Meeting transcript
Board of Finance- Regular Meeting
October 28, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
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Yep.
Thank you, sir. Alright. So, yes, October 28 regular board of finance meeting. We will go ahead and start the meeting and start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, undergotten, undivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. As you folks may have recognized, we are missing a couple people. We'll proceed ahead. Oh, there's Heather. Excellent. So we're up to five. Bill's not gonna make it. He's on vacation, and, hopefully, we'll get Luis. We will see. So we'll start with public speak. Get that done. Joanne, do you have public speak for us? Nope. Just here to listen. Thank you. Great. Thanks. Diane, how about you?
There you are. Back earlier this year, I'm not quite sure because how long ago, we had discussed the possibility of the board of finance putting together a way with the treasurer to be able to accept donations from residents for different boards and commissions, particularly the community garden or the rec commission or the beautification committee, and there wasn't a process or a way of doing it, and you're going to take a look at finding a way. And I guess my question is, I just don't want that to fall through the cracks. I know you're busy with the budget, but before the budget season gets going, maybe you can address that. So that's my concern for the day. And Thank you. One one other... Not so important, but important to me. I noticed on your... The packet from the treasurer's department, I assume. They have the Diane Greiner scholarship, and the Norton Commission has been updated, and it looks like it's good. Thank you. Just... I'm not sure if Lisa's on or... Yes. She is. This Diane is spelled with two n's rather than one n. I don't wanna be confused with a... Some other person with the same name.
If they be corrected, I appreciate it. Diane, I usually don't engage in public speak, but that's my fault. Oh.
You Lisa is laughing. You see Lisa is laughing. That's my fault. I apologize.
Well, I said, my all mother the letters, and I just like to continue that. And just to have it right. So that... That's We'll take care of it, Diane. We'll fix it. Okay. Good. I'll sleep better tonight knowing that. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Moving through.
I see the cremets are on. Do you guys have public speak for us? It's dear to listen. Thank you. Very good. Marcy? No. Thank you.
Okay. Great. And then, Kate, I see you're on. I I I know you're here to talk about the request you sent to us. So do you want me to just wait till we add that to the agenda and get to it? Because we're gonna do that right up front. Yeah. That's fine. Thank you. Okay. I think that's everybody for public speak. So let's go ahead and do changes, additions to the agenda I'd like to add. When... You know, we don't have department reports or a town administrator's report. For those who don't know, Matt had to run to urgent care, so we don't have our administrator tonight. So what I would wanna do is, you know, alter... We can... Frankly, I wanna put new business above old business. I don't know if we can just quickly turn five into new business and make it the BOE request that Kate wants to discuss. Anybody have any objection to that? Okay. So that's my motion. Anybody wanna second it? I'll second it. Great. Thanks, Liz. Alright. All all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.
That's everybody. Okay. Five o. Very good. Can I just Yeah? Yeah. Can I just state can I just state for the record for the note person that Louise is not here? And I think I remember last... Didn't she say last month that she was gonna be on a cruise or something? She said You know, that rings a bell. I think she's gonna ring a bell. That she was gonna be on a cruise. Yeah. Okay. I think so too. Alright. So we have... We know we're not gonna have Bill or Louise. Okay.
Excuse me. Well, we have a forum, so we're okay. So, yes, let's get to that BOE request. Kate, if you wanna talk about this, this was where you had some billing related to the bathroom project that's still out there, and you had sent us an email yesterday about it.
Yeah. Sorry. I'm trying to make the rest of the people near me be slightly more quiet. So I did send you guys an email. There's a link on that to a Google spreadsheet. It's a little bit modified from what we've been using between the town administrator, the treasurer, and Jody, who's the director of finance for the school. Mostly just to try to get everything that was a further expense from the initial Fuss and O'Neil contract onto the same spreadsheet. If you guys click on the links that are in the second column, column b, that leads you to the invoice associated with that financial amount. So the total for all of that was $2,612.87 and 51¢. Originally, you guys had allocated an additional 220,000, so that leaves a $41,287.51 over what we had initially asked for from the capital account. I did see today, it looks like the treasurer updated the spreadsheet that that check has been sent out today from the town. So I think this is more just, like, officially so that everyone is on the same page and we know how much the project cost in total. But I think all of those invoices are now paid to date. And then just to confirm in public, the main reason for the increase in cost over what the estimate was was, roughly $30,000, specifically to deal with asbestos that was found during the project.
Okay. Does anybody have any further questions about, you know, that extra amount? I mean, I knew... I think we knew it was gonna go over a bit, especially once we found the asbestos. Yeah. So there's so there's about 35. So there's, you know, a a small amount there that went over for other reasons, I guess.
Yeah. The the other the other main reason for the overage would be, for the lawyer's fees, which are the first two invoices. And that's roughly 5,000. Important to note for that, the town has never had a full contract for a project like this that favored the owner as opposed to the contractor. So it will be a really good contract on a move forward for any future projects on the town or the school side. I'm trying to find that email.
Of the... From yesterday? Is it twenty seventh? I don't think I got it either. I don't think. I mean, I I had it, but I'm trying to find it. It's... You're all... You're all copied. Do want me to forward it again?
Because I have one today, but not yesterday. For... Oh, school bathroom The final numbers. There it is.
There you go. And, yeah, it pulls up a Google spreadsheet with hyperlinks to the invoices.
So Okay. I attended... Or I went to the meeting, the board of ed meeting the other night, and it sounded like there's, like, $40,000 that's owed to Boston O'Neil. Is that right? No.
It's about 4,000, and that was from the initial contract with Fuss and O'Neil that you guys as a board approved about two years ago. So that was part of the original contract, which was... There were outstanding invoices from that original contract for construction support. Those are not included on this current spreadsheet.
So what do we owe What do you think we owe Fuss and O'Neil? Because we had a So you you You 48 town six. Yes.
Yep. But So so I didn't... I wasn't planning to address that issue tonight. Basically, the town, I believe the first selectmen, and Jeff, you can correct me if I'm wrong, did not want to pay those outstanding invoices. And because they were overdue, the Board of Education did pay those invoices. So Fuss and O'Neil's contract is now paid in full, and we'll have to look at asking for reimbursement from the town at a at a later date.
Why why are we piecemealing these requests? I don't understand. Because that's what I had understood from the board of ed meeting that I had read, that this was gonna be part of the ask.
So it's not part of an ask because that was already an approved contract. You guys already approved that money. Well, we approved it, but then
But then you did... The town did not pay a small portion of that contract.
Right. Because Listen. $4,000 is the correct number. Right. My my issue is... And I and I... Listen. I I was not copied on these emails, so I I don't I don't see it here. I see emails from Caitlin about other issues, but not about that. So I apologize. I don't have any of the information on it. I would love to see the hyperlinks because you're talking town money. You're not talking school money. So the $4,000 that the board of education paid is the remainder of that contract, because you have to realize that while that contract was open, a design to build contract was put in place by the Board of Education and the superintendent, and then it was gone to RFP. So my question, Caitlin, are all of these costs associated with the contractor that won the RFP? These extra costs.
Yes. If you're... If we're not talking about the Fuss and O'Neil contract, because there's nothing from that contract that was that was outside of their original contract. I can also, I know that the treasurer and Matt, like, have been updating the original spreadsheet. I can add that... Add you on that, Jeff, if you want. That has all the hyperlinks. I... I'm I'm sorry. I thought that you were part of that originally. I forwarded the email to him just now.
That doesn't have Fuss and O'Neil on it, which seems to be what you guys are talking about. I was trying to not talk about that tonight. So Listen.
This is is confusing as it is. And if you sit there and you look at all of the costs related to the bathroom project, with the additions to the... And I'll never pronounce their vendor name correctly, Segundo, the vendor that did the project. I pulled the current invoice, and there's $30,000 of additional add ons that I'm assuming Caitlin,
Eric Sanderson approved. Yes. Eric Eric approved all of those. I mean, there were small change orders throughout the process. There was an issue with, removal of concrete in the boys' bathroom and then concerns about stability for that. So they were there were numerous, like, small things throughout the project that we talked about in our weekly meetings, which Matt also attended. So, yeah, those those are all approved, and they're all, like, part of the approved invoices that are hyperlinked.
Okay. So so that would be great to get those so that
the treasurer... The treasurer's office can look at them. Yes. They're... They should be all hyperlinked on there. Like... And at least... I think Lisa's on this. I you and Matt had looked at all of those. Yes? I think... I just searched. I did a quick search, and it's weird because in cap under kaitlyn dot greenhouse dot andover, it doesn't come up. But when I do lowercase, you're not sending it from two emails, are you? It's kinda weird.
So, like, a home home email My and my email is greenhouse dot c.
See, when when you ask I just had to go two places to look for it. I don't know. And and when...
See, this is why the email... And and I I do have email that... Caitlin, the email asks for $41,000 more from Correct. The capital fund. Yes. The town has paid everything, including the Fuss and O'Neil billing, $4,000 And just so everybody's aware, and I've sent that contract out multiple times, the phrases of that contract, the reason why this started was because we were going to design to build, it was very confusing. But the third phase and the fourth phase that we have already paid Fuss and Oneal a significant amount of money on their phases, phase three was for bidding and phase four was contract management or construction management, where they
didn't do either one of those functions. They did actually help us with that and they did help during construction management, but Eric had to talk with the engineer there whose name is Josh several times regarding specifically the issues with the floor and removal of concrete, and they, like, yes, they they were part of construction management throughout the project. Alright. Because they did all the architecture for it.
Well, that's what we paid them the majority of the money for. That's what they were supposed to do. So... Okay. So we're talking $4,000 that I have held. And I'll be honest, I won't sign those checks just yet. You don't... So we we already paid them because they were overdue.
So now the board of ed will have to ask the town to reimburse that. I was trying not to address any of that tonight and trying to make it clean so that you guys saw the cost of the total project over the $2.20 that was already allocated for it. That's all I was trying to do tonight.
Okay. So the $2.20 includes... The $2.20 plus the Fuss and O'Neil contract is the cost of the project?
No. The total cost of the project would be the Fuss and O'Neill contract plus $2,670.03 7.51. And who is that being paid to?
So if you... I... Did you get the email that I forwarded, Jeff? So in there, there's a bunch of sub... Segundo stuff in, you know, the the the... That is here for the asbestos work and everything like that. That takes the $2.20. There's there's $41,002.87 51 on this spreadsheet. That does not include about for the 4 k that we were just talking about for for Fuss and O'Neil. There's no Fuss and O'Neil on this spreadsheet. This is a a couple of legal bills totaling about $4,500, and then the rest is Segundo, and there's one other contractor on here.
The EnviroMed was who did the asbestos testing afterwards to certify that it was okay to be in the building.
Right. So that takes you $2.20 to $2.61, $287.51. That is the actual cost of the of the the project as far as I can tell, you know, leaving aside for Sonia.
And our initial approval was $2.20. I have to sell. I thought we approved... I wrote this down somewhere where we approved... Oh, it came to $2.20 with the two or 5%, whatever that word was. I'm trying to remember. Is that bond? Contingency? Or Contingency. Yes. Yeah. Okay.
So, yeah, I think we originally approved $2.20. Because of the... Almost entirely because of the asbestos work, it became $2.61. It's, you know, two fifty five with the asbestos and then the the remaining five ish,
I think, the legal billing. And then if you guys want a total total for the whole project and we're including all of the Fuss and O'Neil stuff with that, their total cost was 48,600.
Right. Right. That was the initial contract that we approved. Right. Yeah. Before we realized that you were going a different direction and doing an RFP.
Okay. Right? So So so listen. Listen. The majority... All of these have been paid. Yep. I mean... Yep. So if I understand what this is is a... Not even a request. It's... This is what the project's new total is costing. We should do a better accounting of this, honestly. Like, I understand what they're doing on their spreadsheet, but we should sit there and and have a full $30.09
We should we should we should look at that. We should look at the treasurer's office, and we should sit there and say, okay. This is actually what's up because all of those bills have been processed, including the attorneys, because they came to us at one point in time and came to the Board of Finance about the attorneys. That's been paid. Those attorney costs have been paid. The EnviroMed's been paid. Eric Sanderson's been paid. Yes, everything
has been paid. The whole point of this tonight was really just to go over like a total of what the total project was and to make sure that everyone's all on the same page. There is a more detailed spreadsheet, Jeff, that I'm I'm pretty sure that you were a part of as well that has been what Matt and Lisa and Jody have been updating that has check numbers, the date processed, all the hyperlinks to the invoices, like, every... Everything is on that spreadsheet. I tried to make it more simplified for this public meeting.
Can can we actually see that before we can just push this to next month?
I mean, I don't want guys to take action. Like, the town already cut the check for it. So Right.
Yeah. Initially, thought this was a request. Yeah. It... It's not It's been paid.
It's 41,000 has been paid? Then what are we talking about? Liz, let... Liz, let's just go with this way. What... You know, if you sit there and you go, most of these have been in front of you in piecemeal. The the attorney's boss was in front of you in piecemeal. Yeah. We talked about that. Caitlin came and said we had a contract review. What would be nice, honestly, is that if the town could get a copy of the contract, because I don't... I've asked today to sit there and find that from Matt and find that from the town clerk, neither one.
Yeah. I can I can make sure that you guys get a copy of that? It should be on file with the project, but I'll definitely make sure we send you a copy as well.
To be really honest, the only thing that is now, since the school board paid the $4,000 to Fuss and O'Neil, this project is complete. But we should sit there and see an accounting of this. Like, a one spreadsheet, everybody can sit there and see, here's the total costs. Caitlin's numbers aren't bad. There's... We have the AES Capital Fund and the treasurer's office. So the project's completed. I mean, there's not anything that anyone's gonna do. I I mean, I was getting information that the school's coming for an extra $41,000 on some cost outside of the the contract bid, but that's not that's not really what this is about. No. Not at all. So
I mean, I think we're largely good here. But, yeah, if if there's a more complete spreadsheet, that'd be nice.
If my backpack is Sorry. There is a more complete spreadsheet. I didn't think it was appropriate to share in a public meeting due to the personal nature of some of the things that are on the spreadsheet.
Okay. What could be wait. I got to ask a question. What could be personal on The bathroom. Contract documentation? Like, could be it's a bathroom project. What could be personal?
One of the vendors who was paid had their taxes that were owed to the town removed from their payment, and that is on the spreadsheet and notated. And I don't think that that is proper to be discussed in a public meeting.
That is that a good point. We can sit there and get that off, but that could be deleted.
Yep. Yeah. Why don't we anything else? Is there anything else that should it? That should be it. Okay. No. That's it. Alright. Why don't we just take that off, and then we have our full spreadsheet? I mean, if I... My back of the napkin math is right here, the grand total for the project is slightly over 300,000. Because if you add in the the Snow Neel contract to this $2.61, You and said it was 48, and so it should be, like, 300. Should be, like, $3,093.10. Yep. That's correct.
So if there's a spreadsheet that reflects that, great. But, yeah, we don't we don't have action to take here as a board, don't believe. This is informational. I appreciate the hyperlink documents so that we could look at, you know, what the invoices were, but there's nothing to vote on here. This has been paid, and we'll talk about the other issue later.
Thank you. Thank you. When... Can I actually ask when did you pay that that last bill? Was it 6,000 or 4,004 thousand. Yeah.
For Fossil and O'Neill, is that what you're asking about? Yeah. So it's actually... It was actually three separate invoices throughout the length of the project, and I believe the last one has not been paid yet. The two previous to that, which one was for 1725 and one was for 2,875. Those were both paid, I believe in September. Originally, they were submitted to the town August 21. The checks were cut on August 31, one check for for both things, and then those were held by the first selectman.
But we don't we don't wanna talk about that now? Just I don't know that we're in a... You
know, first of all, we're down a couple people. Second, I don't think that was something that Kate was prepared to get into tonight. So
I don't know. I think I think it might make sense to bump it one more month, and we'll sort it It was brought up at the board... Yeah. It was brought up at the board of ed meeting, which is... Was what what I... Why I was expecting that that was gonna be part of the discussion. That's all. And please understand it's $4,000.
Yeah. I was just trying to keep things simple. It's not it's not a large amount of money that we're talking about within that section. I know I'm being vilified for holding out on not paying $4,000
because I don't believe a contractor did the required work. But that's just a conversation to have between two parties that want to work together. That's it.
Okay. I think we can we can take that up in future if that's okay with everybody. Caitlin, I thank you for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Your music? Yeah. Like I said, looking at the agenda, you know, we don't have a department report. It's blank anyway. We turn the town administrator's report into this. That brings us to all business, budget to actual, check register. So let's do budget to actual. Lisa's here with us tonight. Mhmm. Lisa? Is there anything on here that you would highlight?
Not in budget to actual. K. I think, like I've said before, if you go over to the percentage column on the far right yeah I'm looking at it everything is pretty much you know we're about 25% of the way through the budget everything is you know lined up if something's more than that it could be an insurance policy that we pay once a year and it's paid in July So I don't think there's anything out of line right now.
Yeah. There's a couple of small things that are, you know, 80%... You know, 70, 80% expended.
But Well, like, there's in the equipment for the town office. Yeah. That's a printer for Matt. You know? So that's Yeah. He needed a printer, so we purchased that. Sometimes, you know, we just... You have to buy what you have to buy. And building maintenance is the other one that looks like it's... You chewed through it pretty fast
under... Same thing under town hall... Town office building rather. Yeah. Let me look. 79.5% expended on building maintenance? Yeah. I'm going in there now. Hold on. Okay.
What page are you looking at, you guys, right now? I'm I'm looking at...
Sorry. I just scrolled, and now I know I've... I wanna say it's the third page. Three of the of the budget to actual list?
Page five of our total packet. Okay. Yeah. The whole total packet. Okay.
Building maintenance got... Hold on. I'll go and see what's in there. Skip's wastewater treatment, town hall septic pumping, that was $5.65. Let's see, alarm inspections were 2,430. Woah.
Yeah. That was for the for public works, and we really need to sit there and see that. That might not be in the right one. Okay. We can look and see if it's not in the right bucket.
I can do that. And that's really all that was in there. There was one other small amount in there Yeah. For $1.85.
Okay. It seems like that that one charge that you're not sure is in the right place really skewed it. Yep. And that's an annual charge? Yeah. K. Perfect.
Alright. Well, just, you know Yeah. Double check, make sure it goes where it belongs. You know? I wonder if that is in the prior year too. Let me look. It was. For that same amount? I'm just getting there.
That's fine. We'll figure it out. That is absolutely what this meeting is about. Ask your questions. Let's figure it out. Let's make sure. You're right. It was in July '25 also, and it was in this account. Yep. Yeah. Okay.
Well, if it if it belongs there, okay, and it's a one shot thing, okay. We'll have to just keep keep an eye on that account and and whether we budgeted enough there. The other question, the last question I have, and then I'll turn it over to anybody else, is on page eight of the budget to actual. So page 10 of the packet. Contingency. We always put 50,000 in contingency, and I do recall earlier this year a small amount being used for something we approved. But this has got 30,000 now used out of contingency. I don't recall Mhmm. Us talking about that or or proving that, so I'm I'm I'm puzzled.
Town Of Columbia, $2,000 tax abatement for... Because our chief is from Town Of Columbia, so we paid him the tax abatement. Okay.
Service station service station equipment, an additional $2,028,000 dollars for the Okay. Fuel management system
So that thing... That that piece of equipment that got fried when we lost power and turned it back on? That that that shouldn't go out of there. That shouldn't go out of contingency, though, unless we approve. I mean, I understand that's an additional expense that it happened. I don't know if we were gonna be able to recover any of those monies, through, you know, talking to Eversource. Jeff, you had mentioned something along those lines, at least investigating that. But, yeah, that... I thought in the past that if we were gonna dip into contingency, the board of finance would be consulted and we would approve it, which I would do in this instance if that's what needed to be done to to fix that piece... You know, replace that piece of equipment, which is kind of important for us. But I just don't recall that we said go ahead and do that. And the only other thing I could think of is, you know, if that comes out of anywhere, there's a couple other places you could theoretically pull that from. But if that causes a problem where we're gonna be over budget, then I could see going to contingency. But, anyway, that... That's my question is, you know, do we just make a decision there? You know, how did that happen, and, is that the the right way to handle it? Well, listen. Just from a lease standpoint, sometimes when these bills come in, it's very difficult to sit there and identify
where it should go, especially capital things. So on this one, I would sit there and go, it's an odd transaction. So I would just tell you from a board of finance perspective, at least if it's put there, we get to talk about it and where it should go. Because if not, it could go place else. And unless you are digging through the details that Lisa provides, you're not gonna figure it out. So in this case, Lisa, that was the board for for what? It was, something to do with public works, but it was in there. GI fuel management, GIR fuel management system. That comes right, let's say.
Is that the new unit? That was my question. Is that the new one? Or did we... Yeah. Because the board itself... I would have to go look at the invoice. I've been working,
with the assistant treasurer to where to place things, so I'll go in and I'll take a look at the invoice and see what that says. Because I don't recall the board being that expensive, the the part that broke even after, the new system went in. No. And then we But the other... Only other place you would put it is public works equipment. Right? That... We have no other place to put it. Right?
Correct. But that's just something for all of us to... Well, it's really hard. Like There's also capital funds you could think about if you needed to. When you say capital funds. Yeah. Those are the capital funds. Well, yeah. I mean There's I don't know why Let's let's let's do this. Let's, for the next meeting, put that bill out in front of everybody so we understand it, and we'll come with the account that we believe it should go into because it shouldn't go into contingency. Even though this is kinda like one of those items that would be a contingency item because it got blown by a storm.
If if it's the transaction I'm thinking of. I I think that's what it's for. Right. That makes sense. And I'm not... Again, I'm not conceptually opposed to it. But, yes, why don't we come back to that issue with some more information next time? Yep. I agree. Sorry. If I look like I'm I'm doing something weird here with my head, I'm... Some of these pages, have to rotate. When I get to the transactions and and and and stuff, it's it's rotated. So I gotta I gotta spin it. Yeah. Let's see. Rotate right. There we go. So does that... Oh, sorry. Before we move on from the budget to actual, does anyone else have any other budget to actual questions for Lisa? Anyone else on the board have thoughts? Those were mine.
Yeah. I'll have to see where that contingency suggested came from because we get directed, you know, where to put it. So I'll have to look at the the invoice.
Yeah. I mean, again, on its face, it's not a crazy thing to do, but
let's let's nail down, you know And I have to agree with Jeff. If I don't... If it's not brought up, then you wouldn't see it, so it's better it is brought up. So Oh, for sure. That's why... That's one of the reasons I want real time Yep. Accounting of our capital funds. Okay.
Yep. So I'm good on that part of this. Liz, anybody else? Is there anything else you see?
I looked at it earlier today and I didn't... Nothing was glaring at me on that part of it. K.
Alright. Yeah. I didn't know if you wanted to go on. I don't know if you had any questions on the cash balances
for the check register. So starting on page 15, is that the... Oh, the cash balances. Okay. That's Yeah. This
is on page Page 11. 11 of our packet. Page 11. Yeah. And I'm now... And now I've already rotated it, so I'm like this. Right. And, again, if memory serves that first number, that's the sweep account. Right? Correct. Yep.
The next account is where all the money comes from. Right. And, normally, that third account, 1004, is a sweep account as well. And the 1008 is the AES account. It's the balance from 06/30/2025. Right that hasn't right okay
yeah the way I look at it that first one account 5111 that's our operating and then this to me the sweep is the 5096 but it all depends on what you call it Well, the... And then And then the tax deposits go in the 5129.
Yeah. The the monies we were talking about earlier, the the the $41,000 worth of overages, for the bathroom project, that would be coming out of the AAS Capital Fund, that... That'll lower that balance. No. That... This isn't the capital fund. This is the operating AE. Oh, sorry. Operating. Yeah. Ops. I see it now. I see it now. My my mistake. Capital fund is in the capital page. Yeah. The capital report. Yep. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I... Again, I gotta notate that.
Because when Kate does these and stuff, these come sideways to you? Only some of them. Oh. So the the admission because you're on this side like this. Alright. Okay. Maybe we can try and fix that.
Yeah. In other in other in other words, the monthly transactions were... You know, I don't know if they were sort of set up in a sort of landscape Yeah. They were. Sizing. And so they were this way. So in order to see them straight up and down, I had to rotate everything else right. And then I can rotate it back again because after this, we go back to the capital reserve page, that's,
you know, different Oh, great. And... Right. So it just... It bounces back and forth. To do landscape on the monthly transactions because it's really hard to move the Excel columns that far to get them into portrait. So We'll we'll we'll try to get the PDFs set up in the right way. I I go through my PDF, and I sit there, and I do what you're doing with... Before meeting. So
I'll I'll try to do it beforehand before they send it out. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's not the it's not the biggest deal in the world. Just just explaining why I look like an idiot here like this. Alright. Okay. So that brings us to the monthly transactions report. Right? Yep. K. We'll go through this. If anybody has... Ram levy. Okay. There's a few here that are just labeled funds transfer, which doesn't tell you Well, that's the account moving back and forth.
That's just, you know That's a sweep. Yeah. That's the that's the sweep that just happened. Action. Yep.
So what happens just so everybody's aware of what happens is this account when the bank statement comes, has a $600,000 balance in it, and it's reconciled to $600,000 and funds get transferred in every day as things clear the bank. That's what happens.
Yeah, so if a large tech comes in, you'll have a large transfer for that day. So funds transfer to cover it. So it's just like Jeff said, it's a sweep. Okay.
And again, if you sit there and look at the column that says CLR, those transactions are cleared in the month of September. So those are all cleared bank transactions. The ones that don't have an X are still outstanding, which means the vendor hasn't cashed it. I liked all this additional information, Lisa.
Yeah, very helpful. It's a big help, I swear by that wherever I use QuickBooks it's efficiency savings of time. Yeah, yep. There's one there that says town insurance. Okay. That's both workers' comp and the liability and property. So Yep. That's all that's all your casualty insurance. That's a camp... Yeah. A combined of the two. Yep. That's that's Kerma. Right? Kerma. Yep. Yeah. How do we pay for health insurance? Spring. Spring invoice. Yep. It's on page 13.
There's an... They're an invoicing company per se that we pay through them. And it's through the consortium, which is through the Brownie... Brown Brown Agency. So
Is there any way to search, you know, to do a, to like shop for health insurance? I mean, seems like this consortium pricing went up a lot last year, and I understand the state of affairs in the world, but I mean are we committed to staying with the consortium? Mean, what can we do to shop for better deals? I think if we left the consortium, our prices would go way up because Andover's so small.
I think so too. It's kind of the best avenue we have right now.
Liz, I do not believe that we can leave this consortium easily. But we could try. There is a state program that Kathy DeRosiers had been recommending for years related to Anthem that we should look at, but I don't think it's a practical issue of us leaving the consortium. It will not be easy. So, It's but
not easy. Why? Because we have a contract? Because we have a contract and we are also, the school is also part of the consortium. It's, We have people are on this board that actually have a lot of health insurance experience. Maybe that's something that we can sit there and have a group of experts look at. That. I did
attend a couple of the meetings after this one was already... We already took it for this year, but my plan is to go to the next meetings too, and they start talking about it for next year.
Heather, it would be great to sit there and get you with Kathy Deroziers, because she has been sitting there for years thinking that maybe we should sit there and look alternative. And it's not saying that we're going to be able to execute the alternative, but we should at least have it for comparison purposes to say this is our next best option. And if we could get out, this is what it would cost us. Yep.
Yeah. That sounds good. Because, I mean, I share your concern, Liz. It's just like you feel like we we have our one option every year, and it is what it is. And if it's a bad year, that's it. We take it on the chin. So I get it. If there is another option to be explored, let's do that. And then I don't know the details of that contract that... Having us in the consortium consortium. You know? Obviously, that's a side part of the research is to see what it what it would entail to to to remove someone from the the group. I didn't we didn't we just have an addition to the group recently? I feel like East Hampton or somebody just joined. What I thought too. Yeah. East Hampton. Yes. East Hampton joined. And, of course, this is speaking very generally, but the more people you have, the more buying power you have, the more negotiating power you have. So you would hope that that would help in the long run rather than hurt. Yep. Right. But it didn't seem to... It was bad. It may have been too late. Like, this year was just pretty awful for us. Yeah. We've had much better years in the past where we... I feel like we've done pretty well. This one didn't go our way.
Yeah. It was bad. Okay.
Okay. Do we have... Does anybody have questions... Specific questions for Lisa on the transactions? Then the next thing on mine is the capital reserve fund report. That's where you'd see the action on the That I see the action. I see it now. Yep. I see it. Great. What page is that in the packet? Page 15 in the packet. Okay. And 15 is the balances. 16 is the transactions.
Oh, sorry. Yes. I'm looking at the balances right now. We still have that one to clean up. Again, I'm I'm not making a a forearm fire out of this. We... We've talked about it before. We... I think it's a known issue that we need to just clean up. We have a negative balance showing on the transfer station shed repair fund, which we should hopefully figure out, zero out, and maybe close that fund out.
Well, do we wanna sit there and have the board of finance make a motion to sit there and take it out of the general fund?
Is that... I mean, that's the best option, I mean, what... Can you... So $7,600, it's been this way for a little while. Right? This just goes back.
The transfer station shed cost was Yeah. $67,600... It was greater than what was put into that fund. Right. And
I don't even remember that fund being one that in the past we've really looked at in the budget. You know? That that was sort of not... That's not that's not a fund we were loading money into.
I personally would be fine with that approach, Jeff. We only did it we only did it once. Yeah. Again, it was a project that It was one shot. It was one shot. Eric was doing it. It It it spent more money. Well, I sit there and I I have to look at it in detail. And maybe what I do is next month, I bring you back a history of that fund. So you guys could see how the previous treasurer dealt with it. And then we make a motion to sit there and move it from, we fund that with general fund process. Mean, would be... And I'll sit there and say this, we probably need to look at that one, because I don't know if that's technically legal.
We might need to do it next year during the budget process. Yeah. I was gonna say if we're gonna pull money out of the general fund, we were talking about this from a process perspective. You know? The other option, of course, would be... I mean, I suppose we could throw a contingency at it, but that's not really what it's for at this point. Well, it could be. Mean, it's an overage. We can wait the
end of the year, Rob, on that and and decide if we wanna do it that way, take it out of contingency, or if we wanna put it through the budget process. Because all it would be on the budget process is to go, listen. This is what we're gonna do with general fund money. You don't have to sit there and say it's from taxation. You just sit there and say, we're going to get that off of our books for 06/30/2020 or 07/01/2027.
So what about taking it out of the multiuse building fund? Then we wouldn't touch the general fund. We could.
You could. Yeah. You'd have to vote on that. Correct, Jeff? Yeah. Yeah. Just do a transfer, but vote on it. Yep.
So why don't we why don't we get that on agenda for next month? If you wanna bring a little more detail, but I I... And and we can think about... Liz, you can think about it. I can think about it. Everybody can think about it. Where we wanna pull the money from? I mean, at the end of the day, it's $7,600. It's a done deal, and, you know, we just wanna clear that and and tidy things up. So we're gonna pull it from somewhere. It's just a question where and how we wanna do it. K. That was my one thing on this.
Yeah. Anybody else have anything on there? Let me rotate this thing again so I can see the transactions. There we go. The transactions are basically what those Yeah. A little bit of Sorry. Very little on the... Little bit of road improvement. Tree removal. Yep. And then bathroom project stuff. Yep. You can see the billing there. Some of those billings, you know, that line up with Kate's spreadsheet.
Okay. So the the $899.61, was that the 2% money from the 2%? Nonlapsing. We're talking about deposit? Yeah. Right. It came from came from AES to AES payables, nonlapsing reimbursement. Fiscal year 06/30/2025. And you do you do understand that 06/30/2025.
Yes. It's August It's the... It was it was the last audit. Last audit. Just getting just getting the money. Yep.
I mean, we need... With... As our audits come in and get done quicker, we'll be in better position. We've been getting better and better on that. So let's hope that process continues, and we get our audits done quickly, and then we can sort these things out. And and by the way,
that fund balance is not correct because that fund balance was adjusted to meet the auditor's financial statements. So there has to be an adjustment to that account. It's $86,000 too high. Which account?
The reserve fund balance. Because that $86,000 was deposited that date, the financial statements on the town side were, there are adjustments that were made to sit there and get the fund balances to the 06/30/2025 numbers that the auditor provided us. So I'm just telling you that's gonna change. So where will we see that? Well, the
cash... Again, the cash that we have on the books for the town... For the school is 06/30/2025. Nothing's been updated for last fiscal year or for this fiscal year. That money that came in, right, got deposited this last week. But the adjustment was made to sit there and get the fund balances to agree to the auditor's statement on as of 06/30/2025. Okay. So so this goes into
the cash. Right? Yep. The cash is being held Town funds are being held by the school, and it it is it is it is not the best way for us to deal with this stuff. So what the school did was was get around to sending the money to the town for their under budgeted amount. And it's getting in later than the statements to try to match everything else. Now Lisa and I were reviewing adjustments that still need to be made to the 2025 side of our ledger. Because since Lisa's gotten here, we've cleaned up the entire cash balances, can reconcile every account, you know, with nothing sitting there outstanding position that doesn't belong there. So this is just one of those transactions that comes in, but that really should... That cash should never transferred back like that and been deposited there. It's a... It's gonna adjust. That balance is gonna come down slightly or by 89,000,
whatever that number is. Yep. It's gonna come down. 86. Yep. Okay.
So what about the the remainder of the underspend that did not go to 2% on lapsing? Did did that get deposited last month? Or It has a That... That's this, I think. It...
No. It's not. No. It's No. This is the nonlapsing.
This is the nonlapsing. Okay. Sorry. And then there was The total the total
month. Total under budget the total under budget for the school last year was... I'm sorry. I can't even say last year because we don't know what last year was. I haven't gotten final or even preliminarily 06/30/2026 numbers. But the audit that was completed, it was $135,108 That 86,961 is been applied to their non lapsing account and the remainder of the 48,147,
Lisa, I think that just got deposited last week. Yes. Right. Because we had voted our last meeting to have that returned to general fund. Yeah. Sounds good. Got deposited last week. And that Okay. So that's all sorted then. And, I mean, that sorts out 2025. 2025.
Yeah. 2025. Yeah. I I see your point, Jeff. It is a long time. When did when did the audit get finished? 2026.
Right. When did the audit get finished? It didn't get finished. He didn't provide it to us till the middle of the year, but that's not the real point of what I've been trying to drive at. So like the point is if it was, it's not even a discussion that we need to have here today, because we'll figure it out. We got to figure it out. We got to come up with an answer. I told Caitlin after meeting with the state board of education, she emailed me, I will have a proposal to the Board of Selectmen to sit there and deal with funding for the AES moving forward. And we'll sit there and figure out the best way for the town. Okay.
Anybody else have any other questions? Right on capital reserve? Yeah.
Then there's just the capital projects funds report. It's right after that? Mhmm.
I see that. Oh, one one quick thing on the on the transactions. You have the I had the town clerk pull that $6,665,000 dollars on the building... I I signed the check on that Firematic supply. That is the compressors.
Yep. The that they asked for. To fill their tanks. To fill their tanks. Right?
And, Lisa, I believe I left it on your desk. The board of finance had... It's supposed to come out of the fire engine fund.
Okay. That's Right. That's where we took it... Put it. Well, on on this report, it's under building maintenance.
So we Well, wait. There's a Oh, alright. There's a change listed here, the fire engine reserve fund of 67... 650078993.
Correct. But nobody sat there. I I mean, I don't know when all these reports are produced, but Uh-huh. Somebody produced the transactional account information on page 16, and it shows under building maintenance. So it was it was... When I was going to sign that check, I went and pulled... I pulled... I had them pull... The clerk pull the CIP minutes. I had the clerk pull the board of finance minutes, and the board of finance requested that it be pulled from the fire engine reserve fund. And you you you do... Well, everybody needs to realize, like, when we do this next budget cycle, the fire engine reserve has an annual payment out of it that you haven't seen. Right? And it did have extra money in it because at all points in time, we've been trying to save money. Right? So... Yep. So it did have money in it, but it's something that
everybody With 65,000 for the compressor, which initially we hadn't... You know, that that came up. We are definitely gonna have to load more money into that fund.
Yeah. You you didn't you didn't sit there and fund the $125,000 or whatever, $150,000 that's gonna be spent plus this 60. You only funded $1.25. Right. That's right. So everybody's aware. So you're gonna see that account decrease by the end of this fiscal year.
That's correct. We're gonna we're gonna have to look at that fund and and think about replenishing it. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's... I think it's about $1.25 a year is the the least payment that's recurring.
And then... And just for transactions, you can look under the AES Capital Fund. Those were the bills for the the... You had you had a request that you approved last month or the month before on the snowblower. That's the transaction that came out there, and then you have the two bathroom payment applications that Caitlin referenced in her spreadsheet Right. That were also paid. Yep. Alright.
So then if we're good there, then there's nonmajor capital projects funds such like. Yep.
Can you remind me? This is this is just... My brain is getting a little slow. There's a lot of negative numbers here. It's just the way it displays. Right?
It's because we're not reimbursed yet for what we've spent, and the state takes sixty to ninety days to reimburse us. So we're waiting on payments
Yeah. From from the state. Yeah. But the... At least the two... The bridge projects are are completely reimbursed. Right? They they will come all the way back. Mhmm.
Eventually. Yeah. Yeah. Eventually. I understand. I understand. We're out the money right now. Yep.
So so in essence, we fronted that. Yep. Right. Right. You have to. We have to felt that that that was I mean, if you look at the bridge project, I mean, I don't know if anybody's looked at Long Hill, but the the... That's gonna be a nice bridge for us. I mean, because it's twice as wide as the old bridge. The water flow underneath it will be great. So they put down the the beams last week. So looking forward to getting that open before December so the access to the pickleball courts will be a lot faster.
Are people are people playing pickleball this time of year?
Honestly, is... I was down there Monday with my wife, and there were probably five families in the pavilion. It was right after school, so I was fairly early, right? So 03:00. Were probably five families under the pavilion, 15 kids on the playground. Mike Russo was walking the track with his wife and his dog, and we were playing pickleball. It was, I... I'm really... I I mean, that is the nicest project we've done in this town, honestly. Yeah. It is nice.
It is. And and, you know, we... We're gonna we're gonna rec... I I went through all of these with Matt today because Matt has been spearheading the communication with the groups for collection. So he's aware of all the transactions, and hopefully, all that money comes back faster than not.
K. Sounds good. So, you know, Diane brought up earlier the scholarship fund, and and then the sort of the general question that she's raised a couple times about have we figured out a mechanism where we... The town could take in donations for various committees or whatever. I don't know if we've made any progress on that. I don't have any bright ideas here. It's something I'd look to to Lisa to tell us what is and is not doable. I don't... You know, I'm not saying we need to have an answer tonight, but she raised it, so I'll raise it to, that came up in public comment. So to the extent that we have a... We have thoughts there that we can talk about at a future meeting,
that might be good. I mean, if the answer is we we can't figure out how to do it, then we should say so. I apologize. I wasn't on the first five minutes, so I was... I came in when Diane was speaking. Yeah. She's saying. So this goes back a few months, Lisa, and we tabled the issue because we were dealing with some other stuff. Yeah. Keep seeing it on the agenda. Overloaded. You were doing all sorts of other things. So we said Everything. Not getting to this right now. The request, as I recall, and I can ask Diane to to chime in on this if I get it wrong, was does the town have a mechanism to basically take in and hold money for various charitable uses that if people wanna donate? I don't remember if there were specific charitable purposes that were... You know, people had in mind, but the question was, you know, do we have a mechanism to do that? And we were in the process, of course, if you were reconciling everything and trying to reduce the number of funds we had. Right. And so we said, well, we'll get back to this. So now that things are calming down a bit,
maybe there's room to think about that and consider what we might or might not be willing and able to do.
I guess I'm... Charitable... Explain... You know, define charitable because we take care of our funded money, like whether it's state or federal or taxpayers money. To add to that, it's not our money. It's, it's, we're not, I don't want to say we're not gifted we're not we're not responsible for the responsible
that's what I was trying not to be like really firm but we're not responsible for for monies that aren't to do with a town line item So to start something, I mean, we took in, like, the... If I'm doing... Saying this right, we took in, like, Children's Norton because that was a a wish of someone. But as far as us starting to take care of people's charitable funds, that's a lot I mean we're having a hard time now there's one organization and we can't make the deposits write the checks you have to start your own five zero one c three especially if there's nothing in the town budget that fund that is funded by that charitable organization. You're like asking us to be your 501c3s for everybody. Well,
Lisa and I have had discussions related to this. I think there's a solution, Rob. It's just the the honest the honest issue is how the deposits are handled. Because you have to realize that people come into the treasurer's office, and now that I'm there some more, I see all the people who walk in asking questions. And that's really the hard part, especially when you're dealing with a charitable organization or an entity like Diane. Like what Diane is doing is phenomenal. She is establishing a scholarship for, Diane, I apologize, Diane with two n's, I apologize if I don't do this correctly, but she's establishing a scholarship fund for when she passes, she's funding it with her own monies, and she has the Hartford Foundation for managing the investment. And it pushes forth the interest income to this fund that's held by the town. That's all great. It's just how the treasurer's office handles the transactions. And that's what we have to get to Rob. It's just really, it's not the simplest thing. And the problem that I see is that when deposits are commingled, it becomes a problem. So like five checks come in, like we have checks coming in for the cart program, and we would be having checks come in for the basketball program, but we've decided to make a switch related to that. There's just a lot of things that happen when all of that comes pouring into the treasurer's office, and you're trying to manage what's going on
a day to day. So we'll come up with a process. Lisa and I are a little different on this. I don't want to turn away the money. Lisa wants to turn away the money and I'll say the time story. She wants to turn away it causes extra It extra work. So we just have to find a simple way. Yeah. Right? And I'll I'll work with her on it. And and maybe it's and maybe it's as simple as setting a threshold
at what point it's worth the extra work. I mean, it's just a thought. It just occurred to me off top of my head. Yeah. We we we... You know, with the Let's come back to the issue when... You know, after people have had a chance to think about it some more. I just wanted... Diane raised it. I know we had tabled it. We had kinda kicked the can on it a little bit. So let's just keep thinking about it. K? That was that was that. K. Let me scroll back to my agenda here. Alright. So if we're good with the financials, we still had an old business success. Discuss AES funding process. There was a meeting recently
with the state. I think we were emailed at least the the the Shipman and Goodman summary of that. Jeff says, if I caught your comment on this correctly, Jeff, earlier that you're gonna kinda go back to drawing board and work with Kate and propose something else. So I don't know that we have anything really to discuss on this tonight given that. I'd say look at the email, digest what that says, and await further developments. I mean, I I don't... I... You know, where am I... I stand on this. So let's just... Unless there's something that somebody wants to discuss, I would say let's punt on that We'll talk about it again in in future when relevant. Any disagreement? Anybody
have thoughts? No. Not not unless Jeff has anything to add. K. Jeff? Not at this time. Okay. Okay.
We don't have anything on new business, and that... And liaison reports, you know, there was... I haven't... We haven't had CIP in a while. There hasn't been anything to discuss since... I think it was the snowblower. It's the last thing we we addressed at CIP. So unless anybody has any other liaison reports, that would take us to meeting minute approval.
I read them. I didn't see any I didn't see any problems, and I would make a motion to approve them unless anybody has any discussion.
I'm glad to hear that. You're you're you're def... You usually have a really good eye for this. I didn't see anything. I'm okay with it. So, I mean, if you're if you're willing to move to accept him, I'll I'll second that motion. K? Anybody have any any comments?
Nick, anybody? We're good? Yeah. Alright. We'll take a vote. All in favor of accepting the minutes as written. Liz, yes. Me, yes. Heather, yes. Nick, yes. Yes. Kim K. Kim dropped Kim dropped off. Kim had to go at eight, she said. Right? So she... She's left us. Okay. Oh.
Oh, I... No. I'll wait till the end. I mean, well, I just wanna let everybody know that I'm I'm working with Matt. Matt Matt is... Matt Streeter is on the Freedom of Information Commission. Yep. And because of some of the interactions I've had with the Freedom of Information recently, we're going to schedule a a meeting of all the boards to come to an informational meeting about the freedom of information. We're going to use the trainer for the state, Russell. Well, I'll get his name in an email. Matt was working to schedule the date that would be effective for that. We wouldn't have any other board meetings on. So if anybody wanted to attend that, just to get an understanding of what is appropriate with the freedom of information requests and what should be available at the town level. That's something that we're getting started. So I figure you're the first board meeting I've attended since we've decided it. The date is in the beginning of December, I think it's the seventh,
But I'll make sure that Matt gets out an email to everybody.
Seventh. Well, we'll look for the email. But the seventh, if it is the seventh, that's a Monday. I believe so. And I I don't believe Is it is it during the the day, or is it No. No. No. 07:00 at night. Meeting. Okay. Then I could... I can I can try to make that? I I would like to make that if I can. Mhmm. Okay. Me too. Me too. That's a great idea. Yep. Good to get on the same page there. Okay. That brings us to board open discussion. And if there's none of... You know, further there, we have a piece of correspondence here, that was attached. But, anyway, sorry. Board open discussion. Does anybody have anything else they'd like to discuss at this time? Just looking. I'm good. Okay. I'm good too. Alright. If anybody has... Okay. We'll we'll move on then. Oh, I see this this attachment from Kate. Collection report. Now I will say... And and I'm not a 100% sure if what... If this is the same thing that she was talking to me about. I went... I was downtown Hall recently to pay my taxes, and we were talking about how, I guess, in our last budget, we we budgeted, for a very, very high collection rate, that she thinks we might wanna adjust next budget cycle to be more reasonable. What does that mean?
In other words, I think we were... We budgeted that she was gonna collect 99.9% of taxes, and that basically doesn't happen. So that we might we might have put in a little too much revenue if that's the case. We have been doing well the last few years in pulling in back taxes. So I don't know if we're actually gonna have a problem here on the revenue side, but she was mentioning that to me. It was a very brief conversation. She said we need to talk about this some more, you know, for next budget cycle. So, I mean, the last thing I wanna do is be over budget... Budgeting revenue and then being short. So Yeah. We definitely wanna bring her into that discussion and talk about, you know, given the grand list and... That's the other... Actually, that's the other thing I wanted to ask about. We have reval this year. Right? So when do we get an updated grand list? When do we anticipate that coming out? Next year, isn't it? Is it reval next year? Is it... I thought... Okay. Correct me. I thought it was pushed to 2027. Am I wrong? Pushed a year back. I just couldn't remember if it was supposed to be... If that means next year or if it was pushed back and... Because it was supposed to have already happened. By all means, I may be confused on this. I may be confused too.
I know. I I... The fiscal year thing, sometimes breaks my brain a little bit. You know? It may be that if it's next year, then then great. Then we don't have to... It's it's... Then the grand list will be roughly what we're what we're accustomed to working with. It obviously could fluctuate a little bit if somebody builds a house or we get a Dollar Tree, you know, that kind of thing. But if... Obviously, the next time we have a reval, it... It'll wildly change the tax basis, our our tax base, and we will... Obviously, it'll throw everything into flux, the bill rate, everything. So that's why I just wanna raise that. If it... If that's next year, forget I said anything. Don't get don't... Let's not get confused.
So, Jeff, I don't know if you remember or, Lisa, if you remember, but what the cycle was. I do know it was delayed a year. We're usually every five years, and they pushed us back a year. For some reason, the state, I think, had asked us to push it.
I don't. Yeah. I would have to look. I I don't know.
I mean, I would have thought given how late in the year it is, if it was this year, it probably would be ongoing right now. And if that's not happening, then then I'm obviously wrong. It it must be next year. It must be next year, which is fine because then that simplifies things. Okay. So looking at this again... I'm sorry. This report here, she attached. I don't I don't know quite what to make of this. We might wanna ask and see if Kate can
Yeah. Come in and come in. I know I was explain it to us. Yeah.
I mean, hopefully thinking she might be here. I'm just to let you know before I saw this packet, I had asked Kate to come to our next board of Select with me. So
Okay. If you want, we can have her... You can We'll see if she's available for our next board of finance meeting. We can talk about this again. But I do believe that's what she's getting at here. The the the conversation she had with me briefly at town hall. K. If I reduce the by 1% to 99, it takes... There's a there's a lot here. I I think it would be good for... I mean, I can read this, but it... I think it'd be good if she could talk us through what her her her thinking here as well. So why don't we push this? Why don't we include this in our next packet? Yep. And
put something on the agenda to the effect of, you know, if she can make it be great, we could talk about it. That's my thought on that, which would bring us to public speak. So I'm gonna go around. Cremes, do you have comments? No. Thank you. Hey. Good talking to you. Diane.
Hi there. I just wanted to... Probably for for Lisa, particularly, because she she missed my first part. Just explain a little bit about where that donation issue, where that came from, what it's all about. And I I have two firsthand experiences. One is the community garden. I know that they have a budget, and it's for this, that, the next thing. They know where they're gonna spend their money. And I guess it was last spring that they decided that... Well, I asked them to build a nursery along the outside for Black Eyed Susans. And there was a cost for lumber and bolts and screws or whatever the head didn't need. So a couple $100, not a lot of money. And we... Wasn't in their budget, so a couple of us funded it and gave it to Jeff. And he went to the treasurer and said, here's some money for the community garden. And they went, no. Can't accept it. There's no place to put it. So he was putting it in a coffee can in his garage with all the receipts. And we go like,
that didn't sound like the right way to run town finances. You know? So it's okay. And then the Andover Community Gardens wanted to donate to the community garden a bunch of Black Eyed Susans that they could sell to raise money for their projects that they need. And again, they ran that through the treasurer's office. And again, it was like, can't do it because they have nowhere to take the money. They don't know what to do with it if we raise money. And, again, that just... From a resident thing, you know, we we wanna donate money to... And, again, it may be the beautification committee. We wanna give them some extra money. And it just seems like there should be a way of doing that. Now on your side, I mean, it seems like it's a much bigger deal. But like I say, from the residents to be collecting money for town board or commission, you know, extra money outside of the budget to be, you know, managed out of a coffee can in a garage. That that just makes me shake my head that there has to be a better way to do that. And that's what I'm looking for you to figure out how how can we do that. You know? It was suggested that, you know, we become a five zero one three c or whatever. And it's like, you gotta be kidding. We're gonna get a lawyer for a couple $100 for this or that. And it's like, no. To have somebody like Jeff Ballard open his own savings account where now he... That's not the right way to do that either. Again,
this is money for the town, and it should be able to be filtered through the treasurer's office. So the residents think. You know? Not being finance people with all the details, but that's what we're looking to have done is, like, how can how can we donate and help the town financially?
Diane, we'll we'll work we'll work on it, Diane. Thank you for the for the more detailed explainer because I frankly didn't remember all the details. So thanks for that. And, Lisa, you know, let... Let's let's think about it.
Okay. Fine. Like I said, I just want to explain a little bit. I know you guys are busy with a lot of important things, but these are the things that... They never seem to get off my list. You know? So I'm always looking No. You gotta keep you gotta keep raising them sometimes. I I get it, and I appreciate it. And my job is princess poke a hiney, so your hiney has just been poked. So thank you very much. You
get to call yourself that. I wouldn't do it. Okay. In any event, Joanne, do you have commentary for us? Just something quick after I stop laughing. But
I just want to shout out Liz tonight for bringing up a good point. I'll keep it just to one point tonight. Bringing up insurance, you know, the health insurance matter. We all know how expensive insurance is across the board for everyone, and everyone's trying to afford it. And our small town too. And our small town has a lot of categories that they pay out based on our insurance, as we all know. The other thing is I know that I've followed Town Matters for years before they joined, you know, years and years, and before they joined the consortium, they did have, you know, regular insurance like all towns do. And Jeff had brought has brought up that I know Kathy DeRosiers is an expert in that. So I just think it's worthwhile. It may not go anywhere, you know, cost wise, but when we're seeing that huge increase that was the year that before this past year. So two years ago, there was a big increase.
And then this over 20, I don't have the figures in front of me anymore like you guys do. But whatever this big increase was, it's just worth it to get out there and shop around. I did ask the question, I think, at one of the meetings. So I love that Liz has brought it up too just to kinda see a cost comparison. Maybe it will do nothing, but I think it's worth it as a big expense. It's hard to try. Yeah. And we'll we'll definitely hope to hear more from from Heather as she attends some more of these meetings. And Heather too. I know. And that's great that she goes to the meetings because I think there's a vote for Andover that's been voted So having her there, you know, as a placeholder and and... Yeah. It's great. I hope that you guys can do that. It may not add up to anything, but it's worth having comparables. Thanks. Right.
Thanks, Julian. And that leaves, I think, just Caitlin, you know, if you have any further.
Yeah. I I didn't realize you guys were gonna talk about the the funding policy for the school tonight, and you kinda glazed over it. But, hopefully, you all got, the email that I sent. Basically, the summary of that meeting was that the school is is quite happy with getting a tenth of the budget, you know, in 10 equal disbursements, and and we'd like to stick with that for the foreseeable future. And Jeff will work on presenting us with a different strategy perhaps in looking ahead to the next fiscal year. But that really if the school board asks for money that's already been allocated to the school board in the budget, you are required by law to approve that allocation as long as there's not extenuating circumstances. So just so that everyone has that as a summary of the outcome from that meeting. Thank you all for listening tonight, and I'm sorry if anything with the bathroom stuff was confusing. Thank you.
Thanks. And once again, if we can, because we talked about this before, but just to to close the loop on it, you know, that that larger spreadsheet that has the one piece of information that we should redact, remove, whatever you wanna call it, you know, so that everybody has the full picture of the project, the three zero nine, three ten, whatever that is. I think that would be just nice for the the board members to get,
you know, with with all the hyperlinks and everything. And in that way, it's it's sort of we close the book on that project. We have it all in front... All in one document. That'd be great if we could do that. So I I can work on updating that. I know the original Fuss and O'Neil bills that the town paid initially are not on that spreadsheet, and then some of the later ones are, but then they weren't paid. So that's why I had pulled them out to try to make it look cleaner. But we we can kinda look on making a a more complete picture of the total project. Okay.
That that... That'd be a good thing to to just try to keep... Try to get done. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. That, I think, is everybody. So, do we have a motion to adjourn? Make a motion to adjourn.
I was waiting. I was like, come on. Usually, it's a it's a stampede. Do we have a second? Fine. I'll second it. Class participation? Go on. Alright, everybody. All in favor of adjourning the meeting, I am an I. I. Liz is an I. Heather's an I. So who is left? Liz, Heather, Nick, Rob. Yep. The four of us. Kim is Kim is gone. So Yeah. Four We lost Kim partway through the meeting. Yep. Okay. Are we good? Thank you all.
We can kill the recording, and we will see you next month. See you guys. Bye, everyone. Bye. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Have a good evening. Thank
This transcript was generated by Deepgram from the meeting recording. Names, numbers, and other details may be inaccurate; the video is authoritative.