funny okay it is a 70 one I am calling to order the Monday February 3rd Special meeting budget Workshop four members of the board of selecting are in attendance and our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice justice okay item two public speak Liz Loach here here I am sorry trying to unmute no just trying to stay educated if that's going to happen thank you Joan Ebert yep just here to listen thank you Kimberly psan just listening thank you okay all public speak I believe I've got everybody I miss anybody okay item three budget workshop for fiscal year 2025 2026 proposed Tom budget which we did receive today from the Town Administrator yes Mr Maguire I would like to make a motion to postpone this meeting to another time when we can review these documents in a timely fashion sending them out at nine o'clock in the morning the day of the meeting is not acceptable to me what your well somebody should should be timely with the meeting notice
somebody just just someone second that I second it of course all right what would be your recommendation to I want to see it within time ofin warning I I'm not asking that I'm not asking that I'm asking you when's our first when's our meeting when do you want to reschedule we vote for this when are you rescheduling to let's see when's our regular meeting next week we have this as part of that meeting as well just take it up at the next meeting I I can't I don't want to discuss anything tonight that I haven't even seen it makes no sense to me we got to get these documents in a timely manner I I Jeff I understand I have only a few things that I would like to discuss we will keep this meeting extremely brief okay well maybe we can discuss but I do not want to take any action on anything taking any we can have some discussion but I don't want I don't want to I don't want to vote or take any action on anything that's fine Eric you did send us so so are we gonna vote on this we have we have a motion on the floor so are we gonna vote to postpone this meeting or not I'll withdraw my all those in favor I'll just withdraw it's fine okay Eric you sent us an email that included the budget workshop and a capital fund summary correct all right I don't really I I I care about a lot of these issues but I want to understand a couple things just from my standpoint so just so the board just so we have an understanding employee non-unionized employee rate
increases 3% it's whatever a global I just I'm just asking you as you built it 3% I more what is in the budget currently is 4% but that is all but only because that's what you the board of Selectmen did last year so I kept it the same that is a board of Selectmen prerogative and understood and just so we're all aware the union increases range but pretty much are in the 3% to a little bit 3.2% correct correct okay obviously current year taxes are our biggest issue because we're g to if we if we go up if we have an increase we're going to raise taxes so across the board you have listed out every entity within the town government Ram AES and ours is up that is correct okay and id you to is the total 377 for all three entities or just ours no that is that is just the to just the to okay all right I I'm just going to go quick because I have a few things and I don't I just want clarification the senior Transportation Grant you have no revenue for that is that correct they discontinued the grant it's unclear we haven't actually gotten any money from that Grant in a year and a half almost two years State Grant or Federal
grant it's a state Grant I'm un well it's a state pass through of federal funding and I'm unclear why we're not because we're submitting the paperwork to get reimbursed but we haven't gotten reimbursed so I'm trying to get Tess to to check in and understand why we're not not getting funded for that but until such time as we know we're going to actually get Revenue I can't count it as Revenue okay interest income can you just make a I know you have it based on income in stiff account but make sure that we get a flow of what you're anticipating keeping in there I know that is up $10,000 which isn't a lot but I'd like to know that that's fairly on point administrator line your requested increase is 4% just so that's what's in the contract okay that's in the contract okay under in your notes in column M pleas please put that no increase on the treasurer the assistant treasurer's wages are part of the Union contract yes okay and
just so we're aware please make sure when we do discuss this we talk about the assistant Treasurer stien 5000 that conversation is going to have to happen with the the treasurer because that's kind of her department so my suggestion I don't know whether she can be here on the 10th I think she's traveling but certainly on the meeting meeting at the 13th that can be a a can she send us an email on that just so we understand what she's what it's what it's being requested so we understand what it's going to be used for y the town clerk salary a 5% increase on the town clerk's salary I I understand that's part of the budget I just so I'm not putting anything so I don't know what we're doing it's going to depend a lot on you as a board how you want to proceed with the town clerk position and who you want to hire and when so the only thing I have right now is we have we know we have a union assistant Town Clerk and we know what her wages are if nothing else changes you know the 60,000 are we going to have a town CLK those those
dollars will be utilized in a in some manner I just wanted to understand the 5% is coming from the town clerk's budget or from you it's not 5% it's a Well it's not 5% but in column M you wrote 5% I'm looking at the the hidden column I'm trying to understand I'm trying to make sure I understand what you're looking at what you're doing I'm not sure where you're even looking okay and look look at your spreadsheet do you want me to share my spreadsheet sure go ahead oh and that's not what you sent us that's a that's in one of the tabs all right go to the town clerk tab okay okay go to the first page the main budget and and I need to understand in the column M there if you go to the town section which is row 63 all right right you sent us a different one all right if I did then I apologize well I mean this has good notes I mean I don't know I have the same one Eric has you have the same one Amic has yeah yeah I do too okay I got to I got a better I got it off so this one that I have says 5%
request from Tom clerk Board of Finance decision 5% Tom clerk request next one says set by Union all I I got I got different information so I will not refer to row M anymore but yes we do need to understand what's going to happen with the ton Clerk and we do do we set her salary or is that one specifically as an elected official set by the board of Finance so the long and the short of it is it depends on whether you're calling her the town clerk or the assistant town clerk because if you call her the assistant town clerk technically in an acting town clerk yeah then you do set their salary but there's an existing Union contract so you would have to negotiate anything other than what's in the contract with the Union okay because of the position and because of the situation we're in that money needs to
be budgeted it may stay on the town clerk line but will be potentially reallocated to cover costs for that department that's how I Envision it right okay that's why I left it you know the full expense in there but what I'm saying is it doesn't seem like that's something that that in in a sense is a board of Selectmen decision not a Town Administrator decision because until you know how you want to proceed as a board then it's hard to say what that should be okay the tax collector salary increase the so I'm really trying to focus on the wages just to make sure that we're understanding what what's going the tax collector salary let's go back to that because that shows it a lot easier if you don't collector yes so if you remember right when we hired Kate morsy at the tax collector we initially hired her at a rate quite a bit lower than the old tax collector was making but what we did
was we conditioned her salary pretty heavily on completing all the required courses to be a certified Municipal tax collector so that's the the big difference in the salary range is just the fact that she is rapidly completing the courses required to become certified which is what we're trying to encourage her to do understood that the assistant the assessor salary assistant sess salary it's a it's not assistant assessor it's the assistant whatever set by Union contract correct all right the registrars and the assistant registar salary increased increases I just want you to look at that and make sure that that's enough for all of the aggravation that those guys go through well that is exactly
what they asked for they asked for an increase again they asked for a pretty good increase last year and again this year just based on the increased workload relative to what they have to do considering the changes the election landscape okay election salaries stayed the same from a budgeting standpoint the building department all of those are union contracts correct building department is the building department admin is a Union contract he so the agreement with the building official is a shared use agreement between us and Folton that's got another year or two years I think one more year in that contract before that gets renegotiated and the Inland Wetlands agent he doesn't have a specific contract he is just an employee so you set his wage and salary increase and the new zoning official who will take over from Jim sometime later this month he will be officially appointed by the the Planning and Zoning commission and Jim will retire I did the same thing I did with him with the tax collector which is brought him in making considerably less than his predecessor but with a pathway in place for him to get the qualifications necessary to be a queso certified zoning official at which point his salary will be appropriate for his position so in the short term for a couple years we're saving on him until he gets fully certified okay the line on that same section the town planner is an increase of $112,000 so it's actually not it's the same fee we've been paying for the town planner it just because in the past we had been putting money into a Permanent Fund to pay for the plan of conservation and development update instead of just
paying a consultant to do the update we made a decision to hire a town planner and have that town planner responsible for the update so the last two years I've been offsetting a quarter of his salary with the Permanent Fund money but that may or may not run out this year it's going to depend How We Do budget wise this year whether there's that excess funds to pay him you know so I'm budgeting the full cost of the Town planner basically in this budget okay the library payroll that's provided to you by the library director I got a recommendation for funding from the library director and then we back checked it based on the number of hours and a proposed wage that will keep us enough above minimum wage that we don't have to next February or next January when the new wage rates go into effect we don't have to bring them up to that so
basically they're making somewhere around you know 3% over minimum wage assuming that with inflation that when the minimum wage changes again next January we won't have to address their their salary or their their hourly we we got it pretty well correct this year I think we were off and we had to bring them up as a January 1 like six cents an hour all right you have on the community center you have increases to the wages for the director and the assistant correct so and that's that's got to be a big discussion point with the board I mean I do think that
position should be full-time but the question is can we afford it and is that direct the direction the board wants to go but that's assuming she keeps the same rate that's in her contract but goes from 26 to 34 hours a week of employment essentially being a full-time employee with the expectations of that so have you built into if this happens she doesn't need health insurance and this director but have we built this in you know that's something that has to be considered if we're going to do that as a group so th this one is a big one to have a discussion about so
and then the assistant is also going from what 10 hours a week to 20 hours a week no the the last year's budget didn't actually include an insistent but since I hired the director as a part-time position and the director didn't require us to provide health care because she's covered already I had enough budgetary money to move there and hire an assistant for that position and that assistant was half the year just explain the increase from 5,300 to 10,000 so yeah she was not on the full year and right now she's not working a full 10 hours anyway so okay yes all right this is just an odd question for me on the the town office building there's money in there for payroll services why 161 I didn't really need to call this one out but I am asking the general question why do we have Payroll Services when the assistant Tre does that sure no that's a good question because we're still using the time clocks we have to pay the company that we still have to pay the the timekeeping company that manage or that that that's done under because those time clocks are not compatible with our existing system okay so it's not really payroll service it's the leasing or the rental of the the the thumb scans time time no we own the thumb scans but we don't own what that thumb scan data
goes to and the the so we still use Prime pay for part of it we don't do payroll through them directly but we use prime pay to kind of collate the information and then do do the payroll in QuickBooks all right so I got it health and dental is increasing do we have we have they settled up on the prior year for what we needed to do with them or there's in terms of we're in the Consortium still right we are in the Consortium and have they given you I mean are they telling you it's going to be an X increase or we're just assuming it's going to be flat because that's fairly flat for me no there so the increase in health care this year is an 8% increase however we are reducing ing the number of people on that health care and that lowers our costs overall so our increase isn't going up that much not because the health care costs aren't going up but because we're reducing the number of people we covering okay understood all right and why are we increasing the murf on a like state does not establish the rate what what is the thought so as of today I need to go change that addendum we got it from the state today what the new murf rate is which is 16.71% from the town from was 15 no actually it was like it ended up being like 16.6% last year so it only went up a little bit but last year we were budgeting like 15.8% because we didn't get the notification until long after the budget was passed okay so in your column M can
you make just make notes that this was last year this is this year's percentage that would be beneficial all right okay oh so you're back looking at the main budget page well that's what I look at I mean I look at I mean I'm just gonna tell everybody what I did I just took the main budget sheet I wanted to sit there and see the increases and the decreases on each individual line understanding that we as a board have to deal with salaries so I focused on salaries and and how they went up or down Y and then I went and if I saw a
line item that either you know for the most part went up higher than I would expect I I highlighted it and I'm just asking a basic question just to get an understanding of what's up I mean sure we we as a board just need to look at this and then come back and say this is what our expectations are this is where we should be putting more time and energy and focus on so certainly I'm going to go through the next salary line item that's under public works this one kind of doesn't strike me sit sit with me it's six and a half percent increase they're all Union guys except for Jay correct so why is that that is a a recommendation for from Jay to promote Mark Williams from maintainer one to
maintainer 2 because the reality is he's a really experienced machine operator that's been doing excavation and Public Works type stuff now for a little over 40 years so although we hired him as a maintainer one when we first took him on he's certainly capable in in the category and has the experience necessary to be a maintainer to so that's the that's a recommendation to promote Mark Williams from maintainer one to two all right I'll write that one down transfer station wages the wages will go up by whatever fraction you have 4% here yep correct but again that's just a placeholder because that's what the board decided last year last year so you
put in last year's number so we need to sit there and address that okay all right brush pile removal was not budgeted for last year it's being budgeted for this year the brush pile is large enough that it needs to go away this year correct correct and we don't need to do it every other year we need to do it every second or every third year we did it very early in the budget or very early in the summer in the not this year but the year before so it gives us the flexibility at some point either next summer or the following spring we'll have to address the brush pile okay custodian wages went down yes not because Willie doesn't get a raise he certainly will get the same raise as other Town employees but last year we we were kind of throwing darts at a board trying to understand how many hours it would take them additionally to clean the community center so that total number of hours has been less than we're anticipating so we don't need you know even with the other additional stuff he's doing for the town he's under what we were in anticipating for hours so that represents less total hours of work on his part at whatever wage the town establishes okay under 4417 senior citizens the senior lunch number this
is just a global thing for us we for the board we need to really look at that number and make sure that that number is in line with what they're spending right so we may need to overfund that 's just that's a call out for everybody and under the Andover senior Transportation you're calling out the vehicle maintenance line yep so is the number that you've put in here commiserate with what you think we'll spend on them so $99,000 is is what is in this line that I'm looking at yeah looking at it looking at the last multiple years we've ended up we've budgeted less but we keep ending up
spending somewhere around $9,000 a year in maintenance on the vehicles so yeah I think that's appropriate okay going to that we we should really work on our grant writing on those things to make sure that we get buses every year every other year and and change the fleet over as much as we possibly can I I don't disagree those are not those grants certainly aren't gimmies you know in the past we've gotten it every second to third time we've applied for it but we definitely need to apply for it this year and try to replace the 2014 van because that thing is falling apart because you know Dodges aren't made that well in the beginning well the reason they're falling apart is we don't clean the salt off in the winter and they rust out most of the repairs we've been doing have been corrosion related so something needs to be done about getting those buses clean in the winter because they just sit there and they just rust out and they sit there and nobody cleans them and that's the major number one problem of the failures we're having the maintenance they need to be maintained and they're not getting maintained all of the DPW equipment gets cleaned after every storm yeah but why doesn't that yeah I'm I'm talking about I talk about that's what I'm saying why can't they be taken down there and cleaned you know once every two weeks or a week every something like that it's a good question Scott I mean the number one reason I've seen the frames being welded because of corrosion we're getting things replaced because of corrosion number one reason when those vehicles are wearing out is
because of corrosion and lack of maintenance on our end and I just think it's it's it's terrible that we don't maintain our vehicles and get the salt off them I mean I mean I have a 10-year-old truck and it looks brand new underneath because I put salt neutral neutralizer on it and I clean it all the time in the winter we should be doing the same all right let's let's put some money in for that and actually that just seems like that's a rotational thing Eric you should be able to get that those Vehicles down there for the Department of Public Works to do that for us yeah been saying it for years it just hasn't happened I don't know why but it just seems like it keeps falling off the
radar all right so that's something we should put in the budget now then Jeff absolutely I mean I mean for what it's going to cost us to to clean those Vehicles we're going to get that much more life out of them and and what they cost I mean I think it's just crazy that we just let them sit there and rust in the parking lot it's crazy well we have $9,000 in there for vehicle maintenance to me I'm just sitting there saying this doesn't sound like a money issue this sounds like we have to sit there and and execute on the cleanup so yeah and if we can even I mean there may be even somebody mobile that can come and detail the cars and wash them I don't know but I looked into it a while ago about seeing if there was a truck stop or like see if the truck stop up in Willington had a truck wash but they don't because that would be the best thing to do is bring it through a big high Bay Truck Wash I'm confused how do we do our own trucks I thought Scott said they take a power washer to them they do them up down at the down there yeah yep after every storm they do it yeah and they put
fluid film on them too right we don't do that on our senior Transportation Vehicles the state requires every driver to clean his truck after he comes in so an eight hour shift they go in that driver is responsible for cleaning the truck and Underside okay the next guy gets in it and drives it we're not going to require that of our drivers for no I'm not I'm not saying but what we should do is require let's say the day after the storm right they be taken to Public Works and spray it off as best they can be and and Jeff is probably right that we should find a car wash that or truck wash that can handle them well another thing too is like there's Mr Sparkle and there's one in will manic
I believe there's one in Manchester Vernon and we can just get an account with a card and if the drivers take somebody to a medical and while they're waiting for them to come out they can just go running through the car wash especially for the Rav 4 and the minivan that's a no-brainer well the Rav 4 and the minivan I can definitely see the other two the other vehicles I don't think they'll fit through those yeah but I don't think we're even watching those at this point and how long are those going to last if we're just driving them and parking them full with salt all underneath all right it's like $20 a month for the service for car wash service so yeah and they wash underneath and
everything so it's just it's it's just a no-brainer to me I mean I wash my car every day when it goes hi I don't care when it snows so yep I do my clean underneath mine and I hit it with salt neutralizer and like I said they should be prepped with fluid film in the fall to coat the bottoms and and they should be treated better it's it's just it's a shame what's going on with those Vehicles all right well let's try to do better the senior Transportation salaries we still have to address that it's it's coming down it's coming down that we got significant amount back from federal government reimbursement half the average when you say those things wait that's you're not looking at this year's budget you got to be looking at last year's I'm looking I'm looking at my budgets I'm looking I have the right numbers like you have I might be not be looking at you're write notes but this is what you detached to the email that I opened it is what it is I mean I'm not the numbers I'm I'm asking you about are all like when I say vehicle maintenance $9,000 right yeah correct okay that's what I'm looking at I also see I also see notes in M that I think I got an email I don't know how I got it whatever but I have the right numbers for the most part in the proposed budget line item and we're only I'm only asking
in general terms so so when I get the next one that you send me you will have the right notes and you will have the right numbers that match up across everything I'm not worried about that nothing there the biggest dollars you know here are on this recommission programs $46,000 a $40,000 increase I I I read somewhere I think in your email that it's related to basketball hoops in the gym that's the only information I have the rec commission you know doesn't share other information so I don't know exactly what it is they're proposing I'm sure I'm sure they're trying to get basketball hoops that raise up and raise down yeah but probably but makes sense I mean we just bought brand new backboards for that gym not more than five years ago six years ago that that is a want not a need so we need to address that one all right the community garden went up the community garden did go up the community garden went up 200 well actually the community garden went down 200 well I'm seeing it what what do you have as community garden number no yeah you're right it went down couple hundred dollars it went down I mean the community garden in and of itself is is a great Venture we just have to make sure that it is has more it
it is more participated in by a wider group of individuals within the town because last year there were only two individuals that were really participating in the community guarding so that funding went to that and they did donate a significant amount of food to but that's something we should look at so but I don't think in this year's plan because they didn't have a very good response from the food pantry I don't think they're intending to do that again this year intending to donate the food correct well then maybe they need to have a food a garden stand and sell it so that they can pay
for their money that is needed to run the community garden so we'll look at that one all right so now you get into your your Capital spend so I just want to go over this last piece of this so you have contingency $50,000 same number the multi-use building fund $50,000 the fire engine fund tanker $137,000 Public Works equipment fund $25,000 Road Improvement fund $410,000 tree removal fund $50,000 The Bunker Hill Bridge fund is zero U we don't need it right it's long as nothing changes in the federal government it's completely paid for Building Maintenance fund $50,000 AES Capital fund $100,000 and an open space fund $50,000 right and so what I would say is
the three that we really shouldn't be reducing are the fire engine fund Public Works equipment fund and bridg and Culvert fund because those three are basically necessary at the current funding levels to meet our obligations The Ref rest of them it's negotiable what you want to fund and what you don't want to fund okay all right so those were the the highlights that I I pulled off in my initial review obviously if you look at Eric's email and you go we're up$ 370,000 $77,000 on the town budget and we're up 9% and AES is up 8.8% Ram is up 3.9% that we're all up and we're all up pretty high so I have no problem ending the meeting and asking Eric to revise his his spreadsheet so this is the preliminary spreadsheet we all have we all should look at it Eric revised the spreadsheet and send it back out to us as you get improvements to this I just guess I asked I would ask the board now when do you want to meet again because if we meet next Monday in our regular meeting we're not going to have enough time to go over this so we need to set up another date I I I know we've talked about dealing with this having a conversation about the budget at the next meeting to pass it on and move forward but we need to have a a meeting between either today and and and next Monday when our meeting is right our meeting's Monday or after our meeting before the 12th because the 12th we have a meeting with the board of Finance yeah we have a meeting on the board of Finance so we realistically have the 11th so do you want to do so right now on
our schedule we have a meeting on all of us I believe are coming on the 6th for the roads we have a meeting on the 10th with a regular scheduled meeting and then we have a meeting on the 12th which is potential meeting with the board of Finance so when does everybody want to do 11th all right so Eric I'll make a that we schedule a budget a special a special meeting budget workshop for February 11th six o'clock seven o' six o'clock or seven o'clock well let's just do it at six o'clock and give us an hour before the regular meeting and get this done no the regular meeting's on the 10th oh sorry sorry so I mean listen if you feel that we can do it the before the a regular meeting
on the 10th I'd do it that only gives us an hour though I'm not going to be available after the 11th I'm going to be traveling for work no but you had a reasonably good idea can we do it within an hour before our regular meeting on the 10th yeah I'm fine done with it is I just want to see the revised spreadsheet on Friday so we could so give me some time to go over it and review it well you haven't made any changes so or suggested any we would we would we would be making the changes on the between six and seven o'clock before a regular meeting we'd have a special meeting right but to Jeff's Point what changes do you want to see in the budget before that meeting no said he wants to see Chang byid you had some things you needed to revise that's what I'm saying can we see the revised it's going to be 98% of what you currently have at least I'm going to get a new one and then we can all review it before our meeting and then listen I I look at this very simply we have we need to look at the capital everybody's got to look very hard at the capital spending and make sure that everybody's com comfortable with those numbers and then we need to sit there and look at at wages and make sure that we're comfortable with the wages for the non-union employees and where we go with those percentages because we have some issues with those those increases because we can't outpace the union or we're going to have a problem the next time we negotiate with the Union so everybody needs to be aware of that as
we sit there and go back in and look at numbers so the union percentages are 3 to 3.2 I know last year we gave a little bit of an extra increase because of inflation to non-un employees but we have to watch that so yeah I think even those wages in line with what the way what the union spend is and my personal opinion is need to keep that Community Center person part-time and I would eliminate the right now from what I've seen eliminate the open the $50,000 for open space for this year well I have no problem eliminating the open space I I would sit there and I I have I'm telling you there's no need for basketball oops Yeah that that that is well that would I think that would probably be okay
I was support that too so those those items I just don't think we can shoulder them this year to be honest so the three things you want to see in a revised budget from relative to this is is a 3% increase for non-union $40,000 that the is a request from the basketball the rec Commission funding okay to what works I mean what are we going to spend this year how far over budget are you going to be this year and come up with a number that makes sense for what we spent this year so again that depends on how much of the program you want to subsidize it it really comes down to this what Tess is proposing I think is a $6,300 budget which is a $1,300 increase over this year so that can certainly go up let let's raise it to increasing the charges to the seniors let's yeah let's let's increase the the the town commitment to that to 12,500 and lower the cost for the seniors okay you want to set back jumped the price all right well one one complaint I heard is there was a lot of no- shows so something they may want to she may want to consider is doing a prepayment for the if they're there for the luncheon and the next lunch's coming up they could sign up for the next lunch and prepay for maybe like a $2 discount or something and just say it's non-refundable that way you know that that person is paid and they're coming because people say they're coming they order food and they don't show up and you're you're sitting there paying for a lunch and that for somebody that
didn't even come that's been an issue I guess ongoing yeah Eric come back to us on that just understand from from my end and I you know I'm just sitting there thinking that that is one of those programs that you know we we notorious notoriously are over budget on and we should really think of a more appropriate way to fund it and not totally increase the seniors costs on that program I mean not not kill them as B basically what I'm saying so supplement them in an appropriate fashion all right okay you can come back on it knowing that we'd be willing so
you come back to us with what you and and and Tess believe and and get with Kathy get with Carol whoever you need to get with get an understanding of what we can potentially do and then come back to us with a different number so we know what the program is going to look like but that one is always underfunded has been under funded always ends up over budget and we always end up moving the money from somewhere else I'd rather have a better plan with that and get it accomplished and just keep being over budget the other one was open space funding eliminate that you're gonna eliminate it entirely well are we going to really I mean we're funding that and so how much money is currently in open space 3:30 is that right Eric I'll tell you in a second and does Planning and Zoning or anybody have any it currently has $284,100 l so that we can buy something when it comes up otherwise it's too tight to be able to buy it we should have a plan
because you know every year people pick on the open space fund then next year we put it back in but what if we split in half and just keep it in there regular maybe that yeah and Jeff the other one was the senior there the community center position and what what made me think about that is you know the assistant's not even using all her hours so it's not like we're and and adding that to a full-time position is only going to gain eight hours anyway so for me the extra money it's just not worth it at this point well the whole thing the whole thing with that is it's it's not U like I'm probably on the other side of that one from you Jeff because I honestly believe that we need to we need to work on that position and we need to do a better job of of getting more people engaged so well in defense of that it's only been in going for six months so I'd like to see it for at least go for a year and like I said the assistant has not been using all of her hours so if there's a requirement there for people to be Staffing that then she would be booked on her all her hours and and Tessa's hour hours would be booked and and we're not seeing that right now so I have severe heartburn adding hours to that that position when we're not even burning the hours that the the director and the assistant are using at this point it makes no sense well I would say the director currently is working well
more than full-time already she's just not getting compensated for well like I was saying I think we gotta sit there and we gotta P that and we all have to support it because to me it's it's a it's a community center and it's a director that you want to sit there and build programs and they're building programs from the ground up I mean the only program the only the only legitimate programs that we have in town that have been executed are senior lunch you know I'll give pickle ball a shout out because they go to the gym and use it regularly Men's Basketball goes to gym and and that's not even coordinated to be really honest those two and then you have wrecked basketball that's it yeah but what new have we
created oh answer me that question Jee and why do we need a full-time person we haven't even created anything so if we start seeing these programs all start springing up I'm all I'm all forward adding to that position but I haven't seen it to be honest with you I haven't seen it well that's where you're building it from nothing you're going to sit there and have some effort to sit there we buil from nothing and i' still I still haven't seen anything Jeff je why don't why don't you go in and have a conversation with the senior center director and go over with the calendar and talk about what things are programmed and then if you still have a concern for it then go from there I've already seen it I've already seen it okay okay so we'll have discussions on that including all of the salaries and all of the comp ation across everybody all right is there anything else that anybody wants him to sit there and take a look at before our meeting on are we are we meeting that hour before our meeting is that what we're CH choosing to do or are we meeting on the 11th we probably should meet on the 11th be really honest yeah I will not be there I will be traveling on the 11th or the 12th
because on the 11th I am traveling on the 11th all right then let's do it on the 10th six o'clock so Eric if you can schedule a special meeting budget meeting before our why not just have it as your regular meeting and have the first agenda item budget discussion no started at six o'clock and let's get it over by S because our our meeting on Monday is is going to be a long one okay so you want a special meeting at 6: p.m. and then you want to adjourn the special meeting to a regular meeting at 7 pm for the board of selectman meeting yes is that correct yes sir okay all right is everybody in agreement with that anybody have a problem with that no okay Eric if you do have time
you know what what I have one question tonight it's back on the the budget underground care it says mowing is that the mowing of Lawns somewhere or is that the side the side of the road mowing or what is that no that mowing is for two things it's for the mowing in in ground care in general related to the athletic fields that also includes the fee for Mr clarkco also includes a little bit of money for sprinkler maintenance and then it includes all the other mowing that the town does which is you know Town Hall veterans Monument there's about five locations that get mowed on a weekly or bi-weekly basis long thank you all right thanks a lot yep
okay anybody have anything that they want to discuss with Eric before we adjourn all right Eric so if you can send us out a revised budget before Friday sooner the better so we can review it and ask questions of you beforehand if possible so that we can use our time wisely on Monday yes so you're GNA send it out to us this F before this Friday so we can review it before our Monday meeting at six o'clock I will try to get it out to you tomorrow since you've made pretty minimal revisions that should be totally doable okay all right anybody else have anything they want to add yeah just one can we roll up if we take that Senior Center Director position what's the change so she's not going to take any of the benefits so there's not going to be any increase on the benefit line item
correct anything else just a followup question she's not going to get a bigger rebate or refund from full-time to part-time from part part-time full-time and that's you mean a bigger I thought she was I thought she wasn't taking benefits so she was getting that stip end in l of not taking the benefits yeah but that stays the same regardless the same whether if you're part-time or full-time correct correct okay I'm just just verifying that else okay make a motion that we jurn oh I can't sorry well we didn't put it in here but we should do public speak unless somebody has an an issue are all the other board of member Board of Select members good with what we're we're doing right now any other questions before we we move saying so I'm going to move on to public speak so that we can allow the individuals that have patiently listened to us speak so Liz lat thanks I'm all set okay Joanne Ebert yeah Jeff I just want to because you talked about it a lot I wasn't planning on speaking but that senior community center director position I seem to remember last year all the conversations centering around it being there was you know there were so many discussions about should it be part-time should it be full-time and the end result was that it was supposed to be a full-time position but it looks like
what happened and then there was a salary amount and a limit set you know I remember this vividly because it probably took a couple meetings to go through different things and so I think the whole problem could have been solved if the salary restraints you know if the person would have been hired at fulltime maybe the 34 or 35 hours that the town of Andover you know do work in a full-time position so now I think it's got this caveat here because the person was hired at a higher salary that was intended to be full-time that's all I just want to get that out there because it was such a point of cont attention tonight and then I know there's now an additional person there I see where Jeff
Maurice coming from you know you both make valid points you want it to grow it's a great building you want the programs there but it's a shame that you know I think that's what happened so now we're at this point where adding even more money to the budget or not when if the salary restraints or or suggestions were followed then we'd have a full-time person that's all thank you a Kimberly person nothing tonight thank you okay I don't think I missed anybody I think we're good somebody want to make a motion to adjourn I'll move the we motion to adj okay so Scott made a motion to adjourn and seconded all those in favor I I okay four or nothing Eric thank you send us out the revision and we can stop broadcasting now thank you very much okay bye