you got it okay it is now 7:04 and we will call tonight's Board of finance budget Workshop to order at that time we're going to start with the pledge allegiance so I pledge allegiance to the flag flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands stands one indivisible and justice for all thank you everybody as we know we are going to you know discuss the budget tonight Kim just said she was going to be joining so I think she'll be coming on soon so Eric do you want to go ahead and we'll move to agenda item two which is public speak do you mind doing that is that how that goes yep so of the members at large the only one present seems to be Linda fish Linda fish I'm all set and CR too right yeah and Wy do you want to say anything other than discuss the discussion of the Fire Commission budget which will be at its agenda item no I'll wait for that okay that's public speak may I speak an cre is here Eric oh sorry
my apologies wrong board board meeting sorry I'm here as the public a member of the public not representing the board of Selectmen I've been thinking about how does each expense in the budget benefit the town and the residents of Andover thinking about it more I know that the board of selectman presented the budget to you a few weeks back but I still I've changed my mind on a few things I just want to state that number one I feel that a part-time community and Senior Center Director might be better than the full-time if we make the position full-time the director would be tasked with many roles currently filled by volunteers and could be continuing that way can we really afford paying the fulltime for that two does the purchase of a new roadside mower make sense I know that probably not next year's budget but other things to do with equipment I think we could spend less if we were repairing and or renting equipment that's used infrequently after researching expenses more since that meeting of for the selectman I would if I had the chance to change my vote to no for the purchase of the new roadside Mower and three I do continue to support our town planner this is an excellent example of Forward Thinking which will benefit our town in the future so that's just some of my thoughts on the budget I
know that you're down to doing the fire department today but I just wanted to get a chance to say my part thank you thank you an sorry for leaving you out my apologies we appreciate your comments Eric I know it's not on the agenda but should I call to wall now and ask him or W he is on the agenda it's item a fire department budget oh because we added it sorry did I miss that okay not on my budget it's not it's not on my agenda I printed it so I could follow it so no got it off the website I email to me from Kate so maybe I maybe I printed it doesn't matter we're glad he's here we wanted to discuss the budget with him Wally thank you so much for taking the time to join us we I Eric said that he had got Eric did you say you got the budget the breakdown the spreadsheet emailed to you today I did I did and I passed it off to you but I passed it off very late because I yeah and thank you for that I mean we'll take a look tomorrow I was
hoping to have some questions you know for w-e so in my preparation but what we can do is maybe so what I'd like to do has it always been presented as a oneline item in the budget Eric yes okay the Fire Commission budget is a single line item typically yeah so we know that it was kind of a significant you know ask this year a raise we understand you know different things are happening so we appreciate you coming on maybe Wally and explaining it should are you able to share that with us now and we'll all take a look together and can and I'm admitting Kim now so I will share my screen and bring that up on the screen okay she was having difficulty that's what she was okay so you should be seeing it now hopefully yep we're don't mind me make it a little bigger perfect thank you for my eyesight so if we all just take a quick minute and look it over and then if anyone has specific questions for Wall-E we can open the floor to do that Eric while everybody's reading it and in Wally as well I'm seeing that big increase for the firefighting supplies with the gear I don't know you know it's hard 47% increase I don't know how much of the dollar amount that is would Wally Wally I got that in front of me I thought I sent Eric the other paperwork with the
actual numbers yeah but I can get that to him tomorrow I'm almost certain I send it to him back in the fall but protective clothing yeah firefighting supplies is the one I think you were talking about yes yeah we increased that by $6,400 basically everything that we buy for the fire department has gone up 10 15 20% in the past three years and there's a lead time on everything that we buy POS is gone up turnout gear has gone up the services that we need to have done annually they've gone up and the other thing with any service that's done at the firehouse we're being charged a fuel cost for anybody to come out and do the work so basically we're looking for a 9% total total increase in the budget or a dollar amount of $14,400 and that's primarily due to inflation that everything has gone up electricity is scheduled to go up again propane's gone up gas and Diesel's gone up and anything that we buy basically has gone up in in price now we appreciate you explaining that we didn't have the dollar amount of what the percentage would be and we'll take a look at it I don't know if anyone has and and forgive me I'm going to sound really naive with this just because you're here and because I'm interested how many like I know this is a Fire Commission we have a fire commissioner and we have a whole team of volunteers that protects our town correct so is does this have to do with the number of people of volunteers too I know this is equipment like the hoses
and things like that but training new firefighters taking certificate classes additional right I mean understanding and Eric had talked about it's it's not you know in the future maybe we won't have as many volunteers as you know we have and it's not something that how how many volunteers do you have now Wally just so I have an idea it's approximately 35 people that are active right now and you talk about having less in the future that's something you've got to think about long and hard because somewhere down the road you're probably going to have to hire paid Personnel for the daytime coverage a
number of towns around us have gone to that we're not in that position yet but it's something that may be coming down the road okay so I mean I'm happy to hear that there's 35 that give their service to the town and and I understand I just didn't know I mean I see the nice Firehouse there and I'm glad that Andover has that I just didn't understand the whole workings of it and while you were here I mean I hope we keep having volunteers and so there are there active people in there during the day like are there people at that Firehouse during the day no everything is 100% volunteer but we do have person in the daytime not as many as we have at night right but we do have Personnel to respond during the day okay so they're pretty much all on call if something happens emergencies happen that's right and I apologize if all of you know this it's fascinating to me so we might as well get a tiny little lesson while we're at it so I'll never while here could could W could you explain what's driving the need you said in the future there will be full-time paid person what's driving the the need for that basically everybody in the country is having trouble getting people to volunteer their time oh we've got some young people that have come along in the past couple years they're the ones willing to go take the certification training and luckily they're the ones
willing to come out and take the placees some of the older ones but everybody is having recruitment issues and especially for daytime coverage and Hein is a prime example they've had to go to two shifts of coverage to be able to get their ambulance out the door for the majority of the time we can get the apparatus out day or night but it does look down the road like there'll be a time that we'll have to hire people to man that ambulance I see thank you and that that is something that's a really common point of discussion among Town managers and administrators it's something that's been discussed both through Council of small towns as well as Connecticut conference and municipalities most towns are ending up having to go to either fully paid or part volunteer part paid and there's a lot of growing pains with that the biggest issue has typically been Staffing the ambulance not necessarily Staffing fire response but you know what 50 years
ago was a three-year waiting list to even get in to join the the volunteer fire department here now now it's a struggle and and there was a meeting last Sunday between the board of Selectmen and the fire you know the the fire chief and the officers to discuss you know what recruiting they can do to increase the number of membership because the reality is very few people have the time to volunteer and getting out of bed at 2 o'clock in the morning to rescue some leaky person on Route Six who just wrecked his car and haul him into Harford hospital that's a tough sell for most people so it is a problem it's a problem most towns face centry is a professional fire department now an ambulance you know Hein definitely is I believe Bolton is starting to go to paid staff during the daytime so this is this is happening everywhere you know we're not alone we're in the very fortunate position that we've been able to maintain an all vol volunteer Force as long as we have the other thing to keep in mind is the expenses here do not include the expenses for a lot of the ambulance related stuff because like most ambulance departments we bill for those Services and we pay for the new ambulance and a lot of the equipment from that so what you're seeing what the town actually spends on the entire fire department is basically the same cost as one resident State troop room that's not including
the the cost for Capital items though which is also you know expensive Eric is this something that in your town manager meetings would it be and I know that in emergencies getting there the fastest to save lives and all that kind of thing is the most important but has there been talk of regionalization with some of these towns is that even a thing I don't is it so so we basically are already regionalized and Wally can talk about that because the towns are all part of a essentially a network of mutual Aid so we support other towns other towns support us good
no one town has enough firefighting personnel and gear to handle a large incident or accident or for instance you had two ambulance calls at the same time in town because we only have one ambulance one crew so we already do support each other yeah thank you Wally How would how how many calls do you think there are on average to a week I mean I know that's probably hard to it's a hard thing to say we're averaging over 350 calls in a year okay majority of those calls are ambulance calls right and back to what Eric talked about we have a strong Mutual Aid agreement with the surrounding towns and Talon County so that there are resources available to us if our ambulance is out or out of service for servicing Colombia or Hein or centry can respond to end over and again under mutual Aid we respond out of town to other towns so we all work together under the Talon County Mutual Aid System to help each other so it isn't that it's a dire thing that if someone's not available you won't get service it's just that it'll be coming from another town and another question since we're talking about volunteerism and just because I'm curious and then my questions are probably done do we do the volunteers get any I thought are there any perks do they get anything from the town for their volunteer time or service was
there tax break somewhere did I hear that am I making that up no you're not there is a stipend a essentially a tax abatement that are given to Firefighters depending and it depends on two things one they have to respond to a per a high enough percentage of the calls during that year to qualify Okay so if you're not going to you know if your pager rings and you're turning it off and you're not going you know you're not getting the stien and the stipend is based on years of service in qualification level thank you so there's yeah you have to there's steps to it right or whatever okay correct but currently the maximum you can get is basically a $11,000 tax break okay I earned that by putting in 31 years of active service in the fire
department before I retired so I'm one of those did thank you for all those years of service as a volunteer no I get it and he just told us the maximum is a thousand a year so that's not a heck of block' be my no and that is something that's going to be actively a consideration by the board of Selectmen right it would take a town ordinance to change m but the the state allows a much higher rebate to that and while I don't think it's necessarily going to help with recruiting I do think it might help a little bit with retention raining although I I honestly don't know most people join because they want to serve not because they're getting a grand back a year you know for going to 40 calls a year no but I'm glad they're getting something so no I hear you something to think about future it seems like you know it's it's kind of the one lever we have though yeah you know whether it works or not we'll see but if that's the if that's the one but button we can press
absolutely try and push off this issue then you know okay yeah does anyone else go ahead Kim yeah Wally the fundraisers that you do in the fire department do they have a good can you hear me yeah yes we can oh do they have a good advantage to your budget do they take care of quite a bit of the budget and is the fundraisers they use for things like buying uniforms and events that they hold for the fire department they have a Christmas party every year for the members and their families again it's another thank you that was done by the fire department Association and these are where a lot of those funds are used they do at times purchase equipment with money that they raise and that equipment is then donated to the town to go on the town's Capital so there are items that they are purchasing
throughout the year that do benefit the town but they don't have a big impact on the budget per se okay thank you and can I ask is Eric Ron or or Wally Ron Mike is he who is he in the town what is his title Ron Mike is the fire chief thank you that's what I thought I didn't want to he's the head of the volunteer fire department and he is in command when they do to an emergency response okay and he's a non-paid person or does he that's correct and he also lives in the town of Columbia just over the Town Line so he does not receive the tax break that active members do wow that's something else that may be addressed in the future by the selectman no it's good to know all this information so that those of us on the board can absorb it maybe others knew it I didn't know all this so thank you for explaining how it all goes yep I don't have any further other questions I don't know if anybody else on the board has more questions for Wall-E I would only and I don't know if this is something that can be done but going forward you know as as a as a oneline item for the fire department it's it's nice to see this information that we have in front of us but it would also be nice to see it in actual budget format where we can see you know a year or two of history of what the cost have been what we spent this year and what we are budgeting for next year it just helps us really look at these line items and and
make a better decision overall the breakdown for this year Bill and I'll send it to Eric so he can pass it on to you people that's awesome thank you very much thanks Wally doing that we build it into our spreadsheet the way we build in the other department budgets and it'll help us see Trends yeah obviously this trend is up but yeah well it's a good thing that we have that much new training that's needed so that's that's a great that's a great is good I'm not surprised that turnout gear is high on the list here you know as one of the big things that they need so yeah and the the thing to keep in mind too is that pretty much everything used for fire departments you know is regulated by NFPA which is the National Fire Protection Association so like everything has built in age limits like you're allowed to use turnout gear for X number of years you know so they basically they're building in a replacement schedule where they're replacing one tenth of their turnout gear every year essentially so even though collectively you know they have I I actually have a spreadsheet on that somewhere from from Ronnie about how much actual gear they have but the answer is that they basically turn over
one tenth of that gear every year other things like poses those are required to be tested either annually or semiannually Wally you can correct annual testing in a 20year life expectancy after which they are no longer tested and must be replaced right so so we' had sorry no I was gonna say we we've had years where we've had to replace a lot of hoes and we've had years where we've had to replace less hes you know they lay everything out and they pressure test them and if they fail you have no choice you have to replace them so understood that's that's a good point I guess so seeing like Bill suggested and all of us would like just the trends because maybe certain years certain things get increase certain don't you know and we'll be able to see that okay just like in public works all right now this is the time for that but that's awesome Wally thank you again for joining us tonight and for going over this all right now we'll get that other document to Eric tomorrow okay thank you yeah sounds good so now I'm gonna move down to we didn't add anything else right Eric that I'm not it was just the fire I don't want to skip so the next agenda item that we're going to touch on tonight and Kim just because you joined us a little bit late well we we're going to start on budget Workshop you know number three with any points but what I asked Eric is if he could be the person kind of controlling the screen because I want to I'm not going to be updating things as we go I'm going to be jotting them in my
green notebook because I just have notes there I'll up the spreadsheet if there are any updates and then you know do it that way okay sounds good so I I thought how we can handle this I know that last week I spoke at the end of the meeting we had gone over every single line item we've all made a few adjustments here and there gotten information on different things that could be increasing and Eric I know you said that all right so I'll finish that thought so I thought tonight if any of us had any items which I will be proposing a few that I want to bring to the table we could all speak our peace we understand that you know we're going to say things we're going to make motions we're going to talk about it but I want to be so we're going to open
the table to that one of the items that an CR talked on tonight and that maybe we'll start there is I'd like to get everyone's thoughts if they've had time to think about that Community Center Director too I you know I've had some thoughts myself so could we go to that part Eric if you don't mind I I'm not going to follow along I hope you guys can deal with me just going to the important items I'm gonna shut my camera so look really close at the screen my eyes are not good with this stuff and I'm far away it G have to like I thought you did okay sorry well find search will get us there if we need to yeah I I think it's towards the top right because I went back when I was
looking I have it open too in separate format I should be able to find it like it's more towards the top because I had to kind of jot down a few of the things that I was going to bring up and then I don't have to do all my net first right there right there Town planner no I'm sorry mind that's different yep yeah never mind and maybe I there we go Community there it is's the whole 6,000 there it is yep I remember that remember so I know that when we were discussing that we all had varying opinions and you know well noted and made some good points after thinking about this and like an CR I know that this is going to be a new position I'm you know I I hope that eventually it can lead into you know the big position we hope it's going to be and take over things I I'm leaning in I definitely don't think the salary should remain where the salary is I I mean that's going to be everybody's thought on that I think this is more in the range if we're going to keep it full time you know and I did some math today
let me find my page on this I'm afraid if we get it in as a full-time full-time right away I don't know if there's enough to keep it busy if we do put it in as a a full-time person let me just find my notes I would support it as a full-time position at the tone of starting at 50,000 if we're talking about you know 30 to5 to 40 hours a week coming in working with all the different commissions departments setting things up taking a lot of things off the plate of some of the people that are doing it now it's I so I have that one thought we could do that and then or I've had members of the community talk to me of course they do and I appreciate that are we biting off too much too soon with putting a full-time person in there getting a nice part-time person in there doing the learning and growing you know setting figuring out the salary based on an hourly rate that
we thought was O you know going to do the job it was pointed out to me that if we get it in get a person in and then we're married to full-time it's hard to scale back rather than starting slower and building up so I don't want to go on and on I'll look back at my notes anyone have thoughts on that does anyone feel strong about keeping it fulltime or or anything of what I've just mentioned so this was the board of selectman's proposal right and you know not withstanding Ann obviously just indicated that you know she thinks otherwise but given that we I think it's a tough call because we don't we're we're sort of throwing darts at a board here we don't have this position in existence right now this is all brand new we have no track record to look at so I was inclined to defer to the board of Selectmen that's my just start position and it strikes me as something that if we get push back on the budget at budget at our our budget meeting with the town you know that that's a place we could we could look at but for now I was going to be okay with leaving it that's my take okay thank you Rob I would I would Echo oh sorry can I oh go ahead Bill yes go ahead Bill sorry I'm not used to I also have a concern with that $60,000 I I voiced it last week as well I think we are jumping in pretty heavy with a $60,000 salary
for and this is where some of my thoughts come from so you guys will understand and if I get the the person title wrong is it the treasurer that Eric you have to help me out here that helps you with with the budget and the finances and getting the audits all straight the audits all straightened out is that yes what position is that treasure treasure okay it seems like we're struggling there we have a woman that's that's doing the job for us that doesn't really want do it and I look at you know $660,000 and your note there or whoever's note that is high enough to coach an experienced person from another town I would like to do that with the treasurer's position I feel that the treasurer is a far and I'm sorry I'm not trying to offend anybody a far more important in my mind person than you know wreck and scheduling and it's just like we've had to dig oursel out of a deep hole over many years with with Audits and and I think back to some past people that ran this town that got us like $780,000 in debt and I just feel that Financial is far more
important and we should be trying to poach a whether it's fulltime or part-time but a a high quality with enough money to get a person that wants to do the job right that our money be better spent there than in this wreck Community Center position so I and not saying it's not important I just think that you know and I voiced my opinion about Carol Lee last week you know she's constantly been I don't know how long she's been with us but thinks she's underpaid and here's a new position is to come in and right off the bat make more money than her and I I view a town
clerk as a more important position than a community center wck Department Center so I'm not trying to knock the community center I just think there are people that are more important to how this town is run than Community Center rec department Center and I think we should be putting more money into trying to find a full-time or part-time whatever is needed high quality Treasurer and that's why I would want to see more money put personally so I'm in favor of cutting this back whether it's to less money to start with or part-time to start with but I have a problem with $60,000 out of the gate so I'll shut up there and go ahead Ken I would tend to agree with what Joanne said and potentially even reduce the position to 45,000 to start and take a look at it and bill I completely agree with what you're saying with the finance positions but for this particular position I think 60,000 is high to start thank you Kim and Bill you you did get my thoughts going sorry are you done are you all set Kim I am yeah okay you know and we can look at the math either way like like we've all said I'm not opposed to if it is going to be a full-time person because Eric's afraid we might thank you I'm I'm glad you both have those thoughts I want to piggyback on what Bill said just because we talked about it I feel like Bill I'm glad that they T and we don't need to go up there but the treasurer were increasing quite a bit based on Cheryl's you know decision and getting she knows I trust
her immensely I've talked to her a few times like you said she straightened out our situation she's got the assistant Treasurer in there that's doing a great job from what everyone says you know and I like her as a person so she she gave Eric this I think it's a $30,000 increase so that's one of my did Cheryl because Cheryl feels confident bill so I listen to her that she has an idea of what our town needs to maintain you know a $30,000 salary and I did the math so that's and I'm not picking I just like to know figures because we don't always she had
a certain number of hours that she thought should be committed to the town so that she could come in review everything keep it going she's you know one of her charges was making that instructional binder of how to do things she worked intensely Eric knows with the auditor we did have a meeting the other night well we can briefly touch on that for things going forward if we can we'll find out from Eric not like a lot just that getting that binder together so that we know what to do when we hire a new treasur and what has to be done and what the assistant Treasurer has to do Eric what I was you know so this works out to you know a $30,000 a year out of 52 weeks a year is 57 $76 per week just say did Cheryl think that it was about 10 hours per week needs to be devoted in the town to keep it running smoothly I just if we're going to approve that bump and we already did and we all think she's worth it and we think it's a very important position so we're paying Cheryl flat rate of $150 an hour to work for the okay okay so thank you for the accounting world so I'm just saying but she definitely has you know she's been at our meetings I just don't
recall and she you know I can even ask her but is there you know because we want to make sure we're getting the next person that comes in Cheryl's an expert at it but did she say about how many hours a week because I feel like she's devoting about five hours a week to us now but maybe I'm wrong I would say on average probably less than that I mean honestly Cheryl looked at the budget for the first time this year a couple of days ago right the way the system is now I do all the budgeting for the year she gets us through the audit supports Christine or Chris a little bit you know we are running with very minimal financial support in this town in terms of the treasure position and I feel like just sorry goe say so Eric could you just tell us a little bit more of your thoughts like what would you like to see in that position and and if if you were to take a guess at it like what is needed first of all the the real problem is that there's a giant shortage of Municipal Finance officers so all the towns are poaching from each other
probably the closest in equivalency to Andover would be Colombia I mean they're somewhat bigger than us but not hugely bigger than us their finance officer I think makes around 130,000 a year something like that that's on the real low end I mean you know you could expect a bigger Town's going to be paying in the 160s today like a centry i and Eric we we know that as far as big but Cheryl had specific you know she knows what has to be done in the office and I don't mean to interrupt obviously we're not going to get a full-time person like that Cheryl has even said to me there's not a need because she's like the executive person at the top overseeing all the little I consider myself a worker be all that worker be work that Chris is doing all the time and doing a great job at it you know sure yeah so so in your opinion though Eric I mean I'm just trying to get a feel again we need to ask Cheryl I think because Cheryl well I'm asking Eric though because I have him on the phone right now so I would love to hear what Eric has to say okay what in your opinion do you think is needed honestly my Approach has always been to go after a part-time employee somebody that is an experienced Municipal Finance director you know we are I am still having kind of low-level conversations
with one of the neighboring towns about potentially hiring One Finance director to cover Two Towns the problem is we're on QuickBooks and there is no since there's only a few towns in the state that runs QuickBooks you know while it's it's very easy to find a business oriented CPA that's very conversent with QuickBooks it's more difficult to find you know somebody on the municipal end willing to deal with that so I mean really what we're looking at is either trying to hire a retired person that just wants a part-time job and wants to run a little town from the treasure perspective or we're looking at you know somebody who's running a big town and willing to take Andover on on the side I mean those are really because we are not going to Pony up there's no way we're going to Pony up what it takes to get a competent person and every time we've tried to lowball this position which is what's happened three times in a row before Cheryl we ended up with a lot more problems than we solve
because the reality is if you're going to pay you know your top Finance person 60 Grand a year you know as a full-time position which is what we had at one time you're not really hiring a good candidate you know you're taking the first person you can find that's willing to take it for that salary so and you're right we we absolutely do not need a full-time person would I like more support than I have now absolutely would I like somebody else doing the budgeting yeah absolutely should the finance director Beyond every Board of Finance meeting absolutely and not me you know that's their job that's not really the town's administrator's job I just do it because I don't have that support and you need somebody at these meetings so that's my take on it thank you Eric y thank you Eric and I only I put input my two cents because I've attended a lot of meetings where
I've heard different people give you know the EXP the auditor and maybe an accounting person give their opinions too so I get it we'd all love to have a full-time everyone but I'm glad that I agree with Bill we just have to have a really good person in there you know I want to swing positive a little hopefully we can find someone Eric you know you never know who's out there that could be a retired person and sure you know Cheryl came on board and did a great job and she gave us since she did such a great job and put it all together I do respect her opinion on what's needed so I have no problem with raising that I don't know how long she's going to be around okay so thank you for that anybody else want to weigh in on oh go ahead well I'll let somebody else talk and I'll come back does anybody El have an opinion on that I can't see you go ahead B I think they're good well I guess I mean I I think get I don't know if we can go to that line item also but what is in place for that position right now for next year has there been an increase proposed for next year is it going to be enough to get a qualified person for the number of hours that we need again I'm just trying to do the right thing for the town and I see that position as something that needs more attention in my opinion than a community center so
I I just love to know what we're proposing for next year and how we're going to address the problems that we've been having with keeping a qualified person and Eric I I think I I think you've said in the past that she doesn't really want to do this anymore so if that's true how are we going to find the person that we need if we're not putting enough money in the budget for that position so is that true she doesn't really really want to work anymore she's doing us a favor is that kind of position that's why she she upped it so much and she's hanging on for us for right now I mean obviously Eric will answer but she significantly increased it based on what she thought the needs of the Town were but okay so it went from 15 to 30 then
is what you're saying then well I mean in the part like you just heard Eric she only is seeing the books like less than I I knew at the beginning it was maybe a five hours a week or maybe it's five hours a month she really she has that's why I just think she should speak to us I know she's going to be just to really like especially since you brought it up tonight Bill maybe we can have her on the next meeting lay in the low you know before we make our final decisions if she's going to say we're a town that needs someone a lot more than her you know and she'll she'll let us know and then you'll hear it right from her mouth yeah but I mean you listen to what Eric just said I mean he's doing the job the treasurer by being on all these calls
and doing all these budgets it'd be nice if there was an actual fincial person that was no yeah 100 no knock to Eric I'm just saying if we actually had someone who's you know training was to do this or to be on these calls and to be helping us through these budgets and and taking some of this off of Eric and putting it on a person that's actually you know I don't I don't want qualified but someone that should be doing this no I mean and I think it's the way that sorry Ken just one last thing because I have gone to all the things in the past and I hear it from all the different meetings they've arranged Our Town manager in a different way than I ever would you know as someone that works in HR so I couldn't agree with you more I think Eric does a and it's not up to me I'm just a volunteer here I mean I you know we all have things we could do with our time so
but I did take the time to listen to meetings and I mean I think that's why they got the Public Works manager in my opinion I thought Eric should have been I've said this since you brought up town manager administrator at the top overseeing all the offices so that they run smoothly having the financial person in like the J position on the next tier you know and then exactly and that's what they tried to do when they had hired I'm sorry I mean it's a public name Sherry in the past and they tried to combine the finance offices you know but making sure every single office runs smoothly so I agree with you but we can only you know I know it's the board of Select men's call with what the duties are of each office so go ahead Kim I
think I'm all set I just I'm good I mean I we'd all love to rearrange but we have to go with what we work with and and you know Eric does do a lot and hopefully by hiring these other people for other offices some of the stuff will go off of his plate yeah but the finance person was never going to present the budget but I think it's a great thing if we had if they had always tked Eric with it and then if we had someone in the Treasure office I agree it could have been that person but I know we could go on and on about the HR situation and the job sharing and the different ways that you know we'd love to rearrange things but we're just tasked with the financial piece is what I've always been told so maybe we should have Cheryl on a meeting just to briefly give us the overview it's not our decision because the board of Selectmen decides that but I agree that the finance you know treasure is such an important part so we'll get back go ahead okay this is for Eric I can see you Louise I'm sorry goad that's okay my hands up but you can't see it I can okay Eric are there any possibility of any grants out there to fund like a new position like that because the because of the new building well I mean clearly whoever goes into that role of the senior center director takes over grant writing for everything related to senior transportation and Senior issues you know that that much is a
given because right because Kathy pazi basically said she quit she's quitting which and I don't blame her she's been doing it as a volunteer for many years but that that hole needs to be filled sure there's a lot of Grants out there for senior stuff no for to fund a new position in a new building is there anything out there that maybe maybe connected to the other grants that you've used for this building to fund an actual position no no not that I know okay I mean there are grants for senior stuff yeah you know so I mean yes that whoever took takes over that position should be grant writing to get money for programming and doing a lot of the operations of that building that would be an expectation of mine that part of their job you know is to raise money
and there's a lot of ways to do that you know okay but are they going to raise their own salary well I mean make it a hundred bucks a pop to join the community center you know start charging the wreck commissions and everybody that uses the field more if you really want to make it pay for play and that person is going to be overseeing that you could generate their salary but now you're just going to be charging people more which may or may not be what you want to do right I do have one other question what we did with Carol Le's salary last year I'm wondering whether we can do this the same type of thing where we could maybe start this director off at 50 or 45 and have an extra 15,000 in there I just don't know how you would measure whether that person would be getting that extra money or not I think my opinion because it's such a new position to the town I I don't think it would we we did that with Carol because she came with that I don't know if anyone took the time to read the information that I sent I didn't hear back from anybody I just kind of clarified what we had done last year in the 16 point something you know which we knew she had been here for years and we worked together on that I'm afraid if we have a brand new position it's not really I think we as the board of Finance should just decide I because we're allowed to decide finance things what we want to start it at I mean if the person comes in and you know
there's nothing against in another year if it takes off and it's you know I know the board of Selectmen like Eric said is thinking it's going to create all kinds of money and you know Grant things I think it takes a person a little bit of time if they're not a town resident to come in and learn the community learn from those commissions learn from a Cathy pazi learn from everybody that's been doing things and then so I don't think it's inappropriate like when you figure out a dollar amount it's in you know I think I had figured out if we kept it we lowered the salary because then we're not putting it like Bill and different people have mentioned myself you know at the level of the treasure the town clerk that we feel is a little more important to the town and keeping things going right now it can't grow into if it's a big Boon does a great job in a big money make the town and we want to retain someone then you address it then so I believe yeah when I was doing some math at the 50,000 you know it comes out to a a $24 and something it depends how long you're going to work with you know how many hours a week I don't want to get into the weeds with whatever but I I would be
happy with reducing that as like a starting point we have make a motion and vote on that Joan how does that work right I'm just deciding in my in my head if I want to do the 45 that Kim said does anybody feel like just saying before I make the motion are you guys more in go ahead Brian I was gonna say maybe put 45 to the community center director and then maybe 15,000 more for the treasure I don't know so that they're both more I mean it was a little bit lower but I don't know what I don't know what the community center need is so exactly so I feel 45 and adding I'm okay with that I'm going to make a motion that we hire a full-time if you guys are with this full-time what are we calling it community center director for a salary of 45,000 I mean they get all the Ben sorry 45,000 this I'm making that motion I'll second motion okay so we're open for discussion does anyone have any opinions or further talk on this matter so if we put it up to the town they can only subtract right so they can't add that's the only issue I would say if like really adamant about doing 60 Grand as opposed to 45 I don't know we might want to leave it high and then I don't know I definitely don't want to leave at 60 I mean I don't want to make
the motion for that so I'd be willing to do you know in case anyone takes the time to listen to our dialogue and talk I be will to amend well I'd be willing to amend my motion to all right let's do this at us all right I make the motion that we change the the senior center community center full-time salary person for a salary up to 50,000 can I can I word it like that Eric I don't think soending your motion you can do whatever you want yeah and then I think just second the board of Finance I me you can't require fulltime versus part-time but you can set but you get to set the number so and that'll dictate what position is I don't think you can say up to though Joan all right put a number in there so
then yep so because of what Brian brought up that they no one's yeah I'm on the fence I don't know you're paid you know do we want to amend to 50 I mean look it's $5,000 obviously it seems like there's a majority in the board that wants to cut from 60 so 50 was couple people seemed comfortable at that level you know Brian's Point's valid about the town meeting so you know do you want to amend to to 50 and we'll resc that you know and go from there yep so I'm going to amend my meeting you know based on everything that everyone's input good point amending I would like to make a motion to change the community center director salary to second knowing that we may have to address it again depending on what happens oh okay any further Direction any further discussion I think go ahead I think during the meeting where we have everybody sitting there listening to it I think it might be advantageous for Eric to maybe mention what he said before about all those other concerns that you have like the assistant and all that and to see whether that might play in with reducing from 60 to 50 to maybe allow that in the future right they have a good point too we have our hearing next week as part of our so we'll be able to get some Community input there so if we amend it I'd like
to have our meeting be producted I don't I'd like the motion to get voted on tonight and then if we get more input from the community next week by showing up at our hearing we might even amend it a little bit more or we have one more cut at this before we go to time meetings so forgetting that so this isn't the final so okay so we have the second the motion's on the floor any more discussion if we can wait till next week should we like maybe wait till Mark's here or does that matter well I feel like well you don't want to this is such an important meeting it's such an important time I mean he can make a motion next Eric he could make a motion next week to change it back if he feels strongly thank you Rob I know you know that too so in my opinion he's not here tonight he forfeited his thank you for that I'm not being disrespect I'm just a straight shooter like I put so much time like you all do that I just he can talk about it next week if he feels strongly about it so can we take a vote right I think after our hearing we have our we have a meeting we can we can have the opportunity to make adjustments so that's always available so right so we can't be we shouldn't be afraid to make
a motion and pass it tonight we can always get another look at it later exactly agree I'm G to call for a vote if everyone's ready for that all those in favor say I hi hi I see I don't know if I'm supposed to speak for the minutes I see Joanne Bill Louise in favor Kim so all those opposed sorry Brian I don't know which way you went anyone is abstaining by abstaining Rob Brian what are you doing sorry I'm going to also abstain all right so I believe I have the motion passing four 4 Z and two abstaining is that how I state that 42 yeah okay so the motion passes we are reducing I'm going to make my note we're reducing that salary at this time to $50,000 and you're not going to reduce it on this budget here no I am but I'm gonna do that tomorrow guys I just I want to kind of make my notes and I will do my edits tomorrow I mean somebody just did it Eric just unless do it I think we should do it now and that way there it's clear that it was done as voted on so y I just couldn't manipulate it all guys so I'm sorry I'm not an
expert at meeting problem and Eric do you want to highlight that yeah highlight possibly change the color of the font or something thank you all right so we talked about the treasurer I you know I'm just gonna you want to go back to that part of the budget and look at it or sure we can we can Eric do you mind going back up there for a minute in case anyone wants to entertain any motions at this point and also Eric do we think we could invite Cheryl to the meeting next week I don't know if she's available but it would be awesome to hear from her you can invite her I don't I don't know whether she'll attend or not but I'll certainly invite her thank you the only the only thing I think of with that the only issue I see with that is you know she'd have to kind of sit through the presentation I think before we could even get to her you know what I'll do I will reach out to her in an email and
then I will will read the response because we've had dialogue in the past and she says it so succinctly she tells us exactly what we need and that's the only reason why I'm strong on it since an email statement is fine by me I mean yep get it in writing and circulate it and that's fine perfect I'm sure she'll she can put it together in a couple of sentences so yeah I think she would be available to be at the next one because she is back from Florida I think she's actually traveling today so she should be back in state so I think it's a lot more likely that she would be and I know I think she was planning on coming back into the office next week to to review accounts she had mentioned to me in an email Eric that she was going to be doing that y not that you should know so that's perfect thank you for that does anyone want to look at that salary line there and make any suggestions at this point since I just brought it up to start with I I I will say that I did not recall that it had been increased by twice from 15 to 30,000 so I'm I'm more comfortable than I was previously so I'm okay right now it'd be great to hear from her or get that statement clarifying how many hours the job should be not her but because I know she was helping out but if we had a a person that was doing his job when she left what would that require to do the job
right and I would love to hear from her on that so yeah and and maybe that's next budget years you know problem and leave it for now yeah so I'm I'm I'm much more comfortable with the fact that we did double that salary already so I appreciate it so when I first started working for the town we had a 40h hour or a 34-hour a week treasure and a 30h hour a week assistant treasure and that was overstaffed in truth I think realistically the assistant needs to be a full-time position I I personally think that's a you know a 34 to 40 hour a week position to stay caught up on everything personally I think one full day a week is probably pretty close if you had somebody for the treasure if you had somebody that really knew what they were doing you know and was on the top of their game maximum of two days a week in that slot that would be my take on it and that's kind of along the lines of where if we ended up going in with the neighboring Town that's rough the breakout we would do they would assume around 65% of the cost and get two-thirds of the labor we would get basically onethird of their time at a roughly a third of their a third of the
total but you know a lot sense if we could swing it we would be going after an employee making you know 120 to 140,000 a year but covering two towns that would be my whether that goes anywhere or not right don't know okay thank you Eric that's great thanks Eric that goes in align with what Cheryl had said in the past two I remember talking to that Eric you had to just I think I had jotted down something and you did the calculations on the spreadsheet I know that for the assistant Treasurer like you said I know that's a very busy office she keeps everything going and now she has agreed to work the 33 hours a week I know she's
already in a union on contract there's no problem there but what was the percentage raise that I should know this because I was on the committee I just don't have the contract in front of me what was their their increase this year I know it varied every year I don't know off the top of my head I could pull up that contract and tell you okay but we're confident that the figures you're quoting us here are the correct whatever the and I'll look back too but you feel like whatever raises were granted in the unions are represented on the spreadsheet the yes correct the only one that's a little bit questionable is meiu and that contracts it's a little funky because in that contract we put in the contractual
raises right for the 2425 year but technically the contract is up as of June 30 of this year so there's a little bit of a question about whether that contract really applies to next year or whether we got to re renegotiate prior to that right and usually I know we talked about it in the Neo negotiations that when there's not a it's fine I just wanted to make sure that we represented the exact raises that are there like I said in the past like say my own contract was up for negotiation usually there's a flatline there because we don't know if you've done the estimated based on what's been done in the past it's fine I mean for the few people it involves meu is that
the assessor and the assistant assessor tax collector tax collector okay yep all right you know so that I don't hear myself talk the does anyone have any I'm gonna have a few more but does anyone have any specific items that oh centure right there sorry did everybody have a chance to look at what happened with the town clerk so my thought in a nutshell and then I'll then I'll open it to the floor we we gave her that big raise last year I have that which was good it everybody ended up happy I think it ended up being a salary of 61,000 total we divided it into the two wages based on the years of experience it's just my thought that since it's her full salary we probably should Grant her either we're going to go with what the Selectmen did on both things because I feel like her full salary would have been the 61,000 from the prior year so are we going to go with a 4% raise on
both items because right now they are applying to the to the person that's in that job or do you want to go with the request of the 5% sorry 4% or 5% does anyone have a but anyone else have an opinion and I'm sorry if I I can't I got to scroll down I can't see everybody on my we increased it last week right to the 5 perc so she requested the 5 per if it went through standard the board of Selectmen would have given everybody that's not in a union the 4% 4% right but we increased hers to 5% I feel that we should keep it there yeah I'm fine with keeping it but if we're going to keep it as it's her salary I feel like we really need to increase both lines even though we brought the other one down because her salary was split does anyone or or Bill you're saying you want to keep it split and just do how it is oh I'm just fine
with the way it's presented here I'm fine with the 5% too and I just think if we're being Kim how do you feel on this I know you have some HR experience or I think it's fine the way it is right now okay all right so let's leave that if if we Circle that's a small that's a small item so let's leave it so does anyone else have any items that they want to bring up before I bring up a more well mine's at the end mine's all the way down at Capital so why don't you keep going all right and there's they're not big one's on the way let me just look okay all right so sorry Eric can you go back up to the administrator line because I think that's where this position is I've gotta thank you I am so my rationale for this guys I'm thinking a couple years ago I'm GNA talk about this project manager thing at this point I am going to make a motion in a few that we don't do that this year I've been involved in a lot of meetings where we've brought on either additional employees or we've brought on you know we've hired more for Public Works we've hired the town planner to hopefully take some of the burden away from Eric with the grants and different things and projects that he has so I know that we have his admin assistant getting the $5,000 stip in which I think is great to prepare p and do what she
does I'm just not in favor and I guess the reason I'm thinking about this everyone I guess I should have started out with is the overall budget of Us increasing the spending by so much I'm just not in favor of I know that there's areas where we're going to increase that need to and some of the funds some of the things we talked about tonight I know that I was voted onto this board for a reason and I feel like the budgets are handed off to us you know with their highest capacity of what they're asking for that they feel is reasonable within such a small town and then it's our job to kind of dig into the weeds a little bit not on every single thing but to me this is a want and not a need this year I think that we
have a lot of projects on the table that are moving along and you know I'm hoping with you know if if like I said that my stepping stone is like public Public Works should run good with Jay as a highlevel person if we get the treasurer's office in order and maybe Eric can take a little bit off of that again I don't know how to explain myself I'm just I'm not in favor of this position this year because we've added a lot of new positions recently I can understand where I feel like Eric would have to spend a lot of this is just me from going to me he would have to spend so much time explaining things to people
that hopefully if he can get good help from his other positions in town maybe he can be freed up to follow up on the projects thoughts so I'll I'll speak I'm totally in favor of it I'm looking at the line above it and I see you know the admin assistant was 22,650 last year it's down to 5,000 so I mean the whole line item is a 1% increase from 117 929 to19 it's it's a $1,000 increase overall for that total line item of town Administration and Eric's gonna get the person that he needs to help really manage a lot of grant money that he brought into this town like a lot of Grants and he can't even get to them right now because he's overly he's doing the treasurer's job being here tonight he's got huge amounts of money that he's written grants for and it's it's important that we capitalize on those grants spend the money and I think it's $1 15,000 it's it's not even $115,000 it's really free when you look at the fact that we went from 22,650
last year to 15,000 this year or actually if you add up the two lines 20,000 this year so there's there's no increase really here it makes total sense to me to do this so I'm in favor of the way it's laid out okay thank you I agree with that I agree with that because I thought I thought that the the admin assistant the the decrease there and the project manager I thought that was a tandem thing I thought that that goes those go together and you know if you look at them holistically then I think it makes sense and I think if you if you zero out
the project manager then don't we then you know and we also cut the assistant line then aren't we actually reducing the support so I don't I don't think that's a great idea and I I think we should leave it thank you rob and my thought is not in you know I'm looking at ways we could reduce the overall budget because I'm just thinking of presenting you know really if we're looking realistically at how much spending we are doing for the town and and we can disagree and I I bring bring I love that like that's why we open up discussion but I feel like this is a budget where people are bringing out that you know Ram is down this is the time that we should you know pad some other lines and I I understand that logic but I'm also thinking of the people that are on fixed incomes and looking for us to kind of you know people that put their support behind me to kind of look at things where we might be able to save certain Years and spend other years so I was bringing that fact up you know of of I don't think the
admin assistant had been acting in that role for the whole prior year anyways I think she's been you know Eric has taken on some of those duties so I appreciate your input on that I understand that he's brought a lot of town money into the town and all of that I'm just looking of ways of some savings I yeah does anyone else have any thoughts on it I I agree with you Joanne I think that for this particular year maybe we could hold off on this position I do think it's important I think Eric does need the help but I think that there are so many expenses this year that potentially this one could just possibly wait I don't like to say that but maybe hold off on it so this year okay it took me just over two years to get an HVAC project from when the fire department requested it to when the contractor came here we have a giant problem with the school that's going to chew up an awful lot of time on my part if you're going to do it and you're going to cut that understand that and we're going to do more of what we're doing now which is I have a bunch of grant money and I'm slowing the acquisition project for that Grant in fact I deliberately didn't sign the paperwork for a $275,000 grant that we've had on the books for over two years because I knew I couldn't even get to that project so now I'm pushing it and I'm hoping that I actually get to construction before we lose the grant but I don't know that that's the case I think I can make that if I didn't we
would lose $275,000 you know in that Grant you know if we get the one for the Improvement on Route 316 that's a $2.8 million Grant to be honest if if if I look at a construction manager as as a cheaper alternative to paying the town engineer to oversee stuff because right now we're on the hook for9 95 bucks an hour whenever the town engineer is doing it so in my mind that's money well spent but if it gets cut it gets cut I'll deal with thank you Eric I'm just throwing out suggestions I just put my due diligence in so I hope that any of the suggestions that I make moving forward for the board for you for the towns people no one gets offended I'm just trying to so I ex I appreciate the other opinions of the board I thought it might take more of your time bringing a person on board kind of bringing them up to speed and if maybe some of the other duties that you were doing were taken off your plate it would give you more time I mean you're explaining yourself it's just an idea I have because I have a feeling you know obviously people are going to go to town meetings and they're going to see a bottom line and you know it's not a huge increase that we're asking for taxwise or mill rate wise but I know what's behind the scenes you know as far as the big you know Ram is you know Ram is down you know AES is up the town is up over 600,000 so I'm just looking ways to to minimize the hurt to the taxpayers of owning this because having sat in this
board for three years once you commit to something it's hard to even if you have rational ideas to ever decommit so that's all so thank you for that I appreciate i'mna go back to what Eric just said there's there's a lot of grant money that could go to waste if we don't hand right that's what I'm saying point taken you all made a great argument I just brought it to the table idea it's no offense J Joanne it's not offensive when you what I'm saying is you have to look rationally at what he's proposing here rationally there's no increase it's
a decrease I look like I'm being irrational Bill you're I brought up a suggestion I'm trying to talk you're looking getting angry I'm not feeling comfortable at this I I love debate but go ahead I agree Ang but you're not letting me talk everybody let you talk but when somebody else is talking that means you have to stop so other people can also talk so that's where I'm not I'm getting angry it's not that I'm angry about the item okay it's less money than last year for those when you look at those two positions and it's money that we could lose that we've been granted if we don't do this so it doesn't make any rational sense not to do this but that's I'll drop it at that I was already ready to drop my suggestion you guys all were compelling
and good so thank you I'm just bringing things to the table I'm fine with so let's drop that so I'm GNA open it to other people that have ideas for a moment while I gather I'm feeling this is I'm sorry B Rob no no l go right ahead right this is this is the year that we had mentioned that we could sneak some things in and I think this thing is really needed this extra money is really needed so and the overall is very low as far as the the impact to the to the what do you call it yeah that so I really feel that the town the people will probably approve something like this and we are putting in things that we need to do because this is the year that everything else is kind of down I mean we should definitely I think you know keep track of this and see how it goes but my hope is that sort of position pays for itself in the long run that's certainly the the rationale for it and I like the idea if it doesn't turn out that way then
you know I for want to be perfectly happy to revisit the issue going forward but I think it's a I think it's a good idea for this budget cycle let's see how it goes see if it allows us to get more done and more grant money utilized and if if the you know if it works out great if it doesn't if it's if it's really no change and we're just spending money on something for little benefit then we should you know revisit it next year and talk about it again provided of course it gets approved so that's my take on it too that's it I think we've we've set our piece no that's perfect I think I'm ready to move on from this item like it's 15,000 it's not it's not very much and again my overall job of being on the board is just you know the people that supported me being on the board is trying to keep expenses down I agree that this is one if it's going to do all those things then then I'm I'm for it you know it's
it's okay just trying to find ways to save or things like that so I'm ready to move on unless someone else has a comment on this item great we're going to move on from this item okay thank you I'm gonna keep going and and I definitely applaud Eric for all his efforts you know and for things that are going in with the town and the things that he has to manage on a daily basis so that's awesome let me see if I have any other quick ones on the way down to those funds and things of that nature yes so just to put it in perspective for one Bridge Project which is Bunker Hill bridge if you look at what out of a total budget of $4.2 million $440,000 of that is project management so 10% of the cost of that project is the professional management for that which is separate from the cost for the construction inspections or the design so I guess what I'm saying is that that's that's a very expensive typically on building projects Clerk of the works hiring a clerk of the works tends to run around 5% of the project costs so for the community center we would have assumed if we hadn't done that inhouse we would have expected that
to be at at least $50,000 for us to hire somebody to do what Adrian started doing and I ended up doing for that building which is the daily monitoring of the job site but that's easy but only because it's next door right and again we have a lot of things like you said and I'm very aware that we have a lot of things going on at the same time and we have the grants that you've gotten with the Town garage thing and then you know the community Community Center is the most visible you know so I don't know the inner workings of who in each town you know manages everything or public works and Things So yeah thank you for for pointing that out so I'm getting the overall feel it doesn't mean I'm going to stop but I feel like maybe the board and I don't mind saying this publicly because I do is feeling like they want to they're happy maybe with this overall budget I mean I'm still going to bring up my couple of items but and then kind of let the town see where it goes my only thought with what you said Louise is I feel like I see the
hidden dollars and why it works that way so I'm afraid for the town moving forward when Ram you know we were we married to some of this spending if we're going to fund it at the same level and you know positions don't usually get cut even if all your projects are done and the positions you know are going to stay there that's a hard thing to do so I get that so you know the I know where the hidden money is it's the the the numbers work out the way they are because you know Ram is down basically the other thing is let me look at my front page that I written down and there's nothing wrong with that if if the town supports that but I feel like our town is made up of a lot of senior citizens that are on fixed incomes too so I'm just speaking for them you know AES is up a little Ram is down significantly the town is up $ 67,69 according to Eric's document and we're we're putting in some fund balance too of 150 so thank you Eric so in trying to
it's not that this is a nice budget like people are going to and and maybe people that are wealthy are just doing fine aren't going to mind that because it does look good but the people that are trusting us to to look at it and maybe find some savings somewhere eventually it's going to hit them when all of this when Ram goes back up too basically so it's all a matter of thought and a lot of you have voiced your opinions that you think this is the great year to do that and I I can I hear you so if I if I could piggyback on that a little bit you know I mean your point is strongest with operating budget stuff like you know any salaries that we're adding because salaries of course propagate out into
benefits and things like that so you know the community center director you know you've got a you've got a strong point there that we're adding that in and then you know we're locked we maybe we're not locked into it but it kind of becomes a course of performance and the next thing you know you're five years later and it it's still there you know I when I thought of this year of having an opportunity this year maybe the next couple because of ram to to put some money into some things I was looking at Capital side so you you may not be pleased with this but you know my my thought was to look at the capital and actually Ponder whether we should put more into some of our capital budget you know specifically I had raised the bridg and culbert fund last time I I don't if if nobody else is coming with me on this I won't I won't bother with it I just the bridg and Culvert thing is worrying me you know on a going forward basis it's something that we've been talking about now for a little while a year or two now with the costs increasing pretty dramatically and you know we are increasing so there's there's no question we're increasing at $75,000 this year over our usual 100,000 so we're already taking that into account I was just wondering if it made sense to bump it a little more that's and the thing with the capital funds is unlike a salari position where benefits acrew and everything like that it doesn't go on and on every year you
know you can you can adjust it much more easily you you're not locking yourself in necessarily you're really just saving money which is that was that was my thought that was the only one I was going to raise if anybody coming with me on that thinks maybe we could put a little more in there great if everybody thinks the one 175 is fine then you know I'll back off that's fine it's not I don't think it's a huge deal one way or the other Rob I'm glad you got to these because I know we want to discuss the funds as well and and like I said I I appreciate everyone's opinion you know all of us should talk to what we believe in it's not personal at all so it's just what we're trying to do so and we like to you know circling back to these funds I'm only going to shut the camera off because I got to get closer to read the little script there I am fine with your logic of keeping this you make a good argument I I'll let other people speak if they want to add more make motions I'm fine with that my thought on the funds was going to to be who knows how it would be received I think I spoke to it last week in a preliminary kind of setting the tone for tonight and I'll just I'm going to stay true to myself you know regardless of whatever whatever is voted in at the end of the night so I had thought and however we I also feel
like on this board too we do get kind of it's kind of frowned upon when we want to reduce things too so that's why I hesitate I'm glad and I support the even if we wanted to take maybe next year we wanted to take a little bit away from a different fund it's almost like we're so we can talk to that and then my idea with this is if we were going to increase it that I would probably put a motion out there to reduce the road funds a little bit since we had already gotten ahead of the game with 180,000 at the end of the night if the board really wants to just rubber stamp this and send it and I'm not opposed to it this is not me being mad this is listening to my fellow board members and hearing what you're all saying that maybe you do want to
rubber stamp this and put it out to the town to decide I'm coming up with some suggestions so that's all I don't think anybody wants to rubber stamp this joint I think it's fine that you have other items that you want to go through and we should definitely go through those I don't think anybody here said anything about rubber stamping anything so I sorry that I use that term but all right so I I think we should listen to all your other okay thoughts that you wanted to go through but right now we're talking about Rob's suggestion on the capital and I just wanted to throw in a little support and I don't know I don't have a number in my head but I do feel similar to Rob and in two ways that these costs are escalating and to me it's always better to be a little bit ahead of the game than trying to catch
up down the road so that's my thought there and secondly I'm thinking about the oil tank situation and the the pipes at the high school at the I'm sorry a s the middle the grammar school these are Big Ticket items these aren't little things so we can try and cut the budget cut the budget cut the budget but someday we're have to come to pay the piper be a huge increase to cover the cost of these sewer pipes that are about to let go at the grammar school of an oil tank that could start leaking any day of coverts that costs are going up so it's it's nice to trim budgets when you can but I don't think it's a good time to trim budgets is my opinion is a time to take advantage of where we are with the ram situation and I I just don't think it's a good time to be trying to cut but to cut too much when there are things coming down the pike that are going to really Spike these budgets up and it's going to be a hot a lot harder for the town to swallow in the future so I just am cautionary about cutting go ahead Rob can I just chime in on the tank thing Eric and I had an exchange
about the tank thing a little bit more and I'm a lot less concerned bill he found some of the paperwork they were they were put in very recently I think there was some confusion I last time we were talking it sounded like they were 20 years old or something they're not they're they're like three years old and double wall tanks they're double wall tank us yeah they're double wall tanks they got to be fiberglass I'm not at all really I'm not freaked out at all about that anymore I I was very concerned when I thought the age was much more and it was possible they could have been still tanks my fears there are allayed so just on the tank issue at least overall mindset I'm with you the one thing you know Joan raised the road funds and she has a point here where we backfilled that because of an overage last budget cycle this this
year where there was a overe expenditure so if there is a place to cut in capital that's sort of the fair one to look at in my mind so there's there's a point to be made that we sort of did extra work I think you know my general feeling is like we still have plenty more but I can understand that you know we did kind of just sort of plug a hole and we did it with fund money that we could have put somewhere else and so then the question is just how are we prioritizing how are we on the roads versus how worried are we about bridging Culverts for instance you know we could reduce one and increase the other you know those are all valid possibilities and do you has there been any further update as far as the school with the so thank you rob for that because I I would have be nice if someone told me that i' losing I've been losing sleep about that oil tank so I'm glad to hear that I guess another the other thing that's big in my mind was the the situation with the bathrooms and the and the
sewage pipe at the grammar school I I mean is that something that we're going to have to tackle this year next year I mean anybody Eric anybody I'm just concerned about that not that's a big Bill Eric do we have an up I know we have a 100,000 in the in the fund that we're putting together for AES and I agree with both points that bill and Rob made and I guess if we're if we were afraid of those oil tanks you know would this have been the year to shift some money out of funds to take care of that if those are in an emergency situation maybe shifting funds into I don't know if that's the building maintenance fund or whatever we I'm I'm All About tackling the emergencies before they become huge problems so Eric like like Bill asked for do you have an update on that so two things Rob I think the tanks really are 20 years old oh what you saw that was when we I don't think so 2021 was when I suggested that we need to be uring the tanks so that was I apologize everyone okay I misunderstood that for so I I don't know I know and I'm pretty sure that they are about 20 years old because it was about then that the Department of Health made them move the well because they put the inground tanks in right by the existing well to the element school which the health department had some real issues with and made them relocate the well for the school a couple hundred feet away from the tank to provide an added margin of safety so but I mean I know the fact that Chubs is actually willing to ensure the tank
is a pretty good statement because they're they're pretty conservative about and I know it took an awful lot of paperwork to get into that program and I pretty sure they're requiring an annual inspection of that you know of that tank but I I don't have full I don't claim to have full details but I am pretty sure they're about 20 years old okay so that's where I was confused I think I you showed me a form and I thought I said 2021 and that was for the insurance purposes okay my my fault so sorry Bill now revers but what we had was a form was interesting the form said they were double wall tanks but under tank composition nothing was checked I don't know just from my experience if it's double walled it's almost certainly fiberglass but I I don't know if that's 100% because the form didn't say if they're fiberglass tanks they should last a whole lot differently than a steel tank so I I would my concerns were allayed but and we do have them insured so that's good too I'm not I'm not I don't think
that's flashing red although and then the only question is you know what is the lifespan of of a double wall fber glass tank I don't really know all the ones I've seen in my career are steel ones that rust it so you know that's why they come to me that's where an environmental claim comes from so you know I that one I don't think is flashing red but maybe Bears a little further investigation just to make absolutely certain we understand what the lifespan of those things are and what you know what the plan is for them going forward but I don't think we have a we have an imminent issue there and the last thing was the the pipes at the elementary school do we have anything further on that Eric I'm sorry not really I you know I'm still I got a couple names of MEPS one of whom I've talked to but I got the Feeling H the The Firm that our town engineer recommended they're an MEP firm but they're much more heavily weighted towards the electrical end of things and the hbac than the plumbing so I think I'm back looking for a different me to support the town we did an extensive search of Records here we do not have anything I have asked Steve the custodian at AES to see whether they have the original blueprints from the 40s because the town does not and that's obviously going to be a concern because if we can't even hand over a set
of schematics to the engineer that's going to drive our costs up because he's going to have to figure it out and diagram the whole thing out so that's where we're at and frankly the school has not even voted yet but that is their priority project soag the upcoming B Ved meeting they proa I mean I assume it probably will be there but yeah we they haven't done it yet and they have about 200,000 left if memory serves so you could look at that and say we have a cumulative no I thought they had 200k no it's aund something now right Eric it's dropped just over 100k oh just over 100 maybe it was okay I was
thinking of the combined total I apologize so if we put in 100 they have 100 then you got about 200 that's right we talked about this at CIP and my memory was a little fuzzy it's been a few so we do have 200 if this budget goes through because we're going to add 100 to the 100 they have and that would cover if we need to do something hopefully Eric did they do a sorry Rob no that's it that's all I did they do a small repair to get those bathrooms open or are they still closed down they're closed oh no they're fully clo closed I mean they did a$ 30,000 plus dollar insurance claim to clean up and to get all the sewage out of there so that's what's driving up our insurance cost this year that was the other thing okay yeah I try right the they sort of plugged it really but you can't use the bathrooms okay all right
no yeah there's three sets of bathrooms there's a boys and a a girls bathrooms and then the teacher bathrooms and that original Wing are are off limits until until the plumbing system is redone yeah that is a big deal like you said the priorities of how the money spent thank you for that Eric I guess so you know continuing on in this I would be in favor and I'm going to put a motion out there I don't know how it affects anything but only because I feel like we're ahead of the game with the with the road work that we did because we transferred the money in I'll put it out there and see what you all think so I would like to reduce the road
Improvement fund there to a tune of 60,000 at this time and that'll kind of help offset a little bit of what we're feeling in adding to the bridge and cover and make a motion to do that wait so so so gets it to 350 Joan for this so that would yeah I'm just trying to think of yeah so that would to clarify oh so you want to reduce it by 60 I thought you said R from 410 to 350 410 to 350 only based on the rationale in case this meeting is taped because I feel like we've already topl loaded or front loaded some work that got done and then we paid for it that you know so that's my rationale does anyone second that motion I'm hearing none so does that mean my motion fails is that the procedure right okay I just don't know procedure doesn't proceed it doesn't proceed somebody could second it for purposes of discussion so you can at least have a debate if you wanted to they know that they could I think so I put it out there so going once going
twice okay motion didn't make it so does anyone have any other further discussion or talking points on any of those funds so I mean the other one you know I kind of brought up was the brid Culver Eric we talked about this a little last meeting I didn't make a motion then I'm still not certain what I want to do here what my real inclination is you know we are increasing it by 75,000 I I like that I think that's a good thing I'm just wondering if you know bumping it a little more might even make sense I guess we you know looking at the the projects coming down the road is $25,000 you know one way or the other going to really make a difference you know maybe maybe we just leave it I don't know do you have thoughts as to whether you know if we put in 200 instead of what 75 if that's going to move the needle down the road at all or well so Le let's take an extreme
case you know the the town has I think 13 CTS that are relatively large Okay so so let's say you wanted to replace all of them and you didn't have state assistance as your kind of total outlier case you're looking at two and a half million between two and a half million and four million say because a couple of them like that Stone Arch Culver on Meritt Valley that would be a stupidly expensive one to replace currently some other ones are would be cheaper so you can kind of work backwards and say what is the expected lifespan of a bridge or a Culver and when were most of these put in so the VA vast majority of the ones we have are what are called squash metal pipes so you basically take a round pipe and you squash it so the bottom is flatter so you get more surface area down low those tend to have around a 30 to 50y year lifespan and a lot of them are approaching that so we know going forward that that certainly over the next 20 years we're going to replace a bunch of them currently there are three there are two that are rated four and failing one of them being the one lak road by basola that is the one that's in the state local bridge program now one of the ones that is rated for failing also is on bare swamp that
one's problematic because that one there's no exit from there so if that one fails you know you're looking at an emergency repair because you got you have people stranded you know there's also one on Town's end that is definitely in the the poor slash failing in fact Linda fish who was on just mentioned to me the other day that we're getting a sinkhole in the road again so we'll be up patching that and dealing that so I think over the next 10 years we're going to have a bunch of these that we're going to have to deal with but the
reality is we're not going to pay for all of the cost of these know we're going to try to get them one by one in the state local bridge program which at least gives us 50% of the cost of repairing it you know and that's really the best funding mechanism for the mediumsized bridges so if we do 175,000 the next two years we have fully funded Lake Road at Bola and that's good because that means we can start we can do next summer as a construction season split the cost over two fiscal years we're done the bridge after that you know we will be starting to put money away from that in the 2526 no 2627 budget somewhere around 2728 we're going to be able to free up all the money that is currently in the Bunker Hill Bridge fund because we will have completed bunker Hill and we will have completed Long Hill those are both fully funded but we have to pay for the actual work and then get reimbursed by the state and federal government so the bottom line is we should have that money available in about four years between four and five years so we will have a big basically think five years from now we can do another $2 million Culvert and pay for it so we'll get two of the big ones done after that it's kind of a crapshoot okay bottom line 175 this year and if we could manage it again next year you're comfortable with that and then you know
I'll then I'll leave it I won't I won't make a motion at all I'm content thank you Eric and Rob does anyone else want to comment on the funds at all no Al righty let me just look through my notes and and I just so I have one one thing to say and you're not gonna change it and I get that and I'm not even asking you to but typically towns run contingency funds of somewhere between one and two% of the total budget and over on a 13 Mill million do budget is running a $50,000 contingency fund which is an awful lot less than that if you would talk to the auditor we should be putting that number should be somewhere between 150 and about $250,000 for a town our size with our budget what's the balance on that now Eric did I don't have my balance sheet in front of me I mean currently in this budget we've only spent a couple thousand out of contingency contingency is not a capital fund okay so we don't do it like that's operating budget yeah right okay so yeah we've gotten lucky basically so far we've gotten away with it like I I know exactly what you're saying Eric but somehow we've managed right and and the reality is because we have a lot of money tied up in capital funds I can shift money to cover most things so I think we can continue to get away with it but just I mean I would tell you as a board of finance that that number has always been a very tight
contingency number for a town to maintain being able to predict a budget to within less than half a percent is not a not necessarily a a easy thing hey we're just that good Eric so does that money ACR Eric it does not no no no that's yeah no why can't contingency fund is it's like 50k SL fund each year and sometimes we use it sometimes we don't sometimes we roll it back over right Eric you could potentially make it a capital fund and I I recommended that a couple of times to the board of Finance in the past but I didn't really have any takers
on that what was the reason for saying no to educate I don't remember yeah I honestly don't remember Joanne thank you I'm fine with it the way it is at this point and like you said luckily we are funding these other funds so if there ever was an emergency like we've spoke of at different meetings you could we hope it never happens to take especially certain ones but there is money to take well and remember we do always have a capital reserve of 10% of our total budget okay so it's not like we're we're hopeless it's just that when you start dipping into that you know that takes permission basically from that takes Town meetings and stuff like that so and that's where we're earning our interest I'm just trying to understand F further than Eric so that's $50,000 contingency what what qualifies I know what a contingency is but right if you don't spend it it's it goes back to the taxpayer right because you didn't spend it this year so in in my mind why does it hurt to have a bigger contingency fund when it's not going to be spent unless there's an actual something that qualifies for you know emergency contingency whatever and I don't know what parameters or what defines contingency as far as what qualifies under that budget line item but if you're not spending that each year then I don't understand the the hurt with having a larger contingency fund Andor makinging it a capital fund that it CRS but I guess that's another yeah I mean we should
maybe revisit the capital fund idea Bill and maybe we should put that on a future agenda like once we get through this budget you know talk about it for next year maybe we should trans make it into a a proper fund you know I know in in in the past though you know we for instance when we had that issue last time with the the road work where we had the overe expenditure right we could not address that through contingency because we just there wasn't nearly enough money in there right so we ended up plugging the hole by by moving fund money around so maybe ite if it acree over a three-year period or or four year period and then we say we no longer fund it we only re plenty right kind like easy PR right you keep $200,000 I'm just making numbers or whatever Eric said 200 or 400 whatever the number is and once we get there okay we no longer fund that but if we spent $30,000 then the next year you put $30,000 in there and you just replenish it to that level that Eric said is the right amount to have in a contingency fund so each year we'd only be looking at you know replenishing money that you spent otherwise you don't spend it you don't yeah year we barely touch it we do nothing with it yeah that makes a lot of sense maybe we should Revis it that I think that's a good year for the future and I like it for a year where we're not always already increasing spending by a lot for the town because like Eric said we have gotten by with what we do and then he we also have those other
emergency things that we have as well that would be my take on it I wouldn't want to fund it anymore you know we can we can certainly bring it up Mark will be at the meeting next week and maybe have an is a a history too like Rob did seems like it's getting byy fine because what we find out too is don't forget and I've been at Board of selectman meetings where different people want to buy things in this year of a budget that's already been passed and then what they say is well how much do we have in contingency can we swing yeah so I want to having witnessed that
you know we're going to get a lot of that you know hopefully there is criteria like Bill brought up that it's only an emergencies and everybody wants to have that contingency but it sounds like he said we already do have some kind of other fund I mean I'm learning as I go too I like to SN it all in too so there is ways to get the money if there is an emergency that comes up and it's needed moving on if if everyone's good with the way the funds are looking I'm ready to move on and I just want to State for the record that I don't
want you to all you know I feel like choice of words is very important and maybe I threw out a word that offended because Bill cheed on it I didn't mean you're all just rubber stamping it that that's a poor choice I should have just said if we're I because I know you all put a lot of thought integrity and give backup that was just a quick word to say meaning I don't know if I should keep spinning my wheels if everyone's in support of this you know what I mean when you're the one person that's trying to cut or a couple of people have ideas you just mean you understand that the majority already has decided that they're happy with this budget so I just want to say that for the record that I know that none of you are just rubber stamping it we're all not here we're all here doing our due diligence so thank you for that so for myself I just have a question for Eric it's not really another cut but it just kind of rolls into the I had brought up can you go up to the senior Line Eric please if we're done with the funds my eyes are weary let's see means just for clarification I think senior citizens I think what I'm going to ask you about is so senior citizens so okay thank so which part regular senior citizens if you just go to the senior bunch of lines I'll be able to pick it out y it's right there thank you very much I'm going to look up close so we will not see me for a minute here control scroll control scroll you can zoom in okay thank you so just
you know for everybody's information because you know had brought this up before and these are all small items but this was the line that I was talking about when I was talking about the stien Eric like just this is not asking to to do anything with it but when we had said we're bringing on another person to do some work for the community center I know that there's someone at the Town Hall that gets this stien as the resident services coordinator I don't think we need to make up people's names because I don't like to you know this is salary for people or stuff so when you do this stip in every year because well first off some of these items that the coordinator does you had brought up tell me those two compelling items what that you said that this person takes care of in the town is did you talk about eviction did you talk about I apologize I don't remember the here and I'll I'll scroll down so that person covers everything pretty much under the social services umbrella and then can you stay there for a minute since thank you you know my ey so I'll be right there and since just since clarification right okay soci sh Services mileage food and obviously food and clothing Social Services if they
need Services clearly you know understanding that that's important to have a person or a phone number that they can call when they need that okay thank you and then I found it up under the back up to the senior thank you so this is where it gets a little stupid and it gets a little stupid from a a perspective of our town ordinances which is something we should change and that is we are required by law to have a Municipal agent for The Elder that is one of the POS one of the job titles rolled into that stien however our ordinance when it passed I suspect people in the town were pissed that the state made it a mandate for the towns to have this position so
they specified that that position would not be a salaried position well I'm sorry but if you want to hire somebody to be a municipal agent you know for the elderly you know there's some expectation that you're not necessarily going to hire a volunteer so that person does a whole series of things they act as the municipal agent they deal with the renters rebate and part of the reason why it works in the office in and just to give you a little history can I interrupt just and I'm gonna listen I promise I you know and we don't want to drag I appreciate everything you're going to say and I don't want you to it is informational and I'm not in criticism of it at all we we could
have the shortened version of it just to understand because I understand it's important to have the stien but I also thought my angle was I thought some of the duties were going to go to you know the coordinator since we're going to have that person or the director thank you Eric all right I'll shush continue so no what what that person is doing now does not really overlap with necessarily the job of the person that's going to run the community center and Senior Center that's nor do I think it really should and you made a compelling reason why you know I
definitely listen to you you know I thought that hopefully so when I broke down the salary of this particular stien and I'm not trying to be critical I'm just trying to understand it's a pretty big stien for a person that works with stiens a lot now do the and by theory in HR law like a person that's doing a job and then they get this additional job and I don't mind if you don't do it this way they're supposed to do it on different hours I understand that you can't get a body to come into the town hall a whole another full-time person for our small 3,000 residents is this a busy position does this does this social services manager get a lot of activity and a lot of need in our small it depends I mean the it's seasonal there are times when there's a bunch of work for that office and times when there's virtually nothing for that thank you no that answers it so I'm not against having it I only thought if some of the duties like senior transportation and things were going to be handled I was under the impression that one person did that with getting that stien so if we were giving some of the duties away would it be reasonable and again I don't like to work with livelihood it's just knowledge and we're adding positions and trying to get different positions here and there would it be logical to give some of the duties to the other person and then retain that person give them a stien but this is kind of a high stien as stiens go I don't I don't think you're going to agree with me so be I mean say what you
think you probably wouldn't want to no I mean I think right now if if I have $50,000 to work with for a salary for a senior center community center director I'm probably not going to hire a full-time person anyway so I I think we're going to be cutting back from that to begin with you know again I think we would probably end up going trying to find a retiree that used to do it that wants to do it part-time and go that so no I don't think you can put all the social services stuff on top of that no no okay thank you right and not you know those couple again only from being not trying to this is just my thoughts I was having tonight this was my one night to present my things with things that we're bringing forward definitely not give it away I just didn't know if it was a big need in our town I definitely want to have the social services coordinator maybe at a $3,000 stien then we put some of the other money in the in the salary for the other one because they're taking over senior transportation and you know the senior lunch and all of that kind of thing and so you you would think you'd want to go and that's not for me to decide at all it's I guess for the selectman to decide and yourself I would have thought you could still hire a full-time because full-time at the Town Hall here is a lot less than full-time out there so full-time could you know be whatever you wanted it could
be 34 hours 35 hours I would think you could do that so you're still you don't think $50,000 is enough in our town so here's here's what I think you're asking somebody to walk in and so right now we have one Town Administrator and one midlevel manager the midlevel manager being Jay Tuttle who's the Public Works supervisor right okay there are no other middle management adding a director would have added a second middle middle level manager and you would have had one person that's now in charge of basically all things Recreation all things field all things senior and other than social services and all things Community director related at the point where you drop the salary and you you're you're under the point where you can hire an actual
director you know frankly you're just not going to shift all those responsibilities to them and you're you're hiring a worker B not you know not a director and that's okay if that's what we can afford that's okay we'll make it work I would rather go then for a part-time person that actually has the knowledge and has done it because I don't know how to run a senior center I'm going to be honest with you I don't know how to run a community center that's not a job I can do and that's not a job we've ever done before I know we're doing not having a recreation director has hurt us badly certainly but yeah so that's my take on it I appreciate so what is your thought you think you would give a part-time person the 50,000 and we would have given the full-time person 60,000 that might upset more people in I you know I don't know I I mean I I think it's pretty clear looking at the director salaries that if you're G to go $50,000 you're not going to be expecting to get somebody with experience so you're either going to with somebody new and you're going to hope that eventually they can understand how to write grants manages Center manage people manage programs or you scale back the job expectations but make it part-time and I
would probably in truth if we're scaling it back what I'm going to go for is I'm going to go for somebody I'm gonna find myself a retired Senior Center Director and I'm going to get that up and running well and then we're just going to fluff the rest of the stuff and get by however we can that's I mean that's what I said to you before I would do if if if that's what happened never know until you put go ahead I feel like I'd rather go I I understand I don't think 50,000 for a town like ours is something to sneeze at you never know who is going to be there it's a small town you work in the community it's very small I don't know how big of wreck programs and you know things I know the Selectmen have big ideas and would love to make a lot of money from the wreck in
the fields but I just think it should be managed you know fairly and rented out and organized I don't you know until you try you don't know to go into it thinking you can't you can't you don't know that's just my take on things but I I understand where you're coming from but I feel like the grant writing point and trying to make money right away shouldn't be the focus I feel like the people that waited for the the building to be built so that they could have a community/ senior center would be nice for them to use and just organizing it so that there's programs for a senior and whatever we want to do rather than looking at them to make money for the town too yeah just my thought so thank you for giving us the overview I just thought that with working with stiens it just seemed high for our small town again I'm not opposed to it when you're like like like Bill had said before and made the good point you know with the admin assistant and the project manager yeah we're combining that so if we were going to hire someone that's responsible and if it's not too busy of a Time some of those duties could have went then reduce a little bit of a stien because we're giving these stiens raises every year and again I I analyze these things I'm sure people aren't going to be as opposed to it as I am anybody have a thought on on what Eric has just said with now we might be getting a part-time person I think oh I'm sorry go ahead all right for the 50,000 I mean I'm yeah I'm not saying I'm gonna pay
him 50,000 but I know at 50,000 I'm not competitive for a senior center director that's what I'm saying okay now yeah that's so the question becomes where do we go from there and you know maybe we end up with two part-time people I don't know I mean you know that's a possibility okay well we had voted to have the salary that was a big item for us tonight so I assume that yeah I didn't know what your thought was thank you for clarifying right I I just want to say that the grant writing is very important for that person to do because you need to get the thing running and also to have M to maintain it too so that money will come in handy when other programs are added on so I just don't know what responsibilities you would pull away from that person reducing it down to a part-time person I would make it just focused on Senior Center and I would ignore the recck commission and the community center portion is what I would do what about the grants the grant writing we just probably wouldn't do it I mean I I think you just Eric why do we have to change the whole focus on 10,000 I don't I I get you know it and again that's not I understand that's more of a selectman thing but I I know that you know I I know your thoughts and we've met on
different things before so I know how you feel with salary and you I always tell you you're an employee based manager you're hired as the manager but you're always presenting the EMP side so you're going to do your job based on how you you know we made our decision tonight I thank you for letting us know I I still had envisioned maybe a part a full-time person but it's not my decision to make so does anyone else have that just comes down to whether we actually can get an applicant a qualified applicant at that price level Eric doesn't think so but I guess we'll find out right that's how I just look at things see I don't like to go into things so negative all the time but I I understand there's the realism too so we'll just have to see does this have to go back to the board of Selectmen because we're reducing it from a full-time to a part-time because they approved we didn't do that we just salary line you don't get aay in whether it's a full-time or part-time position as the board of Finance you set the line item perod everything else is mine in the board of selection responsibility to spend that money in the within the budget y okay all right well at this point I've exhausted all the ideas that I was going to bring forth tonight did anybody else
want to talk about any any line items or do they feel good at this point with what we have in front of us I'm good I'm ready to adjourn I'm good thank you Kim thank you all right and I Brian I can't see him on my thing but I'm good thank you okay awesome all right then let me look at the agenda this is I want bring to public hearing next week correct as it stands right now right right because I think we voted that we were gonna have that first right and our regular meeting we always have the hearing and then we we have a meeting after it right y because I think it falls on our regular monthly meeting so we'll have the hearing we have flexibility in our agenda we can we can add or detract or whatever yeah Eric are we able to use
our emergency system to kind of alert the town that we're having a budget hearing no emergency alert system oh not sorry the information alert system yes I'm sorry I'm just using all the wrong words tonight bad okay no no I mean I need to go like to my room but no I'm just kidding no no yeah budget meeting huh the regular alert system we can put out the budget meeting I I don't think it'll do any good but you can put it out I know we don't usually get always try but we should we should always try yeah AB if we could say we're having the the budget hearing you know for the public to attend and give their input or because that's the thing that we have before we do our finalized you know thing that would be it's the last opportunity for feedback before we actually take a budget to the town correct right I will try to make it guys I may not be able to I'm gonna I have to cover for my kids that night so they can probably amuse themselves but I'm a little touching go they're getting older now so I can probably do a meeting thanks for letting us know all right back so right we think he'll be here next week so I mean it's not like we won't have a quorum or anything if I right no letting us know all right if there's no further action do I have a motion to adjourn I move
toj okay Rob makes the motion Phil second I'll second it thank you everyone have a great night I just sent you all the budget with that you made today thanks yep great the final the budget document with the changes you said Joan that will be what goes to public hearing which is scheduled next Wednesday I believe right for public hearing for opinions because Mark still had yep that sounds good thank you for we only made one correction I think right Eric yeah we just ultimately made that one change right one change okay all right did we actually vote on the motion to a Jour I sorry oh yeah thank you procedure everybody yep I all agree thanks Eric just got the email take care bye