okay everybody thank you for joining this is the town of Andover Board of Finance special budget meeting on Wednesday March 19th 2025 so we will go ahead and call the meeting to order and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to flag United States of America repic to the repic stand one godible jce okay thank you next order of business is public speak I think doesn't look like we have any external members of the public we have Chris and that's she just here for support I assume but you're welcome to contribute if you care to okay well we'll go ahead and begin in our budget Workshop so the as I had said again I apologize for the problems last week don't know what happened we did the same thing today and it did not happen same computer everything so I'm not sure what's going on but Eric and I did a couple Drive ups and we logged in so we're all we're all here now so lesson learned try it beforehand and make sure we're good but we'll go ahead and get started as I had mentioned kind of in
some of my emails Following last week's non meeting I think what we need to do today is really get down into the nitty-gritty with the budget go through line by line Department by Department see where we have concerns anybody has concerns on any particular line items should raise them and then we'll try to move through and and make any adjustments we see fit so I'm going to go ahead and share we did have an updated budget file today probably most of you hadn't had a chance downloaded review it's just like four hours ago or so oh yeah thank you yeah I did see that before we get started could we ask Eric Mark like what areas were updated I wonder we should probably and Chris is here too maybe we can choose a new color like magenta or something if something get I'm in it quite often and I don't know how we'd tell what part got updated just a thought that's actually a very good idea Joanne a lot of time in it it's I'm like oh I wonder what they did I don't know if they you know so maybe we could pick
a color tonight that thanks yeah I think it would be helpful yep not a problem so at the the last meeting let's start on the the income side so if you go up Scroll up to around line 16 and while Eric's scrolling Mark can I ask one more procedural question yep good thank you you know so many thoughts came up and I know we didn't have Eric last time and different things and with the new Charter revision and the time crunch I know I'm feeling like the crunch now because of all of this but we'll we'll get there so quick question is I know this is a special meeting we're not allowed to add anything to this thing this agenda sorry but we under budget discussion is pretty wide open right yeah I would say so as long of the budget you know we're developing sounds good all right I'll I'll shush now and listen thank you Mark I think you're actually sharing the wrong one the latest one in that file y you're right should be 3.1 19.25 yeah I had them both open as Joan mentioned we were I think I was and actually put that exact file name in my email I had it both open to just do a quick compare give me just a sec here trying and get rid of this tab there we go kay all right and again if you can go to 16 under Municipal
stabilization the reason why put that in yellow is that like all governmental revenues the state does not have a budget yet so all of these are best guesses it sounds like they're probably be enough push back from the little towns that they will probably hold the towns harmless on ECF funding and restore the $89,000 but we have no idea when they're even the governor is still resisting doing that so we have no idea when and if the legislature and the governor will come to an agreement on that the municipal stabilization fund that's kind of a weird one because it's money given to the town supposedly money back from taxation but if the town goes over 2.5% increase in the total budget increase or alternatively or it's higher than the rate of inflation which the state is saying is three .1% inflation right now we're just under that number so we get the full we'll be estimated to get the full amount but we only have about 0.1 of percent of budget increase before that number gets cut in half and we lose 21,000 in Revenue so I just wanted to bring that to your attention right now we're okay but if there are increases we need to be worrying about that because we potentially will lose you know roughly 21,000 in Revenue sorry over all budget okay hang on I'm just gonna window Liz while he stepped oh okay yeah I was GNA say so our overall budget cannot be more than what percent can't be greater than what percent it's basically 3.1% increase yeah yeah it's not the mill increase it's the total budget
expenditure okay or total by taxation basically you can look at it that way Eric I was gonna have we had this line in here before I I mean is it sorry I'm looking at it my eyes yes I'm assuming we did because you we go through this every year and then it gets funded so this yeah this would kind of be an this is a safeguard for that right that's what you're saying this amount of money no it's it's really that Municipal stabilization fund is is given to the towns automatically that's something that's been negotiated for many years as part of the budget process it's just in the last couple of years they've put this you know along with it saying that oh if your budget goes up more than a certain amount of money we're going to give you less money which means your budget will
go up even more so it's one of those kind of really stupid things but I just wanted you to be aware of that but it sounds like they're protecting towns too to try to keep spending reasonable if they give them a 3% window all right thank you yep okay so if we could let's go ahead and I'd like to start from the top and just I I most of this is going to be what it's going to be now we have the proposed current year taxes derived from the mill rate calculation sheet Eric did we do we we have not revised the grand list for the most recent Board of selectman decision to change the pr rate Factor on the motor vehicle calculation is that correct no we haven't so if you looked at the the mill rate calculation sheet the estimated mill rate still is based off an 85% initial
assessment for Motor Vehicles not a 90% we've asked the company that helps us produce the grand list to give us the updated values for 90% as soon as we have it we'll plug it in looking at what other towns have done that seems like it's going to take about 1% away from the mill rate increase roughly because it's going to increase the taxable Grand list you know right now the the taxable Grand list is going down 2% once that change is in place it should be going down no more than 1% so that will have about a 1% positive increase on the percent mill rate increase if that makes sense yeah y okay does every Everybody understand that that they they had changed the way that you could evaluate the value of Motor Vehicles which you know reduced the grand list for most towns and then they gave some relief that you could use an
alternate calculation of the I guess depreciation of the value of the vehicle for all intents and purposes so that'll help bring the grand list back into align with what it's been previously and the board of Selectmen voted to make that change but it requires a lot of recalculation of the grand list so we don't have that data in here yet okay any questions on that so we're saying yeah we'll go it will yeah it's going to be they're able to tax the automobiles or the motor vehicles and things of that nature at the higher rate right and then high right whereas we would had to it up on the resal side or you know for that kind of thing I'm thinking yeah the overall mill rate would go up so doesn't really change the tax picture it just changes where it's allocated the mill rate is is and last question on that because Eric was telling us the spots that got updated so this page has been updated up to what the changes you made today Eric so far or correct except I will say that the change in the health care did not for some reason the formula got wiped out again so it's not propagating Chris changed it in the main tab which shows the health care but it's not propagating up to the actual line item so okay we're gonna have to correct that tomorrow it does all total it's it's just well if you think about it it's 1% of the healthcare care budget so it's about
$1900 difference that's what it'll come to yeah I was trying to do some backwards math and I kept checking to see if it had been recalculated but it will go from increasing you know whatever you paid this year the final bill from you know the 8% thing that you put everywhere back to the 7% that got voted in right I I knew that between so a lot of adjustments that had to be made we wouldn't have the most update thing but yeah but I get it and we still have a few more meetings to go so okay you only
a couple I know I know but it's hard to like we lost last week understandably people were volunteers that spend a lot of time on this so when we didn't have a lot of the stuff right you know there was a mistake and then Eric's away he deserves vacation and then if we don't have that it's hard to really think in my head so we do the best we can so you might need all those meetings and there and there are some movie targets right so things sure right so speaking of moving targets if you look at the sheet you're looking at now if you look down at the ram entry for 2526 you'll notice that is increased slightly over what you were presented the last time so I did get an updated and let's be honest the board of the Ram Board of Ed has not finalized their budget so I doubt this will be the the last change that we get in their budget their budget did increase for us by around $2,000 so that's updated in this document and I think they said out loud Eric that they still have to factor in tuition the final cost won't be determined until they allow bill I think had asked about the Colombia students that you know are going to be joining too that might take off a little so like you yeah yeah they right and that that's not something I have I just update it when they give me the information
back on the main budget tab I did per year request put that if you scroll down a little bit scroll down under Ram expenses I just put you know this is the date this is the levy this is how much we're getting for credit this is how much in the budget this is how much in the CIP budget so you know what's going into that number that 4 million 135 number thank you yeah that's helpful y yep and then subsequent to that the only other thing I really have in terms of changes that I would like to discuss with the board of Finance because at this point you know the r R number that I can make because that's determined by them not by me everything else at this point you know you guys have to agree to it before it goes in the budget so if you scroll down to the town keep going down and then
we can go back line by line scroll down a little bit more hold on stop yep down just a little bit more okay where it says computer tech support so we use the town of South Windsor for our it support we've had a three-year contract we're coming up July 1 is the end of our three-year contract and we've been negotiating a new contract as we've done it one of the problems we ran into is South Winder has not been charging us the overhead for FICA and a few other things on their personnel time and they when they went through their audit process their auditor pointed out that apparently that they're not charging the towns for their employees time so they have requested an increase to around $177,000 for that line item now I think
that's probably somewhat negotiable and frankly I just got this today so I told their Chief Information officer I would discuss it with the board of Finance you know and get back to him because he's not our employee right I mean is it a contract we just have a contract with him for a service yes that's absolutely it seems like it's a again just again just knowing employee things and whatever we talk about just seems odd the reason why you know so covering their cost is what they're doing Joan oh I get it very much but they should have had that figured out how many years have we had them that they're just bringing this up now Eric three so they've been eating that for the last three years and never really realized it and it's not just with our town because they cover four other towns too yeah oh no I get it though I get why it just yeah yeah so that's a portion of it we're also I've had some issues with some of the ways the relationship has been been between us and them and I've made a I've asked them to make some significant changes in how they provide us service and that goes into a portion of this cost also hey Eric yep it's a tiny small thing maybe I just don't understand it but I'm looking at the next line down it says there's a $500 change but I look at 4,250 versus $4,000 it sounds like a $250 change am I just not missing something yeah because you're only missing if Mark if you scrolled down over you see the number this is the estimated cost versus the original budget sorry thank
you that's helpful actually seeing all of that yeah yeah that's just in because those are the lines were technically required to be showing for the the charter yeah that's why it reads this way I recognize it gets a little confusing and and I I hate to be a a pick Can the columns a b and c it doesn't look like they're used can they be deleted or shrunk so that we see more of the notes on the right side or is that just something we can't do let me I I think we can probably hide them yeah lose some we're going to lose some Header information but it probably isn't really a value to us so and last week or the week before in one of the meetings we kind of made the font a little bigger is there any way to make this bigger for us now I'm just that's why I'm on my camera off so I can get but then we lose the data to the right Joanne yeah okay no worries I'll just me I like it bigger too my eyes are we all like we're all in the same boat here well most of us how was that is that a reasonable compromise yes it is that looks good it looks a lot better thank you and then I so the upot is that they they made a proposal to increase their annual cost to about 17K corre and that's going to negotiation between you and them and and the board of Select M have to approve that contract yeah eventually when we get to the actual contract the board Selectmen would approve it but it's we
need to budget for it now if we're going to consider that okay can I just ask is that the only tech support in the budget or is there are there other no I'm not remembering if there are other there's probably other computer lines in the budget there are computer lines but this is the only actual like Tech Support Tech Support and this covers Town Hall Community Center and public works whenever they need tech support so those are the the three entities this covers mostly this covers all the stuff required with maintaining a server doing the correct backups interfacing getting the firewalls set set up and functioning all that stuff and then daytoday you know updating computers dealing with problems that we have in the office okay do they come out to the office or or is it all through the phone through no so they are on site one full day every month and one half day every month so it's not a ton of hours and then they're on on for emergency support the other really good thing about and kind of South Windsor was chosen in the first place is there a big enough town you have not only the tech that comes out and does day-to-day stuff but you have somebody that's a server specialist that can deal with much more extensive networking questions you know and you have somebody that's a a Cisco or a an information security guy so you have kind of the whole chain of command of a big company to tap when you have something other than hey my monitor won't come on questions so gotcha thank you okay any other questions on this
line item not that line item something in the town office building though okay well how about if we go back up if we could then and just okay think we gotta we got a grind through Section by section right oh perfect yep yep okay so Eric was just responding to the request reest identify the major changes so yeah I have one procedure question for Eric too Eric did we ever have a meeting this year where at the end of the year we went over transfers like Cheryl comes you know I know that the transfer language in the Charter had changed you know within Department you don't need to bring them
for approval but did we ever have one of those meetings where you had to transfer like money around so that we were aware because that helps us when it comes to this yeah we did have that it just it was a lot less than in previous years because per the auditor now we don't have to square up between departments dep we only have to deal with interde Department transfers when a whole department is over so if I look back I could see where there might have been a big transfer or something or maybe we just didn't have any this year yeah I think that would have been June or August there was not a whole lot yeah I mean I have a good I just don't recall that having Cheryl presentant and going but sorry I know I'm off track but it's budget related thank you okay so if we could let's just take a look at the revenue so we already talked I mean the current year taxes is calculated from the mill rate mill rate tab so we'll take a look at that at the end there's a prior tax budget proposed budget so you're you're estimating $200,000 in Prior tax collection that's based on kind of the
last 12 months of of reporting where we've gotten so that we've done a little better than expected or last 12 months leans about six grand interest taxes that's based on the stiff account again based on the Run rate for the last 12 months as you can see in the comments column Telecom personal property tax you've got 5K that says need to revisit Eric any update on that yeah we honestly neither Cheryl nor I can really figure out we know we get the money but we don't really understand how it's calculated or why we get what we get and that's something that's you know she and I have have both expressed our frustration with trying to figure out where that number comes from I mean it's a real number but okay as long as we're fairly confident in it so does anybody have any further questions on that Revenue section oh what's up okay I do sorry Mark real quick I know that this year we added 40,000 sorry we're going line by line wait let me just make sure I'm in the right spot I don't want to [Music] overstep I'll wait it's not in this section sorry okay all right all right well we'll go ahead I guess go on to the next section which is kind of the miscellaneous
Revenue so we've got Municipal grants in Aid M as Tucket peat funds state miscellaneous Municipal stabilization this is the line that Eric talked about that if our budget increases too much we would potentially lose some of that Grant neglected Cemetery grants been zeroed out we'll apply for it but it's not a big chunk of money here we'll see whether we get it disabled program flat pilot just for those of you that aren't familiar with this acronym that's payment in lie of taxes so basically if the state owns property in your town that property is not available for property tax assessment and so the state will make the payment and L of taxes to replace that so state buildings airports you know rways things like that that usually comes in payment L of taxes so that's slightly up early voting so I this is a stipend Eric to offset the cost of early voting yeah so previously we did get stiens for that so but it and there is a proposal right now to fund early voting for towns because that was another unfunded State mandate when they decided you had to have the polling place open for so long unknown whether that's going to get through the budget so until it is I
don't want to count on revenue from that until we know we're likely to actually get something okay fair enough not a ton of money but it would be great to cover that senior Transportation Grant so you're also taking that down to zero opportunity to pick that up again yeah we're we're working on it but you know that's one of those things where it's really hit or miss and it's never funded there's so many people it's such a small pool of money that the federal government gives the state that you know we've gotten a fair bit of money from it in the past but like right now we're getting nothing for it so I think it's safer to leave it at zero yeah and if we get the Grant and we start getting refunded for it great we use that offset the cost of senior Transportation okay how do we get that Grant Eric is that something we have to apply for yep yes we do so have we gone through the application process or or is it we are we are right now we are applying for two things we're applying for the actually two senior Transportation grants one of them to fund op operations and one of them to purchase a replacement for our van then that will be an 8020 Grant so if we get that the state will will reimburse us
80% of the cost of raise replacing our existing van right that would be a different line item though right yeah I mean honestly the neither of those grants I think realistically have more than a 50 % chance of getting it so I don't like to budget for things that are you know kind of moonshots and even if we did get it it would probably be the budget after this where we'd have to appropriate our 20% the last time we applied for and we got the 17 passenger van I think we applied in 2019 we applied in 20 2020 we got accepted in 2021 they delivered it in 2024 so these are kind of nebulous things wow yeah hurry up and wait okay okay and then the last line in this section is ECS this is educational cost sharing funds so these are funds reallocated by the state to try to level the available school funding and we're down about $889,000 on that and as the note here says this is from the Governor's proposed budget sheet and this is going to be what it is we can't really control it and there's some talk about restoring
some of this I think isn't it Eric I don't really know yeah so you may have heard the governor pronouncing that he's added a whole lot more money to ECS funding and they're accelerating the schedule for ECS funding but the the schedule all along has included less funding for the wealthier rural towns so you know every year they they basically cut the budget the governor cuts that line for the small towns funds the bigger schools more and then cost and the other small town organizations go after them and they negotiate it and hopefully we get back to zero but that's been zero that's been roughly two million now since 200 11 something like that so we haven't gotten an increase in that in many years that's all I was gonna ask thank you Mark sorry that's all I was goingon to ask we generally it comes back in so that's that's a lot right I mean I I feel like historically we it's been re
it's come back in and we've gotten what we anticipated right Eric yeah yeah maybe I mean the the problem is right now the governor's budget still has a you know $230 million hole in it so no we we I I understand that and I know it's a long night and a long meeting I get that I mean but just for the sake of it historically we have gotten it back so it's it's hard to deduct 90 from it you know but just a thank you yeah right now we kind of have to unless we know have a good sense of it yeah sure yeah any other questions on these items I don't think mine came up yet NOP no not yet all right so we'll go into the last Revenue section so we have miscellaneous Revenue 1,500 bucks rentals this is we used to rent the soccer fields Etc so that's not happening in the way it was so that's reduced quite a bit clerk fees these are primarily for building permits I believe Eric right so that's kind of the the clerk fees are anytime you buy and sell property there's a real estate transaction fee in the town yeah so it's not the building but the transactional fees okay correct and you had said before that they weren't coming in quite as high as we had expected in the past yeah I mean we
it's it's all about trying to kind of forecast what the housing market is going to do locally and there don't seem to be a lot of houses selling right now so I don't think we're gonna see you know an in appreciable uptick in those fees yeah and you've got a 12mon run rate there so that's matches what we're budgeting okay transfer station that's fairly predictable we got that basically flat waste Redemption more we've got we've got up a little bit based on kind of a under the new contracts for cassella base State Tex okay so recycling you've got we've got some pickup there and then building and land use fees so last 12 months again run rate data about 75k so you're budgeting there okay yeah I'm assuming roughly the same transaction we are trying to hold contractors a little bit more accountable for what they actually report for costs for doing construction so that may go up a little bit but it's it's hard to predict okay and then I'll also include this
interest line which is I think based on the stiff account so we've done pretty well over the last 12 months but as you note in the comments the fed is likely reduce interest rates which will have a direct impact on this they didn't today they held them steady but that's because of some of the uncertainty but you know I think it's a fair bet we'll see some reduction especially it looks like we're slipping into any kind of recessionary area so any questions from the board on those line items com okay so we have the ram education Eric already addressed this this is not locked in yet and even is it's got to be approved by voters but of course that will likely happen I and then we have the AES Board of Ed budget which is again it is what was approved by the Board of Ed so we get into our areas of expense so we've got I think we've talked about at least some of these the Town Administrator and the administrative assistant amounts here you can see with slight increases talked about the project manager so this is you've actually got a a contract for that Eric so I
don't but the board of Selectmen has come to terms with what they're willing to pay for it and it's acceptable to the individual we're we're talking to so and frankly until we're actually starting construction and I need a construct C administrator i' still got three or four more months before I need to be worrying about having that contract in place all right Joan yeah I understand thank you for that I I understand that you want to wait and that's great till it's timely and comes into play will it be you know is there a length of time assigned to it or will that all be determined when the job starts and when you need this project manager for yeah that's stly job based and depending on exactly where we come out and how much we sub out and how much we do in house I may be able to pay some of that even though I'm paying it out of this line item right here that may count a a significant portion of that will probably count towards the town match for the grant so that will Preserve res ve funding that we would have spent out of the multi-use building fund I think that was my my thought because if you have this much in your line item and you have multiple projects so you'll do like a contract by contract with the person I we and we don't need to know that now but the line item could be used for multiple projects is what you're thinking okay yes so it'll stay in there and use it as needed got it okay correct thank you okay so last year Employee Appreciation mobile phone straightforward and mileage there's the
question mark still considering the Employee Appreciation line item Eric I it's not a lot of two things one I've gotten a little bit of a talking to for the auditor on a couple of occasions for for self-funding things when I really shouldn't be we have no funding to do anything for employees either so when we do employee picnics that comes out of my pocket anything we do of that nature I just fund and I know I'm not supposed to technically be doing it but but I'm not asking for a lot of money for that but I think that's something the town should consider but it is a budget increase so you can consider it or not I I've seen if you don't mind speaking I I understand in the budgets and like I work in a school system there's usually under the administrator does have an administrative fund where they might you know obviously you can't appreciate everyone all the time but they might have like a yearend
picnic or something you know like that are you thinking of an ongoing thing I'm not picking at what you do I think it's great to appreciate employees everybody likes that but I have seen a line item like that is that what you do do like one major party where you can appreciate everyone that kind of thing so I mean I don't need a long sorry Sor I didn't yeah thank you yeah no I mean I think it's good to do employee Barbecues in the summer well one is good you know I mean it I'm sure they'd appreciate it yeah yeah yep no yep thank you that's all I have seen it before it's not uncommon is what I was sharing with the board I know I sometimes share other things but yeah okay other questions or comments on this ection okay I guess we'll move down then Treasurer Financial we have a Treasurer salary saying flat Treasurer clerk wages slight increase the assistant Treasurer stien we have an
additional amount there I think had some conversations about that maybe conference seminar so low contract software maintenance that's as you can see the note here that's to cover the QuickBooks which used to be in the town office suppli so I'd agree with that moving that and office supplies that's up quite a bit Eric too so we want to talk about that and then mileage is mileage so Joanne you had your hand up yeah I was just gonna say that I'm hoping that a some point tonight we can go through the budget that I'd like to go into executive session to discuss a few personal money related things so I don't think it's appropriate to talk about it in person you know in a meeting like this I know Eric redirected me I'll keep it brief there's been a lot of things done and you know not just here on a few things so it's an appropriate time to just ask if we can have an executive session somewhere to discuss a few things that have come up you know a brief thing to notify the board of some findings or information not findings just information and see how want to go forward if we're okay with that let's kind of hold that off then specific so that's why I won't make any remark on some of these I'll hold it off okay yeah other questions on this
this ection okay I guess we'll go down to the town clerk area so we have a town clerk salary supplemental is is gone because as we know the the suppl just as I guess for a little bit of background for those of you who are newer to the board the town clerk had asked for an increase we were a little concerned about just increasing the town clerk salary out of hand but we decided the town clerk was worth some extra money due to her experience so we put that into a supplemental line item and the reason we did that was to avoid setting too much of a precedent should the town clerk leave or retire which is now happened we were to hire somebody who was more of an entry level we would not expect to pay them at the same level so that was why that supplemental line was there and it's now zeroed out the assistant town clerk salary basically flat not much change there conference training equipment maintenance these are all kind of small line items office supplies land records films mapping memberships statistics so a lot of this stuff is basically flat you see a lot of zeros for the change so pretty straightforward the line on the town clerk salaries we need to figure this one out I guess we need to we need to find a town clerk would be the what's going to happen there I don't know Eric if you have anything any comments on that chair I mean ultimately the board of Selectmen has to make a decision whether they want to appoint an official Town Clerk or not if they don't then in November there will be
elections for that position so it's up to them whether they what how they want to do it and that's not my take on it that's the town's attorneys take of it yeah y okay Joanne yeah this because I feel like this is a generic question it's not I was kind of wondering the same thing because I know they've mentioned in their Board of Selectmen meetings that we all know the person in the position has retired and so now we have this line still here with a lot of attachments to it so yeah my followup was going to be if they had made a decision maybe I better wrap it around in the other discussion I'll just I'll save it because it's going to affect the amount in this line because I know that they were going to have someone be a consultant in that position and help along any employees in the office so I'm thinking this line you know but kind sorry I'm thinking out loud in processing I I guess we need to decide what it needs to be at for the coming year and it's until the BOS decides what they're going to do I guess we won't know I thank you sorry processed it out loud but it is attached to a lot of things like healthare and you know big money items so yeah sure we kind of have to have to figure out when a person a new person would come online right and how much of the the year is left to compensate that person but then have a different line
for the consultant at that salary rate is that kind of what you're I I think you'd have to I don't think I'd want to add add another account for for another line item for a consultant I think you just probably pay it out of that salary I think kosher you know be okay yeah good followup is that what's happening Eric because I I mean for that I mean not talking about someone's personal that's been out loud and said so as far as retiring I would imagine the consultant or job being performed is getting paid out of that line or we're in this year's budget for next year you just don't know from July on I guess I don't honestly even know what we're doing now I mean you know because that's that's not something I have any direct input into and I don't think to my knowledge the board hasn't made any specific decisions on that so okay yeah thanks yep I mean so basically what we've got is the current salary rate kind of an estimated but at a 3% increase so seems reasonable but you know again they may be able to if they hire somebody they may be able to negotiate a lower salary and Mark that was my idea you know seemingly that might be somewhere that could be trimmed a little based on what seems to be going to happen we can kind of project that maybe not a lot but if we're looking to save the taxpayers if you know and then whatever they decide will know moving forward yeah I think it's risky to trim it without knowing what's going to happen you know I mean it'd be great to it'd be a
windfall if we budget it at you know 59k and we come in at 54 you know but that'll but you know I think it's a I'd rather budget a few K High personally no I hear you and I'm looking at the history of last year we had that 300,000 Surplus so hopefully that could we have a few areas like that like the ECS funding could be a potential extra 89,000 in the budget and I so I know we're at the beginning I hear you though well yeah go ahead Eric so the one thing I would say is that that line item is for the town clerk's salary not the assistant town clerk's salary because that's a union position right but the town clerk salary that is solely at the jurisdiction of the board of Finance the board of Selectmen does not get to vote we in on that they get to appoint a town clerk you as the board of Finance get to determine their salary that's right of course that's right yeah yeah so the salary will be what it is on an annual I Wason say it depend on the it'll depend on the experience of the person I would think well no I don't think so actually that's that's the point Eric's making the board of Finance sets the town clerk's salary right so we have the right yeah you know if we set this at $4,000 then that's the salary we said that true that's the salary that's that's not happened but that will be
discussed so I thought and we had a lot of discussion thought discussion and a lot of background and everything because of the person that had been in it and we came up with this thing with the extra supplemental because this person that we have that just retired was so experienced and had been there so long and then we took a lot of input and raised the regular salary too just a couple years ago so% yeah it was a much yeah right but if they I think yeah we went 6% at that time or something I mean she had good arguments but I'm saying if we set this at a certain thing you're saying that's it they have to I I mean I've seen other things happen when someone is appointed as Town Clerk or is elected as town clerk that will be their salary if the board of selectman hires a consultant to the town to help Provide support for people doing the function then I think that would not apply the consultant would be whatever rate the board of Selectmen negotiates so that would be that's a separate thing but the town clerk is a is an elected position and per the charter the board of Finance sets sets that salary so what we're doing now is we're going to set the salary for anyone who is either appointed or elected a town clerk for next year then I don't feel comfortable thinking we don't know that we're going to get someone that's up to the caliber of the person we had we and I'm not trying to take anything away we have no idea if they're going to
hire fulltime you know unless there's Charter and stipulation so I think that's an area we should maybe talk about because talk about it now because we got to make a decision you know I guess this would be kind of what I was trying to say earlier if we have if somebody wants to make a motion to change any of these numbers while we're in this section it's probably the time right but I I feel having put a lot of time and effort missed a meeting last week and everything if I want to make some changes based on some data I get next week I may come back to you all and say it but oh yeah we can always do that that's of course that's 100% yeah I mean everything's in flux but what I but what I think we should do is if anybody has anything they definitely want to address now is the time to make the change and to to highlight that doesn't mean we can't change it next week or the week after or the week after thank you does any I I don't want to be the only one talking to this does does everyone feel they want to keep it at the high level of the prior person or should we well remember we took out the $6,000 supplement so it's not quite at the level that Carol was making Carol would have made that 5 were 57750 plus 6,000 so she would have made roughly 63,000 so we right we raised her to that level based on all of her knowledge all
the the little things that Eric had sent us I'm not trying to be a cheap skate or anything I understand it's like a 34-hour week I think if if Eric wants to back up the position I as to I'm just saying should we think about like maybe 50,000 I'm not looking to go way down because we just don't know who we're going to get I hope you know unless everyone's totally against it and they're like Joanne just leave it then I'll I'll back off I don't I don't yeah it's impossible to know who we're GNA get it's like we basically are G to be paying them for doing the job yeah and I don't mind I I said my piece if everyone is fine with it then I'll leave it I mean my thought is you know is that a competitive number too right or I mean in terms of compe you know what I mean surrounding towns and whatnot so is that the prevailing kind of number so we looked at this many times in the past too and based on the size of the town and everything you know that's how we basically came up with this number right obviously we had a number because of Carol's you know I shouldn't say that because of the person's tenure we we ra it and we added that that I guess in my mind Joe Joanne I think the number is a a nice stable number because we'd rather I think we'd rather hire someone that's competent and maybe already trained and you know at being a clerk rather than try and hire someone
that has no training and have to bring them up to speed over the years just to save some money I would rather hire someone that knows what they're doing so and at a at a rate that is you know for the size we are and I think the rate that we have there is pretty close to what for a small town with all the data that we were handed over the last couple years it's it's right in there minus the $6,000 you know what I'm saying so I'd hate to be short of being able to hire a good candidate because we put a budget in there today not knowing who's going to apply for this job or yeah if we have to stay with that and we could never move that line and then any line the bof said they they need to stay with it not different I I hear you bill because we want a good person that's a valuable a very important position I just thought if we were in flux could we lower it this year and then come back to it if we got a good candidate but if we're married to that n number and we could never change it I totally understand can I just say I say go ahead can I just say this is an elected position this is not someone that we get to select this person's going to have to run for the office right good in November yes but they might be appointed for now someone might be appointed right so I guess there's a increase in there also a 3% increase what if we just eliminated the $732 increase and went back to last year's salary La last year's
number yeah 57 yeah that's a great good compromise I think I would make a motion to go back to last your salary so give me a number Bill well the number is 5482 minus 17 3250 it's right there right I don't have my calculator in front of me look at it 57750 57750 thank you there it is so I would make the motion that we keep the budget at 57750 for the clown town clerk's position I'll second it okay further discussion hearing none I call for a vote all those in favor say I I I I any opposed any abstentions okay the motion passes we
will put that in there as it stands and again no no there's nothing saying we cannot change this in the next few weeks if for some reason we get a good information that we shut so good point sounds good it's the 19th right yes yes correct oh it's been a week okay okay anything else on this section that anybody wants to address okay very good thank you let's move on to tax collector so we have some increase in the tax collector salary so we have a note here Union memo memorandum of agreement Mo MOA builds and increases upon testing completion so we're anticipating or else that has happened so that's the proposed budget Eric is that anticipated or is that person at that so they are not at that currently that's depending on completion of of their testing requirements so what we did is essentially I hired somebody that had not had any tax collector training whatsoever and I condition her compensation on full completion of State mandated training yeah okay does anybody have any further questions for Eric on this just to point out the other line items are mostly kind of plus minus so mostly flat just a quick followup Mark to Eric totally under you know want to give her Kudos I
know that she's brought in a lot of the all of them really but I mean she's brought in a lot of the funds and has collected a lot of the back taxes so without having that experience she's doing a great job just wondering Eric at some point can you please put the mo MOA in the budget stuff just so that we can see it and see the rates for the different things unless it's in there already I apologize I thought it was but I can certainly check on that yeah no rush like tonight just in the past just so that we see how that thank you that's all any other questions okay I guess hearing none let's move on to the assessor section so we have a again the 3.8% increase on the assess and the assistance assessor salaries so some minor changes we have a contract the software cost increase in this qds and Vision software I don't know if any of you have ever looked at that online but it helps manage the the assessments and you can look up your own property or any property that is in there frankly to understand the assessment cards and see what the breakout is mileage flat reduction subscriptions so any questions on this one or suggested changes or just quick one going by so we pay that software amount every year clearly I mean you have itre it's that expensive every year okay thank you okay if nobody else has any other questions or input we'll move on to
regist so these are the regist of Voters they receive a I guess a salary it's gone up quite a bit in the last couple of years primarily because of the early voting I believe they're having to work a lot more to to manage that most of the other stuff is flat within a couple hundred bucks training conferences Etc anybody have any questions on that for Eric sorry I know but my questions are quick and I'll put it up in the memory bank so theed registrars are present all the time or there's hours I could look up online Eric I just yeah I mean they're not in there you know the whole time the town hall office is open they work their own hours you know and I and I submitted to you there in that list of stuff is there because again registrars do not work for me in any way shape or form they are elected officials so I just simply pass their budget on to you so but their supporting documentation was in with all the other stuff so I didn't look at that one too close but I will so we can move on for now and if unless anybody else has questions anybody else any questions or comments okay moving down to elections so the election salaries again we've got it basically sitting
flat says C explanation from wall and Linda that so now that's kind of the breakout I'm surprised there isn't a little bit of higher cost but I I guess we had to do some of the early voting last year so it's it's probably why it's in there must have anticipated it some degree so the election salaries are a separate line item from the regist or yes and so so I can kind of explain that a little bit if you walked into the building on Election Day you would see at any given time probably seven or eight people working and everybody's got their own pay scale based on what they do but the state mandates how many and and what of each employee have to be present both during early elections as well as during you know the regular election so those are just you know that pays for the moderator that pays for the the little polling the guy who sits there and watches you put your ballot in the little box that's what all that salary comes out of thank you yep any other questions or comments orry okay so we can look at the numbers we already had a presentation by Jay over the most of the I guess variable costs we have a reduction in the zoning Agent salary noting that the offer letter is change for changing Z Zeo per offer letter $31 an hour at 19 hours weekly Town planner we we jumped up the cost of the planner is around 48k a year have been offsetting with PCD implementation fund yeah so in the past we had had a Permanent Fund called The pccd
implementation fund because what had happened going back in previous budget years and it occurred to me when I was the chair of PCC when it came time to do the plan of conservation and development we went to the board and said okay now we need 60 Grand or 70 grand to do the plan and the board's like well you know we don't want to pay for that so we got the board to put the money in every year over that 10 years so it wasn't a big shock at the end so instead of using just hiring a consultant to do the p CD the board of Selectmen made a decision to just hire an actual part-time Town planer and we hired a firm called Tai ch and we use a guy named John gusowski as our chief planner and then you know his he is then responsible for as part of his role as a town planner for doing the plan of conservation and development and the affordable housing plan and all the other state mandated plan that towns have to produce yeah I remember that yeah okay questions for Eric on this yeah do we have to accept that that jump can we I mean that's a 33% increase I don't know how people feel about that pretty high increase well I yeah I'll follow up both of you when you talk to I had a thought yeah I agree it's not actually an increase we're not paying him more than we were paying him we're just paying him all out of this line item as opposed to supplementing from the pocd implementation fund to pay it if that makes sense so we were paying him this amount basically before but cor
part coming from another coming from the fund correct we were only because we had money in the pccd implementation fund we paid his salary out of both locations so it wasn't as big hit to the the public but since we've kind of run through that money now it all comes out of the Town planner line that was my question okay so that's basically exhausted at this point got correct thank you and my question oh go ahead I was gonna say so so what was his combination salary so it says 23 24 it was 44,000 what were we paying them out of the other budget or I mean what was the what was the combo payment before now we're Say it'll be 48,000 yeah he's basically running his cost for us the last three years his standard Town contract is essentially 4,000 a month so that's what we're paying 4 month oh sorry ep does he still work I from what I remember he works in a variety of towns right he right am I wrong with that he's not just an Andover person he I mean I know he's very knowledgeable I've seen him in meetings and all those kind of things when you need him in land use things or planning things and very well spoken does a good job but I'm kind of of the same thing too has he done like
I'm sure you like having him there and it's it's good for the town but has he done the majority of his planning already because the affordable housing plan the different things or is this an ongoing process I guess kind of what was saying is this something we definitely need this year this big of an amount I mean you either have a town planner or you don't I I I think he's not going to you're not going to go back to him and say oh we only want to hire you for $20,000 a year I think you either agree to have a town planner or you don't the town in the past ran without a town planner how many years has he been has it been about three or four years now yeah he's been the town planner now for just over two years oh yeah we I remember having the discussion finance and elsewhere to about how to handle this because it it's a fair amount of Burden right the planning of zoning and development and the or the planet conservation and the housing plan is really an issue too right so right and I guess my follow-up thought is in looking in this department Department in general I know all of the town you know departments are so are you know busy enough or whatever for a small town that we are this is just probably one of the less busy departments right now as the proof in the building permits and just the state of nobody's building nobody's moving you know the economy and the the rates all because of that so it seems like we're putting a lot of money in this department and I know we have to
have one so I don't know where we're going with that but and I'll look into this a little bit more because I've focused on other places but I know we you know we share the building inspector and we have to have a zoning agent we have to have all these things I get it it just seems like a for a slow moving Department right now it's a you know a high expenditure is what I'm trying to say but I'll I'll do more research in circle back to it yeah I mean building may be down but you know things still happen every every week you know small things small people build decks people I just had solar installed so the inspector will be out at my house next week probably no I get that I love building it's just very very slow I would just happened to be at the Town Hall and went in there and had a discussion with them when I was there last week yeah you're right it could
pick up Spring's coming you never know I'm all set other questions or comments okay we're going down to the library so we've got a 2 and a half% increase on the payroll this assumes a 3% increase for Board of Selectmen Library operations basically flat any questions or comments on the library okay I guess we'll go to civil preparedness I was get a kick out of this one we have a $3,000 budget through $3,200 so slight increase in our civil preparedness salary comment here this is offset with a grant from the Dem so is this the Democratic party no Department of Emergency Management Services oh I'm going to capitalize this actually I'm WR out and remind me oh well let me wait I was going to say what what's the C vehicle is there money in that line item what's the CT vehicle I know you told me that one here so we in Malboro help pay the maintenance cost for the vehicle that the C team because we have kind of a combined team with the towns of Hein and Malboro it's Community Emergency Response Team right that's at the search right okay correct and Hein just used a bunch of their arpa funds and bought them a brand new you know vehicle so we didn't pay any for the cost of the vehicle Hein dropped around 60 Grand to outfit the new vehicle because we were using a a castoff ambulance for a long time so this just pays for any damage or repairs or anything we need for the vehicle so and Eric some of this is State mandated positions right or activities or no well so there's kind of
two things there in terms of the Sal line item we are technically as a town required to have an emergency management director and an EMC so technically this pays for the Emergency Management coordinator and that's what that line item does and by by Charter essentially either first selectman or myself ends up being the Emergency Management director so that falls on me so I don't get paid for that portion but this the the person that's the kind of the number two for that does get paid anybody have any further questions for Eric on this comments no okay okay we'll go ahead and move on the next section is the community center so we have a slight decrease in the proposed wages for the director based on the current contract and then extrapolated full-time okay we that shouldn't say extrapolated the fulltime anymore because the board of Selectmen neglected decided not to do that so you can just based on perod yeah wait say that again say that again what did you just changed I'm sorry so all we did was change the
verbage so I had originally proposed to the board of Selectmen a higher salary for that position to change it to a 34-hour week position the board of selectman declined to do that so therefore her salary is basically what's in her contract okay can you can you just Mark scroll up I just wanted to see the note again it changed B on so yeah so what had said before was based on extrapolation to fulltime that's when Eric had a larger number so that should have been changed when it was uced to this to this contract number so the r like this would be the way to think about it and then we've got an increase in the Community Center assistant wages the note here is currently $20 an hour assuming 10 hours per week so that's just a multiplier there thought that's what she was at before it is oh okay came on board I think yeah yeah okay everything else is there's some reduction some increase what is the software cover my senior center software yeah that's that's still yeah review by the board and that is also something we're trying to pick pick up the cost of that through one of the transportation grants no doesn't seem like we're going to be able to do it but but we're trying to pay for that elsewhere if we can okay Joan you I was
thinking should we because should we highlight that cell as a thing because I know the board of Selectmen have not approved that at all yet and there's thought of it you know just wait a while letting letting things run I know this yes it was a definite no it hadn't been approved at all yet right correct and I understand like why yeah so I I'm hoping at the end of this meeting we pick a me a some kind of color to designate things to go back to I I'm good with colors on my spreadsheets too just to not forget things I mean it's small things but we have to be really reticent if that's the word just go with what we've heard in meetings of what they've said maybe it'll come down the pike but I know it's a a no so weate that because Board of selectman said
they're not ready they didn't approve that should we move that to zero well someone wants to make a motion I'm fine to I it really hasn't been approved yet I don't think it should be in the budget when it hasn't been well if there's a chance they will approve it we don't want to have the budget shorted so it's a little bit of a you know how to you pick your poison I mean it's $1800 we'll cover it somewhere but I get it I like to just stay steady with what I hear in meetings and I'm just such a literal person so you know we we're adding in all these things in case in case in case and then the taxpayers are paying for them before need to it's just my take on it you know I don't mind when things get approved and things like that you know maybe we could can't we basically make a decision that we agree that it's not a time to add this piece of technology and well yeah I mean we can certainly we can certainly zero it
you know and I think we make a motion to zero we it's not really up to us to decide how the money gets spent ultimately that'll be up to the board of Selectmen working with Eric but you know we can certainly zero this line item and if they decide they want it they can we can try to find it out of somewhere lse right so let me ask Eric a follow-up question maybe it was the building maintenance fund but I know that there was that sound proofing and acoustic work done in both the community room at the Town Hall and the community center which was quite a bit did you find that in the budget somewhere we hadn't budgeted that last year right yeah that was taken straight out of the building maintenance fund okay okay do anybody want to make a motion here or yeah I'm gonna make a motion I mean I'm gonna make a motion to remove this because I don't feel comfortable with what I heard in the other meetings and I'm happy I'm sorry Kim did you second it yes I am okay any further discussion just putting it out there it's not going to be a bad thing when it
does come on board but I just want to kind of stick with the things that were approved already so that's my discussion I don't know if you guys saw there's a chat U message I did I'm I'm I'm you know I guess we Tess if you want to go ahead and unmute we'll if you can make it brief we'll we'll listen to what you have to say there yeah I just want to know if if the community and Senior Center has the raises the funds to put the software in would that be acceptable to the board of Finance it's that's up to the board of selectman really that's really an executive decision so you know our our our role as a board of Finance is just to establish the budget and set kind of spending policy and limits so the specific the specific activities that take place within the department are really controlled by the department heads Eric and the board of selectman so we for us it would be neutral I would say okay so unfortunately with all the programs it has more to do with all the programs involved it has to do with drivers it has to do with scheduling it has to do with a whole lot of other things other than just programs and so I just want the board of Finance to understand that there's more involved with just programs so if the community and Senior Center has the ability to raise funds through fundraising would they be more inclined to accept that well I think the board of selectman certainly would but it's really their decision not ours so right this is nothing personal I'm sure
like I said it's a good program I'm just going by what I've heard the board of Selectmen say already test this has nothing to do with yeah that kind I just like to be very literal and and see things represented on the spreadsheet the way I heard them yeah so yeah so the the the premise here is that the board of selectman hasn't approved the expenditure so we don't feel like necessarily we should budget for it correct understood thank you yeah any further discussion from the board of Finance on this item okay I guess all those in favor of the motion to reduce it to zero Z say I I I I'll vote I also any opposed I okay bills opposed any abstentions okay motion passes we'll zero that out on this one right here again not saying we can't make a change if we get more information or change of heart before we've approved our final budget okay you understand you took out every bit of software that that facility pays for so I don't think that's understand no canva no nothing you want her to have a computer an email and that's it well Eric you didn't tell us that you know
and and we're going on the thank you for telling us after our whole discussion is over where's the line level where's the line level detail what does that take us Eric I mean maybe do we have enough information to make a reasonable what is it that do we know what the board of Selectmen is in favor of or not in favor of well what did we take off Eric What expenses did we take off of course we want her to have computer programs and I work at a a school system that has software and computer things so I don't know what they pay every year what is the yearly I thought this was the line for the additional program that has been discussed so if we don't have that detail well right yeah I mean detail you know what I will get back to you on that I can't tell you exactly every piece of software that office we we don't expect you so we admit that we could have been wrong and took this as just the one that's been discussed so thank you for bringing it to our attention it's just information we get that you don't have everything at your fingertips thank you okay so so the board can leave it at
zero we could also make a motion and change it back to where it was pending more information right I would say at a minimum fund the $120 annual subscription for Cana because we can probably cover that departments Office 365 out of the town software budget if you want to do that that's $120 Eric K was 120 annual I say we Circle back because I I get it and thank you for bringing that to our attention with what we thought we were doing but I have a feeling you know should we just wait you know before we make 10 motions on one line I mean we can always put it back in comes up something yeah something next week rather than back right now we've taken it out and thinking what we thought and now we'll get more information maybe put something back in okay all right well if everyone's okay with that we will continue to look here U most of the other stuff is
reductions kind of based on current expect expectations you know we reduce the electricity budget based on the usage we've seen so far so that's good a couple other things here internet cable voice adding a few things align items here kitchen supplies conference seminars postage printing so a few things that we probably did not anticipate when in the original Senior Center budget or Community Center budget anybody have any questions from that on those well only because Eric brought it up too so it brought a good point I would imagine that the community center is included and gets to use things that the town have I mean how would you imagine that well you're opening my eyes I'm learning all the time listen my brain has to keep moving and working so this is good I because ours town is a Tiny Town like I love to call it and it's right next door to the town hall and I I just maybe thought that everything could be connected so I noticed that there's a telephone thing here that will come up in the town office building too no so so you're saying that it's possible that they can't access whatever software the town hall has we can't add her on as a user well they usually pay per license per per exactly pay pay for a license for well but does it really matter whether you add it in the department that's using it or in the town hall
Department no and I'm not going to nitpick that much but I'm just hoping that we're it can be used that way or I'm learning you know so that I won't bring up something in a meeting that shouldn't have been brought up so I guess I just assumed it was a town person and and we'll move on I not a question I need to have answered right now but thanks any other questions on this section can I just ask about the the computer repair service for $2500 it says add one additional computer is that the computer for the public or is that for the offices I'm just curious that's all so they have asked for two computers basically one for the the assistant and one public facing computer for any senior or person who wants to come
in and use one and access one in the facility it hasn't I think that's no decision has been made whether either one of those that's still up for negotiation but if we haven't funded it it doesn't matter okay no I think there should be extra computers thanks Eric omments all right Tess I'm G to unmute you a little bit more time but we need to move on okay yeah I appreciate that I just want to if if you have I can share expand on that computer situation would you like to know one more information yes so we what we have seen is just recently we had a senior come in and wanting to renew her driver's license she is not she does not have the ability to do that on her own and so what we did was I walked
her through the poll process walked her through the department of motor vehicle and she renewed her license at the center and so we're finding that a lot of seniors do not have the capability to do that on their own and so we would like a computer that would have Public Access that we could walk through that that process and and other processes through the the senior center for those those clients also with one computer comp with a laptop at the senior center we are not able to access the computer at the same time so the assistant and I both have to share one computer at the same time and so if we had another computer she could be working on certain things like newsletters things like that where I would be able to access the computer at the same time if we had three different computers that would be ideal if we had two comp computers we would work with what we have so I just want to say Tess I think it's a great idea I mean I'm in support of that you need that for what you're trying to do but a thought popped into my head I know that they recycle a lot of things at the school or different I don't know if we've looked into possibly I know where I work they're
tot they upgrade things all the time and I feel like systems are very new so I'm just wondering if I'm not saying we can't do this with budgeting I'm not trying to nitpick here I think it's very important we have a new center but sometimes some places do upgrade so often that there might be something that the school or the library media Specialist or someone is upgrading and might have one to share I don't know I know you do a lot of you know programming there with the school so I don't know if it's ever come up it's just a thought I'm I'm I'm totally all for nitpicking so please Joanne please understand that if we have a computer that can be updated that our assistant can use to utilize during that time and even if we can use that same computer for our seniors that we can train them we can oh it's it's fabulous you need it I mean that's what the center's all there for that's not an
area we're trying to yeah I believe my computer itself is a laptop and that is a used computer as well so what I'm using currently is not up to dat but it is a used computer I'm fully happy with what I have but I think that an additional computer or two computers even in in an air I'm not sure what it's called an iPad might be sufficient as well okay oh thank you thanks Hess thank you okay any any other comments or thought you know changes that people want to make to this ection okay very good hearing none we'll move on town office building okay we already talked about the tech support line this is not been updated to the new proposal request W from the is it South Windsor Eric correct most of the other items are it's kind of a net reduction we've got a little more on furnace maintenance seeking a service contract corate HVAC so change wording to HVAC maintenance so okay so set a furnace it would be actually heating ventilation air conditioning HVAC so you're talking about changing the line item in the budget or the account name correct okay just to clarify that website fees is going up quite a bit so that's our current bill
okay copy rental new contract slightly lower but now includes click charges and Community Center so we put a copy the community center so that's driving that up is that no we didn't end up doing putting a copier in the community center because I didn't want to pay the extra fee for it but because it's far more efficient to print in the town hall than on the small copier that Tess has you know we're running our quick charges are increasing not the rate of the quick charges but the amount we're printing to we're using it more heavily and we're paying usage fees correct yeah
okay Le monitoring flat reduction in the Talon dispatch okay that's good reduction per assessment so electricity actually going up here based on heat calculations and usage but with limited data for the heating season okay pay we're using an estimate you feel like that's okay I'll move my out right all that anybody have any specific questions on the town office building accounts yeah Joan yeah I think I know we talked about the computer text support and then we have the software maintenance fee and then at the bottom we had one of the last lines was another technical computer thing can you scroll down a little bit Mark with my eyes so this computer repair and service so we do split things up Mar Eric so that is the cost so on average throughout the entire town hall not including the server which would be a capital expense if that needed replacing we plan on replacing between two and three PCS a year depending on what we need to do so there we go two and three a year in
our town hall a PC like your your desktop thing yeah I mean I have a desktop and I have a laptop oh I do too but I I it hasn't been replaced for years so every year we count on doing two or three a year okay yes how many we do PCS do we have in right probably every office right has one or two like one two three four five six seven I'm just thinking from walking through the building I can't tell you on off the top of my head I mean you know we're we're typically running about a fiveyear replacement schedule for for PCs something in that range okay thank you okay yeah that's helpful that's really the number so you fix them on fail basically or is it become obsolete so yes or something yes correct it does seem high to me for what it is but I'm not you know I'm glad we pointed it out and that's that's surprising to me that they would have to be if we have a contract of a service person and and some people are only part-time 19 hours a week and others you know we I think we have one full-time person it seems like a high turnover but
it's not a big number so I'll just thank you for the explanation it's a low number and I can just tell you from my work experience Joanna I mean at least in the company I just retired from right yeah I mean three to five years was you know you look at the computer software that that takes more and more RAM but more and more your memory I it changes fast I mean a computer is outdated in you know three to five years a computer is outdated oh understood I thought he said he changes three desktops every year as I'm saying so it's in a fiveyear rotation so right that many yeah right oh yeah on a five rotation it doesn't sound excessive is what I'm trying to say no no okay I was going on the changing three every year with people that might work 20 hours a week you know or something it just I was looking at a different way your way I understand thank you so those could be used in a in a this community center that's what I was thinking that's you know me like I was like hey we might be changing one out if we change them out every if we do three a year boom problem solved let's take one of the older but you know the seniors they don't mind like they'd be on there that would be fine Tess just said thank you yeah if they're there don't go to AES for that rotation go right to the town hall depending on why they're getting trying to changed out of course so I think that the biggest question for us in this section is going to be what
do we do about this computer tech support you know maybe we don't go to $177,000 for the proposed budget but I think we ought to put a more realistic number in there if indeed as it s 17 I thought it says 12,000 wa what's the7 ,000 well this has not been increased per their new proposal so the new proposal didn't you say the new proposal is roughly 17 grand yeah their proposal was basically we what would we do if we didn't agree to that [Music] number I I'm I'm kind of feeling like what are we going to do if we don't approve the 17 that they want does that mean we have to go out and find someone new to partner with to get the computer support I mean honestly I would probably end up negotiating with them and go back to two half days a year or two half days a month a month instead of one full day and one half day which we changed because we just flat out didn't have enough time to get stuff done in a timely manner yeah I remember yeah so I mean if we really can't budget for it then then we'll work out something with
them to to address that but yeah we're not going to get tech support for much cheaper than that less than that yeah not when you have things like Eric mentioned a server specialist I mean you that's it's not something you get deskt support you got server Specialists you probably have hard you know Hardware now so it's so I guess my question is is should that be increased to the 17 or do we leave it until Eric we get more information on the negotiation or I mean you're comfortable leaving it to 12 214 or no I'm not I'm requesting you s it to 17 but you're the board of Finance so it's your decision to make not my decision you know once at this point of the budget those those decisions are yours not you know so yeah say what if we met in the middle at like 15 ,000 with that maybe yeah you can negotiate to 15 for one full day a week I don't know one and a quarter days a month so I think if we if we put 15 or 16 in there and you know we don't we can't negotiate it down you know maybe
the money gets found somewhere else you know somewhere else so I would make a motion that we bump this line up to 15,000 even and hope that Eric can negotiate some type of coverage for 15,000 instead of 177,000 HE anybody want to second that I'll second it okay seconds thank you further discussion okay hearing none will I take a vote all those in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions okay hearing none we will change this number to 15,000 at least that way when you go back to them it looks like we're trying to work with them exactly thank you yeah good idea yeah I I I think that was the best way to go maybe they'll have pity on us because we're poor they probably say the same thing you know they're they're on a municipal budget as well further further changes or suggestions on this this section okay I guess we'll move down then advertising so legal ABS these are the ABS that I think that we have to put in every time we do things such as have a town budget meeting we have to notify the town so we have a slight slight increase here $500 based on last 12 months spend a lot 7300 well we had and the board of selectman adverts so
let's hope we don't have a series of board of selectman advertisements like we have had in the last there you go but okay any comments or questions on this section o okay we'll move on to insurance so esip 10% increase 23k estimate kerma mark what's that you're breaking up a lot you're cutting out a lot oh I am sorry I move my speaker closer maybe that's better I don't know what you can do about it but okay so I was I was just reading the you know the comments here this esip 10% increase 23k estimate kerma WC 3% I assume that's the kerma workers comp 3% increase 411 kerma lap I'm not sure lap is 5% that's liability and Automotive policy okay so those are the three major Insurance bills that we pay annually the only thing that's not on here is the payment for the inground tank which is paid by the school okay so net with a 3.6% change in line with inflation so and that's again that's a those are variable numbers because at some point next year we're going to get hit with an increase due to the the fact that we're going to have the squad vehicle online so that's going to increase our esip insurance and I think we've already got built in for the community center so those numbers should hold so we should be okay with the insurance numbers as they are okay any questions for Eric on this I do Eric I forget we've had a
few kerma claims in the past am I allowed to ask that is that to public are we in two public of a meeting no you can ask I'm not referencing a person we're not talking specific people I think it's it's fine right right so have we seen a a pretty big steady increase in the KDE just because of recent claims or anything of that nature no not really that's claim history's actually been pretty good overall okay thanks yep I'm good other questions okay I guess we can move on to employee benefits so Social Security and Medicare so we've got 8% here this is separate from what we talked about earlier the right so I think this is where on the health and dental is that that's where you will do the 7% right Eric they'll update it yeah but that not going to effect no
I'm just all about the the corrections I know it won't we just want to take every little bit we can then we can correct be got flat on unemployment comp this where he said Health premiums up 8% lower number of insured so we have a lower number of people were insuring but the premium went up so we didn't get the full impact of the increase so you're at a 2.9% change and then they still need right we'll get that corrected right yep that will go down slightly all right anything else and I assume Eric as people come and go or you know leave you if that happens before the budget we can and Mark I guess we can update that like if we get further info on people or so we
vote on the final budget yep yeah employees okay all right yeah I mean you know but again you don't know because there's a lot of flux in employees so you know we're we're calculating this with no spare in the healthful dental insurance there's a 5050 chance that'll be over a 5050 chance it'll be under it just depends on who we hire and what their status is I have one one thing in mind wondering like you know so we'll just wait a couple weeks and see if we get more info no sounds good thanks further questions for Eric on this ection nope okay I guess we'll go on to the next section which is the own town hall looks like mostly reductions here reductions in electricity based on actual usage and we don't expect a fuel oil tank fill this next year so actually
taking that down by $870 any questions no nope no okay Town garage so a slight increase in medical and Drug Testing so are these things like physicals for the CDLs and things like that or what are they yeah that covers both that and the random drug testing that we're required to do for CDL Drivers got it okay electricity is down again po potentially swapping out some of the electric baseboard heat fuel oil down based on the current contract at a low rate which we're fortunate enough to sign so good news there so all in all we've got a reduction 3.5% any questions there it's funny how we have no questions when you're reducing the it okay Old Firehouse oh God wonder when we're going to be able to take this off the oh I know so we have te it down and build a new one yeah I know until de until the demolition fuel oil yeah we expect a some fuel oil there okay any questions for Eric on this yeah out the only thing is the the electrical budget basically and the problem is is both for the initial demo and also for spus batement both con all the contractors we've looked at it's a town responsibility to Supply Power and Water to that location so but that bottom line isn't mathing to
me oh this is this is a subtotal of several subtotals so what you got to look at is this right here that's the subtotal okay I'm sorry my mistake yeah it's I was I had the same reaction initially yeah okay gotcha y because usually there's a description next to the subtotal it's probably the section in the other columns we we hi but oh oh okay yeah you're probably right all right yeah they kind of like section I'm not sure but that's I'll take your word for it yeah both these things Town garage and Old Firehouse okay talking next up we have the auditor so this is for the annual audit so we have a increase there about 11% this is per the auditor and you have no formal proposal letter yet and then we have pretty much flat on Actuarial Services we've been pretty fortunate I think we have a good town auditor it's appropriate for our town I think we're pretty fortunate to have the for the amount of work he's had to put in over the last few years any comments on this it is a big jump but I mean like you said I we do have a person that's been steady and has worked with the treasure and everything everything that you said they've done a good job and he understands the town now so I couldn't read the whole oh it just says this is the amount of for the auditor but we don't have a formal okay so that's just an approximate Eric do you think we might have the letter you know the actual before we'll just wait and see sorry I'm not I won't get caught up on this thank you I've never gotten them
out of mic on time so no do I think I'm going to get a formal letter from him no but he's informal emailed us and said this is what they're going to charge for the next cycle right so next F year yeah fair enough okay okay further questions or comments all right we'll go down to the town attorney this is Dennis Johnson he's requesting a $1,000 raise also including labor attorney planning and zoning committee commission l Le litigation so he is direct the budget was 15K we're going up to 16k I my view we gotta deal with Dennis but yeah Eric go ahead yeah so that line item covers two things that covers the town attorney and it also covers my use of labor attorney when labor issues
come up so that's not all Dennis Dennis's retainer is actually pretty low that leaves me about $1,500 to $2,000 a year to use legal advice from a labor attorney further questions or comments in this ection okay we'll leave that there for now then Town engineer we're comments okay probate court this is a budget established by the probate court so until we hear that we won't know for sure Eric yeah no we we ask them every year what their budget's going to be and they'll get around to sending it to us eventually but our budget will probably be passed by the time that happens so it's just to guess okay it hasn't been a big issue in the past so okay so the sier Cog Connecticut Regional Council of governments Connecticut Conference of municipalities and what's cost Council of small towns Council of small towns right okay so these are our membership fees for the these organizations yeah that's correct okay and assisting us I think with a lot of things so yeah so I think I do have final numbers for both of those so so I think we are okay with our current budget now okay so we're in the ballpark within a couple hundred bucks yeah yep okay further questions or comments from the board on that I'll set with me okay so we'll go down to public works this is a pretty significant section so we have a 3% increase in salary overtime same factor adding a few hundred for fire extinguisher testing and the note here is that includes the additional buildings based on 12 months of cost okay so you're just factoring that up not a big increase reducing for vehicle
maintenance is this just based on history Eric what we did yeah that was yes yeah I think we Jay kind of developed this budget and he went over it with you I think it might have been that they don't expect to replace as many tires this year or something like that yeah exactly yeah I mean gave the full budget breakdown I'm just I don't have that open right now yeah okay yeah we went through that pretty closely when he was on anybody have any questions on the Public Works budget I was gonna I don't have well if anyone has questions on a particular line I have a thought that I wanted to bring forward so now go ahead I was just thinking I mean I know eventually we're going to have to get to a place where we have to try to make some Cuts you know whether it be in a fund or something like this I think this is a big part of the budget Jay was great they do a great job and he also brings forward all his spreadsheets that we were able to look at I wouldn't be opposed to trying to make a cut somewhere in here hoping that they knowing now that they can transfer money within lines is my thought so say we asked them to you know cut a line in
supplies or whatever I'm going to look at it further and then knowing that if they run short in one of their lines they're able to transfer their money around I mean I felt like Jay knew that it was a tight year he kind of said you know I don't know is anyone do do you want to make a specific motion let me shut my thing so I can get closer and make a motion in a moment or an idea so I'll be right there I will be right back with it what line are we looking at right now I was gonna I'm gonna let you know with the thought of even if I make a cut to a line or suggest a cut to a $457,000 budget I'm hoping that they're and thinking and pretty much knowing from working with budgets that there'll be money somewhere since we had a $300,000 you know Surplus this year that they can fill in the gaps just trying to make inroads in the budget so my thought would be to I would okay that's a 500 okay I'm going to propose that we I don't want to put anything that I know they're they're going to need but I I'm banking on this huge amount of money so go ahead does someone else have a thought yeah well the only thing I would say is that keep in mind out of that 457,000 the vast majority of it is valer and overtime right so we have a total of
Le little less than $100,000 in raw expens es some things such as fire extinguisher testing are just non-negotiable you have to do that every year gas diesel I mean some of it's yeah I mean there's certain things that are just guesses right vehicle maintenance diesel gasoline supplies they've got probably got a pretty good history but right those and none of it's easy I'm just gonna propose something if it doesn't go it doesn't go so you're right I understand so looking at it it's about 100,000 so I'm going to make a motion that we reduce the supply line I don't know if I have to say 301 620 56010 by 3500 and so I'm going to make that is that 165 yep 16,500 yeah okay does anybody want to second that motion I'll second it I'll second it okay I'll second it I'll second again okay further discussion I was just going to say none of this is easy just making an attempt to whittle away little bit here and see how how they can do so that's my discussion y else okay we'll go ahead and call for a vote all those in favor say I I I all those opposed I oppos huh nothing I was saying nay it
was nay not I well unfortunately a tie L is not here so it's a tie so Mark I didn't hear you right I mean I was wondering I don't want to vote for it this time yeah I would say may know the motion doesn't pass we we can revisit this next we can revisit yeah yeah think that's my only motion on this particular okay all right we can go ahead and go to the next section if there's any snow removal this one's always just an estimate right so how are we doing this year on this Eric we're gonna be under budget but we're g to be pretty close this year mark they had a lot of storms I mean just from I UND they had a lot of storms that we can never tell they were weekends overtime tons of overtime probably holidays so I'm sure they ate up a lot of their budget this year yeah it's just another one this one's always a crap shoot we could have a great year have a significant Surplus or we could have a really tough year and end up having to tap the funds right absolutely hate to
do yeah no motions from Joan on this one any further questions or comments yeah it's a it's a big nut I I I like leaving it where it is yeah okay if nobody's got anything else we'll move on to the next section which is the transfer station okay so we got a 6% increase in wages they're still pretty pretty low all over overall compact release went up quite a bit huh yep last year incorrectly getting build for a single compactor I think you spoke you talked about that yeah yeah yeah you can look at it either two ways one we got screwed or two they've been undercharging us for the past five years which they have been so we're guess finally figured out that they owned two of the compactors at the transfer station you know why they didn't understand they owned them before cuz they've always been the ones that are maintaining those two of them and servicing them but they just
finally got around to billing this for them oh boy I'm I'm happy about the Tipping fees but is there a reason why they've gone down so much gonna ask about that too is that just the actual yeah that's just based on actuals we didn't know this is our second year of the cassella contract and there's a bunch of fees in there that it's they make those contracts very hard to figure out anyway our tipping fees have been reduced so that's been good we've been over budgeting consistently on those what we're way under budgeting for is that Bloody energy and environmental fee which is kind of a catchall fee that it's really hard to figure out how they calculate it so that's my best guess based on what we've been getting build lately okay so yeah I was gonna ask about the brush pile removal I mean $20,000 there's nothing else we can do about brush like seems like you have some poppers Bill I'm sorry you have some loppers I got some gasoline in a match there you go yeah we'll have a big bonfire have a bonfire you know bring some beer that works ,000 for brush I know it's terrible crazy yeah we we've gone back and forth on this you know in the the several years that I've been on the board of Finance it's it's one of these things that we just have to budget for every couple years and you know we've argued you know do you you know if you split it into a third and then budget you know budget a third every
year I mean it just do makes sense we know we're going to have to do it so if we think it's going to cost that you know we probably just need to take care of it How firm is that number Eric the last time we had it done was about 18 Grand so depending on exactly when we do it I would anticipate it would be that or a little bigger so because the pile's fairly big at the moment and by the time the next budget season rolls around in the summer it's going to be a pretty aggressively big pile yeah I'm just thinking about the amount of storms and trees that have been coming down it's probably a big brush pile yeah well remember that's just stuff that people bring to the brush the the pile that's just what homeowners bring and unfortunately it would be nice to use the distinctive Tree Care chipper to chip it up but the problem is people aren't very responsible about only bringing clean stuff there so inevitably there's metal in there and other junk so
really you got to throw it through What's called the tub grinder and those are just stupidly expensive pieces of Machinery to operate what happens to the trees like the ones that fell on Long Hill Eric how do we get rid of those so it depends something like that a pine we just we get rid of it however we can we can dump some stuff on our pit Pines nobody wants to burn so we can almost never give that away for firewood so we end up getting if the utility company doesn't deal with it we end up getting distinctive free care or
somebody else to haul it away and dispose of it oh all right thank you a questions for Eric on the transfer station further questions SL okay hearing none we'll go down to recycling yeah well hazardous way down slightly used oil pickup that's a pretty big bump up 20% 27% per contract Western Oil okay and a freeze pick up same thing okay slight increase in the tire pickups and no new cost I anybody have any questions here nothing for me nothing going to ground kid so we have a slight increase for mowing and you have a note here needs adjusting no current contracts yeah so and over Landscaping informed us that they're not going to do it anymore we think we have another company that's agreed to do it at that I got to decide whether I send that whole project out to RFP and and get bids on it this spring for the n non field mowing which is the
cheap stuff the the field mowing is the expensive part and this isn't just mowing this is the majority of this cost is the cost of maintaining the athletic field both the sprinkler system and mowing the field and irrigating the field and fertilizing it and grubs and all that stuff so that's what most of the the ground care cost is the the beautification commission sent you a big spreadsheet on everything they want to do that line item was a fairly significant increase but for the most part it's a bunch of volunteers that do the labor themselves so you get a lot of bang for your buck but but it is a jump at Cost well there's some additional area with the Community Center too right there's kind of like additional areas being added to that all the time thinking like the this the new sign going in for town like there's more areas that have to be beautified every year too right yeah I mean it's it's definitely if you look at gets done versus what's spent you know it's generally they do a pretty good job I
mean I I don't fault them at all they're you know they're a bunch of volunteers that like to go out and plant stuff and make the town look far as I'm money well spent but it is an increase so Mark can I ask about the mowing care again I mean it comes up as and wait a minute yeah I know we talk about it it just this is nothing that our Public Works can't handle you know and we have to contract out I mean I know you've explained it and all it just seems It's been it's been a point of contention and I've heard from taxpayers that they just ask me things when they look at things or they know we got the brand new Mower and I know you just said it doesn't include all of mowing but does our Public Works have time to I'm not managing their time there's it's just a big expense do they have time to fit in some of this work possibly so we do roadside mowing yes that a mower like lawn mower we don't do a lot of finish mowing and frankly what we pay for per year for that stuff is cheap enough that I wouldn't want it would cost us more and labor cost to have Public Works do it than to sub that out okay you know because that's again I know my area of expertise this isn't it
if you that's all I want to say I mean because I get it from the taxpayers like like Bill just said like thank you right it's the bigger big mower you know you just get a big roadside mower right right that we need not a lawnmower yep right but I mean we could get a town lawn mower we buy huge pieces of equipment so true yeah you know we we just go for the big stuff here so I mean I was I was just kind of weighing that Eric makes a good point though landscape you know we'd end up paying you know Union Municipal rates to to get somebody to do it so yeah that's no yeah and we don't most towns have a parks department we don't so I mean essentially a lot of the parks related stuff we just sub straight out to Hein parks and W we're more of a road crew and do y no thank you yep enough said with that I get it thanks for the explanation other questions there move on to Street lighting which is slightly reduced based on six months of data any rate increase obviously we've heard a little bit about electrical rate increases seems reasonable if nobody has any questions move on to the custodian so this is down a little bit so the I assume it's based pretty much on the actual yeah okay okay so includes Community Center town hall and Library based on current actual cost so we're reduced a little bit from last
year's budget any questions on that no is that for fewer hours because they're working fewer hours or yeah so when we added the community center we really didn't have a good feel for how many hours on a weekly basis it would take that to keep that building clean now we do have a pretty good estimate so now we're just basing it off of actual hours and we do use them for a lot of side projects office painting putting up all the the panels for sound deadening Windows trim all that kind of stuff too so it's all kind of built into one budget and that covers multiple locations you okay I guess we'll go on to resident trooper always a always a interesting topic to discuss this is basically set and I think I think this is pretty firm right Eric based we know who's going to be Trooper cook per Department of Emergency Services estimate 25 so we know who our Trooper is going to be we have an estimate from the state based on his salary and indirects but again they don't that's
just the best guess they give us so that's what I budget for it could very easily be5 or $10,000 more or less but that is exactly what their budget estimate is based on him and that's the entire fee that we would pay him not a there's no nothing else that's it that includes his car and etc etc correct that's salary and indirects so basically what myself and a bunch of the smaller towns that use resident state troopers went back and argued with the legislature that the state should go back to because at one time towns paid half the cost and then they eventually shifted up to 100% And they really jacked up the indirect cost so our costs were very expensive and we went back to the legislature and got the legislature to to work with the state police to lower the indirects and give us some credit for the fact that even though he's our resident state trooper he does get called out to do other things occasionally so that's where we're at these days okay how many hours would we expect to see him around our town so typically he works five eight hour shifts per week in our town Eric five eight hour shifts per week yes correct however those are somewhat flexible right like you can he it's not necessarily 9 to5 every day right no and if we deliberately have
our resident trooper work some of all three shifts so we work some first shift some second shift some third shift and it's on a rotation so that you know nobody knows exactly when you know we don't tell anybody when the trooper is on as kind of an additional deterrent hank you any further questions any of you were around a few years ago when there was a discussion about removing this from the line item the the Town's people made their wishes known very known quite clearly yes that's that's not a rail I feel like touching again nope I remember Robert's description of it that's all I have to remove the trooper right we suggested it one year only because we were having a real tough time with a budget passing and it's one of the single largest line items in the townside budget so we said okay we could go to Barracks coverage you know if we just can't pass a budget here's one way to cut it and I think the vote on that you know they was something like four to one against right right in a year in a year where we were having a real big time
real big struggle passing a budget oh I mean I've had people say things to me this year about you know the resident trooper and I say well if you're concerned about it then you need to write a letter and let us know or let someone know yeah you know and if you don't get a letter then you know it's just talk what I would even happened was we had a meeting about it like a public you know meeting budget hear I hearing and in the town hall there and you know lots of people turned up to express their support for keeping right and it was very it was a very unpopular position to be saying well we don't really have a noticeably different crime rate than surrounding towns or towns comparable towns sorry that some of whom have full-on police departments some of whom have resid state troopers some of which have just rely on Barracks coverage and there was no correlation but that's you know people had specific reasons they liked having the trooper and yeah that was not a popular approach to budget so yeah so anybody who ask you should probably give them that background but it it's it's certainly an option for anyone to come to the town budget meeting and make a motion to remove that line item from the budget right that's that's how it would get removed and then we would have to vote on it so I I wouldn't give much chance much of it I wouldn't give much chance to you know that would be the you know if you could get enough like-minded people who
knows you know right okay fire department Fire Commission so it was a pretty big nut here there is a a backup spreadsheet I don't think it's in here is it or is there a tab no it's I don't separate right no tab for that yeah yeah Joanne just said her computer shut down she's trying to get back on okay thanks oh you have to admit her tell them to admit me I don't see it coming up do you see it her no and usually we get a popup that says intermit this person and they they'll show in the participants but I don't see anything there yeah Liz maybe you could have her completely log off and log back on again you mean shutting the zoom all the way down and then opening it back up
yeah yeah yeah because otherwise you'll have 14 Zoom meetings open at the same time [Music] and it'll just get very complicated Eric the references reference spreadsheet is that in the budget I don't see that we we receive that via email yeah hang on a sec I'll figure out where it's at there's a 10year capital plan with the fire department there's a request for the SCBA packs but I don't see a spreadsheet in the unless it's in Department budgets yeah yeah it's in Department budgets 26 fire yeah I found it okay Joanne you're muted I don't know if you can hear us thank you I am so sorry thank you for waiting that was a nightmare back don't worry okay we're all we're all working together thank you back all right I am going to change my share to the fire department budget just downloaded it so the requested amount is 167 I don't know what they're doing here that's not how you do that calculation so this is the breakout so it looks like they're mostly flat with last year's budget reduction in vehicle maintenance increase in equipment maintenance increase medications that's probably the radio sets in that protective clothing 25k office supplies 5K assum that's firefighting supplies Asmat training cost recovery you know what cost recovery would be Eric off hand or anybody you know know I'm pretty sure that's a fee that's due to the talin Dispatch Center but for what exactly I don't know for some reason we get a bill and the fire
department gets a bill okay and then physicals are just the annual physicals that f fighters have to undergo we're asking for a $200 increase is that am I is that right yeah so it looks like and verifying that with the last year yeah the budget spreadsheet reflects the same and what are their actuals look like for for now I don't know that we their estimated amount is 167 375 so about what they're asking for for this budget for reference in 2324 they spent about 153,000 and15 to so about about 12,000 less 14,000 less anybody have any comments or questions on this I think we need to probably ask questions before we reduce it we're certainly not going to increase it right so 5,000 for office supplies or is that yeah I don't know seems high to me but I don't know yeah it'd be interesting to find out what that's what's that that's for it could be all kinds of stuff in there right yeah without knowing I I'm not gonna so this is kind of the Fire Commission it's in a way they're kind of like the Board of Education they're the they're the first line of you know approval for this type of thing so we could we could always go back to them if anybody has anything specific we could have them come back and kind of explain these numbers you know I think Wally had
offered to do that what is FF supplies does anybody know that line 252 probably firefighting firefighting supplies oh firefighting supplies oh okay yeah yeah it could be you know could be all kinds of different things that they use just consumables could be you know stuff that they use to clean and maintain the vehicles although that may be an equipment maintenance or V Commandments but you I guess the only comment I have and I support the fire department 100% it just looks like all the numbers are exact zeros like yeah you know what I'm saying it's like there's no $3 3751 and you know it's like it's just oh 25,000 you've been in business as long as I have Bill and you know what it's like it's the only reason you get things like $1 7,352 is one of two reasons a you have a quote or B you took last year's and added 3.25% to it right so right right right you know okay reminds me of the real estate adage where they would say people were charging you know $320,000 for their house if they' have priced it at 332,000 you know 20 you know $258 they'd actually get the higher amount because people thought oh they went and calculated it so it must be must be the precise me you know so I mean I get exactly what you're saying you know but it's ballpark but you know if their actuals are in there so I think that would be helpful okay did I miss any categories Mark was there one above this no we were we were all we just kind of waiting for you to get back in
yeah so again if you looked at the actuals the the actual for 2324 is 153,000 the budget for last year was 16750 estimated expense for this year is 167 375 slightly above and they're just basically rounding it out request yeah but you know I mean short of of having like a financial report for them showing their actuals and like where it's going and really digging into that you know I think that we kind of left to the what they've told us here yep Joanne the only thing that c and I'm glad you went back to this because so I could refresh myself is like I know the building maintenance I thought was a 20,000 and a 20 thou you know they kept it level how much maintenance goes into the building every year but again yeah yeah I mean it's if you're maintaining a building it that's a again it's like I don't know how much it's used how much wear and tear so I don't want to speak to things I'm not an expert at but right do they do certain things one year and then they don't have to do it the next year so we can save there yeah well and building main is may even be things like custodial stuff where they clean and polish the floors you know the trash could be a lot of things yeah because they don't have a as
as long of a list of specific accounts yeah and Eric remind me is this the pl is the fire department where they're getting like the new cabinets and all that stuff this year the fire department did request from CIP new cabinets and new countertops correct yeah and I'm just trying to put it I know it's not in here no I I have to tour some of these buildings as well nope thank you and that that purchase would be in this budget that we're working on right now that would be in the capital or it' be a separate capital in a fund right yeah right that comes out of one of the capital funds and that will probably get done in what's in the building maintenance Fund in because it in a sense it doesn't matter whether you do it this year next year the Mone money is currently in the fund so okay that's yeah okay does anybody want to make a motion to make any changes here or do we want to leave it as is and I'm good okay and we can always come back if we find something Animal Control so slight increase over last year so this is as we've got noted here the N Cog contract is a n Northeast Council of governments or something or correct yeah yeah so we've got for the yeah okay I'm not probably sure much we can do about that that's shared stuff Fire Marshall not much change here there's the fire fire Marshall and Deputy salaries with a 4% increase anybody have any questions or concerns there okay move on senior citizens so we have the resident services coordinator
small increase almost nil senior lunches we've got a significant ific increase $7,500 and the note here this is per the board of selectman meeting on February 3D they must have voted to increase this is that just going up because we're servicing the seniors more in the community center now Eric I do you know off hand right that would be a great question yeah they had a big long powow about how much they wanted to char Char the seniors and how much they wanted to fund that you know and and that's essentially what they decided to fund it at and Eric for information I I think I found they charged the seniors maybe I saw Louise at a meeting and she told me but it's $10 a lunch I think that the seniors already pay maybe in the past they paid $5 a lunch right and then does this budget Supply whatever's left to pay for the food I mean I want our seniors to be treated well I know they waited a long time for a building and you know a lot of them have you know thank goodness they're getting to use it so I don't really understand was it wholly was it woefully underfunded and they were running out of money so the answer is it depends it depends how much you want to charge the seniors I think the board of Selectmen has said they don't want the seniors charge more than five bucks for lunch basically so that fee accomplishes that and gets a uniform funding for the seniors because I've heard at recent
lunches they charge 10 so now they kind of want to Circle back to five and then Supply the rest of the money for the seniors that's correct okay I mean just it was a big increase so that yep thank you for the info yep can you describe explain what the resident services coordinator is Eric sure the resident services coordinator it's kind of a catchall term for you know what let me just pull up the job description for that cuz Frank it's tired I'm still on my orc at time so that's easier I know it's getting late yeah actually how about I just send you the job description for that okay B basically that that person does a a bunch of things one they handle all the renters rebates they H the the state requires all towns to have a point of contact for you know how to use the 211 system how to manage the oil assistance program all of those kinds of things that
person also is our coordinator for if we have a hoarding situation she's kind of one of the leads on the hoarding task force it's just it's a whole range of Social Services that the town provides you know residents right okay so so basically that's the municipal agent right I guess it's I I didn't recognize that It's All Coming Back to Me Now yes so so that's this is one of those kind of oddities in that in our Charter and I don't think it's been CH ever been changed the state mandated all towns to have a municipal agent yes and the
town when they adopted made a change in an ordinance to have a municipal agent they specified that the agent would be unpaid yes yeah however it's fairly hard to find a volunteer that's willing to work in the town hall 10 hours a week which is what the state said say is the minimum Staffing level for free so we've always gotten around it by just throwing that in as one of the duties in a position that we call resident services coordinator so that's what we've been doing Eric to follow up on it since since it was brought up I know we we were gonna maybe ask a couple things later but since you talked on it I it definitely is in the charter we have discovered that it's supposed to be a volunteer right do you want a volunteer no no I mean I listen I my husband already tells me that I I Could
Be A Millionaire for the amount of time that I do volunteer for the town and spend researching so I actually already do so maybe I will but and and not a problem there as far as giving my service to the town which I take really seriously but that is a topic that we will discuss and and we have a couple thoughts on it but I'd rather not talk about it in public so but Liz did ask about it and I thought that was it's always been under the senior citizens tab too I know it's a stip in that a person gets to do that thing so we'll leave it at that for now unless Liz has follow up I'm good yeah anybody want to propose any changes is here disc further discussion okay I guess move on to Andover senior Transportation so small increase in driver dispatch salary the 3% Factor some for commercial drivers test vehicle main it's up quite a bit that's based on the last 12 months it looks like of of actual or dis select discuss increase by 35 ComEd rust proofing in vehicle wash nobody RSE proves a car anymore geez no sorry editorial comment there yeah so vehicle maintenance up quite a bit so all right 125 yeah this is about one of the Vehicles border selectum has been talking about for the past couple of Cycles that's in rough shape no rust proofing is not going to help and I'll tell you that keep it washed maybe it helps but right that's the that's the problem the washing yeah it has been po maintenance poor maintenance has yeah in a nutshell in a nutshell in the executive session if you want to discuss
vehicle watcher I'm not sure I could take that and only these these we do go to the meeting so we do hear it so right understood okay so we got a total I mean significant amount most of it's driver's salary that obviously vehicle maintenance is is significant and they're not getting any you know they're they're difficult to maintain Vehicles some of these I'm sure anybody have any suggestions questions comments on this NOP all right Eastern Highlands Health officer so the Health District budget adopted in January this is the final number it is what it is this is a required position amplify mental health the regional agency provides services to Andover mostly state funded 250 bucks don't see an issue there Social Services $1,000 this access is the Social Service Agency it covers Andover so it's a it's a like a donation the request letters is kind of what they're requesting yeah so so by law we have to have a series of Social Services agencies in this area the access agency provides that for the town of bover in no way can we really have our own full-blown agency 90 90 something perc of their budget is from the the state and federal government they do ask for a little donation from all the towns they serve
Okay so we've typically funded that yeah yeah I remember that now okay if nobody has any questions on that the ahm Youth Services we actually voted on this in February to approve that so that takes us down into these sections so I'm going to make a suggestion here we've we've plowed through a lot of this made some changes marked things for future consideration we're getting fairly close but we still have quite a bit to to really run through here so we could do one of two things we could keep going we could adjourn or we could go into executive session Joan said she had a couple things she wanted to mention in executive session so I I'll speak to that Mark I I agree I when we came to it if we went through I was going to ask because I don't want to Force PE you know when it gets very late it's hard to get people in and and it's been a long night already so whatever people want to do
I'm good with whatever I wouldn't mind well the we could go into executive session and I could just say the couple things that I wanted to say and then we could you know it's it's nothing that requires anything have to be done tonight or anything or I save it till next week I could save it till next week if everyone's getting exhausted you know I'm fine five minutes or less I'd say let's take care of it now that'd be my opinion anyone else should we muted oh that's fine I I would say like five minutes or less like it's getting late so if you want right so I I mean it's so important that I don't want to feel like it's I mean l we into do you think this should
be a tonight thing should it be a weit thing what do you think we should do I just want everyone's opinion because I do not everybody's here yeah Louise wasn't able to be here tonight maybe it would be good if she was able to be here too yeah so so because this this situation can wait let's let's adjourn on thank you yeah let's adjourn on that because I don't want to get everybody with a tired head because I know what that feels like too yeah thank you if it goes longer than five minutes too I don't you know yeah and I don't want to have to rush it then I get all you know so this is fine we can let's let's definitely we'll put an executive session on our meeting agenda for next week Eric is Kate back yet or yeah she should be back right she's supposed to be back Monday I think oh I couldn't remember when yeah I went and look because I wasn't sure either but I think she's back sure I'm good with that and then whatever anybody else wants to do with for tonight I know it's a lot I make the motion okay Liz seconds any discussion all those in favor say hi hi hi hi oh Rob I thought you might oppose it okay is it too late any opposed I resemble that remark so I can't ask one
final thing can I ask Eric something before he shuts off the I just wanted to ask if we if we adjourned or whatever so we'll get the the changes that we made tonight we can get them reflected get the health insurance update then we can kind of see where we're at I know Eric I'll I'll save I've been i' I've been running the meeting so I've been one making changes in the spreadsheet so I will forward these to you Eric and you you can make any other adjustments and post it whenever you're done fair enough okay and then if we could like pick some kind of you know like orange or something to really stand out where the changes were made so that we know where
the change were made so we don't have to Circle back and ask that that would be awesome okay thanks all right so getting back to our vote all those in favor of German say I I hi any opposed any extensions okay hearing none the meeting is adjourned thank you very much everybody we will see you next week have a good night everyone night night