Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen Regular Meeting Part 1
February 14, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
We're gonna get started with our regularly scheduled meeting of board of selectmen for Tuesday, February 14, starting at 07:01. And our first item of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States States Of America,
to the flag flag States Of The Of United which it stands, one nation unto God, and to this day,
live it from thee, and judge us to do this. Here on.
Alright. Public speak. Kathy and Mike Palazzi, you guys are first on the list.
Good evening. It's Valentine's Day, Jeff, just in case you should have forgotten could have forgotten. Mike and I, I think, are fine. You okay? Yeah. We're okay. We're okay. Thank you. Quick question, Mike. What did you get for Kathy?
Oh, I got her a nice thing of flowers and a nice card.
That is very nice. What a guy. Excellent work, Mike. Good job, Mike. Diane Greiner. I'm all set. Thank you. Diane,
as I told you when I saw you driving around, I missed your birthday last month. Happy birthday. Thank you. There you go. Cheryl. It was a big one. It was a big one. Cheryl's not public speaker. Cheryl Finance? I'm here. Okay,
Cheryl. We'll let you talk in a second. That's fine. Okay. I don't think there's anybody else on. So let's get started. Item three, additions and deletions to the agenda. Anybody? Do we wanna move, nine b to 17?
And Nine b to 17. Okay. So Adrian's making a motion to move the status of community center RFP to a number 17. Seconding? I'll second it. All those in favor of that? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Nothing. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Item four, treasurer's report. Cheryl. Yes. Hello, everyone. Good evening. Cheryl. Day.
So you have in your packet a budget to actual report. Okay. Currently it's listed as an interim. Obviously we're still from 07/01/2022 till January 2023. That's the report date currently. The budget amount is what was adopted at your town meeting for the 2223. Expenditures are what I was able to obtain from the admins. The bank accounts for the 2223 year have not been reconciled yet. We're just finishing up the 2122. So those I'm hoping to be able to start reconciling bank accounts for 2223, starting probably by, I would hope, the first full week of March. So I've also marked them as a footnote on the bottom that they are subject to revision, obviously, because, well, they're they're not reconciled yet. There there is no balance sheet currently. But once the reconciling process is done, I will start including a balance sheet on a monthly basis, which will correspond
to the budget to actual report that you'll receive for each of your meetings. Does anybody have any current questions on the budget to actual report? I know it looks a little bit different than what you're used to receiving from admins. Does
this include anything as far as our ongoing fund balances? Because that's technically not part of our budget per se, but it is something that we spend out of.
It's part of the balance sheet. Right. The budget, your fund balance is a balance sheet item. It's an equity account. It is not reported on the budget to actual. Once I'm all set and done, then when I start providing the balance sheet to you, the fund balance as audited for twenty one-twenty two will appear there.
Cheryl, question from me is when are you going to start using the system, the QuickBook system to cut checks?
I believe checks have been ordered. When I talked to the temporary bookkeeper that you have, Marina, the previous, I believe she plans on starting to cut checks from QuickBook this week. This week? Yes. Okay. Where do we stand as far as audit?
Can I finish this report first? Oh, okay. You said current questions, so. Well, this is 21. This is the '22, 23. Does anybody have any specific questions on this report?
You have the M and T Bank on there and is there a way that we can at least get, we have all these different checking accounts. Is there a way that we'll get some sort of, you know, sheet to understand what account which account is which?
I'm glad you're bringing that up. I have to admit that I am. I am against this document being anywhere in any of the official board reports because it lists detail account information and balances. Should not be in this report ever. Yeah, it should not be correct. I
was part of the package. It was an answer Adrian's question. It will be on the balance sheet if you can ever get the balance.
Not every single one of them, they will not. The only ones that will be on there are your first three, because those are 100% general fund monies. All of the other ones are from your smaller funds, your capital nonrecurring, you have some non major special revenue funds, you have some proprietary Those are all separately stated. They are not general fund monies.
Are you question. So are you planning on doing separate QuickBooks accounts for each one of those funds?
Yes. I've already done that. Part of the audit process, each of the separately stated funds, special revenue funds, they have one large QuickBook with all of the particular information for the special revenue funds will be located there. So yes. And then there will be income statements.
There also will be balance sheets for each of those specific funds. Yeah. We won't need those in our in our monthly packet. What we should get is an Excel spreadsheet that just lists the balance that's in those funds because, I mean, what do you have? 12 transactions a year out of most of those funds and all of those are interest deposits.
Yes. Yes. So I can, though, if you prefer, I can provide you with a balance sheet on a monthly basis for each of those accounts if you so choose.
No. But, Eric, can you make a note, unless someone disagrees that we have that meeting packet pulled until that's taken out of it? Okay. Someone should go get that now. K.
K. Is that I honestly don't know how to do that. So Paula, you got a shot at it? We could do it tomorrow.
So, okay. Where is it? And what are we trying to do? Pull
the website off the website, pull the packet off the website until this can get fixed because it adds all the account. It has all the account numbers. Pull the entire packet off of the website. Yeah. So we so we can pull so we can pull this out of the packet.
I don't have a login still. Eric, can you send me your login? Maybe.
Text it to her while you're while you're working at it. Cheryl, continue through Just say say it over Zoom. It'll go well with the account numbers. So Cheryl, what else do we have? I I personally personally, your report is the budgetary report is is as good, if not better. It's better than what we were getting in the past. I mean, you you know, my question is, you're just journal entry in all these transactions.
Currently, because you wanted to report that's currently what I did. That's correct. It is going to be updated and every transaction from July forward will be entered separately for reconciliation process. But I wanted to be able to provide you with some type of a document, so I did do a journal entry. Okay.
Alright. It looks good. Does anyone have any questions on the the interim profit and loss? It's really budget versus actual report. No, I'm pretty good with it, I think.
Would you like me to go on to the status of the audit? We'd love that. Okay. I'm not I don't wanna jump is I don't wanna go out of well, C is supposed to be town aid roads. And then B is your the cash report, which you already have appropriate appropriation transfers over expenditure report, and then the summary of the audit status. So I will go to g if no one else has any objections. I'm gonna take that as an okay. Yeah. So, I currently have, July all the bank statements are ready. Everything has been entered into QuickBooks for the 2122 year. All of the smaller funds that were set up within QuickBooks have been reconciled through all the bank statements. This week, I will be tying out the general fund due to, due froms to all the separately stated funds because they all have to agree. I will finish up the reconciliation through June 2022. Then I will start inputting the financial statement documents into the spreadsheet that the auditors request. I will be obtaining depreciation schedules, reviewing them with Eric next week. Those will also go in. I want to I'm going to verify with the school that no adjustments have been made to their books and records for the 2120 two year after the report that I received in December. I know that there was a transition between their previous person and then there was a temporary person and then now they have a new hire. I want to make sure that no additional adjustments need to be made there. We are on target to have everything to the auditors for March. I've spoken with Mike on more than one occasion on our status.
And I certainly plan to have the twenty two-twenty three year, which is your current budget year wrapped up close into the auditors by the middle of September to the beginning of October for an on time audit issued by 12/31/2023. That is, I know it's a aggressive schedule, but certainly as long as I can obtain the information, there's really no reason why it shouldn't be able to transpire.
No. We were having some issues with the the state, you know, because we had been getting being so late. What's our timeframe for this one with the auditor?
March. Already I've spoken with Mike. He's already spoken with OPM, and we are due to start transmitting things probably the first full week of March. Mike is aware of that. And once I have everything up, then he will start to review and obviously start scheduling time for the town hall and the school to begin reviewing the detailed documents. Okay.
So Eric or Cheryl, I'm not sure which I should be addressing this to, what is our status to have someone in there to help pull the documents that Mike's gonna need?
Well, I'm not sure. Depending on when the auditors are requesting, I may be able to give some assistance. I'm not sure if our temporary person that's in there now is available. If normally the auditor is very good about giving the list of documents ahead of time. Okay. So we probably could have if if she's available Marina pull those items that are specific to the finance department. Okay. And as I get lists from the school, I believe Mike probably would forward them direct to the superintendent. And when he asks for specific things from the town clerk and the tax collector, I we certainly can get that list over to them also
to make sure that we can try to pull everything for when the auditors request it. Okay. Anyone else have any other questions for me? We're we're plugging along. Everything's right on target.
Sure. I'll ask one. Cheryl, weren't you supposed to assist us or give us the blueprint for a binder so that we could provide that to the auditor in the future and have our audits be seamless?
Absolutely. That is correct. The book is currently being I'm currently working on the book. Once I pass everything off to the auditors, the audit book will be maintained at the town hall. It's not something that I keep it my office it will be at the town hall, and it will list every item that appears within the balance sheet for the town and all the smaller funds all the assets receivables the budgets transfers, large asset purchases, anything that has to do with the financials will be in the book.
Okay, so the majority of the information required to complete the audit will be in the book and then the auditor will give us a list of details for testing purposes on his end. Yes. Okay. All right, Adrian all yours.
So two questions. One is, is the list of required documents pretty much the same every year? So will that go into the audit book as well?
It can. It's not the same. They do it based on whatever their risk factor is. Okay. And it changes based on dollar amount. But a list is a list. They're going to look for accounts payable. They're going to track the accounts payable through the check process, making sure that the expenditures were properly authorized. They're going to double check payroll. So the list of items may change, but the process is basically the same.
Okay. And I guess the last question actually is sort of, it's on our agenda a little later under 9A, but we've been, or 9F, we, you know, we tried to do interviews yesterday. We spent a lot of time there, unfortunately, you know, we had one person show up out of, I think, five that were scheduled. We're still struggling to find someone to fill that position. Any suggestions as to where we should be looking or advertising or what have you that maybe we're not thinking of?
I did speak to Eric on this issue today. I suggested that we put out contact the local colleges. They have nontraditional students that are there. Quinebog Valley, Eastern, Yukon, Three Rivers. They all have employment boards. We then could forward our request for resumes, specific criteria. Most of those schools also have QuickBooks classes that have to be met in order to receive an accounting degree. We could certainly go there, see if they have any suggestions. We'd also be able to see what are their grades. Hey, I just texted it to you. It's E Anderson, not Hey. Sanders. Hey,
Eric. Eric. Eric. What do you think? Thanks for putting that out there. Excellent work.
We could certainly put you know, see if they can post it and see if we can get any viable candidates, from the school structure. Someone who could at least see what their grades are, what classes they had in accounting, what kind of QuickBooks have they already had. Right.
Just another Avenue for us. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl. That is something that, we can stare and get after the meeting. I think that's really positive information. And I would also like you to discuss with Eric the amount of time that you think that person needs to put into a daily and weekly process. So does anyone else have any other questions for Cheryl? Or, Cheryl, do you have to add anything else?
No. No. Just that we're on target, and we're heading towards the end stretch for the twenty one, twenty two.
Alright. As we get a second checks cut, that will be in our best interest because then your reconciliation can start.
Yes. It should not you you don't write that many checks. No. So really, the reconciling process of the bank account once the information is entered in should not take very long at all. And one thing that I would request, this is just an operational
quest I know there's a tendency to make the payroll a journal entry. Make it a check. It'll be easier to see. I can do that. Alright. Okay. Any other questions for Cheryl? Cheryl,
thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a good evening, everyone. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you.
Item five, boards and commission presentations. Eric, do we have any? No. Okay. No. Okay. Appointments. Item six, appointment of Wally Barton to the safety committee. Somebody wanna make a motion? We're gonna make a motion for it. We don't need to, or we can't.
I will make a motion that we appoint Wally Barton to the safety committee. Seconded. Seconded. Excellent. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Okay. I'll make I'll make a motion that we reappoint Eric Anderson to the Eastern Highlands Health District Board of Directors. I'll second. Jeff, Paula seconded.
Oh, I'm I'm up. Is it my job? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Next day. Thank you. All five nothing.
I'm I'm sorry, Jeff. I thought you wanted me to Resignations. Move the appointments along.
Yep. Resignations. Kurt Dolly, board of finance. Again, I'd like to express my sympathies to Kurt's family. So He's definitely he's definitely gonna be missed. Okay. Item eight, town administrator's report.
Okay. So before I get into my report, do you guys have any questions, about anything that was in the report?
No. Just get into it. We'll ask as you go.
Okay. So real quick, the grand list has been filed. It was a 2.4% increase overall, which is pretty good. Rearranged our leading spenders a little bit. You know, obviously, you talked to Cheryl Miller, I don't need to talk about that. Joe Dillon the town engineer and I worked pretty hard to get the grant application for the trip grant out which went out last Friday so we met the deadline for that. And now we're starting in on prep for the state local bridge program applications. Public works, as you know, we still have one employee out due to injury, but that's not work related. We are moving along the Long Hill Road bridge design. The boring contract has been put out. So, the contractor should be in sometime in the month of March to do the initial boring samples to see how, where bedrock is relative to the bridge. There will be one lane closed while they're working there. It's expected to take four to five days. You know, are they allot four to five days, but it should really only take a couple days to do the boards. The survey work should be just about complete. Talked to the guys, the state surveyors that were out there last week, and they said they were on their, you know, final little bit. Then I noticed them out there three or four more times since then. So their idea of almost complete isn't necessarily what ours are. The big and unfortunate news is that the vehicle we were expecting to get for senior transportation, we're not going to get. Basically, this is the second year in the row the manufacturer
hasn't actually manufactured the chassis and the the the coach manufacturer that's supposed to be building the bus is set flat out that they didn't get a single Ford chassis allotted to them this year. So for the second year in a row, they've gotten zero. They got a few GM chassis, but that's not what the state agreed to. So and they only got apparently 12 out of 100 that they ordered. So, we don't, we're not, I don't know when or if we're going to get that vehicle, even though we were awarded the vehicle and it is supposedly paid for. That doesn't mean, you know, we're going to actually get it. The state has not made any decision about where they're going with that. I don't think they know at this point.
That leads to Can I ask a question on that? Sure. Well, you go ahead. That leads to what?
So right now, we're stuck with the 2,002 large bus. So, essentially what we have is we have two fairly reliable and one less reliable vehicles in the fleet. So, I know we're going to talk about it a little bit later, but I think, if we're going to keep or if we're going to be able to provide a vehicle to the school to meet the needs for their handicapped student, we're gonna have to get a little vehicle for senior transportation because we just don't have the vehicles to really staff what we need to do for senior transportation and for that. I don't think anyway. So, think that should be a discussion later under that agenda item for the board, because we're either going to have to commit to doing it, or we probably ought to tell the elementary school we're not going to be able to support them. And obviously, I'm recommending that we get the small, small vehicle. So the steep grant project on hold at the moment, I just frankly have other things I need to do more to deal with that right now. I will be getting back to that. The other grants, the rec trail grant or the rec trails grant is due now that got pushed back March 1.
So I'm working on that now that's kind of the next grant up in the hopper. We still have a couple one town project and one fire department project that's needs to go to RFP. Those are for HVAC. And frankly, I just need to fine tune those two and get them out the door. We are meeting on the sixteenth to review the plan of conservation and development consultants. We got that RFP back about a month ago. We got two bids into the project. And so, the commission is going to interview both consultants in a couple of days. So, hopefully, you know, in a week or so, they'll have a recommendation to come back to the board on who they think their preferred contractor is for that project. And that's basically all I have. It seems like the majority of my work right now has been either grant related or budget. So that's it, unless you all have questions for me. How did the grant application that was due on Thursday go? I
think it went well. You know, that's a weird grant because it's a brand new grant, you know, and nobody really knows. DOT hasn't even decided exactly how they're evaluating or who's going to do the evaluation. So, was a point scale on what points you would get for meeting what categories. So, other than the stuff that was specifically related to distressed communities, which were not qualified I think we weren't we satisfied all the objectives that we needed to. So I think it was a reasonably strong grant application. But it's at this point, it's really hard to know, just because it's such a new grant program. You know, it's hard to know exactly what you're shooting. But I'm hoping we get it would be nice. It would be nice. Okay. Does anybody else have any questions for Eric?
Eric, so are we have you figured out I am have you figured out how to work in the ARPA money for transportation that you emailed us about to sort of recover from this setback or?
So we don't have full project details on that. I mean, the only thing we know, we know what the totals are. We don't know when we're likely to get it. I'm just suggesting that that's a reasonable possibility to pay for a portion of the cost of what we're trying to do for the vehicle, because we can potentially get, you know, $89,000 from that to offset the cost.
Okay. So are we we're back so you're still looking for the alternatives then? What do you mean looking for the alternatives? For that vehicle.
What other grant alternatives? I don't have any other grant alternatives, to fund that vehicle.
Okay. Not that I know of. Can you do us a favor? And in your breakdown, and I know we're gonna get to that, but in your breakdown related to that, all of the other communities were looking at some type of grant alternatives. Can you just ask Coventry? They have two vehicles. Can we find out if they got a grant and if there's something available that we can apply for? That would be great.
Is it worth looking to see if anybody else is looking to offload a vehicle? We can.
I just I I know Will Mantic built that massive community center and and senior center, and I know they've been kind of shuffling everything around as, you know, maybe they're looking at, you know, offload something or even Mansfield, you know.
So. Okay. So you want me to look at used cars? Is that what your goal is?
I don't know that it's a goal, but I I guess I'm just trying to think that we've gotta explore all our options. No? I mean, what do you think? I'm asking you, Eric. I mean, you know, if if you think it's not a viable idea, then you know?
I think generally speaking, used cars have been holding their value well enough that there's not enough, savings and going, you know, a recent, you know, a fairly new used vehicle versus a new vehicle. K. That's my guess. Okay. Other questions for Eric? Okay.
Move on to item nine, old business. Nine a, the status of a finance official.
So we did attempts to hold interviews. We only had one candidate actually showed up. Not too promising out of the four that said they would show up. And that's probably not a candidate that we're wanting to select. Cheryl and I had a long conversation this afternoon about other avenues. And we're gonna pursue, you know, going after both the community colleges as well as Eastern, and see if we can find somebody that's essentially just graduating with an accounting degree that has enough knowledge that that we would consider hiring.
Well, she also mentioned alternative students. So like an older person that may be going back to school to get a degree for whatever reason. So maybe that is a possibility as well. So they might, they might have some workplace experience and they are just trying to solidify it with a degree. Yeah. Did you or Kate get a chance to reach out to the couple people that canceled to see if they would needed they were interested in rescheduling or if this was just not an opportunity they were looking at anymore?
The only one I reached out to was the one that actually called me and left a message saying she wasn't going to show up. I did not get a hold of her. Okay. I did leave her a message and asked her to call me back.
Would anyone else have any objection to instead of us holding these resumes for a couple weeks until we get a pile, us trying to prescreen them immediately to see if we want to, you know, pursue these people? Because I wonder if that maybe is our issue too, that we're waiting till we have a munch and we're just, we're too far along in the process. We're losing people. Call them right away. Right. Any objection? I do not have an objection.
Great. So Eric, when we get somebody in, if they look, you know, if the, if the paper looks good, then let's move forward on, you know, maybe whether, you know, you want to reach out or if you're busy, hand it off to myself or, you know, or someone and, and, you know, Ms. Hebert. And let's do an initial phone call to sort of maybe do a phone interview. And then if we feel that that's a strong candidate, then we ask them to come in immediately for, you know, for something. Yep. I think that's a reasonable reasonable approach. Okay. I'm all for it.
Any other questions on this topic? Let's move to nine c, Hot River Homes update.
So I did reach out to Maria Thulman. Maria told me that their board had not yet met. I talked to her about, I think about ten days ago. And she said, as soon as their board meets and discusses it, they have all the, they have the contract we sent them, they will get back. So I don't know whether you want to pursue it or try to light a make them move with a little bit more of a sense of urgency since we're getting close to the spring season, or how you want to approach that.
I will reach out to one of the board members. Okay. Nine d, recognizing Andover residents. Paul?
So I was hoping that we can have a final discussion tonight and vote and get this started. The idea came up to maybe use a form on the website for when people wanna nominate somebody. And this way we have a paper trail and they can go through and and fill in their nomination. And then I think what we need to finalize is how often we're gonna talk about this. Are we doing quarterly? So kind of talked about this a bunch of times, but I'm hoping that we can finalize everything tonight. Is everybody in agreement about the form on the website and then we can start sharing that information on Facebook? They can click over from there. We can, you know, explain it in the River East. What's everyone's thoughts on this?
Well, for something like that too, I think we can also we can, you know, run, an announcement that we're seeking, you know, nominations, and they can get the form from the town clerk or from the town website. Mhmm. So if we ran that if we ran that quarterly, you know, a month ahead of time, Jeff, you're laughing. Do you think we shouldn't do that?
No. No. I'm laughing. Go ahead. You keep going, Adrian.
You know, if we if we put that in a tickler to run quarterly, it would just, you know, maybe coincide with us actually doing this and you know?
So who's gonna, so I'll have printed out forms for people that wanna fill it out. Who's gonna accept the forms? Should we have them drop them off at with Kate or in the clerk's office?
I think think a clerk's office is safer bet. They have better hours. So Okay. It in. What do you think, Scott? Put that.
Okay. So I can start I can start putting together, the form, the printed form, and maybe we can use I don't know. I have to ask Kate about how the website would work if it's a Google form that they can click over to, and then we can print that one out and have it
Well, they could just they could just prick us. They should be able to just do a submit and have it run to her inbox. Right. Okay.
Jeff, do you have any other way to improve it?
No. I think those are great ideas. Just do it annually. You wanna do it annually? Okay.
And are we? Are we still all in agreement that it's gonna be? So the form comes in. I just wanna talk this through so we're all on the same page and we all understand. So the form is going to come through. The nominations are going to come in. We're going to talk about it and and decide if if we accept the nom nomination and then the person is obviously has to be a town resident. Right? That has done something to improve the community. And then we're putting a brick in once the new community center is is built. We're doing a brick walkway. Is that what everyone everyone's in agreement with that? Yep. Okay. Yep. So so we so we talked about quarterly and then Jeff's saying he wants to do it annually?
Well, you can sit there and have a nomination deadline and then a period to evaluate. And if someone meets the qualifications of the group that's selecting it, then you sit there and you have a ceremony to put their brick in the walk of fame.
So you wanna do the ceremonies annually, or you wanna do the we had talked about doing it quarterly. So are we changing that methodology?
Well, if you wanna do it quarterly, do it quarterly. Well,
we could we could accept applications annually and then install people quarterly. You know? If we get four in, then you do four. You know? And if not, then we ask the boards or commissions to nominate people from, you know, from the community. Do it that way. Or install every six months? Yeah. I
think the point is what I I think I'd like to do a little more than annually is all. You know? Otherwise, sort of gets lost in the shuffle. People forget that it happens and you know? Mhmm.
Longer time would be better because it's gonna take time to get them all all the writing on them and then set some time up for someone to put them in. Okay.
So what's the deadline from from now until the first? Let's let's talk about we have to obviously tell the public that this is happening, right? Get them used to the idea. When is the when's the first deadline for the application?
So why don't we why don't we run the advert, like can we run the advert, like you know? And and that as an announcement, I'll check with Carol, but I think we could probably run it, like, you know, every other week for a couple months and then have the deadline be something like, you know, the end of April.
And when you're saying in the River East, run it every other week?
Yeah. They're we're allowed to run announcements. So seeking nominations,
blah blah blah. You know? Okay. So the end of April is the deadline for applications. And then we can obviously share it on Facebook and then we'll both. In the meantime, we'll set up the website page, right?
So once we get the info in April, when would we're gonna vote on it? And then what's the first installment? We're right away? Or we get it? Well, we have to wait for the walkway to be created, right? Right,
Right. I think April's a little too optimistic, to be honest. They only give us a couple months.
Right. Well, no. What I'm saying if we if we take nominations through April and then as once we get to the point of the community center first opening, we can do that as part of our first ceremony. You know? And then we do the same thing next year. Run them, and then we can make a decision next year how often we wanna install.
Leave the application process open permanently, and then sit there and say, here's the deadline for this year's nominees, and you leave it open so people can continuously funnel qualified candidates into the database.
You're mesmerizing me with your head circle and gut. We're get hypnotized.
So if we do this online, do we have to is that person that does the nomination is supposed to leave contact information? Yeah, you have to have the individual We supports
should have something on Because the that keeps it from doing multiple nominations and even
logging the IP address when they submit the form. Well, other thing we should ask for is we want their contact information so that if they don't fill in, we need to have a section on the form that says, why are you nominating this person? Give us a summary of why they're deserving. You know? And if we don't get enough information or we ask for more detail or a way to verify whatever, then we we need to be able to contact them to, you know, to do that. Hey. An Andover resident can't even put an editorial in the River East without leaving their name and their email address.
This is true. You can only expect so much for someone nominating someone for the Andover Hall of Fame. Oh, I'm just I'm just checking, to be honest. Just making sure we get it covered. Let's go. Okay. Alright. So we'll leave it open ended for nominees, but I think probably
once we start breaking ground and we'll talk about this maybe in the spring or summer about the first set of people we want to vote on. Probably the deadline should be for us,
but I think Jeff's right where you leave the application process. I think you I think you can leave it open, but yeah. But I think as a reminder to the public, you know, we we still should run some sort of advert at least once a year for a certain number of weeks.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. We gotta get the we gotta get the word out. Okay. Just to remind you. Alright. I will start working on this. Do we need to vote on this that we're all in favor of this? Are we good? No. We're Jeff, what do you think? I I don't feel like we need to, but No. I don't think we need to vote.
Oh, just send it to all of us and let us see it. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. 9E, the COOL program contract.
Okay. So right now, what we have from COOL is the COI certificate of insurance for the town, a certificate of insurance for the school, a copy of the full policy of their full insurance policy, and then a copy of the contract with the school. But the school contract basically doesn't really say a lot other than the school is going to allow them to use a couple of classrooms for a couple of years. Okay. So, way we left it with the cool program is they hadn't really accepted any of the versions that the town's attorney drafted for a contact. And so I asked Jess courier to come back to the town with a contract that the town can review, because I don't think it's really fair for Dennis to be, this would be his probably fifth or sixth draft of a contract to send to them. And they basically not really agreed to any of them. So that's where we are at this point. Have you sent the insurance information to Kerma?
No. Because I think it's premature if we don't even have a contract.
Why? Send it to Kerma and let Kerma tell us what is good or not. I mean, if if if you sit there and you tell Kerma, Kerma, we're thinking about allowing this group to use our our our buildings and our grounds, and we're we're going to allow them potentially to drive one of our vehicles Vehicles. Yeah. Permits. Permits can go and say, oh my god. They need to do this, this, this, and this. It's not on us.
I I think I think to Eric's point, being able to look at the language of a contract is gonna determine whether or not if their if their policy is written collect correctly to cover the town and whether or not our language in that contract. You
I understand that, and I agree with that, Adrian. But what's occurring is we're we're we just need to sit there and get our insurance company to sit there and say, these are what we're going to require to be able to That can be added to the contract. And now it's not on us for saying, hey, we want you to do this, this, this, this. It's our insurance company is telling us that we can't do this unless we get this, this, this, this. So either you do this, this, this, and this, or we can't do it. It's not that hard.
I'm happy to send it to them and send it to their review. I'm just, I'm not clear because without a contract, we don't actually have any relationship that we're, but I will send it to them. And if they tell us that this is what is required,
then at least the people from COOL can understand it's not us being arbitrary. It's us having to do this to satisfy
our insurance company. The worst there, I guess the worst that's gonna happen is they're gonna come back and say, well, you know, do you have a contract language we can reference? Exactly. There you go. Exactly.
Then they have to do one new contract with the one one of Dennis' contracts. It's not Okay. Process. I will send that to them. Not a problem.
Alright. Any other questions on that? Alright. 9, finance department employment. I know we reviewed it already. Eric, do you wanna go any further?
No. Other than it was kind of annoying to to for everybody to come in on the day off and not have anybody show up to interview. That's a little disappointing. Okay. Nine gs, the handover personnel policy discussion.
So, I had sent the Board of Selective members last month after the last meeting, after the discussion about what holidays are appropriate, a copy of the revised personnel policy. There wasn't really any incentive for you guys to sign that this or agree to that this meeting, because the reality is the first holiday was already passed anyway. So, we're not going to make it effective to next year anyway cut it. Does any members have any suggestions or corrections to the policy that I sent? I do not. After the meeting.
K. What I would suggest is that if you can all review it before the next meeting, you can just adopt it at the next meeting or tell me ahead of time what changes you wanted. Seems fair.
9H, discussion of senior transportation, electric vehicle, and the 15 passenger bus acquisition. So Eric, you've also you've already gone through item two, so let's go through item one. Well, you don't even have to. I mean, if we all read that, I mean, the question should is should we should we as a board sit there and consider an electric vehicle, as Eric mentioned in his document? And my response to that and what I wanted to ask you before is, what grants are available? And the answer is yes, we should be going out looking for that. Because if we're going to run into these issues with buses, if we don't assist the school with their needs, then it's going to cost us as a town more money. So we should do whatever we can to assist them in the needs for their bus because it will save us as a community money. Yes, I concur.
So to me, if the issue is that you can offset the need of another vehicle with an electric vehicle, if we could find some grant money for that, that would be wonderful. And we would get another vehicle and we could put it on our charging station that's right outside of our building. And I will let you know that I took a picture of a car charging at the charging station outside of the town hall the other day. I'm quite impressed. Are we charging for electricity yet?
No. I haven't flipped I haven't flipped that on. I've been waiting to see whether anybody actually uses it. Well So far, I've seen actually exactly two cars charge on that. You know? So it's not exactly getting a lot of usage. Well,
if we If you're waiting to have somebody, we've got two. So flip the switch. I know I just got my electric bill in. We shouldn't be giving any electricity away for free given what it's costing. 36¢ a kilowatt in our lovely connect. But if we had our own vehicle, we would be charging it.
K. I mean, I there are plenty of grants on the charger and infrastructure. I just haven't seen any grants that are going to provide you with the car. Some point this spring, they will open back up the Department of Transportation Grant program. And we will probably apply it again, you know for a you know 12 passenger bus. But I don't see, but I mean, given that they can't even supply the ones that were already agreed to I don't have any hope and they wouldn't even tell us till next May, And then we would know, you know, at some point the summer after that. So if you want the thing in the next eighteen months, you know, you're going to have to agree to buy it or just decide, you know, you're not going to get it. Okay.
So one quick question there. Do we have to reapply for the bus program that we've already approved for because they can't build it?
I don't think anybody knows at this point. So, the state hasn't even said, you're not, we're not getting it this year. But since the manufacturer says we're not getting it this year, and the state doesn't have any way to get it. I mean, last year, the state didn't tell us until literally the week we were supposed to pick this thing up that we weren't going to get it that year. You know, so that's why I talked to the manufacturer itself because I didn't want to find because I don't think the state is telling anybody they're not getting the vehicles yet, but there's no vehicles for them to give. So, that's the that's really the issue. So, I honestly don't have an answer to that.
I think Kathy and I talked about that today. We are going to apply again, because there's no reason not to. And if we don't get this vehicle, you know, maybe we'll be prioritized on the list, the next one. Or maybe you'll get two. Or maybe we'll get two.
But this whole board, here, nobody wants to get a vehicle in the interim, a cheap vehicle for senior transportation. Nobody's on board with that. Gonna wait for
a grant. Is that what I'm hearing? No, no. Well, I'm I'm on board with it. I I mean, I even suggested, you know, we look at used vehicles, but it didn't seem like anybody was interested.
Know, that that subject needs to be talked about because it's
Okay. Ridiculous to drive those big buses around with one person in them. Let let me ask my next question then, Scott, because I'll go. Eric, the vehicle that you identified as the appropriate electrical vehicle for senior transportation, can you find out what the timing would be if we had purchased one of those? So if we put it into our next budget cycle, how long would it take for us to get that vehicle?
So, I mean, there are a lot of them out there, but if you had cash today, you could get one of those,
within a year, within about 50 miles from here. And what are we, and what is it, and what are we looking at to do that?
Between '28 and 31, depending on what it's got on it. Okay, may be able to get it a little cheaper under municipal sales.
So how much did we put towards the state grant for the vehicle that we're not getting? We put nothing towards it. Was 100%
financed grant. Right. So, the only money we would have currently is possibly the ARPA money for the for transfer senior for transport, for senior stuff, right? So
there is, it does look like we're going to get some funding somewhere around $9,000 in funding for essentially senior issues or seniors in general. Is that money available?
I don't know when we're going to get it, but you know we've been told, you know, we got the information which I forwarded to all of you that it looks like we are getting that.
I would anticipate that sometime this spring, but when exactly, I don't know. So, I'm guessing for the way you're talking, Scott, that you would support this. So if we get closer to Absolutely, the this has been an ongoing problem. So if we get closer to the end of our budget cycle and we're still in the place we are now where we haven't really touched contingency much, right? Could we take the money from contingency, the ARPA money and look at one of those vehicles? Any of would anybody everybody support that right?
Yes, you've seen my email. You know how I stand on this. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not sold on the electric vehicles at this point. I don't think the technology is there. Know Eric's gonna disagree, but I think in the future, think the state's gonna, we're gonna see more grants for electric vehicles. I still haven't seen in your correspondence where, I mean, I know the transportation, we do take people on calls and the drivers do wait in the parking lot. It's very cold or it's hot and you're using that battery to cool or heat that vehicle while that driver's waiting. And I'm not completely sold that, you know, electric vehicle's the way to go right now. I would support a hybrid, but I would not support electric vehicle at this point.
Understood. And and I personally would say if we're gonna do it, we get either a gas vehicle. I mean, to me, a hybrid's the worst of both worlds. You got all the problems of an electrical vehicle and you still have a gas vehicle there too. So, I mean, getting a plug in hybrid to me does not gain you a whole hell of a lot. I did say there are some options. Mean, if you want to explore smaller gas powered vehicles, you can look at a Ford Escape that seems to be I'm pretty sure that's what Columbia Senior Center has. You know, there are there are other options if you don't want an electric vehicle.
Got it. Not that we don't want it. I just don't think I just don't think I mean, in the next five years, I think the technology is going to leapfrog significantly. And I just I don't want to get stuck with range anxiety with the driver sitting there trying to stay warm in the parking lot and then, you know, we're only getting one or two trips out of a vehicle because we're, you know, we're discharging the battery. I thought Eric's
I thought Eric's breakdown of the trips and the way the senior drivers go, you were well within your range. Right. Yeah, we're talking
that time when they're taking people to medicals and the drivers are sitting waiting for them to come out. It could be a cold day, it could be a hot day, and they're going to run that battery down trying to stay warmers, chase cold. And and if you're talking two calls, you're talking forty five minutes to an hour that they could be waiting. So that that to me has not been addressed.
I thought, Eric, in your report, addressed most of that, that the range the range of that vehicle was $2.75,
and most of your trips were under a 100 miles. Much of your daily routine. Yeah, Jeff. We're not talking the range. We're talking about a driver dropping somebody off at a medical call and waiting for them to get out. Kathy,
how many times do drivers sit there and run those vehicles? Every time they take a medical. They sit in the parking lot and wait. Absolutely.
Okay. Yeah, so they're going to have to get heat or they're going to need air conditioning to stay comfortable. And, and you're going to be using the battery for that.
And Eric's information said the worst case scenario was half of the
power in the battery, think he said. Yeah, they were down. And then and then you got to add in environmental conditions like winter where you're actually going to be chopping in about 30% of that range. But he You're said that we two trips a day. Marginal If you do the math.
Okay, Eric, then look for vehicle options. Bring us back multiple vehicle options so we can make a decision because we're gonna have to do something.
What you gotta give me more guidance than that. What do you wanna buy? A cheap vehicle.
Yeah. A vehicle. Cheap gas vehicle with everybody. Hyundai Hyundai Santa Fe, Ford Escape, something, you know, medium sized SUV. These aren't cheap vehicles. Well,
I want to get a vehicle. I gave you a cheap vehicle.
Well, what about the, like, the Mazda, a Mazda, you know? My wife has a CX five or maybe even a CX seven if we want something a little bigger. Don't we have to have something that seniors can get in and out of? Well, that's why I suggested the Mazda. My my father-in-law is, you know, 90 now and in a wheelchair and we have to transfer him And it's actually just about the right height to get in and out of.
And you can actually put a wheelchair in it. Yeah, you can. I mean, if we're not going to go with that, then you know, why don't you, you know, you might as well buy a minivan. If you're going to do that, at least get well, then the gas mileage sucks again. Alright, so you want gas vehicles. What price range? Yeah, we have. I I think 35 under 35,000. That's what's left in there, Adrian?
Well, if we got if we got the nine and the We get the nine from the the ARP and then. You know, I think we have we have all that left in contingency. Stoney Arc. No. What do got left?
Probably 35 at the moment. But that's I mean, you're making a lot of assumptions. I mean, because the one thing that we know is that we're gonna be on under on revenue this year because the town clerks collected a lot less money and slowed down a lot in the the building department. So we're definitely gonna be somewhat short revenue.
Well, yes and no because the town clerk, just like last year, that that May June rush for the for the stickers.
I'm not talking about transfer stickers. I'm accounting for them. I'm just talking about the the biggest single thing that we get for funding that comes into the town clerk's office is when real estate is sold. And that's been down considerably this year from last year. So that's the shortfall I'm talking about. Okay. But to be perfectly honest, I think we're okay on budget. And I suspect when we get to the end of the year, if you wanted to do that, you probably could instead of budgeting it for next year, hopefully transfer some money into somewhere for the vehicle. That's Well, I mean, gets us one vehicle sooner and then we can try to reapply,
you know. They make a lot of smaller SUVs now. Yeah. Chevy makes one, Buick makes one. Yeah. There's a lot of smaller SUVs around.
Is there any, you know, and I guess maybe we can look at some of the set programs that are out there, you know, pretty municipal.
I'm not sure what you mean. What's your question? Municipal.
Wasn't there a couple of programs that we could buy through
in the past? Yeah, mean, well, once once you know what vehicle you want, you'll you'll use Sourcewell. Okay. You know, or something like that to to acquire the vehicle.
Yeah. I'll throw my I'll let you buy one through Costco on my on my card as long as I get the points.
They have a pretty good deal. So is everybody in agreement that we're we're gonna be looking at a smaller SUV type vehicle?
I mean, SUV or minivan as long as the minivan gets decent mileage.
There's I don't I don't disagree with Eric. Think I'm pretty against not a bad idea. None none of them yeah. It's a good idea, but none of them get any good gas mileage.
I I haven't looked for minivan in ages, so I have no idea. But Kathy's laughing. She doesn't watch out of minivan? You're muted, Kathy.
Well, I didn't want you to know I was laughing. No. I think, I think if you're not gonna go with the, I think we should try to get a small minivan or or suitable car. And I like what Eric said. I agree with him completely. He and I have been discussing this for a long time. And the reason truly that I wanna see an electric vehicle I agree with what Jeff is saying, by the way, Jeff Murray, that, it's in this beginning stages. But I also did include on that report, what they're doing in Europe regarding the batteries and those batteries that are going in the cars that they're making here in The States or putting together in The States. So I don't know. But, anyway, yeah, let's just get the car, please. We need a car. Alright. Gotta move on it.
Okay. So I mean, I'm just browsing. I mean, there's a Kia Sportage. It's 100,000 mile warranty. All wheel drive starts at 28,000. Yep. There you go. 26,000, sorry. Yeah, there you go. The
Escape starts at 27, the Mazda starts at 25, so. Do they have heat?
They have full Full heat engine. It's got heat. Heat. Yeah. They got heat heat and air. Alright.
Eric, so let's We are a mid peak in the group, though, aren't we? And so by the end of by the end of this fiscal year, we will either try to acquire a vehicle or we will sit there and put it into next year's budget.
Yeah, and I think we should still apply for another vehicle,
you know, if we can take a shot at that too. Oh, we will do that. I mean, that that's a given. It's just a question of whether, but we're we're not gonna have that anytime soon, right? Okay, so we're on agreement.
Just just for the just for the sake of argument, what's what's the average mileage you put on the minivan a year?
That's a Kathy question. Kathy? It is it is a question for me, and I don't have the book in front of me. I'm sorry. About Kathy. About how many? About how many?
I can't I I I can't say it because I might be wrong, and I might be underestimating.
That's not fair. I get a point of just looking at the reason I'm asking is I'm looking at some vehicles and they have a ten year, 10 a 100,000 mile warranty. So if we're putting, you know, 10,000 miles on a year, we're gonna get ten years of warranty out of that vehicle. So, I mean, it's just, this is something to look at as well. Right now, we've been putting enormous amount on it because we're really hurting,
trying to get our seniors, and we've been and we've been using the van daily, like, or five times it goes out a day. So, now, we are using a lot. Maybe if you get another car, we won't have to worry about that quite quite as much. But at least I'll have two suitable vehicles, and I won't have to take the buses out because that's a crime. Right.
Understood. And I'll get that information to you, Jeff. Yeah. I'm just care I'm just curious what what we're putting out for mileage.
I mean, so I'm I so you want either a minivan or an SUV or a small SUV of any some price under $35,000 What is the criteria for purchasing this? What is it that you're looking for in the vehicle?
Well, we definitely need to make sure we can put a wheelchair in the back. That's
No. We already have three wheelchair accessible vehicles. If we're if somebody's in a wheelchair, we're not taking them in this thing anyway. Well, a wheelchair, walker, that type of You're saying? You want a hatchback?
Yeah. We need something with some, the hatch in the back. Yeah. Think a hatchback versus a trunk is Yeah. Like a small SUV like a CX five or escape or right.
And and what miles per gallon are we looking for here? Twenty twenty five twenty five plus
Yeah, 25 plus. Mean Yeah, most of the ones I'm looking at are right around 28 to 30. Yep. So 25 plus. My wife gets 27 in her five. Yep.
Okay. So Eric, if you can look into it, I you have a lot of shoppers willing to participate in that program here. So I mean, the the okay.
I mean, we're not buying for resale. We're buying for use. So we're gonna use it. We're gonna run the wheels off it, and we're probably gonna sell it or or get rid of it.
I mean, Kathy, can I ask you a question or or Eric, whoever? You you we have vehicles under this trip this one week in January. Actually, it's longer than a week. It's nine days. You have listed a van and a bus. Are those just two separate vehicles or one? No. On that I mean, is the van two separate vans or just one van? No. So we have one van, we have one small bus, and we have one old larger bus currently.
Okay. So you ran about 500 miles on the van between January 3 and January 9.
Yeah. But I didn't finish anything, and I'm already up to five zero three, 503 miles. I just
more times to add. I missed three miles. So we got 500 miles a week if and and then, you let some parents say you got 25,000 miles on that vehicle a year. Okay. So find something economical, good gas mileage that can a resident can get in and out of easily and that we can at least put a walker in the back. Do we want, like, all wheel drive or anything like that, everyone? Everybody. I mean, isn't doesn't everybody have that now? It's I think it's all all wheel drive now. Right? We're not going out and getting a Corvette that Mike would drive and and do some POLOs.
I think everything sold in the Northeast is all wheel drive anyway. Right.
Alright. So we're all in agreement that we want to do that. So We typically don't run senior transportation
in the snow anyway. So having an all wheel drive vehicle is a waste.
Not necessarily because we may have a driveway or something that they may need to get up. So it's not completely a waste.
True, Jeff. To buy to buy at that level, you're going to get what you get. So if you're gonna buy between 25 and 30,000 or 30,035 thousand, You're just trying to find the right vehicle at the right size that works. So let's take a look at them and know that we're all in agreement that we want to do something. All right. Let's move on to item 10, new business, budget meeting minutes. Do have a schedule, Eric, that you want to follow?
I don't. The question is what schedule do you all want to follow? When do you want your budget meetings?
What day works for everybody? I would personally like to keep them all on Mondays if possible. I would second that. Mondays work best for me. Ditto. Ditto. Okay. Paula?
Mondays are terrible, but I'll go along with it because I like you all. Paula. Paula, thank you. That's my Valentine's Day gift to you all.
Wow. Thank you very much. Okay. So when do we wanna get started? I'm gonna send Marcus Flowers. Eric, when do you need us to get started?
Well, you can't do next Monday because that's a holiday. Excellent. I guess it depends on how many budget meetings you want to have because you really ought to be turning the budget over to the Board of Finance somewhere around the middle of March. So you got about a month, something like that.
Alright. So, the twenty seventh, the sixth, the thirteenth, and the twentieth, and the twenty seventh. Just put them all in March. Okay. Actually, we have a meeting on one of those days, don't we? Yep. You would.
Okay. So put all the other Mondays. And then if we need to if we get to our first meeting, we need to schedule additional meetings, we won't.
So you don't want the first meeting till the twenty seventh?
Well, you told me I couldn't schedule the twentieth or we would have because it's a public holiday.
Correct. I did tell you that. You did. Was Only because Dennis yelled at me for scheduling a meeting on a public eye, well, they told me I was violating FOI rules and I, I need to make a change. And what holiday is it March 20? I don't know. It's some somebody's somebody's dead. Present. Lincoln Lincoln Washington? Yeah. No. Lincoln Lincoln is this month.
So does it matter? Do you wanna do the twenty first? That's fine with me.
Actually, I may not be making that. Twenty first is Tuesday. Do the twenty second.
So you want to schedule twenty second, the twenty seventh. Just bringing up my calendar. That's the sixth.
Twenty seconds board of finance. What? So Eric, you'd be a you're gonna have to choose one or the other, I guess.
Yeah. That's probably not a great idea. How about the twenty third?
Yeah. I don't see anything really super sustainable in Connecticut. Anybody's involved with that?
Here's the question. Mean, how many how many meetings do we need?
Well, it's always better to have more, and we can say we don't need them.
They're do it on I don't understand why they did this. We were trying to only do four. So
So what? 20 so you're talking twenty third, twenty seventh, and thirteenth?
Sixth is our is not our meeting. The thirteenth is our meeting. We gotta do the sixth. Oh, sorry, sixth. And then the twentieth and then the twenty seventh. So just schedule through the end of March. And if we don't have to have them, we don't have
I can't make the twentieth, I can tell you that. Okay. You mean March 20? Yes. I
think if we get the budget from you, Erica, we can go through it and we can have all our questions in a row. I don't anticipate it being too involved. I think if we can do it, you know, we could expedite it a little bit by going through it and Sure. Well,
should all have the budget. Yep. I just didn't know if there was gonna be any, revisions to that up to, you know, our first meeting.
Yeah. I mean, there'll definitely be revisions between now and then. We should have the budget finalized. We should have, I mean, the stuff trickles in over the next couple months as various different vendors of ours finalize their budgets. So, you know, really over the next couple months, everything, some things get dialed in, but you've got basically a big picture budget. And the other thing I don't know is I'm not going to know because it's a biennial budget. So we're not going to know what's coming out of the state legislature until May, you know, maybe June. So we're not, you know, on the spending side, if you look at the governor's proposed budget, you know, we lose somewhere around 80 or 90,000 in state aid, you know, mostly in,
what do you call it? In the education funding. ECS? Yeah, we lose, we lose like 60,000 in ECS, we lose about 20,000 in other little things. And then last year we got a big shot in the arm because of the change to the cap on the real estate or the motor vehicle tax. But because last year our budget was under the cap, we're not getting anything back from that. So we lose about 115 with that. So we're definitely looking at less revenues, you know, but we're not gonna have specifics until they actually pass a budget. You know, I can give you spending numbers,
but I can't give you what our revenues are gonna be. I think if we got projections, it'll probably be fine. And then we can just, you know, if we can get like a probably like a final before the twenty first, just someone give us a couple of days to chew on it before if we're going to do the twenty third.
So by the February 21, you want the budget in
as much detail as I've got it. Does that, does that, does that make sense to everybody? Yes. Two days enough to go through it? So we're doing the twenty first? Twenty third. Twenty third. The Thursday. Okay. So twenty third, twenty seventh, sixth. What was the sixth?
March? Monday. Yep. And then why don't why don't we why don't we formally push it over on the thirteenth at our regular meeting? That'll give us another week for adjustments if something comes in.
Don't we have a special meeting scheduled on March 13? No. I've got one this fry Friday, don't we?
Yeah. There's one on the there's one scheduled for March 13 as well. It says board of selectments special meeting seventy eight. I have no idea. That might be a I know. I'm
not sure why that's on there. It's a special meeting. It says regular meeting. It looks like our meeting's on there twice.
Oh, is that because we were gonna do the the pre meeting? Maybe we should put it on the wrong day. Possible. I'll review that. That's what it looks like.
Now for the first budget meeting, what do you want from me other than the revised document? Is there anything specific you're focusing on that you wanna make it a focus of the first meeting? I
mean, I personally would like to see you go through and give us all the highlights, you know, the bigger numbers that were changed, you know, the biggest impacts on the budget, you know. Okay. And I think also at the end of that meeting or through that meeting, we probably should also look at dialing in what we're doing for employee pay and any other adjustments in that area as far as hours and different departments and stuff.
Okay. Yeah. And obviously, one of the first things you need to do because that impacts on the budget is determine what the, you know, what you're pushing for a pay,
you know, pay scale for employees. And that way we've got that factored in, that's done. Any other improvements, you know, far as hours of service or what we're going to provide if we're talking town planner, those types of things. Those are factors. Okay. Okay.
I know this is a big ask. But I'm just wondering, is there any way we could try to get some comp numbers for our positions? Because I know in the past we've just done blanket increases and there may be some positions that we're severely underpaying employees in, and there may be some we are at or near what other towns are paying. So I would almost like to review it and do adjustments on a position by position basis. I mean, that's my recommendation. Maybe we do that. I don't know how we would do that, but we just keep doing blanket increases every year. There may be some positions that are severely underpaid and other towns are playing much more and we need to stay competitive.
I think as a whole, Jeff, we've tried to make those adjustments as we've moved new people into positions.
Yeah, but my correspondence recently, I want to try to retain the talent that we do have. So if there's somebody that, you know, Hebron's paying X amount of dollars, you know, do we want to try to keep that employee for, you know, the term of their employment or do we want to lose them to enable them? Is
there a position specifically we should be looking at? No,
I'm just putting it out there just for discussion, because I know we've just done blanket 3%, 4%, whatever, but there may be some that need a bigger boost than others.
Well, I mean, most of our positions right now we're in unions, so. Yeah, but not all of them. So I mean, we can't control the union ones. Mean, I know, but so, know, the town clerk's assistant is in the union, the finance position is in the Union, we did the mummer memorandum of understanding for that one, the building department is in the Union. You know the assistant assessor is in the Union
and we have a member. I'm talking about non Union positions. We only have one.
I we had a couple. Thought we had a couple. We have one in an elected official. That's it.
So if you want, I mean, if, and the only reason I'm hesitating is because I've done this before and it chews up a fair bit of time to do it. But I hate to ask, but that definitely is available to us. You tell me what cohort of towns you want to use to compare us to? If you give me a list I don't understand.
We're talking about, we have one non union position and one elected official.
Correct. Adrian, I'm not trying to be specific. I'm trying to be general. And we're going have to discuss those two positions. Maybe in executive sessions, I
mean, honestly, a lot of our problems have been in union positions. And the reality is if you choose to increase the salary of a union position, the union is never going to fight you. You know, in some of the places we've had really excessive attrition have been union positions. So, if you're going to look at it, you could look at it, you know, overall, you know, if that's what you want to do. I'm saying is I can get you the information because it is available to us, or it's available to me as a town manager. You just have to tell me who you wanna compare us to,
and I'll give you all the salary comps for the positions that I can get information on.
But don't you why don't you focus on the two that are nonunion?
Which two positions are you talking about? Jay, Huddl, and who else?
No, Jay's on, well Jay's not on a contract. We actually have to look at his contract, but that's a different conversation. Think, Jeff, the only two that are in the town hall that I know of are, what, Kate, your assistant, and the town clerk. Everybody else is union.
Would also sorry, we're going to listen, we're going to get into all these issues. I would also like to do these meetings in person.
Anybody have a problem with that? Do what meetings in person? Our budget meetings.
So I'm fine. I do them in my office. So whether I do them in my office or the, the down the hall is makes no difference to me. I would have to see what days we have available.
Because Well, I I I personally don't I personally don't wanna do them in person. It's it's hard. I mean, I'm usually trying to run home to try to make these in the first place. So you know?
Can I make a suggestion that we set them up as hybrid meetings? Cause we have that capability now. I worked it out with our IT guy and we can set that meeting up so we can do good quality hybrid meetings. So, most of you wanna be there and a couple people can't, that's fine. It'll work out just fine. We do that for a lot of the meetings at Crogg and a lot of the meetings with, you know, Eastern Highlands Health District. So that technology's worked out if you want to utilize it.
It's either we're all in or we're all we're all Zoom. So if Adrian doesn't wanna be in, I get it.
I do not. Only because I you know, like, tonight, I I didn't get a shower in yet. I am absolutely covered in crap. So
Well, I mean, Jeff, to be perfectly honest, I do hybrid meetings all the time, and they work fine. So if that's if that's the way you wanna go, we can support you at the town level and make that happen. It's okay. I can I can do this? Yeah.
And can I make a suggestion? I'm I'm fine with high hybrid meetings, but we'll have to try it and see if a board member's not there in person. At that room, the acoustics are terrible. So I just want to make sure that we try it and if we have to adjust, we have to all agree to adjust so. I I like the idea of hybrid. If people don't like zoom, they can come down and listen, but there's meetings that I listen to that are hybrid sometimes. If, if I'm on Zoom, it's hard to hear the people in the room and vice versa. So I just wanna make sure that it's, it's gonna work out.
Yeah, mean, I think as long as the meeting is kept, as long as you don't have more than say 10 people in the meeting room, and you don't have a giant circle, people are way away from the camera and mic setup, you're okay. But you're right, the acoustics in that room are tough.
Okay. Okay. So do we have we have the schedule and we're all good with the schedule as it's currently laid out. So Eric, can you read it to us?
So the schedule at this point is February 23, February 27, March 6, March 13, with March 20 as a reserve date. March 13 being your regularly scheduled meeting.
Okay. I have no problem with that schedule right now. And we're gonna do it strictly Zoom then.
Let's We're not doing hybrid? I thought we I thought we try the hybrid.
If we're not all going in, I'm doing I'm doing so. Okay. Okay. Zoom it is.
Jeff, would you be okay with if all the board members are on Zoom and then Eric invites anybody from the public that wants to come down and do it hybrid that way to listen?
No? We don't like that idea? I have no desire to do that. Mean, you're not gonna be in the room, it doesn't make sense. You know? We're all in we're all in or we're not. So we're either all in, and we do it on Zoom, which I'm fine with. Okay.
Just trying to think of the people that don't like Zoom.
I got it. Okay. So we had our budget discussion. Roadwork planning, Eric?
So we're gonna have to put that off because Jay is dealing with the family. That was gonna be his discussion point. So we'll that will be one of the discussions at the first budget meeting.
Okay. 10 d, the grant for the community garden. So there was a letter in our package.
Yep. So the community garden would like to apply for another grant to continue to do work on their shed. But if the the town has to be the fiduciary and the grant administrator, that's not a me decision. That's a board of selectman decision whether you wanna do that, or not. So they're just asking us to facilitate their grant?
Yep. They're just asking us to be the fiduciary on the grant, but it just means we have to account for it at the end of the year. Sounds good to me. We decided to do it. Any problems with that? Anybody? Nope. Nope.
Okay. So I'll make a motion to be the fiduciary for their grant.
I make a motion to, be the fiduciary for the grant application for the community garden. I'll second that. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay.
Item 11, approval of minute meetings or meeting minutes for Monday, 01/09/2023.
I make a motion to accept the meeting minutes for Monday, 01/09/2023.
Scott said he seconded it. Quietly did it. I saw his mouth move. All All those in favor? Aye. Aye. 12, budget appropriation transfers or overexpenditure requests. Do we have any, Eric? There are none at this time. Okay. Tax collectors report, item 13.
Yeah, so there are two refund requests. One for vault trust for $715.68 and one for $20.24 for a total of 735.92.
All right. Somebody wanna make a motion to approve those? Motion to approve. Yeah. I'll second.
Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. The department reports were included in our package. Anybody have any questions on any of them? I have one. Eric, on the building department? What is the question? Page 65. There were 21 building permits issued in the month of January with an estimated cost of $249,000. Yes. Any of those Permit costs.
Of those whole house applications? Say that again? Any of those new house applications?
I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. Seems pretty unlikely if if the grand total was $2.49. $2.49.
That's that's my concern. So can you check that out just to make sure, like, what what type of applications? Like, what are the estimated costs? I mean, we had talked multiple times about how to sit there and try to do some basic check and do some basic math, whether it was square footage or anything else. I just look at that number and it's kind of low. That's all I was looking at. So the estimated costs that the individuals who are applying for those permits are putting on their application is $250,000 for 21 applications. If you can just look at it and just report back to us next month, that would be great. Sure. So you want details about the month of January? No. I just I just want you to come back and report to us and say, you know, this month's numbers were two seventy five, and they appear reasonable. That's it. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. Anybody have any other questions on any of the other reports? I do not.
Okay. So let's move on to item 15, correspondence. I'm assuming there's none. Nope. Item 16, public speak. So left on our call, we have Mike and Kathy Pelosi. That's it. Everybody else left us.
Thank you very much for considering on the CAR. Appreciate it. Thank you. That's it.
Mike, you got nothing? No? Okay. He's good. He has now. All right. All right. Okay. So we are now done with public speed. We're going to move on to item 17A, which is the status of the community center RFP.
So I'd like to move that we go into executive session to discuss this pursuant to pursuant to general statute section one dash six b and one dash nine c to discuss the with the town administrator and the town attorney to discuss strategy and negotiations regarding the progress of the completion of the community center project with regards to any pending action.
Someone gonna second that? I'll second that. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Okay. Mike and Kathy, thank you for joining us. Eric, if you could stop the recording. Yep.