Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Special Meeting Budget Workshop
March 16, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Good. Got it. Okay. Welcome everybody. I'll call this meeting to order. This is the Tom Vandiver Board of Finance special meeting for the budget Wednesday, 03/16/2022. Thank you very much for attending. I will recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you. The first, the next item number two on our agenda is the public speak. This is an opportunity for the public to speak. We would like to keep the comments relevant to the budget. I think as everyone probably realizes if you've read the agenda that the main topic for tonight's meeting is a review on presentation of the Andover Elementary School Board of Education fiscal year budget. As everyone knows this is an important part of our budget through the year. So we'd like to keep our comments focused and if we can focus on on the budget so let's now Chris or Eric if you want go around so if anybody has any, any comments.
Sure. So first up Celeste Willard. No comment at this time, thank you. Okay. Caitlin McIntosh.
No comment right now. Just here to support the budget.
Okay. Fair enough. And there's two phone numbers I don't recognize one of them is Sherry Holmes I presume. Yes I'm here I have no comment though. Understood
and the last number 4212 I don't know who that is either.
Hi. This is Shannon Loudon. That's my telephone number. I'm just here to support the Board of Education's budget as was passed and proposed by the Board of Education. Thanks very much.
Okay. Let me just take a quick look. I think that we have gotten everybody here other than our two presenters, Jerry Cremay and Valerie Bruno.
So guys got Mark Foss and Chris Bernard. I know, I don't know if they want to make a comment during public comments also. They're not on my screen. I see them. Chris. Sorry.
Yeah, sure. Don't comment other than just here to support the board of Ed budget. Okay, thank you, Steve. Okay,
we're not hearing anything but I'll assume that but you'll have an opportunity to add comments at the end. Yeah, Eric, it could be there's a lot of participation you might need to scroll right or left sometimes that confuses me I know. So, okay, thank you everybody appreciate your participation and attendance tonight this important activity. Next agenda item is a presentation on the elementary school and or elementary school budget as voted on by the Board of Education and Valerie you have a presentation to share. Sure. Okay. Welcome. You share your screen share my screen I mean.
Yep. Okay. Eric can you give her rights to share. You should be able to share now. Can you guys see? Yeah. It may take a while. Not yet. Let's
see. Hang on one second. Let me go back and see why why I can't let me push that button again. Okay. Alright. Are you seeing me? Yeah. I see a desktop now. Okay.
Then we're in good shape. Now you can see us? Yep. Alright. We did it. Alright. Let me make it so that I can see. There we go. Alright. Can you hear us good enough? Yes. Alright. Thanks, Mark. So this is the board of education budget that was adopted that at the last board of ed meeting, and I will start here with the beginning for you. Alright. So just a quick review of what the budget timeline was for our budget. We started in December. We did it a little bit differently this year. We had decided that kind of based on feedback. We decided this year that we would separate the budget out into different budget building workshops with a focus on different content at each of those workshops. Began in December. We had two December 1 and December 15. We then moved from there and had a series of five with five different topics. Ultimately, having one open forum for people who had seen the others or watched them in the reruns
and utilize that time for feedback before the board of ed, then took it the feedback and the comments and took it to heart, had a discussion, looked to see that we were where we needed to be and had a budget that to be voted on and adopted. That's where we are today. A lot of people don't get a chance to look at our website and see our vision and our mission. So I'd like to review them so that you know, we have a reminder on at least a yearly basis, when we're looking at planning for the future exactly what it is we're planning for. The mission statement for AES is to provide a creative and a challenging curriculum for all of our students in a safe environment, while nurturing the values of responsibility, respectfulness and desire for learning. The vision is to create that safe educational environment that establishes a foundation for students to become creative, moral and compassionate people. And it's very important that we also make sure that when we talk about the foundation that we make sure that we allow our kids to be prepared for the middle and the high school level. So who we're planning for? Well, this has been exciting for us for the past almost
two years now to take a look at the fact that even though it's slow, we don't have a decline anymore. This is something that a lot of the small towns face. I know our middle and our high school faces it as well. So 're very happy to be able to say that we don't have a declining enrollment. Last year, we started the school year out with 176 students in pre k six, and we ended with 183. At the start of this year, we started with 193. And this is about where we are at present day. Every month it goes down a little and up a little. People say how do you gain enrollment during the course of the year because we're pre k to six. As soon as our little three year olds turn three and birth to three, then we wind up having new students during the course of the year. We love to welcome them. The fair number of our students that started in September this year, the new families that had moved in are also younger, which is great, because that also helps us to secure enrollment for the future. So we're really excited about this. Other steps forward. This past year, we did pilot new changes within our curriculum. We piloted I Ready. It's about a two year program in terms of a total transition and switch over. We also piloted power school, which is a new student information systems, and it's working out well. Power schools used in a lot of other districts, So it does have continuity for kids moving in.
We pushed to focus even more on differentiation and individualization of instruction. And this is really, I think, moving forward, where we are going to be a lot better off with this focus because we can meet the needs of all of our learners, remedial class level as well as enrichment. So we really look at this, and we continue to be committed to incorporating learning opportunities for kids. That's really the one thing with the pandemic that we had to do is kind of think outside the box and say, we can't do things the way we normally do them. So how can we still make sure that we have learning opportunities for kids and involvement within the community, when we oftentimes couldn't have people in or we couldn't leave for a field trip. So we're getting good at that. We are investing in student achievement. These are all the things we have to take into consideration year round, but especially when we plan a budget for the following year, teaching and learning rigorous instruction, individualized and differentiated learning opportunities, experiences for the kids over and above what's going on in the classroom, creating critical thinkers and problem solvers, successful and upstanding citizens we're investing in, and making sure that we do our part to create a foundation for college or career paths. That's not always easy in an elementary school. But the flip side is we also have to make sure that we look at safe school climate, that we look at mental health, social and emotional well-being, in terms of programming and staff,
a safe and secure facility, jobs with fair wages, especially when we do contract negotiations, this is large, and making sure that we have the resources available for staff, maintaining our property at a safe level, school meal programs, transportation and technology. So over the past six years, every one of these items has increased in cost. And so we've really had to look at where things in the budget could be cut and which other things were out of our control in terms of an increase in cost. Here is the last number of years, the past six years with our approved budgets and the amount that they increased or decreased. And at this point, if you look at the past seven years here, it significantly had gone down 418,000. So this is something that we have really grappled with. We've become very good and masterful at utilizing the resources that we have within the building. These are the grants, the annual grants, I say annual because we do have to apply for them regularly. But these are the most reliable ones for our school district and others that we can usually guarantee that if not every year, every other year we receive money for. So this is last year's and this year's grants. We have the title grants, three grants. Last year, we did miss it. We didn't get money. When I say miss it, it's based on demographics that the federal government has. It has nothing to do with us at a local level. It's the the information that they are provided with. This year, we're awarded 3,941, which had been about average. Last year was the only year that we didn't get title one.
That did hurt us for extra money with the COVID relief in American Rescue. However, this year, we're back and we got $39.41. What do we use it for? We use it towards the remedial salaries. These are those extra staff members that assist our students. In this case, title one money is used toward it. It's only 3,941, but we use it all toward our reading specialist. Title two went up a little bit from 26 to 3,900. And again, that went toward the remedial salary. Title four, we had 10,000 last year and none this year because it is linked to title one. So what happens is if you lose title one, one year, it's linked and you lose title for the following year. But last year we knew that and we made sure to expect that. Reap, we had 14,000 last year for reap. That's a rural grant that's given. There's a grant that's given to either small districts or rural districts. That's what the r in front of it stands. Thank you. Not sure. The school readiness grants, there's 16 slots in a liaison that we take out of that money. If you remember last year, we have a regular liaison that assists with the school readiness grants. We had a liaison that was coming to the school regularly, a couple of times a month and last year and last year's budget we did reduce that liaison, so that they are only there now a small percentage of the time, But then they also
the liaison assists with the writing of the grants and making sure that we're in compliance. There's a small school readiness q e grant of 3,881 you'll see that's fairly regular year after year, but it's only able to be used for professional development for the preschool program. The smart start grant is what pays for the preschool salaries. And then two grants IDEA, which is split by six eleven and six nineteen. Again, it's fairly regular, but one is pretty small. It's only 3,400 and the other one pays for para salaries. So this is really why when we say preschool, we say pays for itself between the tuition and this, these are the names of the grants that we utilize. So what's needed additionally, this year, we'll jump right into it. I'm going to give you the preview here and then we'll go through the rest of it. What did we have this year? We had contractual obligations. Last year, we talked about that being year one of the contractual obligations and next year, obviously, we'll be going into the twenty two-twenty three school year as the second year for their contractual obligations. We did not receive what we needed. We were about $97,000 short last year for the contractual obligations. We had to take that from other areas. This year, there really is no way around it. We have to make sure that we meet those obligations. Heating oil, so everybody knows who heats their house with heating oils going up, the utility costs. MRF, which the town I'm sure is very aware because you have a number of employees that receive MRF. That's the municipal retirement.
Our non cert staff is under Murph, and there were increases to that. It went up to 18%. And we did have increased special education costs. So let's take a look at the specifics. So I did send to each of the members of the board of finance, and I know our board of ed has it. I did send you attachments because I knew we were doing this via zoom. So you had four attachments there. One was all of the PowerPoint slides that we had from the six sessions all kind of lumped into one PowerPoint to make sure that you guys had that available. I sent you then this paper, the actual budget itself by function and object. And it you had one column there that was highlighted in yellow. Here there's the four columns highlighted but that one has the first column. I also sent you the one with the actuals because I do know that there was a member that had asked for the actuals as well. So for right now what I'm looking at here, what we're looking at is
the superintendent's proposed budget to the board of ed, which is now their adopted budget for 2023. And then the current year's budget and the year before. So that's what you're looking at here. And so I just highlighted those numbers. And as you can see, this section here is really the contractual obligations. These are salaries. And the contractual obligations were minus the anticipated retirement was 93,528. We do anticipate one retirement and so we've already minus that from there what the difference would be to make sure that we can plan for that accordingly. So when you look at the green there, what we're looking at for certified staff as an increase is 60,641. The instructional assistance of 4,338. And if you move down there, you'll see the total support salary increases of 62 and 33. So those would be the increases there in the salaries.
Whoops.
Let me make sure I didn't miss one. Sorry. Okay. So this one, the benefits we actually did really well this year. I'm sure that you guys have already gone through this on the town side. The really positive thing to the consortium that we're involved in, thank goodness is that it's been very successful. We have the insurance consortium where it's and over the town of and the board of Ed Hebron the town of and the board of Ed Marlborough the town of and the board of Ed Ram, and then services. And it's been in existence for a while it was probably the best thing that we ever did was to join that consortium, because it means we're self insured. And because we're self insured, yep, we take the hits when things are tough, but then we reap the benefits when things go well.
And over the past few years, when there have been surpluses, they've been able to invest that and put that aside. And then when COVID hit, we didn't have as many claims put in. So this was of a benefit to us. So it's an unheard of situation for us, which is a positive thing and that is that we're going to have a premium reduction, which is fantastic for us, that means that we don't have to plan into the town budget to Ram's budget or to our budget. These significant increases in insurance that the other towns are planning for right now, because the premiums are going up so much. So because of that, we had that reduction. And then it was offset we have a new employee that's going to be on the policy this year. And then this will help us offset some of the increases to that Murph that we were talking about that increase to the pension for the municipal pension for our non cert members. So that was really fantastic. Otherwise, this would have been significantly higher. So this one I knew these would be harder to see, which is why I sent them to you so you could have them on your screen. These are other professional services. In one of our workshops that we had, and they're all online if anyone needs them, we were able to go through and really separate. And the reason why I kept these in here was to really just show you that you're going to see a lot of zeros in that far right hand column there. You know, we really made sure that we didn't put increases in. If we could by doing a needs assessment,
if we could kind of stay status quo. So you'll notice that during through all of these, that most of these lines here, we're able to stay status quo. These are not inflationary lines. So we're just going to keep things where they are. We do try to do a lot of our staff training with existing either members of the community. For example, I know that our social worker at the start of the school year when we do some staff training will do some. Know that John's done some. Know that our tech teachers done some. So we really do try to keep these line items to a minimum. In
terms of facility maintenance, this is a tough area. This was really a conversation that we needed to have as a school first in presenting my budget to the board. And then as a board, as you know, we only have an operational budget, we do not have an operational and a capital improvement budget. And so that's tough. Because up to this point anyways, anything to fix the school has had to come out of an operational budget, which is not usually what a school district faces. Usually you have both an operational and a capital. But what I presented to the Board of Ed this year, it's really my thought that and I have zero in here. It's really my thought that the school right now is safe. And so although we still have to move forward during the course of this year with creating our capital plan, we do still have to look at some projects that are very close to the horizon for us in terms of needing to be done. We didn't put that in here because we had some of these other expenses that we really needed to put in that just were imperative. So this will be on our horizon for us to look at. For right now, oops. But for right now, we have no capital improvements in here. One of the biggest expenses this year is we have transportation and a third out placement.
I know that a couple of people from the public have asked before about outplacements and how they work. We are responsible for every Andover student. And so all the way through till I mean, when they go to RAM, obviously, RAM is responsible for them too. But if we have a student that attends a magnet school, we have a tuition that we have to pay. Our current magnet school tuitions are about 5 to $6,000. If we have a student that we just can't meet the needs of, because we don't have that program that exists in our school due to our size, or our resources. Oftentimes, it means that they have to be educated elsewhere, where they do have what's required for that particular student. We do now have three students that currently attend other places, some a public school, some facility that assists with other needs. That is a private facility, we are responsible for their tuition. And, you know, at some point in districts when you meet a certain threshold threshold, there is refunds for that. We haven't met the thresholds for this refund yet. So unfortunately, that third outplacement has to entirely be in this general fund budget. And as you can see here, that adds an additional $90,000 for that third outplacement. So it's a big chunk and it's a big difficulty for our small district. In terms of building supplies, this is you guys have it better right in front of you where it's laid out, but you can see that
and I have given kudos many times to the teachers in our building because I see it daily. I actually saw it today again. The teachers, they make sure that if there's a supply in the building, no matter whose room it's in and they need it, and no one's using it. I'll see emails daily, does anyone have three glue sticks? Four of this, five of that. They are fantastically frugal at making sure that they share resources at Andover Elementary School. I am impressed daily when I see this. So right now, I say frozen. But what I mean when I say frozen is that where we are right now is where we're going to continue to be and hope that this next school year, we can make it through doing exactly what we've been doing this year in terms of sharing supplies, and making sure that we still provide a high quality education. Utilities. I purposely didn't put this one at the beginning because everybody knows this one's difficult. This is
beyond our control. It's unavoidable. I know that there are some districts that have been told that they should anticipate up to a 20 or 25% increase. I know Sherry's worked the numbers, and I have 100% faith that if we plan for about a 13% difference with electricity based on what our trend is in terms of what we use that we will be safe to do that. So we have not overextended that percentage. I know that you guys had another budget in front of you that was also 20% there. We are being as frugal as we can with that increase and in feeling that it's very safe to go with this percentage instead of 20. Heating oil, a little bit of an increase there as well. But we're lucky that we are locked in now. And in being locked in, should those increases go up and we thank Sherry for that. If those increases go up, we should still be able to remain within the amount that we've budgeted. Once again, these are the total classroom supplies, and you'll see again, no increases. And you'll notice as you go through what we give you, we're talking about small amounts as well for each grade here. So we are fantastically optimistic that we're gonna make it through. Okay?
Oops. Keeps doing that. Okay. So what we need here is the numbers there and you had that in the packet that I emailed to you guys. If you look, the bottom line for 2021 was the 3,900,000. The bottom line in terms of what we need with those five increases that we spoke about the outplacement, Murph with transportation, the Murph and the heating oil in addition to the salaries, those five things, they add up to 220,387 with the 90,000 for the outplacement for the student for a total of 4.122. And there's the breakdown. So you can see, if we did not have the obligation for the outplacement, you can see it would be 130,387, the utilities, the Murph, the transportation,
and the salaries. And when we add the outplacement in there, it goes to $2.20. So what we are hoping that the taxpayers will help with this year is to reallocate funds educational dollars that are savings elsewhere to make sure that we can meet this need here at AES and have that 4.122. Again, optimistically speaking, our numbers are going up and I know that there's a decline at the middle and high school level. I know that their student population has declined, but we anticipate that we're going to stay steady where we are and potentially increase over the next few years. We're not anticipating a decline in our student population at all over the next couple of years. And that's it.
Okay, thank you Valerie Thank you Jerry. I guess we'll open it up to members of the Board of Finance if you have any questions for Valerie or Jerry or the board. I've got a question. Louise? Yeah, Valerie, what was the outpatient threshold again?
Outpatient threshold, what do you mean? Oh, for you mean to get for the excess cost?
Yes. What was the threshold where you said you didn't meet that yet? Right. So Louise, the way it works is it's 4.5%,
I mean a 4.5 times your per pupil spending, and then you can apply for like rebate on that. And if it's approved, they have certain amounts up to 70%. And so we have to take the cost for each student, and that has to meet the threshold of 4.5 times what your cost is. Okay, so it's not like a flat dollar amount?
No. And that agrees, honestly, I was on a call with a lot of superintendents the other day from small districts. That's what it's called, small district supers. And it's it it it's very tough. It kills the small districts. Because a small district can have just three or four kids. And that could wind up on some cases, a third of the budget little towns. Now
if the student stops or changes during the year, are the tuitions refunded or prorated?
The tuitions are not paid, Louise, all at one lump sum. The tuitions are paid monthly. And why they do that too is because you're responsible for all the costs associated with that student. So there's a per day tuition cost. And then if a child's program changes, and they need something else that gets added then to your bill. And so you could have a child that gets placed out and you have X number of dollars for tuition, $3.91 a day. And then if that child winds up needing more services, a speech service or a paraprofessional or a different transportation, that gets added to it. So, again, that's an estimate that we put in there but based on the other two that we have, we are fairly confident that this is a very, very accurate estimation. Okay, thanks, Millie.
Val, just this is Rob, real quick. My understanding and correct me if I'm wrong is it's fairly unlikely
once somebody is out placed that we're going to get them back, right? Yeah, because, thanks for bringing that up Robert because just so that anybody who does not know a lot about that process. No district does it lightly, as you can imagine, because you know we want the least restrictive environment for a student but we also want to service their needs, the best that we can in house if it's possible. So before a child is placed in a program that's not our program. Have already gone through a variety of things. First, there are tiered supports within the classroom. Can the classroom teacher and potentially a special education teacher or specialist manage to provide services? If not, then oftentimes it's moved to the next level. Potentially testing is done to see if maybe we're not meeting the needs for an identified purpose with that student sometimes then that's when you would see them adding a pair of professional. Maybe that is the way to go, the strategy to utilize. So there are these steps along the way all the way up until we realize at a certain point that we cannot service the needs of a child.
And that's when we then have to look for another place for their needs to be serviced. So, yeah, Robert, once they are placed out, oftentimes, that's where they wind up because we've already gone through all those other steps and determined that we couldn't meet their needs. But annually, just like with a child that does attend AES, their program is reviewed on a regular basis to see if that need has changed. That absolutely does happen on an annual basis. Thanks, Will. You're welcome. Other questions? Joanne? I a quick question. I
had noticed I had gone through the budget earlier today and it looks like the line item for psychologists and social workers has gone down. That seemed a little strange at this what we've gone through the last two years. So I'm
glad you brought that up because you know it's the that we use for mister fish over there. So what what happened was a couple years ago, we had a psychologist as well as the social work services that came through And as you know from the town budget. Last year, we switched the town's contract, so that as an umbrella for the people of the town of Andover that contract is covered under Eric's budget. Well, in addition to that, we also because we didn't have the ability to have a full time social worker, we loved the social worker that was working in our school that came with the contract the day and a half that kind of comes, I'll say, for free with the contract that the town pays. And so last year, our school psychologist retired. And so what we did was we increased our contract with for those services, and we had our social worker with us a little bit more this year, in hopes that since she was already familiar with the school that she would be able to service all of our needs. So we paid that additional contract like we always had and it kind of upped the price, Linda. It was I think '21 before and then it went up. What we found was although she's very effective and we love her, there are certain things that she's not certified to do that we do need to have a psychologist for. So we posted it earlier this year, things like testing for IEPs. She can't do any testing for the triennial reviews for kids.
So we do have to have a psychologist. And we posted it. The reason why those numbers are about $10,000 different than they would be normally is since SEL, social emotional learning, has been very big this year, obviously, with COVID, people understanding that the needs go up. There was a grant, a grant that came in that was only able to be used for things like that. So that additional 10,000 for the social work will be paid for out of a grant. There was no reason for me to add it in. But that extra day, Linda, is going to be pushed over to a psychologist from the social worker. So we're just reallocating from one area to the other and then taking the 10,000 out
and putting that in a grant. Okay,
thank you. You're welcome. But we're not reducing services to the kids. It's just being separated. Thank you. Go ahead and ask what's up for questions. I
have a few questions. If you don't, know, thank you Valerie for being with us tonight. And since we have you, I'll just have a few questions. I've gone to a couple of the budget workshops. I've heard how you pieced it together. But just randomly, because we were talking about the outplay student that you added to the budget for next year, is that the same student from this year's edition, but counting? Okay. It's the same one. But it's not an additional.
Nope. You're absolutely right. It was the one that we were talking about that wasn't in last year's budget. It was year, but now, yes, Joanne, now we're planning for it. And that's the total cost transportation,
everything that's going to go with that student. Okay. And just because I have several, our current enrollment, is it made up, how many out of town students, you know, I know that you might have a few preschoolers that come in from out of town. How many of the 193 are not Andover students or residents?
Actually, I know john is on here. John, is it correct to say there are two, but that they will not be out of town next year? Yes,
that's right. Yeah. So, Julian, they are out of town now. I wanted to make sure I was still accurate. They are paying a tuition because they're out of town now. But by next year, they will be residing in town.
Thought maybe the number would be higher. So that's, that is good. The enrollments going up. Yeah. Just to get I noticed in your presentation you talked about PowerSchool which I know well. Was that a budgeted item for last year it was in our budget to install that software and
So it wasn't quote a budgeted item, but what was budgeted was we had a student information system called Tyler Sis. Yep. So we replaced Tyler Sis with the PowerSchool. And the only difference, the big difference because I know that you you spend days in a school. The only big difference for us in implementing that this year had been it. I wouldn't say big but the only difference going from Tyler power school was like the PD on that. The professional development and our tech person at the school our teacher there. She did a lot on her own time, and making sure that she could learn that and then teach everybody else. Kudos to her for that. Know we don't usually talk about names but it's Christina Frazier. So when you see her just know that she's got a lot of free time. When I say free time, I mean time she wasn't paid for to teach her. She was so motivated and ambitious to get that in.
Sorry, Valerie. That's the student database and everything that goes along with it?
Yes. What we found. Honestly, Joanne, what we found was Tyler Sis years ago when the former super business manager and John had implemented it, they got kind of a really good deal on it. And it was one of those, hey, you know, you you gotta take this one because it's it's the cheapest around. And it it never really was user friendly. But what John and I found when we started to go through things a year ago was wait a minute, we're looking at the bill and we're saying this isn't a whole lot cheaper than power school and yet it's not user friendly and everybody else uses power school. So the switch was really necessary but it also was not a significant increase for us at all to do so. If anything, being compatible with every other town now is going to make it well worthwhile.
Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with it and I didn't remember hearing about it during the budget season last year. So okay. And I noticed you said for the non certified staff get MRF, you know, or, you know, part of MRF for retirement. And I know that that's a pricey, I've talked about it at town meetings, you know, it's a high level percentage of someone's salary. Is that required that they participate? You're non certified?
I know the town has to be in. If one is in, they all have to be in. There are it's not like all of our employees are in it. There are certain employees in it. Sherry as a business manager is in MRF. And so yes, it's required. But remember, most of our staff is a teaching staff. They're under a teacher's contract. So it's TRB. And we as a district don't pay their TRB. They pay. That's of no cost. It's just the ones that fall under that municipal which is why it was an increase for us but not as significant as let's say the town side is going to be because all of their employees are on MRF. We don't have many MRF. Most of our staff is TRB, teacher retirement.
Okay. All right. I'm getting through these. And just for while we have you here, I know we have the classroom teaching staff, and you know from coming to the meetings I know we have in Andover, I believe you have two special ed teachers. I'm thinking of non classroom. We have probably the technology teacher, Christina, that you referenced and I heard her spoken of, okay. I believe she used to be a classroom teacher. And then did she transition to that role? Only because I know her from my kids. And then you have two intervention teachers, the reading specialist you spoke on and an ELA teacher. Read that on a math. Oh, math, Kathy, math and reading. Christina Fraser is the one that does that.
Oh, that's her? So that's she's all of those things? She's also one person? She's the I can't fault that. I thought so there's not three teachers. She's one person that does those three functions.
This year, no. This year she is the one that does tech and math and there's another teacher that does the reading. Okay.
Krista Caraboni I think is who you're thinking of Joanne. But just as somebody who's got two kids in that school and who've worked with both of those people, they do move around a little bit but generally speaking one is more like math and technology and one is language. But they're both Christa's, so yeah, yeah, it can get a little confusing. Thanks. I know I haven't kept up with the names. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But both are great. My my kids have had really good experiences with both of them.
And actually Robert, I'm glad you said that because in addition to that, there's other things that we don't have to have. They do a lot when we get to aspect testing. So having another person on staff that has to be your testing coordinator, they wear that hat along with Yes, the so there's a lot of hats they wear. We utilize them a lot.
Thank you for that. Know you sent this stuff today and I appreciate that. I didn't have as much time in my day after work to look at all of it. I might have little questions down the line, but that's it for me for now. Okay, thank you, Joanne. Other questions? Diane?
I have a question. So if I'm understanding this correctly, there are some numbers in this spreadsheet of the budget that are offset by grant money. Is that correct in my assumption? So some numbers in this spreadsheet are net numbers, not gross numbers. Is that correct? Like say, teacher salaries or? Yes. So I'm interested in knowing the data behind the numbers. So if someone could just break out for me which numbers on this budget spreadsheet are net, they're not gross, and what grants get applied to those numbers. And if you could identify it by, you know, position or something that would be fine. So if you have, if teachers are, you know, 5,000,
but you apply a grant for a thousand, and I only see 4,000 on the spreadsheet. I want to understand what grant funds that in what area it's in. Follow what I'm saying? I do.
I'm making myself clear enough. It is something we kind of talked about it is helpful because typically what you would have is if you have both a positive and negative applied to a specific account or expense you'd show them separately a separate line items. So I think that's what Jan is getting at right down. Yeah, I just want to see the detail behind that number how you got to that number, and what it's made up of. So That slide that has the title grants?
Yeah, but I don't know specifically. So, how many teachers are paid by that grant money? Some
of them were $3,000 some of them were $10,000 So, some of the grants have to all be added together for one person.
So if you can look at how you broke out your line items on your budget, because you have everything broken out by teachers, preschool teachers, special ed teachers. If any of those numbers on there are net numbers, not the true total cost, just give me what the grant funds that are against those numbers so I can come know what the big picture is. Valerie? Yes. Valerie,
can do that. We can come up with something on that just at the bottom of any of any before you have any subtitles, can be offsetting grant would be really and then the the true cost. Yeah,
I I understand what you're asking. So okay, I will go over it with Valerie. And then we'll provide that.
Okay? I thank you for getting all the actuals and it's very important for me as a person to have the actuals and have the year to date because it shows me where we've been, where we're going. So I haven't had a total chance to analyze this yet. So I'm sure I will have more questions, but that'll be in the future. Okay, you can email us. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Sherry, for doing that. You're welcome.
Okay. Any other questions from board members for Valerie, Jerry, Linda.
Hi, it just I was just sitting here thinking last year there was a big controversy in towns about the class sizes. So I was just wondering what the class sizes were going to be like this year.
That was in one of our let me get that for you. That was in one of our budget seminars. So hang on one second, and I'll look up the exact ones for you. There will be 13 classrooms And hang on. Let me look that up. Okay. So if you guys are interested in that, it is in where I sent you all of the slides. It would be in the budget building seminar number five from January 25. And if you noticed it has our current class size for this year and enrollment, And then it has our projected for next year. So we have two pre K classes of 14. We have two kindergarten classes. And remember, that's an anticipated number based on what we know about the kids coming in for pre k because we have admissions still going on. Kindergarten would be two classes roughly of fourteen and fourteen. Grade one, we still have 38 kids and so there would be a thirteen, thirteen and a 12.
Grade two, we will have 21 students and I'll go back to this in a second. Grade three, we have 25 students. Rather than do a class of ten and eleven and twelve and a class of 13, there will be three classrooms, a two, a three and a two, three and there will be fifteen, fifteen and sixteen. Grade four will have nineteen, one classroom. Grade five will have eighteen, one classroom. And grade six will have 21 classroom. So the smallest class next year is a first grade class of 12, and the largest class is 20. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Further questions from the board? Joanne?
I did have one further one as I was sitting, says I'm not sure it a list or if it's something we get automatically made at the point in the year yet where you do budget transfers, maybe money that you haven't expended yet, then you might need an item. Have we gotten to that point or is that more closer to May? Share.
Yeah. We're gonna be working on that. That's the transfers are probably gonna come in April, and we're gonna meet together and go over that. And then we'll be able to give you that information.
Thank you. With my first is that something automatic, Sherry? Do you send that over to us? Do we
do we just will like I said, I'll consult with the superintendent, and then we'll see what we can do. But that doesn't happen until April and May.
That's what I thought. And I didn't have a chance to look through everything today, like I said, after work. But no. Thank you. I'm sure that You're welcome.
And Joanne, those have to be approved by the Board of Ed. So if you had a board meeting, Sherry and I don't just do them. It goes No, to no. I knew the process. So it'll definitely be in the minutes too. Okay. Thank you. That's great. That's good. Yeah. Additional questions? I think that's it for me now.
Going once going twice. Okay, well, thank you, Valerie. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you board members for your participation and assistance. Appreciate it. Sure, this isn't the last we'll be hearing from you over this process, but it's a long process as we all know, we appreciate your input. Okay, thanks very much. We'll move on to the next item in our agenda, which is just a general action item or agenda item for the budget workshop for fiscal year twenty twenty two twenty twenty three proposed budget. So this is open discussion for the Board of Finance members, you can go ahead and make any comments or we can tackle any specific topics that anybody wants to bring before the board. Mark, can I make one quick comment first? You can.
I was just going to suggest that the focus of the next budget should be public works and the expenditures of public works. Because in the grand scheme of things, that's probably the next greatest line item we have. And the town will be prepared to speak to that at the next meeting. If the board so desires, I'll have the public works supervisor here.
Yeah, thank you, Eric and Erica you'd mentioned that in his email that he sent earlier. Think that's a good idea. It's pretty significant line item. Did have a lot of questions some of the previous meetings about it so I think that that's a good opportunity for us to do that so that we don't, you know, have too much back and forth and things don't get confused. Anybody have a comment or different idea on that. It was like a good plan to me.
Okay. All right, we'll plan on that I think you said you already talked to Jay about being there right so. Okay, great. Appreciate it. Okay, so that being said, then we can move on to other agenda items and leave public works at least for next week. Joanne, so you had your hand. I'm sorry and I I'm gonna. I know that we're on to another topic, but I just wanted to ask
if I could ask one more thing. I'm Valerie. I'm sorry not about the Bush, not about what? Yeah,
while they're here I know because I don't want to even I don't want to say I know how busy she is. Do you have specific days Valerie that you're in Andover? I thought of that afterward. Know you you do two. I can't even imagine being you because I know you probably put a lot of effort into both when you do two jobs, but.
It depends on the week. It depends on what's going on. It depends on that. I'm definitely there a lot more often. Sometimes, you know, if there's a wind up coming for a half a day, You know, really depends if I'm here specifically, they really can put whatever they need to in the schedule and I make it work during the course of the week. So yeah, no, not one particular day.
I wouldn't want to send you something on your off day, but I know I mean, you can get back to it whenever. Off day? I know. I was gonna say. One
of those, right? Every day that ends in a day is a workday. Yep. Yep. Understood. Thank you. I'll take mine after.
I also had a question. Thanks, John. Also had a question. Forgot about this. Wrote it down earlier in the presentation. You were talking about being self insured for some of the so that obviously has a lot of benefits, know the company I work for is similarly. Know positioned, but it also has risks, so is there some kind of stop loss insurance on top of that that you guys have engaged and I would assume so right so really for a small district.
Mark, would I tell you how impressed you all would be with the way this is set up. I mean, Sherry could tell you too. We have Chuck Petriconi that works with us from Brown and Brown. And it is we are extremely lucky with this consortium because we reap the benefits through us, through the town, and through RAM. And when I tell you not only in the other district, but many other districts that my colleagues are in, they're talking about upwards of 15 to 20% increases in premiums in other towns. And we're not. When you say stop loss, we have every insurance that you can imagine in place. Chuck, the guy who helps this consortium oversee things, he has never seen, he keeps saying, you know, I have not seen a consortium work as successfully as this one has because,
Mark, every stop loss that you could have in there, every potential insurance that you could have on your insurance,
we have. So it's part of the whole package that you Part of the whole package. Okay, that's good. It made sense. I just thought I'd ask the question. Actually,
you know what, let me talk to Sherry I know we both have it back at the office but just so that the Board of Finance has it because it would probably be helpful for you guys, not only in planning and looking at the town's budget and our budget and RAM's budget from years to come now, but I will send you guys the information on kind of the snapshot of exactly how well the consortium is doing right now. And we are very grateful for how well it's managed as a town I will, I will tell you that but every one of those insurances is in place and I'll make sure you guys get that.
Thank you. Okay, moving on with additional board discussion, questions, any specific topics we want to tackle tonight. Diane?
Sherry had sent over the updated budget spreadsheet with the revenue tab completed with the actuals in there. And I think I had asked for actuals and year to date, but if we can just get a year to date revenue report, I would be happy with that. It doesn't have to be in the column. But I'm trying to look at the numbers that Sherry put in there, and they're not audited numbers yet, but they're the numbers. Eric had sent out a spreadsheet of how he got the taxes and the numbers don't jive. So between what the document Eric sent and what Sherry put together, I'm getting different things. So for example,
on the revenue tab, the first thing would be interest dash taxes. Sherry said 35,944 was the actual revenue collected for 2021, not audited. I think Eric had a different number for that.
Okay. I can tell you part of the discrepancy is for all of those, I took a twelve month snapshot that was the last twelve months of data I had available. So it blended two fiscal years. So that's part of, I would imagine the issue.
So, me go to your document. Hold on, because I want to get Yeah, that would probably do it, yeah. What you sent me. You sent me a tax collection one year data. So I have for I have a revenue for 2021 summary that shows total interest collected of 61,654. So those numbers should be the same between your document and Jerry's document. And I'm just wondering why they're so different.
Because what I showed you was not the fiscal year 2021 data. It's partially fiscal year 2021 data and part of twenty one-twenty two data.
But each year is broken out separately on this document you sent me. So, I have Right, right. I'm just looking 2021.
You know, when I summarized it. That I can't answer.
Okay. So so that's a mystery to me. So get out. It's significantly off. So someone's got to tell me what the right number is. So if we can look at that, and then you have in the 2021 revenue collection year, you have a prior year tax number and Sherry came back and has zero in a prior year tax number. So I don't know why Sherry didn't come up with have a number. I can share my screen if you guys want to see. That
would be good, Diane. I'm trying to find that. Do
I have rights to share screen? Let me try share screen. Yeah. Gave you permission. Sure. Oops. You can't see it. Right? Kinda small.
Can you see it at all? Yeah. I can see it, but it takes a good sized monitor. Yeah. Hold
on. It's not a good monitor. That help? Can you see it better now? No. Hold on. It's when you have two monitors, you get all screwed up. So you can't see this? I can't see what you guys see.
Well, we're seeing the sheet that shows so scan page twenty twenty, twenty twenty one or Yeah.
So I see for 2021 revenue, prior year tax, $1.58 $7.76. And then when I look at the spreadsheet can you see this spreadsheet? Sherry still has zero in here for actual revenue numbers for 2021. Yep. I don't know where this document comes from. You know, I'm really looking for something coming out of our accounting systems that we book the revenue.
So that document right there is, so I get a running record from the tax collector. It's on one of the shared drives that I have. So if I need to look at revenue, because she updates it, you know, pretty regularly, usually by monthly. This was an older version. But I just, you know, when I have questions about it, I just pull that report. I don't actually know how this data flows to the finance office. That's a Sherri question, not an Eric Yeah.
So I'm looking for the data that's actually in our accounting software for 2021. I want to make sure the numbers are the same. Someone can give me some help on clarity on that. And that phase line that you have on your sheet there that you gave me Eric is that late fees kind of thing? Which phase line?
The last column says fees. I don't know what it means. Yeah, well, so you get late,
so we can charge both interest and late fees. Right. So I'm assuming is that late fees? I'm just trying to confirm. Correct. So, so where does that flow onto this revenue sheet tab if we have late fees? Where does that come in?
Good question. I can't say that I can answer that. Okay.
Alright. So I just wanna make sure our net revenue numbers are reasonable and correct. So we just gotta pronounce them against last year and year to date and make sure they all line up. That's all I wanna do. Yep. So if everybody can follow me on that. So that's takeaway from tonight on this to get clarity on that.
Eric, do you know what Diane's looking for there? With Sherry, you can check that out? Yeah, generally. Yeah, if you need clarification, you can always revisit an email or whatever.
So I'll make sure everybody gets what I'm looking for. I'm trying to really create a baseline to make sure our revenue projections are reasonable. We've got, you know, so that's
ahead, Derek. I was going to say one of the things that I'm slightly nervous about is we were more aggressive in trying to match exact revenue to prior years. You know, in some things it's not, it's difficult to do. Like for instance, because we changed fee structure and software for the building department, the fees associated with that are very different than in the past. So, you know, I initially forecasted it based on, you know, about four and a half months of data, but looking at it now, it looks like we're probably okay and my judgment is probably pretty good. So I was happy about that, but that's assuming the level of building stays the same from year to year. And as you know, as oil prices go up and as interest rates goes up, I mean that could have, there's two places that could have a huge effect. The first is the revenue taken in by the the town clerk's office. And the reason is every time a house gets sold, a chunk of that,
you know, the town gets a chunk of money every time a house gets sold. Last year a lot of high end houses went in Andover so that number was quite a bit higher last year. I don't know whether that's going to hold or not. I don't know. I mean I made the best guess I could based on last year's numbers, You know, based on the kind of the average monthly fees flowing into that office. But you know if it was 20% lower, you know, or 20 higher it wouldn't surprise me. You know, so I don't know, just seems like the revenue ends, the big numbers like ECS, yeah, they're fixed. Most of the state grant aid, those things are fixed. But in terms of the revenue we generate, you know, it's more difficult. The other thing I was going to ask is that, Sherry and I discussed it today, but we didn't put it in the budget because, you know, you already got a budget from the Board of Selectmen, so any changes now really need to come from you. And what you want is that the transfer station fees went up from the Board of Selectmen. So that number should increase, you know, to, it's like 42 or $43,000
And I can put in the exact figure if you want it. But just based scaled off what our annual, what we get on an average year times the increase in fees from $40 to $50
So, we have records of the number of permits we've issued. So we just take that number because they all renew in July. Is that is that correct? Well,
we get them all through the year. And like, if you look at those two numbers, like if you look at the revenue number, like if you pulled up the screen for revenue and you look, there's a big discrepancy on those previous three or four years. You know, went from about thirty five, thirty six thousand down to 22 up to 44. That occurred because because of COVID, we delayed issuing of permits for one year. So a lot of our permits come in just before July and get booked to the previous fiscal year. And then the ones booked coming in after July get booked to the current fiscal year. So, there was kind of a screwy thing, but we've been averaging around, you know, around 35,000 in fees plus or minus a thousand. So we're going to go up, you know, by, you know, five over four times that. Let me ask a question a different way.
Our permits are good for a year, correct? Correct. And do they run on the fiscal year? Do they all expire June 30? So everybody has to get a new one? They do. So why can't we just extrapolate the number of permits we've issued times the new fee and that'd be our revenue number for this year, assuming everybody renews?
Well, that's basically what we do, but remember the complicating factor is that each household is allowed up to two permits for that same fee. So, not every household has two. Some households have three and pay an additional fee. Okay. I mean, you can, but, you know, we've sat down and counted the number of permits issued in a year. We know what we're issuing. The revenue stream up to this point has been basically 35,000 a year in permitting, you know, and we know we're going up from $40 to $50 So, can pretty well estimate what we're going to end up with fees.
But wouldn't you want to know how many permits we've issued? Why would you care?
I only want to know how much money we're getting. It's a simple calculation. I know we have this many permits. I mean, they all renew. I mean, people don't have to keep them if they don't want to. I mean, they can have records on that. It just seems like,
just like you said, Diane. Yeah. But see, permits are in different categories. Like for instance, I have a permit that I paid $40 for, But somebody else might have two cars. So each of those permits only cost them $25
Yeah, but you know, not every person has to care about it. We just, right?
Yeah, I guess you you tie it to the person's residence, right? Right.
We just care about the household. You know, if they get to get two, it seems like Right.
Guess if it's if it's $50 per household, they get up to two vehicles in it. Right. But there's some households that have four or five stickers. So you can't just sue by household.
But that would be pretty rare. I would think. Sure. You know? So
But if we had a list of households or addresses, just did an estimate based on the number, I mean, it seems like we could get an estimate.
You want the exact number of I permits broken will supply that to you. But what I'm saying is that it scales directly off of the cost per permit. So if you increase the cost per permit, dollars 10 a permit, you can pretty well figure out what the difference in revenue is assuming the same number of people get sticker.
I'm trying to think, how would you get come up with that baseline? How would you know what the $10 factor to multiply it by to come up with a new number? I'm not following that. So take $35,000
multiply it by five over four. What do you get?
By the percentage increase in fees, that the baseline remains the the same. Mean, don't think it's an unreasonable way to approach this,
in my view. Then just do the math for me so I can see the calculation.
That's all I want to know. Basically, you have $44,000 43,750, if you wanna be exact.
Don't have enough light here to even see my calculator. Sorry. But Just put the number in there and give us Put in the notes how it was derived. That's all we need. Okay. Happy to do that. All right.
One other question I have. Okay. So you use a lot of acronyms, Eric. You put Z E O I W W W. I don't know what all those means. I'm trying to figure that out, but I see from one of your write ups that you said the zoning enforcement office is going from ten to fifteen hours. My question is, is that a shared service or is that an employee? And where is that in the budget?
Okay. So, there are, if you look at the land use department overall, you have a shared service for the building official.
I'm just increasing to ten, fifteen hours. That's all I want to know. Who is that and where is it? So, that's is the zoning official
and the zoning official has his own budgeted line item and
Salary zoning agent, that's him? That's him. So that does not, so when I go look at that salary spreadsheet that we have for the employees then, I'm assuming that's at Jim House policy, is that the correct person? Correct. Okay. Does the numbers on the salary spreadsheet account for fifteen hours? Is this the fifteen hour number or a ten hour number? That's my question. Because it's the same number, so I can't tell whether the extra five hours was built into here or not.
That is a really good question. I certainly thought it was, but it does not look like it.
Right. So his number needs to be fixed then because it's gonna be more than that. Because that's just the 3% raise number. We're gonna give him another five hours, so we need to up it another five hours. Correct. Good catch.
I'm a detailed person. Sorry. You guys have to bear the brunt of it.
No. That's great. Happy for that. I'd rather find out now than, you know, be doing a transfer later to figure out how to cover it.
You still see Stop. My We're still viewing your screen just so you're Okay. So this is a salary sheet I'm talking about and I have some yellow highlights that I kind of have some questions on.
Okay, we're not seeing that. You're not seeing it? No, we just see the blue, your blue background.
Oh gosh, I'm sharing screen too. Sorry hold on I'll move you to screen too. How's that? Does that work? There you go. That works. Okay, so election officials. Right. And
I don't see any increase in here. See $16,000 And I did modify this, sorry, because I could not understand your language. Okay, so I,
so that was done because last year due to COVID in a series of requirements, the cost for election officials last year, our overall costs went up quite a bit. The the two moderators, which is Wally Barton and Linda Derrick, felt that they could hold the same budget this year because they need basically less total hours and less total people per election than they did before. So that's why there's no.
No salary increase for them in this fiscal year coming up.
Correct. Can I just ask a quick question? Are we allowed to put this out publicly with everyone's names on it? I just want to make sure. I mean, I know we usually have different spreadsheets. I just want to make sure we take this down. Maybe I don't I don't know. I just want to make sure.
I mean, we've tried not to share this publicly. You know, we normally don't, but the reality is that all of this FOIA evolving. So if somebody actually asked me for it, I'm legally obligated to supply it anyway.
Right, and I know that people I can figure it just wanted to make sure so that we can. Sure.
Mean, can stop sharing my screen and just ask the questions. Sure. Probably more appropriate.
Yeah, so I'll just do that. Okay. So I am on to, there's a person and I gotta, I hate to use her name because I don't have a position name. I guess it's library clerk. Okay. Two people with the same name with different rates of pay, same hours. Don't So know that
that means that one individual holds two different tasks at the library and is paid at different rates depending on what she's doing for the library. And that's a library board decision, not a Erica Board of Selectman So
second item doesn't have any increase in it. So we're not doing any increase to that person at all.
I mean, that comes directly from the library board. That's the budget they've requested. So I don't.
Well, I would rather have notes in here saying no increase. So we know we didn't miss it. So we have, you know. Okay. Some kind of, you know.
So the other thing I wanna tell is that, I mean, we don't, let's see, if you look at the library, you know all we do for the library, the budget for the library has essentially two major line items. It has payroll and it has operations. If you look at the payroll line item, it has a 3% across the board increase. So, you know, it is possible the salary sheet that I have is incorrect for that. And there should have been a 3% increase. But what I don't know is I don't know, because for all those positions, I don't know what hours necessarily they're forecasting,
which is why it's difficult for us to put that information in there. And we don't, honestly, pay the library two things. You know, we pay for operations and we budget for the payroll they tell us to budget for.
Right. That makes sense. But in this salary spreadsheet where we have their hours per week and we are bringing some people up to minimum wage next year. So we have those items in there. So we should be showing them. So, don't
The one person with two different wages, sometimes she's the children's librarian and does children's programming. And the other time she's paid as just a regular library clerk. And when it comes to raises the library only the board of selectman can give raises so the library really has nothing to do with the salary amounts because the library board cannot raise or.
Right, so I thought, and the board of selectman's budget that they were giving all non union people 3% across the board. Well, that's what the library board thought too.
And then and then bringing up the people up to minimum wage if they were below minimum wage.
Let me ask you a question if I could interject are we just trying to establish that we have correct data here because I'm not sure this ends up being that material to the bounds of budget. And I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, stifle a conversation I do think it's very important that we have this data tie out, but I really want the data tie out because we've made mistakes in the data before and salary data set I think we to rectify right so you're absolutely correct there.
And it should be accurate. We should know what people are getting paid and Okay.
What it is. I'm just asking for the to understand what you presented because there's holes in it. It's not complete.
Yeah, I'll put a note to review the data for library payroll.
Diane, are you gonna add it to Sherry's question list maybe? Yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that.
Yeah, think it's probably the best. Last name on the list is just a name without a position. Do you know what position this person is?
Hang on a second. Let me pull up that graph. Sorry. I have 12 Excel spreadsheets open at the moment, so I got to close a couple first. Actually, I don't have that. Just tell me their name. Steven Postemski. Oh, sure. Steven Postemski. He is our assistant fire marshal. Okay.
Oh, it says fire marshal to and then there's two names on different lines. Yeah.
Yeah, but this name at the bottom doesn't have any name on it.
But if you look right above it says fire marshal with a two in parentheses.
And then there's a name on each line. Yeah, but there should be a position on each I'm sorry. I'm Yeah, probably just need to be carried down.
That's fine. All right, so now I know who that is. Oh, I'm gonna ask one question. Senior transportation drivers, do we have Correct. Any increase in here, the spreadsheet for them? There should
have been senior. What's the line item for senior transportation again? It's like, say They're blanks under new rate. Yeah, new rate is blank. Like fifteen, sixteen, 17. Oh,
okay. So there are two drivers. They both make different rates. They both get the same 3% raise as everybody else. The reason we didn't break it out is because their hours are so variable for week to week that it's hard to estimate. So, what we're doing is we're scaling that budget based on the average number of trips we're taking in the trend line of the trips we're taking per year. That's how we determined what we budget for that. We don't budget for individuals we budget for senior transportation as a whole.
That makes sense. I do think that it's confusing when there's no rate shown so they part of what I guess you really can't even do it I see what you're saying that new rate is total or whatever, but you could just say that we're new hourly rate would be Yes, the hourly rate should be there. Way there's understanding that it hasn't been forgotten. I think that's part of what we want to establish. And I think you should memorialize
for the budget how we came up with the annual cost because when we go over or under, we're going to want to know how did we get to that number last year to see if our estimate works. We need to snapshot that in a note or somewhere so we have it next to the item so we know how we came up with it. Because you know we'll talk about it next year. How did we do that? Nobody will know. Because I know the trips are increasing and I don't expect that they're gonna go down. The population is aging. Correct.
Correct. Yeah, we're on a pretty hard upward trajectory. The one thing I did want to talk about from senior transportation is going to be our gas budget. You know, while we have a lock in for diesel, know, buy gasoline, you know, pretty much on the open market and that's definitely a problem.
But we've got to do some extrapolation based on current usage or something over the last and apply the new. So, have the number of gallons we've bought in the last, say six months this year, and then just apply what we think the estimated, what the current going rate of gas is. I mean, we can't predict the future, but. Yeah, no,
all I'm saying is we can, the question becomes what do you use for your estimate as the cost of gas? So right now, you know, we've already did the current year budget. We're already over budget on gas and we got four months to go. So that's the fuel for dial a ride, which we level budgeted this year, but has to be wrong.
Gotta be wrong. I do the same as last year. Right. Right. And
the reason we did that is because when we looked at last year's expenses, you know, last year's expenses were considerably lower. So it's hard to judge. And we were originally, you know, gas was a lot cheaper in the fall when we first did this too. Like, you know, our expenses in previous years have been well under the 3,000, but there's two problems with that. The first is we're getting rid of one in this current budget. We're getting rid of our diesel bus and we're going with a second gas bus, number one. So what I'm telling you is that I think that number is going to need to come up probably fairly considerably Cost at this point, but that's one I was reviewing today. And I think our two lines for gas, which is here and for public works. I mean, baked in an increase for public works, but I suspect even our increase for public works, you know, may be low. That's one that's on my list to review. You know, we budgeted an increase from last year went from 5,700 to 8,000. But I suspect that's going to be low and I think we're going to need to revise that upward again based on, you know, just current trends.
I think, yes, we should be basing it on current market.
But are we really going to assume that gas prices paying today are going to hold for the next year? I mean, because we're at pretty close to historic highs right now. Know, that's the hard part.
Right. If you could do that, you wouldn't need to work for the town of Andover. Sell crystal balls on the side.
I mean Tough one. Mean, it's I should say clearly it's anywhere the next year. I couldn't hear you, Diane. What was that? I don't think inflation is going anywhere in the next year. Takes a long time for that inflation cycle to wind down. Sure. Yeah, the fuel prices are a lot more volatile. But yeah, it's it's a tough. It's a tough one, but I agree that we need to be cautious about that. We don't want to be challenged at the end of the year. Better be pleasantly surprised. So I think you're right, Eric, we need to adjust it where we do it. How far? Somebody's guessed.
I mean, I will come back to you with my best estimate based on, you know, scaling off, you know, what the relative numbers of trips I'm projecting for senior transportation and then a better guess public works. Okay.
Only other thing that I have to cover is the spreadsheet that came back from Sheri with the answers to the questions that were on that spreadsheet. So the spreadsheet I'm keeping is information we need and questions we have, and try to send that back and forth. And I was asking about the connectivity grant and what is being used for in this year and in the proposed budget. And I don't think what she, it's not roadwork. I know it's more than that. The Center Street and the Veterans Field improvements for connectivity?
No. So, you want, I can sell it, send you the full grant, you know, and all the easy IQC documentation. But in a nutshell, the town applied for DOT grant through their connectivity program. What that is, is that funds pedestrian and bicycle connections and kind of mobility stuff. So as part of that, we took the plan of conservation and development and the town's, you know, kind of master plan for, you know, pedestrian and cycling improvements. And we took one subsection. So we did two things. One, we talked state into upgrading the traffic signal at the intersection of Route 6 and Long Hill. That's not, that doesn't show as a grant because we got them to tack it on to a standard state grant program. So we never saw any of that money. We never spent it, but we got about $150,000 improvement out of that. And we piggybacked that with the connectivity grant, which was about $300,000.
And it did the sidewalk that runs down Long Hill, which is as far as we can go until that bridge is replaced. It will do a walkway in the front of the library, a redone handicapped ramp to the library, a new landing, new steps, and then across the street on the rail trail side, we're going to repave and redo the ramp up to the State Rail Trail, and then we're going to put an additional trailhead at Center Street. There'll be an additional parking area there. That's going to have an information kiosk. It's going to have a bike repair station, a couple of benches, a picnic table, just standard amenities and a better cut through, and then a lot bunch of signage.
There's a couple other little things along with the grant, but that's the majority of what that grant is. Oh, can we just get that in writing so I can keep it out of spreadsheets so I know what it's for? Because it's not roadwork. That answer is not correct. That's all I'm looking for. I'm just trying to understand. I know we have that money now. I don't know what plans we have for spending it in this fiscal year and how much of that is getting spent for next fiscal year for the improvements we wanna do. I think it's important for the town to know how we're spending money. That's all. Sorry I'm asking. Okay. I had a question about rental income at Veterans Field and the response back was the 500 rental fee has been shown as revenue in this account. Well, it's not, I was told the rental income from there was $7,500 So I'm very confused. Yeah, it is 7,500. Okay. Not 500.
So that's the only thing. And then I see the library grant that kind of gives me, and based on the information that you gave me some narrative on some grant stuff, Eric, I'm piecing the stuff together. This library grant is eligible for certain things. We haven't spent all the money yet, but we have to spend it by the end of March, correct? We have- I don't know totally how much we've spent on that is being covered by this grant.
Okay. So, we probably have, you know, so we've gotten the receipts for that from the library within the last, say, two days from the library. So, don't think that's been the journal entries have been done and all the bills paid, but that money has been spent essentially
at this point. So, the grant has been plopped into their operating account, which is labeled on our budget as dues and fees, which is a wrong label as a credit. I mean, as an income, netting against expenses. So, those numbers are screwed up on our current expenditure report. So, if we can get that fixed and then understand just, you know, obviously the whole thing is we've got to spend all the money or we have to give it back, correct?
Yeah, I think. I mean, you know, so basically what happened with that grant is that we gave them a list of the things that we, or the library gave them a list of the things that they felt were needed to, that were eligible under that program. They sent the money and now we're bought the things.
Let's just make sure we get the bookkeeping right on it. Okay, the library has
ordered everything to that amount. We're just waiting for the items to arrive at the library. Oh, that's good. So the money has been spent.
And these are items above and beyond what would be normally in their operating budget, correct? Right. Just need to make sure we got the right numbers when we're doing our comparison. That's all the questions I have. So I will try and get this spreadsheet updated with current questions and updated things, but we've got a lot of information that's gotta go back and forth. It's really hard. Eric, what you gave me for the grants was really nice, but it's really too much narrative. I'm just looking But
every time I send you a summary, you tell me you want the details, So
I just want high level. Evidence? I don't need the regulation. If I wanted to read the regulation, would have gone out and read it. So, know, so the questions I'm just going back to here. Let me find it. Simple, just so I make sure I'm explaining this clearly to everyone. All I was looking for grants was the grants we got last fiscal year, total dollar amount, what are the eligibility things? What can you spend them on? And what costs we spent out there? So if it was eligible for road improvement, we spent this much on road improvement. That's all I wanna know. And then year to date, that's all. Think it's important for people to understand how much money we get on grants and how we spend it in the town because there's a lot of money that we get spent that we don't tax people for to get things accomplished. And if we didn't have these, you know, our tax burden would be a lot higher. Correct.
You know? And we do have to account for this money anyways as far as a fiscal responsibility. So we should be able to know and account for every penny we spend and what we're spending on it and that the items items we're spending on is eligible to be spent on it. That's all. And it's just a couple sentences. What is the eligibility criteria for this? You know? Just in a couple sentences, what is it meant to cover? Okay. So you will understand that this grant is eligible for these items because people see a grant and unless you tell them what you could spend it on, nobody knows.
Okay. So what you're saying is you want me to take the grants document I have sent you and you want me to condense it down to just the basics and resend. Correct?
So, you know what I'll do? If you want me to, I will create you an Excel template spreadsheet for how I want the information laid out. You just fill in the cells. How's that? That's fine. That way we'll be all documented.
Right. I mean, of the problem with a lot of these grants is that, you know, the grants get spent in some cases over multiple years, you know, and it's, and what do you, you know, and it's hard next because there's often a big difference between the year you got the grant and the year you spent the grant, you know. Right. But
we've got a lot of money in grants, and I think we just need to account for them a little bit better and easier to get the data. I don't know how we keep all the data or any of that, which is I'm all for them being an account in our software so we can track the expenses and make sure we run reports off them. And we wouldn't be doing this all by manual process. So, that's all. All right, now that I hugged everybody's time, sorry, but these are all the stuff that came in today and I just wrote down all these questions. Just want to get them out. Yeah, there's a lot to cover. No doubt about it. And I think that the spirit of this is absolutely correct. Want to make sure
that we have accurate information and that we're not making adjustments midstream either to the year or even in the budget process. Okay. Other questions? Joanne?
I just have a quick question. Eric, do you have any idea, has RAM gotten in touch with you to let you know what they are going to do with the surplus that they discussed? Do we have a time frame on that to see if any of that chunk of money is going to I think their audit was finished. They spoke about how much money they're getting back.
So have you heard anything? They have not made a final decision as far as I know. I mean, they, their budget, honestly, budget doesn't, about the time we have our our town budget meeting is about when their budget is finalized because they finalize it just before referendum. So even though their budget is part of our budget, we're not going to know, you know, until very shortly before.
At our meeting, he says it's the RAM BOE budget is not vote isn't for the board until April 4. So they're the board of Ed of RAM isn't even voting on until April 4. We won't have anything until then. Yeah, I just, I wondered since we're asking questions.
If I end up, I'm still listening. If I end up, I might have to turn my camera off. I don't know how long this is going. I'm still there, but I thank you for that. I just wondered because that's something to consider. Sure.
Yeah, if memory serves from past years, you know the Ram referendum takes place separate vote a few weeks before we typically go to town meeting. It's locked in before, but it's not dramatically before. So it's always been this slightly tricky thing where we don't know until fairly close to when we are taking our budget to the town
what the final numbers are. So the way it's going to shake out this year is we're kind of recommending to the Board of Selectmen, I think May 4 for the town wide budget meeting. The referendum is May 3. So if it passes, we will know by the meeting, but
only right then. We're going to find out literally that day. That I think is correct me if I'm wrong, that's even closer than in the past. But there's an example of how we have to build in essentially our educated guesstimate. There's no way we're going to overnight to fix our figures. Right? I mean, we're going to have to roll with what's presented and go to our go to town meeting with what was brought to referendum, whether passes or not, because we're not gonna have time to
fix it, are we? Oh, if it doesn't pass, it if it doesn't pass, I think we just have to go with the same numbers. Right? Yeah. Passes. I'm not talking about the referendum part. I was talking about
the RAM board event hasn't even approved the budget. So what we Oh, right. Right. Sorry. I I jumped ahead. I have preliminary numbers. So it Yeah. If it changes as of April 4, we should make the amendments and then see what happens because Oh, agreed. Was
just I was jumping ahead. Sorry. I was talking about process. So are you all taking it? Like, I thought it could affect our numbers, but I think essentially it's the same thing. So even if they return some money to the town or they deduct it from their budget presentation, I guess it it really is just money both sides so. I mean I'm hoping they
reduce the budget but I'm not quite sure that will happen at the board. Yeah I was shocked last year
even you know how you know how like I spoke up there too just a little bit one person but it overwhelmingly passes. Right. Like, you know, so you have to spend your time in the right. Yeah, you're right. Thank you.
Eric just what were the dates you mentioned there is that the twenty third twenty fourth.
The as far as I understand the ram referendum is tentatively scheduled for May 3. Oh, yeah. After that makes sense. Sorry.
Lastly, of course, just saying that last year I was a private citizen so I could speak my mind. I know that I'm on the board of finance this year, so for anybody out there that's listening to this, you're still a private citizen. I know, I mean when I represent
the town that's the difference where we get the kind of new role you end up stepping into your hand up.
Yeah, I'm on the Andover budget page, I see that the budget. See the questions can be directed over to budget@AndoverCT.org, who's monitoring that and has there been any questions recently? As as I know not Amanda will be monitoring
that. Yeah, mean, she said we could get the password if she if we chose. Mean, personally, I don't think that I'm going to be monitoring that so I'll rely on her to kind of collect that data.
Will we be reporting that each meeting so we can kind of keep up to date as to what questions have been out there?
Sure, I think I think that's part of the intent is to capture that and she can either distribute it or you know, I would just like to kind of see just a okay, you know,
do it happen the old messages onto the new and keep track of them that way it makes sense. Okay, thanks.
Other questions or topics for discussion? A lot of material in the last couple of days. Know I haven't had a chance to look at it and I know it's gonna, it's gonna take some more equipment.
And, you know, and part of the problem is that, you know, when you put something on the list for us, it takes quite a while to generate all that data. So I mean, I can't get it back to you, you know, probably as fast as you want.
Yeah. It's fair. It's, you know, basically, you have five business days before if you take out Friday, but I know you guys don't work. It's it's a lot. I have to say, think we're getting closer. So the information is good. Is a little complicated to digest that. Haven't really had a chance to look at it.
I feel like now that we've had several of these meetings and we have the things, again, Valerie sent the the information today. So, you know, yesterday I would have had a little more time, but today I didn't. So like you said, if we take the next week and we get to look through everything we've had so far, Plus all the questions we've already brought forward. We should be moving, you know, and I guess we have public works next week.
And we did get a document that told us what we did for spent on roadwork for last year. I think Jay's just working on the current year. So we'll have that information for our meeting next week. Right. Excellent.
I should be able to get you the proposed roadwork next year or the proposed for the upcoming year. Just the one thing I want to mention where things get a little screwy is, you know, each year's Roadwork crosses two budget years. So it's kind of funky, you know, we think of a season as basically, you know, starting in about April and ending about October. So we always set aside a fair amount of money. We, you know, we certainly wouldn't spend every bit in next year's Road Year budget by October. Leave a fairly considerable amount because usually we can get better, you know, contractor availability and in some cases costs by doing work before July 1, You know, when a lot of towns don't really have money yet.
Would it benefit us when we get those projects? And I'm not talking for upcoming because I know it's going to cross years, but for the past year to understand what months or what seasons we did them in so we can, also I'm trying to look at is what we spend on roads every year and tie it back to the money we're trying to put aside and what we have in town and the balance we care carry forward. I'm just trying to wrap all that together.
Right, so you can ballpark and say most years, you know, we're carrying over, we're starting the spring, you know, with between $250,000 and $300,000 $350,000 you know, that we will expend before July 1. You know, and part of it is like, for instance, the shimming process. You know, there's a, the contractor's in for, you know, thirty or thirty five days. That usually comes, you know, it takes time to mark the roads, then you got to sweep the roads, you know, then you got to crack seal the roads, then you bring the shim contractor in, and then you come in and you chip seal or do whatever you're going to do after. So, that whole process takes basically most of the summer.
I don't know if that answered your question. Probably not.
I'm just trying to make sense in my little mind that all this work we have to do and how much money we set aside trying to put a correlation to the numbers, you know what I mean?
Eric, I know you said you know I do get the whole year calendar year thing of that the work takes place in certain months, can we get something maybe on an 18, not trying to make more work for people, we can ask Jay, but can we see what road work's been done in the last eighteen months? And we won't estimate that number just to see this is how much we get in one full season. I don't know, is that something we could do?
I think it's a good document to have because you know when I look at what came over today real quick and I just saw a $500,000 number, that's a significant accomplishment for us. Not something we should be talking about. You know, we need to, for this budget, know, say, what did we accomplish last year? And this is what we did with your money and this is what we want to do going forward. So people understand that, you know.
Can I ask when did we That was something today that we received? No, Eric.
It's an Eric's email. It's a document and it was last fiscal year's stuff. That was today?
Yes. Okay. Surprised because I didn't think it was that much. Do you know what I mean? So that's you know I'll take a look at it tomorrow or later. But I'm in you know and I go to all the meetings and I hear everything and it surprised me. So, I can imagine the people who don't know anything. How it would impact them?
Well, I mean, you think about it, you know, we're gonna have this year, we're gonna have what $180,000 in town aid road and we're going to have $330,000 you know, we're putting in for the roadwork. And we're going to utilize about $128,000 from a steep grant, you know, and we're going to spend about $2.70, you know, well, the remaining 250,000 from the connectivity grant. So, I mean, you know, we're going to spend a buttload of money between roadwork and general construction projects. There's no question. You know.
I don't think people, until you add it all up, I don't think people understand how significant it is.
Right. However, you know, we currently have about a $5,000,000 backlog in roadwork, you know. Nobody's
gonna think of it as that. Everybody knows there's a backlog, but people need to know this is what we did for you last year and this is what we need to get this year done. Do know what I mean? Right. Short chunks. Right. Yep.
Because $5,000,000 seems too unreachable. Whereas now, if we're showing the fact that we do. Do you know what I mean? It looks like we're working our butts off. Do know what I mean? Right.
Here's kind of the thing to keep in the back of your head. Given, well, I probably should update it now. Given prices about two years ago, to maintain the quality of road, the average that we have currently costs about 30 or $350,000 a year. So, our roads age about $350,000 a year, you know. That is the, you know, the depreciation on our roads. So, anytime we can spend more than $350,000 you know, we can make a net increase in the quality of the roads. Now the problem is we're starting from a whole. Our average road quality, you know,
two, three years ago when I started this off, our average road, what's called PCI or pavement condition index was 61, almost 62. So, that means our average road had about 75% of its effective life already used up, which is bad, right? Cause you want to get to the point where your average road is at 50% of its useful life, and that means you're putting in, you know, you're at midpoint. Other than that, your road quality is better. Worse than that, you know, you know your expenses are going to go up. You know, so that's kind of the nutshell. I mean, basically what we're doing is starting not last year, but the year before, you know, we did all the simple things we could to the good roads because it's much cheaper to preserve good roads than it is to fix
bad roads. In other words, a little a few dollars early in the life of a road saves you a lot of dollars later in the life of the road. So, the first thing we did is we addressed all our best roads, did something to them, put them aside, you know. And then, you know, we took all the remaining roads and we're just going around the counterclockwise doing a quarter roughly a quarter of the town at a time, maybe a fifth of the town at a time, and just doing the minimum we can to increase the drivability of the road. The problem comes in is once we've gone through the town once, we're still not, we still have an underlying problem is that the basic structure under the road where most of our roads kind of sucks because they were all colonial cart paths that just got macadam over them and then ultimately paid.
So at some point, you know, for the next number of years, we can get the drivability back to the road and make people happier. But at some top point, we're going to have to bite the bullet and start investing in systematically grinding up our roads and redoing the substructure in the road. And that's where the 5,000,000 comes in, you know. But I would also say that the town's single most expensive asset is its road network. That road network is way more costly to maintain and way more valuable than everything else the town owns put together, including the buildings, the schools, vehicles, you name it. That is the biggest single most expensive thing. And if we had to start over and build our road network right now, it would be about $20,000,000
to build out our road network. So that's roughly the new cost, the replacement cost for all our roads.
I just want to interject a simple question going on. Thank you for all of that and I know we'll get into it more next week and all. The reason are you telling me and I know we'll talk about. You're on mute. You just cut out. Sorry.
You're still muted. I get it by mistake. I got to keep my hands. With the new positions, are you saying the people that we want to bring on board in those positions, they do a lot of the prep work? I think I was hearing you the skimming, this and that. Do they do are there and this can be really brief because I know this meeting has gone long, so I'll ask more last week. But are they coming in to do a lot of the prep work, you know, that or do they actually do a lot of the road work? So these individuals are when we say road work, they're doing it.
So no, we do very little roadwork in house. We do almost all of our own drainage work. You know, we do, we clean all our own waterways, you know, we do our own leaf pickup, we sweep. There's an enormous amount of like just annual maintenance on our roads and our structures. You know, we've got 500 catch basins in town. Every single one of them gets sucked out every year, you know, and all our waterways get maintained. We go around and we periodically push the edges of the road back. It takes one guy basically full time all summer just to mow the roadsides, you know, plus a bunch of other work doing guardrails and stuff like that. So the major reason that the Board of Selectmen wants to bring on an additional person is because we have an enormous backlog of drainage work that needs to be done. And as we start talking about reconstructing a road, the one thing you absolutely don't do is you don't reconstruct the road until you've got the underlying drainage straightened out. Because there's nothing stupider than having a beautifully paved road and then going down and having to cut it up to replace a drainage pipe. Know, so that's it. Thank
you. Know we'll go into it a lot next week with that. I remember one of the meetings that I was listening to I thought that the extra person was definitely coming on board for a lot of the road work and I'll read up and I'll yeah thanks I know there's a lot of other things they do as well yeah.
Okay, questions or comments? Well, hearing none, I guess we can move on to our next agenda item, which is correspondence. We haven't had any public input that I'm aware of. The board members have all received the input from Eric and Sherry on the various things that were requested, a lot of which we discussed briefly tonight, but there's a lot in there to digest. Anybody have any other correspondence to report?
No, but I had a question, if you don't mind, Mark. Sure. You know, we all got that letter. We were all copied on the letter from Amanda. Is that something that the board of selectmen simply needs to deal with and we deal with it if and when they deal with it? Correct. K. Rob,
they've made some background. What were you saying? What was the question again? Sorry. I I think Eric heard me. I mentioned the letter that got sent around from Amanda about her compensation, hours, etcetera. And what I said to what I said, and I think Eric agreed with, is that it seems to me that that is a border selectment issue that we can take up if and when they make a decision on how to respond. Yeah. But I just wanna ignore it. Amanda has been kind of a key person for for us on all our meetings and everything, and it was out there, and I just thought I would bring it up. I saw it. I think you all saw it. And I guess we just wait for the board of selectmen to do what they need to do. Rob, just to tell you, they went into executive session
at the last board of selectmen meeting. I mean, I'm not gonna talk per particulars because it's a personnel matter, and it, you know, probably should be confidential. But if they did that meeting, they said they were going into executive session. Okay. Good. They had so maybe we'll hear something in the future. Okay, good. Okay,
other comments, questions, correspondence related? Alright, hearing none, we'll open it up once again for public speak. Looks like all we have on line is Shannon right now. Thank you very much Mark. I have no comment.
Okay, thank you. Okay, I think that ends our public speaker. Last agenda item is adjournment. Would anybody like to make a motion to adjourn? I'll make it.
Joanne. Okay, I heard Louise I saw Joanne raise her hand so I heard Louise record that Joanne seconds. Okay. Any, any emotion and second to adjourn any comment.
Question, have we heard from Kurt, is he going to be able to join us for future meetings have we heard anything
We were talking about earlier before the meeting started. Eric said he thought he heard he was coming back in town, but you haven't heard any details. I
thought he was actually back in town by now. I did reach out to him, but I did not get a response. Okay. Right. So
if no further discussion on the motion, we'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye.
Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the meeting is hereby adjourned. Thank you everybody. Have a good night and a good week. Thank you folks.