cost based on transactions. So I think that's when- The salary offset, right? Like the $70,000 in the budget book of salary offset, but they didn't do the job. So they're still offset in the salary. I don't know that part. I think the problem there would be it was already budgeted for. So if they didn't terminate or furlough the employee, they would find themselves in a position where even if that person was working in another department, that department didn't have the budgetary resources to pay for them. Thanks. Okay, is that good, John? I think it's as good as I can hope for, thank you. Okay, Jonathan Wallach. Yes, thank you, Charlie. Brian, could you just, I'm just curious as to what some of these expenditure line items represent in particular, their first parish lease, the single space modem upgrade, and then the parking benefit district expenditure. The parking district expenditure, let's go with that because it's right here. It's, they're doing plantings in Arlington Center. Oh, okay. Okay, for that one. The first parish lease is they actually lease the parking spaces. They have to pay rent for it. That's what the 6,000 is. And the single space modem upgrade is, that's a technical item to me, but they just need it to continue the services. Okay, thank you. Is that good, Jonathan? Yes, thank you. Alan Jones. Thank you, Charlie. I just wanted to ask you if you could put these PDFs up on the SharePoint. I'm getting really used to having all the documents there in the meeting folders. Alan, I tried. Okay, email them to me, Brian, and I'll put them up. I'll email them to you and does Liz want a copy of them or just email them to you? Yeah, I can do it too. It doesn't matter. Email them to Liz and she'll put them up. I tried this on Sunday, by the way. It didn't work. Okay, as long as we can get them up there. Thank you. Yeah, not a problem. Peter Howard, you had your hand up before. I'm all set. I just couldn't read on the screen. Okay. Are there any other questions for Brian on the parking district warrant article, 52? I don't see any on the, oh, wait, wait. Alan Jones, you're done, right? I'm done. Okay. So there are no further questions. It's been moved and seconded, I believe. So let's proceed with a vote. Grant Gibbian. Aye. Shane Blundell. Aye. John Ellis. Aye. Mary Margaret Frankelman. Jonathan Wallach. Aye. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Brokers. Yes. Daryl Harmer. He's not here. John Deist. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. Daniel Court. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Hal Tosti. Yes. George Kosher. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yeah. Dean Karman. Yes. Yes. The vote is, let's see, I don't know if it's any objections. So Mary Margaret, did you vote yes or no? I voted yes. Thank you. So the vote is unanimous. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Any more budgets? I think we'll hold the IT budget until Arif is here. So are there any more budgets from the finance group that are ready for tonight? I think that's it, except for the IT. Yeah, and then the next one, we have to wait for the insurance. Okay. That's correct. Yeah, the insurance should be able to present the insurance budgets, both health and liability on Monday night. We're meeting with HR here in Malawi on Monday morning. So if you don't hear otherwise, we'll be prepared to present the insurance Monday night. Okay. So what I would like to do then is, Christine, if it's okay with you to revert to the public works, which we interrupted the other night. I've actually forgotten where we were. We were on maybe the administration budget discussing the differences in the expenses, but I don't think we got to any conclusion or vote. I think we left off at engineering. Engineering. Is that correct, John and George? If someone could put the PPW budget up on the screen, that'd be great because I can't. Could you do that, Alan? The engineering budget starts on page 90 of the manager's budget book. So did you say engineering? Engineering. There we go. So engineering, this department oversees all the construction projects in town and provides any technical assistance to the other DBW departments. Much of their expenses tend to be flushed way based on what projects are anticipated. There was a slight decrease in the salary budget, and that was because there was a new hire at West Pay. So that accounts for the slight reduction in the salary amount. The 5202 maintenance line seems to suffer from the same affliction as 5202 maintenance line that we were talking about in natural resources, which meaning the 19 and 20 actuals that you see are not really necessarily reflective of actual spent. But what was provided to us by Julie Wayman and Sandy Puller suggest that the budget amount that the manager's asking for at $25,000 is merited in terms of how much they've been actually spending this year and in prior years. The other large expense is 5355, mobility improvement. And this is in the DPW budget for anticipated implementation of whatever projects the planning department comes up with it. The mobility plan is really a planning department project. So this is sort of in the budget sort of as a placekeeper and to have some money available to be able to implement what improvements the planning department and the town manager comes up with. I think and correct me, George and John, if I'm wrong that 14,388 that was in 2020 was for a consulting fee. Yes, that's correct and the amount is correct for the DPW director. So with that, I would move that the engineering budget be approved as contained in the manager's budget. Is there a second? Second. So it's been moved and seconded on the engineering budget for where's the total? 638. 163,873 dollars. So are there any questions for Christine or George and John on this budget? So I have one question about the mobility improvements which you say come from the planning department. What are they specifically? Do you know? No, we don't know. And we asked my grad marker and he really didn't have an idea either of what we were told that there appears to be no written mobility plan right now. As I say, there was a consultant hired and other than that, I really can't say exactly what and I don't think the DPW director can say exactly what this 60,000 would be spent on. But this would be along the lines of ADA type work. Is that what I'm gathering? ADA and transportation issues, that's my understanding. Mr. Chair. Yes, Allen. If I'm correct, in the last override, the selectman pushed some extra money for mobility improvements around the town. And I think that amount was 60,000, maybe it was higher. But I think that's where this comes from. It was a board of selectmen push as part of the override and the voters approved it. Thank you, you're absolutely correct. Not that you mentioned that. I was trying to clarify whether it was had any overlap with the curb cut money that's in the capital budget. But you're right, this is something additional and it has associated with the 2019 override. Thank you. So any other questions or comments on the engineering budget? The engineering budget as recommended. See, I don't see any, I think, okay. So it's hearing that it's been moved and seconded. No other comments. We'll take a vote on the engineering budget. Grant Gibbian. Says I. Shane Blundell. Yes. John Ellis. Yes. Barry Margaret. Yes. Jonathan Wallach. Yes. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene Pocrus. Yes. John Dice. Yes. Allen Jones. Yes. Annie McCourt. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. George Cozer. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Dean Karman. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. Thank you. Unanimously passed. Okay, Christine, please proceed. And next is the public works administration budget on the next page, 94. And this is the division that oversees and supports all of the other DPW divisions. That's awesome. And also helps oversee solid waste as well. You'll see in the it's on page 94. Getting there. You'll see the 15,586 dollar reduction in salary and wages. And that is because the school sustainability coordinator that was in this budget has now been moved to the school budget. So it was, I think partly paid in this budget last year and now has been moved completely into school. So that is why the salaries, the wages part of this budget declined. The rest of the budget, the expense budget is level funded from last year. And all of their expenses are in line with historical actual expenditures. So I move that we approve the public works admin budget as presented. So is there a second? Second. So the public works admin budget is moved and seconded for 221,364 dollars. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none. Grant Gibbian. Aye. Shane Blundell. Aye. John Ellis. Mary-Margaret Frankelman. Yes. Jonathan Wallach. Oh, Jonathan may not be here. He's left. Yeah, Jonathan's not here. Okay. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene Pocrus. Yes. John Deist. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. Annie LaCourt. Yes. Bill Keller. Aye. Al Tosti. Yes. George Coster. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Dean Karman. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. The vote is unanimous on the DPW admin. The next is Highways, which is on page 98. The vision is responsible for all our streets, our sidewalks, rain, signs, culverts, street sweeping, and it too can fluctuate based on weather. There's really nothing to report in the salary category. And the expense budget is more or less level funded, although you will see a $15,000 increase in the budget for pavement markings, five, two, seven, zero. And. According to the director, this is because we have recently been benefited by street work on Mass Ave and Summer Street and a few other areas of town where we've been able to get state and federal funds. So we hadn't had to spend our own money on in some of those areas, but now that those, those projects are completed, we have to pony up more money than we have been paying to take care of our streets. I think that is really the only change in the expense budget. I don't have any other notes. So I would, unless John or George, you want to point out anything, I would move that the highway division budget be approved as presented in the manager's budget. They're second. Second. Second. So it's been moved and seconded in the amount of. $1,806,749. Are there any questions for. Christine on this budget chain, Blondel. Thanks, Charlie. There are seven vacancies. In the. Department right now. We expect they can still provide all the services. That we need. And it looks like overtime is the same. You know, as sort of, that's roughly in line with previous years. So do we expect that like. The overtime is going to be predictable with all those. Vacancies. I, since I've been working on this budget, there have always been, there's always been a manpower issue. That there's always, there always been fewer bodies than. What the. What the director would like. But as we've been talking, as we've been. We've been saying the, he has the ability to move funds around. So, and, and I think people as well. So. I, I don't have any reason to believe that. The. I don't have any reason to believe that. I don't have any reason to believe that. The overtime budget will be. Inflated. Because of these vacancies. Thank you. Oh dad, maybe what Sandy told us or talked to us about. General hesitancy to ever. Remove. An existing position. Part because it requires going to the union. Asking that position to be removed. And then it becomes harder to add one later. And I think sometimes it's to the detriment of the departments when they have different skill sets that are needed. They don't want to, they only want to create a new job rather than get rid of an old one. Because of the. Process and operational and other kinds of. Maybe non-financial issues that. That they're pressured with. Thanks. Are any other questions. On the DPW highway. Okay. It's been moved. Second. No further discussions. We'll vote grant give in. Hi. Shane Blundell. Hi. John Ellis. John Ellis. Hi. Mary Margaret. Yeah. Jonathan Walker. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene. Yes. Darrell Harmer. He's not here. John Deist. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Any record. No further discussions. We'll vote grant give in. Hi. Shane Blundell. Hi. John Ellis. John Ellis. Yes. Any record. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Allen Tustin. Yes. George Couser. Yes. Dean Deschler. Yes. Dean Cormann. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. Thank you. The highway budget is passed unanimously. The next budget is snow and ice. When we met with the director at the end of February. He reported that almost all of the 2021 budget had been spent, but for about $130,000. And 20 to $25,000 of that would have to be set aside to pay for costs of putting snow up in the St. Camillus parking lot. And that would have to be set aside for extra property. I can't think of whether we've had another weather event since, but I'm expecting that the budget will be, this year's budget will be exhausted, but not by too much. You can see that the requested budget for 2022 is the same as this year. And that puts us by my calculations around. I think it's a little bit more than we wanted to be at, I think. As a policy, we wanted to be around 35%. 80%. But. We'll spend it. So I. I move that we approve the snow and ice budget at $1,172,013. Second. So it's been moved and seconded. I just have a question, Christine, about your 10 year average. I would suggest that you don't use the numbers that are on this page for 2019 to 2020. Because 2019 looks to me like it should add up to about. Of 1.4 million. And it. Am I right there in 2020 should add up to. Eight or 900,000. Yeah. Yeah. But we're still. Right. But we're still in the ballpark here. A few hundred thousand here, a few hundred thousand there, you know. Doesn't matter that much. Just, just having. You're talking about some real money, right? Yeah. I'm having a little humor tonight. That's all. Yeah, I think when they did this spreadsheet, they didn't include the overtime or something. I don't know what exactly. Yeah. The top line didn't include it in the summer in the summary. So. Okay. So. It's been moved and seconded. Any further questions or comments on the snow and ice budget? Yeah, I have one question, Christine. And it's not going to hold up my vote. To, to accept this budget. But do you know what the actual expenses? I just lost it there for. For 2021 is saved through December 31st of 2020. How much actual money has been spent out of the budget? No, all I know is that. As of February 26th. All but 130,000. Has been spent. Okay. No, you did say that. Okay. Thank you. I'm all set. Any other questions. I'm going to go back to the D P W budget of snow and ice. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. So grant Gibby and I. Shane, Mandel. Yes. John Ellis. Hi. Mary Margaret. Yeah. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene Pocrus. Yes. John Deist. Yes. Joan's. Yes. And it was court. Yes. Bill Kohler. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. George Cozer. Yes. Dean Deschler. Yes. In Carmen. Yes. David McKim. Yes. Snow and ice is a unanimously passed. Are we through? We have another. We have a couple of more. Solid waste next. Solid waste. Oh, that's. That's a funds, fund budget. Okay. So what you see are. Contractural increases. The art. This. Fossil contract. Was recently reviewed renewed. For five years. Our collection contract expires. And. FY. 20. At the end of the FY 22. That's right. Right. George and John. It's. Or 23. I can't. Calendar 23. 22. And. The. The town is expecting to put out an RFP. In September or October of this year. If. The town can't come to an agreement with our current. Holler. And I think we should expect some. Significant increases in this budget. Starting. FY 23. I don't know. George. John. If you have anything you want to add. Regarding the solid waste. Budget. One of the. Major issues is that we've been paying nothing. For the hauling of our recycling, which is in the ballpark of 5,000. Tons per year. And a worst case scenario, given the value of the recycling is very low. Is the, what we might be charged about the same rate. Per ton. For hauling our recyclables as our regular waste stream. So 5,000 tons at 70. Dollars a ton would be an increase of about $350,000. Nobody's proposing that to be very clear, but just to put kind of a rough number on what the. Worst case might be. There any questions, any. Yes. So our disposal contract was settled for how many years person. Do you know what the. Rate of increases. Five years. And I believe it was. Two and a half. For 3%. Increase. Each year. Okay. Which in our last, our last budget. Our last contract. I think it was two and a half percent. Yes. That makes sense. And so that covers solid waste. Disposal and also residual disposal. In the budget or be you not know that. That. Yard. That takes care of yard waste and solid waste disposal. And residuals. I think residual disposal as well. Okay. And we pay for both collection and disposal by the ton. Yes. Okay. All right. So that food scrap diversion is probably paying for itself. It will help. Yeah. Oh, it's not paying for itself. Yeah. It's not paying for itself, but it's. It's a aid. It's a help. It's teaching it. It doesn't pay for itself, but. It teaches us about. Food scrap. Diversion and a possible mandate from the state. Would be that every community has to. Food scrap diversion. And that would have additional costs as well. Because. It costs money to pick up. So. And that would have additional costs as well because. It costs money to pick up. Which grabs. So. Because I'm putting out about 10 pounds of these grabs. A week. And I'm probably putting out two pounds and trap. Rough. We did. We were in the calculation with Mike. I don't have the number in front of me, George. Do you have the numbers? I'm not sure we have agreement on that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. When I ran the calculations, it seemed that it was breaking even, but I'm not sure we ever. In the closure on that. So that might be a future discussion. All right. Well, it'll be interesting to see where we had. I mean, I'm paying for my food scrap. So. Town's not. I'm not in that 50,000. But. Anyways, thanks. Peter Howard. Thank you. Christine. I keep up with you. The five. Five year renewal. What's that for collection? Disposal. For disposal. That. So our contract was renewed. Five years. Our collection contract is going to expire on. FY 23. And the, but the collection hasn't been done. Oh, it's a. Has another year to go then. Right. Thank you. Any other questions? I would comment on the food scraps. Like any. I do pay for our food scraps to be taken away. And I also have a dog and she consumes a lot of food scraps too. So. That might be one solution. They have a dog. Is there a salary section to this? No. Right. Thank you. Any other questions? I would comment on the food scraps. Like any, I do pay for our food scraps to be taken away. So. Do we have a salary section to this? No. These are all outside charges, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's, have you moved this budget? Christine. No, you haven't. So move it. So. Is there a second section? So it's been moved in second for the solid waste budget. For. Four million and 11,000 $675. Okay. Any further questions or discussion for the. Solid for the DPW. Group. Peter, your hands up. It's from before I take it. I'm sorry. Okay. Great. I. Shane Blundell. Yes. John Ellis. Yes. Mary Margaret. Yes. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Yes. Carol Harmer. He's not here. John Deist. Yes. Ellen Jones. Yes. Annie LaCorte. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. George Kosher. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Dean Corman. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. The solid waste budget is passed unanimously. The next budget is the motor equipment repair. Division on page 104. And this is the division that takes care of all the DPW and facility vehicles. It's pretty much a level funded budget. I note that so far it looks like 40, 40,000 have been spent in the maintenance line already this year. So the 55,000 seems appropriate. I don't have anything more on that budget. And so I would move that we accept the motor equipment repair budget as printed at 443866. Is there a second? Second. So it's been moved in second for the motor equipment repair budget. At 400 and I'm sorry, $443,866. Are there any, any further questions or discussion? Grant Givian. Hi. Shane Blindell. Hi. John Ellis. Mary Margaret. Yes. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shailene Pokers. Yes. John Deist. Yes. Ellen Jones. Yes. Annie McCourt. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. George Kosher. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Ian Carmen. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. Thank you that motor equipment division budget is passing unanimously. The next one is cemeteries. Yes. Yes. Yes. I have a slight increase in the wages category because of a new hire at a very slight, a slightly higher salary. Other than that, there's, there's nothing new. It's the level funded expense budget. With that, I would recommend that. We approve the cemetery budget at 284,680. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions on the cemetery, salaries and expenses as presented? Peter. This is the, this may not be in this budget, but the transfer. From perpetual care to capital budget. I couldn't find a. A. More article on that. Do you know where the. Last at the last meeting. 51. Oh, there it is. Oh, maybe that was added. Oh, I think it was there. Thank you. It's 73 now. 73. Yes. And Peter's right. The offset, the 150,000 offset. Comes from. I don't know. Either perpetual care or less engraved. Mr. Chair. Yes, Alan. When we vote. When we vote the cemetery. I recommend that also. Contingent in that vote is the $150,000 from the cemetery. Perpetual care. Just trying to avoid an extra vote. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if we explicitly voted. Well, we usually vote that warrant article. We voted it for the 10,000 from the capital, but we haven't voted the 150,000 from public works. So when we vote this public works budget cemetery. A man that we're also adding the 150,000. Taking it from perpetual care in that article. Thank you, Alan. I think we'll accept that as a friendly amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the comments on the. Cemetery budget. So can you go up to the prior page? Alan. Thank you. So it's been moved and seconded to vote for the, in favor of the. Cemetery budget for a net of $284,680. Including $434,680. And we'll send the bill to the, to the commission. So we'll send the bill to the commission. We'll send the bill to the commission. And we'll set from the. Cemetery fund of $150,000. This is, is there any further questions or any further discussion on this. Grant gibbian. I. Shane Blundell. Yes. John Ellis. Yes. Right back. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shaelene poker's. Yes. John dice. Yes. Allen Jones. Yes. Andy LaCorte. Yes. Bill Keller. Yes. Allen Tosti. Yes. George Kosher. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Dean Kornerman. Yes. And David McKinnon. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Pass unanimously, Peter. And the only two things left in the DPW budget. We have a number of streetlining and traffic signals. Which are both. Level funded. From last year. And I don't have anything to add. I move that. Both the street lighting and traffic signals. Budget be approved as contained in the manager's budget. So. What's the street streetlining is a hundred. A hundred and fifteen thousand and what's the traps? Traffic signals are. The same hundred fifteen thousand. Okay. So. I think we'll then, since there's the same amount of money, we'll just vote it. Simultaneously. So it's been moved and seconded. To vote of the street lighting budget and the traffic signals budget at a hundred and fifteen thousand. Is there a second. Second. Second. So it's moved and seconded for each of the street lighting budget and the. Traffic signals budget to be voted at a hundred and fifteen thousand each. Is there any further discussion on these budgets? Grant Givian. I. Shane Blundell. Yes. John Ellis. Yes. Mary Margaret. Yes. Brian Beck. Yes. Peter Howard. Yes. Shaylene Pocrus. Yes. John Deist. Yes. Alan Jones. Yes. Annie LaCorte. Yes. O'Callar. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. George Cozer. Yes. Christine Deschler. Yes. Dean Carmen. Yes. David McKenna. Yes. So the street lighting and the traffic signals. Are voted unanimously at a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars each. Thank you. I think we're done, Christine, right? We are done. Thank you, George and John. Thank you, Christine, George and John. Great. So. Let's see if we can get a. One warrant article out of the way, which should be sort of quick. Dean Carmen. Would you bring up the. School committee stipend, please. Yeah, I don't. I don't have the exact number. I don't think I, I didn't open it quick. I had it open. Maybe I closed it. I can get it back open. Hold on. The new article 69 photo appropriated schools. Committee members stipend. So this was an article that appeared. Before the committee. Last year. What it is allowing to happen is for the school committee. Who are the only elected board in town that do not receive a stipend. To begin receiving a stipend of. Three thousand dollars. So. I think just that's that's what we would be voting to approve it. My. We talked to us last year, last year, last year, when it came up, I. Urged the committee to vote favorable action. So my, my reasons are, are, are the same. And that is. When. Well, one of the things you learned about. Elected officials, when you, when you talk to them. Is that upon becoming an elective official. You have all of these new found obligations that occurred, right? So you start getting invited to these. Conferences and different, different things like that. And because you're in the public official, you, you go. Right. It's the thing you do. And the, but those things come with cost. And so what you learn. And I think any would do a far better job than. Me explaining it. Is. You don't actually make money being a. An elected official, you know, like the select board who has a $3,000 stipend. The assessors who have a $4,900 stipend. And so. A lot of times that money. In the case, definitely case. Select board goes to. The different things you're doing as a, as an elected official. And so all this is doing is providing a stipend to effectively reimburse them. For costs. They're occurring as school community members. So I urge favorable action. Second. Sorry, I was on mute. Thank you, Dean. Do we have any other questions? On the stipend. Yes. Peter Howard. We did go to our last year. I don't know whether, whether or Dean said that or not. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Andy, did you want to make any comment on this? Just to say that in particular for school committee members who frequently are on mute. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Do we have any questions on the stipend? Yes. Peter Howard. We did go to our last year. I don't know whether, whether or Dean said that or not. Okay. Thank you. We did go to our last year. My question is we were on mute. So we are not on mute. And I know that there are school committee members who frequently are motivated to run because they have children in the schools that childcare costs alone. When. You're a member of a two working. Two working adult households. Are certainly, certainly eat up this stipend pretty quickly. And if I just looked at it in terms of when I was on the select board hours, I did not spend. not get paid for it would be eat not pretty quickly so it is not profitable for people it's not a motivator for people to run but it is a kind of a sign of respect for people's volunteer time their dedication of their time to what I think is a pretty responsible position in town with regard to you know operations and leveraging the budget and so on and so forth. Thank you, Annie. Alan Tossey. Yeah, unless somebody could correct me I think everybody should understand there is a possible additional cost beyond the third three thousand dollars and that is elected officials who get paid are all so eligible for employee health insurance now they used to be one or two select men who took it I don't know if anybody takes it now but that is a possible cost depending upon how many of the school committee do take it they're not eligible for retiree health insurance because their salaries are below five thousand and therefore they're not eligible for pension and if they're not eligible for pension they're not eligible for retiree health insurance but there is that possible extra cost I'm in favor of this but I do have one question Dean do we have to appropriate money in this or is it coming out of the school budget? So we didn't settle on this last year I mean I think the general thought is it's a rounding error in the school budget so it would just come from that and then on on your first point I had actually looked into that when this came up last year the issue of health insurance and I talked to Doug Heim about it and I guess this is something that kind of missed us so many years ago the committee had pushed on the select board to end the process of part-time elected officials receiving health insurance and at the time we were told that the select board could do that by policy but the existing members who are uncomfortable ending the practice for themselves or the existing members of the committee what Doug told me is that by practice in policy the select board has ended um allowing members to get health insurance when the new select board members come on so as people come off they are they're the new members are not allowed to receive the the benefit so the last time I checked there were no members as of last year there were no members receiving health insurance now I didn't remember that until he brought it up but he he brought it up pretty convincingly to me so the school committee would have to adopt a similar policy so they would have to go to the select board to be exempted from the select board policy because the select board policy covers everyone okay thank you so dean just to sort of clarify what you just said then this is not under the current circumstances unless there's an exception granted by the board of selectmen this is not a potential extra cost for the school committee members that is what town council told me last year yes okay thank you um dean you had your hand up before you didn't have any question okay and al tossy your hand is still up or not okay any other questions on the stipends for the members of the school committee okay so then um dean you moved it uh is there a second second so it's moved and seconded grant gibbian hi jane blendell yes john ellis yes mary margaret yes brian beck yes peter howard yes jaylene pocus yes darrell harmer oh he's not here sorry john dice yes john jones yes annie with court yes bill keller yes al tossy yes george coser yes christine dishler yeah dean carman yes david mckinna it's uh passing yes thank you very much so um the the uh mary margaret are you ready to pick up on the enterprise sure somebody's got their microphones uh their mic on and it's echoing here you check that thank you mary margaret please go ahead okay um so i need someone to um um we're going to do reckon ring alan jones you're the you're the budget budget presenter man all right i just lost the whole thing sorry i think we're going on right yeah rec recreation sun page 171 the record rank it's recreation to start that's on 171 well i'm 172 i got all right do you want to know how much is left in the fund first i think we want to go to 172 al thank you yes go right ahead okay so left in the fund is 378 446 96 cents okay okay all right so joe came back um so also the budget has changed a little bit or the way he he the way he likes to to see it so um so some of the things he said are that the you know the revenue comes in the previous year um they took a loss in 2020 because of the pandemic but expect uh 2021 to be positive if you look on that page with all the contracted services and whatever he has um he likes to break those down into the different quarters which you'll see below um let's see what else did i say okay so some of the things he talked about um the contracted services are the people mentioned below um he can only take 14 kids at a time for the remote learning days for the after-school program as he is running his after-school program uh it is my understanding that the debt service line item 5871 is the bond payment on the reservoir project do you want to say about that um also he will if you look at the salaries he apportions his time between rec and rank as far as recreation goes those are the program and i don't know what more to say about the program um and um charlie when you and i talked about changing that one column and you had said that um in the 2021 budget book it should be 376 757 yes but he um what did he say i think this one i think this is this one is correct what you said it's the other one where he changed it well i think um i i think that dean and and a couple of the members of the committee are going to be talking to to eda and um sandi about the differences in these uh the budgets right um and and alan and i discussed those differences so the the 4 uh 65 334 that's there includes some positions that aren't shown on this chart um and and i think they'll resolve that question very right so actually it's when we get to the rank where he changed the number so yeah so we have that number that um should be 376 757 he has a director and a supervisor of recreation um the assistant director does the special ed work but um that person now does both the special ed work and the coordination as the assistant director so joe has himself being paid by spending 80 of his time at the rack and 20 at the rank so i hope that explains the rack because i don't know what else to say about it i i think that's pretty complete i think it's um it's just interesting to note that um in fiscal 20 and 21 he shows the substantial number of uh income categories not coming in because of the covid but it looks like in fiscal 22 they're forecasting that many of these programs are going to come back yeah you know and he's already running that after school program um following all the rules and keeping all the kids safe okay so i think that's all i want to say about it so are you making the motion for the budget of $1,720,882 in expenses and equivalent amount in revenues for zero balance on the basis of a fund balance of $378,447 that was exactly what i was going to say i that's what i thought second so does anybody have any questions for mary margaret on the recreation budget oh wait i lost my participant hang on a second yeah now i got it so any questions from mary margaret um i think i think it's pretty straightforward uh you know he's forecasting the balance he's got a balance in the account and he's forecasting a zero you know no loss for the year so seeing that there are no questions it's been moved and seconded we'll take a vote on the recreation budget well i should say enterprise fund budget uh grant give me an eye chain yes john ells yes mary margaret yes rinbeck yes jane pockers yes john deist ellen jones yes nanny lecourt yes bill keller yes al-tosti yes george coser yes pristine deshler yes dean karman yes david mckenna yes okay um especially unanimously so it's a 10 to 10 we'll see if we can finish uh if you can finish the next budget uh margaret the uh ring budget that's the ring right do you want to know what's the first number in the enterprise fund um yes the balance yes please it's 41 000 20 zero two oh and 98 cents thank you okay so like i said joe what's his time between wreck and rink um so the rink is 20 of his time uh if you look in the um the telephone line item five two one five there's no expense there because he said he doesn't use the phone um let's see oh and the concessions stand they can't open during the pandemic so that's why they're not making any money off of that uh let's see what else did he say there and there's minimal use of the vending machines as well so at the beginning of 2020 they closed down until august um get at that point we're getting the rink ready um and there was you know it's several weeks of lost revenue they are just from vending machines and the concessions stand uh let's see five two oh the non ice rental there were other uses of the um the rink that was not for ice like what's the name i don't know what the name of that game is that you play that like soccer they also did in indoor baseball practice and it was used for fifth grade dances so and he's also proposing a five dollar rental increase for next year and may be able to shift some of the expenses to recreation um so that number in the budget book should be not 191 but 178,262 which number is that can you go that in the budget book i column let's see the f y 2021 budget book column instead of that 191 234 it should be 178 262 but that's when he was saying he thinks it should be 174 528 because what's the reason why uh because the assistant director is what i explained before they eliminated that position and yeah so the um direction is eliminated what very margaret are there any changes to the fiscal year 22 salary uh you know the total is 182,610 uh online 5101 so if if uh allen you could go down to the salary detail please so 180 2008 20 is the same number yeah so i didn't change that and the change he made was in the fiscal 21 but that's the presentation issue so so that number doesn't change therefore the the uh proposal for the rink cost don't change so if you could slide up back to the uh right there whoop whoop whoop the income i would just point out to the members that um his revenue expenses have dropped but he also has increased the the the trend what it says transfer for other funds 49 72 that's subsidy from the general fund going into the rink right which is why i think he's gonna he will try to raise the rental for the ice time to five dollars let's see what else is there i can say about that peter howard do you have a question yes uh mary marga did see did you have to mention why the refrigeration contract is so much bigger no i didn't ask that sorry but i can well it's actually uh lower than it was in 2019 peter if you believe those numbers it's a lot higher than it was in 2020 though yeah all right i did not ask him but i can so what do you want to do next wait for me to get the answer no i think i think it's a it's a you can get us that number informationally uh it's not going to change the the overall um activity by substantial amount so if you could just check on that and get back to us mary marga and i do want to say that he has been pretty resourceful in trying to get revenue when during these times and still providing a place for the kids he's trying to do this budget so it more accurately reflects what's really going on i think um so in in some cases we uh blanks and things he's he's moving stuff around for example uh five two oh three and five two six nine uh those are the the same thing i believe and uh he has uh money in one and none none the others i recall anyway he just commented he's trying to work this budget around so so it makes more sense and more accurately reflects what's going on right because he likes to have have it broken into the quarter so he can see how it works and so he went back to that kind of um presenting okay uh mary marga do you want to make a motion uh yes please approve the budget as printed so it's for five hundred ninety three thousand and four dollars in expenses an equivalent amount in revenues with a balance in the uh rink enterprise edburn's rink enterprise fund of forty one thousand six hundred and twenty one dollars is there a second second any further questions for uh mary margaret on or john on this budget okay so we'll vote grant gibbian hi chain blundell yes john ellis mary yes mary margaret yes brian beck yes peter howard yes shaleen pokris yes john dice yes ellen jones yes annie lecourt yes bill keller hi ellen toasty yes george coser yes christine jeckler dean karman yes david mckenna yes uh the rink uh edburn's rink budget is unanimously uh thank you very much so that's nine o'clock um any other questions or issues before a motion to adjourn is in order you see none is there a motion to adjourn so moved in a second okay any objection here we know objections we adjourn thank you very much everybody thank you thank you night everyone night