okay welcome everybody we'll call this meeting to order this is the town of and overboard of Finance meeting for Wednesday November 20th 2024 we will go ahead and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America the the republ it stands one nation justice for all okay thank you second item is public speak I do not see any members of the public Eric can you confirm is that what you is that what you all see nobody that's correct okay the only non-board member is community voice Channel Community voice yeah okay good we'll move on to item agenda item three which is changes or additions to the agenda does anybody have any recommended changes or additions I do this yeah yeah my name is spelled incorrectly in two spots there's no h at the end so the in the first members present and then and the adjournment it's l i e c l k i e c i before e so I figure if we get that taken care of now it'll the right yeahor correct so in the in the meeting minutes okay yeah we'll make that correction yeah yeah so we can do that when we go
to that agenda item I think we can we can vote on it based on that change okay and one more thing y I had a question about number six when we were talking about the hiring of the assistant Community Center person this says the assistance hours will qualify for the MS pension plan I relistened to that section of the meeting a couple of times and I don't think that's exactly what you said Eric is that what you said did you say that we are responsible for the director's mge plan correct are we talking about in the meeting minutes Liz in the meeting minutes right that's what we're talking about right let's take let's take that up when we get to that section we get to the meeting minutes yeah sorry I thought that's what we were talking about my bad no no we're on we're we're on number three which is change of additions to tonight's agenda agenda yeah I'm sorry so just is a a matter of information and I think most of you know this but generally the way that this works is that the agenda has to get published in advance of the meeting and during regular meetings we can you know regularly scheduled Mee meetings we can make changes or additions to the agenda by voting on them as a board somebody can make a can make a motion and say I'd like to add agenda item six new business you know item H you know you know put a new playground equipment or what you know whatever it happens to be so so we can
make those changes during our new business or during our regular meetings for special meetings which we may call from time to time are not regularly scheduled we generally cannot make changes to the agenda we can only discuss what's been published in the agenda which I think has to happen 24 48 hours in advance 24 yeah so that's just a general general information I know Liz are new and Kimberly's fairly new I don't know if that's ever come up before so we'll generally have an item on our agenda to address any additions or changes to the agenda than anybody might request so right ahead yeah we
would have a motion and we would have a vote on it so we don't necessarily have to do it if there's only one member that's at all interested in the topic I suppose we don't have to approve it but generally we would just for the sake of discussion okay sorry about that no that's quite all right this is all about learning how this works so that being said does anybody have any proposed changes or additions to the agenda okay hearing none now we'll move on to the approval of the meeting minutes so Liz has pointed out a couple of things one is her name is spell wrong which mean do need to get right and I EC yeah it's in your email correctly right so yes it is yeah initially I think I saw them I just seen something different and then you're saying that item
six c yeah I think that's I think that's misstated I think it's I'll let Eric speak to that sure item 6B the assistance hours is what I said is she will always be kept under the 19 hours a week which would obligate the town to pay for her entry into MERS so what's written there is not correct you could simply say will not qualify for moves no but in your statement you had said the director although she's not taking the medical benefits she will qualify for the murder's plan correct okay what what item is it I'm sorry 6B it's 6B 6 boy okay yeah okay hiring assistant it's I think the confusion was the assistant versus the director yes okay so do we think this needs to get corrected or no y I would think so it does okay Eric so oh sorry so what assistant should be replaced with directors I think the the the the line that it should be changed to is that the assistant will not qualify for MERS if we want to put something in there about the director that's that's kind of a new sentence but the sentence is about the assistant and you know as we just discussed just change the word to not or add the word not right okay and I was just gonna add or ask Mark Eric can you remind us what is the the number of hours they have to work I think you is it 20 hours for Ms
so yes any body that works 20 or more hours has to contribute and the town has to contribute into a retirement account for them and so you were stating that this person would always work below 20 I know I correct in our last meeting we had said we'd talk over the phone too because I had a couple questions about this so we had had that telephone call yeah thank you just anybody see any other concerns with the agenda or the minutes orry okay so we do a couple of things we can just table this until the next meeting and and have it corrected and added to our next agenda or we can vote to approve it with the changes that were identified by Liz I make the motion that we approve it with the changes identified by Liz okay so that would correct her names name and add the word not to the assistant assistant ours will not qualify for M pension plan should be how it reads in six item 6b2 okay Lou seconds do we have any further discussion okay hearing none we'll call for vote all those in favor say I I any opposed any exstension he hearing none very good we'll move on so the next item is five a old Business Review budget actual I personally haven't taking the time to look through this does anybody
have any questions or Eric is there anything we should be looking at that's of concern no at this point there's nothing really of concern the the budget in is in reasonably good shapee considering where we are in the fiscal members okay hearing none I guess we'll go ahead and move on item well 5B is the check register anybody have any questions on the check register I had one question mark y Joanne it might have come up at a prior meeting but I did see one check maybe Eric could tell us what it was for for Abby's Contracting in the amount 19656 26 in October sure so we made a decision to do a bunch of late season
shimming of our roadways Abby is a contractor that we have essentially just a day price for so we buy the asphalt and they apply it so whenever you see a bill for aby's you'll almost always see another bill for aen asphalt or occasionally hannes asphal so we elected to do con Road gerova Road and Skinner Hill Road before the plow season because they were all in really rough shape and we didn't get to it in the round of our chip sealing because those are on our priority chip seal list for next year we basically just jump the gun to fill in the really bad wheel ruts now so we make it safe for plow season and then we'll fine-tune it in Spring before we chip seal those roads is that the same contractor that does the chip sealing as well no no for chip sealing we tend to use Co we well the last time around we used comr Contracting but we've used a couple different vendors over the last two to three years and but probably we're going to stick with comr but it's going to depend somewhat on on you know pricing just because I had mentioned in Prior meetings the Wheeling Road compared to the Bear Swamp I think it looks so much better you know when we had said is that the second contractor right comr so there are pluses and minuses to it and I personally agree with you that I like the job done on wheeling better but if you look carefully on that road when they chip sealed they had a much bigger overlap between the course when they chip sealed in one direction for the other direction so that will make it
harder to plow that road smoothly and get all the snow off the road so there are some things Gorman did better and there are some things comr did better however the public was so pissed off about Gorman in the amount of dust I don't think the town is likely to to consider Gorman too much remember Gorman was just built bought out by All State so you know it's anybody's guess what that company's going to be going forward any I think it was more of a health hazard Eric that dust I mean I breathed it for weeks on end and it did damage to my car too to tell you the truth but that's a whole another story I'm glad we're switched to this new smaller black Chip just looks so good it's what I remember this process looking like in other towns too and you know the variety of roads that you know I won't go on and on but I just wanted to remember the name of it so it's comr and I agree with you I like this chip seal much better but not everybody does right the roads Gorman did ultimately do come out smoother than what comr does but there's a lot more hassle getting so okay good and bad thank you yeah no I just wanted to know the name of that thanks yep can I ask a couple questions go for it what is the the CRM company for
I looked it up they're like a rubber crumb kind of company that does play playgrounds or something I'll be honest with you I can't tell you off the top of my head I can certainly get back to kay and and because I don't know anything I'm going to ask something that maybe everybody else knows why the the payments to neighboring towns like South Windsor Mansfield manf one Mansfield was another one I sure I can answer that because Andover is a really little town and we we sub out a lot of our operations to other municipalities man the payment to Mansfield is the payment for Eastern Highlands health district they're 133 Town health District that covers the town of Andover that's our expense for the health district South Windsor provides IT services to the town of Andover Bolton provides our building official we sub out athletic field maintenance to Hein we sub out Animal Control to Northeast Council of governments and those are all the ones off the top of my head but yeah that that's what those payments are are those are payments for services rendered to the town okay thank you actually now that I think about it pretty sure CRM is the company that picks up our tires I was trying to think about it the reason the the amount doesn't make sense to me is I was I know how many tires we collected but we all Alo there was a a somebody dumped a lot of waste tires at the Andover Sportsman's Club so we used the town
contract the last time we had tires hauled and we hauled theirs also and then just charge the Sportsman's Club because they have no real way to get rid of a hundred some odd tires dumped on their property but the town does so of that CRM Bill the town's portion was about 800 we back charged the Sportsman's Club I think $47 for the tires that were dumped on their property okay sorry I had to look that one up y okay other questions on the check register I am gonna throw one more in Mark just so that because I know we have a lot of new members and we've been bringing up different things that well not a lot of new members but just might not have heard this question question the murf payment Eric that I know was $ 13,99 remind me is that quarterly that's not monthly is it no it's not monthly but I don't remember whether it's by monthly or you know quarterly to be honest I can look back in our packets too to see how often yeah I know I don't do that one that that one doesn't
come through every single month okay we don't pay that every month that's good thank that what does that stand for murf Municipal Employee Retirement fund it is the statun retirement fund that the town has participated in since the 70s so what is the difference between that and the MS me RS as in say nothing really typo yeah was it a typo yeah is it a it's actually referred to as both there's no difference between those two acronym okay okay questions yep go ahead John just to follow up Eric and just to since Liz had an interest too isn't it it's above 15% now right that's contributed per employee I do you remember what the or was it up to 18% at one point I know we every year it got as high as like just under just over 18% it's backed off from that because the state of Connecticut renegotiated that whole package in the way cost of living was calculated with the employee unions so it's at around 15% right now the problem is is that you know when it comes to budgeting we don't know that exact number when we first set our budget so sometimes they'll give us guidance but that's not a firm number until they've crunched all their Actuarial numbers essentially for the previous year and then tell the towns what the individual contributions are and the town's contribution and it varies from year toe when they do that we're hoping to have that in January that number thanks yeah I so can I just piggyback on that so the 15% is that 15% of the person's salary we pay okay
correct or whatever the percentage is thank you it's always going to be a big number it's it's a nice benefit for the employees yeah I have a question on the safety marketing item go ahead Lis what exactly is that which one are you talking about 11 779 the no 778 the $3,965 oh that's that is the company that does the line striping on town roads okay and I think we had them do parking lots and and a few other things but that's pres predominantly line striping on roads which is why we we don't do a whole lot of that because epoxy striping a road and meeting the new state standards for reflectivity it's really expensive per mile now so yeah was that part of the community centers thing as well when they you redid the or did the parking lot so the the front part of the lot where the community center is that was all part of the original bid with the contractor they were on the hook for doing the striping relative to that when we redid the parking lot between the town and the garage some of that striping is Incorporated in that number for safety systems questions okay hearing none I guess we can go on to our next agenda item which is 6C I'm sorry 6B sorry 6A we were just not the only one I want to move this along this AES Capital fund so I'm not sure what the topic is here Eric just to discuss fund I mean questions from from the Board of Ed but I was gonna say can
I put if Eric can we can listen to Eric first and then I had a couple things to add because I know I had mentioned in the last meeting that there was a few emails back and forth just to get it all straight and make sure it was created is that what you think it is too Eric I'm not sure exactly why you wanted to address I remember after the last meeting in my notes there was something to add a discussion of that for this meeting currently there's around $212,000 in that fund so what one of the things that seems to be confusing the Board of Ed is that in the past when we established a fund we also established a Standalone bank account for that fund we have stopped doing that and we have started using pooled cash the difference being if there's a standalone bank account the interest acrs to that particular fund and if you're using pooled cash the interest essentially URS to the town and if you notice like in our budget this year we account for roughly 140 ,000 in interest income in our income line coming into the town because we're assuming that goes to the town directly
not to the individual funds the Board of Ed seems to think that that money should ACR directly to the funds but that's a decision ultimately that the board of Finance I think would make and then that would be put in you know next year's budget if you want that money to ACR to all the capital funds then we would do that but we would reduce the income line item in our budget from its current 140,000 and that would decrease that line item by somewhere around 60 or $70,000 because we would no longer be crediting the income to the town we would be crediting it to specific funds I wanted to further say well not touching on that quite yet I know that that would probably present some questions like you said I was happy to see what Cheryl provided us I was in the email with Mark I believe you were on it too where I know there's been a lot of questions that they wanted just to see an accounting that the money we talked about the total you just said the 212 431 I believe it is that they can see the balance sheet or whatever that Cheryl provided there was a lot of talk to make sure that the the couple things the one we had created and then funded with 100,000 plus whatever they had returned for the parking lot or the basketball court whatever was happening didn't get done just to see it in one spot so I'm hoping that Cheryl answered you know the Board of Ed
questions as to having that all in one place the other thing she did mention and I don't know what the Board of Ed will decide on this it's hard to Cheryl has it correctly named you know so that it can see AES Capital fund but Cheryl did say that maybe a bank statement didn't a question came from a board of ed member that I happened to be copied on that it wasn't spelled out exactly with that name and Cheryl provided feedback that it's hard to change a bank account name once it's established but the backup and everything that goes with it and the funding all matches up to what the town records have again that's deeper than I go but I I thought by reading Cheryl's email she gave a lot of good feedback to them so I hope that they're happy with that that's my two cents to add to yeah I I think I think Jan kind of summed it up there was some confusion because the bank account was named you know AES Capital fund and they were wondering about the other one and yeah so so Cheryl cleared up that the name diff was ult to you know change but that the the account LS would occur appropriately and they have asked also about a stiff fund a separate stiff fund and I think that their main concern would be that any interest income coming from the AES funds would roll back into those funds which sounds like what you're saying Eric that the board of Selectmen thinks should happen with all the
funds no I'm I'm not I'm saying shareff and I were discussing that if the the way it works now is if there is a standalone bank account a checking account for a assigned to a particular fund whatever money is in that checking account the interest in that account automatically acrs to that account but for most funds and for most things the money is essentially held in pool cash so the money is still sitting in one big pot most of which is in the stiff account but essentially there's a a credit for lack of a better term to particular so that money although it's sitting in the bank it is spoken for by that fund so it's not like you could spend it from something else without deliberately making a motion to take something out of a fund but there's not an individual bank account for that frankly because it was it was getting out of control I mean we still have 26 bank accounts with 26 checking accounts with MNT and every single one of those
were paying fees on and we're having to reconcile every month so as we move forward we're eliminating those for most things in going to pool cash now there are some things where we probably can't do that and an example of that would be the Norton funds because of the charter under which that money was given to the town when Chester Norton kicked off in the 1940s we're still you know operating under that so but for most things that's how we've been doing it if the board thinks it's appropriate to have that money the interest automatically roll into the fund that's okay that's certainly your decision as a board but in some ways it's a a zero sum gain because that's Revenue the town's not getting so you know we would just reduce the amount that we would fund that fund at to account for the interest going into it if you wanted to go that route it's really kind of what you guys as a board or you all as a board want to do well the Norton fund Eric we only they could only spend the interest right they can never spend the principal correct yeah that's probably why it was left that way and then all of the stiff
accounts they are set up so that all the interest is accured to the individual accounts right the individual there's one stiff account I I realized there's one stiff account but I thought it had a way of doing accounting that said I'm making stuff up you know Road fund account and I'm just making stuff interest earned and it would stay within that specific you know what I'm saying there's a lot of different funds stiff and the interest would be allocated correctly to each one of the did different line items I guess we certainly could do that if that is what you want to do as a board as in in general we haven't been doing that we've only been acre the interest if there's an actual SE separate bank account for that okay I kind of see what Bill's saying too because I feel like I've heard discussions and I wish I knew which meeting whether it was ours or at the board of Selectmen that we were going to be putting the interest in the different funds I I feel like I'm not pulling it out and now I feel like we're reverting back to not with Eric's assessment of it but it's good for us to bring it up and see what we want to or if when that comes before us because it kind of makes
sense to have it I mean I I know it's a lot of work but even if you have it all in that one stiff account but I thought that Cheryl had said there's the separate funds that she lists and then she was able to pull out the interest that's what I remember there was yeah and I feel like I do too Bill so I'm I'm with you on this one I don't want to revert all the way back to what Eric is sort of describing right now and saying we hadn't discussed that yet I thought that it had the backing of and I will go through my emails we don't have to prolong all of this now but I mean this has been a question that's kind of been going forward he has the more direct line to Cheryl but I feel like we've heard that before the other question I had Eric was on the rest of those 26 various separate accounts what is stopping us from other than like the Norton fund why aren't we moving all those accounts into this sff fund as quick as possible so that we earned a lot more interest well so that's a good question and and a lot of them we have moved in it's just with MNT it's kind of an active Congress to actually close an account so you in the reason why we haven't been stressing over that is I think we probably are going to quit MNT completely we're just going to do it in phases you know mainly because I want to make sure if we switch Banks you know and we're considering a switch to Webster Bank that we end up in a better situation not a worse
situation so what we're talking about doing is changing essentially three things over now and just waiting six months and see how it goes and if it works well when the treasurers back in Connecticut again will switch all the accounts over thank you any other questions about the capital fund or other discussion yeah we'll probably need to revisit this you know maybe in the new year make sure we have Clarity that everybody's on the same page so maybe it it ACC Cruise during the budget season we that would be a good time to make it clear what we would expect to to happen Okay so if nobody has anything else we'll go to 6B which is the review the policy on nomination for the chair and the vice chair so if you
remember I brought this up last meeting I had gone back and looked and I said oh we we had voted at some point to do an annual nomination and selection of the chair and vice chair for the board that was in August and there may have been a reason we kind of picked that time or it may have just been because it came up there in that time what I when we and we haven't done it we didn't do it this year so one thing that I would propose is that we consider changing the timing of that election to the first meeting after the election cycle so maybe you know first typically that would be the November meeting right so if we do it then it gives the new members an opportunity to vote in that selection of the chair and the vice chair and if the for some reason the membership changes during the election cycle then that also would take that into account so we wouldn't have to scramble and make that
change anyway so both are strong possibilities and we certainly want to make sure that the new members have an opportunity I think to vote for the chair and the vice chair so I think that it would be in order if you guys are in agreement with that concept or can certainly discuss it but I think I think it would be in order for us to make a motion to change the board's policy to nominate and vote on the chair and vice chair either annually or biannually in the November time frame November meeting or you know soon thereof if we don't meet in November because sometimes we haven't anybody have any thoughts on that it makes sense to me one thing I'd mention is I think a bunch of terms are up next year so if we did by annual we'd be kind of missing that so you know either we we set it up such that we have a vote now and then we say okay we'll do one more next year and then go to B annual you know or we just stick with
annual because otherwise you'd have a bunch of like you said people coming in who then didn't have an opportunity to vote for a chair Vice chair yeah I mean you know yeah that's a good point Rob and you know my my thinking would be probably just keep it annually I mean we've had enough turnover through people resigning or you know in addition to just the you know the election cycle so it probably makes sense to do it annually it just keeps it clean we don't have to remember to do it in the same same off cycle that we would otherwise yeah and I I personally in complete agreement with that the the meeting after the election is the appropriate time to do it I don't know we must have picked August because we were thinking it came up and it was that
that's the time we were dealing with it and oh after the FIS year it ended you know we just gotten through the budget cycle and it's easy time to do it but now that you mention it makes a lot more sense to do right after the election yeah be right back any anybody other thoughts we can go ahead and make a motion then I was you know I'll just normally the chair doesn't doesn't motion that much but I would say I'll go ahead and make the motion to change the board's policy on the nomination and selection of the chair and vice chair to the November meeting or the next thereof if that's not held and have that selection annually I'll second that the second at least makes complete sense yeah further questions okay I guess we'll go ahead and take a vote all those in favor say I I any oppos any extensions okay very good we'll move on the next one is the to nominate and vote on the chair and vice chair so here we are I I I'll just say a couple things prefatory to this that the the and this is just more for the new members like Liz who haven't really been through this cycle before the the chair and the vice chair the main job is to run the meetings we want you know that you want the meetings to be run fairly effectively you need them to be run legally so that the town is protected and the public of course gets their say and then that things are done above board and
transparently there is a little bit of work or knowledge or you know skill I guess in that sense that you have to be a little careful but it's not rocket science I mean you guys have all seen this before we do what every every every month right so it's pretty straightforward there is some additional communication and activity that happens Joanne and I get copied on email from the Board of Education if they have questions there's been a few as Joan indicated from the Board of Ed to the treasurer or to the town manager or to us or and you'd also may represent the board of Finance in various you know discussions Etc that happen unofficially off it's not off the Record but they're not a true board meeting they're just you know maybe it's discussions about the accounts or you know what are we going to talk about you also Eric will typically reach out to us and say Here's the packet draft you know do you have anything to add or change we're going to publish it you know on Monday so get get any changes to us and and typically there aren't many but we do sometimes have some changes that being said there's no differential between the chair and the vice chair and any other member of the board in terms of those of those
prerogatives so you know if if Bill were to to contact the board or contact Eric or or Kate and say hey I'd like to add an agenda item to the next meeting to discuss you know the Town Road fund you know then you know certainly that is within your prerogative also there's there's nothing to prohibit that from happening I mean typically it would go through the chair but it doesn't NE necessarily have to and obviously within voting the chair has no more say than anybody else and the vice chair has no more say than anybody else you just you are trying to direct the meetings efficiently you're trying to do them fairly you're trying to keep everybody on on U on topic as much as possible including the public which is sometimes where things can go a little little off not typically I mean we generally have pretty good pretty good understanding and people are pretty concise and and to the point when
they do have their comments but it is important to to keep that in mind yeah I guess that's really all I have to say the last thing I'll add is that I am completely happy to hand this over to somebody else if somebody wants to take the reins for the for the following year it is a little extra work but it's it's not huge you know my my my job does keep me pretty busy on along with some other things so you know again it's not a ton but you know it is it is something that I try to make sure that I'm at all the meetings that I can be and paying attention and interacting and answering questions where we can so so there's a little more work to it but it's not a whole lot Joanne you got anything to comment on that no I think you summed it up great Mark you know it's good to be involved and be you know focused on things going around in town I think just so that we can bring you know the vice chair and chair and all members can bring points to the board of Finance meetings and stuff like that I do think it might be I would lean more that it it's nice to streamline the topics that we want to put on an agenda through the chair like we have been or vice chair but I this is the first I knew that anyone could you know go straight to the I I understand that that's a good you know a good idea to keep open communication I just think it's kind of nice to streamline it a little bit to see you know what topics we were going to cover that month or
whatever that was that would be my only thought but if you know you're saying that should be open to everybody I think that they kind of send things to us and then we kind of get together and put it in I know you had suggestions last time I had you know several questions last time and one made it to the agenda that's all other than that it's a group effort anyway yeah I would agree with you that's definitely a more efficient way to run things then you have everybody everybody on board and you know sometimes I may say well maybe that's fits better under this topic and we work it out you know and of course we always have the opportunity on regular board meetings to change the agenda exactly change the agenda so yeah yeah generally it would be better to go through the chair or vice chair honestly just because that way Eric's not getting you know it from four different people I mean typically we don't add a lot it tend to be a very repetitive agenda lineup that you've seen yeah that was it yeah and I think in terms of the process of nomination you shouldn't wait for somebody to nominate you if anybody would like to volunteer is interested in in doing the job or willing you know go ahead and speak up because you know I'm not going to nominate Bill if I really think he doesn't want to do it for example you know although I may nominate him anyway not
well just to be clear Mark you know I know you're you're being very gracious about it but are you are willing to stay on if you were chosen correct you would serve I I would yeah you know I would you know either as chair or vice chair you know I'd be but and but I'd be happy to you know probably more than happy to turn it over to somebody else but I would certainly be there to support in in any transition you know I just happen to have had some background in you know Robert's Rules of orders Etc that you know T in parliamentary procedure which kind of is helpful and I went to a training class for the CCM the Connecticut conference municipalities to put things on but I still have that book that they gave us the folder and that data and I'd be happy to hand that to somebody else to take a look at so like Robin said you you do have a good way of running a meeting you know all the rules and all of that we're all adding you know knowledge I'm certainly happy to you know continue if that's the way it goes in in my role as well so I'm gonna go ahead and nominate you as
the chairperson but I mean again whoever you know people are willing to step up if you can't make it you know depend I think everyone's shown that they're available or you know willing to step in and pinch hit or whatever and run meetings but you do you have a nice way of of doing things you present it well yeah and so I'm gonna go ahead and nominate you I think you heard cat's well so I'm Inon a second all right I a second but go ahead rob you got it is that because I happen to be holding a cat or did you oh my goodness didn't see the cat but yeah new kittens on point right do this they're on the keyboard so I'm try these are skills that you need so we have do we do we are we doing nomination for chair vote on chair nomination Vice chair vote on Vice chair yeah I would do chair and vice chair separately okay any other nominations for chair we have one from Joan does anybody want to second that nomination Rob did okay sorry okay I had to make a joke about it but I did yeah that's right you did I'm sorry okay thank you any other nominations looks like it's you dude still no he's shaking his head I've ducked it for 10 years okay all right well I guess hearing none any discussion all right we'll vote all those in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions I will abstain all right thank you I guess for your vote of confidence not sure it was the outcome I was really looking for
but am willing to do what I can okay thank you for your service so I'll nominate Joan I think she's done a great job I'll second that as Vice chair okay Joan you are you accept the definitely I love I love the role of Vice chair you know and happily accept it so no problem and I'm happy to step up when Mark's not available that kind of thing I didn't want to say too much while I'm nominating him no thank you I'm yeah it's it's it's worked pretty well I mean giant obviously spent a lot of time keeping in close touch more time than i' I've spent certainly keeping in close touch with the other boards and what's going on so I think it's it's worked out pretty well okay other
nominations maybe we should have a vice vice chair so you you can kind of pass the Baton down the road all right hearing none all those in favor say I I I any opposed any abstentions do I abstain typically you woulding it'll look good in the minutes don't worry if it was a TI vot we we'd ask you to break the tie but typically you would yeah and and just one thing I should mention too is just it is it's just more tradition than that the the chair of the boards who's ever chairing a meeting typically is not the person who would introduce motions no reason you can't technically but just that's why
I don't do it very often it's it's appropriate and it gives the other board members an opportunity to make sure they have their say and state things the way they want them so that way you're not you're staying away from the chance you're dominating the proceedings as well right there's no procedural reason you don't have you don't have to do that yeah right okay well thank you everybody we'll move on the next item is 6D review changes to the town Charter I don't know if we have them in our packet don't think we no I don't I think we have Eric's recommendations for what to do about them yeah so so if if you want
I can share my screen with the the sections the new sections I yeah why don't you go ahead and do that Eric sure okay hopefully you're seeing something with blue and red that starts with chapter eight finance and Taxation can you make that full screen or I can make it bigger okay yeah that's can you yeah okay thank you okay so the one caution I have is the because not every line everything passed in the budget the Town's attorney and the town clerk are still working through a little bit of a disagreement about what the final language is in the charter based on the things that pass and the things that didn't pass but what what I'm going to pull out is the things that I know should be included and the first is a requirement that and and one other thing the majority of the charter changes don't go into effect till next July but the things that relate to the budget explicitly go into effect as soon as they are voted on so these changes are already the law of the land in the charter of course as soon as the two of them agree on what that law of the land is so the things that are going to affect us is that we should it says the board of Finance shall confer with the other two boards and lay out your goals and objectives for the upcoming budget and one of the things that's happened in a lot of Prior years but
that that the board of Finance has gotten away from the last say four to five years is you can select or suggest targets for expenditures for each of the budgets in fact the board of Finance in the past has given the board of edit Target as well as given the you know the general government a target for what percentage increase or Flatline or whatever that they would like it doesn't mean the budget you're going to get back will actually conform to that but it's guidance from you to both of those entities on what your expectations are so that's the first thing the second thing it backs up the date at which each department head each border commission chair everybody responsible for a section of the budget has to give that information into myself and the treasurer's office so it can be collated into the whole budget and when we get when we look at the next item which is the budget process timeline I took all the new dates that are in here as well as the new procedures and translated them into a timeline that I think is correct but I'm I'm happy to you know you as a board can modify that any way you want at the end of the year so the other
thing that's different it gives the Board of Ed a budget submission deadline of February 15 to present to you their budget and it gives me a deadline of 120 days prior to July 1st or June 30th actually to present a budget to both the board of Selectmen and board of Finance now what the this envisions is a series of budget review meetings in March I think I can get a budget into your hands and into the board of selectmen's hands much earlier than that because this is actually you know normally by February first at the latest I've given the board of Selectmen essentially my completed budget so they have a period to review but since now the review period is going to be before both boards and and ultimately I think the board of Finance should be the one setting the dates and times for that
and just have both boards present so both boards can ask questions at the end of the day the board of Finance is the one that's responsible for the budgets and then here's the revised duties of the board of Finance and this gives you the the dates you have to hold the public hearing based on the end of the fiscal year and outlines when the annual Town budget and referendum will be so does anybody have any questions on that so first thing I just want to ask when will this be finished being reviewed do you know by the attorney and when will we get a full copy of the amended updated I I don't have an answer for you I kind of hoped it we would have it already because I'm basing you know
my proposal for a timeline on what I think the final language is going to be but I I know all of this portion of it were things that got accepted or or fell under the questions that were approved so I'm pretty sure this is the the Lang anguage that will go into effect what wasn't made mandatory is the Quorum requirements for the annual budget are still in place and the language that it would go automatically to referendum did not pass so that's where they're trying to work out the differences between the revised language and what things passed and what things didn't if that makes sense yep so if I understand this correctly I mean it accelerates things slightly from where we've done it in the past but it doesn't seem like that drastic a change the big thing that we're going to have to do is coordinate with obviously the
other boards and that's coming up in our agenda we're going to talk about that in a bit but long story short you know I'm thinking about last budget cycle and I don't remember exactly when AAS presented their budget to us but you know this the deadline that's now specified doesn't seem unreasonable none of this seems undoable my only concern going into all of this was whether we were compressing things so much that we'd be struggling to get through everything but you know it's done now and we're g to make it work so right I I mean I I looked at your schedule I mean it seems reasonable enough to me yeah I think what I propos leaves you even if you only do one meeting a week still leaves you seven you know budget workshops to review parts of the budget which in most years seems to be as much or more than what the board of Finance normally does yep yeah we usually do I feel like we do basically there's a two-month stretch where we have a meeting a week every week you
know between our regular meetings and our workshops and we get through everything in that time and that's holding to our attempts and thank you Mark for this to keep our meetings to two hours at a shot because we had that one year where we went till 11:30 at night and it wasn't good but you know if if needs be if you know at the uttermost extent of need whatever we have to have a longer meeting so be it but I I like the idea of just it does it does seem like a good idea to get this stuff in front of everybody as soon as possible Eric you've done a good job in the past of collecting everything and getting it to us and keeping us informed so I think we'll make it work the other thing I think that the it what this basically does is it has joint budget meetings between the board of slackman and the board of Finance so a lot of the time that Eric spends you know explaining and going back and then the board of selectman he's explaining the board of selectman's position to us you know and probably explaining the board of Finance position occasionally the board of Selectmen and you know this way we're doing it generally all together and so there's going to be some benefit there that we we acrw Joan that you're you're hitting on what I wanted to just clarify too so we will be doing the majority of the meetings together so that part does make sense we'll all be hearing it firsthand rather than you
know I would attend all of those meetings too like you know and a lot of so did a lot of other board members and then we'd come back and hear things and maybe we'd do a little Corrections like no I heard it slightly different so that does take away any everybody would hear things firsthand but this still is there I know maybe I'm getting ahead of our agenda too and I apologize will there be a meeting an ultimate meeting at the end where it is just the board of Finance when we get down to all of is that what this all well I think the public hearing is is really a board of Finance managed meeting and then the board of Finance I'm not sure exactly what I would say that yeah I'll get to it in a sec but yes so once you're done with the review you're responsible for coming up with the you ultimately you're responsible for reviewing the budget estimates essentially the reading between the lines what really should be happening is the board of Finance should be setting a meeting schedule and inviting the board of Selectmen to attend you know they may or may not attend all of the meetings or or some of them are only the ones in the beginning or I I really don't know but ultimately the the decision on the budget as a board is yours and then what you are required to do is you are required to hold a public hearing once you've come up with your recommended budget and then after the public hearing you publish a final budget that goes to the annual town meeting the only real difference is the time frame for that has been shifted up a couple of
weeks based on when you know when the the the final referendum will be and Eric I I think I know the answer to this I just want to make it clear for myself maybe other new members even though there may be joint meetings if there are you know things to be voted on things of that nature that is still the board of Finance the board of selectman why we're going through the budget process doesn't vote on it's I I think that that's not really clear Bill honestly that's that's something that I I'm you know concerned about the language there so what I would say is as Eric said ultimately the board of finance's job to come up with the recommended budget following the public hearing so typically what we do is we've settled on a budget more or less we have a public hearing at the end of the public hearing we will make any changes based on that or we will vote on the budget and pass it onto the town meeting but there the language the way that it's written really isn't clear about who's who you know where the final you know who gets to vote during these meetings as to what the recommended budget is well that's got to be cleared up yeah that's really scary too because I didn't hear it that way when presented yeah that goes to Joanne's point about whether we you know we have that final
meeting of our own to you know in in if we have these multiple meetings with the board of Selectmen and then at the end of the day we have our last meeting and we make our decisions ourselves then that preserves our role if it's if this changes that we're going to have a multi-board decision-making process well that changes things rather dramatically it also makes the meetings potentially much more unwieldy very unwieldy that that was my concern say that there is nothing in the this Charter language that prohibits us from having a final Board of Finance only meeting it just says there shall be budget review meetings in March which shall be joint meetings of the board of Select board Finance yeah I think we look at that in good faith and say okay I don't think the board of selectman is trying to you know take over our role it's just they think it would be good to coordinate and I agree with them on that then I think we'll be okay I think though that we should in fact make sure that we schedule one Board of Finance only meeting right before we go to public hearing but I'm saying like in in the case of a motion let's just talk about the board or the new director of the community center there was a lot of discussion and motions made concerning what that salary would be let's just say and and again that in my mind is the board of Finance it's not the board of Selectmen or a joint board those decisions are always as the as budget's
being heard it's nice to have their input but in my mind anyways I don't I can't foresee them actually having votes well well Mark what leads I just want to get this question in what leads you to believe where are you seeing what because that especially you be I you know value your opinion on this where are you seeing that they might get votes and things like that what what exact line leads you to think that it's not clear the d d with yeah right there in front of us I mean it's not clear I just wanted to be literal yeah yeah it was stated in that review meeting that Jeff Maguire held that I believe it was stated the board of Finance is the town's board that makes the financial decisions which leads me to believe the voting and all of that there not you know we listen to the review will get together but I'm hearing it on a whole different level now than all the meetings that I I I I think it's it's a little confusing right so one thing to think about is what's happened in the past and and typically and I I I don't attend the board of Finance or I'm sorry the board of selectman's budget review meetings typically I know Eric puts together a proposed budget then he works it out with them they make changes
right so and then what we get is a pretty much a final product right and then we can make changes following our discussion so I don't think anybody's trying to serf any power it's just not clear at these joint meetings who has voting rights I think it is clear that the board of Finance is the jurisdictional authority in terms of producing the budget for the town hearing the public hearing and for the and for the the recommended budget for the town meeting I think that that's pretty clear it's just that there's a lot of gray in the way that this is written I don't think it's a problem you know I don't think it's a major problem or I'd raised my hand long ago but I just think it's just something we're gonna have to work out but I think we have this forum right now to say that we bill has said it I've said it Rob has said it somebody's got to answer the question that you know we are hoping that it is as it has been in the p pass you know and that's the way it was presented at any kind of meeting that I went to that these would be joint meetings where the budget's going to be discussed and like you said if it is gray areas then it should be cleared up like Bill said I think I think just the real the real question just ends up being that the board of Finance is going to have to have a you know the final decision on the on the recommended budget I don't think
anybody's going to dispute that I mean it basically states that as a rule or as the you know duty of the Board of Finance you know it says Billy an e there right so I'm not sure what that whole section would end up reading can I ask a question about getting back to D again real quick yep at the end of the of D it says a quorum of at least one of the two boards is required oops to conduct business does that mean to just simply hold the meeting and discuss yeah it or in order to vote well to have the meeting at all you have to have a quorum of either board you have yeah so
conducting business can just be reviewing the budget figures it doesn't necessarily you know if you didn't have if you had three Board of Finance members and two Board of selectman members you would not be able to hold a meeting because you don't have a quorum of either of either board but if you had three Board of Selectmen members in theory that's all you need right hopefully that's not kind of how it rolls and I and I think that the language was it's vague but and a little ambiguous but it I think it's not unmanageable I think we just have to it with a spirit from which it's intended so but it's a little you know it's not really clear you know who sets the meeting dates who's you know who chairs the meetings you know who who has voting rights in these meetings you know so those things were not well thought out in terms of this language and it it might have made it too complicated to do that but it is kind of what we have and I think it's one of these things we try and we see how it works out if we
run into problems we may have to think about the change so Mark I I think what everybody is voicing is that we want the language clarified before we start the process can't do that we just had an election and this is the language unless unless you're talking about a legal opinion and is to what it means I would like a legal opinion yeah I guess what it me yeah Absol kind I kind of see what Mark's saying though I mean we just had an election on this but you can't go into this with gray unanswered questions we have to know the role when we go to these meetings people have to know what the role is I mean I I'm I'm inclined toward that at the same time I'm inclined to also say that we can muddle through and see how it goes and the the issues will become how do I say clarified I guess as we go through this and it'll highlight them and we may have to go from there this may be something we can clear up in that tri board meeting you know propose propose like hey this is how we see this going forward you know we have joint meetings that are informational people
put in their input and then we you know ultimately the board of finance will hold a final meeting vote on the end result and and then that'll be what goes to public hearing and then ultimately to the town meeting I see that too Mark and I appreciate that and hopefully it all flows together nicely Eric had said something at the beginning that most of the changes to the Charter won't take place until next July which is after our budget season what makes it where is it stated because another point that was brought up to me was that we are rushing to enact this now I know it got voted and the charter got changed and everything but so I'm curious what makes the budget questions have to happen now but all you know what makes the two things I think it's because of what it's what the charter says I never read the full-blown Charter oh it said that the budget will go in thank you that's a that's an easy answer right it was spelled out in the in the charter review process that at most things would go into effect July
however the things that related to the budget would go into effect immediately upon adoption thank you that's an easy answer and I don't mind asking the question because I wanted to know and I didn't read that line so sure yeah yeah that's a good question other comments Louise did you have something or was that Liz earlier but she that's no no you answered my Forum question I was actually gonna answer what Eric just said because I remember him saying that the the budget changes go into effect right away any any further comments or questions or anything else Eric we need to review here in terms of this no I was going to say if you wanted can you see the suggested schedule that's kind of the next item up yep and one flows into the next yeah I had looked at this yep y it didn't seem you know it seems like a decent sketch you know obviously October 15 you know things going to affect immediately obvious see we've missed we're already
past that right so we're going to try to have our meeting as soon as possible instead but other than that this all seems quite reasonable to me February 15th that gives us a couple of weeks to get to March yeah I mean this is all this works I mean we're going to fit our budget workshops in in between these other dates and to be honest the funny thing is this doesn't this doesn't crunch me anymore in in fact I produce my initial budget roughly the same time under this schedule the only thing we're really doing is we're just eliminating five weeks or six weeks of the board of Selectmen meeting and discussing the budget before it goes to the board of Finance those two project paths are now combined into one corre so they overlap in a sense yeah yeah right and there is some flexibility in the dates for these like and you when we get a little closer you guys will have to decide I mean I gave you a proposed schedule of when you could start budget meetings you can choose to start later
I suppose you could choose to start a week earlier if you wanted and I could probably do that if you felt you needed one more week and then there's some new language that says you got to do the public hearing not less than 85 days before the end of the fiscal year used to be 60 so it's back to that up about 25 days for that so the last possible day is April 4th but the problem is is that if you do it April 4 fourth we still have to send out a mailer five days before the budget meeting so then
you're really you're pushing the budget meeting towards the end and making it harder to comply with the referendum schedule so there's some flexibility if you have specific dates now you wanted to identify things I would change it and send it back out with that or you can kind of adopt something but just leave that range there for now and when it gets a little closer select the exact dates that you want Eric I have a question on the budget hearing date like you said you said there's new language that says it has to happen not less than 85 days did correct we change that are you saying we because I was going to when I looked at your timeline I seem to remember whatever the dates led up to and we had the budget hearing the budget hearing seemed to be very close to the town meeting correct didn't it always kind of we'd have a budget hearing and if everything went through and we gave final revisions I feel like the budget meeting which is going to take place according to this April 9th now yes so there's that big cushion before we vote on it in May right there's that month in
between I just didn't know why we would have done that what purpose did it add to adding time because the 60 days we could have been everything could have been kind of closer together fresher yeah I feel like so many things up front but then we're now we have to do this hearing early because of the new language and then you know when we actually have the meeting yeah yeah I I wasn't following the thought of why we had to do that or why we didn't change it to be more friendly to the process if we were changing the charter So Many Items well the one thing this would give you in in My Mind by doing it April
9th and then having the budget hearing no later than April 2nd then so the April 2nd to April 9th gives you seven days to get the mailer out and make sure you can get the mailer out on time which is because you're required to get it out five days ahead of time that gives you a little bit of leeway you know to work with it yeah you know we've cut it down to exactly five days before but or six days before because that's the minimum we can legally do which is US put putting the mailer out the day after you have your public hearing and putting the announcement out by doing April 9th for the annual Town budget meeting if the
initial now that it doesn't automatically go to referendum it can still fail at the Town budget meeting you could theoretically have another budget meeting the next week and maybe even another budget meeting you know Town budget meeting the week after so you might be able to have two budget failures and still make the May 6th referendum date so I think that's why they pushed those deadlines back but I wasn't on the commission so so I don't know that for for sure thank you yeah I just didn't understand why it was such a gap and I wanted things to be more fresh
in people's head you know being more to of well it just seems like a big gap of time but they're anticipating they're trying to keep things on schedule in case there were instead of pushing it the other way they feel like they'd have some weeks in between to have additional meetings and hopefully get one to pass all right all right I could not make sense of this that whole timeline at all with the end part of your timeline I under thanks yeah I had to break out a calendar and count the days for each step to figure out where it would fall because they refer to different things by dates or by specific date ranges so I a question real quick Eric just certainly just to clarify can you go back down a teeny bit in this month of March April can you just clarify for me this sent a budget to the town meeting on the 24th or earlier that that's Mar March 24th correct correct so because it has to be 85 days before the end of the fiscal year 85 days before the end of the fiscal year is April 4th so that sets the last possible day for a finance board public hearing but as far as I know I think that's like a Sund or Saturday so you're probably not going to hold the public the budget meeting on a Saturday you're probably gonna hold it on weekday which so that's the week that you would hold it I just wanted to clarify that that was actually March because I I was assuming it was but I
didn't want to assume it and then find out that I shouldn't have assumed it because it was wrong so March 24th okay correct all right thank you have a question as well for the Saturday February 15th is a Saturday for the Board of Ed to submit the budget to the board of Finance right is that could it be the 14th or the 15th it just says they have to do it by the 15th that's language straight out of the charter okay Midnight on the 15th probably yeah you know and the 15th is gonna fall on different days depending on the budget year so yeah okay thanks of course I suppose if they wanted to wait until the Saturday and submit it on the Saturday to you all they legally [Music] could so if you could scroll down a little bit again all of this seems to you know come together we just kind of meet well we don't have to tonight but it would be ho us I think to plan for a tentative date for the for the town budget meeting and for the public hearing so Eric you're saying that we'd have to vote to send the town the budget to town meeting on the 24th of March or earlier so the 24th
is 24th is a Monday so if we were to hold the town budget meeting on a Tuesday or Wednesday which is normally what we would do it need to be there the 18th or 19th well hold on so yeah I where that's not quite correct is what I meant to say is you would have to vote to send to go to the your public hearing to the public hearing so not the town meeting okay you have to put a budget to the public hearing not to the town meeting so that it seems like yeah that was too much okay right so I'll correct that that that was an error in my doc so then what we were talking about is that we would need to have the town meeting no later than the or technically no later than April 4th or the I'm sorry not the town meeting the budget hearing no later than April 4th but April 2nd would give us a couple more days and that would be that April 2 is a Wednesday so it seems like an appropriate day to have the schedule the budget looking at my calendar I think we scheduled a regular Board of Finance meeting March 26th right smack in between those two dates yeah I don't know if we want to do something with that or leave it but just honestly that's probably it's probably a that's probably a good meeting by which we finalize the budget based on our discussions with the board of Selectmen we finalized the budget to be discussed at the town meeting the following Wednesday which would be April 2nd right and then the yeah town meeting or the public hearing public hearing public
hearing hearing right public hearing on April 2nd the town meeting on the 9th so Board of Finance meeting on the 26th public hearing on the April 2nd and town meeting on April 9th that's what this sounds like right correct my thought is so do we have to set those tonight Mark or we just we make sure that all of I they all make sense and if everyone's in agreement that they want to set them I'm thinking can we just you know make sure all of this all make sense and then we just set the dates next month keeping this yeah we can I mean this is just a this just a guideline and this all just passed and we're kind of dealing with all the yeah this isn't yeah this isn't committing us to anything so we can just okay I think we can just verbally have stated that this is it but I do think there's value in giving the other boards basically an idea of what we're going to do we could we can do that verbally or we can you
know I think it's great that we're discussing it it makes sense I thought we were setting it in stone right now and I was hoping we could do that next month if no I think there's nothing that has to do that you know okay thank you and please review the charter and review this because I looked at it and I think I got all the dates that corresponded to the CH changes but it's just me I have and I've sent it to the town's attorney but I haven't gotten anything back from him so this is just what I think the charter says and hey I could be wrong I'm not a you know yeah I think it's great to State it verbally maybe just all of us go over it one more time and you know just make
sure absolutely and we could adapt this needed you know you know we have time I think I think in January you know we need to set meeting schedule with the board of Selectmen you know we have time we don't need to do that right away just sometime in January find a time that's amenable to them again that maybe that's something I come discuss briefly at the tri board meeting although we have a lot of things going on sounds good okay well that sounds like we covered the changes to the Charter and the budget process timeline any further questions or comments on those okay so the next agenda item is 6f which is the tri board meeting date and agenda I think you all have seen the emails mostly from Joanne asking about dates that are available originally the third looked like a good date but the superintendent can't be there and the Board of Ed certainly felt that was important that she be there so then the fourth was proposed s of like for most of you that was possibility again doesn't have to be everybody there the tenant would be helpful for sure is there opportunity to kind of get together air out any issues and discuss any you know probably discuss the budget timeline you know tell them kind of what we're what we're presenting maybe we can you know as
Eric said suggested we can give them some targets and I will say that I would hope they wouldn't come up with anything more than 2 or 3% increase but you know there are some things outside of our control I think you all also saw that thing about the mill potential Grand list for the automotive taxation Grand list changing too so was it just Automotive or was it also your property your house it's mostly Automotive the way they valuing the automotive EXC I thought it was included house but not property all right okay no trailers RVs were discuss you know how but mostly is how they how they value the they're going to depreciate the depreciate the car the Auto Value from the from the retail value over time basically with some residual value after I don't know 17 years or instead
of Blue Book value or adaa value what yeah exactly no more of that yeah y right bottom line is none of the towns really know how it's going to be because when they did this they never really did a study which said on average how much does it affect the rates so the assessors all think it's going to decrease the grand list but they nobody knows how much and we also don't know there there's a couple other things one they took trailers essentially off the grand list so we're definitely going to lose some revenue for that so if you have a motor home that stays on the grand list but if you just have a giant fifth wheeler as far as I know that comes off the grand list now so that will no longer be taxable for private owners not commercial commercial stay on right and then there's a rebate or a and they're still working through the details of this because this is not what the final way it was executed by the state is not exactly how the legislature passed it but there is a a a clause now that a veteran that is 100% dis disabled will get 100% property tax on but just on their house so not on their land but on their house yeah that's what I was saying a minute ago yeah yeah so it's very that's what I was talking about and the difference is if if there's a couple different ways you can look at at somebody who's you can have something that's 100% service related disability or you could have
somebody that has a 20% disability for hearing loss and a 10% disability for PTSD and stack a few other things and if it gets up to the category where it's considered 100% disabled then they fall in that category so there's a lot of gray with it last time I heard I think we had nine residents and over that applied for the complete exemption how many of them will actually qualify I don't know but that will definitely affect the grand list also so so in a normal year we have between you know usually one and a half perent and two and a half% appreciation of the grand list in other words the town budget can go up by 2 and a half% and be mill rate neutral in this year we don't know you know so we probably don't have that a cushion that we have in a lot of years can I bring it back to the tri board meet thank you Eric for that I mean that's something we'll have to see in the future not to you know but I did read that with interest too just the tri
board meeting I just wanted to say a couple things definitely I know Mark already brought up that the topic that the budget will come up I'm sure you know all of the boards wanted to make sure that we definitely focused a little bit on last year we had the meeting and this will be our second one together just how to have the boards you know cohesively work together whoever had I had sent an email out that if anybody has ideas that they want to put on the agenda please send them to me I don't think there's I will get in touch with Caitlyn Greenhouse who had brought this up she was involved the last time with Paula when she was a board of selectman the three of us kind of took ideas put the agenda together so again if anyone had any you know hopefully it'll be it's going to be a nice meeting yeah is that meeting where's that meeting be again I want to clarify is it it's the 4th at s well I was going to ask both Rob and and Bill if they were available it's December 4th at 7 it's a that's a Wednesday that works for me Wednesdays are oh no I'm sorry y Wednesday at seven yep December 4th so I think I believe that's in two weeks right the week after Thanksgiving yes we thought let's try to stick to the beginning of December if we could just because all of our boards will have other meetings and with the holidays and such so when December 3rd was out I threw out the date of December 4th let's try to hope you look I I'll never complain about a Wednesday or a Thursday those are my days that are the
best so you know I know everybody sometimes are are really great about working around me because you know Mondays or Tuesdays are often hard for me but yeah that Wednesdays the fourth that works fine is that a zoom meeting or is that a I believe it's going to be in person we had had the last one in person which was pretty effective I mean I true yeah I don't that wasn't I don't it wasn't really fully determined so yeah I me we can find Clarity on that if you can send out a note on that yeah I'll add it on to I had sent something but I will find out Al once we had this meeting I'll reach out to Caitlyn see where we are with
things and so as far as I know the board of Selectmen agrees to the fourth three of the Ford board members and I can make it the other one board member hasn't responded yet but you certainly have Quorum of the board of Selectmen at that meeting at this point it's actually pretty good good I Haven that sounds good so the the question I had relative to that meeting is does the board of Finance want to set specific targets both for the general budget and the Ed budget because if you do you probably got to make that decision prior to the meeting because once you're in the tri board meeting you're not really going to be able to discuss it among yourselves to set that you're asking us now if we want to do that at that meeting that we're getting no not prior so what I'm saying is that if you read what the charter says it suggests that when you have that preliminary meeting with the boards that you can identify a target for both the
education budget and the town budget doesn't say you have to just that you can so if you're gonna do it you would have to agree to it ahead of time so that's why I'm bringing it up now I don't think that's appropriate I don't think that was the nature think you for your input but I don't think that was the nature of why they wanted this meeting in my opinion I'll listen to what the board members say it definitely wasn't driven by the budget it definitely wasn't driven by I feel like that's coming in way too budget heavy I have no problem with us if we do have targets and US discussing that as a board eventually but I I feel like that's starting the that meeting off I feel like we're gearing it all till that anyone differently not necessarily but the you know again according to the Charter we really are technically supposed to have a joint meeting with the board of selectman to discuss the budget so you know this when some of us were talking about this joint meeting that's what I thought we were talking about doing is is having this meeting be that kickoff meeting but I think Caitlyn or whoever else had suggested starting it actually was just had didn't have that in their head they were really just thinking bringing this to the boards together exactly for that discussion again so we could do either you know technically we're supposed to have that joint meeting if if if this isn't it I don't know when we would have it honestly it would maybe be January and which is a little bit late to kind of give guidance or whatnot an
alternative would be if we were to vote on come up with recommended budget guidelines like you know increase limits or you know decree or whatever we want to do you know we could in theory just communicate that to them through a memo or something something else you know or or do it outside of this meeting so if this December 4th meeting is not that meeting to discuss the budget then we either need to decide we're going to have one probably in January or we're going to do some other mechanism this first year and mark the reason for me saying that I I have no problem with us doing that I just feel like here comes that pressure thing again I feel like now we're you know by it I feel it like I feel like I want to be a lot and I
feel pretty educated as it is I'm very involved I go to a lot of things I feel like I don't have enough info to all of a sudden do that right now unless you you know and I go everywhere so what would be basing our input on you know to point Joanne what Bill sorry well your point is taken what would what would we be basing right thank you that on we don't have any information yet so how could we make any recommendation at this point yeah I feel like thank you that's that's how I feel I feel like there's time for it and whether it gets communicated by a memo once we get some facts and we're able to digest it a little we'll have no problem doing that I think we're all gonna have to you know dig down I just think that I just think it's a little premature to do it in two weeks with Thanksgiving holiday in between and thinking that all of us are going to do our due diligence and boom boom boom have all the answers so thanks that thanks for the agreement because I feel rushed with that because I'd like to prepare well in that case then we like I said we'll have to decide separately and I and I understand the sentiment I certainly do because you know it does seem like a lot and things change quickly with this with this Charter change you know all of a sudden we're
kind of up against this new schedule which again I as I've said before I think we can manage but it does kind of throw this whole thing about the early meeting into gray spot because it's past October 15th and we can gloss over discussing the budget and say that things are going to be forthcoming I have no problem with that I just don't want to to Eric's Point have to have our targets ready and prepared you know I mean it can be glossed over in a nice way as we're discussing different things and say hey this could happen we're but and then you know we would not be remiss to to visit the schedule at least right process in schedule right that's pretty neutral just and that's just in the in you know we're that's just solid you know good planing communication and management right so everyone's aware of it yeah so I what I think is that the board of Ed's
budget to some extent influences the town's budget and vice versa so what I had put out to Caitlyn and others is that what I thought was probably appropriate is that from the board of Finance position you guys outline the revised budget process and I've given you the memo to what that's likely going to be and if you want to change that you can but I've given you a timeline which I think works you know set some sort of expectation for the other boards if you want it sounds like you don't want to and that's okay too you're not obligated to it just you have the option to do it at that meeting and then three make sure that all the entities understand the ramifications for the other budget pressures that are going to be on the grand list because regardless of what anybody wants to budget we all know roughly what the public will accept for a mill rate increase because we've had plenty of practice in the past of trying to push a bigger mill rate through then the public will accept in getting it kicked back so we should kind of know that going in and that's information you should be providing to the two other entities you know will perspective said like in due time like we will gather all those facts and if we think we have to make our recommendations as a board I'm sure all of us together will do that I have a lot of confidence that there's a lot of us that will be behind that you know whatever we think but just in two weeks we can't possibly be ready but like like we were just trying to say because I saw
that email you sent Eric and and she's the one that I'm going off a two because I think she responded to you that she thought it wasn't going to be budget heavy but the budget can be discussed then you should probably as a board schedule another date and invite the other two boards because now you have a you have an obligation by your Charter to do that I think you're trying to run and I I appreciate so much your input because we value it but I think we will do that and we just said we will it's just that with Thanksgiving next week and then that first like get together then we'll either decide by memo or whatever we'll we'll kind of act on whatever happens on that meeting how we should proce Ed if if the conversations are going great and suggestions are asked for and open dialogue happens maybe that will happen but I think we should go into that meeting not setting that as the major you know Focus okay unless you know again I don't want to keep speaking I've just been in the communication so I'm trying to honor it plus I like to like Bill said like like others have said we want to be
prepared we have nothing to go on you know but prior years so we'll get there I mean we're going to adhere to this timeline we'll make our suggestions we'll well we're up for it so my one comment would be Visa V setting targets if we wanted to you could set targets not based on what we're hearing from departments and what's needed you can set targets based on what you think is possible now I'm not saying that's the way that you should work up a budget necessarily but you could say going in okay Target 2% or Target one and a half% or whatever pick a number doesn't matter the argument would be this gives guidance to the various departments and boards and what have you as they're working up their budgets should try to to try to come close to that number it doesn't mean that it is set in stone it's not holy RIT it's a t guideline a guideline opposed to an actual rule exactly so I'm agnostic on this honestly guys I could go either way I I would I would be totally happy to roll in and say hey guys try to hit 2% or go in and just have a dialogue and and not do that but I also don't think we have the whole idea behind a guideline behind a Target is that you don't of course you don't have all the information yet that's the point you're sort of directing them to try and pull their their things together and
hit something in that range roughly it's it's it's a again it's a guideline it's not supposed to be everybody would understand I think coming in in November or or sorry early December that we don't have in front of us all the asks from each department and commission I mean that's a given so I could go either way on this frankly I'm agnostic I go your way Joanne I could go the other way and and pick a Target I honestly don't care but I guess I'll just I'm just throwing it out there as I think that's what's int the intent behind this I think that's what people were thinking yeah I I would agree I that's what the intention of the meeting in the in the charter was but it does it sounds like there's not really an appetite right now on the for the board to to to do that at least at this meeting in order to discuss get into substantive discussions of the budget and the tri board meeting other than to you know talk about the process and and whatnot so you know if anybody wants to make a motion to something different that's fine but I would say let's move on because I think we've kind of got what we're going to get out of this we're gonna we could go we can talk about this in circles all night yeah eventually I just want to add eventually I defin thank you rob for clarifying that I was focusing on the tri board meeting and I know who's going to be
there so yeah they're we'll we'll discuss it in the future like you said yeah no no problem I just I that was just I wanted to give my taken I I do understand that process and we're going to want to do something like that we definitely are we we have our multi-year experience with passing budgets and you know we can come up with numbers and you know it doesn't mean that that means that we actually know what Town Road needs to be you know what have you let's if we could again we're just gonna talk i' like to move on guys it's getting late I'm pretty tired so me too I'm with you I'm with you if if nobody has any objections
let's move on to the next item which is the recommendation for credit card policy you have no information only here yeah so so I put that in the the policy the the treasurers because she's completed the audit prep for this year and turned over the audit book to the auditor this has been on her wish list for a while to get gain better control over the credit card when we first adopted a policy it was adopted in 2019 when we brought in two credit cards for the town and she's recommended that we tighten up some of the policies the board of Selectmen couldn't agree to that they're so it's in limbo right now but I think we are going to end up to some extent changing the credit card policy in part because our current policy does not really match the charter the charter basically says I have to approve all expenditures before they're made but the old credit card policy pushed that responsibility onto the department head and the responsibility for forwarding the paperwork and then I'm supposed to approve it later well it kind of doesn't make sense for me to approve it later because the purchases are already made so what am I approving you know so so that's in progress I left it in there I gave you the drafts of all the documents if you have any comments I'm certainly willing to take It ultimately I think that's a board of Selectmen
decision probably not a board of Finance decision in this case but if you have any guidance I'm happy to pass it along any you know I probably would agree with that it is kind of an executive you know process policy type thing it's not really about expenditures per se but how they're handled internally I mean we are responsible for checks and balances to to some degree anybody have any other questions or comments or I mean you're going to I assume fill this in as if and when it moves further further through the board of Selectmen sure well nobody's got anything I guess move on to 68 which is establish banking relationship with Webster and you alluded to this earlier Eric you want to give us the mown sure so the the treasurer and I have gone out and interviewed multiple Banks we've
been trying to get away from MN for a while because their customer service has been horrendous [Music] basically we no longer have Brinks pickup from our deposits we have to bring all the deposits to the bank even though they've promised us for the last year and a half that they would reinstate that they've never managed to be able to and Brink still thinks the town owes them money because when they took over from peoples they just stopped paying Brinks that's just one example the other example is we cannot get the ability to examine our credit card transactions in real time they just have never been able to give us that ability which is crazy because if something happens or there's a fraud alert or something like that we have no way to monitor that in real time and every time that has to happen I have to go in and talk to the branch manager or the assistant manager and do all that in person which is kind of a waste of my
time so we've been extremely frustrated with MNT that seems to be pretty common sentiment among the towns that still retain them for finances we looked at jwi City Savings Bank we looked at Webster and we looked at Key Bank Webster seems to be the one that's most responsible for municipal banking in this area and most of the towns that have Webster accounts are reasonably happy with them so what we want to do is not do everything at once and then decide six months from now they're no better than what they were we want to establish a relationship change some of our accounts there for things which aren't really liquid in other words things we don't have to get stuff in and out of very readily also take AC take advantage of the fact that they will offer us a money market account which has a 5% interest rate which we can put some of the money in and then it's basic it's a secured money market account and it has basically the same rate of return for the stiff account so that's what we're we're talking about doing also switching our credit cards to that account from mnt's
credit cards and then the last thing is requesting from them a line of credit prior to us starting the Bridge Project in February and the reason is although those bridges are 100% funded we are on the hook as a town to pay the contractor and the construction inspection bills and then apply to the state and federal government for reimbursement so we've had a meeting with the contractor and the construction inspector you know and what we came up with is that for the most part we have enough money in our Bunker Hill Bridge account that we can pay the bills but there will be one maybe two occasions where we're going to be way over what's
in that account so we need a swing Reserve essentially a line of credit to pay that and wait to get reimbursed so that's kind of what we're looking to do I've asked Dennis whether we need public approval for that or whether that can be just approved by Board of board of Finance I don't have that answer yet but I wanted to discuss that with you and worst case scenario we could pay for that out of our unexpended fund balance because none of these bills are going to be bigger than what we have in unexpended fund balance I'm just uncomfortable with you know basically spending a million out of the reserve and taking it down too far in case there is another emergency low probability but I would be more comfortable taking that from you know for the month or two between when we pay the money and when we get rebated run that off of line of credit because even if we're spending four or five perc interest annually you know in
a month that's not going to be a big payment so it doesn't represent a big expense to us but that was my big question was what would that cost us versus yeah floating it off of our own savings you know what's what's the swing there how much are we talking about Eric like order of magnitude I it doesn't have to be exact well if you think about it if we pull it out of our unexpended fund balance that's money we're currently earning 5% interest yep so we would not be getting 5% interest on a million dollars let's say right you know so that's one option option number two is if we're getting a loan it looks like our loan rate is going to be somewhere in the sixes because I mean we are a good you know it is basically a secured it would be a secured line of credit because we're borrowing money that we already have Grant funds to recover from so I think the net is only going to be a couple percent difference by leaving it in stiff intact even if we're paying 6.8% we're still only really netting a couple of percent difference on that million dollars the 1.8% annualized for a couple of months on a million bucks it's nothing what do we I I don't know I I I can't you know this is the part where I don't have the math what kind of magnitude are we talking Eric I mean yeah that's what I'm
saying what are we talking about we talking about $5,000 number 10 what we yeah I I looked at it and said so on a million doll we make approximately $50,000 per year so if you round it off we make about 4,000 a month so it would be less than that so we're not talking about big dollars probably talk about a thousand maybe 1,200 if we're talking about what I'm asking is how a credit are you looking at you know we talking about borrowing you know 50,000 100,000 half a million what is it I would set to borrow up to a million okay I don't think we actually probably need to be borrowing more than a half million because we already have a half million in the fund to pay the to reimburse and and get that reimbursed but but it it's certainly going to be in the range we should never be out between our payments and our reimbursements we should never be out more than a million dollars Eric that would be the upper end I was just wondering typically your experience and I don't know how much experience you have with
this is the state good at pay reimbursing like are we going to get it in a month or is it like other stuff where you're going to wait months years like no I mean as far as I understand from talking to our construction inspector the worst we would be out from a payment requisition to a check in the door is six weeks okay you know all right I just wasn't sure how much experience you had with getting reimbursed from the state but if any well is federal too right and federal yeah that's right right the majority of the money comes back from the federal government but about 20% of it comes from the state so it's 80 Federal 20% state but the state money is actually passed through federal arpa funds anyway so ultimately it all comes from federal dollars but some of it passes through the state and some of it comes directly from the federal government certainly sounds like a good idea to have that line of credit
again yeah I think probably you want to have it you know kind of out in front of us like what would what are the numbers and you know you guys are you comfortable with the you know we'll vote on it and at a meeting and just say are we comfortable with opening okay to approve that line of credit obviously like I said you got to talk to the town attorney make sure you know we have straight whether we need to go to a public meeting or not that changes everything so let's let's get that answer and then we can revisit right so the other thing that and and you had a letter in the packet from Cheryl that was a pass through letter to me that I put in the packet that discussed that the second thing that Cheryl was asking essentially was for permission to set up two credit cards with MN Bank so in the initial setting up seems to be I think a board of Finance decision and then the second thing would be to open a money market account at Webster Webster is currently offering 5% in interest on the money market account and the second thing is she made a recommendation on closing some of the MNT checking accounts and trans transferring that money in with other money into the money market account and the specific ones were the nonrecurring reserve fund which has been on the books now since I became a town administrator and I'm actually not really sure any of us understand what that is or why we have it we've certainly never spent anything from it the fire engine
Reserve fund which is just the money that was originally put in the fire engine bank account which is not the total amount in the fire engine you know fund the the total fund has around $400,000 in it of that $400,000 54,000 is sitting in a distinct bank account so the idea would be to close that bank account use pulled cash put that money in the money market account so at least it's earning reasonable interest do the same thing with the Department of Public Works equipment Reserve fund the revaluation Reserve fund and that little $8,700 AES a capital fund because as you remember of that $22 or $212,000 that's in the AES capital fund $8,700 is still sitting in the old bank account the rest is in pooled cash so that's kind of her recommendation that way as we start transitioning accounts we're knocking down the total number of accounts we have and then whereas we have multiple for instance special Revenue funds what Cheryl would like to do is have a single special Revenue fund and then just suballocate within that fund for all the the existing funds so Eric I think I'm getting a little confused between the word funds and the word accounts correct when I say account I mean a physical one of our 26 MNT bank accounts right and when I say like her Memo says I think closing the following accounts and setting up new money market account makes sense but then then they then then she refers that to them as funds so will the funds remain intact as a virtual fund so as far as I know the funds should remain intact as a virtual fund
okay we could shift we have talked about whether it's smarter to shift all the money that's currently in pulled cash and the stiff account and dump it into the money market since it's basically the same interest and that way it would already be in that bank account and you wouldn't have to debit one and credit the other when you made a purchase you know that that's really for her to decide what the simplest way to do that is if that makes sense yeah I mean personally I I have no problem closing closing the accounts you know and she's already referring to something we talked about earlier which is to allocate any interest to the to the various funds based on the relative value you know just right it makes sense you know there's no sense keeping things any more complicated than they need to be Louise yeah Eric why are you looking to open up Credit in Mt that's what I was gonna ask thank you Louise that was my question we're not opening up Credit in M andt the credit card credit card you said credit cards oh if I did that was a mistake intention is to close the MNT cards and swap them over to two Webster cards so we can actually monitor them okay you said open two MN and I was like what oh sorry that's that was my error didn't thank you Kim is that your hand up or you just adjusting screen adjusting the screen thank you you know that stuff all makes sense to me as long as we are tracking things properly we should I'm fully on board with this idea of consolidating
our accounts down and getting as much of our money as humanly possible into accounts that are earning interest so work for me anybody want to make a motion to I have another question yeah go ahead please the stiff the stiff account versus the money market account money markets can change at any time what kind the stiff account the stiff account interest changes daily it's the same thing okay y they're basically are they just keying off the same rate probably the prime rate yeah probably going off the FED prime rate yeah all right yeah I'm I'm good with that so sorry what's what would the motion be apologies I think the motion would be
you know just for reference in your packet on page 27 is the is the recommendation from Cheryl to Eric so it's got a fair Fairly good detail there and I think it could be as simple as you know motion to recommend that you know Cheryl take the action to consolidate the accounts as recommended or memo memo of Wednesday November 13th to move five different funds into this into Webster Bank I'll make that motion I'll go ahead and I'll move that we go ahead and approve Cheryl's plan to move those five fund amounts into a new Webster bank account to see how that goes and does that include the credit card does that have to be part of the motion no they're not they're not really part of that okay that's fine I I would second that motion
as well okay thanks Bill further discussion all those in favor say I I I I any opposed any extensions okay hearing none then do you have our approval to move forward on that Eric when such time allows and you we move to Webster and obviously keep us updated on how that goes customer service wise yeah yeah yeah and that was that was 6i which the recommendations speaking as a guy who has an MNT account yeah I have a Webster account I like them yeah yeah I know I've had so much frustration I I just hate moving anyway I think this yeah I think think this takes us to 6j which is the status of the Town audits Jo and Joan had asked about these earlier and we did have some input from the treasure I'm not sure she copied everything Joan I don't know if you want to comment on that yeah I in my basis was I know that last November we had had an audit Mee you know it was on our agenda and I don't think she did copy everyone I just wanted to see where we were in the cycle of audits because last November we did one and then I thought I had gone through all the agendas I had posed this question to Eric and Cheryl nicely answered it today I feel like we're one audit behind and I didn't want to because I just got the email today Mark I didn't want to I didn't have time to look again yeah yeah really go back through it and figure it out yeah because I know that Cheryl came on board and then she got everything in line and then took a while for us to
have that meeting in person with the auditor and I thought that was the I found my packet and one of my folders and I thought it said 20 the year of 2122 which would be fiscal year 22 correct and so then Cheryl went on board and told me where she was in this year you know our fiscal year ends June 30th they then we'll keep paying bills through August I think she said a couple months then by the end of October of 24 she had just turned over oh she takes a couple months to then write Financial reports you know statements reports about The findings and then they turn it over to the auditor so that only happened October of 24 which was last month you know October 30th of 24 she makes sure she gets that so I was trying to get a timeline in my head so every year I could know okay it gets in the auditor's hands when do we get the audit back you know is that in January is that February March I just was trying to get a process so that we could get on a timeline of meeting so again I know that we were behind Cheryl was hired to get things done and put together a binder of what she does every year what she puts into a binder to give to the auditor and so I
was just trying to get a basis of where we and then Cheryl did get back to me stating that we had discussed the FY year ending 2023 which would have been fiscal year 23 of last year which starts July 1st of 22 ends June 30th of 23 but given the timeline sh that she gave me today if she followed that process she would have got things into everything done wrapped up and into the auditor by October 30th of 2023 which means we would have reviewed that particular audit I don't know would we have done it in March or April I don't I've gone to every single Board of Finance meeting I don't remember that meeting happening yet so I feel like there's one lost audit that we haven't reviewed Am I Wrong Eric did we review it at a meeting or was there just a a footnote saying it's been put in or no I I I think you have missed that so see I knew I knew there was one missing yeah so I didn't want to put that out to Cheryl until I was absolutely sure right no we've had we we put the audit for that year to bed last year around April this is what I'm trying to get up here like yeah so so basically what happens is as of last year we were basically caught up and by basically caught up I mean we have the town books ready to go for the auditor as soon as they can schedule us now one of the
problems we have is there is a Statewide shortage of firms doing Audits and there's a Statewide shortage of CPAs Mahone Sables underst staffed frankly the earliest they can get to us generally is around January 1 and technically they're supposed to have finished in an ideal world they're supposed to have finished the audit by December 31st but they don't even start looking at it to until then so at this point we have turned the audit books over to the auditor so they have a copy of our books kind of the last thing we need to do is our capital appreciation schedule Cheryl and I were working on that today but there's never a rush for that because that is
the last thing the auditor processes anyway so even once the auditor starts auditing it's probably five weeks before they need that so we're still you know two months plus ahead of when of the when the auditor needs that information so we have finally the last two cycles have done our part so I think the auditor should be able to start in on our offit audit somewhere around January 1 and the major work will be done usually around it usually takes them around six weeks before they get things back to us that is that is exactly what I just kind of wanted to know the cycle because I knew we were getting on the corrected cycle like you said so you this is all the information that I was seeking I knew from our prior
meeting that you know we're this kind of a small one of the smaller towns and I remember their shortages of the Auditors and I knew it wasn't right on time they could get to us when they could so right yeah thank you this is the exact feedback I wanted but I know that we did miss last year I don't think it was ever reviewed with us the the one that ended 2023 pry sure it was it but I could be wrong it said well then maybe I have the wrong the wrong audit in the wrong book you know because I was trying to make sense of the minutes the agendas in my backup from the meeting in my backup from the meeting was 2021 2023 with the whole big binder so I'll listen I know
it's been a long meeting than you sorry I just wanted to interject so I so it's usually you know finished fiscal year ends July June 30th obviously we have a couple months of finishing all the bills then we have the payments and outstanding then she takes a couple months to prepare by October 30th the financial statements and everything to give to the auditor minus what you just talked about the depreciation schedule correct and then comg in a normal by state law it's supposed to be done by December 31st or whatever you said the rules but we we kind of go past that right so but so let's put it in perspective 75% of the towns in the state of Connecticut do not make the December 31st deadline so even though that is a state guideline most towns don't move in the last three or four years 25% of the towns have not made the drug drop dead date which is July 1 after so 6 months after they recommend okay and if you remember right two years ago we missed that by a couple of weeks we were pretty close but there was one thing that was still under you know of concern to the auditor that was eventually identified so we missed that because we got our books to them late you know the good news is you know our books are together way before the auditor can get to them so as far as I'm concerned the town's done their their part in the process I don't know what the status of the schools
documentation is I just I don't have that information and I don't know what the school Surplus is is likely to be I can tell you on the side we collected considerably more Revenue than we anticipated because in the last year's budget fiscal year we were not anticipating the movement to the stiff account and that was basically 127,000 more dollars in income than we anticipated from that and so all total revenue wise we came in around 146,000 over our initial estimate so we made more money than we anticipated and we spent about the equivalent we underspent our budget as best we can tell by about $165,000 so the net is about $300,000 that appears will flow back into the unexpended fund balance from that year so that's you know that's awesome actually so I guess what I'm saying is financially we're sound right now and we've been pretty consistent with with that total so yeah because I'd like I'm gonna backtrack and see what it was for the fal year that you said the audits already in and you know the 2023 so I'll have to back back and compare that so if going on what you said and sticking
to just this final timeline thing so if he starts in January you would think we might have had it back by April is or you were thinking six weeks eight so I'm going to look forward and see when that would have been presented to us and I just don't recall it at all but I mean I I don't know it's is it available somewhere where we could still review it yeah absolutely you could go on that treas leading up to Liz that's what I was like we have to do this I don't remember because it helps us moving forward sure yeah sure did you say it's supposed to be under the treasurers you all want a hard cop or not a hard copy because I don't think we had that many printed this year do you want a PDF of the whole audit file because I'm pretty sure I've given it to the board before but I'm happy to give it to you again no I just meeting about it and oh go ahead Liz that's yeah I'm new so I would like it yeah I definitely want it I've been asking these audit questions for like the last couple weeks so just trying to get my wrap my brain around the system and feeling like we missed a review yeah does anybody else feel like we missed a review I mean I remember going through those reviews but I don't know specifically for that year Joan we
had one Mike fentor last year do you remember because he was he had to miss a couple meetings CU his son had gotten injured that one time right and I'm trying to remember the timing for all that so you know it was last November believe it or not and when I brought out and and that's all I'm just trying to get the years you know to yeah I and based on what he's saying with the timeline it probably would have been in our May June July you know it we're only at November so if the audit for the year I'm talking about fiscal that end Ed 2023 and then you wouldn't have seen it and been completed till April of 2024 is it would have been in the last couple months and I just don't recall it at all so I'm just going to backtrack I'm glad we're getting the timeline and if we haven't reviewed it we can basically maybe all look at it have a few take a look at it just helps in the budget process so thank you for letting me add it to the agenda and trying to kind of understand it the timeline can I ask can I ask another question before we move on and I swear it's the last one do we have are we privy to the schools audit results combined so it's a combined audit so when I send you the audit report it will include it includes both entities thank you y because frankly because they don't ordinarily what's statute tally supposed to happen is they're supposed to give the treasure Town treasure who is also technically the school board
Treasurer the information to prepare the financial statements which are then audited by Mahoney s we don't ever get enough information to actually do that they provide that information directly to the auditor so the auditor then has to to prepare the combined financial statements and then back charges the school for the cost of doing that so that's basically what's happening now okay any other how many years of the audit do you want I got it on my desktop going back to the 1920 budget year I'd be happy to send them all to you if you want them all or you can I can just give you all the latest one tell me what you
want I'd go back to 20 okay i' go back to 20 yeah I want the one that I was talking about please the 2223 the one that we would have met on this year sometime in 2024 because I have the other okay yeah I've never seen them before so no it's good to compare year to year too they make they make for thrilling reading I bet and should they are should they be posted somewhere on the website or no is that not you could I'm not sure those people would be interested in it but you know we they could always call and ask okay because I I didn't see them I've been trying to do some homework and yeah
didn't see anything like that oh sure yep yeah so the the three things that are basically is there's a a single audit report a financial statement report and then we anytime an audit has if there's any findings of any sort a town is required to submit a corrective action plan which is basically you saying okay the Auditors identified these things here is how we will address them so I can send you those also the findings are really the kind of the the the most important part of that you know what's what's the finding and what have we agreed to do to you know do better basically yep yep okay rest was a lot of dry legal ease and you know some financial review right you know I may read it I may read it once and say oh
yeah I never need to read this again well I think the findings are interesting I mean if you went back four or five years you'd see that you know the findings have there have been findings every year some of the major some of the minor and a few years ago think you know we've definitely gotten our house much more in order than it used to be absolutely is treasur Especial this was the one that I found that we had that in-person meeting so the date was November 29th 2023 fiscal year 2022 so you know if it was November of last year but it was the year before Zod it because I think that's when we were getting our house in order era yes correct so I mean you've already agreed that we think we so that's I mean I'm I'm this is making sense to me with having this last year but it was the year before there's no way that we like at this particular time we could have one for the current year so it all yeah
again I've said enough but it's this big presentation thing and it does it does help a lot thanks okay any other questions or comments on the audit process okay I guess we'll move on to agenda item seven which is board open discussion does anybody have anything else to bring before the board okay hearing none we'll go to correspondence I don't think we've had any formal corresponden Joan already talked about the correspondence with the board about the tri board meeting and there were some questions about you know some of the stuff accounts that was really more to the treasurer I guess anybody have anything else okay public speak I don't see anybody in the public speak Arena this is just board members plus the community voice Channel and Eric is the town of Andover so if nobody has any objections I think we should move for adjournment would anybody like to so move I will so move a motion to I saw
Bill stand up yeah okay Bill moves to adjourn who seconds Joanne you want to second that second it okay any discussion okay hearing none we'll all vote all those in favor say I I I anybody opposed going once going twice no any extensions okay the meeting is adjourned thank you very much everybody a lot