you want to record good all right thank you everybody this is the actually we're going to run two sequential meetings tonight for all intens and purposes is for the you basically procedural reasons we have importantly we have the town budget public hearing which we have the opportunity to receive comments from the public on the budget and get any input that public would like to share and then we will move on after we'll adjourn that meeting and move on to our regular Board of Finance meeting where we conduct our normal business and agenda okay so I'll go ahead and call the public budget public hearing to order we will recite the pledge of allegiance to start I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation okay indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you what I thought we would
do is you know make a few comments or actually highlight some of the things in the budget I don't know if you know we want to take a lot of time doing that but I thought it might be of value to just kind of go over that and preempt some of the questions that might happen and point out some of the things I think it would make sense for for the public to be aware of if you're not already Eric can you give me the opportunity to share my screen you should have it now okay tell me if you don't let me yeah I do it okay okay so I'm going to go through this pretty quickly the real opportunity to kind of participate or listen in on the budget explanations in the board of selectman meetings as they prepare and also of course hand over Elementary school and the Ram budgets those are major portions of our
budget it's divided into six I'm sorry three main expenditure sections if you will the Ram education budget is one it's voted on independently and developed independently of the town but it is part of our of our town expenditures and budget the AES district school district budget is another major portion of our town expenditures and budget and then of course we have the town expenditures so everything needed to run the town so those are the three main areas that make up the the expenditures and Taxation requirements for the town of Andover this is where we are now at this draft budget this is a draft it has not been accepted or voted on in full by the Board of Finance but will be and we'll and hopefully as we have a faired
proposed budget we'll pre present that at the Town budget meeting okay so the way this budget rolls up we have a column J here if you see this this is our proposed budget for 2024 2025 and you can see in column K it's the percent increase over the current budget so you'll see some differentials there I'm just going to hit the highlights I am going to talk a little bit about just point out the areas that are major areas of change and the things that we're mostly interested in and then we'll talk about a little bit about the mill rate as it currently stands okay as you can see the tax proposed tax increase to meet the proposed budget is as
implemented there it's not a large change but it's about $10 million it's about 1.1% okay so moving down we have a lot of areas of Revenue we have prior years taxes leans taxes interest personal property taxes we have several state grants that are listed here we have a a big slug of revenue from the ECS that's educational cost sharing funds that come in from the state couple other grants from the state some anticipated some are new rental fees town clerk's fees these are permits and things that come in for work that's being done around the town transfer station fees waste Redemption Etc Allin there is a revenue aside from taxation of about $2.7 million so that shows just a large reduction you can ignore those numbers because the way the spreadsheet set up until the maill rates finalize we don't really have we don't include the
10 million in taxation because taxation is strictly based on the expenditures minus you know the mill rate so we don't actually add it in this but the main thing is that you can see it's it's you know most of these line items are pretty much line on line there isn't a lot of differences in the the amounts there couple things of note highlighted here in green the ram budget we got kind of a bonus this year because the percentage of the students in Handover that make up the ram student population is lower we actually have a reduction in our costs from last year for the ram budget so that helps us out quite a bit and allows us to keep offset quite a bit of our expenditures and needs so that was a nice bonus the AES budget right below it they're proposing a budget of $4.3 million roughly that's about a 2.6% increase over or 2.7% over over last year there's a miscalculation here I'm just going to hide this col so so it's a modest increase from the AES and as most of you probably know that budget is developed separate from the board of finances developed by the by the superintendent The District in concert with the Board of Education and they held many workshops earlier this year in developing their budget okay and then we have detail below here we have a lot of the towned expenditures detailed basically Department by Department line by line again I'm not going to go through them but I will highlight some of the the major changes just so people can see where you know the impact is really this year compared to Prior years we can certainly make
this available to you if you would like to see this the main one I think to look at first here is the community center so as everyone's aware we have a new community center that's being built and having it up and built is great but we also have to fund the activities there so there's a significant amount of expenditures that the board of Selectmen have requested to fund to make that Community Center operational and some of these some of these expenses do a little bit of offset to some other work that's going on in different areas of the budget you know for see the Town Clerk and Recreation Commission are doing really should be part of the community Center budget as you can see all of these area all of these are new you see no expenditures for prior years so there's a total additional expenditure of about $73,000 the bulk of that is for wages for the director who we anticipate and the selectman Really anticipate the this director position would be taking out a lot of the activities associated with the rec department at all because we're kind of getting done on an ad hoc basis and it makes sense to have the
community center director help organize and manage some of that stuff you know the rest is for things like maintenance and software and you know phone internet Etc and Equipment janitorial okay so that's an add a significant addition to the town's budget this year to take advantage of the new community center we have a pretty big jump here in our health and dental insurance you can see I've highlighted that it's about a 40% increase so there's about you know it's about another was it's about another $70,000 increase over last year that's just the cost of of our health and dental insurance for the town down couple other things to note mostly down in the fun area I believe yeah so
down in this area is where some of the capital funds are managed and budgeted for so we've got a couple differentials that I think are worth pointing out that the board of finance and the board of selectman have been taking a close look at one is the multi-use building we still have some work that needs to be done not all not everything's really being done in terms of setting that community up in the multi-use building for everything that it's going to need we haven't finished it we haven't fully furnished it so there's there's really to make it take take advantage of that building we need to do some additional work and and add some Furniture fixtures Etc there's also a significant increase about $75,000 in the bridge and Culver fund anybody who's been in any of the Town meetings has heard aarch talk quite bit about this we are just woful underfunded and our bridges and culber for the work that's going to need to be done we will hopefully get some state and federal help here and there but it there's still a significant commitment on the part of the Town that's got to happen we have also set up a capital fund for the end over Elementary School this is new hasn't been funded in the past but the reality is that we need a capital expenditure fund for the AES school we do not have have any mechanism currently significantly in place to fund Capital Improvements to the school and this is become a real issue we've got some parking lot problems we've got some other infrastructure problems that really need to be dealt with at AES and and we're behind on these as much as we are on some of the
others so we need to take a hard look at that and then we also have an open space fund that has been newly funded this year to tune of about $50,000 and what this gives us an opportunity to do is be prepared should some opportunities arise where the town may be able to acquire open space if such were to come up for sale we've missed some opportunities in the past potentially because we did not have any such fund or the resources to take action on some real things that might have been a real bargain to in terms of securing some open space for the town so that's that's what that's all about and that's really it the total budget excluding education there's about $4 million $4.3 million one more there that you can see at the bottom of the screen it is a significant increase for the town expenditures about 16% again most of that driven by the new funds and these increases to the existing funds is the Bridget Culver fund that we really feel is necessary at this point again we haven't voted on this as
a board but I think we're coming to agreement so I don't want to misstate it this isn't the vyl proposed budget but we will be voting and presenting on something probably very similar to this I'm going to flip over to the mill rate calculations where does show our total expenditures you can see here it's about $ 122.8 million all in total estimated Revenue again for permits fees Grant Suess about 2.7 we've got $150,000 proposed use out of the fund balance this is our reserves to help offset some of these new expenditures about 30,000 exemptions of batement that's nothing particularly different than what we had before and this would calculate a total to be raised by taxes of about $10 million okay the grand list is here this is the value of all the personal property in town estimated and so that calculates to a mill rate per Mill is about 319 ,45 we calculate that out to an estimated mill rate for taxation purposes of 31.4659 basically how the taxation breaks out when we when we look at it that doesn't mean that somebody's taxes are going to increase by 0 55% it really depends on where the house your cars Etc are assessed so that is but that does show a slight increase in the midd r okay we were at 31 31 31.2 n and it's at 31.4659 Etc the total by taxation will go up about
1.1% so not bad overall fortunately again because some of the offsets from the reduction in the ram budget were able to significantly reduce the impact of the Town even with the increase to the town expenditures so okay that being said I think I will go ahead and open it up to public comment Eric do you want to go around to the to the board as you see it and offer to accept public comment certainly okay first up on my screen is Linda fish I'm all set just listening okay second up Kathleen can we go to thank you can we go to the new community room in your budget sheets mark again sure I was trying to share and I couldn't get to my mute button either that's right let me see sure I'm on the right one here just like work I have too many spreadsheets open sometimes all right right here yes so let's see well first thing in column m one two three four fifth line down it should be annual maintenance just want to correct that but I don't see heat in here is that part of where is the heat for this building oh you have electricity 8,000 how how are we heating this new building with these splits yes this H this building is completely heated with duct ductless split heat pumps so the electricity costs should absorb that okay all right and the Conneticut partnership for Health Plan Eric we still haven't so Connecticut partnership offers the health plan for municipalities it's part of the state of Connecticut they look at your health cost and kind of spreadsheet them just wondering if we've
ever we talked about that eons ago has that ever been looked at nope not by me okay I'd recommend that to the board you know to keep these 40% your health costs are going up left and right state of Connecticut has a plan to help small towns with this rising cost I know it's not good for this budget but something some should look at and then the other point I wanted to make is last night we were told that 130,000 has been set aside for this new community room for what I understood were kitchen cabinets and things that we needed which I understand so my question is why are we adding another 50,000 in this budget if we have 130 elsewhere or do we need do we need all of this money for this new building that's my question so I can answer that question and and the first answer is we don't need any additional money for this building but right now the multi-use building fund given the commitments that we've made at this point is basically fully expended so what that does is allows us to begin keeping money into a pool that can actually deal with things you know major Acquisitions things like that so yeah there's nothing initially in this budget that would require us to fund that but it allows us to have that leway if something comes up on a grant or something like that that requires Town contribution without us going back to fund balance you still have to go to a town meeting to approve it but at least it's already a budgeted fund if that answers your Kathleen Eric what do we have next well sorry I
just it's hard for me to tell since we're in Sharing mode I can stop to share got it thanks okay next up in cre hi oh no we're just here to listen and learn and understand tonight thank you thank you okay thank you an next up Shannon thank you very much and thank you to whoever was correcting those typos in in real time so I don't have to point them out like English major awesome terrific thank you Mark thank you Board of Finance for all of your work I just really appreciate and I know the significant amount of time there's no salary in here for you and I greatly
appreciate all your work the only thing I wanted to comment on having reviewed all the budget and I'm sorry I was late getting in maybe you described it Mark I understand I saw the the reasoning for a $50,000 but salar budget for somebody for the compu Community Center manager or whatnot I just think given the status of the community center and the comparison of that salary to for example our town clerk salary it seems quite High especially because I don't know how much really is going to be done in this coming year to manage that property so that's my only comment and if you commented on it before Mark I apologize I had difficulty getting into the meeting thanks very much yeah thanks we really hadn't commented other than to point out the the expenditures s is New Y Mark I just I just wanted to mention last week Shannon wasn't present we did have a discussion last week at our meeting and we did cut it 10,000 up to this point there was discussion of possibly cutting it a little bit more not knowing relieving it with the fact that it could be a full-time person now but Eric has expressed that it might turn into a part-time person so we did cut it once already I'm I'm wondering Eric I wonder if Eric would be kind enough to explain the role a little bit for for for the sake of everybody that's on the
call that doesn't know Eric you've talked about you know like three or four different jobs that would all be rolled into one maybe you could share that for Shannon and anybody else that might be interested sure I what I proposed to the board of Selectmen which they put forward was to essentially combine the position of Senior Center Director Community Center Director and Rec Center Director or Recreation director and combine them all and throw them into one person but make that kind of a director level person so that that person is also responsible for grant writing and dealing with their own budget and administrating or and administering the building and what goes on in it that's a big role I to be be perfectly honest what I was going to try to do is pin is poach another experienced senior or Community Center Director because I think getting a reasonable amount of programs up and running and doing it fairly quickly for the community is a big ask and I also realize that there's a lot of money that we're leaving on the table that the state has and various organizations have for senior issues that we're not really capturing because we don't have the bandwidth to do it so that was my goal in that position was to be able to fund a single person initially that could adopt all three roles and manage all three roles including uses of the field you know and uses that occur in the gymnasium Etc
that person would essentially have three you know volunteer committees that report to them one Senior Center focused one Community Center focused and then the existing wreck commission you know would basically be be calling the shots but that person would be involved in doing the actual scheduling and dealing with fields and things of that nature so that's what I envisioned and that's what the board of Selectmen kind of agreed to you know but how it actually shakes out is going to depend somewhat on who we can hire for that position thank you Eric so I have a question about that Eric have you researched or reviewed because you said poaching from another town I mean is this what in another town a director does all of these functions for $50,000 Plus benefits I mean is this are we capable of getting somebody to do all of that for 50,000 honestly no but that's the budget I was given so that's where we're going with it next person is on a phone a phone ending in 5475 you'll have to unmute yourself I can't unmute you are Un Hi this is Leanne Hutchinson I might wait till the end if you have public speak again at the end to speak about the community center but I guess I'll wait until then thanks well as far as the budget hearing this is the only public speak so
if you want it as part of the budget hearing process now's your shop oh okay thank you I didn't listen I didn't look at the agenda I just wanted to I just signed in after you had already begun anyway I guess I my comment isn't fully finalized which is one reason I was going to wait till the end but apparently there's no such thing anyway I'm about halfway through listening to the board of Finance meeting from last week I I guess it's the most recent one where there was a lot of discussion about this and I signed in now just in time to hear a couple of your comments from Eric and Kathy Etc I I think a lot of it from what I listened to at the board of Finance meeting last week seems to to me hinge on whether or not it's full-time or part-time and as you know you had a
lot of discussion about comparing this to the salary for the Town Clerk and I I kind of understand why you would want to do that but I at the same time I think this is a completely different job so again I keep coming back to what I've listened so far as to whether or not this person is full-time or part-time but from the remarks that Eric just made about essentially having three different almost three different job titles in one and having several committees report to them and wanting someone to do grant writing I think that you should be try to be comfortable looking on the higher end of the figures that have been discussed because I just I think it's a big job I'm not going to look for it now but there's East Hampton is looking for a full-time person for their senior center and it was advertised in the River East and I don't remember the South but it was again a full-time position but I think it was at least 50,000 and I'll correct myself at another time if that's not right thank you so did you say Colombia East I meant to say East Hampton if I didn't okay I one of the ones I was actually kind of hoping to poach just got poached by another town that was paying way more than we're willing to offer but that's beside the point okay that appears to be everybody there you got J Larson oh right yeah unless I'm missing somebody Jed lson Jed oh sorry my apologies Jed and I actually had comments tonight but you know first you know thanks for a really good job on at least the budget from my point of view when I
read the River East I see there's other towns that are wrestling with 8 to 9% increases and so when this came out to what was less than you know $100 increase for me on the mill rate I said wow that's that's pretty good so thank you for the good job on that the one of the things that you had highlighted in the budget that I didn't understand is you know the fire commission had a pretty big number associated with it and I didn't know what the Fire Commission did you know I thought it was a group of guys who voted on whether or not we were going to buy this and that so obvious I didn't know how the fire Commissioners could spend that kind of money so there has to be something I'm issing I can take that one Mark if you want yeah go ahead please Eric so the way it works is that the town of Andover has a volunteer Fire Organization that is their own organization so the town owns the building and the town supplies most of their operating expenses Through the Fire Commission the board of fire commission's budget is the budget to run and manage the fire department for the town of Amy okay thank you yeah next question you know shared the comment about the $50,000 increase in the multi-use building fund and my comment was going to be to the fact that I was surprised at last night's meeting we talked about all the different things that were going to be
done from the multi-use building fund and I'm thinking tonight well at least last night I thought that was the fund to build the community Senior Center and that was the multi-use building maybe that's not exactly true and there's other multi-use buildings in that group that I wasn't understanding but if it was just for that and we were talking last night about all the different things we were going to use that money for my my concern was we shouldn't be putting 50,000 into that we should be identifying what the use was actually going to be but maybe that maybe that fund is more than just the community Senior Center so that fund was initially so that fund came into existence before I was the Town Administrator and it was funded over a number of years and it was designed to be just what it says which is a multi-purpose building fund but the first and and biggest priority for that fund was the construction of a future
Senior Community Center and that fund would have been continued to be used exclusively for that had not the pandemic hit and then the town had the opportunity to direct arpa funds to get the initial bill build of the community center done so that left a fund that was initially around I don't know $475,000 we did spend the initial engineering and design work out of that fund but we funded the actual construction with arpa funding or arpa funds so that has left money there and then now twice at well actually three times once last year during the budget process the board of Finance as part of last year's budget process pushed to the residents that they would be spending
$150,000 of that money to complete the senior center above and beyond what the arpa money is subsequent to when we can do it without paying prevailing wage and then additionally at a meeting we in 2022 the town by town meeting appropriated $75,000 of that to build the senior Transportation garage so that project is still slowly in the works but that was also allocated to come out of the multi-use building fund and then at last night's meeting you know at a town meeting we agreed to take an additional sum out to assist with the town's portion of the match for the Steep brand so that's the
status of it so far I think it's a valuable fund for the town to have and the reason is I think you don't want to be dipping into fund balance every time you propose a project that requires a town match so that's that's where I think it's going okay I certainly don't have a have any issues with with what the money's going for it just it when we were talking about the Steep Grant building the you know the direct fields and that I had a hard time tying that into the multi-use building fund and and being able to see in the budget you know what
it is the money is actually being used for that brings me you know to the next comment I had and in one I was pleased to see the you know $50,000 for open space funding in the budget and it talks about going into the open space fund and I am not aware of how I might see what what the balances are in all these different funds that we have so if somebody were to ask me well how much is in the open space fund now you know i' go back to the last time that we tried to buy a pie of open space and I knew what it was then I don't think we spent any so it's probably the same but we've got all this money we're transferring into the various funds and it might be nice to see somehow how much in each of those funds dad I don't want to interrupt you but we as the board of Finance asked that exact question at the beginning of our sessions this year as well since since we are putting away you know money each year you know and I said the same thing I need to you know since we're asking for a big spending increase this year and putting it in all different places it would make me feel better if we had the balances so we provided that okay I don't have it in front of me now but I think some of the money you were referring to too with the
multi-use building fund there was already an accumulation of money there and then Eric would earmark what each thing was going to I don't I have another comment that I want to make towards what some of the speakers were saying but I don't want to interrupt your you know the questions ongoing because this is your time okay yeah thank you I guess last thing I would mention just for consideration when we go to the town meeting you know we've always had the board of Selectmen and board of Finance up front and we might consider putting the Board of Education up there as well because even though the board of education budget is only one line in the board of finance budget it seems like there's always at least half the questions that are coming up pertain to the board of education budget and having them up there they're you know still they have a bigger line item than in the budget than the town budget currently has and so having them accessible to answer the questions right up front with everybody else that that's something to consider I guess I would just put it that way but I think that was all the the comments and questions I had and again thanks for all the hard work on the budget looks good to me thanks J to answer your question currently in the open space fund there's $233,900 34 as of the last time I got the numbers from the treasure okay and that's certainly very close to what we reported a couple years ago when we were trying to buy that piece of property so I guess that's good thank you Eric y thanks D Joan go ahead I just
wanted to because a lot of people had interest and I appreciate it we did talk extensively last week about a lot of topics but since people had brought up the the position of the director the community Senior Center Director what we have to remember too is that we tend to do a lot of comparisons when we talk salaries and I make suggestions I definitely do a lot of research with area towns and see what the ongoing things are going you know we've had things sent to us the other thing we really need to remember and that it's it's hard for me when we're bringing this up is that I believe Andover has about 3,000 residents maybe 3,300 so it's really hard to compare the amount of work I don't mean the position the Prestige everything that but the amount the sheer volume of work like lean had said this is going to be busy busy you know if we compared it to even a centry or something you know a $10,000 a 10,000 person Town we're not going to have the senior citizens that need the amount of rides say or whatever is going to be there so we try to balance that when we're selecting things that we really have to consider the volume too I mean the job is important we think we we left it at a nice salary point because we really it's up to the board of
selectman and Eric as The Town manager to decide how many hours fulltime would be so in my opinion I think someone looking for a job might be able to come in for that I mean you don't know until you try and then then you you know make some corrections or if you're not finding the proper candidates then you maybe make some adjust ments with that so it's you know we're just not a big town so the amount of work like when I went from an 800 student school to a 200 student school 20 teachers versus maybe 80 teachers as an administrative assistant I'll just tell you the amount of work I had at the bigger place was a ton more you know just trying to factor in the size of our town with what we try to bring forward whether it matters but we were talking a lot about this position last week so I think it's fair since it's a a a topic of you know discussion y okay good we have any other comments from any of the board of Finance members and I guess I'll go ahead and say if anybody in the public has anything addition they'll they would like to add we'll give you one last chance before we turn thanks Mark this is Shannon again I just
had one question and again I'm sorry if you covered it when you were previously talking about it in the town administrator's office lines it showed $155,000 for a project manager I didn't know if that was adding to Eric's salary to manage a project if that was a separate position and I also noted that the administrative assistant had a significant drop in income so maybe that's where that was I just was curious about that that specific area yeah unfortunately for Eric it's not an addition to his okay but unfortunately for him it is a position he's trying to find go ahead Eric do you want to kind
of explain the rationale there sure so as many of you know my previous Administrative Assistant took the position of the tax collector in the town of Andover and I sat on that position and kept it open for six months and basically asked her to see whether she could fill in and then looked and saw how much of the load she could handle at the same time she was the tax collector now bear in mind that there are the the goal on my part in having an administrative assistant is to take some of the workload off me and there's some things I'm really particularly terrible about like updating the website social media you know things of that nature so the question became was it could we do could we better spend the money by getting me the support where I need it the most which frankly is project management because right now we have open somewhere around 13 million in Grant fund dollars that are coming into the town and there's one of me to manage all those dollars and that's a lot so I decided I would be I would rather give up an administrative assistant and have some of the functions covered by the tax collector you know and just give the tax collector a stipend to make up for the extra work and partially fund a project manager a very part-time project manager now some grants and some projects the project manager can be wrapped into the cost of
the grant but in other things it can't so so that's basically where where I'm coming at it it's where I need the assistance the most to keep the projects that are going going well I'd like to thank the board of Finance for all their hard work I know this is a tough always a tough budget to put together because there's so many needs and everybody coming at you I do think the senior Personnel person the director is going to be your Sticky Wicket to get this budget passed so I think having the job description which you just went over Eric as the Director of you know senior community room and wreck spelt out for people it might help with that because you know it's new positions that end up always becoming a problem in the budget because people that are working aren't making this money it's that's always a problem in town the 40 years we've been here so but I support the budget I think it's a good budget and I think it's going to move us forward which is you know what what we need to do in the town with the community center and all the projects moving forward so thank you very much okay thank you Kathleen but any final comments from anybody else who hasn't had a chance to add their second round okay hearing none I guess I would call for a board member to make a motion to
adjourn I'll make a motion to journ the public make motion to adjourn any second I'll second it okay thank you Louise we have a motion to adjourn the budget public hearing any discussion all right hearing none we'll take a vote all those in favor on the board say I I I any opposed any extensions all right hearing none the the 2024 budget public hearing is adjourned thank you very much for your participation everybody some good questions I hope you found this helpful we will go ahead and roll into our regular meeting and anybody who wishes to stay of course you're more than welcome just another public meeting probably a lot less interesting but I'll leave that up to you okay do anybody need to have a short
break before we roll into our meeting okay your opportunity has passed I'm going to call the regular meeting to order this is the town of Andover Board of Finance regular meeting for Wednesday April 24th again we'll call this to order and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag in the United States of America and to the Republic which Justice for all thank you okay once again we have an opportunity for public speak for the regular meeting anybody has any input do you want me to go around the room again I'm just going to say unmute yourself and you know let us know because most of the folks here have already had a chance to speak on the budget so the my guess is we probably won't have anybody okay hearing none we'll go ahead and move on then to agenda item number three which is the changes and additions to the agenda does anybody have any changes or additions to the agenda Joan I Mark I just want to make mention of I know you weren't at the last meeting but we had hoped to have Cheryl here tonight at the meeting I did reach out to her and it's no fault of her own I don't know if she received you know yeah I CAU yeah I caught the email she said I wanted to include you in the email so I don't know on Eric's agenda if the new business is the treasurer actually talking to us or if there's something else he's going to talk about with the treasure but I know that what we had talk sorry I don't know if I'm allowed to say this in this part of the meeting
but we were just going to ask her a couple questions and of her advice moving forward with nothing about her particular position we all stated last week how happy we are with her we're so excited that she came in and cleaned up things so she's just going to give us kind of an overview so I will continue to contact her and then report back to the board and then whenever we want to put it on a meeting agenda we can do that Eric to see so Joan do you want to move to strike that item thank you for procedure these are the things I need to know so I would like to move to take off item five letter A the treasurer's you know appearance at our meeting okay we have a second he for discussion Bill okay any discussion Eric do you have any concerns over us passing on that this week no yeah it was just to talk to show okay any discussion from the board members all right hearing none we'll have a vote all those in favor say I I I I any abstentions that's nice bill I didn't do that I don't know how that happened I have no idea how that actually you still only get one vote are any opposed to the motion okay hearing none motion passes we'll strike agenda 5A which is the new business Treasurer okay any other changes or additions to the agenda okay I guess we we'll move on to our old business so item 4A is to review the policy for AES Capital expenditures we have any discussion
on that motions action no that would be Rob's Bailey Wick as far as I understand yeah he's going to follow up and I think you know I'm I'm guessing Joan you probably let the board know we had some a meeting and talk a little bit about the school and providing some information not really relevant to this particular topic though right yeah I was just going to mention that later in kind of an overview that I had planned yeah I would also say Mark you do have Shannon Lowden on the call if the board had particular questions about that she might be able to answer that since Rob is not here yeah I know personally I haven't reviewed it for a while so I even been the top of my head but I don't know Shannon if you have anything to add for that or if you and Rob still are planning to get together and kind of iron out the details there Rob and I have met a number of times we've got a draft and we're just finalizing the final parts of it I've actually reached out to cab and our Board of Education lawyer to just for final input we discussed it at last week's Board of
Education meeting and hopefully we'll have something or we will have something for your M meet main meeting and hopefully before your main meeting we'll have passed the policy by the Board of Ed good good update thank you anything else from the board on this topic okay hearing none we can move on to item 4B which is review of budget to actual there wasn't actually any information in our packet no so we nothing to review my apologies for that Cheryl was in today working on that so today would have been the first day we had it fully updated for the month so it did not make the packet so my apologies for that so that would be the same for the fem 4C check register we don't have that to review and I don't know if any of the board members have any concerns I mean we've got a lot on our agenda and we're meeting an awful lot these days so I don't really see a problem with long as you guys let us know if there's any serious issues obviously I'll set all right should we move on to 4D this is the audit review and I think the news here is that the audit findings have been reviewed we've accepted the audit and the corrective actions have been submitted to the state that's correct yeah so I think we're in good shape there I don't know we have anything else to really discuss on this one okay nobody has anything we can move on to I was just going to say it's great that we're making progress we're really happy I know we'll talk about it later with you know when we had that joint meeting and the auditor was involved that it's more positive than not we're
moving in the right direction we're getting the audit to review a lot earlier than we have the past two years so it's moving in a positive direction like you said and hopefully with the final corrective actions and suggestions like you said that wor submitted you know maybe even next year will be will be a lot better you know and you know keep moving in that direction I'm optimistic y okay okay if we have no other discussion the next item is the approval of the capital purchase process form again we haven't I don't know that we Revisited this I'm gonna share my screen okay we discussed this at the last meeting at the last right meeting yeah yeah okay and then there were some questions raised by several people who asked for various things to be added subtracted or clarified So based on that feedback I'm kind of proposing this as the form and just to refresh your memory this will be a form that will be filed every time we make significant Capital purchases so that all the paperwork stays in one place and we when the auditor asks the next year we don't have to run around trying to figure out which meeting it got approved by whom and what the chain was it's all there in one concise spot so I think that does make sense it was a suggestion by the auditor and several of your members have given me some good feedback so this incorporates the feedback that they had asked okay very good I it looks good yeah yeah so and I just want to make a point that
you know this is a is a good form it's I think it was a good suggestion by the auditor and it doesn't mean you know approving this today doesn't mean that we have to live with this in perpetuity so we can always just you know Eric can propose changes and we can modify it next month if we need to so but I I think it's probably a good place to start same have any other suggestions or comments anybody want to make a motion to approve Mark I just had one question for Eric so once we approve it you'll even even though you know we're Midway through a year you'll all just start using this now right and then just yeah I've actually already started using the
previous form for Capital purchases but now if you agree to this one we'll use this one instead going forward I think it's a great idea I'd like to make a motion to approve this version of the capital purchase processing form you know as pictured here Capital purchase approval form approval form yeah version two I'll second that bill second do we have any further discussion no I do have a quick question where it says date ordered is that the item being ordered correct you're actually purchased okay correct got it okay other questions comments okay I guess we'll call for a vote all those in favor say I I I I opposed any extensions okay motion passes thank you very much okay so we will move on to we don't have any new business under agenda item five since we changed our our meeting agenda item six is approval of the meeting minutes from the regular meeting on March 27th and the April 3rd Special budget meeting in April 10 bu budget meeting these are separate agenda items we should probably I guess we could vote on them concurrently not sure there's any problem with that although the problem is we don't have the minutes in front of us I did happen to looked for the ones
with the T so I'm okay with those but you can certainly punt it to next week and we'll I think we should we should probably punt it to our next meeting yep anybody disagree no I like that idea too yeah okay we'll take no action then on those which leaves us to agenda item seven the budget discussion so you know I did I did a quick review in the budget hearing meeting obviously We've we've gone over this significantly over the last couple of months do we want to go through it line by line does anybody have any I know Eric shared the propos or the budget as discussed out our last meeting so we should all have it but don't know if anybody wants to review this again or should we put it to bed or do you want to make changes to it Mark I was just gonna say I mean last week I did make several proposals to
different items you know not the the only one that we made an adjustment or a change to was the salary to the you know to the director there you know there will be some depending on what happens there I know the benefits could go down a little there as well again we did I did bring several motions for a few reductions here and there that I felt I wanted to make they weren't supported just to bring you up to speed so that's where we stand with some of the things that I had and then I want to ask Eric one question just in case we end up moving this forward are we confident Eric and I I understand Bill D rozers made a great point last week and I I hope it comes to this in the future and one of the things we want to talk to the treasur about it it does seem unfortunate that Eric has to go through this and make the changes and we understand he's not a secretary and I forgive them for any kind of typos there but I just want to make sure do we feel confident that the salaries that are in each of the lines for the town people are correct before we would I just you know is that taken is this the
spreadsheet that stayed from last year's and then whatever percentage raises in their contracts is what converted to the next line because it was hard for me a few of them I had questions on and I didn't have a Time it's been a busy week I didn't get to Circle back to all spreadsheets and compare so you're referring to the salary on the employee cost tab just salary and I I know it's not going to make a big difference you know I'm not nickel and diing it I'm just asking if he feels confident and then you said Cheryl had looked at it are we confident that those figures are correct the ones that rolled over based on the cells I mean I don't mind I'm going to go through it myself but yeah as far as I know I don't know of any errors in the calculations or what's in there for employee salaries and then I guess my other question too is and I like that Kathy D rozers brought up the the insurance that hike of 40% it's pretty huge I know we talked to it at the time are we any closer to getting any final numbers on is that a I know you sent an explanation saying that Cheryl felt confident with the figure we're putting in have we heard from the collaborative or what or the Consortium or whatever term they are with any kind of solid numbers of what the percentage increase will be yeah I thought that was confirmed am I remembering that I'm just
making sure those are my minor questions yeah as far as I know that information is correct Cheryl came out with a number that was slightly different than me they differed by about 1% one and a half percent okay so we went with her number since it was lower no I appreciate that I didn't know if we were going to hear like in a couple months if they make a decision in June and they say oh we were wrong you know we figured this or that okay if that's the number that's the number the only one I think in terms of that that where I see some uncertainty still in the budget is in our insurance bill to kerma simply because they won't give us a final number on how much our our insurance will increase because we're adding a town building we're adding a community center in an additional person so that will have some effect on it and they're not willing to to calculate kind of what that is right now so that's one and the other thing that there's there's no full certainty on is murf because the state has not set the final compensation rate for murf as far as I know I've asked and they haven't made that decision yet because they apparently don't have their full Actuarial data for the previous year yet and Eric following up on that murf
question because I think I remember we over the percentage was something like 177% or something at one point so were we a little over was it last year and I I don't have the numbers in front of me so we were over last year but remember last year was the year the the comproller for the state and the unions partway through the budget year or after we adopted a budget but before the year started came up with a new contract related to murf which dropped that rate significantly last year from what they initially said it would be so right now we're using for numbers the same rate that we had for last year and what was that I don't have the spreadsheet up sorry think 15% it's in the in it's in the ballpark of 15% which it had gotten as high as I think around 18% that's what I'm remembering 17.9 or something and they had threatened to make it go quite a bit higher than that but then they didn't yeah so so last year they brought it down to 15.85% which is what we are estimating for this year now it's possible that will be higher but you
know I have no basis for saying whether it's going to go up or down thank you Mark I have no problem Kath Kathy D rozers has her hand up can we hear from her because I know she has experience in that I didn't see it but yep yeah I think I guess so it's not really public discussion time but I don't see a problem as long as we don't get too bogged down into things kathen do you have a something to add no my no my hand is not up oh I see it on my screen sorry
Kathy yeah I didn't see it never mind never mind I'm so sorry I at least I wanted to invite you to speak my bad it's on my screen moving Mark could you bring the the spreadsheet up again and just the bottom where it shows over the past you know four or five years what the budget has been each year yep should be seeing this right so so I have more of a comment than I do a question and I think actually it was the the mill rate I'm sorry if you could show the mill rate so I guess my comment would be in my opinion this is a very good and responsible budget if you look at the mill rate you know just a few years ago almost 34% the year after that almost 36% and then the next year dropped to 32% respectively and then it dropped to you know 31 and a quarter and now we're going up less than a quarter so I think when you look at inflation and everything hand the way it's rising and the amount of things that we've added like the new community center and you know new positions and things
that nature you're looking at such a tiny in my opinion 0.55% increase from where we were just a few years ago this is still a very very good budget well below what we were paying three years in a row so I just wanted to you know give my support for this budget I think it's a very well done very responsible budget and I'm hopeful that it will pass yeah I will just make the comment that the that I generally I would agree but the mill rate is tied to the property value so the property values went up quite a bit so the overall taxation even though the mill rate has come down in some cases the overall taxation is still up you know a percent or so so but given inflation and things and given the additional things we're trying to get done with the community center and fund some of the the funds that are you know problematic I I agree with board I just agree with what you guys are saying I think it's a good budget overall that's Yeah my two cents looks good Mark and I'm just gonna add mine I know that when I look at a budget I
agree with everyone I think we're moving the town forward we're putting a lot of money in the funds the funds are growing I think we've done a good job too when you look at this on paper the only reason that I bring things to the table or bring things up is I get a little afraid of and I said it last week I'm very transparent you know when we're when we're raising the town spending which we'll probably agree to do you know buy a buy six or $700,000 that's a huge amount of money that in a few years when the ram budget goes back up you know it's going to be hard to pair that back down but again that's why we have the the voting the Democratic Society where I agree a lot of people want to see us move things forward so when suggestions are made by me it was based on just the overall increase in spending and trying to kind of pair down a little where we can and
so coming up with maybe some suggestions because you know it's it's a lot to take for people on fixed incomes but I agree I mean with the things that have been done you know the community center adding new positions hopefully streamlining how everybody you know the positions at the Town Hall and things like that it's been a a good thing so it's positive it's just I'm more cautious when you add to something as just going in increments but hopefully if the work keeps getting done and and things are improving then then it's good and and the good part is that the town gets to vote on it but I when I bring up things it's only because of the 600 or $700,000 increase in spending and usually that's a lot in one year but we're lucky because we're offsetting it by Ram you know and RAM also gave us back 120,000 so that would be another ad of spending on there if we didn't get the whatever we got back from Ram you know that's already been deducted but again that's why we get to vote you know it was great that I got to bring my suggestions forward last week and you know other people weren't in agreement but I accept that you know I'm going to still do my job the way I see that bring things to the table for the people that voted me in but I think overall we've done a good job you know we at least we've voiced concerns where there
were concerns and you know I just want to see if we are going to spend money they go to the things we really need if something could wait for another year but we have like a catastrophe somewhere then I'd like to see the money go to the catastrophe that's all thank you yeah you make a good point I don't think anything on there was frivolous but I think you do make a good point for sure thank you are you guys still seeing this are you seeing the spreadsheet spreadsheet spreadsheet now okay comments would anybody like to make a motion that we adopt this as the proposed budget for the 2024 202 I'll make the motion that we adopt the budget as submitted and shown here as our 2420 2024 2025 budget a second I'll second it that's Brian okay thank you yes further discussion okay all the board members in favor say I I and oos any abstentions actually Mark I'm going to change my I'm gonna abstain from I mean I know when I've made my I'm gonna abstain [Music] from sorry sorry actually I'm gonna
vote no okay it's GNA it's gonna pass but that's just my okay on it I just want to make sure I got the votes right so I've got Bill I've got you as a yes myself as a yes Kimberly I'm opposed okay opposed Louise I'm a yes okay and Brian did Brian drop out I thought I heard him say yes but I don't want to speak for him I think he did back up in the the waiting room I'll just read okay let him back in again there he is there he is he is yeah okay right you there yeah sorry about that yeah it's okay I'm in I'm in California sorry so you're a little lighter there than on my window so good so we just
wanted to make sure we got the vote correct you're voting yes yeah yes I'm a yes okay okay so we have four yes and two NOS okay motion passes thank you very much guys okay I think there screen sharing is done correct yeah okay yep I'm no longer sharing okay may I can if anybody has any further questions but okay well does anybody have anything else to discuss on the budget okay this is the budget then we will present at the meeting which I believe is next Wednesday May 1st okay very good agenda item eight is the administrator's report Eric do you have anything to add yeah the thing I wanted to go over with you it's something we haven't done in a while is just talk about all the grants that the town has that are active currently and we can decide you as a board can decide how much of this you want to show as part of the budget discussion but these are of the current grants that are active there's one for senior Transportation costs the direct Transportation costs it's a little unclear how much we'll actually get for that we know how much we're eligible for but it depends on how much funding they have in the actual program so we're we're ballparking we're going
to get roughly that $111,000 we did just get a new 16 passenger bus from a do Grant that was $133,000 even the bus is delivered and it's in service now we received the legislative direct grant for the connectivity study that was $100,000 we've spent about a little more than half of it I'm waiting on a proposal to spend the remaining half working on the design of that project we did from that legislative Grant in the study we submitted a lsip grant to actually fund the construction of the project that was a 2 point I think it's $2 2.86 million Grant I just rounded it
up that did get final approval today by Capital Regional Council of governments so that money it's still going to be a while before we actually get the money but we have that Grant so that was a a good success on the part of the town we have a 2022 steep grant for $275,000 for the senior Transportation Hub again we're we're slowly grinding through the design and approvals for that that has been approved at town meeting and we have agreed to match that to get the grant as we discussed last night the Steep grant for the wck Field improvements that was a $500,000 Grant with $150,000 Town match that was approved at the town meeting last night that is in the design stage we met with the our engineer from Nathan Jacobson today myself in the field committee to continue pushing back the state local bridge program we did get basically a $920,000 grant from the state they will fund 50% of the cost of the Bridge Culvert replacement on Lake Road that design is in progress estimated to begin basically a little over a year from now so that the funding will cover because we're adding money to the bridge and Culvert fund this budget cycle and next budget cycle and then that will be the town's total contribution towards that that particular cul and then we'll move on to the next one the next two were Federal local bridge program grants with what's called design managed by state which means we got the state to agree to fund the design portion and then an additional appropriation through investment and jobs act funding to bring both those bridges into 100% funding so combined
that's around 8.6 million in funding for those two projects in terms of smaller grants we have a grant in right now for the Department of Homeland Security because we just had to update our Emergency Operations plan for the town and because we successfully filed it they will give a us a reimbursement for that so we have that coming in we're also just about ready to hit sen on a fairly small arpa Grant that's specifically for senior centers that will be around $9,000 and again that's money that's been allocated so having written the grant we will get that I found out yesterday or the day before we received a do micro Grant to start an ebike program and that's still somewhat dependent on Final approval from the board of Selectmen to allow me to accept that but in addition to that the Eastern Highlands health district has some money from a Healthy Lifestyles grant that they will contribute to the project and we're going to put some additional money into that from some unspent funds in another Grant from a do connectivity project so right now in the hopper we have about $13.4 million you know in state and federal grant funding that we've received over the past few years so we've had a really successful run at funding we didn't get everything we applied for a trip grant that was a little over a million dollar Grant that one didn't get funded we currently have a w Trail
study Grant out there in The Ether that we should hear back from in the next three weeks to a month that was for about $83,000 my guess is were not going to get it but it was worth applying for in case we did and the last thing is I submitted to our legislative our you know the federal legislature for a congressional appropriation to fund a generator and also finish the community center fully under the program we submitted which was through the department of agricultural agricultural rural Administration that would fund 75 % of the work we submitted a grant for about $410,000 we should know this fall whether we got that and if we did that what that would allow us to do is allow us to leverage the money that we had already set aside to finish the community center and stretch that do a little bit better job finishing off the community center and put in the generator backup for all three buildings at the same time so that's pretty much where we are frankly I'm done writing grants for a while because it's a pretty big time suck and I got other things I got to do but we've had a good run at it I'm happy to answer any questions related to that great really nice good summer board members have questions or comments I said I said before I told Eric earlier this is amazing amount of money it's like one year's budget $ 13.4 million so great work done by Eric and everybody that's been involved in writing these grants amazing work thank you I was going to say the same
thing Eric that's highly commendable very good I appreciate the explanation being a new board of Finance member this is wonderful thank you Eric yeah you're welcome yeah it it's I'm actually you know I'm actually a decent grant writer I don't claim to be awesome at it the town planner John gasowski has been editing the documents for me so it's been kind of a collaborative effort lately on Grant submissions but yeah we' we've been pretty successful with it so so I'm pretty happy you know and and a lot of these are kind of long-term projects you know for me I mean frankly the work for
the route 316 multi-use pathway connection I've been plugging away at that now for nine years you know and I was pretty completely unsuccessful for seven and a half of those nine years and in the last you know year and a half I've been able to fund the design and the construction for that so basically what I do is I sit on a list in my head and on paper of all the projects that I think are worthwhile for the town to do and then I just keep looking at all the grants that come up and whenever I see
one that's applicable you know we go for it so so we have to as a small town take care take advantage of any funding opportunity we can absolutely thank you any other questions related to the grants yes I had one Eric great job with all the money all the projects I know you devote a lot of time to it and effort and I'm glad that you're the planner is involved too because I knew that was one of the things that was told to us I only want to ask one question that the only one that bothers me a little because I worry about liability and I didn't know it was this far along but with the ebikes are you concerned at all you know I don't know how big of a project it would be but if we're offering maybe I know you talked about it through the community center or whatever and I've been to cities where they have those bikes available and different things when you travel are we worried at all about the financial impacts of liability with accidents or things of that nature that's the only thing that worries me about that the all the other ones are wonderful but am I worried about it person no is the board of SEL worried about the town expenses you know I don't we were we saw yeah that's all I mean I think we're a great town where we have the The Walking I love to walk the trails the biking and everything like that personally I wasn't sure again I'm not reigning on a parade but we are a financial board I just you know I just worry about that one a
little bit but I I don't I don't make the decisions for the town so Eric Eric you said you weren't concerned but you were about to say something about the board of selectman I said I'm personally not concerned but several members of the board are so that will be a I'm sure a robust discussion before we proceed the the problem is is that I had a very short window like seven days to work out a program and apply for the funding which I did and I got got it so now the question is will they actually allow me to implement it and and that's not a guarantee and they may pull the plug on it which case you know we'll just reject the money which I hate doing and would annoy me but
ultimately that's their decision yeah any questions for Eric on these can question sorry go ahead Brian oh oh yeah I'll make it quick sorry Luis no that's okay so that would be on the town insurance right if somebody was injured on the bikes I'm assuming Why Town insurance would that go on Town Insurance like if somebody got injured on the bike oh they'll come after the town if they get injured on an ebike that the town rented to them a law I would think so anytime you have an event in a school building or a town building or something like that someone slips on a banana peel someone slips in water in the cafeteria when they're going back to their we face I'm not trying that's the worries me we would have to find out how much how much the increase in the insurance is I guess to go make a better decision I guess right I mean I think the first thing is let's let's wait and see if the board of Selectmen approve it and then we can certainly talk about it you yeah is it it may stop there and not really something we even need to discuss then so right and and look certainly I've referred this to kerma and their risk management you know Division and made them fully aware that we were considering this as a program the problem with kerma is their turnaround to get anything back from their risk management you know is long outside the Grant application time frame so it's not like you can get an idea run it by them get a response submit a grant so you know I submitted the Grant and found out about it long before I ever
got a response from kerma but sure there is potential liability concern with that same thing with allowing you know building new pickle ball courts there's an enormous amount of liability now that we've agreed to build a playground for children you know so all of these things incur some liability but they're also Community assets so the question really is is it worth the potential liability or not and that that'll be for the board to decide y Eric can that ebike one be redirected to a a non-e and make it bike related or do it have to strictly be ebike could I reject that Grant and write a different grant for something else I mean the whole goal of that Grant so we're clear is to give people a chance to try out commuter style ebikes to see whether they will work out for transportation this is a do Grant it's not about Recreation it's not about going out and having fun riding your bik on the rail trail it's does this work as a mode of transportation so in this case given how hilly Handover is and how out of
shape the average person is doing it with a regular bike probably is Not Practical anybody that's capable of riding a regular bike is probably already riding a regular bike and own owns one so the utility probably isn't there could we run a successful program by putting the bikes down at say the library and have a bike loaner program for people who wanted to ride recreationally on the rail trail yeah I think that could be a great program but that's not something I could have funded with this grant okay I think it's a great idea you know can that be used kind of around the lake area absolutely yeah that was a good idea them okay Eric you got anything else to add for your administrator's portion no that's it okay I guess we'll move on to agenda item nine which is liaison reports I know Rob is usually our liaison for CIP and also working with the board of ad on the policy there does anybody else have anything okay we'll move on to agenda item 10 which is the board open discussion does anybody have any they want to bring before the board Mark were we gonna touch on the successful joint meeting that we had I
mean yeah if go ahead and bring that up it's probably not a bad idea if you want to give a recap that' be good sure we ended up meeting with the auditor the vice chair and chair of each of the board of Finance Board of Ed and Board of selectman on Monday April 15th and Eric was there as well the town manager kind of just to go over the corrective action plan that had been submitted talk about the audit a little talk about financial reporting back and forth and just you know I know that it was important to me to have everyone in the room and to kind of and Cheryl Miller was in invited as well she wasn't able to attend she was out of town but just to hear the primary people
that deal with the reports that are needed give us feedback you know so we could hear it firsthand so as you can imagine I won't go into everything that was said everyone was allowed to talk about their side of the story I thought that was important Eric voiced what the Treasurer needs in order to maintain the books and do everything that she needs to do checking off and I think you know trying to come up with a good timeline of receiving some reports from the Board of Ed again I'm not the expert of all of this but it had to do with some of the things we were cited for on the audit so we're trying to get a better system in play I think both sides which I think was it was really good that some people were there so we were able to say that it was good that we were able to a why maybe people had been reluctant to do that in the past and just kind of talk about it I think we came to a good overall understanding at the end of it was a two-hour meeting
because everyone got to speak their piece and talk about it you never think these meetings are going to go two hours but they did the auditor was able to pipe in there and explain different things that he needed he he voiced his opinion that he was getting great cooperation from the town getting everything he needed from the Board of Ed but it was more trying to get just some timely reports so that Cheryl could put her stamp on whatever needs to be done for the town from the Board of Ed so an agreement was reached right Mark if you want to take it from here I think Terry yeah I think it's a good summary I mean basically we we got agreement on you know what you know made sense for the for the treasurer to have on a monthly basis and and there was some angst over kind of the timeline and you
know it was the needed monthly or not but you know it everything we do is just going to be better than what we have now and I think there was good agreement everyone was was positive I think yeah I think that it was a positive outcome for sure for that from that meeting and I think it's absolutely a basis on which we move forward you know if this is you know if we follow their you know this regime I think is going to or regimen is going to do what we need to do and I think we'll be in good shape any comments or questions beyond that so I just wanted to add one thing that I did correct and just so Eric hears that too I put it in an email but
they had the Board of Ed was sending I don't know if it went to the full Board of Finance or just Mark and myself a report you know financial reporting here and there through the year they had started putting their packets together which they've also said that they include on their Board of Ed agendas so if anyone needed more in-depth reporting they can find it on their Board of Ed agendas I looked back Mark we hadn't been getting those reports every month it doesn't matter it's neither here all about moving forward but I just want to clear that we didn't know what exactly Cheryl was looking for us as the board of EDS sure we're we're intaking a packet but we're assuming they're getting it as well but it was just nice for us all to be in one room clear it out good you know Celeste made a good made good notes about the exact deliverables right on everyone's behalf and I think it's gonna it's going to be a good basis that much before so everyone can feel good about that we think we resolved or at least
were able to come together on an agreement for moving forward what's to be expected and the fact that no one I think there was concern this is important to say to everyone here like you said with the timeline the little bit of angst I think the Board of Ed was afraid if you know we said we have to have it every 30 days and if if it was a short month or a vacation school vacation month or maybe they didn't get the check register back on time to reconcile no one was going to be at their doorstep on the 31st day being upset that it wasn't in we're all going to understand that we get it in a fair amount of time and just yeah have a system in place that's it okay other comments or questions any other agenda topics for the Board General discussion I think just sorry very quick so obviously we moved the budget forward the town budget meeting would be May 1st right which is next Wednesday so we'll still have another and all of us go correct I don't know if we need to talk about procedure right yeah that's a good
point you know since we' got new member whoever can make it yeah yeah so basically assuming you can so the town budget meeting is next week you know we generally attend in person as was mentioned earlier somebody suggested maybe have the board have that out there it's something that we haven't normally done because they have their own workshops and stuff and the superintendent usually talks on behalf of the board of that but generally the board of Selectmen of the board of Finance manage the meeting on behalf of the town we make a presentation on the budget I'm sure most of you if not all of you have already seen this in the past we highlight the main key points of the budget explain you know why why where is where it is and try explain any big differentials that are occurring break out kind of between the different budgets es RAM and and the town's expenditures and then basically it's an open forum and people can make motions they can ask questions and they can make a motion to change the budget line items so that's basically how it's done here in in most of New England I think you know the people make a motion to to decrease or change certain line items and the town then votes or the committee or the people in the meeting will then vote up or down on those agenda items and eventually hopefully we have a budget that we can pass and then if the budget is approved at town meeting then it goes to referendum it's not done yet goes to
referendum and two weeks later or so I think it's the second Tuesday following the meeting is the the exact timing the town's budget referendum takes place and people will go to the town and vote town hall and then if it passes we're good we are done for the year we will move on and if it doesn't then we go through the process again of having another recommended budget so yeah I'll I'll work Eric I'll take the presentation from last year I'll review it I'll update the numbers I'll send it to you and Joan and like really the whole board anybody has any comments suggestions or input you know we can we can try to modify that I should have time to do that and get it to you know hopefully by hopefully by the end of the day Saturday i' would say and then I hope we get some time to provide some input okay thank you okay Eric do we know the referendum for Ram yet it's all are they still backtack days do we know that give me one second I'll look on the town clerk's office and tell you what D sorry I could have looked it up I didn't know you know there always seems to be yeah I didn't put that in my calendar website May 7th is the r budget referendum May 7 okay May 7 thank you we may want to put that in the town calendar I don't see it on there just a thought [Music] discussion okay hearing none I'll move on to agenda item 11 which is
correspondence I didn't have any until we were in the middle of the meeting and I don't know if any of you saw but Celeste Celeste Willard did send something from the Board of Ed which we can consider I think at our next meeting it's not a topic for this for this meeting it's not on the agenda but it is a request to move $103,000 I believe it is of the AES Surplus from the 2022 2023 budget year into the AES Capital funds did a quick calculation and that's about 2.65% of their of their of their budget for that fiscal year so that would be an item that we take up at the next meeting this is something that's allowed by the state statutes so any other corresponden or anything we should iscuss okay hearing none I guess we'll move on to agenda item 12 which is public speak we have a few members of the public Eric do you want to just go around conduct sure first one on my screen is Linda fish all set okay next one up is Kathleen no comment thank you okay Shannon L all set thank you good night and Leanne Hutchinson yes I assume you can see that I posted the salary range for the East Hampton senior coordinator position that was advertised about a month ago in
the chat room that's all it's in the chat yep yep thank you thanks leam that's good okay I guess if we have nothing else then we will move on to agenda item 13 which is adjournment anybody like to make a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn okay Louise I heard you second you have a second Joanne I see you got your hand up you're muted but I muted myself I'll second the motion to adjourn thank you all right any discussion okay we'll take a vote all those in favor say I hi hi any opposed any extensions okay hearing none the meeting is adjourned thank you very much everybody I think we've done a good am
of work here I think we have a good budget present to the town and we'll we'll see how the how the Town feels about it at the meeting and we'll move on from there thanks for all the hard work have a good weekend thank you bye everybody cheers