Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen Regular Meeting and Budget Workshop- 2
March 13, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Meeting take two. I did like that. All right, everyone, we apologize. We were hacked on our initial meeting. We brought forth all of the members of the meeting that we're on. I'm apologizing in advance to the public, but unforeseen matters. One thing is to text Dennis O'Brien the information, Eric, if you can, because I know he was on. We had a presentation from Bill Warner, and he was the last good part of our presentation. And so what we are going to do is we are going to move on to Jay is giving us a report from public works for our budget meeting. Eric, I have your email open. But, Jay, if you can go forward and give us your your report, we can get you off so you can get some sleep. Unmute. Jay, unmute.
There we go. There we go. All right. Thank you, everybody. First of all, I'd like to start with we're talking about Capitol Roads and TAR combined. Correct? That's what we're talking about right now. All right. So, Eric and I were in discussions about, you know, obviously our startup money in the springtime and what the town would be a good, as far as the town having a good pot of money to start the construction season, and that being the TAR account, because it comes in a couple of different times a year, sometime typically around January or August, depending plus minus. So, and that's usually around $93,000 in change. So, you know, give it $180,000 per year from the state for TAR. So the question is, is what is a good amount of money that we could start with and and we. My thought was around 2 and $50,000 to $300,000 If there was that kind of money every year, not only would you have startup money in the TAR account. And this is I know we don't have that right now, but think about it for the future and how we can work towards having A consistent startup money. Because it's always better we can get going early and and obviously have the funds to do that prior to July 1. Haven't we had that the last couple of years?
Yes and no. We've had some. We've had it. We I don't know if we've had that amount of money in there. Two years ago, we had a good pot. Last year, we used up quite a bit. And of course, we had some added expenses where we kind of depleted those funds. But getting back to the, you know, February in that account, not only does it allow you to have startup money, but you have some emergency funds in case a storm pops up or something, you know, you got a little something to work with. But that being said,
the budget that I'm presenting tonight for the roads is common use, thinking your heads is a combination of tar and road monies combined. And Eric, just a quick question. The latest rundown I gave you just before I left this afternoon. Did that get emailed out or just should talk about that? Eric?
Well, maybe he'll be back on. This is this I sent I sent them my spreadsheet that I used. It's not the it's not the one that. I don't know if he had that if he sent that to you guys. But anyway. Back up a little bit and I'm going to see if I can share my screen. First, we'll talk about the chip seal roads for this year, the improvements.
You're not going to be able to share your screen because you're not the host.
Oh, okay. Just enabled share screening for Jay, so you should be able to share. Okay. Thank you. So
alright. Oh, here we go. That's what I wanna you guys see that? Mhmm. No? Yes. Yes. This this one that's moving you're seeing? Yeah. It's a single. Alright. How's that? It's good. Perfect.
Alright, so talking about this year's roads for chip seal preservation. So we have Wheeling Road, Pine Ridge, Shad Dogwood, Wood Fern, Hutchinson, Times Farm, Old Coventry. Now I have the single chip in blue and in red the double chip. So Pine Ridge and Shad Blow, those are in pretty rough condition. As far as the quality of the pavement, but they're still primarily together, we'll say. So, we could do a double chip on that and preserve it for a pretty good amount of time. So, I went back originally. I had this through Gorman. As you can see, Gorman was the contractor that I reached out to in the beginning to get a quote on this for budgetary numbers. So originally I had them price it out with them doing the sweeping and the traffic control. And that originally came in at about $221,000 And I reached back out to him just because money is the way it is these days. Take out the traffic control. If we do the traffic control and we do the sweeping, we'll save approximately $22,000 So he came back with a new price at 152,094 per chip seal. All right. Now, if I scroll on further down, you see the map of the town Here, so I kind of I kind of mapped this out with where we are today. And. In red. The small like these are around the lake and some of the Bunker Hill. What we did last year, Bear Swamp. This portion along Hill. And these other roads, some of these other roads have been. Either chip sealed,
preserved in the last past three years or touched within the past five, seven years and are fairly good shape. And our goal is to kind of go around the town. We started in this area and then trying to make it so we're addressing our bad roads as long as well as our good roads at the same time. And so we're going to come from this side of town. This is where we're proposing this year. These roads here. Okay, Hutchinson, Times Farm, Old Coventry. So these roads here. And that's you'll see on the list. Alright. This here green. This is the. Where we're talking about doing drainage work this year. And also that trip grant. Hendi, the last section of Long Hill.
And then Skinner. Alright, and this section of Skinner right now is a little bit undecided what we're going to do there. Depends on what the funding comes in. If we get the trip grant, how we're going to treat this, whether we do a shim and chip on it or we could shim it and overlay it. So, we don't really know exactly what we're doing there, but we do know we got to do the drainage here first this year. So our plan this year, chip seal, shim and chip and the drainage here. For 2024, what you really can't see, unfortunately it doesn't really show up, it's 4.6, this would be next year's plan. And we're trying to look in at Bailey, Aspinall, Aspinall. I forget what that little road is. And Burnout Brook, this area, the last of Shawty Mill, some roads over here. So you can see why this list. Any questions?
No. How does it all fit into the rest of your budget? Okay. So now I've gotta go back and bring up Did you did I lose the screen sharing? No. Okay. Can we see this screen here? Yep. All
right. So this is my spreadsheet that I use, that I sent Eric. And this is my updated as of today. So let me. All right, so this is my summary page. So, paving, patching, and I'll go to through the details. Under 93, two fifty. Crack seal, two ten along with, I mean, chip seal and crack sealing. Drainage, 110, 111,000. Pavement markings 25, other 60,500. So for a total of 5 and 99,742. So in the paving, from AEN, to budget for a thousand ton of asphalt, 95 per ton, that'd be virgin asphalt for Shimon. The contractor, twenty three days of labor at 42.50 per day, 97.750 and some cold patch that we use throughout the year for any potholes. Chip sealing. Approximately four miles of the preservation and chip seal, dollars 170,000. Crack seal, it's at $22 a gallon plus minus. Try to budget about $40,000
for crack seal. Drainage. So drain, this is the drainage area that we try to, would like to complete on Hendy, Long Hill, Skinner. We have approximately 26 catch basins. Some of them would be new, some of them are rebuilds, with 26 in total, dollars 1,500 a piece. Materials, dollars 39,000. Drainage pipe, 2,500 feet at approximately 2,090 per foot, 52,000. Some of that pipe's 15 inches, some's 18 inches. There's a few couple pieces of 24 inches and there's some 12 inches in there too. So go ahead, somebody have a question? The drainage flares, those are the pieces at the end of the pipe. Six of those, approximately 2,000. Eight assorted adapters going from RCP to ADS pipe, concrete to plastic, 2,640, four rolls of filter fabric, 23, 52, and then your catch basin cleaning. Some of these areas, the reason for the filter fabric, we've got some wet areas along the way that we're going to use some perforated pipe to take up some of this groundwater that's
wreaking havoc on some of the edges of the roads in the areas where we got some bad icing and poor drainage. So traffic control, basically that's the center line of pavement markings, like to budget 25,000 for that. Long Hill, Shoddy, the roads that we've had completed that we weren't able to, and then some other roads that we weren't able to finish the last time. Centerline striping, some sideline striping, stop bars, sharrows, other. Got a couple areas that we need to mark in the parking lot too, a couple of outliers to finish up. And the last part of this is the other weather works reporting that annual service contract at 1,700, approximately 500 ton of miscellaneous roadbed material, stone process loam at $20,000 grass seed 1,800 and flex beam. Flex beam, I measured out that section on, because we haven't done that in a year or two, like to get back on that program. And I measured the section on Long Hill from Route 6 to the intersection of Bear Swamp and there's 1,300 feet of the old wood rail. And so to replace that, it's $29 a foot, it's $37,000 So in total, back to the summary,
I get just, call it $600,000
Eric, how does this compare to what you presented to us before?
It's quite a bit more than what I presented to you before. Jay gave me this this afternoon, so that's not included in the documentation I gave you earlier last week.
What I, what I didn't have prepared the last time is I didn't have all my drainage calculations for doing the drainage work on Hendi. And, you know, I had some of it, but I didn't have as much as I had right that I put together right now. Okay. I've been working over the past week on this stuff and. Okay, well looking at this number,
does this, this encompasses just roadwork or is this encompass the things we normally use part funds for? This, say that again, Adrian, I'm sorry.
Have TAR funds of 190,000, right? Give or take? Correct. Is this encompassing the things that we would normally use the TAR funds for?
Yes, tar funds are included. I'm assuming, I'm assuming that tar money is in this, you know, in your 599,000
that you need. Yes, it wouldn't be 599,000 plus another 100 and, you know, dollars 90,000.
Okay, so Eric asked for $3.75 plus the 190. We're at $5.65. We're rolling it off by about $30 give or take. Okay. Yep. I I just wanna point something out to you, Jay, though. You said you weren't sure if you'd gotten those funds before. You were at 300,000 basically the last three years in addition to your TAR funds. No, I know we had the TAR funds.
No, no. I'm saying outside of TAR funds, you said you need some funding somewhere around 300,000 to have the money in the spring. Right? And I asked you if you had had that and you said you weren't really sure. So I went looked it up for you and verified in each of the town budgets that are on the town website, and you had that amount of money give or take each year about Adrian, the
I don't think that was his point. Jay's point was that normally the goal is to start the paving year, the work year off, which starts around April with enough money in the bank that you're not waiting till July 1 to be able to do significant amounts of work. Right. So it's not a question of the total budget. It's just a question of in years past, we've had the 2 to $300,000 for early work, but we overspent last year when we did the reclaim and repave. Not overspent, but we spent more than we had. So we we pulled down the reserve pretty considerably. Right.
But we could I mean, listen. If the issue is whether or not you can start paving sooner, is that really the issue to you still wanna spend the same amount of money this year? You just don't have that funds available to you right now, and that's your concern? Yeah. It's gonna be a little tough to make sure we get going when we need to get going. You know, there's Right. So so the solution to that, though, is to simply go to the Board of Finance and ask them to take money out of a general fund to get you started and then agree to a transfer back to the general fund when we get the budget approved. That's why we have a general fund with, you know, several million dollars in it so that if we need to do something like this, we can. So I would simply put in a request to the Board of Finance asking them to transfer. What is it you need? 100,000, 150,000 to get going? Right? And then you agree in that request that you would then transfer that amount of money back once your budget is approved.
Shouldn't be that big a deal.
I believe that takes a town meeting because that would be over the point 5%. Of the budget.
So we have a town meeting. I mean, the board of finance can make that decision, but I I'm I guess I'm pointing out that there is a solution to this. You know? It's not really our decision to be board of finance, but if they don't if you don't ask them, they can't they can't answer you. If it's that imperative, then then we need to do that. If it's not that imperative, then why are we having the conversation?
No offense. I I just have to ask an accounting question. Why those expenses just dated July 1?
Well, we have to pay somebody when we have these things done if we're, we're getting work done and I get, you know, we get billed at the end of the month before July 1.
But they're ninety day pay but they're ninety day payables, aren't they?
Not well, not all of them. Jay, let's talk about this offline. Yeah. Honestly, you just gotta ask the vendor to date it July 1, and it'll fall within your budget. You got to have your budget set. It's just a mean honestly this is Adrian is 100% right. To go to a town meeting to have that answered is just ridiculous. So to me it's just something that we need to deal with a vendor, you need to deal with a vendor on, the vendor will get paid timely. It's just you're trying to start thirty, forty five days early, that's what you're asking And it's on a budget for the next fiscal year, you should be able to accomplish this. So without going to a town meeting. It's not like you're overspending your line, you're just trying to do it early because that works within your your schedule. And I'm I'm in a 100% agreement with you, and 95% of the town folk will be in agreement with you. So let's get going. So next issue.
Also, the question is, we want to make a motion to add, give or take, dollars 34,000 to the road improvement fund request?
Well, if I'm looking at Eric's draft three thirteen, I guess, he had three thirty in there, now it's three seventy five.
You know? Yeah, part of that well, pretty much all of that increase is I didn't have all my drainage numbers together for, you know, as far as the materials needed for that handy long hill. But we're still 34,000 short. Yeah.
Take out the line painting, and you'll be back down to 10. The future expenditures estimate? $17,000,000.
No. Jay, what's the future expenditures? There's a $25,000 line. It's line 25. That's up. What is that for?
Future Line 25, right? Oh, yeah. That's, that's the, the payment markings. That's the centerline striping, stop bars.
But why is it listed under futures? When are you actually looking at paying that?
Or doing it? Well, I put it in futures because that's my that's what I was budgeting in my estimating for. Well, I didn't estimate. Got a He put he put everything in futures, Adrian. Yeah. Everything is in future right now.
Well, can I pay it in the future? Because it's It's confusing. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Well, it's,
yeah, it's just, it's my spreadsheet. It's the way, you know, cause if you go to the traffic control, this is, it is right there. If I'm gonna pay it, I'm gonna move it up to approved expenditures. Okay. Or This like,
this is your brain, this is your brain on Jay, I guess, you know? I guess so, yeah. Alright.
I I get so I listen. I'll put a motion on the floor. We could just move past this. I would make a motion to approve add $34,000 to the road improvement fund request or proposed. That would put us at $409,000.
Okay. Let's let's go to Jay's Jay, go to your projection. So you got 39 599. Right? Yep. 59970 742.
And you're subtracting out the and Adrian, I'm guessing from your board of finance days that you're subtracting out the TAR money? Yep. $1.90 plus $3.75, you're 34 short. Okay. So 409,742 is the line item now. So that's line 305,911.
Yep, it's four thirty on that spreadsheet, Eric sent us.
Eric has $3.75, so you were right. So 30 fourseven, it's 30 fourseven 42 unless I'm reading your budget request incorrectly, Eric. No, you're So you had $3.75 and we need 409742. 409742. I would just round it off to 410 personally.
Sure. Let's make it Adrian, would you agree to that? I don't know. I feel real strange about Public Works padding their budget, but I guess I can live with it. K.
Okay. So does anyone want a second bad budget or that? I'll second it. Okay.
I just have one question. I have one question for Jay. Sure. Yeah. Chip seal contractor that you're gonna proposing using this year is the same one you used last year? We're still working on that. I have I have other bids too. Okay. It's my recommendation not to use that contractor because, I mean, that chip shielding job on Long Hill in Hendi is probably the worst I've ever seen. Roadway is coming up. It's, we're getting stones everywhere. The dust this summer was pretty much unbearable for a lot of the neighbors. So either we can use wash stone or do something different, but It was it was not was not was not. Was not workable for most residents. What was your comment, Jay? Wasn't what?
It wasn't the contractors. It was, I mean, it's ultimately the contractor is responsible, but it, it was a fault of the stone. It was a stone where it wasn't washed property properly. We weren't the only town that had that problem. Okay, but Jay, Jay, who
was on-site, who was on-site checking that when it showed up?
The contractor. I was, but I, know, I, I get the, I get a cup of a sieve and it meets the specs,
but you don't really know what's happening until the stuff is down. And yeah, but as soon as they dump the first one, somebody should have said, hey, this isn't what we ordered. No, The product the product hasn't failed.
It's just not the best that it should be. Well, we're still we're still getting up to last week, we're still getting dust off the roads, and the stone is still every time you guys plow, the stone is coming up. And, I mean, we've got piles of stone everywhere. I can't not drive down Hendy Road because my car is kicking it up everywhere. I mean, it's it's kicking up on the side of my car, and other people are having the same problem. So, like, if we're gonna use the same contractor, I would not be in favor of this budget. But we gotta we gotta pick somebody else or remedy the situation.
Why Okay. What Jay, why wouldn't the contractor reject that load of stone if it when they dumped the first truck, they should have known? No? I I don't have an answer for that, Adrian.
Just saying, when concrete shows up on a job, the first thing we do is test it to make sure it's the right slump. Right? Yeah. When I when I delivered stone, if it was washed stone and I showed up with the wrong crap, the the contractor would reject it and say, this isn't this isn't washed. This just got too much it's too much in it. Know? Hey, you can't you can't see what if it was how cleanly it was washed is what you're saying, right? Right, yeah, they
wouldn't have noticed that that you know Jay gets a sample. He may get a five gallon bucket. He may get a cup, whatever right, and they say this is what we're going to use. But when it shows up on-site and it starts dumping somebody at that point should have said, hey, we got an issue and called the plant, whoever you're getting it from, and said, what's with this? This doesn't meet spec. You know, and it's their responsibility, you know, to call your rep or whoever you're dealing with, and they'll drive their butt down there and take a look at it and either agree with you or disagree. But at least you'd be able to say to us we had the spec checked and it was fine.
You know, I mean, I mean, we could see where the I mean, where the plows is scraped a lot of it up. I mean, I think the dirt on the stone is kept kept it from adhering to the oil. I mean, it's just I mean, there's tons of dirt and dust. I mean, sides of the roads are just full of stone. And like I asked I asked some of the public works guys if they're gonna get a chance to come up and sweep because, I mean, it's just it's it's there's just so much stone on the road. It's unbelievable. This is not against you. It's just I don't want to see the same thing happen again. We need to do this as a lessons learned not to
have this happen again. And, honestly, that that contractor should have been kicking us money back to pay for the sweeping. They took the they took delivery. It's their responsibility. You know? We will be sweeping again.
But they should be paying for it Jay. Shouldn't be the townspeople that pay because we got poor products.
Well, I mean, I've been doing this a long time and unfortunately with this, with this type of business with the chip seal, you know, it's the chip loss that we're experiencing right now on some of these roads like Hendy for sure, from Pine Ridge up to Long Hill was a double chip. A double chip will break up a little more stone than usual than on a single chip. You're always gonna have a certain percentage of chip loss no matter what. Okay. Is it, was it dust, a little more dusty this year than other years? Yes, it was. Did we have an issue getting the sweeping done as early as we should have done? Yes, we did. We had a problem with their sweepers. They couldn't get contractors to come in on time, limited contractors, and then we had our machine break down on us and that put us behind the eight ball as far as how quickly we can get our machine repaired.
So, what we're seeing out there and what you're seeing out there in my world is, it's not something that I want to see, but it's not unusual. And some years are better than not, well, most years are better than others, but sometimes this happens. It met spec, if the, if that fails and those stones start scraping off oil is exposed, that company is going to come back in and re chip seal those roads. Well,
Jay, it's actually doing enough. You look at the road, it's being scraped up by the plows. Mean, there's sections missing right now.
Again, you're seeing some of those sections a double chip seal and sometimes, and we got to sweep it up. We're gonna, I've been looking at it myself and keeping an eye on it. And there isn't really anything going on that isn't out of the ordinary other than, yep, there's dusty material and it is damn well gonna be better the next time. If we decide to go to another contractor, that's fine too. It's just, you know, we've had quotes presented and we went with the contractor that had the lesser, you know, bid, they were fine before and the ones before them were okay too. And we've had problems in the past of other contractors. It's not a perfect, chip seal is not a perfect system.
I Not a perfect understand that Jay. Mean, cyclist. I've ridden a lot of roads and I know what chip seal is, but like I said, this road, I ride up it and it's by far worse than any road I've ever seen chip seal, to be honest. It's bad.
Jay, you're basically saying this is a confluence of events and the actual wearing is acceptable, but maybe the process getting up to there wasn't too much dust initially, whatever, whatever. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.
Okay. Yep. Yep. I mean, I've seen it a lot worse than that.
I'm just worried about quality control, honestly. Yep. It is my it is the one frustration I see in municipal contracting across the board, not just public works. There's an attitude that we're just going to take whatever you give us, and it is what it is. You know? And I abhor that attitude. I have an issue with it. I've
got them coming out looking at it, and we're watching it. I've got the contractor on it, but it's, right now there's nothing really showing. It's still holding in. So once we get it swept up and we get some good spring rains on it again, and we'll see what happens in the summertime. But if something fails,
they're gonna be there to fix it. There's no doubt. Is there a way to check it closer, Jay, if you get a bucket of that, can you like, dump it in some water and see how much residue is left? Right now? No. So the the next time you do Yeah.
Yeah. The I mean, there's there's there's sieves that we can use to check that stuff. It met state spec, but it definitely was dirtier than before. Who'd we get the stone from?
Becker's. The stone, Becker's supplies this area, a lot of towns in this area. So, whether they had something going on in their pit, bottom of the pile, I don't know. I don't know. You know, something happened along the way. Keep an eye on it washed correctly to start with.
Well, remember Scott, we're deliberately not using the double washed stone that we used in the past. And we're doing it for two reasons. One, the material we're using now is considerably cheaper. And two, the fact that it has a fair number of fines means the road generally ends up smoother than if you use all uniform size, you know, three eighths of an inch chip seal. So there is some advantage to the crappier material, if you wanna put it that way.
So you're But it does not go down as nice by any means. But you're saying it was sort of purposeful then?
I'm saying we deliberately don't use the double washed, you know, all quarry stone material. K. Which we did in the past. And we had in the past.
We did with former, not the last two years, but that would be like three years ago, maybe. Okay. Either three or four years ago when we used former, we used a much a fair, fair bit more expensive stone that was double washed, had a lot less fines in it. We had a lot less problems with dust. And we did fog seal afterward. But, you know, the road ended up rougher, even though we fog sealed it, then the road seems to end up with Gorman the way they do it with a crappier stone. That's how I would put it.
I did disagree with you, Eric. It's it's just as rough, and I think the dust actually kept the stone from adhering to the to the oil. What a shame. It's coming it's coming up. I'm I'm I'm not gonna say it again, but it's coming. Like it wasn't washed at all. And it just didn't stick to the oil. And it's just every time you plows go over it. I mean, when the snowstorm's over, Jay, I'll take you for a ride in my car, I'll I'll show you what I mean.
I well, I travel the road a lot, and I I see where I see Jeff,
I see it. I really do. No. And it's just I can't even travel handy because it's so bad. Jay Jay, just take a ride with him after you get some sleep. Jeff will feel better. He'll feel better.
No. I just wanna show you my point of view of what what motorists are actually dealing with.
And and I'm not the only one. I've heard it from multiple people. So Chairman Maguire, what's the do we still have a motion on the floor? We do. We still have a motion on the floor for 04:10 on that line item. I'd ask that we call that motion, please.
Sure. All those in favor for increasing line three zero five nine one one five nine zero two zero Road Improvement Fund to $410,000 say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nope. I have nothing. Jay, thank you, and Go home and get some sleep. Yeah. Thank you. Some sleep. Sorry for keeping you so late. Good night. Good night. Thanks, Jay. Eat the horn when you go by Jeff's house.
Pick up some dust. What's what's the number on what's your number on 316? I'm on Woodbridge.
Don't tell him where you are. He's gonna find you. Yeah. No. I said to Adrian. Alright. Good night, guys. Yeah. Get Adrian's house, not mine. Oh, yeah. You can do whatever you want at my house. I won't hear you. It won't matter. I'm a half mile back.
Okay. So I am so sorry is our friends from the community garden still here let's get you guys and if you could you know as quickly as possible Jeff and Gru.
Looks like something is blocking your camera down the room. Can you hear me? We can. Yeah.
Something's I blocking can see my picture in the, upper corner, but. Yeah, but something's blocking the other side. Okay, perfect. Okay,
what we'd like to do is request funding of $3,000 for six garden beds, raised garden beds, the 20 foot by eight foot with our four by four sixteen beds, we had two fifty six cubic feet of plantable area with these new beds will have nine sixty cubic feet. It was a problem in the last two years. The first year we got started very late. Second year we weren't we were doing the three squash, which really weren't producing a lot of produce that we could bring to the food pantries in Hebron and Andover. And that's basically what our aim is along with getting people in the community involved in the gardening using as a teaching tool for and over elementary students. And so we need $3,000 to purchase the materials for which should be come out to 72 timbers and all half lapped and rebar. We sent you a you should have had a PowerPoint presentation from us with sketches of the garden beds, the proposed bed layouts. And I had made a model of a garden bed is up in Eric's office for you peoples to look at. And the issue is that we really need to get the beds built and installed by May 1 to get the planting season this year.
And we've applied for a line item on the budget to do repairs on the shed, which should be another 2,500 to 3,000. And then we've also applied for Hartford Foundation grant, but those monies will not be available to us until June and July. So we're kind of between a rock and hard place. You're asking for funding now.
Yes. As soon as possible for the $3,000 for materials.
So Eric, did you send that PowerPoint over to us? It's in a packet, Adrian. Okay. It's meeting in packet. Oh, it's in the big packet. Okay. Yes.
You hi, this is Grace. Would you like me to share I do have the PowerPoint on my Chromebook. I can share that PowerPoint with you if it's easier.
No. I I I was just curious. I didn't see it in the you know, he sent over some stuff later, so I thought he was one of those. We got a lot of emails for this budget meeting, unfortunately, so. So
Jeff and Grupp, you're really not asking for money for next year's budget. You're asking us to funding this year in this current fiscal year so that you can build the beds now.
Correct. If when we do get that line item in the budget with the town budget that would be going into putting a new roof, gutters and water collection and irrigation into the garden.
So you're asking for two things you're asking for money now and money next year. Scott
did you get a chance to work out I know you had to Yes I did I
spoke with the engineer the site engineer the other day and, he sent me over a plan, the latest plan, and we went over where we would put the beds, and, he's gonna meet me out there as soon as and I talked to Jeff. We're all gonna meet out there and, discuss where we're gonna put the beds. It's probably gonna be to the southwest of, the reserve areas on the in the trenches, the reserve trenches. Okay, so closer to the closer to the shed, the new shed that's down here.
Okay, so we're well clear of material stockpile area. He's not gonna he's not gonna have any problem over there. Yeah. So we need the new
we new galleys are gonna be put in the old system. Yes. Old track. No.
That's fine. I was more concerned about access because we have a tourist lockout Actually
works out really well because they'll be able to park at the fire department it go crossed that way. Alright, great.
Eric, what is the status currently of reserve of the of the reserve for this year?
So, we haven't really had to tap, much of anything from contingency. You also have a pool that you could tap from the building maintenance fund. It's not quite applicable to that, but it could be used for that if you so chose. Those are the two pool pools that I know of that could potentially be used for it this year if you so chose. And you're looking for 3,000? Yes.
Alright. I make a motion we take $3,000 out of contingency for the community center garden. I'll second that. Anyone else have any additional comments related to this?
Okay, so my only question and comment is for next year, Jeff, Grace and Amy, I think that's everybody there. You have an idea of what you need for next year as a number and get a good handle on that?
No, don't. And it'll be substantially less once we get the shed finished off. We've got a little bit outside work painting to finish when the weather gets better. A new roof to put on it, gutters and water collection for for watering the garden and collecting that rainwater. And Jim Fitting has come up with an irrigation plan, which is included in $2,500 a line item that we requesting from the from the town budget. But no, mean, everything will pretty much be done and in place.
Scott, what's the size of that roof? What's the size of that shed?
It's gonna require I had a broke broken down also submitted for the budget. It's two square of shake wood and s architectural and storm guards, two squares, three pieces of drip edge. The roof of total materials for the roof replacement be and gutters would be six hundred and eleven one hundred and eighty five and I priced out and the shed gutters and water collection would be approximately $265.36 and then water collection container. That all came out to about $2,500
I will donate the roof materials and the gutter materials. You can take that off your desk. Okay? I'll donate that to you right now. What a great thank you, Adrian. That's fantastic.
And we can get it done before July, I hope.
Yep. Will you tell me when you need it, and I will get it to you. When? We're we're primarily worried about getting the beds in and usable,
by by May 1. I'll I'll take care of your roof and your and your gutters. You you know, your other stuff, you'll you'll death that out of contingency. So but I'll take care of the roof okay the materials alright
thank you not a problem just as a side question what were you using your grant funding that you're applying for for
For for odds and ends of the same thing depending on whether we got the town budget or whether we even want to get grant. Okay. I'm assuming you're still applying for the grant? Yes.
Okay. Alright. So, our our motion on the floor right now is to assist the community gardens with some money out of contingency, and I believe the total is $2,500. Is that accurate?
No, that is not accurate. For the bad materials that I priced out about a month ago, it came to $3,000. 3,000.
The 2,500 is separate for the shed and Adrian is gonna take wipe out a lot of that. Okay. Any other questions? Any other comments?
Yeah. I just have a quick question. Now I just heard you mention of a grant. Now if that grant gets approved, would you still need that $3,000 or We need the $3,000.
They're not gonna get the 3,000 until June or July. They need the bed money now. Right.
May 1. They wanna try to get it. Gotta start growing stuff sooner rather than later.
Yeah. But what I'm saying is if they get the grand money and the money from us, you're gonna have a big surplus, correct?
No, there's two two separate issues. Two we're requesting the $3,000 as soon as possible to give us the bed materials to build the beds. And then the other money from the budget or the Hartford grant would would go into working on the sheds on the irrigation system and water collection from the gutters.
Which you said was 2,500? Yes. Yes. So if you get this grant money, what would that offset? All of it. Yeah.
So would you just keep the money or would you propose to give it back to the town and repayment?
If we don't need it, I don't see why it shouldn't be returned to the town.
But my this question. I was just wondering if we're gonna we're we're we're double booking things if you do get the grant.
No. So the 2,500 is to go to is for the repair on the shed, the stuff that they're planning on over the course of the year. The 3,000 is to get them going this year so they can actually build permit beds. Understood.
Understood. But if they get the grant But if you get the grant, do you hold on to that for future needs? They may wanna do a better irrigation system or a bigger collection barrel, whatever, whatever, I think. Understood. I was just I was just making sure what we're talking about. We're we're we're all on the same page. Yep.
Okay. Okay. Now, we're looking at a total of 72 timbers for the beds. And we would be doing half laps of 24 half laps per per bed. So it's gonna is a lot of fair amount of labor before we even put the beds in place. And we're going to talk to the fire department or whoever we need to Grace is going to ask her husband Dave, about who we need to talk to about having that corner of the fire department parking lot to do the labor on the beams. A flat area, you know, this paved and easily cleaned up and working at that waist height off of horses.
When you say a half lap, what do you mean by that?
No, I'm where you're we're working with six by six timbers, which are about six and a half, five and a half to five and five eights inches. So you're cutting the width of the timber. Oh, you're doing half of it out.
They overlap at the corners, that's correct. We're using 12 footers and eight footers staggered for the size to make up the 20 feet. And it's all gonna be pinned with rebar. This should have been in the packet with my drawings and the model that you can look at which is up in Eric's office.
Okay. So the question is to the board is, are we willing to sit there and we're gonna vote on this motion for the contingency funding for the beds. So do we have any other questions related to the beds to start with? Okay. So we're gonna call the the $3,000 use of money from contingency for community gardens, and we're gonna sit there and ask it. Who's in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? No? I think Jeff Murray voted yes. So we voted
five nothing for that. I I'm giving them a thousand towards what they needed for the roof and all that. So they really need 1,500 then for next year. Is that correct? Would that that meet you, Jeff? Or Well,
that that yes. These were all estimated, last last summer. So hopefully, the prices haven't gone up too badly. They've actually gone down, so you should be okay. That would be excellent.
Alright. So so I'll put a motion on the floor for $1,500 for next year for the community center garden. Community garden. Yeah. Community garden. Sorry. Community garden scarf. 1,500. I'll second. What line item?
Oh god. Don't make me try to figure this out. Pick it. Do you have do you have anything in there? Do we have anything in the in the spreadsheet now?
I was almost gonna say put that under it doesn't really fit. I mean, there's no commission budget established at this point for the community garden. You could either I mean, I would have to ask the the treasurer what that line item should be. But, you know, I can certainly put it in now, and we can figure out what it should be called. Can we propose three zero three zero five nine sixteen community center or or, community garden? 30Five's transfer line. So I don't think that that's Put
it under the recreation commission and put a new line item with the recreation commission. Yeah. Let's do that. Fine. Okay. Okay. So who made that motion? I did. Scott seconded or Paul seconded. Don't know. Paula seconded.
Alright. Paula seconded. Sorry, Scott. We'll get you next time.
Further questions on the additional funding? Okay. All those in favor of an additional $1,500 for the twenty twenty twotwenty twenty no, I'm sorry, twenty twenty threetwenty twenty four budget. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? K. I have nothing again. Alright. Thank you very much, community guardian group. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you very much, everybody.
We greatly appreciate it. How soon do you think we would get this funding so I could place an order to have the materials delivered?
Well, the more finance will have to have to approve it. Right, Jeff? Yes.
The contingency funding? Work that out with Eric, gentlemen, if you would. Thank you very much. Okay. Where are we at?
So if you wanna stay on budget related stuff directly, you know the last item. You know you asked to address the two things were the and unfortunately we Jay left but discussion with public works related to the sprinkler system versus bringing on an outside person. I did discuss this with Jay. He did want to meet with Scott, but I don't know that he had. But Jay seemed to think that public works with their existing personnel could take that on if you just want somebody to go down there every day and monitor the system. He seemed to think that would be within their capabilities with their existing staffing, But I don't know if that's what Scott wanted folks.
Scott, do you wanna talk about what needs to happen on the irrigation system?
How much do we need a part time seasonal employee to do work in the town? Are we trying to save that money this year?
Oh, yeah. That got brought up. Eric had pulled that, didn't he? It's still in there.
It it's still in there. I did not pull it. You would ask for that to be a topic of discussion when Scott was around because Scott was the one that originally wanted felt that that was appropriate. So that hasn't been touched.
Okay. So, Scott, again, are you okay with Public Works handling the irrigation system?
I am, Jeff. And I guess in the we're gonna save some money for the seasonal employee, but do we need a seasonal employee? I talked to Jay about this too, you know, a month or so ago, and he said that one of the reasons why he couldn't have a seasonal employee is because he needs a truck for them. He would need a truck. Okay.
But I I I do believe that, he could he could check it. Somebody in the town needs to start to be responsible for that field. Scott could die tomorrow. You know? Yeah.
You can't. You've got people taken care of, Scott. Yeah, Scott. Don't say that. Well
I mean, listen, Scott. I would love to do everything. And, yes, we probably do need a seasonal employee to to do more of the mowing and the cutting, but we we're already proposed budget is already above last year's. Well, actually not. Eric, am I reading oh, that's your is that your what was actually the final budget, Eric? For what? $12.06 and now we're at $12.05. Well, you're gonna be higher than that. So so we're still slightly under last year's total number. Yes, correct.
Okay. I would sit there and recommend, Scott, that we push the seasonal employee off for another year. And with the understanding that public works is going to take over the management or the safeguarding the irrigation system at the field. That acceptable to you? Yeah. Yep. For this year.
Can I make a suggestion that you keep in that line item $2,500? Because we typically spend roughly that money subbing out and using other town people as road guards. You know, because it's cheaper during the day to hire somebody inexpensively and keep public works, you know, employees doing public work stuff. So it doesn't need to be, you know, 22,500, but it should probably be about 2,500 which is what we typically run-in that salary line. Would be my suggestion. Don't we have traffic control under Under Jay's budget that he just gave us?
Yes. But if you look at what he has under traffic control, he's calling the central line striping traffic control.
No. I thought he had a different line. Okay. Alright. So let's go to that line item. That's 301Dash111Dash51522, temp public work salary. Can you repeat that one again, Eric?
Sure. It's 301Dash111Dash51522. And that's under the public works department, which is 4399.
Okay. So we had 2,500 in that line item last year. Correct. How much of it did you use? I
don't know, but I bet a fair bit of it. I don't have that off the top of my head.
Okay. So then so I'll sit there and make a motion to reduce Lyme. I mean, do we need that? 30130111151520 to $2,500 Anyone want to second that, Lesko? I second it. Okay. Further discussion on lowering that line item? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay. Five, nothing. Alright. Let's get going. Alright. Are there any other budget items that we need to sit there and deal with, Eric?
So the last thing would be the decision on whether you do or do not want to go with the down planter. That's the last that I know of decision that you have left out there.
And what line item do you have that under currently?
So there are a bunch of lines that would change. 423, line 423, which is POCD capital. 403, which is legal and professional, would change. And then line 121 for town planner. Those are the three that would be affected by that. They should all be green, so they're easy to see.
They're not easy to find. Okay. So right now you have 6,500 in that line.
So the town planner line item, which is number one twenty one, I'm talking about the Excel column one twenty one, is $36,000.
Then Is that a line that should be green? Is that what you're saying? It's Yeah. Okay. It's Row 121.
Correct. Yep. Yep. And then if you go down to Row 423, which is POCD capital, a fund that can be reduced to zero if we're going on this plan. And then the other line that can be reduced is line four zero three, legal and professional services that can be reduced by $5,000 So those three changes net a difference of about $26,000 Well, you had the adjustment to Jay's too, right?
Yes, that's already yes. I'm just talking about the adjustments related to hiring a town planner.
Eric, just so I get it, I see 36,000 added under 100 '21. Under 04/2002, you have 6,500. That can be changed to 5,000?
No, that was changed. That was decreased from 11,500, which is what Jed requested, down to 6,500. Because you still need a minimum amount of money to pay the town's attorney for legal stuff. Understood. But you you no longer need the professional component because that will be handled by the planner.
Okay. So we're looking for an additional increase of $26,000 that's already in this proposed budget that you had sent us on the thirteenth. Correct. Okay. Does anyone want to make a motion on the move forward on a planner? And how many hours is this for, Eric? This would be for one full day a week.
One full day a week. Okay. Which is? Who wants to make a motion on this one?
I'll make a motion to add the town planner. I'll second. Day one full day per week.
I'll second. Do we need a dollar amount or no?
$26,000 additional funding. You wanna add that, Adrian, to your motion, or you don't care?
I I were we are we putting a specific dollar amount on it? Does Eric have finalized numbers? That's
what he just walked through with us. I know. But are those finalized or projected? We do. So, the way this is gonna work so that you know, because this is a little convoluted. We're taking money from two line items, the POCD. We're not gonna fund the POCD implementation fund. That's going to net us some money and we're going to reduce what we've been spending for the legal and professional line item for the Planning and Zoning Commission. And then we're going to spend 30, we're going to budget $36,000 for the town planner. And we're going to add an additional 12,000 that we're going to transfer from the POCD implementation fund that specifically for the POCD to pay for the planner this year and do the same thing next year because we have money in that fund right now. And the goal for the individual for the next two years is primarily the plan of conservation and development. And also work on affordable housing.
Okay. So so what's the what's the what's the number that we wanna add? 26,000. Alright. So I add I amend the motion to add 26 to add $26,000 to the budget for the town planner. I'll second. K. Further discussion?
Yeah, I just want to say I was on the fence until I heard the town planner, the projected town planner speak. I think in in addition to what Adrian mentioned about the grants, I think when he mentioned adjusting the blight, I think we have like about 12 properties in this town that need some serious attention going forward. And if you can help us with that, I'd be supportive of that as well. I will be voting yes. Anyone else? Scott? I'm in favor. Oh,
all right. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Five nothing. Thanks.
So since since we're on land use, Jed Larson asked us to add more hours to those our zoning enforcement office.
Are these just popping up now? I I I understand why that Eric doesn't already have this. It wasn't in his original budget request.
Well, yes, yes, it was, and he did that publicly.
I I don't know what to tell you. I I don't think I changed the budget request that he submitted. You know, I also think that you're hiring a town planner. You're going to shift a bunch of that load to the town planner. You could theoretically add four hours a week to Jim and get him up to nineteen hours, but you can't go more than that because you're going to essentially have to make him a benefits employee if you do that.
May I motion to add four hours to Jim Halsey's hours to to to add all these hours for blight enforcement.
Do we have a number for it, Scott? Excuse me? Do we know what the number is? How many extra hours? How much dollars how much dollars are we adding to the line? So
give me about ten minutes, go on to something else, and I'll calculate it and come back to you with a number. I can't do that off the top of my head, but I'll do that if that's something that you want to do. Well, is it this line, 817105100? Zoning agent salary. Correct.
You have it $24,249.61 and it's fifteen hours? Correct. And so we're assuming it's fifteen hours times 52.
Right, so it bumps it up to roughly 30,400 something in that ballpark.
So that would move Jim from seven eighty hours a year to nine eighty eight. Two zero eight additional hours. 6,500 additional dollars. And so, Scott, you're thinking that that sixty five hundred and those additional four hours will allow Jim additional time to execute the work that he has on his plate already?
I hope so. I I would, you know, Eric's in charge of him, but it'd be nice if he could work one day on explicitly, you know, the blight or stuff until it's completed.
Okay. Any other members have any comments related to this request? Eric, before we vote on this, can you sit there and just give us your opinion from the town administrator's position? I mean,
the thought that crosses my mind is, is that where we need the effort the most? Do I think we need more enforcement of blight? Sure. Do I wish I had more resources to pour into it? Yes. But I think about that in a lot of different areas. You know, this is a position that we've taken from five hours, you know, to ten hours to fifteen hours in the last, you know, two to three years. So we've seen a pretty big increase in that. And we're also hiring somebody one full day a week to act as a town planner, which will take some of that responsibility off of his shoulders. So we should have more time to deal with blight anyway. But would an extra four hours be helpful? Sure. That's how I would put it.
That's that's like saying anything about this, Tom. More would be better, but do we have I mean,
I appreciate the ask, and I'll but I I would like to see how the town planner plays into this, you know, as we go forward before we add any more. I I think Eric's point is valid that we have added a lot of time to this, you know, to to all these departments, and now we're adding another day, you know, with the town planner. I'd like to see how that plays out budget wise and and, you know, or I'd like to see how that plays out in office before we talk about adding this to the budget, you know, from a budget point of view, so.
Yeah. And I'm supporting Adrian's viewpoint. I think I'd wanna test drive the planner and see what he can do with fresh eyes on the blade situation.
I mean, in truth, I probably wouldn't use the town planner's time to deal with blind issues.
You really want to, we can. That's not what we're hiring him for. Right. We're hiring him for specialized things. Right.
Yeah. But he said he would have just he would help address that if if needed. So Yeah. Maybe in his third maybe in his third year.
Well, but let's let's see what happens. I I you know, we're we're putting a lot of money into those departments in general in the last three years. I mean, those budgets have gone up dramatically in the last three years. And we've added we've added hours to the the enforcement officer, and I really haven't seen
any action on some of the properties, especially the two properties on Long Hill. I mean, they've gotten worse, and it seems like nothing's been happening.
Now what what would the rest of the board's ideas be on this this issue then? What steps would you guys like to take to see that this polite problem is resolved? This was just my idea. What are your what are you what's everybody else's ideas?
I mean, I I've been candid. I would like to see how this plays out with another person in the department taking some of the other loads off of you know? We're we're we're talking about adding another person and some expertise. Right. Yeah. Whether whether they're directly working on that problem or they're working on other problems and lightening the load, you know, other other things. You know? We've also added some more time into the into the building officials, you know, line this year. So I kinda feel like we're we're at it. It's I always have believed that you add incrementally to kinda get to where you need to go, you know? Just like we've done with public works. It's it's slowly been ramped up over the last five years to the point where we're we're getting close to where we need to be. Right. You know? And I think you do that because it's a lot harder to a lot harder to take it back than it is to put it in. Alright. You know? Well, you're you're taking a guy the plant the plant of conservation development,
you know, when we had a meeting with the guy last week, it's it's gonna take a year of his work up to eighteen months to do just the POCD. That's that's without him working on anything else. And he's also gonna be working on, you know, affordable housing after that. So you're gonna you're gonna get a guy that you pay a $125 an hour to go and work on zoning enforcement issues.
That it doesn't seem it doesn't Scott, not I don't think he's gonna directly address it, but maybe try to guide our enforcement officer to be a little bit more effective or some try some new strategies to try to deal with the issue. Because, obviously, what we're doing not right now is not working. Not working. We need we need a we need a new approach to to dealing with the issue, and maybe he'll have some new ideas for the that we can act and and work to clean up these properties. I
I think what Jeff's trying to say is that it's that water cooler effect. When you have more people interacting on a problem, it isn't always that that new person coming in is addressing the problem themselves. It's that they're bringing a different level of experience or expertise to the table. You know, he may have, hey, know, in our other town, this is what we did. Or this is an approach that we can take. And so you end up with, you know, a group effort to come up with a solution. Just like you're asking all of us what the solution is, you're going have that same type of effect in that office. So that's why I'd like to sort of wait and see how this plays out. You know? Yeah.
Well, maybe throwing hours at that department isn't working because maybe there's some sort of problem in that part.
Don't know. But maybe that'll be something that comes to light as well. We don't know. I don't. I wouldn't assume that I think. I think it's just that as a small town we don't have the amount of resources that some of these bigger towns and listen, bigger towns struggle with it too. I mean, look at if you go if you go up East Street and look at that house that they that, you know, the the town of Hebron struggled with for how long? And, you know, and they're just now finally getting some ground, and they've been they've been in court with that guy for five years. So they're not easy these are not easy things. No.
Yeah. In the case recently at the time of South Windsor, did you know, they had to acquire a property and demolish it. It was substantial cost to the taxpayers. So Yep. I mean, it's it's every town's got the problem.
Well, the the only thing that I would sit there and say on the polite issue is that, you know, we did pass an ordinance, we put some teeth into the ordinance. We should be taking advantage of it. And if we have to lean the properties, we should be leaning the properties. Yeah. But Jeff, nothing has been done at all
about any of that Nothing. For since we've enacted that ordinance. Not a thing has happened.
And it needs to, Scott. I agree. It needs something What's the so what's the answer?
So maybe what we do this year coming up is we sit there and we we expect more of the zoning enforcement agent officer as he currently exists. And then if we determine that he's actually doing something to, you know, follow the guidelines that are in that ordinance, and he needs more time, then you put it in. Well, I want it right now if it's just we just don't know what is going on related to that. So maybe it's We've
we've shined a big light on public works three years ago. The last, you know, last year we, you know, we started looking at staffing two years ago, you know, overall in the town hall. This past year we've put a lot of effort into the community center and some of the some of the things that the town needed to clean up. Maybe this year that the focus Scott needs to be zoning enforcement and zoning,
You know? Well, why don't we, just, I just want to ask the town attorney, I mean, nothing, just make sure that I'm not off, nothing's happened related to zoning enforcement, has it, in any of the liens, in any of the properties?
I've been working with Jim lately, and, he's learning how to the, you know, the ropes and how to how to do these things. The blight ordinance is to a lay person probably is a little complicated, but to me it's not. I wrote it and I've spent a lot of time with him lately and you know when you when I spend time with working with somebody you know it's it doesn't really costing you anything because you're not paying me anymore for my hours and that's okay. I'm not complaining. But he's he's into it and he's learned. I'm working with him on one property right now and now he knows what he has to do. The other thing is is you do not have, you know, I've left zoning alone because I'm not the zoning attorney, but you do, you should have a zoning ordinance that allows you to fine people for zoning violations and you don't have one. I put one in every other town I've been in, but because I don't do zoning, I haven't done one here. And you've had it have zoning issues that if you're gonna do anything about it, you'd have to sue in court and that takes a long time. But I can tell you this, the blight ordinance in in Wyndham,
they're making lots of money on it. It takes time. It's once you get going though, you're not gonna have as many blighted properties in the long run that Wyndham has. But you know what? If you've got as many as you say, and I don't know. I just know what is brought to my attention. Of course, I don't live in the town. But I'm working with him on one of these properties and there's several notices that have to be done and we're doing it. And I've been spending some time with him lately and he's he's catching on to it. Once he I do a few with him, he's going to know exactly what to do. And I think I think he's up to it. I I don't know. You know, think he's doing all kinds of other stuff too in terms of code enforcement. You have a building official that is supposed to be the housing code enforcement officer but in fact that's not happening. So this guy, Jim is doing housing code enforcement as well and that's something new too because the town hasn't been doing that. So I you know and I have a lot of experience in those fields so I understand it but it's not simple because it requires all kinds of procedural steps before you can have a property determined blighted
and then eventually lean it. You can't just slap a lean on it. When I first worked with Jim, he thought he could just go and know and slap a lean on the on the land records. That's not it doesn't work that way. But once you get going, once you get a bunch of these things in in the pipeline, they pay off because you can lean the property. You're not gonna get paid off right away. But if there's a foreclosure, you will buy either the town or somebody else. Now I promised Jeff I wouldn't spend much time on this, but you know, it is it's a lot more complicated than than anybody thinks. It's and Jim Halsey is catching on to it because I've been spending some time with him lately and spent some time with him lately on a couple of very difficult cases in town hall just this past week. As far as what how many hours he needs, I don't know. But I I would think that it's worthwhile. If if you're really that concerned about blight, it's not gonna be done by the town planner. Not a not a town planner that's working eight hours a week. No way. Right. Alright. So No way. Bronchi to be putting in in into that position. Don't forget. You're not gonna get Bill war Bill Warner. You're not gonna get it's gonna be hard to find somebody who's really, really good
to work eight hours a week as a town planner. I know in small towns it's it's really hard to get part time work for professional staff. Not easy. You'll find somebody if you keep looking but you're not gonna get, Bill Warner, not with all his experience.
Thanks for sharing us on Dennis. We feel way better about this now.
Well, so It's it's So it's more complicated than you think, but I think it's it's a worthwhile thing. If you're that concerned about blight, if you if you really have 12 blighted properties in town, then, let's go for it. Okay. So He's gonna need me to help him with the first few. But the way the ordinance is set up, the town attorney doesn't have to be involved once he gets the hang of it. Okay. So we're going to
ask Dennis that you sit there and assist Jim Halsey on the first couple cases because there does appear to be a half a dozen to a dozen properties that need some TLC and some pressure. I've already started. Okay. Scott, the question is do we sit there and try to add those hours to this year's budget or do we push that off and see how everything progresses?
Up to you. You guys already told me no. So
Well, Paul, and I didn't tell you no. I would sit there. If
Jim is on the correct path now, some extra hours, maybe he wants to work some extra hours now that he knows how to do it from Dennis and he can get Dennis going. Maybe he'll get inspired and, you know, put it give him a few extra hours and get this on the road. Maybe we could cut it back after that.
You'll never cut it back. So the question is, does he does he take the time he's currently doing that he may not be as productive with and become more productive?
Well, if he has Dennis working with him, he'll be more productive.
I'll let him to call the motion. I'll call the motion, please.
I don't think anyone seconded it. So there is no motion on the floor. So we had a lot of discussion without a second, basically. Correct. That's what you guys did. That's what you did. So Alright. Alright. I would sit there and tell you, that I would be I would be more I would rather sit there and see if we can train, use Dennis' training tool to sit there and improve the enforcement of the blight ordinance. That would be neat. So and we won't put Paula on the spot because she doesn't need to be put on the spot. Okay, so let's try to move on to next issues. So Eric, I didn't see anything on a treasurer's report in my package. Am I missing something? No. You're not.
And, look, I apologize. I was sick as a dog when all this stuff happened early in the week, so I did not look over any of this material before it got out. So there's there's a bunch of things that are missing. So definitely not there.
Okay. Well, why don't you give us an update on a summary of the audit status at least so we understand what's up?
Sure. So I spoke to Cheryl about a week ago. Her plan was by the end of this week to have everything fully to the auditor. I haven't talked to her about it in a week, but that's my goal in the next day or so engage her on two things. One, where we are in the audit. You know, I've been keeping her up abreast of the budget stuff and then start talking about the plan for training the new assistant, the new finance assistant. So with a little luck, we'll have everything to Mike hopefully by this weekend. That's my goal anyway. But K.
Alright. Appointments. We had an appointment on line six. Yes.
So myself and Adrian and a member of the Board of Finance interviewed a series of candidates for the accounting associate position. And the group decision was to offer the job to Christina Hartley. We then asked the treasurer, Cheryl, to interview her also and decide whether she felt she was suitable for the the task. And Cheryl also gave her a, you know, a positive recommendation. So, on that basis, we sent her an offer letter, which she accepted, with the goal starting her basically a week from today, presuming you all agree with that.
Okay. Alright. Somebody wanna make a motion to appoint Christina? What's her last name? Harkle. Harkle. Harkle. Harkle. Harkle.
Harclay. Harkle. I think. What's the motional point, Christina Harclay, the, what are we actually calling that position at this point? The Accounting associate. Accounting associate position. Thank you. I'll second.
Alright. Further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Alright. I have nothing. Eric, any resignations? No resignations. Okay. A short town administrator's report?
Yeah, short. So the trip grant, we made the first cut. We got selected by Crogg as one of the four applications from our region. That was really good. The really good news was that the top three, we were the third ranked grant application that came out of this, the Crog Region. But we were there were only three points separating out of 100 separating the top three. So, I think we put together a really good competitive grant for that. So, that's a good sign. Still hoping like hell the DOT funds that.
Wreck trails, I asked today, but I didn't Sorry. Get Can I go back one step on that trip grant? Sure. Bill Warner said there were only possible six small rural towns that can compete for that grant.
Actually, there are nine in our region. It varies region to region.
So there are nine and there were only four except
from our data. Yeah. Only four got forwarded on. So basically, what the DOT does is just like lots of they use the cog as the initial rater and criteria. And then each COG gets to put forth a certain number of grants from that COG as things they think should be funded. So, were one of those. So, hopefully we will end up getting funded on that. Rec trails grant was submitted last month. It's too early to tell whether we're gonna how that one's gonna do. Hopefully I'll know in another month or so. As a couple of people have alluded to, we've had a couple of very complicated rent or rental situations in Andover lately that are ongoing. You know, sent you the pictures from one particular resident in town. That one, in addition to the blight, that one is also going to involve a housing code enforcement, building code enforcement, health code enforcement, and it's a rental situation. So that one right now is proving to be an ongoing annoyance all the way around. That's pretty much all I have unless you have specific questions. I mean, lately, I've been my focus has been the budget more than anything else. So I don't have a lot else to
Are people still living in that residence, Eric?
Officially, no. They're living in the trailer behind the residence, but not in the residence.
So, folks, I'm sorry. Have to I have to get off real quick. We are having a meeting on Thursday for the final stuff that goes that's going to be with the Community Center. So hopefully after that, we should have the contractor hopefully can come back to us within a week or two with contracts to sign. So, but I'm sorry, I got to hop off.
Okay. Let's move on to old business and let's sit there and see if we can go through this. We already did A, the grant for the community gardens. Adrian just gave us the status on the community center RFP. Do any of the other members, Jeff or Scott, have anything to add? No. Okay. Hop River Homes update.
So I sent you a while back. Their board met. They were mostly in agreement with the contract we sent them. They had a series of questions for me related to we had also proposed putting a trench across the road, so we could put in water and electricity. And they immediately became concerned that we were going to put up lights and a bunch of other things. I assured them that was not our intention. She said she would bring that back to the board. But my suggestion is we just take that out of the contract for now because everything else in that contract they would agree to. And just me sign the contract with that out, send it back to them and see whether we can get a signature so we get going. But that's a modification of what you agreed on before, so you would have to be okay with that.
I think you're gonna need water there. How long is this contract for? They didn't have a problem with water there.
They had a problem with running electricity over there also. How are you going to get water if you don't have electricity?
Gonna trench over and connect it to our existing irrigation system. Okay. Gravity.
Too expensive to to do a new well, So we're just simply talking about trenching across the road and putting a a head on the other side. Okay. And then take take the electricity out for right now. Are you okay with that and then me signing the contract and getting it right back to
Anybody else on here have a problem with? It's a three year contract, you asked.
Okay, three year. Yep. There's nothing saying we can't put a conduit in the ground and just bury it underneath and for future use. If we're gonna trench, you might as well put it under there. I I don't disagree with you. That that makes perfect sense to me. Well, just we just don't put electricity in, but in the future and three years from now, if it's not electricity, we we do it. We have the we have the infrastructure. So.
Okay. Take it out. Take the take the electricity out of the contract, but actually put the conduit in. Okay.
Okay. Recognizing Andover residents, Paula, do you want to talk about that, or do you want to delay that to our next meeting? We can we can talk about that next meeting. I I need a little more time on that anyway. Okay. The cool program contract?
Did we hear back from did you get anything from Kerma today?
I did not. I followed up with an email and a phone call, but I have not gotten a response from them. They have the latest contract that got sent to us. I know Dennis had some concerns with that, but I have not gotten a review of that from Kerma yet.
Well, if you if you want to hear from me, my main concern about it was they took out the section that allowed us or them to opt out of the contract and if we violate it or if they violate it. And that's standard lane. That's that's standard stuff that that goes in every contract. So I would I would I would you know, I would think we wanna put that in. I mean, I know they think that they're gonna do everything perfectly but maybe they will. But as a lawyer I can't, you know. Endorse that. No, I can't endorse that. I mean, you know, there's always, there's a way out of any contract if the other side doesn't comply and it should be in writing. The other thing was I guess,
yeah, with the insurance. They, our insurer has already said to us that they didn't recommend us allowing them to use our insurance as a secondary insurer if they didn't have more than a million dollars of general coverage. And I guess this latest version calls for $2,000,000 of general coverage and as long as they're doing that the insurer may approve. But as Paula just said, we need to get the approval from our insurer, I believe. I think that would be a good idea. So we're, you know, we're almost there, but not quite. Eric? Yep. Okay. Did you write that all down?
So Eric and I will work on that.
I mean, it really comes back to you as a board and what you're comfortable with. I'm not trying to tell you what you should, you know, we've batted around probably six or seven versions of this contract. At least. Are we ever gonna get a version that everybody's happy with? I don't know. You know, at some point Well, this this standard
language in a contract should be in there. Get a version that that that our insurance company can agree with and our town attorney can agree with, and then we'll vote yes. Let's go. Yeah. Who's who's saying 2,000,000, by the way, for liability?
Is it insurance care? I think they said they've got that much coverage now, Jeff. Okay. Because usually, like, for our events in town, for running events and stuff, we always require, like, a million dollars in the past so that's why I was just wondering why we that $2,000,000 number came that 2,000,000 came up.
That I our insurer already said in comments to a previous draft Jeff that a million wasn't enough. Okay. And you know, I don't know. I really don't, you know, I have no strong feelings about that anyway, but I know this, you know, some kind of huge disaster I guess could happen.
Okay, then we need to probably revisit anybody that wants to do any permits or anything on-site because I think usually before we required a million. So we may wanna revisit anybody else that wants to permit an event.
I think it depends on the scope of the event. This is a big project, a summer day camp and
before and after. We've allowed running races with a million dollars coverage, so that's why I'm just wondering. Oh, okay.
Yeah. And one other thing relative to the COOL contract is I think part of the reason that they COOL as an organization didn't feel it was appropriate for the town to have an opt out was because they felt the school had the opt out anyway.
So having the town and the school, both the ability to kick them out, they weren't too excited about. You know what? You're right. You're right. And and that that issue comes up all the time whenever we, I hate to bring this up, whenever we deal with the Board of Education and the, you know, the understanding where the lines are drawn. You're right. So they they see themselves as dealing with the Board of Education, so why deal with us? I don't think we've had a contract before and they've been operating for quite a while. That is correct. That is correct.
Once again, I think next month, let's wait to hear back from Kerma, see what their feedback is, and then we can talk a little more about these other things too.
Okay. Finance department employment 9F, we've discussed nine gs Andover personal policy discussion. Do we want to do it at this meeting? No. 9H, the discussion of senior transportation, electric vehicle research, and the review of a 15 passenger bus acquisition and usage. I think we can skip that. Also, you've already made a decision to fund
the senior transportation vehicle in the next budget, so that should be wiped. Okay.
New business discussion. There's nothing to it. We had no new business. We're dealing with budgets. Okay. Fine. Approval of minute meetings for Monday, February 14, Thursday, February 23, and Monday, February 27.
I make a motion to accept the meeting minutes for 03/13/2023, the regular meeting and budget workshop. Monday, 02/14/2023, regular meeting minutes. Thursday, 02/23/2023, budget workshop minutes. Monday, 02/27/2023, budget workshop minutes.
I just like I just like to amend Paul. I think Paul you included the three thirteen didn't you? That's the footer for the. I did.
We just need to include a B and C. That's all just a meant to include February 14, February 23 and February 27. Good catch. Good catch. Yes. It's late.
All right. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Eric, on item 12, budget appropriation transfers over expenditure request, and do we have anything? There are none on that. Okay. The tax collectors report refund requests, I do not see any in the package. Before
we go to that, is are you at this point is the board at this point ready to pass the meeting along to or pass the budget along to the Board of Finance? Or what do you still want to see if that's not the case?
Have we, so let's just take twenty seconds. Did we cover everything that we mentioned last time, Eric? Yes, we did. Okay.
So all your green highlights are the items that we had to discuss at this meeting.
Correct. The green and yellow highlights. So the only yellow highlight was the road improvement fund. So I made all the corrections on the fly. And presuming that's all right, that yields us a final total expenditures of $12,512,765.52, which results in a mill rate decrease from 31.91 last year to 31.65 this year. Why don't I just show my screen instead of telling you this verbally? Sorry. Okay.
Are you seeing the screen now? Yes. Yeah. You just gotta increase it a lot unless my eyes are bad. There you go.
Hard to get the whole thing on one side. Let me drop it down a little bit. Just fine. Just could you increase your
no. Maybe not. It's just go off. So you got
so total expenditures are decreasing compared to last year, but so is estimated revenue. Now this estimated revenue includes. The governor's budget so which decreases ECS funding. As well as loss of revenue projected in the building department and loss of revenue in the town clerk's office, just because there's a lot less home sales and home sales are a big driver of profits, not profits, but money taken in by the town clerk's office.
So we're we're actually down on a budgetary basis, but down more on an estimated revenue standpoint.
Correct. Correct. Now, I mean, depending on what the legislature does, you know, that could change a lot. If you take the town's contribution to that, you know, there's probably about $50,000 less in revenue and the rest is state funding. So if we ended up with level funding from the state, then that could, you know, we could be in a much better position revenue wise, but we just don't know at this point. Okay.
Right? So I'll make a motion that we accept the twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four proposed budget as currently presented. I'll second. Any discussion on the budget in total or pieces or what would you guys like to do? All right. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Four, nothing. Five nothing. Adrian is not here. Oh, sorry. My bad. Yep. Good catch. Okay.
Okay. So the tax collector's report, that was actually in our package. It was a collection month this month, dollars 1,800,000 in collections or somewhere in that ballpark, what I remember looking at. 1Point816438Point31. And we basically have we have that much left to collect, I believe. A little bit more than that. Dollars 700,000 left over from other periods. All right. Any questions on the tax electors report? Any questions on any of the department reports? Any correspondence, Eric?
There was no really significant correspondence, not that I know of. Is there ever any correspondence, Eric?
I get a lot of correspondence, but most of it goes straight into the circular file. Shake. Shake. Don't waste your time with it. Hey, I kind of have one further question before we end this section. Sure. And that is the the one thing we haven't discussed directly with the budget. You've approved the budget, But what hasn't happened is you haven't authorized me as your representative to agree to the budget. And I've given all that information to you when you asked me the last time to give you some more time to review it. Are you at a position right now that you're willing to allow me to vote for the budget at this point? Is it currently in our budget?
It is currently in your budget. Then I make a motion that we authorize Eric to be our representative to vote for or approve the budget. I'll second that.
Further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay, we have no correspondence. We have no public, so there will be no public speak. So now we can adjourn. Who's going make that motion? Paul? Motion to adjourn. Oh, Murray snuck that one in. I'll second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Dennis.