I may have I may have completely messed up our recording for the first meeting and I apologize to everyone for that. Okay. so this is our March 25th regular board of finance meeting. We'll start pledge allegiance again. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the
republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible indivisible and justice and justice for all.
Okay. So I'm going to apologize profusely to Kate later for messing up the recording before because we literally talked about it right before we got on this meeting. So anyway, my fault. Sorry about that. We will deal with it. okay. So, we left off talking about our capital budget,
right? But don't we need to go through our don't we
're going to go through our I'm going to get I have to get our agenda up because I have unfortunately it's bizarre that my PDF program on this particular laptop literally can only have one document open at a time. I apologize. So, we're going to do public speak. We're going to go around. We're gonna do public speak again. Sorry, guys. All right. So, Scott, do you have public speak to offer?
I'm good. Thank you.
Carol,
I'm all set. Thank you.
All right, Eric, I see you've joined us from public works. Good to see you. You're muted.
I'm good, thank you.
Okay, but thanks for being here. it's changing on me. Joanne, do you have further public comment for us?
Just a quick one, Rob. I want to applaud all of you. I know how painful it is for some of you to to to make cuts, but remember this is a year that the town is kind of in a little bit of disarray. you know, the main thing is to get it all up and running with people, you know, staffed, which is important. So, the projects may be a little slower going this year, you know, getting people all up to speed and stuff. So, if there ever was a year to cut a little bit here and there, you know, you have to I don't think you can take this
budget as constructed. It's just not fair to the taxpayers to bring something with such a high, you know, level. I don't expect any of our selectmen that support things to, you know, tell you where to cut. They expect that you're, you know, they're going to bring you the budget and then you're going to have to look at the tough numbers and hopefully make a couple capital fund things. You've seen the balances. There's some balances there. You've also uncovered that there's the town aid road money. again, I don't want to see cuts either, but there's a job to do. So, good luck doing it. And, that's all.
Thanks. I think that's everyone for the public. all right. So, going back to our agenda, changes, additions. So, I I have some thoughts on this one. because literally the next thing on the agenda is town administrator's report. We don't have a town administrator. So, I I think we should probably strike that. I think we should probably you know, strike donation requests. That's not a thing we're dealing with right now. Same with school bathroom. and that's and the rest I'd leave. That's my take, guys. What do you think?
I'm fine with that.
Yeah. Should we do that?
We have to do a motion or
No, I I was going to I was proposing it as a as a course of action to see what you guys thought and then we can make the motion. Okay.
do you want me to do it since I Yeah, my motion would be to delete item four, town administrator's report,
and delete 5C and 5D, donation requests and status of bathroom project, bathroom renovation project. This is just too much to get to and we don't really have anything to add there. We have done reports. Do we have We do have correspondence. Okay, good. So, that's my motion. Do we actually do we actually want to delete them or do we just decide we're not going over it because do we want them off? We certainly don't want them off the agenda for
Oh, you mean you want to leave it down the road? Liz, right? what do you do? You
So, we just can we just choose without making a motion. Can we just choose to say
Sure.
Okay.
We're not going to go over them.
All right. I don't care. That's fine by me. So, does anybody else have any changes, additions?
I'll withdraw my motion.
No. Okay. So, forest town administrator's report, we just discussed it. We don't have a town administrator, so we won't be doing that.
That brings us to
Yes.
Yeah. what's the status on that on hiring one?
Excellent question. Do we have a status board of selector?
That'd be great. Update. Carol, you want to give them an update?
Okay. So, we have no we have no meeting scheduled.
I Okay. Sorry,
Carol. You don't
I thought we had
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Do we have any meetings scheduled to move forward on the town administrator?
I looked on the calendar. I didn't see anything.
Okay. If you're deciding to do that, please let Scott and I know.
Yeah.
If I see something, I will send you a text or an email.
Can I can I ask what does that mean if you see something? I mean, who makes the decision to call the meeting about this? I mean, we got three
verybody. Everybody, everybody, any selectman,
any select
call a meeting,
it's appropriate if you sit there and communicate with the other selectman that you're going to do it. So, right now, Bill, I'm not I I'm understanding that there's a potential agenda for a special meeting on Monday. I haven't been asked if I can attend it, but I understand that there's a potential agenda for that meeting, which would mean that we can potentially hire the town administrator Monday possibly.
And and we still have some of those candidates left from the selection committee that we interviewed. There are still people available from that.
Not the top two,
huh?
Not the top two. So, if I if I listen, if I had my way and what I've tried to tell the board of selectmen previously is that they should restart the whole process. Bill knows he was on the committee. Joanne was on the committee. We thought we did a good job. We presented two people back to the board of selectmen. Those were not accepted. And
so,
can I just say something though? this we better get back to the board of finance. They have a lot of work to do and this isn't fair to them.
They all I would say I think this is an important conversation.
Good lord. We need to get this done.
Yes, we do.
This is absolutely
this is a very this is a serious conversation
and we've got to get through this and maybe one of the most important thing I mean it's not going to save us for the the budget, okay? But this is really important for the town. We
I I just want to share something.
If I could share something.
Go ahead. Please.
As a member of the selection committee,
we felt and you can ask Joanne, you can ask Van Car, you can ask anybody was on that board, an creme, you Jeff, we all felt exuberated over the quality of every candidate. We thought we had an unbelievable group of people and that no matter who we ended up with, we would be lucky on the five or six people and we narrowed it down to four. We all felt any one of them could do the job. So to be sitting here today without anybody in that position yet is just irresponsible. There's a good candidate still available. We should get to work and do it. It's it's just crazy. out of the four people that we had all of them capable to do that job. All of them.
Let's pick one and do it. That that's and this whole board knows and remembers that every single board on that select person on that selection committee said we are lucky to have these candidates. They're all good candidates that could do the job today if needed.
So correct dig our heels get to work.
But Bill, Bill, wait. You know as well as I do that that committee picked two top two candidates, presented both top two candidates, would have hired either one of those two top candidates and they chose to move to the third and the fourth candidate. So you can sit there, you can sit there and do whatever you want like this. This can go. We're going to go to another meeting. This is what's going to happen. I sat there and said and we we don't have to waste time, but sat there and said start the process over. So start the process over in selection commission start from scratch.
Do a new selection committee. Yeah.
Oh for Christ. Why?
Excuse me Rob. Can I say one thing?
Well hold on hold on hold on. I I got to keep control of this meeting. But
Joan, you were on the selection committee as well.
Yeah. I just was going to say I agree with Bill. I know that there was, you know, four very qualified candidates. I've kept everything confidential. I've sent, you know, numerous emails to the selection committee with my thoughts on why we would need an experienced person to come in. I think you can find that in those candidates that we have. So, I wholeheartedly agree with Bill. I mean, I loved that we all had a couple opinions. That's all I'm going to say.
You know, everybody brought their own opinions to the table, but we, you know, respected everyone. So,
thank you.
I'm hoping they can find one. So, thank you for allowing me to speak. Thanks, Joan.
It's needed. This whole budget process has has proven that a candidate needs to sit in there. So, thank you. Good luck.
Totally. Thanks, Joanne. So, you know, guys, look, this isn't the airing of grievances, but I I'm just saying please, please, please, please, please find a way. Okay, let's move on.
I mean, we gota we got to get it we got to get it we got to get it done. So, moving on from that because we just, you know, we don't have one right now. That brings us to old business review of budget to actual. I have a confession to make. I worked today. I logged on at 5:40 with no time whatsoever to look at the packet. So, if you have, by all means, take it away. Liz, if you've gone through it, I'd be happy to hand off You don't need to hand it off. I I just I highlighted a few things that I noticed that we were overbudget on and some of them probably make a lot of sense. If you want me to just go through and I'm looking at the profit and loss statement versus the actual so whatever.
so yeah, to the extent that Lisa can help, you know, yeah, help with that.
I'm just going to name them and we're all going to say, "Oh yeah, that makes sense." So, we're over, as we know, on the assistant town clerk salary, we kind of Did we expect that? On the assistant town clerk salary, we're over by 130%. There was I believe there was a vacation buyout when she left the other position and came to that position. So, that would make
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, it zeros out. Interesting.
That would make Yes. Okay. I do recall that.
and the assistant registars's salary were over by $107%. Which
don't be scared. That's only $139. But,
you know, when you when you see that in the column, you go,
Can can you share that?
But I mean, it's just easier to look at.
Yeah, go ahead. I'll let you share again.
Sorry. Yep. I was looking on a piece of paper, but I will pull up the
You can read from the piece of paper, but show us the
Yep. let me just get to where I was.
Good.
Okay. So, here it is. so, I got to find the page. Me, I got to make this I got to expand this. Okay. And all of you people are in my way. There you go. Okay. So, so page who
is the assistant
Oh, I see the 107. Yeah,
the assistant registar salary. Yeah. So, there's that. it's $139. I don't know what
he reason for that. Assistant registar salary. So I highlighted that
he registar salary do they get $2,000 quarterly? Is that what they normally get?
I'm not familiar yet with what they get.
This is the assistant registars.
Oh, I thought you said the registars at first because that's over 117%. That's over 17%.
The registar salary. Oh, on this it says
well actually I should back up because this is as of March 25th. So you are in that is February 28th. Is that right?
No, this is March 5th. This is the one that's in in our packet.
Oh
yes, but it's through February. It's through February. See the top it says July 25 through February
. Yep. That is till the last day of February. So, let me go back and change my date to be the same as yours.
Okay. So, I mean that's okay if if we're over more than we thought. You could chime in on that. That's okay, too. where else are we? Do you want me to just keep going? We don't have to
Well, I I guess the normally what would happen here, Liz, is someone like Eric would say, "Oh, that's because
Oh, right. Yeah, that's right. Yes, that's why I'm asking what those because so far in your assistant registar salary there's a payment of 500 to each of them and there's a payment of 569.50 in July. So I don't know why it's 69.50 more than the $500 payment.
Yeah.
So that's why it's over a little bit. They they and it was the same with the registars. There was a little bit more in the July payment than the rest of the year. I'm not sure why they did that. And does anybody our board select have any information about that?
Can we just highlight that? And
are are you asking about the $239? That's a payroll function. That's a that's how much is the train the assistant treasurer 139.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay. So, what would have to happen, Bill, is is you'd have to go through the payroll and you'd have to sit there and see what is hitting that line item and then we'll be able to give you an answer.
Again,
we had a town admin, they'd be able to answer.
He wouldn't know that answer.
You wouldn't know that answer. Okay.
No,
he usually knew that kind of stuff, but okay.
Who did payroll? so and then we get down to the community center director. That is not unexpected either. We're over 122% and it's probably more than that by now,
right? Because we're basically paying two people,
right?
is that something we anticipate that we'll have to touch contingency for this year?
that is possible, but also that's being rectified into the next budget. We talked about that last night related to the hourly rates,
right? Because the reason why that is over is because after the unfortunate incident with the community center director and the hiring of the assistant to take over, we kept her at that higher rate to sit there and get through this year.
Yeah. Just just trying to plan.
Yeah. We're over in office supplies in the town side. That's one of those things that in evaluating the bills, we need to do a better job internally to sit there and make sure they all the supplies get put to the right department. That is something that we're not sure is really have been done properly in the past.
Yep. Okay. Yeah, we talked a little bit about that last night.
Yeah. And there were checks. Remember last time we talked about checks?
we had to order checks from QuickBooks and that was a large amount. That's in there.
Okay. in the town garage,
we have some new people. I assume that's what that's about.
office supplies 120. What I mean again, we're over budget by 60 bucks.
The town garage needed to train somebody for a tree warden. I think that was part of that. If I'm look, if I remember right, I'd have to check again.
Zach is a tree warden now. What else? we just want to go down and just see anything that public works
templary public works salary. I mean, that's I mean overall they're still under, but
snow removal, that's no surprise.
Can Can you Can you just slide back to that temp one? Yeah.
And over by
Lisa, is there is there any way to drill into that number?
Yeah, let me get there. I was getting there. Hold on.
I'm sorry. Which one are you talking about?
temp public works salary.
Oh,
3011.
Robert Tuttle.
Okay. So, so that was
that's the only thing going in there is is his salary.
Yep. He he has been working and and I don't know when the last time that occurred. When's the last time that
January?
All right. Jay was helping out, right?
He Jay's been helping Eric get acclimated.
January 28th was the last check.
And by the way, Eric is on I don't know if he's still on this call, but he's doing a really good job.
Okay. So, that's transition basically. That's what that cost us.
Yep.
just no removal overtime. No big surprise there.
Nope. and here's the fire marshall office supplies 533%. I don't know what
I mean, you know. Yeah, it's it looks like it's about 166 over. it's not a ton, but hopefully they can.
The other day we talked about those code books. Well, there's a code book that's $246 in there from NFPA. I don't know if that should go there or the building codes, but I don't I don't know. But it's a it's a big expense. $245,
I guess.
Senior programs is over
already. Yeah. Already. because I mean we're what 75% through the year.
Is is there any way you can that anymore?
Do what? Make it bigger?
Yeah.
Oh, there you go.
Beautiful.
And go back and go back to the community center. Harold, do you wanna you you raise your hand?
I just wanted to ask Lisa, if the senior programs is over, there's a liability account for senior programs, senior lunch, senior trips, doesn't the money start coming out of that liability account? I think the balance is around 8,000. I'm looking what this is for and I Let me see. Hold on. Move this line over. New Year's Eve event, Amazon, Magic Flight, art classes, youth art class, Andover Pizza, Dollar General. That's what these items are. I'm I don't see any money coming in there the rest of the year. you're saying this time of year is when they might run low and that's when you'd use that fund.
I that was the way it always was because when we used to do the senior lunch and we had to have fundraisers just to keep that program going. That was when the liability account was established by the board of finance because we were fundraising to keep money in that account. So what's happening now is when money is collected at the lunches, money is collected for trips or money is collected for programs, the money is automatically being deposited into the liability account, not the general fund. So
I'm looking Yeah, I'm looking for that account right now in the funds. lunch trips, senior trips.
Well, I I don't know. It used to just be the senior lunch liability account, but now from what I understand, Tess said that now it's the senior lunch program.
Senior lunch seems to have $5,000 and the senior trips only has 745. Programs has about 1,600. I have not reconciled these. I'm just telling you what's in there.
Is that the liability account or are those the budget lines you're discussing? No, those are the liability counts.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, when there's an overage on one line, does do you start taking from that account to
I would have Yeah. backtrack and see what was done before and what we want to do moving forward because I haven't touched any of these funds and done any transfers yet.
Okay.
All right. Thank you.
There have been any additions to those funds lately, Lisa? Can you check that?
Hold on. Let me see. Go back. Trips. Doesn't look like it. let me go into Where'd it go? Hold on. Did it kick me out? Hold on. No, it kicked me out. Let me go back in to the report balance sheet by class. All right, back over. All right, lunch.
Lunch. lunch has some. Let's see. Yeah, lunch has deposits, but let's see. December, one in February, one in December, and then it goes back to another one in December. But there's been three three items that have been charged to it. Like Georgina's restaurant has been charged to it.
Tony
I imagine
how much money was put into it those two months
though December and February
let's see December was 450 another December was 2580 and another in February was 859
thank you
I mean here's the upshot looking at this if you look at the bottom line.
Yeah,
they're half expended. So, it seems to me that while this could be tightened up next year,
give test a full year to sort everything out, but right now I don't think we're tracking where we're going to have a problem.
Ag. Yeah. Okay.
I just call out and I have Yeah. Can I just ask one more question and then we can move on?
Go. When you say when there's when you say there's money funded, money comes in, where does it come from? Is that from people that pay for the lunches or the lunches?
Five bucks ahead, right?
Well, I thought the other stuff like Carol said, some of it they do fundraising, I guess. I'm You might want to ask Carol. Not the lunches, but like I don't know, the trips or or I'm not sure.
Yeah,
I don't know. I know they did one they did one fundraiser
like a craft fair for Christmas, but they they do charge for programs and they do charge for trips. So, I believe that is some of the money that's going in there too, what they're collecting from the seniors or the participants for the different programs and trips. And on top of that, part of that goes to the instructors like the yoga.
So part of that goes to the senior to the, that budget, but part of it also goes to the instructors,
right?
Is that right, Carol? So, yes, some of the instructors do get it, but I thought they took their money first. Louise
and then the remainder was deposited.
But I don't know that that would be a question for test.
It would be a reimbursement kind of a net net out and then you
Yeah,
you add in whatever's left.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay, I'm good. We ready to move on?
Yeah,
we just scroll through. So, let's see. Conservation membership. Not worried about that. Yeah.
legal professional
planning and Oh, wow. This whole planning and zoning is over one.
Is this the thing where we had some lawsuits gone? that dog thing is
and and there was a lawsuit over the the gravel bank by the gas station down there.
Let's let's let's focus. So, this planning and zoning one, the legal and professional that is related to the lawsuit that is going on with the the property next to the extraart and hopefully we recover those dollars.
That would be nice.
We we recovered most of it, I think.
No. So most of it
if and Scott because you're on planning the zoning if that's the case and and we understand that that has to get to the treasur's office at least the settlement because I haven't seen the settlement come across the administrator's desk
and we talked about it I think that most of it was a recover not all of it but most of it
great
and if that's the case then I'm just telling everybody that then the the treasurer needs to find the deposit Right. I I would like to see that that it was deposited back into some account somewhere. Yeah.
Okay.
And applied accordingly.
So legal professional under the reason I now that we talk about it and looking at our budget for legal professional under planning and zoning is that lawsuit concluded? Is that what you're telling me? is that it's been adjudicated and we have a an endpoint because, excuse me, we have $10,000 in that line for next year, for next fiscal year. I want to make sure that's appropriate.
Lawsuits come up on, you know, planning and zoning. Any attorneys?
Okay, let me just rephrase the question. the the lawsuit that cost us so much money this year.
It's done.
I I I think it is. I think it is. We had a a meeting it was on the agenda at some point and I it was finalized, but I would like to find out what what did happen to the money.
Okay. I I asked because of course I'm looking at next year's budget and I'm trying to figure out if $10,000 is an appropriate amount to have there budgeted as you see on this document here that Liz is showing us. That's what we budgeted last year. We doubled the year before.
We'll we'll get you an answer. We'll get you an answer on that lawsuit.
Thank you.
Yep.
That's all.
I think Rob, your your point is the budget for next year is $10,000. $10,000. That's right.
Is that enough money
going forward? Does
that's what I'm getting at. Thank you, Bill.
So, and we also will get with the planning and zoning agent and get you an answer as to what he sees coming down the road.
Thank you.
Y
we'll take action on that. okay. Very good.
Okay. Writing a note. Okay. going down. Looks like transfers contingency were 93 95%.
Oh, I had a question. Lisa, Liz, if you don't mind,
in the contingency line, we talked about this I want to say two or three meetings ago.
There was a $2,000
charge contingency. Did we ever run that down? What the heck was that? That's the abatement that to pay somebody that lives in Colombia because they don't I believe they don't have a tax bill here. So
fire marshal sharing fire.
I just the issue was
hould it be coming out of contingency? I don't I don't think that's right.
That was a decision made by the previous treasur and you're not wrong. But it's probably really hard to find a spot for that because we don't have a budget line item for
there's not a line item for
Yeah.
Okay. So, in the past when contingency got touched
the board of finance was asked for it for the $2,000 in this case
and and this never got to the board of selectment either.
Okay.
Yeah,
I understand. If you look and if you look at the previous audit, there's a contingency item in there that was not asked for and has since been the treasurer just asked the auditor to make an adjustment on that.
Okay.
Not asked for done by the previous treasur.
From the standpoint of making this work, there it occurs to me there's a couple possibilities. One is that the the board of finance could choose at this time to kind of bless that. or we could say no, wait, that doesn't belong there. Find another spot for it. That that's my gut reaction to it. contingency is supposed to be something that is only released if we're specifically asked for it, given a justification, and then we vote on it. It's $2,000. I know that that's not a big deal. I'm just trying to do this, right? So, does do other members of the board, what do you guys think about this? Because my gut reaction here is wait a minute, that doesn't belong there. If I can, Rob, I would ask you to make a vote on this and do it because there's no other line for it within the budget. It's the first year that we agreed to give Chief Mike the the money.
All right.
You know, I mean, I would just ask you I just want to I want to do it right.
Not done correctly. Not done correctly initially putting it into that account. I would tell you that that I would have put it I would have tried to put it you know and Lisa this is something you know where are all of the other transfers
done like all of the other abatements.
Yeah they're not even they're not even in our budget to be really honest.
No because they're a tax credit.
So this is this is the thing but this isn't really a truly a tax credit because this is we're paying somebody who's out of town. So, I guess my my thought is twofold.
I am perfectly willing to bless 2,000 bucks to to get this done out of contingency. That's fine by me. But what I would also say is, okay, if that's the going forward thing, do we need a $2,000 line item somewhere else in this budget for 20 26?
Is that going to the fire to It's for It's for Mike, right? Ronnie Mike. Correct.
So, why don't we put it under the fire a new line in the fire department's budget?
Does that make sense?
And funded at 2,000
and funded at $2,000.
That's kind of what I'm thinking. I mean, we don't have this properly accounted for.
There's a fire marshall other.
It It's you should do it just the way you said it, but that would be for the next budget year.
That' be for next budget season. So, I think we we do that for next budget season. for tonight. We take a vote to approve the $2,000 and we get on to other business that we have to do tonight.
There. Yep. So, I'll make the motion that we approve the $2,000 for the contingency. Obviously, $2,000 for Ron Mike to be approved to come out of the contingency fund. We have a second.
Second.
All right. Liz seconds. Bill motions. Liz seconds. So, you got to be Johnny on the spot with that. any further discussion? All right, let's go around the horn. Nick,
sorry, what?
Yes.
Okay, thank you, Heather.
Yes,
Kim.
Yes,
Louise.
Yes,
Kim. Oh, no. Sorry.
Liz,
yes.
Bill,
yes. me. Yes, that is unless I miss somebody. 70. so we've sorted that. I don't want to see that again. Hopefully we
don't do it that way.
Make a note somewhere then that we add
we we really got to think about Yeah. If if it's a if it's an ongoing expense, we we need to line the budget for it.
Yep.
So, Lisa, if you could take a note on that and If the $2,000 line,
yeah, we'll put it under
We should add something to the fire department budget, I think.
Or under like Carol said, under other or something. There's
it. And again, I'll defer to your expertise, Lisa, but if that is a payment for sharing a fire marshal with another town, you know, that's how we're doing it. Seems to me it belongs in the fire department's budget. We should fund it. You know, we don't want to be
I mean, you could talk to Wall-E and have him include it in his budget. Is that what you're saying?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah. For going forward. Yeah.
And just increase their budget by the two.
And just increase their budget and we we'll pay for it. It's fine. It just doesn't belong under contingency is is my point. Right.
So, this is the last page. I will admit I don't understand this at all. So if somebody could explain this ordinary income line that
it's
ays minus 1,000%.
Yeah, that can't be right.
Somebody please help me. Budget 145,000. We've used 1 million. I think we got we got I think we may have a spreadsheet error here.
It's no spreadsheet error.
No, no, it's not. No, no. Oh, no.
What am I missing?
talk as you would to a to a particularly stupid golden retriever. No, it's where you really want to look at is that bottom line that look at your total expense and you're at 59%.
And then go down to the bottom and look at your net income. I can't see it because because the picture is over
it's doing it's doing an overbudget of $1.6 million.
No. Well, it's
No, because it's it's over under.
So, if you look like on total expenses, you're under right now by 5,000 in expenditures. Your budget is 12 12 million. You've spent 7 million. You have 5 million left. So, that doesn't mean that negative sign doesn't mean you're over. It means you're under.
But, but Okay.
But you see the percentages we're looking at and why we're confused
when I see a thousand%. Yeah,
we're we're we're underfunded. Again, if you go up to the top in the way that this this should work,
right?
This is this is a this is a financial statement.
So, our our budgeted amount offsets our revenue by $145,000. Right now, it's just the budget number. So, it's sitting there saying, "Hey,
you have a budget of X and this is what you're expecting to collect in revenue." When we built this budget last year, our revenues were lower than our potential expenses. We took money out of our reserve fund or our general fund to offset taxes. That's all this means. Doesn't mean anything else other than that. It's
you budgeted for revenues and that's X and you budgeted for expenses and that's why the the expenses outpace the revenues,
right? I mean we still don't have half of our ECS.
Yeah, but that's not in the budget. That's not in the budget line. The budget line is a set estimate of what is going to happen in the current course of the current year,
right? Okay.
So, I let's just so I just clear. It's the negative 14501, right?
No, it's the it's the last column that's driving us nuts.
I can't see it.
Slide it. Slide it.
percent of budget.
that and that title in QuickBooks should be over slash under because it it shouldn't say over. It should say over under depending at what point you're in
this right here.
I will look at the percentages with Lisa. I will look at the percentages with Lisa.
Okay.
Right. I what I said earlier what I said earlier we're looking at a spreadsheet error what could be happening here
is as Lisa points out
if it's supposed to be over or under
ight
and it's calculating it like it's under right
or sorry overexpended it looks horrible but in what it's actually telling you is we've got a bunch of money left yes and and and this this document is very
lay person which I Ma'am, it's confusing.
So, bear with us.
They've always done that with QuickBooks. They've always titled that column over under. If I can get in there and change it. And I think Jeeoff, I think we can. I would always just do over under because it does totally confuse people. They think they're over. They're not. Most of the time they're under and not over.
And and and and listen, just from a board of finance perspective, you're actually seeing the actual information that's coming out of the accounting package. In the past, you haven't always seen that. You've seen a spreadsheet that's been dumped out of there and then manipulated.
Yeah. Right. The custom expenditure report.
Yeah.
Right. Never mind.
We need to we need to sit there and get the data right out of the system so it's clean and we need to there's there needs to be some adjustments to this. But yeah, you're under you're under spent the town right now across everything and
1.6 million
if you Yeah, 5 million. You're under 5.29, but a lot of that most of that ends up in the educational lines. And what I would do is slide up to the educational lines for me just for one second because I want to sit there and see something because this is related to our corrective action plan. and Lisa in that office have some work to do. I think we need a full
well the treasurer the previous like I don't have enough already right Bill? No, I mean really, we'll just pile it on, Lisa. You know, I mean,
with no staff, no administrator.
We just sit there. So, right there. Right there. Right. Back down a little bit.
Education. There it is.
Reconciliation.
Can you make that a little bit bigger?
We have two two ECS payments still coming, right?
Yeah.
Yes. That's was my point is see you've only got half of your income.
Yeah. Okay. Do Do you see the number? This is where there's a problem. There was a problem with the previous treasur. Do you see that that line? well, the voided checks line and the reconciliation discrepancies need to go. They they should never be there as expenses and listed there. But that's just a setup problem. But Andover Elementary School has received and this is where the previous treasure was causing a problem. She was causing the problem because she wasn't getting information and there was an ability to reconcile this that's really spent to the tune of I mean how many months are we into this? We're into this about
nine months I'd say nine months nine months
3.6 $3.6 million needs to be in that line that says 1.28 28 and which will decrease that underspend of $3 million down significantly and then therefore change that $5 million underbudget.
Sure.
Listen, this is this is this is a situation of information and how it's transferred and how it's put onto the financial statements and this is not right.
Correct.
I'm just I'm just telling you we're going to fix that. But, there's a couple other things that have to be dealt with before that. And Lisa's just getting her feet on the ground. So, I will tell you, we're not under budget by $5 million.
We're we're we're spent accordingly, right?
Our month of of April, May, and June left to go.
And really, there's only one I believe there's only one payment left to the school for the year. So,
Okay.
Thank you for explaining that. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
That's helpful. That's really helpful.
We pay them quarterly as because we receive ECS quarterly, right? Oh, no. We pay them 10 times.
10 times a year.
Everybody monthly.
And
Yep.
There's there's
Sorry, it's 10 times. That's right.
And and listen, there's a lot of issues with that. And there's a lot of issues with understanding what the bank balance is at that in that school account because it's town money.
So there's a lot of things that should happen related to that account and we'll deal with them after we can get through this budget.
I mean Okay. I mean it's it's also it's education money but yes I understand what you're saying.
Tax dollars used for education
plus ECS
plus and ECS is not part of that. No, ECS is an income function to the town. So, we don't tax the residents more than we need to.
I understand that
which is an underfunded amount because the state never and and there is some issue and some potential that the town the state will adjust that number but we don't have that's not guaranteed.
We haven't gotten an adjustment in three years.
13 years.
Okay. 13.
Yeah.
Wow. So everything everything keeps going everything keeps going up but we don't get an increase in our our state number.
That's right.
I thought I thought there was a minor adjustment three or four years ago, but that's not the point. The point is it's been about 2 million.
The adjustment the adjustment the adjustment Rob was they were going to decrease us.
Yeah.
Two years ago they were going to decrease. I I recall that
fight
and the the the small town league, whatever it's called, fought it fought it out and yeah,
I recall. All right. can we are we good with this guys?
I Yeah, I I would like to move on because
we got to make more progress. so that was budget to actual Does anybody have anything on the check register again? I plead that I just literally didn't have the time to look at it.
I didn't even look at it either.
I didn't either.
All right. I hope it's fine. this isn't and and frankly this isn't our main
Yeah.
Right now we have other fish to fry. Yeah, we can look through it and if and bring items up if we need to. Correct.
We can always email Lisa later.
Just email me. Yeah.
We'll just give her more work.
Yeah.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Pile it on. Why not? so that's check register. Okay. So 5C is donation request. I would move not move. I would just suggest we move right on from that. I don't think we're in no position to deal with that right now. ditto status of bathroom project. I haven't heard anything further on it. and it's frankly we're dealing with the budget right now. yep,
I I would pass on that as well. And that would get us to new business budget discussion with BOS members which you know we're sort of having already but I would suggest that we go back to our spread our handy dandy spreadsheet here and go back to our capital budget and finish our discussion that we were having earlier vis some of these funds and how we are addressing them this year. Now can everybody remind me am I sharing my screen right now or no? No, you're not.
All right. I'm going to share.
All right. We see this.
Yep.
Yes, we do.
Okay. Very good. So, this is the one change we've made so far. We'll highlight that puppy. So, the next
his one, right?
What?
We should revisit this one.
Which one?
The one you're on. Fire truck. Fire engine.
Yeah. Fire department. Fire engine. This is the one I would say we should talk about. Here's the thing. The last thing I want to do is put the fire department in a decision or our town in a position where we're short because we need a piece of equipment. However, we have purchased for the fire department in the last few years quite a few nice pieces new pieces of equipment. We are teeing up a purchase pending our board's approval which CIP will bring to you or I will bring to you or Wally will bring to you for a $65,000 compressor unit that fills their air. other than that we have the ongoing lease payment for the truck which we've discussed let's call it 125. So, and we know from looking at the funds, looking at the audit. Oh, great. I have the wrong PDF up. Hang on. where we have 400 and some odd thousand in there. I would like or I would like to be careful with this fund, but at the same time, it's not clear to me that we need to put 137 into it like clockwork.
Could you bring how much we have in that fund right now?
All right. Hold on one minute, Bill. I got to I got to pull up the thing again. I apologize to everybody. I have to find the email again where Lisa sent it to me. Give me a moment. There it is. Come on, baby. Let's get this thing maximized.
You You could even leave them split window like that. Okay. I I look my technical competence is what it is.
That's fine. So this year, okay, so Lisa, let's let's talk about this a little bit because this came up before and I'm not 100% sure. I know they sold something, but fire asset sale 65,000 sale of asset of asset added from audit. I don't recall. I know that they sell their old equipment when they can. I just want to make sure this is a real figure that actually made it in cash into this account. Is that your understanding?
It is an auditor entry. I think Jeff said he wanted to check on that, but I'm just telling you that's how they got their audit figure. They had to add that 65 in to get that 435. That was in their transactions for the year. So that's where that 435700 came from and that's how I balanced it.
I don't know how Jeff feels about that.
So here's my take. My my gut take is maybe we treat this like it's really 350 like we to be safe, right? We kind of ignore it and we go with this this figure here, right? 85.
Okay. So, if you're saying 3.48 and we have the payment of 125, is it plus they want the $64,000 which hasn't been approved yet together, we could cut back on the 137 because we still got plenty of money at 358 to pay for everything. We don't necessarily have to add another $137.
They will not run out of money. They will, you know, we're looking at about a 190
expenditure in this budget year. Jeff, you had
Yeah, I do. Two things. The sale is related to the ambulance.
That's why I remember
that the fire department purchased utilizing the funding from the calls that are made. So, the town did not pay for the new ambulance, but the fire department, because it is a town asset, the fire department asked if they could sell it, and I believe they only got like five grand for it. I don't believe they got $65,000 for that. So, that's an audit adjustment that has to be determined from our side. The other thing that you guys have to watch related to the fire department is everything that the fire department does eventually costs a lot of money.
So if you're going to cut that because you're trying to find money, you're going to you're going to I mean what we have attempted to do over the last 10 years and Rob, as long as you've been on that board, we've been trying to put the money into that account to sit there and offset the things that the fire department needs to protect us. So, I would I would tell you I I didn't have a problem with you doing the the cut to the building fund,
but I am going to tell you I think you guys should think long and hard about what you cut from the fire department's budget because their their things that they need are really expensive.
And you're not going to want to see them come and do a $500,000 transaction all in one year because we'll never get
hat's also a savings account. I fully agree with that. What I would say is from last CIP meeting talking to Wall-E talking my understanding about where they are in terms of their equipment. A minor adjustment might not be so bad. I am not at all suggesting that we zero this out.
I'm not at all suggesting that we should look at this fund like it's some sort of luxury. Not at all. we know from past experience that the next time we need a fire truck, whenever that may come, it's a million-dollar piece of equipment. So, we have to be careful. By no means am I suggesting we we we hack and slash here. I'm simply saying that we could conceivably we've been doing 137 like clockwork for a couple of years, right? One well 125 then we went up to 137, right? I'm just saying we could look at a small cut here. Nothing dramatic. And then we come back next year. We talk to Wally, we we talk about their capital plan. That's all I'm looking for a little savings. I'm not expecting this, you know, I I would never suggest that we zero it out.
So like the fire truck, if we had a really large expenditure, it would be paid for
over like the firetruck 10 years, right? You'd make payments, you would lease over 10 years.
That So it's not like you're going to be asked to have a million dollars on hand to buy a new truck. The flip side to that, the original plan for that firet truck originally back when we were saving money for it many years ago was we were going to buy it and it was projected to cost threequarters of a million dollars. Then some things happened and all of a sudden it was a million bucks and we didn't have it so we leased it. But the original plan was to buy it outright, to save up the money and buy it outright. And we were almost there. We could probably have gotten there if it was 3/4 of a million, but it didn't work out that way and we just had to lease it. The thing about leasing, as you know, is it throws off a cost for the, you know,
throws off interest cost. So ideally, like in a perfect world, if we had unlimited resources, I mean, we'd buy everything instead of leasing stuff or or or doing any sort of financing. I would love if we as a town had were rolling in money and could just avoid that sort of thing. I don't know. Here's the thing. I don't think they have a really major piece of equipment coming one, two years from now, even three, threeish. Well, they were talking about a particular piece of equipment. I forget the details at the CIP meeting, but right now they we we've sorted out their main truck, right? Their their their big rescue truck. We've sorted out their gear, their their air gear,
Their breathing apparatus. Thank you. And we're gonna sort out I believe we have to pass it their compressor.
I I just think it's possible. And again, I'm not asking I would not propose a major cut here. I would say could we do 100 instead of 137. Not not put no money in, right? just put a little less this one year to to get us through this. So, that's my take, guys. I I have no intention. I I would never want to short the fire department and I know that we need to continue to save money. And the thing is this money here it's it it will be it will drop the fund balance between this year and next simply because of if I if we if we went with that proposal it we would drop it anyway if we did 137 because we have 125ish to pay for the
truck and we got 65ish coming. Right. So we know we have a net outlay if we approve that of what 190. Am I doing my math right? So, you know, it's not ideal, but you know, neither was the cut we made last year to the road fund or neither is this. so that's just my take. I' I'd be I'd be love I'd love to hear from other people. I've been talking too much. So, what are other members of the board, Liz, what do you think? Tim, Louise, you know, speak up. Heather, Nick, anybody tell me what you think here because my gut is we could survive a small cut here.
I'm not in favor of the cup.
Okay.
I'm not either.
Okay.
I'd prefer not to do with that either.
I prefer not to either.
But yes, I hear you.
I prefer not to.
I feel like we're being pushed. We're being pushed against the wall to make some cuts to serious services
and I'm comfortable with it.
Well, I mean this all right ju just to clarify. I mean this is capital but yes I hear what you're saying.
Do we have
this is important stuff.
Do we have to go to 100? I mean
we don't have to go to 100. We can look this is this was just me noodling around. Let's just delete this. I just, you know,
that was my
play around with it. we could do any number. Look, flat out. We can do any number here. That's in our power. We have done in the past, as you can see. We used to do 125. We upped it to 137. I believe this here was in response to buying the truck. obviously this
was what we were putting in when we thought we were going to be able to buy the truck and then we went up to this to account for the lease payment. So
if we put in 125, but you're saying we're going to have 190 coming out.
Yes. So we would have a net outlay. So
a net outlay. Yeah.
We would we would be negative on the on the year. So, forget this number for a second cuz we're not sure about this number. Let's look at this number. 350, right? 348. So, if you put in 100 or I'm going to use round numbers, not not because this is the right number. If you put in 100, you're at 448, right? And then we know we got 125, we got 190 coming out. So, you're at, you know, 338. you'd still have 338 in there. The problem is you're going backwards. You're you're instead of building up this fund, you're depleting it. And that's not great. Obviously,
by a little bit,
you know,
by a little bit for one year
by a little bit. Not a huge amount, a little bit. The other thing we haven't talked about yet, by the way, is unassigned fund balance. But let let's stick with this for a moment.
If people are not comfortable with this, sorry, Liz, were you did you have a comment?
I think I think it was me. So,
that's okay. If you put in 125 and then the 65 that we're not sure about in the fund thing, that would get you back up to 190, right? If the 65 comes in.
That's right.
No, the 65 that I've been talking about is an expenditure that we have not yet been asked for, but it's coming down the pike from from the capital improvement committee. I just had the meeting last week.
I meant the 65 in your in the other spreadsheet you have that we're talking
Sorry. Sorry. So, oh, this
I am not sure. I honestly I don't fully understand this number. And Jeff's right. Jeff was right to call this out as I don't know about that number.
Okay.
This my recollection is similar to Jeff's in that when they go to sell an old piece of equipment, they tend to get bup guess for it. You know, he said like $5,000, something like that. So, I'm not quite sure what the auditor is doing with this and I wouldn't trust it. That's why
I suggest our board look at this number.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking you said before, but I was thinking, oh, 125 plus if that 65 is real, get you back to 190, which is
the 65. If this was real, it cancels out the compressor project, which would be great, but I don't I don't know about that. The thing is, look, at the end of the day, we could put, just to be clear, and I'm not suggesting this course of action, we could put zero in this fund and we'd survive next year. the problem would become later. we're not planning properly, the account gets too low and then we need a major piece of equipment and now we're in trouble. So that's the issue. we are not in a situation where we have to load money into this fund for them to survive the next fiscal year. That isn't
he case.
But we need to keep funding it properly. Otherwise, we're going to get behind and we're going to be in trouble. So, my take on on this was just we either consider a small decrease to what we load in or we roll with the 137 as usual, we leave it as it is. I you know, I could I can make an argument either way here, guys. I really could.
So, I I was thinking the same thing as you earlier. cutting it to 100, taking the 37,000 out. I still think that's very doable, very livable, but we had Heather propose cutting it back to 125. so I would I would make the motion that we cut it from 137 to 135. Line 305908, fire engine fund tanker. And 125 or 135 We we cut it back from 137 to 125.
Thank you. You I think you had said 135 before. That's all. I want to make sure I had it right. So that's the motion on the floor. Do we have a second on that?
I'll second it.
Okay. Heather second. So bill motions we reduce fire equipment engine fund engine fund to load in to 125 from 137. Heather seconds it further discussion. I feel like we talked about it a lot but if anybody has anything further please speak now or forever hold your peace. All right. right then Liz.
Don't start with me.
Okay. I won't start with you. I will you know what? I'll move on. That's fine. how about Kim? No.
Kim's a no. Fair enough. Nick.
I'll say yes.
Nick's a yes. Okay, Louise.
no.
That's what I thought. Okay. so two nos, one. All right. Very good, Bill.
Yes. very good. Who am I missing?
Me. I myself
Liz and me. But that's only six. So I missed somebody. Nick, did I get you? I got you.
Did you get Heather?
No.
Heather.
Heather's a yes. Okay.
I'm going to be a no.
Liz is a no. Fair enough. Wow. All right. I'll be the big I'll I'll put my big boy pants on and I'm going to vote yes. That puts us four to three. Me, Bill, Nick, and I believe Heather.
Yes.
Opposed Liz Louise Kemp. We're going to put this to 125. And again, guys, we can revisit this. We, you know, I I am I don't love this cut. I It's very much how I felt about last year when we cut the road improvement fund. I don't love it. I don't love it at all. So, believe me when I tell you I'm not weded to this, but we've done it for now. Okay. Public Equipment Fund. I looked at this chart. I just don't think there's a ton of money in there. I don't there's a lot to find here. And there's some note stuff here that I don't fully understand. Lisa, so I I I be cautious with this fund. Now, we typically have put in, let's go back to this. we've been putting in 125. That's a fair chunk, but we've been putting in like clockwork every year, which I assume is therefore being spent. So, this wasn't on my radar as one to look at a cut or find money.
Is Eric there?
Eric?
He was And I got to double check.
But that that one is a really like What are you going to do? You got a loan
Yeah,
it's not even that. You just have a loan payment.
Well, oh, this is for the truck, right? Okay.
Truck.
Yep. Fair enough. road improvement. You know, we cut it down last year.
I don't want to cut it more. Anybody disagree with me? You know, it's time to speak up. But I
No, I don't want to cut it.
We just leave it. I I think we just leave it. And I mean, I in a perfect world, I put us back here.
Perfect world, I would too. But this isn't put it back up.
All the all the petroleum things, road, which is all petroleum are going up. you know 25% already so
you got to leave it. Yes.
Maybe we want to raise it. Maybe we want to raise it.
25% already.
You know, you could make that you could make that case. I mean it's not like we wouldn't spend it,
right?
we of course everything we put in this fund I think
ultimately is going to get spent. well, I mean, I if people feel strongly better, we can we can move on it. I would just say I I'm trying to find dollars and we survive with this. I don't think we're falling dramatically behind our plan. I think we're doing still doing good progress. I think we can survive this to leave it at 385. But if if if people disagree and you want to make a motion to increase this, hey, let's entertain it. Now is the time. what did I just hear?
Sorry, guys. I I'm trying to keep track. I'm sharing my screen and I'm like, am I getting I don't see anything. All right. So if I if I'm hearing none, we we can move on. True removal. This I think is we've made such good work with this. The only thing I would say where is it? Tree removal. I'm not quite sure. I don't you know we have apparently we've got off TBD 14K. I don't know what that means. So, we've got a little money in there maybe, but we have the spring coming up. We've typically spent it. We spent it well. Yeah,
there was. Yeah, Eric has come in and asked if there's money left in for this year. So, I think he's got plans for that this year. But also, I haven't totally understood it yet, but there was something between the transfer station didn't have money and the trees did. So, they use some tree money for the transfer station. So, that's why I'm questioning that because it looks like there's a $14,000 transfer between the two accounts that they did. I don't I'm not sure. So that's why
down below in the transfer station you have a negative balance
on
yeah I see that
PDF
there's there was something that occurred between those two accounts
like 14,000 was borrowed from
I remember we had a problem we had something we had to deal with the transfer station I remember that but I don't remember the details
there was something that Eric had explained to me I guess he's off the call now that and I don't know if this costs money maybe Jeff you know or someone else on the board of selectman, but he told me today that they've opened up an area in the brush area for people to be able to come in and cut trees that are picked up off the road.
And I'm just wondering, I know he had to set up an area with some kind of blocks and some chips, and I'm just wondering, did that cost us money to set that area up where
No, not at all. No,
not at all. Okay. And it's a nice area.
I'm sure it is. I might be down here.
It looks really good. If you need if you need wood, it was a Jeff Murray
brought that up and he wanted to get it done and Eric did a great job and got it set up ready to go.
Beautiful.
I just wasn't sure if that was some expense around that. That's all I was asking.
Yeah. So, others can chime in. My gut take on the tree removal fund is there's not a lot of money to find here. I I would leave it at most at most if we're looking for a cut, you know, 40,000 instead of 50 or something like that. But we need this money. This has been I' I've lived in this town since ' 07. We went through a stretch in 2011, 2012, 2013 where literally every storm that came through, we'd lose power. All this stuff had happened. And I don't know if you've noticed, but it's been dramatically better since we have been working and partnering with Eversource. Like, it's it's some of the I think best bang for the buck we've we've done. So,
you don't want to change that?
Yeah, I don't think we should change it. I'll just change it. I'm gonna just chime in a little bit here. One of the things you guys asked me to talk to Eric about,
yes,
was the overtime, not for snow removal, but just regular overtime. And what he said was, and it happened here on Bear Swamp Road on Saturday. A large tree, and I mean a large dead tree fell across the road. So, two guys on Saturday were paid overtime to come up and clean that up. And what he said was is there are things like that that happen during storms,
trees fall and you know other things happen where you have construction crews working and they work later than our town crew does and we have to pay them overtime to be on the job where another construction you know company is working in the town. So he said that is what that overtime is there. They're always called out during storms to clean up the roads and help with, you know, road work that we're on the site when there's another contractor and we have to be on the site longer than what they normally work because these construction companies work longer than they do. So, it has nothing to do with snow removal. It has to do with things like what I just described.
And and that's why it's a separate line. That makes sense.
That's a good explanation.
I think it's a pretty good explanation. Yeah. Did like what did that one day cost? Does it is there
He didn't tell me. I would say there was probably there was two men he told me and I would say there was almost two hours that the crew was up there. I don't know what that relates to, but
on the weekend they get paid
twice as much or something.
Right.
Time and a half or double time? I don't know.
No, no, they get paid. They don't come in for just two hours. They come in for four hours. I think
Saturday Saturday is time and a half and Sunday is double time.
Oh, that's good to know.
There's a minimum that they they could get paid. Also,
we also had one of the public works employees come in this weekend to assist at the transfer station.
Oh, so that would be over time.
What happens? Yep.
Okay.
So, I I think there's a good explanation for the I think it was 12 or 13,000.
Yeah. Yeah. And and just if I could just throw out the other call I made because we're going through this item these items here right now just to let you know was a large increase in the the budget for meals. the I talked to
Oh, for the elections.
Yeah, I talked to what's your name? I'm having a mental moment here. somebody help me out. The
Yes,
Linda Derek. And it's
Linda Derek. Thank you. And it's her birthday today if anyone.
And it's her birthday today, too. You're absolutely right. She told me that today. Yeah. So, I talked to Linda Derek this morning and she said basically because we'll have two primaries, a Republican and Democratic primary plus the election plus the, you know, paper ballots that come in and the extra days that people have to vote and all the stuff. She goes, they've had to hire a lot more people and they work a lot more hours than they used to. And that's why the budget and the cost of food has gone up and that's why that budget line has grown so much. And it seemed to make sense what she was saying to me there too.
Yeah. I mean I I sort of expected that answer but thanks for running that down Bill.
Yeah.
I I I figured I mean with the midterm year and you know the changes to election law you know in terms of early voting and everything like that,
right?
You figure you figure it's gonna go up. trying to trying to re to to thank you for all of that. By the way, trying to focus back on our capital budget here. There's one other I mean I look at all this and the rest of these I don't really we were at tree and we agreed. This one we just we talked about it. We need frankly if I could put half a million in there I'd do it. So, I don't want to touch that
building maintenance fund. I was looking at the chart here, we don't have a lot in there. There's an increase.
We're sorry.
It's not that big. Actually, we we if you look at this before, we put in we used to put $100,000 in here. We we must have cut this last year and Lisa left it and maybe Boris Suckman left it at 33,000. if you look at building maintenance, this is where it is here.
Yeah,
there's not a ton of money in here.
And there's some notes.
so my take would be if anything, I mean, I would leave it alone. If anything, you could talk about whether we need to at some point try to pump this back up. I I would only say that the amount of work that we've done on the town building, you know, all the air conditioning, a lot of electrical upgrades, the fire department had the kitchen upgrade. I I think our town buildings, I'm not saying they don't need money, but I think in a year like this, leaving it at 33 would be appropriate, not increasing it this year.
Yeah. I mean, my take too is, you know, this is just isn't the year to try to get back here. Maybe maybe in another year, but not this one. But there's been a ton of work done in the library. There was a ton of work done, you know, town, like I said, the electrical system was upgraded. I think we had new gas tanks put in. We had the air conditioners put in the town hall,
the the mini splits. Yeah.
I think we've done a lot of work and we're in pretty good shape right now. So, my opinion would be that 33 is probably okay for now.
I I I hope so.
If you're looking out far right, all those electric things are are there. There was an abandoned well fill. There was an extended light at the library. There was OSHA hearing mechanism that was done. Generator switch carbon tank at the firehouse. Ebike
bike.
Yep. Ever source energy project.
Yeah. There was a lot of electric stuff.
These are all things that were done this already done that don't
hey're done.
Yep.
Which gets you down to this number here. So, yeah. I mean, I think we're okay personally, but if there are other members of the board who disagree, please speak up.
When do you guys think that you're going to be bringing these funds back to normal?
When we have a year where it's feasible,
what year do you think that's going to be?
I don't know.
Well, this is what you said to us, Scott. This is what the Boris Lechman sent to us was 33.
Wait, wait, hang on, hang on. So one of the things I'd say Scott is look if if this first of all if this funding from 2425 this 100,000 if this is the appropriate level that we really need then I guess what I would ask is that the board of select win talk to us about that explain that and get us and and you know get us comfortable with that and in a year where we're not facing the sort of thing we're facing this year, maybe it's next year, maybe it's the year after, then I personally like again I'm a big fan of saving money up for the things that we need to spend. I I would be happy to increase this number just right now without absent a clear flashing red need. I would say that
hey need I'll tell you
that public work roof is going to cost all the all the money that you have left in there.
That's true. We we didn't really think about that. That's true.
I think he told us $27,000 was the quote he had. Correct, Scott?
More than that.
What was it?
$27,000 is what Eric told us. And he also told us he needs was it $12,000 for that new meter
on the gas tank? I forget. Yeah. Yeah.
Correct.
So that's that's you know and that's if they that I think he said that 27 was just the I'm not sure. I think he said just the shingles. There may be other plywood that might have to be changed.
The roof has to be redone.
Yeah. The boards may have to all be replaced under the shingles. All that stuff. Yeah.
I'm not sure if that was just shingles or if that included any of that. Kim,
I think it included the project, but you never know. Stuff is very expensive.
So, I I guess
So, what was the what was the number for the roof again?
27,000. Eric had told us last
He got that he got that quote, whatever it was. I don't know how long ago, but it was one person. He's got to get more quotes.
Okay.
And that did not include anything underneath the shingles.
I'm just trying to ballpark this. So that was the
$12,000 for the diesel.
yeah. So you need way over what you have.
Yeah.
That's 39.
So why didn't you guys give us a higher budget?
Yeah. Well,
it's your budget.
I know. You know, I look guys, if we want to make this 40, give us a little wiggle. I I don't mind. I don't know if we can go back to 100. Like this year, this is a tough year. 40, 45. What do you think?
Can we push it up to 55?
I I think we're going to need at least 50.
Yeah.
All right. I hate to say it this year, but you know, they need bad.
Let's Let's make a motion. I mean, I I I I hear what everybody's saying and it makes sense. So, let's take action. so it's going to be how much for the roof plus everything? 33,00.
It's at least 27,000 for the roof. I think he said 39
and we have 29
cuz it was cuz it was 27 and there was a $12,000, right?
Other expenditures
that diesel management.
This is there's a there's a maintenance fund. You're never going to know what happens if the library has a problem with the system and they can't fund raise, which the library does a great job. We're going to sit there and do that work to the building. If the town offices have a problem, it's a maintenance fund.
So, you're trying
I would make a motion to raise the number to 50,000.
I would second that.
I'm sorry. What was the number, Bill?
50,000. All right. And sorry, second was Kim.
Yes, it was. Thanks, Rob.
Yep. Okay. So, we've got a motion on the floor from Bill to raise the building equipment building maintenance fund. Sorry. Line item from 33,000 to 50K. motion by Bill, second by Kim. Any further discussion from the board? Once going twice. Great. Okay. Let's take it. Bill, what's your vote?
Yes.
Bill, vote yes. Liz,
yes.
Yes. Okay, Heather.
yes, I guess.
Yes, you guess. Okay, very good. no problem. Kim,
yes.
Louise,
I'd say yes. Nick,
And I will I will also vote yes. Go ahead. Let's let's let's do this. We got to fund this properly. Okay. So,
did you get Liz? I'm sorry. For some reason, I missed.
Yeah. I thought I got Liz. Did you get Liz?
Yep.
Liz, I'm sorry.
I got you. Yeah.
So, it's a seven. It's a 70 vote. so we raised that. Actually, I should write I should write this down from so I know what the heck we
three. Yeah.
Yeah, that's why I just This is for my own notification, guys. Like, this isn't the main spreadsheet. Lisa's got the the big one. Okay, so the last thing here really that we're talking about is the Open Space Fund. Now, this for the newer members of our our board, in case you're not aware of what this fund does, I'll give you a very short spiel. I hope the idea here is that sometimes, and it's unpredictable, the town might have the opportunity to purchase a piece of property that pops up for sale. maybe it's along the the the trail, maybe it's somewhere that we can enhance our town properties, etc. And in the past, we had an issue where we had a piece of property come up and we had no funding mechanism to purchase that property. So the idea is that we put aside money every year. We build up this fund. Let's find it.
How much is in it?
Open space. Here it is. According what is that? Doesn't seem right.
Cap in audit.
That doesn't seem quite right. This is off. I thought we had more in there.
Well,
I thought we had a couple hundred grand in there.
Yep. And and like it says to be determined because it doesn't make any sense what's in there.
Okay.
What's in there?
Because the audit says something else, right? I don't a
bank balance. The bank balance says that also. So, there's funds in the bank, but in QuickBooks,
reserve balance here. Yeah.
What does it say? What does it say we have, Lisa? In the bank, in the bank it says we have 234,000. In QuickBooks, it says we have 41,000.
How can that be?
But the auditors say there's 276,000. So, that is to be determined. I could not get it all straightened out. I could just tell you what's in the bank and what the auditor said, but I've got to get it straight in QuickBooks and I I it's tangled. So,
say the 276 is the good number. So my gut reaction is that, you know, given the purpose of this fund, if we did have 276, you had 25, you're you're at about 300. That's still not a ton of money lying around.
I this request is this is this is an increase request. I assume this is something Boris Lechman
this is why it's highlighted
that Boris Lechman increased this request last year we did 10 earlier as you could see we did 50 and then earlier than that we did nothing so you know it's kind of what we feel we can do in a given year I hate the idea of not having enough money in in a dedicated fund such that we are unable to take advantage of something that would really benefit benefit the town. So, personally, and $25,000 is not the thing that's breaking this budget, I would go for it, but there's a case to be made here that this is less a need and more want. so I'll throw that out for discussion. What do y'all think?
I'm fine with leaving it because is I'm fine with leaving it, too.
I'm fine as well. I'm fine with it.
All right.
Ditto for me.
Okay. Well, that sounds like we don't need a motion. okay. So, now there's one last thing we need to talk about. And that is Come on. Where's the Why is this not going to the second page? Hang. Hold on. There. There we go. So, now we have another fund. Well, not fund. We have the unassigned fund balance, our savings, which as I remember from the audit, we had about $2.1 million built up in that. Now, this is another thing that I am lo to touch. However, the idea the last time we talked about where we stood with our sort of quote unquote savings visav our operational budget. Eric, I don't know if you guys how many of you remember this, but Eric was talking to us and said, well, based on the last audit figures, which of course at this point is now a year or two ago, we were at 13.4 4
something like that percent and that the ideal level was 2 12ths right two months out of the year which is one you know one sixth which is 16.67 but he also said during that conversation that based on the kind of town we are and our exposures it may be just fine if we're under that a little bit. you know, we don't have we're not sitting in a flood plane, we're not on the coast, that kind of thing. So, the thing is, depending on what we do with our budget, of course, the amount that we have in savings and what the percentage is of our total approved budget is a moving target. If we have, and by the way, this number here, if you're watching, you know, this isn't
updated. I have to update this after the changes we just made, but this is close. If we have a $13.7 million budget and we have $2.1 million in savings, that's 15.3%. In the past, including, by the way, last year, one of the ways that we cushioned the blow of of our taxation was we took money from fund balance. I am loathed to take much. However, given the difficulty we face, which is this, I want to suggest to the board that we talk about the possibility of using at least a little bit of that built because that fund balance has been building. We've been doing a great job saving up and it may be appropriate in this instance to use a little bit of it to just push in the blow. these numbers, by the way, are just me noodling around. Let me get rid of those. We're looking at a 9.6% tax increase. If we can find, you know, we we've just talked about in our capital budget, we've found 70 62. Well, not really because we increased this So, at the end of the day, we found $30,000 in cuts. and we we've had some things that have gone up as we discussed earlier with the healthc care and everything like that. If we want to get this number, you have to think about our budget. Last year, we raised by taxation just about $10 million. So, you got to think about it this way. every $100,000 is 1%. So if you want to get this number down, whatever your number is in your head, that's the right number, right? It's multiples of 100,000. If you want to get down to 5%, you need to find
46 4,000, sorry, $460,000 somewhere, which we have not yet found. I personally would not suggest to the board that we take $460,000 from fund balance. I think that's wildly excessive. However, I think we could consider taking a hundred or two just to cushion the blow a little bit and again like last year try to make it a little more palatable. It will still not get us where I think any of us would really like to comfortably be, but it
his is the thing. we all know that this isn't going to pass.
Yep. Pretty much
there. There's no way this town's going to vote a 9.6% increase. That's not going to happen. So,
we can we can put forward this budget and know that when it doesn't pass,
there's probably going to be education cuts. And where those education cuts get us, how much more? So, we could take it now or we could take it later. But at some point, the town's going to come back and say, "We're not going to prove 9.6. 6. I've lived in this town for 42 years. It ain't going to happen.
So, I mean, we can take later, but at some point, we're going to be finding more money in this budget.
Oh, I know.
I agree, Bill.
I don't mean Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.
I want to say I agree with you, Bill. And I don't think we should be trying to cushion the blow ourselves when AES is asking for an 11% increase and they completely denied any opportunity to go down. So I would be against doing anything to cushion the blow. I say
Oh, I see. Let's send the budget getting.
Let's send Let's send it to the budget. Let's send it and let the taxpayers say what they want.
We could Yeah, I'm fine with that, too. I'm just saying at some point though, let's just say we got, you know, bifocated and we recommended a 7.5% increase for the school. So, say we just I'm just making numbers up, Liz.
Yep.
Say we come back and we cut the school budget to 7.5%. Let's just say we get to that. How much is still left that we're going to ask the town for an increase? Will they even pass it? If we cut the school budget to 7.5, will they even pass that?
We do make some cuts. Okay.
You know what I'm saying? Because it's still going to be a big increase.
Possibly not, Bill.
That's what I'm saying. So, do we just
hang on to this money for later and take it out later or use it later? I don't know. I'm just I'm just throwing things out there.
I agree. I don't think I don't think we should use fund balance yet because
I agree. You're not even giving the school the opportunity to, you know, show a good faith effort to try and come in a little lower.
Rob, Rob, in your spreadsheet there, can you just pretend that Andover Elementary goes with the seven and a half? Like, what does it do to it?
Yeah. What does that look like?
Sure. One second, guys.
And and I'm fine with not touching it now, but I think it's not going to pass. And I don't think the next referendum after that's going to pass. If we just go with the school cut, we're still going to need to do more. So we we do it now or do it later. I guess
we Yeah. I just wanted to see what it look like.
Rob, what do you have for
one second?
Grand total expenditures.
What? Sorry.
What do you have for grand total expenditures?
one sorry 13 million 667. Sorry. 6762.
All right. Because we have to rec because I Yeah, I have more than that. So,
okay. I've got something wrong then.
Well, I've got something wrong.
Yeah. this is
if this is what I I would do. You see the green bars?
Yeah. Yeah.
Let's just quickly I hate to take time to do it, but let's just quickly look at the every green bar and make sure we have the same green bar amount.
Green bar.
You know what I'm saying? The green bar that's in your spreadsheet right there.
The three four the four green lines, Rob, that you're showing us right now.
Yep. Total capital related grand expendit. Let's go to the top and make sure that we're right. No, that we have everything.
No, no, no. Stay at the bottom first.
Oh, okay.
Right. because this is where you did the majority of your changes and then you can if you have to figure it out after
back up.
Yep.
Okay.
So, Rob, right there at capital stay slide down and Lisa, you and he match up to the capital numbers.
Hold on. Let me see.
Yep.
So, 1028750.
No, I'm sorry. 98
No, 998750 is correct. That's what I have.
Yeah,
Yep. All right. And and and you can tell one thing other to check. Slide down a little bit. You can figure out where your problem is. If your municipal budget numbers work, your RAM numbers budget work. Like which number is off?
Well, the total expenditure if you go back up the total expenditure for town. Rob, go back up yours. Mine and yours were off. That's you have 3351165. I have 3346554.
Okay. This is a formula. So, the question is, what fields here are we off?
Can can you tell me the number that that that is? What is it? $4,000.
That's what I was just going to say. It's still easier just to go by the green bar because that's a total for that section. And if that way we can just quickly find the section.
Green bar.
She wants She wants to go on the totals, all the totals. Look at the library total and match it. Look at the total and match it. And then when
I just don't see any green
the green lines that you spreadsheet.
No.
Oh, maybe do you not have colors?
Am I color blind? I don't know.
Maybe you're color blind, but you got a green.
These look blue to me. These look blue to me.
Oh, you're color blind.
You're color blind.
I never knew that. Okay. All right. Very good. To me, this is light blue. Very good.
No problem.
Learn something new every day.
All right. So, let's just quickly go from the bottom. Go back to the
three. I'm sorry. I'll scroll back down.
Yeah.
So, we'll start here.
Yes. Now, go up. Okay. The next one is 44792. You have that.
Yeah.
No. Now, go up to the next shaded.
Got it.
118096. Yeah. 244589. Yeah.
3 369 370. Yep. That's good. 11 1059 is good. 204066. Yep, that's good. 63239 is good. 917 is good. This isn't shaded, but Where you should be now? You should be on
here.
Yeah. 741 346. Okay, that's off.
So there's something.
Whoa, that's off.
All right.
So, what do you got on the first line? Social Security and and Med. I have 101 806. You have 102.
1021 1888. I I didn't touch this number.
All right, let me check. oh, it's to do with salaries. So, there must have been salary changes since we did the sheet in the beginning.
So, let's do
it's a formula though. So, it's pulling from something.
All right. Hold on. Pulling from s from a salary.
pulling from the salary.
If you see up here like this, you know, I certainly didn't make that. That's beyond my capabilities.
Tab at the bottom. Preliminary salaries, right? Isn't there a tab at the bottom?
Preliminary salaries. Yes. I can't talk.
Where do you want me to go?
don't go anywhere yet. All right. I have 13379.
Oh, we made a change. We took this and folded it in
up above.
But it's the same total. But it's the same. Yeah, it should be the same.
Same total. Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. Did you add it to that 30,000?
No, we added it to this.
We added this to this. It's It's But we didn't do 5,000. We didn't do 5150. We did 5,000. So, there's a $150 discrepancy there potentially. remember. Hang on. Let me
look at the bottom.
At the bottom.
God, Robert. All right, there we go. Hang on a minute. We were in
Let me look in here. I mean,
what I was trying to do was
So, we added 5K to this this number here. We didn't add 5150. We added 5,000. That was I maybe
Okay, so that should be 584. And mine didn't update. So
if we go to this,
where is it? Town is it?
I'll make sure this is right. So I'm going back through
treasurer clerk wages.
Yeah. 58
here.
59 32.
Oops, I just did the wrong. It goes here. There we go.
45 804. We changed the tax collector, too.
tax collector
164
so there was this Oh yeah there was this issue
60
we never really went back to this the question of whether this was right
let me just get I'm just looking I'm just checking this real quick
I know I just it just reminded me Lisa of the issue with the class the certification and the
Oh yeah I just went in yeah but We voted on that last night. No.
Yeah, I think we did. No.
Yeah. So, I I just fixed that in here.
What do we have in there for What's the right number?
54. Hold on.
45. It's 45 something, right?
tax collector. Hold on. 45804 in your memo side.
Yes, exactly. 45
on the memo side there. I always side but I hadn't I hadn't fixed it here. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Election building department. Just checking. 270758 31038 26 49.
You tell me where you want me to go.
All right. Sit tight one second. I'm almost I'm down to community center wages 44810. There was a change there. We changed that to 32500 last night. Correct.
We can't
which one
for the community center.
I don't know
hich which which line
the wages for the the assistant
and we changed it to what was it again? 32
5 was right.
I think we did, didn't we? I don't know why I don't have that noted though. Bizarre.
Unless you guys decided to go back. I have it penciled in and I have the 195 crossed out. So, when I took notes, but you guys tell me if I'm wrong. I think that's correct because I think we added in the 10,000 for the one who's scheduling
Oh, the drivers.
The drivers. Yes.
Okay. So, hold on and let me keep going. We fix the auditor. All right. Public works salaries 352 2575 13 Oh, we changed the overtime salary to five for snow
that I have in there.
Okay, that and custodian. believe I've done it. 25. Okay. Something that Jeff had said before too. Am I not including transfer station wages or
what
he board clerks? Are they not are they not part of what you want to consider a salary? I'm only saying that because they get a paycheck, but they they're not in like a salary line, but like your board clerk board of finance.
So, it's like a it's handled as a stipen.
Yeah. It's goes
It's not Yeah, some of them are.
It's a It's a It's not an employed position. It's a 1099 position.
Okay. So, I'll take those out. I'm just trying to get a figure for social security and Medicare, Jeff. So, if you tell me
the library should the library should stay in there,
the driver stay in there, the resident coordinator stay in there
like the fire marshall should come out, right? And the deputy salary deputy salary should come out.
Nope.
Okay. So, I'll just take out the board clerk. And this is where we talked, you know, next year when we get to this where we probably need a line item for $2,000. And you know, that's that money we pay over the guy in Coventry or Columbia or wherever he comes from.
No, I wouldn't put him in salary. I don't think
No, I mean somewhere under farmer
the abatement. Oh, yeah. That should be
we would add a line is my point,
right? Should we do that now? That's we're looking at the budget.
Mean
that's a good idea.
Here we are.
Let's let's let's get a total here just so I can finish that to see why we're
Let's try to come back. Yeah. Okay.
All right. So right now it looks like our total salaries are 1322107 because I took all the board clerks out of the bottom. Now the selectman salary that goes through the payroll so that should stay a W2. Jeff, right?
Yep.
Okay. All right. All right. So, let's take that times the 1765 I mean 765 because I think that's where that came from. All right. So, now did that come down? Because that total went down. Let's see. Hold on. while Lisa is working. obviously the board we have to I have to create a presentation for the 1st of April. we should think about in the past I believe that what we've done is we've presented the budget and we have had an optional meeting set up after that
if we wanted to take action you know based on feedback the other thing we should consider just consider is the town budget meeting is set for a Thursday, the 9th of April, not the 8th, the Wednesday. I believe that was originally done because there was a meeting conflict, maybe board of ed or something. We could consider whether our board, if we haven't already scheduled one, we could throw a meeting in there if we feel we need it. I'm I'm thinking that we would want to look at the presentation that you put together and review it as a board and tweak it.
So, in my mind, that would be a good night to make sure all the numbers look right, the budget looks right, your presentation, you know, I always I think the presentation that Mark Brinker always put together was good. But I think it'd be a good outline to use for the one that
you're going to use, but I think it would be advantageous. I don't know how the rest of the board feels for us to take a look at that. I mean, to to put it all on your shoulders doesn't really make sense, you know, and and just have you present it without any of us seeing it. So, I I would think
No, I I don't want I Yeah, I want to and I'm going to reach out to I think at least you and Liz and anybody else who's want to help. I have some thoughts about how I would do things slightly differently.
and just in terms of the order of how we present things, but the same basic data.
Yeah.
We want to get across.
How's the rest of the board feel? No one's saying much there about having that meeting Wednesday night.
Yeah. I think it's a good idea.
Sounds too.
We did that. I think we did that last year. I think we
I agree. I mean, I remember Mark always used to email around
He did
his draft presentation.
but I got to get that together.
Yeah. And if you got it out to us, you know, a day or two early,
then we could always take a look at it and go to that meeting on Wednesday night with any input that we had and make it a short meeting hopefully just to review the presentation.
Right. Right. I mean the presentation dry run is the first like Mark would always put the presentation I I believe that if if my recollection is correct he would go into the hearing with the presentation and then tweak it maybe as needed but it was it was ready for the first so I basically have a week to come up with this which means this weekend I'll probably be doing that. and again I'll probably reach out to some of you to to gut check me, help me with my technological difficulties, etc. but you know, I'm going to follow I would largely I I I definitely intend to go
back and look at some of his, you know, Mark's past presentations. I I might shuffle the deck a bit, but it's the same basic info. I want to keep it short and sweet and straight to the point and, you know, focusing on what we need. The other thing I want to make sure of is the information provided to the town's people who come to town meeting on the 9th, what's printed out for them. you know the AES budget, our our town side budget with the AES and RAM included all all the various things that we think we need on the table there for
people to pick up and look at and hopefully be able to follow. I've always felt that as somebody coming in cold, you might find it confusing. So,
you know, anybody who has thoughts on how to make that better, I I'm all I'm all ears.
We used to print
Sorry, Lisa.
Yeah.
Where are we on?
Yeah. For the budget hearing and just place them and we would place them in town hall and people could come get them before the meeting so that they could look.
Yeah. We we put them out. We put them out in because we do it in the school gym, Lisa.
Yep. Yep. We did too.
We put them out there.
so here let's let's talk about this. Are are we reconciled? Are we
Well, no. Go back to employee benefits and tell me and show me that line that you have there.
Okay, sir.
What? Employee benefits.
Keep going up.
Yeah,
keep going up. What's the line number?
I am
4117
there. No.
What? No, actually you're right. Why isn't it It's I think it's out of order. Go back down. It's after
we want employee benefits, right?
Right there.
It's right in front of you. Employee benefits.
Oh, god. Yeah, I got that. By the way, that was complete serendipity. All right. Here we are.
Oh, but now mine went out of Come on. Okay. All right. I've got 746.81 for total town expenses. You have 743117. Hold on.
We're off by three grand.
Yeah.
It We'll find it. It's easy. 60.
Story of my life.
Hate to say this, but especially in Andover, people.
Hey,
it's been tough. It's been a long road.
No, you're you're entitled to a few to a few starky comments, lady. All right. So, where are we going to find this three grand?
well, we're going to No, it's $2,436. So, stay right there from the 740
and go to Let me just look at the rest of your 254 1,3200,400 137 750 338. Okay, go up.
We made an adjustment, remember, to the insurance line. Is did you have this in here? This is the Kerma 1 4%
not kerma health and and dental. We left at three. Kerma is insurance. Yes, you're right. no. I exchanged at 12. Nope. That's good. I have that.
Okay.
Yeah. Keep going up. Oh, right there. That's off. Hold on.
Okay.
What do we got? What's wrong here? but first we got to figure out what's wrong. Why is this wrong? 74681. Oh, because that's a total of that. Hold on. So, do you have 509?
Is this right?
163 341.
Hold on.
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. So we should move up to final
47 242 2540 keep going up 105 wait 105 yep 64504 113 291 104 645 not yeah 932605 so there's but there's something in there then that we're have to going to go have to go between the lines go below the 9326105 because that's fine. It's got to be something underneath that. So, let me just look at those.
Hold on because we had a lot of changes. I see a lot of pink in there. Hold on. Yep. Right there.
Administrative assistant. Is that 30 or 25?
We voted I thought to take it back to 30 last meeting. Guys, remind me. But I think we did.
I I can't remember. I think we did. I believe we did. Yeah,
I think that's correct.
I think we did. Okay, so 30. Okay. Oops. Where'd you go?
I went to hold expenditures in the hope that $5,000 got us there.
Hold on. Now we're at town administrator. So, let me just see.
You want me to go back up?
No, stay right there. If you're going to If you're there, stay there.
Okay.
Let me just see where we're at. Almost there. All right. No, still not. Still not the same.
Not quite right. How far off? 13676127 - 13
67
691
we're about 15
80
15,000 off.
Okay,
let's go back. Go back to where we were to town.
I just want to do one thing. Okay, where do you want me to go back to? Up top.
Town administrator. Yeah, that line right below the 900,000.
Yes. Yeah. Hold on. Let me get there.
Is it project manager zero or 15,000?
Yeah. I say the same thing. It's exactly 15 grand.
No, I have 15 for that.
I don't think we cut. Did we Did we wipe that out?
No, we didn't because we have the road projects. That's right. That's
Yeah, we did not. I thought we left.
We did. We left it alone.
All right, go down to the next treasurer financial 104. That one looks right. 5943. Hold on. 1310. Hold on. 113 291. Where are you? There you are. Yep, that one looks right. 65504 looks right. 105567 1633 341 That one is correct. That green line is correct now.
All right. Or blue line or whatever, right?
You know, I wasn't gonna object anyway.
All right. Keep going. legitimately had no idea.
All right, keep going.
127712.
Find down here.
That That's something. There's something right there. Right there. Rob, you you have Social Security and medical. And mine actually just changed again because we changed those salaries. So, let's do it's 101524. Because we just
All right. Should I So this is a formula. It's a formula.
101524.
Yes. Yeah. Because we just changed that. Remember we just changed the salary amount. What did we just change? $5,000.
I think you need to change it on the salary page and then it will feed to here.
Right.
Yeah.
Right. But I think Lisa has the she has the grandmaster, right? She has the grandmaster. We kind
Lisa my spreadsheet doesn't count. My spreadsheet is for
a working because now now that that green balances so
let's go back to the bottom y
and see where we are.
And we were at just above town garage is where we stopped. So let me just see. I don't know if that would have been 15,000 though.
That's not 15,000.
Let's see. What do you got?
all right. You have 689.
Tried to zoom in. That was a bad idea. 27 It's 13,000 even that it's off. So, it's got to be something in front of our faces and we're just not seeing.
Oh, Lord. All right.
13,000 even. Go up to garage.
Yes, ma'am.
just above garage. Go to community center
in the garage.
No, go up to community center. I just wanted because we bounced at 70 741063. We bounced there above. Yeah, it was a dollar, but I don't care about a dollar.
All right. So,
that's the issue.
Can I ask a question? Not to
be a fly in the ointment. Is it possible that any numbers on the income side might have changed at all? Nothing
because I'm just checking expenditures right now. But I think this is what it is. I think it's that community center assistant because you have what do you have in there, Rob? Go up there. Right there. You have 325 and mine is still saying 195. And I think that's the difference. Yeah, that's it. 32 500. All right. Now, let's go to the bottom and I think we'll be okay.
Okay.
All right. 13689127. Ha. There you go.
Huzzah. So, the expenditures are good.
389127.
Y
copy.
Yep.
Copy.
Sorry, guys. I just wanted to make sure.
No, Lisa. Look, I want you get it right. So, Okay, good. We're at 9.4. before. That's a wrap. And there's this issue.
I think Heather, didn't you ask what if AES limited the 7.5?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Sorry, guys. So, this is the I Oh. Oh, I put that in.
I actually put that in.
So, hold on a moment because I actually put that in and that's wrong. This is with that in. Shoot.
Yeah, but take it out. It looks like I don't think it changed when you put it in.
It's weird, isn't it?
Yes.
Hold on a all a bunch of calculations that go to that bottom number because I was trying to play with this the other day.
So, hold on. This is I know this is a $5 million number. I just I need to find the right answer. And I if if I back up all my changes, it's going to wipe out all the stuff I did up here. does anybody have the AES number handy? the the the the budget request. I don't
Yes. Hold on. AS is 5063651.
That
Where are you? I can't see. But you right here.
Oh, okay. There you are. Yes. Yep.
So, why doesn't the bottom line change?
Why isn't this changing? H35 by H. I'm going into mine, too, just to see what I get. 5063.
Something's Yeah, something seems off here. Thanks, Heather, for
4262 45
total over budget. Oh, I need to copy this. I need to get it here.
Budget and the town budget is separate.
Try pasting the value instead of pasting the entire thing. Maybe it's got an issue where it's reading the number as text.
I I I got the right number in there at least.
I'm still working on mine.
Right. That's right.
Can Can you click on the 9.4? What's that formula?
Sure.
Hid. That should be the difference between this year and last year divided by the previous year. Yep. But that's
Yep.
You're looking at
his. We have to make sure this number right here is right. And
hold on.
That's coming off here.
It's taking into account all of these fields, which Yeah. Okay. I should be right. All Then why didn't you change? That's the weird part.
Let me look at I'm still looking at mine and then maybe I'll have an answer for you. Let me see. 4363.
I mean, eyeballing this, if this number is right,
but don't forget, you got horizontal and vertical. Okay, so that that down there, that 9% is horizontal. It's not vertical, but some of your differences are vertical.
It's keying it's keying off the difference between these two things, which makes sense as long as this is right. So
this is this is the this is the
question mark.
Yes. Yeah. Because down below, let me
That's right.
Yeah. Let's see down below of your spreadsheet. I want to make sure yours and mine are the same. See, mine's a little different. So why is that? Hold on.
Okay.
126 164 right there. Where where are you getting your town expenses of 4389223?
I never touched this number.
Well, it must be outdated from what we've done.
This is not pulling from anywhere else.
Right.
What's the number?
Well, the number is I just added, let me double check. 998. We got capital of 998. Is that right? Hold on. Yep. Capital of 998750 and then a municipal budget of 3364272 equals 4,36322 should go in there. Okay, that's better. So now you've got your grand total budget of the 1 million 13,689.
But this is this is wrong then. All right. Or is it? Because you look at this formula. Sorry.
This formula is F11. That's just this number here.
Okay.
Whatever this number
is that right.
Hold on. Let me look at mine because mine was right. Let me see. I'm still making sure the B go back to the bottom because I don't think I'm still getting the same. Yeah. Hold on.
Okay.
All right. 242 164. All right. We're getting that. Okay. All right. So, all of this. All right. 0103 10939. Let me see this figure. Hold on. All right. This is F11. So, I just came to that like you did. That is the only figure. Hold on.
Oh yes. but you guys I mean that abatements I left it at 45,000. I you know you could think about that. I don't know what Jeff thinks about that, but that's
okay.
Included in that. So,
the main thing is, you know, based on what numbers we have, is this right?
Well, let me check my Hold on.
I don't understand why it doesn't change when you change the
Yeah, that's my concern.
689 27. All right. What are you saying isn't changing up top? This this I35
the amount should be changed by taxation. So when we look at will we change this number here like just just for funsies.
I think it's to do do with those abatements because that is deducted from your total.
So, I don't think they're included in the taxation piece because you're taking that away.
Do you know what I'm saying?
I think you need to do
those are fine because you're that that's fine. It's it's your total vertical and horizontal is is this 10 939 is what I'm getting down there. Yeah, you're down there. But you want to take that from your tub. It comes right from the cell. So, is this the right formula? So, here's what I did.
This,
right, we're adding up the expenditures.
Yep.
And we're deducting revenue, which I pulled from where is it? Total revenue here. Six. So, is that oops is that right? G24 plus G27 plus G29 minus F6.
It you're deducting revenue where on the bottom where really doesn't have to do with revenue up top has to do with revenue. That's what I'm saying. that revenue is adjusted by those abatements that you will not get taxation for because you're giving those abatements back.
Okay, so this is
that figure that 10 939 right there. Even though it's different than what it says, you have to allow for that. At least that's what I've always understood. need to copy that 10,939 number down there in the
Sorry. Hang on a minute. What do you want? You want me to put this here?
Yeah. Copy it and then do
Well, I can't copy for 10.
Yes, you can. Yes, you can do copy and then right click and paste it as a paste it as a
No, not as a formula. Paste it as a as a number. Oh,
as a number. Okay, you're right. Yeah. Right. If you if Yeah. Pay special. Yep. If go up where See one, two, three. Yep.
This here.
Yep. Yep. You got it.
Thank you.
You learned something new today.
Is that right? Is that That's the same number. Okay. Why didn't this change at all?
What didn't change?
The 9.4%.
Never changes. Yeah, mine changed. Mine was 9.1 and now it's 9.3. So, mine changed.
so why the heck is this at
935?
H35 and F35
103.
But I mean,
are you looking like you're saying your budget has changed? This is ch your amount of taxation has changed. Your budget is not the same thing. Your budget is that
I know that. I get that. I mean, but this at the end of the day,
this is the number right here.
Right. We want to know what the mill rate. So like and look at the mill rate increase per 8.29. Is that correct? It's made a mill rate.
Yeah. Because if you take take the difference between the 3421 it's projecting and then the 3159 and divide that by the 3159 that's what you'll get I believe.
Is that what you have?
829. Yes. Yeah. That's what I have.
829.
Yeah. Oh,
I Yeah, I admit I'm a little
Okay,
that's what it is. 829. That's the percentage in the jump of your mill rate is what that is. That's not the budget.
I don't care. I don't really care about the mill rate except that we have to we're going to have to disagregate it. But
his year, this is the number. This is the one
you're saying it's a 8% bill rate increase.
Yes.
Yeah. 8.3.
8.3 because the the grand list went up.
No.
So
what's the number of mills? Not the not percentage. What is the number of mills?
Mills is just Yeah. 346.
That's a flat number.
Almost three mills. Yep.
That's right.
Yeah. 2.62. Yeah. 2.62 mils.
Yep.
Ain't going to fly.
No, I mean, look, this is I'm just trying to get the math right, guys. Like, we'll get to the part where it passes or doesn't pass later,
but
his here,
I'm just concerned when we were changing stuff in here that this number wasn't
didn't seem to change. And I want to make sure it's right. Lisa, is that what you have? 9.4.
No, I I have nine. I have 9.3, but I mean, it's not that.
Okay, that's not great.
Why are we off?
Well, the cell sales in Excel can be off a small amount like that. Like a small percentage like that. I there it's not always perfect because I'm I'm looking at all my numbers, but I can't see them now.
All right. 9.36
514989. I'm just verifying I have
that I know how to do. Give me another decimal point.
Yeah. See, that's why that's what I mean. You had 94 rounded and I have 93 rounded. So, I'm not worried about that.
I do want to go back up to make sure something though. I just want to make sure this didn't change up in total estimated revenue like you know Liz had mentioned but I'm just double checking this just to be positive 103
okay
I think I would like to make a recommendation for next year is that we have a shared file.
Yeah.
And there's only one file that gets manipulated because what you're trying to do is you're trying to match two different files with two different people putting different information in it. And
so the question would be how we handle access to the file.
Yeah,
that that can be dealt with, but it should be one file.
It should be one file and that's yeah, we should never work for two files.
I don't disagree with that. The only flip side to it is I mean at least I'd still want to be able to download it and screw around with it in my own time, but yes. Yes. 63484 200 150
but this is where we're at. let's look at our
I am going to Hold on. There might be a there I think there is a little change I think from when this was originally done. It was last year's estimated. So let me put that in here and see. Hold on.
Okay. Three.
In fact,
1034 10443 562 minus 10.
Where were we?
562.
Oh boy. Oh boy.
All right. Go up top. Go back up top. No, I guess it didn't make a difference. I just wanted to be sure.
I'm not quite sure what's going on here. and it's not great, but let's see if we can
sort it out over the next few days. but I think we really need to move on.
62. Yeah, I think that's correct. I think what's in there is correct.
Yeah, I just wanted to double check before you but what I I mean I don't know if I'm right or not, but you're real concerned to be done by tonight to get it done by April 1st is your expenditures
and those are done.
That's right. Yeah. I mean, and this is Yeah.
So, we know where we are. liazison reports. I would just mention and I I've already talked about this. The fire department came to CIP and presented they had originally they needed a new compressor for putting air into their air tanks. The one they have now is from I think 1991 and they have started to have more and more trouble with it and it requires more and more maintenance. So they went out and the first quote they got was $100,000 and CIP I wasn't there. That was the prior meeting. They sent Wally back. They said, "Well, you got to get us some more quotes." So, we went back and got two more quotes. And the three quotes were 110,
100, and 65. And the 65 was from a contractor that we're familiar with and think are good, and the fire department's more than happy to go with that bid. Their intention would be to use it in the coming fiscal fiscal year, i.e. after July 1st. and that's their request, you know, something they'll bring before the board of finance, but the board of sorry, the CIP committee, we blessed it and sent it onward. I think at least some of you have it in your emails. I think it's perfectly reasonable, but that's coming. So, that's my report from CIP. That's all that's all there was. one thing that was before us. Does anyone else have leas reports to bring before the board? No. Hearing none approval of meeting minutes. I'll be frank. I've had an insane week. I've been talking with Lisa, Kate, or Roberta or somebody else most of the time that I haven't been at work. So, I haven't looked at any of these. Have you guys had a chance to review?
I haven't.
Liz, you're you're muted.
You're muted, Liz.
You're still muted.
You're muted, Liz.
There you go.
Okay. I I was going to say I have not. And I'm wondering if maybe it's best just to
You want to just table it?
Can we table next month? that would be
let's table it. We'll move it to next month. Great. Because I I I don't have the I don't have the capacity for it. So board open discussion. I mean if anybody has more they want to talk about this is the time. I just don't want to forget before we go on correspondence. We do have a couple things. So remind me anyway if anybody has more discussion more they want to talk about VB the budget VB where we are VB our plan and our schedule now is the time. I I honestly feel like we're going into our budget hearing rather underprepared but we're going to do what we can do.
So the budget hearing is in the first. Is that right? That's right.
And that's Wednesday.
That's a Wednesday. It's Zoom. We do a It's basically a dry run of the presentation that we would bring before the town on the 9th. people on Zoom, you know, they can show up, they can listen, they can make public comment, etc. and we can in the past at least we've always had the opportunity to have a meeting after that
and make final adjustments. I have to double check how it's set up. I have I have to see what Kate did in terms of our agenda and everything like that, but in the past that's what we've done.
So, we talked about doing a meeting on the eighth den just to have a sanity check, you know, and all that.
That is a possibility. I mean, I'm throwing it out there to you guys because there's a few things there's a few things we talked about tonight that we don't have definitive answers on.
Okay. So, that's that's a good idea then.
What do you guys think? Do you think we should do something? We should tee up something on the ETH.
Yes,
I think it's a good idea.
Yeah, probably.
Sure.
All right.
Yeah.
All right. So, I I move we schedule a meeting, a special budget workshop meeting April 8th, Wednesday, April 8th, 700 p.m. via Zoom. Have a second.
Second.
All right. Bill seconds. Great. I don't think we need discussion. let's go ahead and vote. Liz,
Liz is a yes. Bill,
Bill's a yes. Nick,
yes. Nick's a yes. Heather,
Heather's a yes. Kim,
yes.
Louise,
Yes. Myself, yes. At 70, we'll have a special budget workshop meeting the 8th, right before we go to town meeting. Thank you guys because that's it's going to make me feel a little better even if it's a short meeting.
Sure. we've got on the calendar. great, great, great, great. Okay, so do we have further open discussion or should we go
Rob? I do. I have something I just wanted to mention.
Go ahead, Kim.
can we please extend an invitation to the board of education that they sit in the front of the gym with us on the April 9th meeting?
I thought that was already I'm sorry. I apologize, but I thought that was already the plan.
I thought we talked about that.
I don't know. I just want to make sure that we do actually extend.
I've always thought they should be there.
Okay.
Yeah, I think voted on voted to make sure that
I believe that's correct. Jeff, is that not true? I thought we were adding them this year.
No, it is. But I don't think it's a bad idea for the board of finance to make sure it's your meeting. I I I've already made arrangements with Roberto.
I think they want to be there. So,
right. No, no, no. I just want to make sure that they know that we want them to sit up front.
Yeah.
With us
with us. We should all be there.
Yeah.
So, they can answer questions.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Be able to say somebody asks a question, you know, why do we need this sixth grade teacher?
We say, "Okay."
Correct. Right. Correct.
Right.
Yep.
I just wanted to throw that out there. Thank you.
Good question.
No, I agree with you, Kim. And I already I already thought that was the the plan. If that is not the plan,
that's the plan.
That's the plan. All right.
I'll just say this. The people I've talked to, you know, Port or Val or whatever that they thought that was the plan. So
that's the plan.
So anyway, I think we're all on the same page there. They should be there and they should be there to answer the questions that are in their belly whip.
Okay. What else?
Okay. Sorry. Does anyone have more or should I
agenda?
Sorry. This is the agenda. So, we're on open discussion. Correspondence is next. We do have a couple pieces of correspondence. So,
you know, that's good.
Sorry. So, the first was, and I'll just mention it, I mean, we've all seen it, which was, you know, the response letter from AS. I think we all know what this says. We've all I hope we've all read it.
Yep.
I didn't This is what I expected, but, you know, I'm just going to acknowledge that this is what it is what it is. It says what it says. it's a you know it's a rejection of a 7.5 recommendation. So you know the the second one we
can I just make a comment can I just make a comment on this before before we move on?
Go ahead.
this says that this is on the behalf of the board of education. I'm not aware that there was a meeting held to discuss our recommendation. I I'm just wondering how a letter can be signed by one member of the board of ed when there was no apparent meeting to discuss it. I mean, shouldn't that have been discussed as a group like an emergency meeting? We need to make a decision.
That's, you know, I I see your point there.
I just wanted to throw that out there and wanted to acknowledge it and I I think that's not right. If that's if that's the way it happened,
I see your point.
Yeah. All right,
that's fair.
can can you can you share that letter?
Oh, you don't have it? I'm sorry. I don't think I got it.
I think it only went to the board of finance
and and and
All right. So,
can you make sure can you make sure that that gets in your in your minutes?
Oh, get it added to the packet. Yeah.
Oh, to the minutes. Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair enough. We should add it to the minutes. You're correct. I am Sorry, I am just trying to get your whole board on here. Magguire, Murray, Lee, Cre, and Croan, right?
Yep.
Boom. All right. So, you guys have that now.
Okay.
Yeah.
any event, the the gist of this letter is basically we have all these needs. We have these pressures. 7.5 doesn't work. So, we don't think we can do it. All right. I encourage you all to read it. apologies for not forwarding it. I when I got it, I probably should have sent it to Borman immediately. my fault on that. sorry. So the second piece of correspondence we got was from Joanne
regarding it's a long email about stipens.
I think we all got Yeah, we all got this too, right?
We all got it. I just want to put it up there so that people could see her perspective and it's there and we should include this in the minute as well in the minutes as well. I guess this under correspondence.
So that's what I've got. I don't know if anyone else has gotten sorry this is a new email from Liz but fine any other pieces of correspondence but that's what I have for the board. Oops. See now I had the but I had the darn thing up. This is so frustrating. Apologies everybody there. So, we're back to we're here.
If anybody if nobody else has anything further, I'm going to go through public speak. if you guys have anything, bring it now. Otherwise, gosh, we'll we'll talk about it after our hearing.
I have a question.
Go ahead, Luis. Just wondering whether we should respond back to Valerie and if so, what should we ask? Why or I mean she did write down that that was due to I guess not not necessarily contract.
There are there are four things there, right?
It's in the letter. It's
Yeah. So you could
well
if you have questions about one of
my question is you know maybe instead of going down to that percentage perhaps going up to a different percentage. I'm just wondering if there's some sort of response that we should try to get it resolved beforehand or
I see your point and that's something we could we could look at doing that.
We have be time we have no time. I see your point. I do.
But how does everybody else feel about that or should we just leave it?
No. No.
I think we should leave it as it is. We made it. They responded and that we we made a recommendation. They responded. I think that's where it is right now. That's
we don't really have time to change.
I think it was also very fair. and I will just say very very quickly that I've had a number of phone calls from people in the community that are really unhappy with the 7.5%. They wanted it to be lower. And I'm just going to say that that's all.
Yep.
Thank you.
Yep.
And one other thing,
surprise.
One other thing. has there been a final
resolution to the Dennis versus when when Dennis, our attorney, made his recommendation stating that we actually can make the change, not just recommend. I don't see final resolution on that.
There isn't. There are dueling attorney opinions
and
one says they're right, the other says they're right.
And unless and until you took that, and this would be incredibly stupid for us to do, but unless and until you took that before a court, you are not going to get an adjudication of that. What you're going to get are two different attorneys opinions.
That's not true.
And I mean, I I deal with it. Excuse me.
I said that's not true. How is it not true?
Because the town attorney is your attorney. The board of education's attorney is their attorney.
So if your attorney is telling you you can do it, then you can do it.
Jeff, that's
with respect.
I work in a field I work in a field
where attorney opinions are really important. I I work in insurance claims and there are differences of opinion and when the case law is not settled when there is no 100% clear directive from the courts the honest answer is that attorney or that attorney could be right but you don't know for sure unless and until it's adjudicated.
That's that that has no bearing on you're dealing with right now. I understand what
you mean you have has no
you are you are you are sitting there like taking both sides of this fence. You are either represented by the town attorney or by the board of education's attorney in this case. You have to understand you're represented by the town's attorney. So I'm telling you, Rob, like if you were in your insurance claims and you were listening to the the other side's attorney, your attorney would kill you. Well, I can tell you that as somebody who's read a lot of legal arguments,
I can also tell you that I don't think very much of the argument you're telling me to trust.
And I can also tell you
that if you run into something because you just are 100% certain you're right and you haven't, you know, taken everything into account, you can get yourself in real trouble. This is the reason I'm being careful.
What is going to happen?
I'm being careful.
What does careful mean? Careful means sitting there and just putting a number up without doing any oversight. Without doing anything without
Yeah. Without doing any oversight. You're You're putting up just a blank number that the board of education gave you. I'll go tell you what to do. Go look at the Chronicle article about scholarship education. Go look at Go. Yeah, I'm going to tell you what to do. Read the article in the chronicle about the board of the board of education in Scotland and what they did. That's all I'm telling you. So, you are represented by the town attorney, not by the board of education's attorney. You can sit there and and think you're not getting a good enough opinion, but that doesn't tell me that the town is getting the value that they need to get out of this board. So,
okay, that's I I hear that's your perspective, Jeff.
And this is one person's opinion. I
that's a great
end to appreciate that he came back and clarified that 802F was not factored into the conversation before. And if you read that section, what he says makes a lot of sense. that 802F does include the board of education budget. Something to read. The board of finance shall hold at least one public hearing at the budget at which any taxpayer or elector may have the opportunity to be heard regarding the proposed budget. The board of finance may review the budget requests with the head of each department, board, agency, and commission, including the local board of education. Subsequent to such hearing and review, the board of finance shall prepare a final budget that incorporates any recommended changes to be presented to the town annual town budget meeting. And that's the language. That's the language.
That's 802F, right? And 802.
That's the language he called out. That's the language he called out.
I'm I'm And I am I'm very I have read all of his opinions. I I completely agree understanding what you're doing. I actually appreciate the fact that we're initially it wasn't the case, but we're focusing in on what the charter says. that said, you know, the the BOE attorneys are like the experts in the field for education law. So this is why when I not an attorney, though I work with many and deal with legal stuff all the time, I thought to myself, you know what I'm going to do here? I've got dueling opinions. I'm going to take the safer road. I understand your perspective. I really do. I really do. I personally would like to amend our charter to make this clearer.
Okay. And we don't have time to do that,
you know, and we know we can't do that today.
I think what Rob did
I think when the time comes we discuss it and we take a vote.
Okay.
And I think what Rob did in all fairs is what this town has always done
for as long as I've been in town. This is the way we've operated. This is this is the way it's always been done. So,
absolut absolutely not about five. Bill, Bill, before you got on this, when Jeff Murray and Adrien Mandville were on this and Rob, I think you just started, they cut the board of education budget by $300,000.
Yeah, there was
a year that did do that.
There was a time and I was brand new. I was brand new, but I believe Jeff is right.
I had not read the charter. I was told what the charter said and what we could do and I went along with it. It you know and that that happened. That doesn't mean to me
because we did past practice you know that that means that it was the right call. That said again I personally would love to clarify this. I have no problem, zero problem with the idea that the board of finance can before going to public meeting cut the school board's budget. I would like it to be clearer in the charter right now based on the way the charter is written and the dueling attorney opinions. I'm reluctant to go there. That's it.
You say you continue to say dueling. You are represented by the town attorney, not by the board of education's attorney. They have their own attorney. They pay their own attorney. We pay the town attorney. He's giving you the authority to do it.
If you choose not to do it, I respect that.
But I am telling the board, you have an opinion that says you can do it. every other town that you deal with that you go look at are sitting there making recommendations to cut the budget and they do it all the time.
Their charters some of them I mean I looked at please stop playing with our charters common sense should tell you to make to look at other town charters and I did that
and they vary and Salem's is super super clear. I would love ours to be that clear, Jeff. That said, that said,
we all have a vote. All right. What's going to happen if we do that right now? Their lawyer is going to Do you think it's just going to
They're going to get their lawyer and they're going to sue the town and they're going to it's going to be a mess. We'll never get this budget through. So why can't we just go to the people like we always have, let them vote it down, which they're going to do, and then we will have the authority to act on the budget when it's bifocated.
What's the point about that?
Right now based on what our attorney has recommended, we have the authority to do it. So why aren't we doing it?
Because he may not be right. That's why.
Because I don't I'm not confident in that. because we have a we have an education attorney telling us it's wrong.
I honestly
and you got two different attorneys who are qualified. They're both qualified to talk about this stuff.
Attorney O'Brien isn't going to give us bad advice. I I I just I don't understand.
Again, if you've worked if you've worked in a field where you get legal advice a lot,
I get it all the time. And sometimes sometimes you get good advice, sometimes you don't. And you can walk into a buzzsaw if you are just convinced you're right about something. All I'm saying, and again, my caution is driven by my experience in 25 plus years of what I do. It's not just about this town, although it is, but it's also about what I work
and how I comfortable with the
These are not you. I went looking I went looking for case law on this. There's very little to be honest with you. so look I am trying to take what we did last year was kind of the middle road what Mark did last year. I I was saying we should hue to that an abundance of caution and I fully fully believe that we should revise our charter to be crystal clear because right now the way it's set up. I'm sorry. You could read either opinion and you could come away thinking, "Wait a minute." So that's my take. You guys look, we're aboard. I we are gonna we're gonna have another discussion. If you guys want to make a vote on the 9th after the sorry, not the 9th, the first. My apologies.
It would be after the hearing.
On the first after the hearing, if you guys want to make a call, you know, I'm telling you why I don't want to do it.
But may I speak
one member of the board. Go. Please. By all means. I I'm done.
Yeah. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to reduce the school AES budget down to the 7 and 12% that we recommended.
Louise, we can't do that yet. If we if we were to do it, it would have to be after the hearing.
But can't we do it? Even I think even by Dennis's
estimation.
Okay.
Per per the per the charter per the 802F charter language, it gives us the opportunity to present the entire budget to any taxpayer that wants to attend the the hearing. And then based on any comments from that, if we decide we we would take we may review the requests with the head blah blah blah including the local board of education. Subsequent to such hearing and review, the board of finance shall prepare a final budget that incorporates any recommended changes. So, at this point, we made a recommendation. They rejected it. So, it does have to go at least to the hearing on the first first.
If I understand attorney O'Brien's argument properly, Liz has it right.
Okay.
It would be Louise, if what you want to do would happen after the hearing on the first.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
That's how I understood that, too.
Correct.
But thank you, Luis. Okay.
Yeah. I think that was fair, Louise. Thank you.
No, thanks for the explanation.
Y
All right. So, I mean, procedurally, let's talk about it then.
Y
I think we've we've talked about that. Does anybody Sorry. Does anybody have any further correspondence? Is there anything else from the public from correspondence?
Public speak.
We're going to do public speak next. Yes. So if hearing none, I'll go around. Scott, do you have anything further you want to add?
To add that last year they got 550. This year they're getting 500. When's when's this going to end?
550 I don't think is quite right. They got 5%.
Oh, you're right. I apologize.
When's this going to end? Well, they got to get it another half a million next year. And our and the total amount of the budget is going to go less than 19.
Yeah. Yeah. It depends on depends on what depends on what we what is the town going to run the our town on.
Okay. You good?
I'm good. Take it. Carol,
I'm all set. Thank you.
Okay. there's someone I don't recognize. Ron,
hi. Can you hear me? All right.
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay. First of all, I want to thank all of you for what you do. It's a volunteer board and you all work hard on trying to do what we're supposed to do. I'm a citizen in town. I've been in town for now 15 years. The town's a great town. I think education, we have an elementary school, folks. Elementary school. We don't have a high school. We pay for RAM, which is a fixed price on depending on how many storms we pass. We really need to look at, do we need a psychologist? Do we need a sixth grade teacher? When we're sacrificing, you guys are trying to balance the budget. I hear you. And it's like crazy for the rest of the town. It's got to even out somewhere. You know, education maybe some more more so on one year and then maybe town more on another year. It's got to balance out somewhere. Okay. Your volunt is also, like I said, your volunteer. You do this on your own, which is fantastic. And I thank everybody for doing that. But also, if your attorney is telling you it's okay, it's the attorney that should know the charter. He should know what he's talking about. you know, you poke shouldn't be, you know, if the whole board says, "No, we're not going to
we're going to go with the seven," then that's how it should be because you guys are working your butt off. You're going back and forth making yourself crazy here. But I think we need to do more a little more for the town. We've been like, like the other gentleman said, I'm sorry, I forgot his name. We're doing what's going to keep going up and up. Yeah, I get it. We got to give to education. We got to keep good teachers, but it doesn't have to be a ridiculous amount like like they're asking for this year. There's a lot of seniors in this town. And thank you again and and and for listening to me. I appreciate it.
Thanks.
Thank you, Ron. the the one thing I just quickly just quickly say because I happen to remember it. I think the psychologist is a state requirement. I think that's something they absolutely have to have. But beyond that,
it may it may not have to be full-time. It may not have to be full-time. That's
that would be that we can we can drill down on that list.
They have to offer the services. They have to have a certain level of psychological service
for testing.
Correct.
But we don't need to be paying them full-time benefits and full-time salary, right? Just more out of the budget that we don't
That is that is a question I I would defer on because that's
if we can share it with another town, if we can share maybe with Hein or whatever, that would be fantastic. Now, that's compromising, right?
Look, I'm I'm always into sharing. Sharing is good. wherever we can. so, okay. So, that was just my one comment is that I remembered that from discussions with the superintendent. Okay. I'm sorry. Joanne.
Okay. I'll make it quick. I started the night saying that this is hard things. Hard decisions have to be made. I know it's not easy. again, I know that you're faced with a huge number. remember our charter did change. So that if there aren't cuts made, you know, whenever you decide to make them and you bring it to town meeting and it does pass, depending on how your audience is comprised, this could be the budget you're left with with almost a 10% taxation increase. So, I mean, I think it's fair when making some hard decisions because of the things that I pointed out, you know, the lack of probably a lot of projects, new projects coming on board, perhaps, you know, the capital could have taken a little bit more off. I understand that you want to put it to the people to talk and and I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid my name to be out there. This is being recorded. I think the board of education budget is too high as well, you know, but I also wouldn't have had that stop me from making some realistic cuts other places this particular year and then maybe putting some funds back. It's hard for me to see an elected board, you know, and and and I want to give give props to some of our new people that are on the board of bringing up some suggestions and all of that. Again, all of this is hard. It's just it's hard not to see a little bit more cut off before it goes before the town because then you're you're facing, you know, we're a town of 3,000 pretty
much residential people funding. Oh, and this is what I wanted to say. I'm sorry. It's exhausting, too. you know, we're marrying the town to all of these expenses. We're taking a chance. That's a huge expense increase. I mean, there's nothing wrong with if things fail, you know, or, you know, people want some resolution to put a little bit of the fund balance against it, but again, I think a few more cuts could be made. It's hard, but it's it's possible. Thank you for all your hard work.
Thanks, Joanne. Meredith member, have I missed anyone? I see no one else,
unless I missed you. Yes.
I just had a question. Do you want me to post this give it to Kate to post on the website Monday?
The the new the budget book. Yeah.
Just so people have it.
Put it out there.
Okay.
My my my version is full disclosure. That's that's how I work.
Okay. Yep.
Lisa, can I ask you one quick question?
Yeah. Can you can you tell us what the what the town portion of the budget increase or decrease is from last year?
Oh, I shut my computer off.
Okay, never mind. Never mind. I'm just curious.
Look what you get.
It's in that it's in that Yeah, it's in that mill rate.
let me just see.
Hang on. The mill rate. Hang on. I got that.
Could you email it to us, Lisa? Oh, sure. Yeah, it's down at the bottom. It's down at the bottom of the budget book.
Okay.
Those totals down at the bottom.
It should have last year's and this year's.
Okay.
I believe this one here.
Just email me. I'm not going to be in tomorrow. I'm gonna be with my twins.
Oh, good.
My twin toddlers, two year olds. So,
oh my goodness.
Twins. My god. I don't know how people do it.
So, is this the chart?
Lisa,
is is this it here? Is this the chart people want?
Yeah. See down there at the bottom? Doesn't it show 2526 budget for It's got town budget right there.
3.9.
So, the budget would be four what last year was 4198433 and this year it's 4363.
Okay.
Right. Because it's got includes capital. So, that includes operating income.
It's what we're looking at right now. This number is correct.
3.9.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
And again, guys, this is my version that I've been messing around with. I
just took a picture of it
over me.
Yeah. It should be on the bottom of the budget book, too.
Okay. But Lisa, you're gonna send that to all of us tomorrow, right? But
Lisa has the proper version. Yeah.
Mine is for our, you know, as we discussed and Bill, do you want the budget book and the mill rate sheet or are you talking just about the mill rate sheet?
I guess I'll try and send it to but honestly I am going to ask her with to be seriously with twins two-year-old twins all day tomorrow Friday or
I'm there Friday too those two days. Okay.
All right. Monday we have Rob. You sent it to us. You sent it to us on the 12th. We have it.
Yeah.
It's not updated.
Yeah.
and you're you're going to die because Saturday I'm going out of state to see my mother in the nursing home and Sunday I'm playing in a basketball tournament in Rutland, Vermont. So, it will have to be Monday. I'm sorry.
Make it Monday.
Enjoy yourself and forget about the life. Goodness gracious.
Monday is fine, Lisa.
Yeah. Don't worry about it.
I just felt like everything I do, I got to make sure it's really right. And it is right, but I want to take out all the shading of the lines and everything. Bill, I can go ahead and send it if you want. I just want to make sure public presentation is perfect. So,
yeah. No, the money's fine.
Okay. All right.
We'll make it work. Thank you, Lisa. I know you got a lot going on. Believe me, I understand.
All right. I'm gonna go and eat. Yes, I haven't. Seriously, I haven't had dinner yet either. I got 10 that I'm probably burning right now. All right,
you guys don't need me anymore, right? You're all
You're done.
Okay,
literally all that's left is motion to adjurnn.
Motion to second.
I'll second that.
Okay, I believe Bill motion Kim got the first. She got it in there.
All right. All in favor? No. Nope. I'm gonna go around. Liz,
yes.
Bill,
yep.
Kim,
yes.
Heather,
yes.
Louise,
yes.
Nick,
Me, yes. All right, guys. Thank you. I think we made some progress. I appreciate it. I'm going to stop recording now.