thank you everybody welcome to the town of Andover Board of Finance meeting for Wednesday December 18th we go ahead and call the meeting to order and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the to the Republic for which it stands nation under God indivisible Li and justice for all thank you first item we have is public speak looks like the only member of the public we have is Jerry CR Jerry do you have anything to address I'm just to keep you company and let you keep me company I couldn't is that no no thank you okay thanks yeah some background this okay we'll move on to changes or additions to the agenda it's anybody have any proposed changes or additions to the agenda Mark were you did you see the email from Caitlyn Greenhouse that can you hear me yep yep okay she sent us an email asking us to talk about the MEP for the the bathroom project at the ele school yeah and that's not on any of this yeah okay I mean I think we should add
it to the agenda to discuss it I mean we have a lot of topics that I you know will touch on but we should we should add that to the agenda okay you want to make a motion then to add it to the agenda we probably put it under new business 6C or we can put it anywhere in between somewhere yeah I'll make the motion to add the I don't I don't know the exact word but add the add an agenda item to discuss the MEP that was sent to us by the chair person of the Board of Ed for funding on the oh SW O'Neal B and O'Neal M MEP regarding the bathroom project at the elementary school can I ask a quick question yep was it sent to all of us no doesn't look like it okay because I was looking in my emails and I couldn't find it thanks yeah she does you know when we talk about it it she does address and send kind of a memo to the board of Finance we just received it yesterday she knew
that the agenda had already been set but because of discussions at the tri board meeting we kind of knew this was forthcoming so yeah yeah I just forwarded it to all of you thanks Mark just got it yeah sorry about that no worries if it was today I mean I understand well yesterday afternoon but that's all right yeah I mean all right so Joanne is proposing or is moved that we add a discussion of the board of EDS request over the MP fussen O'Neal project as item 6 C under new business is that correct Joanne correct okay I'll second that oh do we need a second yeah yeah we should any discussion okay all those in favor say I any opposed any abstentions okay hearing none the motion passes thank you we'll add that as item 6C any other changes or to the
agenda okay hearing none we'll move on to Old business the first is review of budget to actual so it should have been review of budget to actual review of budget to actual was not in your packet and I apologize for that Cheryl was in route to Florida and didn't get it to the board of selectman meeting and we usually just copy the straight one for the board of Selectmen meeting what I did put in your packet which I thought was important and I didn't realize it got put in in place of that was this is last year's budget to actual what went to the auditor and that that for us is really good news the bottom line number is that take away everything thing from the school and ignore that from the moment because we don't have accurate data but we had our total revenue was about $187,000 more than we anticipated the majority of that was our changing to the stiff account and most of that is accounted by income from the stiff account some of that is come from the fact that our new tax collector has been a lot more aggressive about collecting back taxes than previous so we gained some additional revenues there so that is can I interrupt you for just a second sure good information but I made a mistake the next item on the agenda is actually
the approval of the meeting minutes from 11202 okay so in order to not mess things up I think I would ask that you hold those comments further and review the meeting minutes did anybody have any question or corrections to the meeting minutes for November 20th okay hearing none anybody want to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes okay is that list yeah y okay second second s your hand up first okay any discussion all those in favor say I hi any opposed any abstentions no I think everybody's here good okay sorry Eric thank you the motion motion passes and we will move on to the next agenda item which is actually the old business budget to actual check register Etc so go ahead or you your talking Revenue I can share my
screen if you want to look at the actual numbers or I can just give you the the bottom line which is and these are un audited numbers so they are subject to change but they're not going to change tremendously so the pattern will stay this way Eric can you share your screen please I rather just see it and maybe it breaks it down a little is it the same same data that's in the packet though yeah yes it is okay okay so you should be seeing it there looking at Revenue first that's where we are overall in Revenue uh7 187 187 correct correct nice so imagine Eric the U the percentage we're getting on the bank account I mean are we I thought we were
going to clear about 50k from that are we're doing better than that yeah this year I anticipated that we would net about $140,000 out of that nice we actually if if things track the way they're tracking right now we will probably exceed our projections which there is one you know thing at some point the board has to wrestle with and that is a lot of this money that's in the stiff account is essentially our permanent funds so and the reason is is that we typically you know taxation stays ahead of expenses by at most a month or two because on an annual basis our unexpended fund balance is only a little over a month it's about you know 10 12% of our total budget so most of the yet we're maintaining a two to3 million balance in the stiff account most of that is in the major Capital fund money and then the question becomes do we assign and and this is a question for next year's budget but I it's going to have a bearing on how structure the budget so it's something I would like hopefully answered sooner that rather than later and that is do we credit the interest to the individual accounts or do we credit them to the town overall as just investment interest because it makes a difference and within the town I don't think we care but I think the school cares because presumably right now none of the the school money essentially is or very little of it is in that category but we should put it in that
category and when we do that whether it's in the stiff account or whether it's in a in a a money market account at Webster which we're trying to set up which will be our other option they both return roughly the same interest rate and they're both secured so so question I know exactly what you're saying ites sense who gets the interest and I don't have and I I feel that that's a board of Finance decision that certainly isn't a an Eric decision right now there isn't a lot of money that in that category but as we start transitioning to Webster and putting some of those sums of money into a much higher I I mean frankly we're going to go up by about a factor of 50 on the amount of Interest we get so it goes from being trivial and something we're not going to worry about to something we should worry about so yep I just think that should be a discussion and a decision by the board of fin at some point how you want to handle it because in the next budget if we're keeping this line item you know in doing it that way then you know then we're accounting for interest right upfront in the budget and if not we're accounting for it in the individual accounts and we're probably going to reduce the amount of money we fund those
accounts so that we're fund you know if the interest is going to run into it directly if that makes sense yeah Eric that makes total sense y Eric is this something that you know we can readily wait till maybe January's meeting for discussion and vote yep y not expecting a decision I'm just giving you a heads up that you will have to make that vote yeah so I think we should add it to January's agenda just as a straight item make it yeah completely agree okay okay and then on the other side of the coin the total expenses across the entire town budget ran about $168,000 less than you know less than proposed so the the bottom line is I think you can count on about $300,000 in Surplus in last year's budget we won't know exactly until we have audited numbers but you know that that's a a really good bit of news so happy about that yeah good very good news and a large part of that is our Treasurer getting us set up and and finally figuring out how to make the stiff accounts work for the town so I give her a ton of that credit for that absolutely yeah so that is so so right now un audited that's the possible amount to be added to fund balance now when the audit happens you know they they tend to reclassify things move some things from permanent funds into non-permanent and back depending on the auditor's best judgment so that's not a
final number but you know it's not going to be 100,000 either you know it's going to be it should be some some number north of 300,000 going into the unexpended fund balance that's our ballpark yep okay so that's that the check register was in the packet y is does anybody want to go over that or have do you all have specific questions on that or what do you want to do with at anybody have questions on the check register items I have no question questions no not this time right I have no questions okay Eric there's a $4,000 payment to tyke planning and policy group just curious about that one sure that's our town planner yeah okay yeah we may have
talked about that one we we you had explained some of the others last meetings so okay I don't remember that one though yep all right well if there are no more questions for Eric on those items we can move on to the next agenda item which is the establishing of the banking relationship with Webster one line of credit and two credit cards Eric so this is in the works right now we're just I I'd hope to have more to report back to you on the progress of that but Webster is still processing that you know essentially what we're doing is we're dipping our toes in the water we know we don't like MNT you know we've shopped around and looked at three or
four other Banks Webster seems to be the one that for good reason has the most government banking in Connecticut because they appear to do a reasonably good job of supporting municipalities so as we said before and the board of Selectmen agreed to we're going for two things the first is switching our town credit cards over to Webster and that is just simply a fact that MNT has had our credit cards screwed up ever since we they merged and we've never been able to view them or our balances in real time and that irritates me and makes the treasur you know crazy rightfully so so that's the first thing the second thing is pursuing a line of credit simply because we should have a line of credit to pay the expenses related to The Bridge Project that is coming up because there are going to be some months when our expenditures or outlays you know as we await reimbursement from the state and federal government
will exceed the roughly half million dollars we have in that fund and our two choices are to take it from the unexpended fund balance which is you know it can be done and the second way to do it is to take it from a line of credit but I was looking at it this way and that is if our money sitting in the bank is earning about 5% interest and when we take a line of credit we're looking at somewhere around 7 to 8% interest the difference in that is financially beneficial to the town to keep the money in the stiff account and work off the line of credit pay them 8% while we're getting 5% rather than take the money ourselves so that will take a town meeting I've asked the board of Selectmen to look at holding a town meeting looks like there's a few things that will probably go to town meeting that should be one of them and the goal is to get that done pretty quickly sometime in January or February so we can go is Project scheduled to begin Eric sometime January February I thought or so the the project will kick off in February with utility relocation but the first time the town is going to have a lot of money that it's going to have to outlay is when the actual Bridge members come in when they deliver the the prefab Bridge sections those are alone that bill to the contractor will be about 600k so including labor and everything
else you know we're going to have a month or so where our expenditures are probably closer to a million dollar so we have we have basically till June if we had to floated as a town we could my concern with floating that personally is that if we start taking unexpended fund balance rating other funds temporarily to pay for it what happens if we really do have a natural disaster I mean I just I don't want to dip into that unless I absolutely have to so Eric just a stupid question I guess when when they're delivered those those key structures like is it is it due on delivery or what are our terms like do we have terms that we can pay the contractor or is it like doe those things are delivered they need a check today like what are our terms payment for delivery so basically Bridge projects we use we have our own construction management and construction inspection for firm hired that's that's actually a DOT requirement anyway so they are the ones that determine the billing schedule so when they present us a bill I think it's net 30 to to pay the bill but we cannot apply for reimbursement unless we have paid the bill pay a bill and then we ask for a reimbursement from the state and federal government I see yep two questions one keying off that how long does the state and federal government have to pay us back 30 days as well whatever they feel like it well that's a really good question and and that's been I I've asked that pointedly and been told the typical
payment schedule is about 30 days you know in no case should it be longer than 60 days so the second the followup question is on those months that we think will be over that we think we're going to have a a net overage what's the ballpark is it is it about 500,000 you were telling me you have about $500,000 in the fund and what kind of rotating through it and then we might have months where we owe a million so is it about 500,000 if we were to fund this internally this is the point of my question if we were to fund it internally are we talking about half a million dollars roughly I think at any one time there could be up to so so that was also a question I've had very pointedly you know to the state do and to our construction management firm and what they've said essentially is that worst case scenario we should be out of pocket a million to just slightly over a million dollars probably will never be out of pocket more than a million at any one time which would leave us about a half a million dollars short you know so that's what that's the
magnitude we're talking about that that's kind of what I wanted to get to because that's our decision point right do we float it ourselves and accept half a million dollars temporarily out of our fund or do we do what you're proposing and do the bridg loan right but here's the other thing to think about you know we have two steep grants we're trying to get to the point to execute on one of them is about a half a million dollars those are all reimbursement grants so we pay the money out and then they refund us some of that is in the multi-use fund anyway but it depends how fast that project goes because the Steep Grant you're not necessarily asking for money back every single month we're asking for it back probably in two increments so we could be out a fair bit of money for that you know and I I don't really anticipate we're going to be far enough along with the with the other steep Grant which is the replacement of the building at Center Street and part of that is I think that's going to end up because that has been shifted to a prevailing wage job we're going to be over what we ini estimated for that so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to shave money from the multi-use building fund
by using more Public Works time to do excavation and other things for the first steep Grant and then hoping to realize some savings to that so when we go over budget and we're pretty sure we will on the other part we have enough money and we basically swapped labor for money for that project if that makes sense so just to clarify if we're talking about about a half a million dollars and we would get a loan for what you wouldn't look for half a million you would probably look for a little more than that yeah I would look for a million dollar a million million
dollar line of credit for like how long like I I don't know how this works I honestly I'm a little bit financially illiterate here but is it is it a thre Monon you know and and the variance is 3% right if we're earning five and we're paying eight is that what we're talking about yeah that is what we're talking about I mean so yeah it's we're not talking about because we're we're only talking about not a lot of months of Interest out there so I don't think we're talking about big bucks that's it's not the question of that it's just philosophically whether you try to do it all inhouse or you try to with the line of credit I'm I'm just sort of trying to get my mind around a guesstimation of what the cost to the town is for the loan like as opposed to us gutting up and fronting it ourselves what what's that what's that 3% over X months on a million dollars gonna cost us is it $10,000 is it 20 is it 30 is it 50 that's just so I know difference for an entire year would be $30,000 in interest and it's not a whole year right it's only three months
so so for per month it's about 3,000 bucks ballpark difference yeah okay not a lot of money yeah no fair enough I just want to know what it is so I do too could understand the scope yeah order magnitude we're talking about so right Eric can I has this been approved I know you were talking about it at the board of Selectmen meeting and they had some concerns as well as far as I mean using it as little as possible maybe or you know only when you I don't know how to phrase it but when it's an absolute necessity you know of course trying to get by making the payments doing whatever you could but then when it's am I on the right track there I thought that they had some concerns as well yeah they do and and I'm not saying I'm not asking promotion you know from the board of Finance right now either the reason is we don't have full details I can't tell you what the exact interest rate we're paying so until we're
presented with the final package of what this is going to be I'm not looking for approvals but once we have that we're going to need approvals fairly quickly because this really should go to town I mean neither me nor the board of Selectmen nor you have the authority to authorize this this is a town meeting that authorizes this or not okay even at that small amount of money it still has to go to a town meeting a million doll swing loan is not a small that's that's definitely in the realm that has to go to a town meeting thinking I was thinking in terms of what the cost to the town is right I see what you're saying I understand what you're saying I was just
thinking in terms of you know3 $4,000 but it's actually I guess they look at it as a million dollars I understand right because in theory we could authorize it and then you know Erica spend a million bucks he won't but he could right yeah you're not wrong there let's not make Eric mad I have no intention of spending a million dollars without a perfectly good reason all right okay well thanks for that info do appreciate it I sorry to Pepper you with questions there but I I think I've got my mind around no you're the board of Finance I mean all those are good questions okay well if we have nothing more on that I guess the next thing would be go to the tri board meeting review I can start this off if you want yeah that'd be good go ahead yeah so we all came together I think the meeting the meeting the meeting went well obviously you know it definitely went well the beginning you know we had the agenda and everybody had their
chance to speak obviously we got weighed down a lot with which Caitlyn and I knew that we would discussing the capital the AES Capital I just wanted to yeah Capital Improvement fund usage protocols discussion possible actions because that has been a big ticket item and it's you know we've been discussing it for like a year with the policies and then the policy had gotten nixed that Shannon and Rob had worked on so you know we wanted to put that at the top and as expected you know it went back and forth a little bit at the beginning like we always do which which after a lot of thought is why I decided to add another agenda item tonight that I want
to discuss with all of you so that we don't get held down in that kind of place again and we can kind of just go to meetings and understand what we're there for so again it went well we had a lot of that back and forth and you know talked about trust issues and things of that nature and it was very transparent because we're all in front of each other and I think that you know having the moderator that we did Ted did a great job yeah he really did he likes to keep things going flowing if he feels like you know one side's getting a little he's able to come back to it and he really was good at just saying that we all you know and I think I piped up there too that we've kind of at some point have to try to lose the past a little and like the trust is going to have to be there that we're all going to do the right thing and the protocols will come along Jeff Maguire also talked about you know getting a list together of the priorities for the capital fund and things of that nature
a fiveyear plan is what he reallying fiveyear plan wants yeah yeah I did send that draft out to everybody kind of of what I've seen used before just it can be you know expounded on expanded but it's basically just listing your priorities in order giving the amounts of them and and and they seem to be receptive to that in the meeting it was broken down then afterwards where we had the Board of Ed and the superintendent talked about the major items that'll affect the future and the demographics and the enrollment and all of that so we heard on that the board of Selectmen and Eric then presented on the town major factors coming up and then our our part was to talk about the expectations of the board of Finance but we kind of outlined that we needed to time yeah we needed a little time to digest everything talk at our meeting going forward with that so overall those that attended I thought it went well I think towards the end you know Jed got us together with like let's just work together and try to make this happen with things going forward I think yeah
to add on to that Joan I think the things that the Board of Ed was very receptive to and I think really kind of set the stage was that that Five-Year Plan and what the listing and priority and what the amounts were and they were very and and that what he said was is you gave us a fiveyear plan and we will build a plan along with the board of Finance to figure out how to fund that like just tell us what you needed priorities are we understand as you have these priorities but we can't do anything about it without a plan because you can't have everything this year you got a budget for these for these things you got a plan for them and that's where they were like yeah we understand that we have to it's going to take the town a few years to put together each one of those budget amounts for the things that they want to spend money on and in that light they were very very receptive I think like you said Joan they didn't have any you know real concerns with that I thought they were very open to just coming up with that plan on those amounts and and moving moving forward and it's a positive thing we created this account you know for this purpose we know there's going to be things that
have to be done there's maintenance it I don't know if that's the right word Capital project Capital project items that need to be done in fun even start yeah yeah and not that's a good thing and instead of getting stuck on you know the the fine the fine Little Words of things let's just try to move forward and and make it happen I also thought the board selectman his opinion on there because we we get back and forth with well how's it going to be approved what's the process what's that I think we all agreed that you know that's going to be built as we go there's got to be a little bit of trust involved like I said when we get to the next item I'm going
to tell you why I wanted this my one little item brought up tonight when we get to the new business I'll talk about that it's very brief but I I felt like Jeff Maguire who was there had talked about they know these projects are coming just you know they they even verbally listed them out everyone knows that's G to going to happen and then they'll do their best like you said bill every single thing can't be funded right from the get-go but emergency things or those of most important or safety items and I think you did add to that you know CIP is a definite part of the process too you have to have list you have to submit to C IP there is a process that we use today that works so their thoughts were that we don't really need to create a new process and I know you have something to present Joanne yeah it's just about the depositing and different things like to make everyone feel secure yeah but I think they were okay with the whole fact that we have a process that works today you submit your fiveyear plan the mounts to the CIP and that's the normal process and then you figure out how we're going to fund them and everybody seemed to be very receptive to that yeah we really came around to that
y I just wanted to mention by the way thank you guys for those who were able to make it I was so frustrated I couldn't make it that night I had a little natural disaster of sorts in my house which is sorted out now but it was like the worst possible timing it was literally like half an hour before the meeting and I had no water but you know just listening to that I'm happy to hear all of this a lot of this boils down to people trusting each other and being willing to wing it a little bit when Shannon and I attempted to to to write this all down into every little step and Define everything it became a bit of a mess and It ultimately as we know didn't work out so I would be
thrilled if we could get to a more collaborative more trusting kind of process where we can just go through it and and one of of the things to remember about CIP and I'm a member of CIP we meet tomorrow night CIP kind of reviews things and blesses it or doesn't bless it but let's be honest CIP doesn't run anything like it's it's there as an advisory committee it's important yes but people need to not be scared of CIP that if they bring something forward to CIP and CIP doesn't like it it's not the end of the world and you know that's I think part of the the trust I think that has to be there like bring it to CIP we'll talk about it it's not like CIP is a bunch of people who are sitting
there going well our purpose in life is to to to say no you know so hopefully that'll be good I would love to see a capital plan from the school I have talked to them about that before regardless of whether it's a five or 10 were there any action items kind of that came out of this other than a couple things we're going to talk about the action items no I think I think we did talk about yeah the thing I want to talk about after I'm hoping can be a quick action item but just trust was a big thing and you know I think it was told to you know or requested of the Board of Ed that they do put together that priority list and get it over to I guess the board of Selectmen was requesting it obviously it has to go through the proper channels and board of Finance which Caitlyn did with the other a lot
of thought that needs to go into that it's not gonna be so but they have needs and they need to they need to sort it out and I guess they are working they said that one of their action items on their board is they are putting the plan together this year the three to five years or whatever they're you know targeting so we should see that in the future but we also understood the bathroom thing has kind of been on hold so I think that's why they were kind of pushing them to since there was money budgeted already in this year that's probably why they've pushed that along to get going on that but nope at the end we just hope to have one or two more or one or two meetings a year just to get everyone together and right that's why I'm hoping once that we sorry Bill just this one last thing once we clarify we don't have to start off with like 50 minutes of the rehashing anymore you
know hopefully we're going to move forward next time and and take care of business yeah but we all needed to say that whoever needed to speak needed to speak and they did so and and I think they were also you know in the end I forget who brought it up but like the parking lot it's a good thing that didn't happen you know like Jeff said you know we never ever shot you down for anything and us I think it might have been Sharon said Shannon might have said you know yeah the parking lot but then in the end everybody was kind of happy that you know it wasn't the number one priority that is probably the number three priority or something like that so
a lot of good came out of that tri board meeting that I thought was really helpful to have everybody together in that room I think the other thing I just wanted to add to the overall takeaway Mark the last time we got together was we weren't sure what the role of the board of Finance Board of selectman was going to be in the finance you know the budget process and we thought there were going to be like these joint meetings for the for the whole budget season and you know I asked the question and Jeff McGuire said no no way we're not we're meet we see you in March like they do not plan to be part of the budget process no I think the thing it's just that initial meeting there's just supposed to be an initial meeting to set set the priorities understanding the schedule Etc you know right but I think the last time we got together there was some question about what the role was going to be of the board of Selectmen and if they were going to be part of this whole and I asked the question sure and that is not the expectation at all that they would be yeah the meetings good so I ask a question can I ask a question yeah go ahead Liz I just have like a historical question about how how the the C the AES Capital fund came in to being that's a good
question I I I if you really please so just generally speaking there's no you know Ram has their own capital budget right it's separate and we even voted it separately right as has never historically had that and yet they like any school have Capital needs right so the only thing that was really available to Sock money away for some future thing was their 2% non-aps which wasn't really designed specifically as a capital fund furthermore they were doing a lot of good work getting grant money and this and that and plugging things in their budget and they were at times they'd get to the end of the year and they'd have extra money and their thought process was well we can go like Gang Busters and try to spend the
money we've been given or we can be allowed to save it and save it for these purposes these things that we know are coming down the pike that frankly we or the the town everybody at the end of the day we're all going to have to pay for and so the idea was to incentivize the Board of Ed to not go ahead and spend money in a budget like preload in supplies or anything like that for the next year just to take the money if there's if there's actually an overage if not an overage sorry let me rephrase that if there's actually money left over in a budget to go ahead and say to us can we put that away can we put that aside for a capital project that we know full well is coming and will you bless it and that kicked off a discussion and you know it's been a lot from then to now but the at the end of the day the border the the that's the ultimate idea here is that the incentive is
to be to to spend what you need to spend not more and plan for the future and that and the a bon was designed so they could put that money in there it would stay there and then I think this year is the first year Eric right that we actually as a town excuse me this year is the first year as a town that we put $100,000 into that same fund to start this money growing and doing something I I'll be right back guys I just that's that's exactly right and it's all about incentives and it's about you know encouraging people to to not use it or lose it board of Selectmen also I
think Eric too right didn't they that that is going to align right with what I want to talk about with my item afterwards but I believe the board of Selectmen discussed too unless it came out of what Rob said just establishing a fund this year am I right Eric I think the board of Selectmen started it no we create that created it well or did we we decided we created that I I go to so many meetings I knew it was discussed there oh we created it they funded it they decided the funding amount okay sorry correct so so both both boards were clearly in favor of capital funds right and you know it's it's water under the bridge but I had advocated years ago when we set up all the other Town Capital funds for doing one for the the Board of Ed at the same time and and it was really kind of so so what I'm saying is I'm absolutely in favor of this it that building runs will have major Capital expenditures that need to be made to keep it in decent shape and replace major mechanical systems and things like that roofs and we need to establish a fund and we did and that's a great thing and that's a smart budgeting tool moving forward as far as I'm concerned yep let me ask let me ask this so are you saying that the other departments in town have their own Capital fund as well I hope not not what what I heard what I
heard from from Jeff was that the buildings are all owned by the town yes and that is the purpose for the Sip for for people to gather up their their projects and say look this is what we need you go to the SIP you get it approved and then in then that gets presented to the town and then the town can see overall what what projects are coming down the line so that the town can overall make a plan for the various buildings my yeah that's that's right basically what he said y so I guess I'm wondering why they would have a special fund that if other departments didn't have a capital fund is carved here's the thing in the town Charter and in State Statute and stuff like that the board of vet has a lot of Independence they're carved out of a lot of things it's just the way the statutes read it's just the way the charter reads and this leads to the question of who gets to decide what and unfortunately if you don't have the trust established you get into these frankly unproductive Tores over who gets to put make certain decisions at the end of the day it's all it's all our money this is something that Jeff says all the time right it's all our money in the end it's the town he's right and he's right however the when you go into try to draft a document and see this is the rights and responsibilities of this board versus that board now you get into what the charter says what the statutes say and so forth we tried to end around that
we Shannon I's best efforts ultimately failed but it sounds like DX mck may have happened and we may get to a better place regardless which would be lovely but yeah the at the end of the day the Board of Ed is not the same thing as like the fire department they have rights and responsibilities that are laid out in Charter and in state law that are not the same as like public works right it comes down to kind of like nitpicking of the budget money that they have they are responsible for to maintenance and operation of that school as well as educating the kids but the town owns the property the building and it comes to what is a capital item and what is not and obviously a building is a capital item right and I the way I got Shannon kind of to accept it and stop the arguing was I said Shannon if you had to build a new school how would you go about doing that and she just kind of looked down and accepted yeah you'd have to go to the town and it's a capital expend and that and that's true and at the same time you know it's funny when you look at the the actual underlying stuff the the charter the the statutes and everything it it literally says things like the the the Board of Ed controls the operation and maintenance of the school which at the same time the town owns right you get these ambiguities and you can get lost in the weeds easily I I swear to you this is true because I got lost in those weeds and it's really it can be super
frustrating so anyway my take for what it's worth of the whole thing is if we can simplify and trust each other and see how it goes I'm thrilled I'd be thrilled because every single time I tried to put together a document that was respectful of literally everyone and and and and comported with State Statute Town Charter you know and so forth we ran into problems so to the extent that we can get past that I'm thrilled can I add thanks to everyone who went to that meeting yeah I just want to add Liz to your point I want to Circle back to what Rob said and I just think it's important to have this account because if there were surpluses or money left over at the end of the year by establishing this it creates a trust within the Board of Ed that their funding that the town did vote in for them will go back to their building you know to the building it's not it's not a perfect you know it it just it made sense because instead of spending like like he said some of the Surplus that was left over on supplies for the next year or whatever because there was grants at least we had an Avenue in an account
where this would go back to the repairs or the projects that are going to happen there right again I want to jump into my part so bad but I'm honoring our agenda yeah because we're touching on it so much I have to just keep my mouth shut because it's so simple and it does kind of you know address all of this and I think that in the end it is on the towns you know it's it's a town account we created it in the town budget the 100,000 was funded by what was and ultimately the decision process is going to be made through CIP and those kind of things so it's taking in all kinds of all kinds of however we're all GNA be priorities are are met or whatever decided with the trust that was a big word that I brought out Rob that time that at some point we're gonna have to jump in and trust and get this thing rolling none of this works I don't care how you draft it none of this works if you don't trust each other and people from all sides have have thrown it out there that they want to this to happen so anyways that's it on the tri board meeting yes and appreciate we move to my next item and I I'll shut up but I also just want to say again the the the incentivization here of I'd rather have them save for a rainy day or not just a rainy day a a plumbing problem or whatever it might be then
think to themselves I got to spend another $50,000 in my budget or I lose it it's just I'm not saying that they were irresponsible with their money I'm saying humans are humans and you don't want to set up the wrong incentive structure so this sets up worked out I think I think we should move on honestly I mean this is one revie of a meeting so want to get through this is December we often don't even have this meeting so I'd like to go ahead Bill Mark the last thing is I just wanted to let you know that when we get into the budget discussions that we do have some numbers from the Board of Ed and from Eric into town on insurance costs that are going up you know new teachers that are needed so we do have some numbers to work with when we do get in the budget also came out of this tri board meeting they did give us you know kind of what they're looking at so we know where to go when we start putting the budget together so we do have those numbers we
don't have to go over them now I just want you to know that we do have those numbers in that meeting okay good all right well if I could then I would suggest let's move on to our new business 6A is the AES Capital fund policy so Joanne you had proposed yeah so just just kind of after going to the Trib Bo meeting and once again you know we had about the hour of the discussion where you see a little bit of the mistrust and all of that I you know I went home and thought about it for like a week and and revamped it and I said you know I know we threw away the policy and all the you know particular language that Robin Shannon had worked on but I thought that and I sent it all out to you tonight because I wanted I didn't want it to be out there and to get around and everybody to be talking about it ahead of time I I know I sent it to you Eric and to Mark I don't know would you be able okay it's very simple it's using language that Robin Shannon put together as far as the depositing of the money and what you know just the account in general I'm hoping everyone would see this as favorable can Mark hear for us did you send it to Mark can Mark I sent it to Mark and Eric I'll share it right
now it's super simple I think we all got it but yeah it's it's really really paired down I just wanted to say that you know we established the account we're going to call it the AES Capital fund or whatever was in Cheryl's language I'm pretty sure the treasurer has name named it this I know we were trying to name it all kinds of different things but we're going to trust that we know what that stands for everything to do with the school projects at the school you know that's designated as a capital thing and not a daily running of the building so the town created the account the town may choose to deposit money into this Capital fund through its budget process we understand that it was done this past year this is the important part to build so that the school what Rob was alluding to tonight we want to be able to let them know that if they had a surplus left at the end of the prior year after the audit they could go ahead and take that and put it in this account so the endover Board of Education may also choose to deposit money from its budget into the AES Capital fund at the end of
the fiscal year on June 30th of each year the Boe May transfer unspent money from the boe's budget from the prior year into this Capital fund that can slowly build it up you know if they have a 100,000 left over they could add it in and we would be okay with that I'm certainly okay with that because I know it'll there's plenty of projects to be funded in the future and then I just thought we couldn't establish we all decided that we were going to trust and we would move forward with how projects were going to be chosen to be funded but I thought it would be alleviating and alleviate any worry that just this little thing that all the money in the AES Capital fund shall be spent on capital projects for Andover elementary school and you know the grounds however we wanted to put that I like this idea to you know it's kind of talks about what we wanted to do but it also speaks to if there's money left over in any current budget I'd love to see it go into this fund and then they won't feel like they have to pre- supplies for next year or something if these things are more important so thoughts from anyone else well and I think the the bottom line there is section two just kind of adds that element of trust that this money is to be used for AES School
Capital Improvements now we all know and we've talked about this in the past if you know a plane fell out of the sky and hit the town hall then that money would be available to rebuild the town hall is some emergency and some disaster but that under no other circumstances would the board of Finance say oh we're gonna take that money and use it for something else they have to know and feel comfortable and trust that the money that they save and the money that the town puts into that AES Capital fund is theirs and it's not going to be robbed for anything else that's the most important piece of this whole thing yeah I agree I would just say that you you know I have no particular objection to this in any way guys I would just say
the schs that shann and I ran a ground a ground on repeatedly were things like defining what is capital and all the little nitty-gritty specifics this policy here if I understand it correctly and I think that I I get the vibe this policy here is basically saying to heck with that I'm going to just lay out a mission statement and this is how and and people are going to interpret this in good faith and we're going to move forward I'm fine with that I'll just point out that I could if I was inclined to do so pick at this thing all sorts of ways by pointing out you know what is capital what is not and and all this and that yeah but we went I'm fine with it we we I'm fine with it we had an lawyer and insurance person go through that we
saw yeah you had a lawyer I'm not I'm not begrudging a lawyer guy work with lawyers all day right and we were unable to get there so I am perfectly willing to admit defeat and and this is great by all means this is that annoying insurance guy that there are if somebody wanted to nitpick this they could oh I'm just put up yeah but I I think the basics are the important things are there right I mean it makes it clear what the capital fund is you know how it's funded it makes it clear that it's used for you know AES projects you know it's not part of the charter but I think it's policy it's it's simple and I think you know gets us I'm good with it and I'm happy to vote for it I'm just I'm just gonna say you know there were there were iterations of the drafts that Shannon and I came up with that were we got more and more complex as we went along as we tried to address every objection this one just basically is like never mind and I'm good with that let's and we may need to add to it at times or clarify something you know I'm just saying that's all and I mean no dis that that's a compliment not this is like complimentary not a nitpick I'm not actually I want to make them after going to the tri board meeting and then sitting you know we're all we always start off with that hour of back and forth and the getting to the trust part so I thought this would simplify it the funds that could be deposited into it that we were fine with
them putting any surplus into it that's the main thing yeah thank you I think we're just touching on the go ahead they removes the bit where we okay it for instance as one example like the old policy was like they could ask us to put money in and we would okay or not okay this one removes that right they can just choose to do it that's a gesture of good faith to them I'm on board with that I'm just saying that's something that in the past when I when we brought it up you know we would debate it we would sit here in our meeting and we debate it so yeah I'm I'm cool with it I'm not you know I have no objection and if this flies and if this works I'm thrilled I think I was
just gonna say that I think the way we can kind of get around you know what is the definition of I mean there is a clear definition you can look it up what a capital expenditure is but take that out of the process and just say I think if we were to need to add something to section two at all or any part of this it is the list of their wants that they're going to present to CIP which you know Celeste and I forget the other person's name Kaitlyn Kaitlyn Caitlyn thank you you know they have a list they going to come up with okay these are the capital things that they know they have to come to the town for the money for that's not in their budget they put that list together and those are that's the list of capital expenditures that they want funded by so it goes in here that these you know the list of funds that they submit to CIP are the things that are protected by this fund if you will and and they're defining because they're going to give us the list of their top I thought was it three or five yeah I I love that idea Bill the idea that their list of capitals is what we mean by Capital exactly right and they need to T to fund those things so they have to come to the town and say these are our Capital wants now there's no argument about what is a capital what isn't so I like it should
it be should it be indicated in here and made clear that the decision is made by the town or the board of Finance or whoever Welling you know you we could start going adding more detail but I think that that that's just part of our normal processes so it doesn't necessarily need to be I mean clearly the town controls the money because it's in a town account yeah thebly don't need add that just because it would be normal capital expenditure process I tried to Define all that right Liz we had that L down so badly that I'm I'm now I'm I'm just I'm converted like let's do this because
when we tried to lay out the step-by-step process it it just led to more problems right let's just roll with this and see how it works that's what I say because I think we agreed at that meeting you know that like you said there was going to be the trust and we were going to just get to the process when we tried to lay out like you said Rob every single step I was more concerned of what could go into it what this was it obviously we're going to have some kind of vote down the road or whatever with what happens this is just defining this little piece of it of what money could go into it yeah I have a question yep go is this going to be reviewed by the town's attorney no I don't think it needs to internal Board of Finance policy yeah okay so there's nothing legal around this and there's nothing saying it couldn't be added to amended clarified in three months if we find it it's just not working or we need this more information so I mean we could have it but again it's nothing legal so it doesn't really need to I mean you know the last draft that Shan and I produced went to the town attorney and it didn't go well so true I like that it's our internal Board of Finance policy and I think it will alleviate it will the board of vet I think would be in favor of it I haven't showed anyone there but I think this at
least lays out a few things that might you know yeah obviously they have to weigh in but you know I'm happy to bless it so let's see what they say so are we gonna vote on this to see if we want to take this and take a motion to adopt this as the board of Finance policy I'll go ahead and so move that we adopt Joann's draft a capital fund policy pursuant to pursuant to to subject to review from Boe I'll second okay so you're you're you're saying we need to have them review it well don't don't you think fine we can am input I'm I'm happy to to just pass it but you know obviously we all have to be on board so no I'm fine okay I can I'll amend my motion I I'll just say let's let's go ahead and I I'll move that we pass Joann's as capital fund policy for the board of Finance that's that's what I want then we'll and then we'll communicate that to Boe and hope that yeah get feedback that's good my intention was to send it to them after this meeting and you know for their comments and and say that like we we passed it we blessed it what do you guys think hold on guys we're getting a little bit out of out of out of order here so Bill are you still seconding the motion as Rob describe it okay go into discussion then my amended as amended yeah this is kind of the board you have your hand up I see so let's let's got yeah so the only hey it's it's your policy you
can set whatever you want not opposed to it in any way shape or form the only thing to me that's a little unclear is you say after the end of the fiscal year on June 30th they may transfer the funds personally I would be more comfortable saying after the audit is complete they may transfer the funds so that we're sure that we don't get into the same question we had last year which is they thought they had this amount of money and then after the audit they had this amount of money which happens y good point you remind me when the audit is supposed to be done if we hit our Target finally when would it be done so we would have had the final audit already it's technically supposed to be done by December 31st okay but that's a big that's a big gap yeah a big gap but it doesn't really it doesn't really change anything for the purpose for the purposes right it just means that technically the money is not going anywhere right right so it just it just gets moved in the accounts after it says unspent money so yeah that's a really good point though you might wantan to sh that budget thing is the is the is the gap that's gonna hang them up because again we don't we haven't even had our audit finished yet right well someday we'll get it to on time well it it's it's actually not honestly I think it's unrealistic to expect it to get done on time so we're we're done and have everything handed off to the auditor well before they have the capability to review because there are
so few auditing firms today that unless you're like their the first client or second client that they tackle you know it's not going to get done last year I think 30 towns out of 169 met the absolute missed the absolute last drop dead date which is next June 30th so and probably well under half the towns in the state miss the state's you know official deadline of December 31st there just isn't enough auditor capacity to do it so are do you have a proposed language that we should use Eric in that line right there are or do you want to stick with the audit word or do you want what where do we go I would say you know at the end of the fiscal year after the audit and just keep it that simple the boa
May transfer unspent funds yeah because that's when we would do it anyway yeah okay if there were ever an emergency we could always address it on a case-by Case basis somehow I think sure okay just an internal policy but I think it does make sense okay perfect so you want to amend well I think we we have to vote on the motion as presented so I would say that if we're not language we would probably vote it down and then reintroduce a different motion so if there's no more discussion I'll call for a vote all those in favor all those opposed opposed no any extensions okay motion is defeated and we can entertain other motions all right so we want to amend section 1B right Y correct at the end of our Board of v may also choose to deposit M from budget at the end of the fisc year and after the out and upon the completion of the audit yeah so we transfer UNS spent money to the board of education's budget at the end of the year maybe remove June
30th just say at the end of the fiscal year and upon the completion of the audit right the Boe May after the end of the fiscal year and upon completion of the audit because I'll re okay got it does that make sense guys yeah I think so yeah and again we can always revisit this if we decide it's not clear enough or we need to add something sounds if it's unworkable or whatever y and then everything else remains so that would be my suggested okay so you're moving to accept the policy with that that Amendment correct can I ask can I ask a question though before we we really gotta look for a second and then we can discuss is there a second I'll second that again okay Bill yeah okay go ahead Liz sorry so there's no mention of the 2% non-lps account should that's separate that's different yeah okay so they get their 2% non-aps and then this is up to them they would decide they they would decide if they even wanted to use the 2% they don't have to right they may decide this gives them the option to roll it all now into the capital fund if they would like to yeah or they may say can we put some
in the 2% and the remainder this is just setting the the rules for this particular right just as a point of clarification they can put 2% of their budget in the non-aps account regardless because that's the state law now right so that you couldn't influence either way it wouldn't be up to us right it used to be a board of Finance vote and and this is kind of where some of concern I think where the trust came just to kind of I know Liz was asking about some of the background but there were a couple years where we just said no and the reason was because we asked for a longer term plan to support that and we never really got it right and I think the board's kind of on board if you'll forgive that with the idea of producing a longer plan so I think you know we're getting past that but that was one of the reasons that kind of led us to this separate Capital fund which I all fully agree with for a whole lot of other reasons as well so can can I just ask a question please just clear with this so they'll have their 2% fund that they're entitled to of course and then they'll also have the ability to just keep any money left over in their budget so there'll be those two that money would go to Capital clear with that okay I'm reading the 2% the rules for it and I believe it's it's up to them if they wanted to take they'll have their unexpended funds this is you know with that say there was $100,000 left probably I mean it reads in here
that they can request any portion of the unexpended funds you know the 2% or whatever go into that non-aps thing for whatever they did with that I don't know if I have all the history of that but they also could take all of the unexpended funds if we adopt our new policy and put it in the capital fund account and might not even ask us to put any in the 2% so it's it's their money Am I Wrong Eric no you're you're you're right in the sense that the 2% they have every opportunity they have every right without your oversight at all right up to 2% of their budget they can designate for the 2% non-aps and account the the thing I think that is unclear and I know when we asked the auditor the auditor was of the opinion that the 2% non-aps account could also be spent on Capital but several people including Shannon have told me Point Blank that I'm wrong and I don't know the answer all I know is what the auditor said he said it's an educational expense it's a capital educational expense so you could spend it so I don't have any kind of
legal opinion other than what the auditor said in their shoes I would probably Max the 2% non-aps account and then put the rest in unexpended fund balance because I think it probably gives them more flexibility and the 2% non-aps account is completely under their control it may be held in town accounts and that's a state policy but but if they request money for it you know the treasure has to release that money there is no that's not an oversight Thing by anybody other than the board of bed I just don't want Kim and Liz to think they're two things like it's it's one pot of money that they're deciding where it goes there's only one total amount it's just where they decide to put it so right it's their they have a surplus 2% goes into their 2% non-lps and then this remaining balance they either need to put it into this fund this Capital fund or it goes back to the town that's that's the option right exactly y basically well you haven't been involved in the board with all and I get it and I understand you're coming at it from the correct angle that you want to we've done a lot of work to get it to this point so that this account could it is a town account but it's there for capital projects that we already know are gonna have to be done so thing is they don't have to put into the 2% account that's what I'm saying right they don't now I don't know how
this is gonna play out you know Eric scenario is possible I don't know I know there's some ambiguity in the language and so decisions can be made and we're going to kind of find out and I think we should r with it for now and see how it works and if it's not working we can revisit But ultimately the idea is they should be able to put aside money for these Capital we all know that are coming yeah and I don't want them to be in the mindset of either we put in the 2% non lapsing or we lose it right so that was the idea that's it that's it and I'm done I'm done I don't want to sorry I don't want to belabor it and this is already money that was voted on you know it's prior years it's not going forward we're just talking about a policy that's going to take money that's left over and instead of getting spent on other things it's going to go to projects that need to be done that's you know I understand that yeah no no and I'm not trying to fight you on I know you're coming at it because saying just she just is ask yeah I I understand the yeah yeah so that's do we want to vote on this guys we haven't voted yet so yes do anybody have any any other further discussions directly pertaining to the motion to accept the policy with
the amendment that Rob proposed okay all in favor say I I any opposed no any extensions okay motion passes we'll use this as our policy and as several have noted we can almost change it or add to it or modify it if we decide we need to and of course as I think others suggested we can pass this on to the board of ed for their input if they have some requested language or ideas we can always do that so the okay we'll move on to 6B which is budget discussions so we have several sub items here Eric I presume that you had add had these added to the agenda yes they are in the packet I just did want to say so you all can get a heads up because at some point you're going to have to start figuring out when you want to do budget meetings and that is my goal is to have a pretty well fleshed out draft around February Ary 3rdd for the town General and for the capital budgets for both the board of
Selectmen and finance to review and then I will be available for meetings on a weekly basis from there until the budget passes other than I am taking some time in February or in March and taking a week then but I will only miss one budget meeting doing that or one potential meeting doing that so this this letter that you have outlined to the board of selectman board of Finance Board of Ed to the treasurer gives that General outline for the the dates you're proposing so that makes sense correct so you can feel free to schedule budget meetings I know there was some concern that your time frame to do this was going to be considerably crunched you can feel free to to schedule budget meetings from the beginning of February on Mark I was hoping that we were GNA start mid-February I don't do you I don't know I'll open it up to see what everyone else thinks I know we're gonna get it in our hands I was hoping to review it a little bit are we because if we started mid-February we're going to go well into March like we always do unless everybody's I mean that's a whole month sooner than we do normally but if other people are in favor for the start of February I'll sit back and listen well I don't think we need to make a necessarily decision right now but so starting starting February 5th so I think what Eric is just proposing is that as of that date we should be able to start having meetings whether we choose to have them or not is kind of another matter the only one we actually have to
have is the town hearing right so but okay okay and then propose that we get the board of v on the 15th and we start go ahead and follow up with the we meetings as we as we would propose them okay right and then I'll go through this other stuff real quick considering assuming I can figure out which is that the one hopefully okay hopefully you're looking at the correct thing so I just want to bring a couple things things and I know I've talked about this but our working assumption at this point should be that the grand list will be flat I'm hoping it's slightly positive but it could also be slightly negative overall due to a a series of changes in how taxation is done in the state of Connecticut I'm proposing probably pretty minimal changes in this budget versus next year's budget I think as a town we're about funded correctly in terms of capital and operating expenses so I'm not anticipating any major programmatic changes in the town for this year there are some potential for significant Personnel changes as some of you know the Municipal Retirement program which is called murf
or Ms depending on which acronym you use has changed their formula for how they calculate cost of living increases and it seems like anybody that was going to retire in the next three years or four years even probably makes sense to go right now so I think there are two employees potentially an outside chance of a third taking that there's there's three where it might be beneficial for them to go right now so that might be effect on the town I don't want to talk about who that is that's out of the range just so that you're aware of that the other good thing is the diesel and heating fuel costs are quite a bit lower than we were than we are currently we locked in diesel for the year at around 250 seven a gallon so that's great that's you know that's 30 or so cents a gallon cheaper than it was last year so pretty happy with that maybe it goes down some more but historically over the last 20 or so years sometime in December is the best time to lock in so I got permission from the board of Select and locked into that so as as we talked about in terms of the major projects it's going to be Bunker Hill Lake Road finishing off the community center and the route 316 multi-use pathway the only one I
don't have fully covered right now is the route 316 multi-use pathway I actually have construction funds but there's still a gap in the design funds and I'm hoping to get an exact number on that prior to budget season and then that's either going to have to be budgeted somehow in this year or put off for a year questions on any of that okay NOP no here is the good news and that our percentage of enrollment as I said three years ago and then two years ago and then last year and then this year is still going down so the the great thing about that is Ram budget can increase 3.4% and our town Levy will stay the same so that's the number to look at I don't know what they're going to actually come in for a budget so if it comes in at 10% it's still going up pretty considerably if it comes in at three or 4% it's basically cost neutral for the town yep my question was Ram voted to accept students from Colombia now I thought that was going to start this year is that or I guess next year is that true that is true and so will that affect these percentages because you're adding another town in there it should change all of these percentages well I think they're still under negotiation and and we don't you know it may it may help actually if they offset some of the
overhead cost right but I'm not sure I'm not sure it would add them to this percentage either I think it might be like a surplus that they didn't distribute according to this formula I'm not really sure right so so they don't necessarily become like a voting in part of like we you know there's man it's Andover you know marble Hein but they don't become like a voting member of the Ram Board they're just going to send students out a cost per head I'm just trying to figure out how that affects I don't think we really know yet that was my understanding of the idea was that they would send students but they don't necessarily it wouldn't be Ram or whatever one of the schools of choice right so it's not like it's all in okay thank you actually the acronym would be cram I thought of that like 10 seconds after I said it yeah Colombia sends kids to multiple offers their kids multiple high schools as options I think currently they have EOS Smith Windom Tech and maybe leanon isn't it Lebanon no maybe it's Lebanon I I'm I'm not actually sure I know they every so many years they go out to bid essentially with all the local schools to you know and then parents have a choice about where to send their kids righta so that's all I know about ram ram superintendent Colin did email me this week and asked me whether there was
a specific date that you as a board wanted to get the Ram budget presentation and have him talk come to present at the board and talk through budget I said I would bring it up with you it can be whenever whenever you want to schedule that well in February yeah probably one of our budget meetings do we remember when we did it last year do we have a date if I wish it'll be ready to discuss well I think he basically said he's probably prepared to talk about it in some form now I mean if you're talking about it now it hasn't actually gone through Ram so it's preliminary right if you talk about it later it's more finalized okay so yeah yeah you probably we'll try to get some more information on when that would be ready I mean later the later the better I mean
it's it's one of these things we just simply don't have much control over so it really doesn't affect our budget just as long as we have a number to plug I mean it does affect our budget we just don't control it but all right okay I yeah I mean I'd like to hear from them when it's more feel pretty solid about it yeah yeah yeah I don't want to we talked to them now it feels way too early at the same time you don't want to be like right before It's Tricky but I I personally don't want to talk to them too early yeah Eastern Highlands what is your question about this or previous yeah cosmetology permits Y what is that so we are covered by a health district called Eastern Highlands health district it is a state law that towns have to have a whole series of capabilities no small town has the capability to do that on their own a city like or a municipality like will am Mantic does but Eastern Highlands health district is I think 10 or 11 towns in Eastern Connecticut and so
these are the things that the state mandates that the health departments regulate so yes every cosmetology and this has been new in the last couple of years so they're still adopting adapting to that has to be inspected on an annual basis in charged a fee for that service so they do every commercial you know food establishment they do cosmetology they do group homes they review all subdivision plans for subsurface septic anytime there's the potential for a sewage installation they review those they do vaccine Administration programs throughout the district including the endover elementary school they do a a ton of stuff overall so the reason why I wanted to bring this to your attention is kind of the bottom line so
this budget was proposed by the director Rob Miller and it will go to there will be a public hearing you can all go to that next month if you so desire I do sit on both the the policy board and the executive I am technically the assistant Treasurer but I have no duties when it comes to being the assistant Treasurer because Mansfield's the town of Mansfield's paid treasure is also the actual paid treasure for the health district so it's just essentially the third executive board position so their budget right here the important part is this is what is budgeted for the member Town contributions it's going up from 474 to 486,000 in round terms true can you point I I can't see what your oh okay propos okay right go ahead and so the the thing to keep in mind is that what
the towns pay into the program is about half the total cost of programs broadly speaking they get three big buckets of funds one comes from the town one comes from the state and federal government and one comes from service fees so if you're putting installing a septic field you pay for the review and that money goes to Eastern Highlands help this and their sanitarian comes out and inspects so this is the from our perspective this is the number we focus on is what is the total budgeted increase and then the question so overall the the increase for the member towns is about 3% but every year the State Department of Health decides what the population in each town is so some towns have declined in population some towns have increased in population slightly so that affects
the the rates for the individual town they have our town listed as 3,144 people which is down about 15 people from the last time they did the the survey and I I don't know where the you where the the State comes up with those population numbers because it doesn't seem to correlate to the American Community survey data which is like what the federal government does and seems to be the most accurate numbers but I don't know that that's where they come up with it so they come up with a per capita proposed per capita free to the town I'm going to flip down to Andover so the bottom line is their proposed budget is1
19,340 which is an increase to the town of Andover around $680 if you have any feedback for the health department that you want to relay through me I would be happy to to do it if you have any specific questions and then this this I also put in oh yeah that's pretty much everything I put in for the Health Department there is some more details in there I just gave you I didn't give you their whole budget package it's about 25 pages long I just gave you snapshots of what I thought you know kind of the bottom lines were and I'll take any questions on that if you have it questions we're certainly lucky to be part of you know yes we are one of the one one of the towns because obviously it's a big expense but by being part of the district very helpful no right yeah I don't have any question seems fine yeah I will see one of the the huge headwinds that help districts face is that there is an extreme shortage of professionals to do this you know it takes if you start off with somebody with with a microbiology degree it's probably about four years of training to get him to be a licensed sanitarian you know four years of on the job training before he's really launched on his own the towns and
health departments are all poaching from each other pretty incessantly so the the biggest issue the healthc care you know the the district has faced is really sharply increased Personnel costs and you know trying to maintain staff so thank you for presenting it yeah yep okay yeah so we went over the major Trends enrollment data The District budget the final budget to actual that was what I had it it just got stuck in the packet earlier so we don't need to go over that and so I also included in in there what I gave to the department heads and board chairman for what I wanted back for information which is so so the basic procedures the first thing that happens is each department head or chair or somebody that's responsible for some aspect of the money gets a budget worksheet which they are expected to fill out and then what I what I want back every year is detailed written explanations of you know you can have a line item that says you know $700 for ink or $700 for you know copier or supplies and the average person looks at that and says that's nuts but then you find out it's the building department and the ink for that big chart plotter is really expensive so so that kind of thing and my goal
is to get that back so when you ask me questions I have all the physical material to refer to I'm happy to pass all of that on to you if you want to review it all yourself you always have the option of bringing in people to ask questions directly about their budgets as you you know as you desire or you can relay them through me whatever whatever you're happy with as a process when are those going out to the everybody those have been out for three weeks so everybody every department has its budget at this point I haven't seen anything for zba then email me tomorrow morning okay and we'll figure out why yep does this come in in like Excel format or what kind of what does it look like does it does we send them an Excel worksheet in and we ask them to send it back electronically because if it we send it back electronically it can be fit directly into our spreadsheet without additional somebody transposing all the numbers not every board in commission is sophisticated enough to be able to do that in Excel spreadsheet a lot of them we get back and and we deal with it as they are I did have a discussion with the treasurer today I'm hoping that she's
going to have me back the the overall budget worksheet template pretty quickly so we can start the the Departments that have already given us their numbers you know and the other thing is I I the other thing I always ask is for them to let me know what numbers are verified and what numbers you know are uncertain because we know six months out or eight months out before the fiscal year you may not have all the contracts lined up many things you're going to have an exact number that's reliable like you know our because they existing contract multi-year contracts and other things you know may have a fair bit of uncertainty to it so I want to know that what numbers when I'm presenting you in February are locked in and what numbers are variable and why so that's basically what what my ask is to all the department heads then it gets collated at our end and present presented back out and you know I gave them an example I took one border commission and then you know specified kind of the level of detail that I wanted for it and an explanation so hopefully we get the information back that we want so that's that's kind of everything I have for that unless you have questions no thank you for showing
us yeah I appreciate you explaining the process I mean I definitely had some questions about how this is done annually and this really helps me understand it better so thank you sure but what I would also say is that as the board of Finance you have a lot of control over how this is done as much or as little as you want to you know at one point the board of Finance would bring in every single board in commission and compile the the budget completely themselves we've switched to me providing the preliminary budget and then you having the opportunity to review and adjust as you see fit I think that's a workable you know and that kind of align aligns with the changes in the charter now you know but if there's
specific departments you want to talk to in terms of specifics there are some things that are out of your hands like for instance the board of Selectmen technically sets the salary and benefits for everybody who is a Municipal Employee that is not elected you as the board of Finance set the salary for elected officials so those those go directly to you the others come through the the board of Selectmen other than that you know everything else is is pretty much under your review yeah and just you know for the for the benefit of those that haven't gone through this typically with the Departments we don't talk to them directly is Eric mentioned and I think it's a much more efficient process to have him kind of collate it and you know challenge the the folks because he knows what they're doing he knows what they've done in the past he's very familiar with the operations some of the exceptions have been usually Department of Public Works that's the big spend department so sometimes especially if they're looking for equipment funding or something like that in advance we'll have Jay come in and you and Eric will will talk about some of the if they have some big changes We've also had the I think the fire dep Department come in that's a big that's a big cost item and often something we need to allocate significantly capital and other expenditures too so we we'll be looking at that tomorrow night I think and RAM obviously he's yeah and RAM and and the and the AES course right I mean ram is is big but you know it's not part of our budget theoretically can't change we can just
put the line he's always been kind enough to yeah no but it's important to hear from them yeah you know like tomorrow CIP meets and we are one of our agenda item I glanced at it quickly you know is a significant expenditure for their turnout gear so there's a thing that's going to be bubbling up you know and then we're gonna we're going to be dealing with in this budget C probably or at least certain exp expenditure for what turnout gear their turnout I think it's the turnout gear Eric you correct me if I'm wrong but it's their gearar is the equ want a fire their suits their their air tanks all their apparat some of their stuff is expiring it has a certain shelf life certain use life and I think
some of their stuff is up Eric how many years will you and that's why I kind of like I know you said you could get the the worksheet or the spreadsheet rather the budget spreadsheet to the boards maybe the beginning of February and then we would take a look at it and at that time if we had questions maybe as a board we would have a department come in if we needed to or decide then but are you it's been mentioned to me before so I want to make sure how many years back will you show us for reference on the spreadsheet will we go a good couple years back is new members so so one of the things I wanted to do differently and I've already spoke to the treasurer about it is I've gotten beaten up a few times over not for providing the information in the five parallel columns outlined in the charter yeah the charter is very specific we will go back to that and
you know the part of the problem is it requires because every year we add a few line items sometimes subtract a few line items and so we can't just cut and paste columns from previous years into it so there's actually Fair bit of manipulation to do that so but you know that's why we have a you know a a treasure so yeah you will get multiple years of data and some of you have requested of me the previous year's approved Excel spreadsheets of the budgets that got approved I can give you you know five years worth of those if you want them I have them we typically done like a threeyear rolling yeah I feel like it's been three yeah I think it's been usually three yeah I I would have to go back I I pulled out the the charter and figured out what columns they actually request you know and kind of specified that so we present exactly how the charter pulls it out so hopefully I'll stop getting beat up over that my recollection is we in the past we've
done the budget workups we've been looking at threeyear averages or threee not three average sorry three years of experience yeah okay thank you all right I'm gonna propose if we don't have any other specific questions for Eric we do have one other agenda item which we added at the beginning so it might take a few minutes we have some other things so there's no objections we'll move on to 6C and this is the discussion of the request from the Board of Ed to release $48,600 for the fuss and O'Neal me I'm not sure what MEP is and it's basically the mechanic electrical mechanical electrical PL mechanical electrical Plum okay thank you I have facilities responsibility at work among a lot of other things and I never heard it put that way but any r so the the fuss and O'Neal proposal is in there We've also have a letter from the school board from Caitlyn basically this is to in support of the the plumbing renovation that's required in the wing four fifth and sixth grade Wing this proposal is for $48,600 full support from schematic design through construction Administration so it won't be you know the entire necessarily the entire thing but this is this is the planning this isn't the yeah planning and management right so and and probably review so they're asking for an appropriation 48,600 from the a AES Capital fund for this Capital project to kick it off it's in that third paragraph that they
said yeah and they had another bid but it was didn't cover like it yeah something like it was there was a $28,000 bid that just didn't really and they had a successful experience with fuss and O'Neal for previous projects so yeah I know we use them in my business from time to time they're they're one of our project managers of record so any you guys had decent experience with them mark yeah I know that my engineering reviews you know cooling that kind of thing they have a very good reputation I would say overall I from electrical standpoint I know their work when you need an expert they're they've been been pretty successful for us I I you know I I knew that this was going to cost us I just kind of hoped it would be less than this well this isn't even project no this isn't so no this is just the planning it's it's it's the documents that are needed to go out to bid too right they they will oversee the bidding process as well they gave you stages of what they there's like three or four phases that they will cover this project that I'm you know if you scroll down there's the scope of the services and right it's a full project management design documents these are all part of any standard contract for bid and that's it describes different phases of the entire project and what they cover so it does construction Management's a big one too right the construction management of the whole they're doing this is holistic they're doing it all could you scroll down and which I think was the issue
with the other bid right that this Pro this proposal covers everything and the cheaper one didn't and that was the the plans right contract documents is what you actually take and use to go out to bid with and that's what the job is built by it's and that has to be done right right it it has to be done right you know it's bidding support going out to bid construction Administration is a huge one this is a a very complete package right here I I used to teach this class on how these documents are put together so I I can tell this is a very very complete Bill be careful what you say mind I know where you're going with that Mark so you know I guess they're they're asking us to release the money from the capital funds yeah personally am in favor of of doing that but U I don't know if anybody has any other I mean comment my take my take is unless we think this is egregiously wrong we should go ahead and release their money in the spirit of our policy right so I I think so because this is the startup of everything happening for this number one on priority list so yeah yeah I mean we all know this Plumbing project problem
has been an issue for some time now they've had bathrooms shut down in the school now for how long now God a year so yeah yeah I mean my my gut take is let's go number one number two if everybody that has technical expertise on this board two of you have just weighed in and basically said yeah this is right let's do it yeah yeah can I make two comments sure go ahead comment number one and I'm somewhat biased I do like fuss and O'Neal in the sense that my my normal cycling partner is a retired VP of fuss and O'Neal and one of my other guys I'm going on vacation ran fuss and O'Neal's New Hampshire and operations I've had fuss and O'Neal bid on a bunch of stuff on the town honestly I've never chosen them because
they are an expensive contractor not saying they're not high quality they are they do excellent work so I guess it's just a question of whether I I mean I would not hire them for the town's perspective but maybe it's appropriate for the school that that's kind of your judgment the other bid from AZ engineering was I don't know whether the school got any other bids this is the only one they showed me the contract documents and scope of work for AZ engineering was I think $199,000 so you're that doesn't have constru management right on that one Eric is that true management involved it was so limited construction management in terms of they would they this agreement got you completely through the bid walkth through the development of the art rfps help in selecting the contractor but this is a little firm it's not a this is a three-person operation not fuss and O'Neal which is a you know a really large operation that just bought a shiny new building in Hartford so pluses and minuses to both I am not opposed to you selecting but just realize that you're you're paying for you know you're paying for a really good contract but you're also paying a premium to get it and so just as long as you understand that then you know that's not a bad yeah I'd be happy to work that way as going you know going
forward a company like fuss O'Neal you're probably not going to run into issues down the road I don't know I'll leave it I'll leave it at that I just think getting I feel like there was something oh go ahead I just think there's peace of mind going with a company like th and O'Neal yeah that you might not get with a small firm like a but I I've never dealt with a I don't know them at all my my only concern is whether the two bids are apples to apples that's all I wanted to say Rob they're not app to Apples this this isn't my expertise so I'm gonna sit back but Caitlyn aware of saying that there was something in the plans I don't have it called up on my screen that maybe was lacking in the the less expensive quote whereas I feel like the she said something like and that was maybe I I wish I had it in front of me I had it I had it up it was like $28,000 difference for this the or a percentage of the plans were not included it says the language she has in her letter is after careful consideration we determined that failed to provide many things such as architectural plans thank you plans are estimated to about 60% of the cost so yeah it's not an apple samples yeah so that's my isue is if if it was just a question of big big firm with great reputation and small firm I don't know but if it's not Apples to Apples if if it's hard to evaluate it especially for somebody like me who has zero expertise in this area I am so deferring to anybody here who knows this
stuff because I don't I'm I'm but a humble history major who doesn't I would think that we would also defer to the Judgment of the Board of Education this is these are their faults that they really felt like they could get away and save some money I'm assuming that they would do that yeah Ian we saw something egregious in there like you know then I would be a little more concerned but you know they've they've made the Judgment it looks it looks reasonable to me I I think that we defer to their judgment on this as long as we don't think it's you know completely outlandish that's my take so I guess the The Next Step would be that I could move that we so we appr you know we release the money 48,600 from the capital fund right so all right go I'll go ahead and make that motion I will move that we in accordance with the request for the Board of Education appropriate $48,600 for this particular Capital project
or rather the engineering for this Capital project as per the request that we've received a second I'll second that okay Bill we have further discussion all those in favor say I hi hi hi any opposed anybody abstaining okay hearing none passes unanimously thank you cool okay so I guess that takes us to our next agenda item which is item seven board open discussion is there anything else that the board members would like to discuss I already mentioned mine you know CIP beating is tomorrow night I've gotten a heads up just based on the you know packet and everything that we have some stuff coming down the pike from the fire department for some expenditure so just FYI I really just quickly glanced at it Eric could probably tell you the exact figures but it looked like about a quarter million dollars worth of turnout gear and stuff like that oh I wait till wait till after we have firm information so yeah but just FYI we'll be talking about this tomorrow night and then our next meeting we'll take it up for real okay good thank you anybody have anything else none okay we'll move on agenda item eight which is correspondence I think all the correspondence that I've gotten is either stuff that Joanne has distributed to all of us I think and then there was
the stuff from kayn that came in about the fuss and O'Neal proposal for the bathroom remodeling I forwarded all that to you anybody have anything else okay we move on to agenda item nine which is public speak we do not appear to have any members of the public here get my hand out of the way except pushing the buttons there's nobody okay so I guess we'll move on to adjournment maybe i' like to make the motion to adj yes Bill hey Bill I'll second it okay Kimberly seconds thank you that's one I saw anyway all right any discussion no no all those in favor say I I he opposed any abstentions all right thank you very much everybody long meeting for December try to keep your everybody else great holiday and a great New Year Eric as always we'll be
in touch thank you Eric no worries bye bye