Meeting transcript
BOF Special Budget Meeting
May 6, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
All right, folks. Welcome. It's this is the Board of Finance special budget meeting on May 6th, 7:02. We're going to call this thing to order. Oh, there's Kim. I'm admitting her now.
Okay.
All right. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.
Okay. So, as we've just been chatting about, we have public speak to get through. Again, I'll just add if you could keep it tight, it would be appreciated. There's a lot of people on here. We have, you know, like 30 people here. So, let's go. Let's start. I'm just going to go down my list here. First, I have Alex. You'll need to unmute yourself, Alex.
All right. Going once, going twice. I may have to come back to you. Okay. Diane Chet.
Good evening, everyone. I'll keep it quick. just want to say this current budget that was presented that failed at referendum was like the largest increase we've had in a extremely long time. So I am for all for reducing the budget significantly. I would expect to see the school come in around four or 5% increase and the town no more than 3%. That's my two cents. Thank you.
Thanks for your comments, I really have nothing to add. Just good luck and God speed.
Thank you,
Eric Nuns or Nunes. I apologize. I'm not sure.
That's okay. Thank you. as always, I just want to thank the boards for your for your work on the budgets and throughout the year. I emailed all the boards earlier, so you know my thoughts already, but just to make it public, I would, appreciate not any drastic cuts. as I mentioned in the letter, Hein really voted down the all their budgets. So, they're going to be looking at making cuts and I anticipate Ram will have to make a deep cut. I've heard Hebrin's looking at Ram to make a 0% increase, which will bring down the Andover share considerably. so I would really appreciate if we didn't make any drastic cuts tonight. kind of see what happens next Tuesday with Ram's budget and then go from there. And as I mentioned in my letter, I want us to all realize that our taxes are lower than they were 3 years ago. So just to kind of keep that in mind, too. Thank you.
Thank you, Elizabeth Partridge.
Well, I don't know about everyone else's taxes, but my taxes aren't any lower than they were two years ago. But that's a side note. I appreciate all the work that you guys are doing and I I agree that we need to make some drastic cuts or we're going to be back in this cycle multiple times. That's it. Okay. I'm going to come back and see if Alex is available at this point. Alex, do you want to speak?
yes, thank you so much. nothing else to add, just that would appreciate more transparency in terms of budget cuts. and hoping to be around that limited increase, if any increase at all. Thank you. Appreciate everything you guys do.
Scott, I'm good for now. Thank you, sir. Very good.
I'm good. I'm just listening.
All right. Thank you, Jen Mcoldendrick.
I'm just here in support of the school. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you, Jenny Morell.
Same thing as Jen in support of the school. Thank you.
Very good. Thank you. Joanne.
Hi everyone. I'll be real quick. I think we knew this day was probably coming. I know a lot of you were reticent to make any major cuts or really too many cuts at all until you got the opinion from the town people and now I think they have spoken all across the board. You know, it was nice to see Diane Shet, a former board of finance member there today. you know, we did used to do a lot a lot of work. so please dissect everything. every time I've always seen a surplus every year, so know that even if you made a deep cut somewhere, you'll probably be able to fix it by transferring some money in. Number two is I've been you know, kind of on board with maybe cutting some of the capital funds just this year. You can always refund them another year just to help in that way. We've got a lot of money. Those are like those little bank accounts, so they're adding up. You
know, some can't be cut, but some can. And then lastly, I had sent you a long email outlining some salary concerns that I had just, you know, hoping that those had time to be checked in so that we have accurate information that you're starting with and then possibly if you're adding new positions and salary lines, there's no need to keep those stipens there. So, there's a cut that could be made. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Now, where am I? Jody,
you're muted.
Sorry, I was trying to do it. I'm I'm just here to listen and thank you for your continued work and for support of our students.
Thank you. Kathy, there's two Kathies. So just the one that just has a Kathy.
I'm just listening. Thank you.
Very good. Thanks. Kathy Harnett Hartnet.
Yep. I'm here in support of the school. Thank you.
Very good. Thank you, Katie Dixon.
Here in support of the school. Thank you.
Okay, Kelsey. Kelsey going once, going twice.
Here to listen. Sorry.
No worries. Understood. Linda Derek, Linda, Derek. I'll pass over and go to Linda Fish then. Hi. All set. Just here to listen.
Thank you, ma'am. Ameritus member.
Lisa, our treasurer is here. Good to see you, Lisa.
I'm here. I'm just working on stuff while while I'm sitting here. So, yes, I'm just here to listen and see what you need me to do.
Yeah, we're going to track some stuff tonight, I imagine. That's
what I thought.
Very good.
hey there. I'm just here to support the school and I'm really hoping that the the school budget isn't cut very much. I know they're already working with the deficit. there's an increase in student enrollment. So, just trying to make sure that, you know, hold on. Nope. Go on up. Just want to make sure that, you know, my kids get what they need and hopefully everybody else. So, thank you guys for all you do, though.
Thank you. Matt, I believe our administrator is here.
Just watching. Thank you.
Very good, sir. Matthew Hagerty.
All set, but thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Melissa Latesca.
yeah. I just wanted to say that I after hearing and reading all the articles in the River East and everybody's concern is that the taxes overall are getting higher and residents are having a hard time keeping up with taxes and as fuel prices increase and inflation has been going up. I think as a town we just really need to look at increasing our tax base and our revenue so that the b the residents don't bear the brunt of the burden of taxes. I just hope that that's a conversation that starts being had more and more frequently. How do we increase tax revenue in the town?
Okay, Michelle Lorent.
I'm here in support of the school and the town. I feel like both the budgets were reasonable. I my concern is with the budget cuts is how much that's going to affect us in the coming winter and hurricane season when we cut town budgets. I mean, we've already been struggling I think with keeping people on. as well as only having one plow person, it caused a lot of chaos this winter. the other thing is is that when we consider the school budget, are we considering the effect it's going to have on students that are protected by IDEA and state laws? a lot of people especially if you are older than 43, you don't remember inclusive inclusive learning. and so there were institutions back then and there aren't anymore. And so we have to service all children equitably and equally. And without proper funding, those students don't get what they need. They don't get the services they need. They don't get they don't get a real learning environment. And so when we do things like that, like are we really taking into consideration the effect it's going to have on future adults and whether or not honestly like whether or not we're just doing it to reduce the dollar because everything everything in cost is going up and that's not just an andover thing that's a national thing. so I really hope that you're considering not just the youth but the seniors in town that require needs,
people that have needs that need more support with getting in and out of their houses, able to get their medications, things like that. and I guess that's really all I have to say. I mean, so thank you.
Thank you. I believe next up is Marcy. Hey, Rob. Did you get my message? I just texted you. Someone's Someone's trying to get in.
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm I'm probably so deep in the participant list. I didn't see it. There's two people.
I just texted you. Yeah, I just texted you. Sorry about
I got it. Thank you.
Yep.
Apologies, everyone. It's a very long list now.
I obviously everyone the town's people have spoken. hope you'll listen to the words that they said with their votes. I wanted to answer Miss Latesca's concern about the town. I'm on the EDC committee and one of the things that I discovered by being on the committee is that we just don't have any money to support the town increasing our tax base. And you see a lot of towns have budgets for marketing and campaigning to get new businesses in town. and it's something that we struggle with. So, one of the things that, you know, we try to do is encourage our community to be, you know, a a welcoming place for everyone. but it's it's it's been a challenge without the money that we need for, you know, marketing ourselves. So, anyway, that's just an answer to that. Thanks.
Yeah, that's true. all right. I think I'm going to back up for a second because one of some people I'm admitting are in the list now. Mike Beckwith, do you have a public comment for us?
No comment. Thank you.
Sam Long.
Hi. Here in support of the school. Just listening.
Okay. Thank you, Sam. All right. I have a person here just listed as a Sam song. I I don't know who that is, but if you'd like to public speak, now is your time.
All right, I I'll come back. Shannon.
Yes, sir. first of all, I don't think we need to make drastic budget cuts. I don't think that was necessarily the message from yesterday. I believe that there are some relatively easy fixes that will make the town's budget more palatable to our community. First, the town is going to receive about $100,000 from the state that has to be used for education. That's getting back to being more equitable now with an increase in the ECS dollars that hadn't been changed since 2013. Second, there's $50,000 sitting in account that AES would have asked be put in our capital account. but that's certainly it's sitting there. It can be turned to the town and not put into our capital account. Third, at a time when we're all feeling financial pressures, I think we do need to use some money. I suggest at least $100,000 from the town's very hearty fund balance. I just think either to do what Joanne said, which is to not fund some of the funds for the town, or to take money out of our fund balance. I know you want to keep it at about 15%. But maybe with all of our needs this
year, that just won't be possible. And I'll echo what was said earlier. I think we're RAM clearly is going to have to cut its budget. So, we're going to see some savings there. If you do determine that you need to cut budgets, which I have already said I don't think you're going to need to, I ask that you cut similar amounts from the towns and the school's budgets to reflect that the voters thought that both budgets were similarly too high. Last year, you cut the school by 160,000 and you added 50,000 to the town's budget, which I don't believe was equitable. Again, I don't think you need to make drastic cuts. There's money there that can be used to offset our towns and schools expenses that I think would make the budget a lot more palatable and hopefully passable. Thanks for all the work you're going to do.
Thank you, Shannon. okay, Stacy Coffman,
just listening. Thank you. Thank you. Anna, no, sorry, Valerie.
Hello. So, I would echo what most everybody has has said already. Last year was a very difficult year. As as Shannon Lden said, that $160,000 one-way cut was very difficult. but I would also remind all of of you guys and the and the taxpayers that from 2015 to 2020, we were cut $418,000. And so in the last 10 years, our increase up to date is only $244,000 for a decade. And so that's where we are very different from some of our neighboring towns. The way we got in this situation this year where unfortunately that number is a lot higher than people would hope it was is not because of poor spending. It's not because of a lot of additions this year. It's simply because we kicked the can for years and years. And I know that's not what anybody wants to do on the town side or the school side. So, as been mentioned already, there are quite a few other revenue sources to consider instead of cuts. as was also mentioned in a school budget, there's a lot of mandates, unfunded mandates, but mandates that can't be cut. So, I'm just hoping that, you know, there's a collaborative effort to drop the bottom line, but to also remember the cuts that have happened to the school, not only last year, but in years prior. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Belle. sorry. where was I? I don't know if you want to try Samsung again if they're still
Yeah. yes. Whoever the Samsung phone is.
Yeah. Sorry about that. can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you.
My name's My name's Dave Tibido. Sorry, I didn't realize that it was listing my phone. But I mean, I, you know, I appreciate the, you know, it it's like walking a tight rope for you guys and I appreciate the how hard it is to to come up with a budget, but you know, there's there's also a quality of life that needs to be maintained and, you know, by raising taxes, everybody's quality of life goes down or a lot of people's quality of life. So, it's not an endless source of revenue to raise people's taxes. And I know you know that, but just wanted to add that. And I I would also say I haven't seen a decrease in my taxes in the last five or six years. So, I don't understand that comment, but
Oh, I I mean, I can just just briefly. I mean, last year when we finally passed a budget, it there was actually it was actually a very small decrease to taxation. It was half a percentage point. I'm not saying it was
well I didn't see it in my tax bill. So I I don't know maybe there was a mistake but anyways it is what it is right. So I would just that's all I want to say and you know everybody you know the school not everybody uses the school. Okay my kids are grown but you know of course when they went to school I obviously supported the school. I still support school. but you know I look at some of the the charge the expenses that the school has and some of them are a little bit outrageous but you know I I think the
towns have spoken and I know Andover didn't speak as loud as Heurn but a little disappointed to see the small turnout in Andover but anyway good luck to you guys and hope we can come up with something reasonable. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. apologies because the list is so long. Stacy, did I get you already?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Toriiana, I believe you are from the River East. I believe just to to watch our meeting, but if you want to say something, now's your time.
I am from the River East, but I am all good. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Leanne Hutchinson.
Yes. Hi. I don't have any specific suggestions at this time. I was just wondering often things are done by the board of finance by percent and this may come up by itself but if you make decreases tonight I was just wondering if you could translate that into what that or or very close to what that would make the mill rate be. Thank you. Yeah, we we can we have the mill rate spreadsheet and depending exactly on where we end up the calculation we may end up collapsing the mill rate back into one
a simpler calculation
percent or thank you. Yeah, whether you do it by percent or or by straight dollar. We can we can we can pull up that mill rate calculation spreadsheet. You know, if we once we have a a number, we can we can talk about what that would mean.
Thank you.
Okay. Now, since I was admitting people during this, if I have missed anyone, speak up now. I don't think I think there might be one person. I I don't I don't know if I missed anyone. If if anyone hasn't had a chance for public speak, please speak now. I see Mike Beck with on. I didn't see him in the comments.
We got Mike.
Oh, we did. Oh,
yeah. He got He got his chance.
There's a phone number.
Jesse Ban. Did he have a chance?
Oh, Jesse. That's right. We I don't I think I just admitted him recently.
Did Geette get a chance as well or
Geette? No, I don't think so. Geette, right. So, all right. let's start with Jesse and we'll go to Geette next.
good evening. No, I'm just curious to see what happens today with the board after last night's mandate. Just curious to see what's going to happen. Thank you. Thank you, Geette. Okay. and again, there is a phone number. It's just 742-5475. Did Did we get you?
Yes. This is Leanne. Again, my phone number almost always shows up in addition to my name. I don't know why that is, but thank you. No problem.
That is me.
All right. Understood. Technical issues. They are. But they are.
We have Elizabeth Partridge, too. I don't think she was.
We got Elizabeth, I believe.
Oh, she Oh, she did speak. Okay.
Did we get Anna?
Oh, we didn't get Anna.
Oh, did was Anna one of the late admits? Okay, Anna, you're up.
Good evening. I'm just I'm watching from the laptop and listening and speaking from my phone because I'm having some audio issues. I just listening in just for see what happens this evening and just following up on my request after the last public meeting. I sent an email and I would still like to request the line items for total salaries both for the town of Andover employees and for the Andover public school employees as well. So just following up on those requests.
Okay. Jeff is
Jeff McGuire. I don't think you hit Jeff. Oh, is Jeff on? I didn't see him on the list. That's weird.
Why is I come up as Tone of Andover.
Oh, okay. For some reason, I was thinking that was Matt, but you're right. Matt's on his own name. All right. Go ahead, Jeff.
That's good. I don't I don't have anything to add to public speak. I'll talk during the meeting.
Fair enough.
All right. So, that gets us to discussion. before we get into the discussion, I just want to mention my understanding of the state number the the the supplemental aid that we're receiving is $97,943. And you know, I'm thinking about Lisa where we want to put that, you know, whether it's revenue, whether it's, you know, intergovernmental, whether it's a supplemental line that we just stick underneath the ECS number. But that number needs to come in, you know, right off the top there. You know, it's about a 1% benefit to us in terms of in terms of lowering the tax increase. so there's that. we talked briefly about the likelihood of Ram's number coming down. They have a meeting, I believe, Tuesday. so unfortunately that overlaps with our next town meeting, town budget meeting, but that is when they'll be making I think their decisions. It's hard it's hard to know what they're going to do and we can't plan exactly on
it, but I I think we can plan on some benefit from that. okay. So, the results, why don't we I got that email from Diane. Why don't I go ahead and share this? All right. Can you guys see this?
All right. So, I mean, I think we all know this number here. The the I think we wanted to look at here with the advisory questions. As you can see, majorities, with a slightly larger majority on on the school side, but majorities said both budgets were too high. you know, 456 for the school, for 392, for the town. So, those inform, you know, kind of my perspective on what we need to do. in addition to obviously kind of the the help we're getting the oneshot help we're getting from the state and whatever benefit we might get from RAM. Now board members will recall going into the town meeting when we presented our budget we had made a decision to take the budget to the town and get the feedback before we did anything visav fund balance. You know,
last year part of the way we got that little tax decrease in, you know, in our budget was to use $190,000 in fund balance. This year, right now, as the budget stands, we're using none. we have 2.1 million in unassigned fund balance, so we could consider that in addition to cuts. So, you know, my thinking is to do a mixture u a mixture of using, you know, the benefit from the state money a mixture of a little bit of fund balance and a mixture of cut small cuts I think modest cuts to school and town and try to get us down to more like you know if we could get down to three and a half or something like that we're at 6.7 now for for review for recap purposes for a tax increase obviously as people have mentioned much higher tax increase than we've seen for quite some time in this town so if we could get that down to a much more moderate number I think we we stand a decent chance of passage. So, that's my two cents, but I'm going to open it up to the rest of the board
to talk about it and and you know, hear your thoughts about what you want to do.
Oops. Sorry guys, I should leave that up.
Rob, did you say the RAM meeting is next Tuesday?
That is my understanding. originally I think they were going to do it Monday night, but I heard from Robera today that that they had moved it to Tuesday.
Okay. And when is when do we when does this when do we have to have ours done again by?
We have we have to take it to the town Tuesday.
It's unfortunately it's an overlay. The the thing about the charter is that when we have a rejected budget, we have to go back to town meeting in a week.
Right. So if we went back whatever we did
and our budget passes
and then RAM comes back with a different number
if they come in say say we don't incorporate any any propos you know any thoughts of a of a cut there because we can't because they haven't made a decision yet. We would if our budget passes then I think after our budget passes we still meet to set the mill rate and when we would do that we would simply set a lower mill rate.
Okay.
I think we still can take it into account even if it's after
yeah I mean because it's it's it's just a lowered outlay. So we would just lower the mill rate accordingly. I I believe
thank you.
So, since the budget did not pass, now we're dealing with two separate budgets. Correct.
Do we want to concentrate on one on the town first and go to AES or who's got comments on that?
Obviously, we should probably look at them individually, one at a time.
That's what I said,
right?
I think that makes sense.
Let's go look.
I agree.
Yeah. I I wouldn't I'm curious to look at to kind of compare the operations side from the the capital side. it's been a while since
I got to pull up our spreadsheet here. Hang on a second, Liz. It's a good point. Let me
I want to I'm trying to find the most recent one. There's an awful lot of these. We've been making a lot of changes and and deliberations. So, give me a moment. I should have had that up already. Let me look.
I think it's also it's hard to say that the town has spoken one way or the other when only like less than 800 people voted.
That's sad.
I forget how many total voters we have, but I I think we have like,00.
I think we had three quarters turn, you know, three quarter turnout. I I I could be wrong, guys, but that's my recollection.
Yeah, it's pretty okay.
It's actually pretty good for a budget for
a budget referendum. I would describe it as high turnout, actually. Very good turnout.
Yes. And everyone has the right to go ahead and vote. I mean, if people decide not to do it, it's on them.
Yep.
All right. Let me just see the most recent spreadsheet that I have. That's the pure. And Rob, if you could let me know your total so I'm I'm make sure that we met.
Yeah, I want to, you know, Lisa, I'm looking I was looking for the last one from you. I mean, I have one board budget prelim 32426 and I feel like is that really the last one?
48 should be one for 47 or 48.
That's where I'm trying to find it. that's why I want to make sure I've got the right one. Apologies. If you have it ready to hand, can you email it? I was just going to say, yeah, Lisa, does the one that you have have the notes on the side that we talked about in the column.
When you say notes, I'm just looking at my laptop. When you say notes,
it's whatever is in notes that are in the book. Is that what you're talking about?
Like whenever we were discussing certain line items,
right hand column, we would add notes.
Yeah. Okay.
it it is on the website, too. But do you guys I mean, this isn't I have I have a chart that's dated 51. That's seems to be
I don't think I have that because
town meeting was only what 4-1 and then the vote was five. So I don't
know why it says 41. It must have it must be a five might be a typo but it's town it say it's entitled town budget meeting. But why don't you send around the last one you have because I want to work off yours and we can, you know, not have any screw-ups here.
all right.
Send me what you've got so we can look at it again. We can and we can look at ops, we can look at capital.
going to take
as I recall we were at we were at about a 6% increase on the town side op for the ops budget and negative two 2.9 for capital that's where I remember us being and then I'll share it and we'll go through it. Now I want to make sure I'm grabbing the right one. So sorry we should have sorted this out earlier. it's got RAM on it because I know we had to make that last minute RAM change. So hold on.
Right. I have a Miller rate one 43, but that's just the mill rate chart. We need the We need the detail, the budget detail.
Let me just open it up before I send it. Make sure.
Okay. Thank you.
All right. This looks like prelim as of 4826. So, it's coming at you, but just
Oh, it's saying missing subject. Hold on. It's going to put
All right. Well, you know, while we wait for that,
All right. I sent it. See if you all get it.
Okay.
Jeff and Scott, should I send it off?
Thank you.
To the board of selectmen, too, or just let it go? No. Okay,
I got it. Let it go for now. We could send it out. We could send out whatever we
Okay.
Let's Let's do our thing and then we can circulate what we've produced.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
You go ahead and share that.
Yeah, I'm I'm working on that right now.
Okay. So, I just want to double check something while we're here. I got to move some things so I can actually see this. What do you think? I was going to say if we just take a look at that vote and just that is the dollar amount on that vote. It's not. Is it the one you showed? It's probably not.
Sorry. What?
I just wanted to verify that total is the total that was on that vote total. But I don't think the dollar amounts are on there. Are they
that you showed?
No. Yeah.
No, but I I mean we have the budget presentation we could look at, but I I this looks right to me. 6.08. That's correct. Yeah.
2.92. That's correct.
This is right.
Okay. And we made the entry down at the very bottom about RAM. So,
yeah.
Yep.
Yeah. The RAM line 503.
Yeah. Yep.
Cuz we had this here. This is the 20 258,
right? So, you know, now, oops, sorry. I was trying to scroll up. one of the things, Lisa, I don't know how we want to display it.
Yeah.
Right. But, where do we have? So, here's ECS, right?
So, now would we add something here to the effect of supplemental state aid fiscal year 27 and put in that number that we're going to, you know, the 97,000, etc. number here. Oh, sorry. That's the wrong year.
Yeah. Way over there. Yeah.
There we go. 97 943.
And then fix your cell. Yeah.
Just one second. Just so we understand that that number is broken down into two pieces.
Yes, that's correct.
Right.
So, we might want to display it that way if you want. supplemental education aid is 80,192. So, I'll tell you what. We'll just let's just do it that way. And we'll tally it. we'll say supplemental ECS. Is that fair? 819 two. And then down here it would be supplemental town aid FY27 and that is 17751. And so everybody's aware that 80,192 has to be an increase in the budget total to even get that money. Just letting everybody know that.
And sorry, sorry. Hold on. Hold on a second. What What were you say there, Jeff? Because
we have to raise the budget by a minimum of 80,192 to get that money,
which we've already done. Well, you will you've already
I was looking at the guidance the email we got from CCM talking about guidance indicated that but it also was saying that you know towns that had already passed their budgets had that issue but it was it wasn't clear to me that because we haven't passed a budget yet and we have an increase in there that that's the case for us.
What I'm saying I'm not I'm not telling you you won't increase it by that amount of money. I'm telling you if you don't increase it by the educational spending by 80,192 the town would not get the money.
Right?
That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's good. I'm just telling you at a minimum
it needs to go up by that much 80,192 to get the money.
Right. Understood. That's correct. Thank you. So just to just to have that now let's see if that propagated properly. Let's go down to the bottom. and see if that hopefully all the formulas worked. And we should see a lower number now. No. See, now it didn't.
Well, expenditures. No, expenditures is that's right. Expenditures shouldn't have changed. That's fine.
Do you need to negate it? Make it
brand total revenue. There we go. Now, this hopefully includes it. Let's take a look here.
Now, see, it's not picking it up.
All right. I would go back up to the top. That's what I'm trying to do. And just make sure that your total for your revenues are correct
because that's that cell may not be included,
right? You added
It's not drawing from this cell for some reason. And it's drawing from
that cell though cuz that was the total. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.
Right.
We need I27.
What?
Here because this is picking up this that's correct. This is the this is now the the intergovernmental revenue number. It's 2.2 million now. So I27
here.
Are these dogs been eating poop?
No.
Would we add Well,
don't we need to take it and make it negative if we're getting that money?
No. That would be
We're adding to revenue. We're adding to revenue. Yeah.
Adding it to revenue. All right. Actually, I think it's five. there and then we add this I 26.
You want to do your totals though. I'm what I'm doing is I'm trying to add cuz cuz you know we split the two numbers. One goes under other town revenue and one goes under you know education revenue, right? So, you see what I did?
I24 is Let's come back up here. Right.
I24 is the regular ECS number. I25 is the supplemental ECS, the 80,000. And then I26 is the supplemental town aid. Right.
All right. Hold on. Where did Now I've got the education part. Where did you put the town part?
Right below it. I put it
enter
in other town revenue here. I added I26. Excuse me.
Oh, no. I
Does that make sense?
Well,
yeah, but but top somewhere where you put in the
Oh, wait. I 27's already being in there, isn't it? Interesting. Why is I27?
Because
that's what the original the original formula. Oh, so actually that comes out
because you actually I'm thinking you put them both up or are up into intergovernmental revenues. You put 80, you know, for the school in the first line and then do the town line, but you keep them all up there. I wouldn't add them to the bottom. Instead, I would correct the cell at the bottom if it's got a wrong digit. If it's got a wrong cell because that way it's
we want to we want to ultimately pick up this number 2.2 million. Right.
And I have but let's just wait and go down now. Look at total revenue and make sure
Should we add it just here?
Should we add it there
to grant total revenue?
Can I make a recommendation? Can I make a recommendation? Can I please like
Okay.
Rob, close the spreadsheet. Reopen the spreadsheet. Just let's just do this. Nope. We're not going to add any lines. We're not going to try to change any formulas. Add the money into Town A Road and add the money into ECS. We know the the numbers are 80,17. You know, you're going to increase and send a budget to referendum that's more than that. So, let's not worry about it. We're we're wasting time trying to fix a spreadsheet and we have a hundred people on this call. So, that's what I would ask you to do is like because you added those two rows, you're creating a formula problem, right? my
a cell problem.
So, close this.
All right, without saving it. So,
I can just I can just delete these out.
No, just I don't know what else. You also made changes down the bottom. So, I'm asking you just to close this out and reopen the same thing that Lisa sent you. Don't. Right.
And don't save it.
All right, Jeff.
All right. Thank you.
What that does, it just brings everything back to what it was. Rob, that's all.
I understand. I I had already done that, but that's okay. That's fine.
No big deal. Now, so what you're suggesting
is we add to this cell the 80,000
and we add
Yep.
So, let's go. Let's go do it. Does Let's get right on that cell. 2 million. Go over there. You got to put an equal sign in front of it. It's 80,192.
Yeah. and then go up the town a road.
It's It's not even here.
That That's what I say. It's not there. That's not
It's not even there. So, it's not even here. That this is a problem with the whole process that we go through. We We have never included grants which needs to change next year.
Well, I agree.
All the grants.
So, you could put it under miscellaneous for now. State miscellaneous.
Well, let me ask you the qu Well, you see, you don't Yes, you're going to have to put it under miscellaneous later. Let's not even worry about it. It's $17,000. We'll figure that out after you guys deal with all the expenses because that's what we should be focused on is not how we're paying for it, but what we're spending.
Okay. Fine. I just wanted to see the impact. That was all. All right.
if if you want to put that in, put it under town aid road. not under town road. Pick one. Pick anything you want to put state miscellaneous
m
right
sure
miscellaneous gr grants and aid
yeah state put a note on the right
it's actually it's start of it's it's all inter related to the pquad fund and all that other municipal grants and aid but there you go
but you put it in the v oh okay never mind all right I just want to make sure
the variance the variance picked it Yep, I'm good.
Okay, I'm just going to save it. okay. All right, sorted that out. do we want to go through the entire town budget? Do we want to just focus on certain areas where we know we have?
I think we should focus on certain areas and I think we need to kind of go around the board and see what areas people are thinking about. We can't go through the entire budget.
Yeah, we don't we we we'd be here forever. I I agree.
Go down to the bottom.
You want to go down the bottom?
Yeah. I just want to see where the largest increase was like capital versus operations. I just wanted to see that number.
Oh, capital was a decrease. We were at we're we're -2.92 on capital. We're down 30,000 from last year.
Doesn't mean we couldn't adjust, but we're already negative there
and we're we're 6.12 6.12 for expend total expenditures town,
right? We went up on the the town because of some employee things.
a lot of employee stuff primarily. Yeah. I would say mostly the employee stuff insurance costs that sort of stuff is where the meat of that is. So you know we you know
hat what was that admin assistant that was l
we combined I believe we combined these two lines and added a little bit to it for an assistant for the town.
I mean the project manager is a separate position I believe.
Right. Right.
We always come back. We always
You're right. You're right. I'm sorry. I apologize. We combined it different. I believe we added to this. I mean, obviously the budget request here is up, you know, $25,000 from last year. I mean, we could we could look at this line. We could I mean, I I forget now the 25,000 increase I think was designed for a certain number of hours a week if memory serves.
Yeah. Does Does it look like an additional person? I guess we we would ask Jeff, does it look like an additional person is going to be hired?
Right.
There are discussions of increasing the current person's time and there's also discussions about hiring a new person. So, they're both on the table.
So, are they are they going to be done July 1? It's a different question. I I was just speaking with Matt today, our new town administrator, and I told him he needs to sit there and do an evaluation of his needs. So, he's also working on that.
So, you're saying one or the other would happen.
Correct.
Okay. Well, thank you.
I mean, I guess the question is, you know, do we think we need 30,000 there? Do we
I don't know if if Matt can speak to that yet. If he feels if he has any ideas on the number of hours and whether he needs that assistant, how many hours he would need, if you thought about that at all yet, Matt, or share any thoughts?
So, I because I'm so new here, it's only been this is my fourth week here, so I'm still you know getting the lay of the land, so to speak. So, it's very difficult for me to you know, say what's going to happen. And I know this is when I came in here, I was really not worried about the budget as far as what's going to happen until July 1st. So, I mean the current person I have is a that institutional knowledge that they have is great. the town staff that we have is has been very easy to work with, but it there is a lot to do and so I do need some assistance as far as it is whether it be like as Jeff said, whether it's going to be July 1st or it's going to be delayed or something or part of a year. it's too early for me to assess, you know, what what we can do. I know that it would be great to have somebody if if it was cut out of the budget. It'd be very, you know, it'd be very tough to, you know, continue the operations as is, but we we will do what we we'll do what the taxpayers say. So, I'm it's too early for me to give you a correct answer at this time.
But I'll answer questions if you have any.
I think it was like 19 hours a week at $25 an hour or something. Not a lot,
right? And that's and that's just shy of 25,000. So, the question is, do we need 30 in there? I think that we need to let Matt have the help. I think that when we had Eric, we this position was really, really important and he didn't have the assistance that he needed. So, I'm not for cutting this position back at all.
Right. Could we at least look at bringing it to the 25,000 which is the 19 times the $25 an hour?
Right. I mean bear in mind we we did we took that's the thing and that's a good point Bill because what we did was we took the the the existing about $5,000 we're spending
to have Kate help, right? And we added $25,000 to that.
Right. So, we could bring it back to 25,000 and
still fund that person.
I think the the 5150 was a stipend or something, right? So, we don't need that anymore.
It's a well, it's a stipend. And I think
we're going to be using it unless and until we hire somebody to the position, right?
Because Kate would still be needed until we, you know, unless we fill that position, right?
Yeah.
I I think I'd like to make a motion that we that we take that 30,000 bring it down to 25,000
which gives us that 19 hours at $25 an hour.
Do we have a second on that? So I guess the only thing about that is if Kate So if he hires somebody separate separate that stipen is for the current person that is assisting is the plan for her to continue to assist in a certain in a different capacity you know in addition to what she normally does. Who's her? I think that was why I think that's why the stipen was kept initially instead of
right. I guess that's I guess that's a good question, Liz, because I'm really I feel like I'm uncertain as to what the plan is.
I think is I would ask Jeff McGuire. I think that's that was why we left it in there, right?
The plan the plan was to provide additional assistance to the town administrator. That was what the plan is. If you cut it by 5,000, we're just going to adjust the plan and the amount of money we pay for someone. I am not adverse to you guys moving this $25,000 on behalf of the town. And listen, just so you understand, whatever you give us, we're going to work with. That's what we've done. You You have to realize when you cut and you cut more than you really should, you just cut services for the community. And but that's okay. We'll figure it out. You guys got a tough job. Do what you need to do. I'm not adverse to you guys sitting there making a $5,000 cut to that line item.
Second that.
Okay. Liz seconds. No motions. Liz seconds
to reduce 102-101 admin assistant from 30,000 to 25,000. Do we have any further discussion on this? I think we've kind of talked it through.
That doesn't change the benefits for that person, does it?
There's no benefits at 19 18 19 hours. I think that's the point.
I know above though what it was for 30,000. How many hours was that?
Well, again, I don't think it was intended to I think it was we took the stipend amount that's currently being used
25,000.
Right.
So, it's it's not it's not a benefits position.
There's no benefits. Okay.
Yeah, that's my understanding. Louise. Louise, there should be a note. There should be a note here on the side that says the 5,150 stipent was kept on here. So, it's not like the salary would be 30,000.
Oh, okay. It's
Yeah, it's just under 25. If you do the math, if you do, you know, 19 hours a week at $25 an hour, 52 weeks a year, you get like 24,000 and change. Okay. That's adding the five. Okay.
So, why don't we Yeah, let's let's just keep this going. Why don't we go around take a vote? I'm just going to go in order of what you guys are on my screen. Bill,
yes.
Liz,
yes.
Heather,
yes.
Louise,
yes.
Tim,
yes.
Nick,
And I'm a yes. I believe that's all of us. 70. So, reduced two. Okay. Very good. what about the project manager?
So, this is a position we've never had before. Is that That's correct. Right. We've been talking about it for years, but we've never filled it.
Where are we on that? What's you know, what's the thinking there? The thing was there were so many there were so many grants that we had received
that Eric to administer them all he just couldn't do it. So yeah project manager he was like above capacity for for for that stuff. What I meant was what what was the thinking in terms of salary hours that sort of thing.
We we wait a second we are utilizing that position this
we're using it right now.
Okay.
Correct. Yes. So, Christine Rendazo is managing the field project that is going on currently,
and she hasn't submitted any bills, but she'll be submitting bills, and and I believe we'll will come under that $15,000. But
with the Lake Road project coming up, the Bazula Road culvert coming up, and some other projects that are coming up, that amount of money is very reasonable. So what we had done as a board was sit there and say for engineering services we were thinking that we would have a $100 an hour rate bill and that for engineering services is pretty low. If you want to ask Jeff Murray who's an engineer he can sit there and go through that with you but that was what we were doing. So we were thinking it would take 150 hours Bill to sit there and go through it. Right.
So
kay just asking
I think that's fair and thanks for the correction on that. You're right. I remember now that we are already utilizing that position. Okay. I mean I I personally wouldn't want to tweak that then I would think I think we should probably move on. Anybody disagree?
Yeah. Move on. Let's go down here. I mean I I I personally don't want to change this given what Lisa's been up to.
against etc. where where where are we on the treasurer clerk?
Have we hired anybody?
I know
treasurer clerk
that's a it's an operational issue and yes we've interviewed people candidates and Lisa is in the process of sitting there and deciding who we're going to put in that position. So that should be hopefully that position is done as soon as possible so Lisa can focus on more other things.
Yeah.
Right now we have an increase in there. It's not a huge one. It's not going to break the bank, but you know this we just want to confirm this is the number we think we need to fill that position properly.
How many?
It is a 13% increase. Are we having
Is this full-time? How many hours a week is this?
This is full-time.
And I would lower
obviously I mean we want
I would lower I would lower that. Listen, I would lower that one $5,000 because and and and Lisa, you tell me if I'm wrong. There is the tra there was a stipen in that number.
I think that's right. Yeah, because it was separate before, but yeah, I think it is in there now.
I would remove the stipen of $5,000. That was not well spent money,
right?
All right, I'm fine.
Didn't we Wait, didn't we remove it above in the line above?
That's what I thought.
Yeah, it's here. It's here. We already did that.
Well, then how did that number get up so high?
I don't this number here. I didn't do I I think this came to us this way. I'd have to go back.
I would reduce I would reduce it by the 5,000 then
another I would make the motion that we reduce the 58.
It's still higher than last year. So Okay.
Yeah.
To 534.
Okay. So, bill moves we reduce 109-120 treasur clerk wages from 58400 to 53400. Do we have a second? I'll second that.
Okay. Thank you, Kim. Kim seconds.
I just did a calculation and I think it's okay. I think it'll work.
Okay. Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate the input.
Yep.
All right. again, I'm I'm just going to go in my list in order. Bill,
yes.
Liz,
yes.
Cam,
yes.
Nick,
yes.
Heather,
yes. Louise.
Yes.
And I am also a yes. So we're going to 53400 reduced by 5K.
Okay. You got that, Lisa? For notes purposes. Okay, great.
All right. I don't think there's much else here
to work with. right. This is this is contractual stuff I believe. I don't want to this is a contract. I mean, you know,
that that's a good point. Can I ask one quick question of Lisa? Lisa, did you look at the the union increase on the assistant clerk, assistant treasurer?
No, but I have it with me. Hold on.
Because that's something that we have to make. I know the increase isn't 5 grand, but the increase is probably in the 3% range.
We need to make sure that we have that covered.
Contract out.
Sorry about that.
All right.
Okay. Appreciate it. Don't want to get it wrong. We could probably adjust the hours slightly if we needed to to make it work.
all right. Hold on. Let's see. Assistant to treasurer. No, that's okay.
Okay.
Yeah. No, it I I Well, I I hope it's okay. We haven't done any final negotiation, so I think it's reasonable what the rate is.
We'll make it work. We'll make it work.
nothing really there.
Nothing. There's not much here.
Nothing there.
I mean, it's often the case in the town ops budget that there's there's not a ton. we talked about this extensively. We got more to do on elections. you know, we got a bunch of 3% in here. I I can't find myself getting too worked up about that.
Nope. payroll services. Remind me, Lisa, we were talking about
ADP,
right?
Yeah.
Is this going to cover that? what did we say that it was going to cost? a thousand increase because we're not going to use the time clocks and they would do the first mix six months for free.
I'm still trying to make arrangements with them. I haven't been able to connect with them.
Right. Okay.
that's what it that's what the cost was going to be. It was what 20 20 about 2400 to use the clocks and we wouldn't use the clocks. and then the first six months were free so it ended up costing a thousand more than what we were at. So it was an increase of a thousand but it wasn't
a huge increase.
I mean at least in this line we're not up a thousand. We're up 184 bucks. So
Right.
Okay.
but I will say I am finding more and more problems with the payroll service. So I really don't
is going to be a good thing.
Yeah.
So does the 2184 I guess
yeah the question is this functional is this number functional
if if we Yeah. Because if we come in in July and we start using it and we get six months free
just leave it for this this cycle and
just leave it for the cycle. It's only if it's going to go up, it's going to go up less than $1,000 and we'll be able to figure that out.
We We'll figure it off if we have to take it for contingency, whatever. Right.
All right.
Good deal.
Fair enough.
Right. I think that's fair.
Okay.
I mean, this is just insurance, you know. It is what it is.
can you go back up just a little bit?
Can you go backwards?
Can you go back up a little bit?
Yeah.
Right there.
How far back?
Right. Well, for me that was
Keep going. Oh, backwards. Okay. Just I I just need to make everybody aware when you get to janitorial services for the town, we need to look at that line item.
Again, we're looking for an increase for I forget the person's name that does that, right?
No, no, no, no. There's a there's a change bill. He he announced that he's moving to North Carolina. So, the charges that we were looking at doing, we might I mean, listen, we're gonna have problems honestly with that position trying to fill it. Matt and I were talking about it, but we want to look at the line item to understand what we didn't go to.
Supplies. We don't have
I wonder where it's under, but we'll find it.
Should have been under facility maintenance, but it's
Yeah, it may be under there. We we'll find it.
It's Yeah, in a strange category, I think down the bottom. I'm almost positive. This is the person that did a fabulous job and didn't
Yeah, that's amazing job.
Oh, that's a bummer.
That is a bummer. And he did it for for cheap.
It's going to be hard to replace that. Yeah.
Yep.
I know. We want to talk about the community center or we I mean we talked about it a fair bit already but that's where we're at on the chart.
There was an increase I think for more programming.
Yeah. And I think that the programming is maybe under senior stuff and maybe in a different part.
This is for the assistant you know as you can see this is where the meat of the increase is. I think that's for more than one person though, isn't it? Does that also
includes dispatcher is my notes?
Yeah. It's so it's two things in one.
Correct.
Yeah. So it looks like a large increase but it's more than
it it's two rolled together, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I can find my notes.
Custodian is 4199B if you want to go back to that after this.
Okay. Sorry, what is
custodian?
What was for? Sorry, what line?
Custodian.
Yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. I just I I found custodian.
Oh, I see. It's still to come, right? That's what I thought. Okay.
Town garage. Not much to talk about. That's down. Old town halls, nothing. Old firehouse, nothing. It's down.
All right. So, that's facilities. plow blade. I mean, what are you going to do? Custodian.
Yes, that's the one. Yep.
All right. So, we had really bumped it up to pay the person and I'm sorry I don't know his name
more in line with what he deserves, but is that enough money I guess to hire someone to replace him? I don't know if Jeff if you have thoughts on that.
Yeah, I'm just laughing because that's every town building. That's the library that we cut pay out of there. That's everything. So, it's almost a joke that that amount.
Well, he you know,
how many hours a week do we talk about here?
19.
Yeah, he was they he and his wife came in and tag team it and they came one day, but they did such a good job that we're gonna we're gonna see it.
We're gonna see it.
Yeah.
I I would go ahead, Jeff. I I I was sitting there thinking we might be able to reduce it, but we can't reduce that. I just sit there and go, I don't know how Matt and how we'll get it filled.
So, I mean that that's 19 hours at 25 an hour. That's what that is. It's it you know 14 24 you know 875 or something like that. So that 25,000 or
that that's all that gets you.
That's it. So
we can't reduce it.
No,
I don't I don't think I would want to reduce it either. I agree. And I mean we're talking I mean in terms of the increase we're talking about $2,000 here.
What did you say that was the 19 hours at at how much?
Yeah, that's what I'm just thinking. That 19 hours I'm thinking of payroll and I pay him like 20 hours, but I believe that's for two weeks.
So he might only be 10 hours a week.
I would have to check payroll, but that I don't know why I'm thinking that.
Does that sound right, Jeff? We're actually getting two people.
I thought we are. So, I thought we were getting him one day in the town offices and
it's just not we're not going to we're not going to be able to fill it because he also gets down to the to the to the library and you know they they tag team it. So, it's two people that are coming in and working at the same time. And
Lisa, I don't know. Are you paying him as an employee? We're not paying him as an employee, are we?
Yeah, we are. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
And what's the hourly rate
at 19 hours at how much? 20
I think at 25, didn't we?
Yeah, but that was like I said that was for 19 a week. I I honestly don't think it's 19 a week.
I think that's I'm just thinking off the top of my head when I do payroll that it's like 19 or 20 hours, but or 22. It's close to that, but that's for two weeks. I would have to take a look.
That's okay. You're not gonna be
I think it's any better. Yeah. If you guys
And that's like like Jeff said, the point is there's two of them.
Yeah.
That's just one person. There's two of them.
Hire Yeah. We're going to hire a new person. We're going to need to be able to
pay them
fund that.
Great.
Okay. I would move on honestly.
Yes.
Okay. There's not there's really nothing here. Talk about me again. 3%. the trooper I mean we don't find out right until we're into the year
usually.
That's right. That's the amount. We were given the amount. Yeah.
On time this year.
Okay. We already talked about that then. It is what it is.
I'm not going to go on that crusade again. Okay.
Moving on.
We talked about that. This needs to happen. this was we this is required. We we basically no choice here. Memory serves. It's the animal control situation. We just we have to pay what we're being build. so yeah. So, senior citizen public welfare. I think this is Bill when you were talking about programming. That's
yeah, quite a quite a steep increase in programming. And as much as I support the community center and the programming, in a year like this, we might have to, I think, consider
something here.
Yeah, I disagree.
I mean, I hate to, but it's it's a big increase for one year. In a year, we're looking at we got to do some trimming.
Those are all the new programs that TESS is incorporating into this new year. Everybody wanted Tess to increase the programming and that's what she did.
I agree with Scott.
I will say I talked to Tess about it because we were I think Bill you brought up that there were art classes for youth and for seniors.
And I I think what she relayed to me was she wanted to get some of that youth in there. So she may have some of use used some of that for a youth class art class. But the other two art classes were for seniors. And I think those are between 300 and 500 a piece. So it's not a huge deal. But I I don't know if she's on. I guess she's not on tonight. But she was trying to do like like I don't know Jeff said that people asked her to do stuff. So she was trying to do that.
I think we should try and reduce it by 5,000. I mean, I I get she's got stuff that she's got planned. We don't have a lot of places to cut.
I would like to
we we listen, we can work with Tess to try to increase her fees for that and I do realize that that impacts seniors, but it is more of a payforplay. It's it's what we should be doing in the entire town, asking groups to sit there and increase the fees they're charging for specific services. So, I don't have a problem with you cutting this line item. I don't want you to eliminate it, but I do have no problem with the $5,000.
Seems Yeah, I mean that it's a big jump. I'm going to make a motion to cut this line by five grand.
I'll second it.
All right. Liz moves to cut 145870 program senior citizen by $5,000. That would take it down from 12805 to 7805.
No, you're in there.
No, no, no, no. It would take it down to 1185.
Yeah.
Yep.
16.
Sorry. You're right. Let's do that again. I was looking at the variance. My fault. from 16805 down to 1185. Thank you guys. Wrong column. All right.
I have a question on that.
We didn't vote on that though.
Yeah, Louise, go ahead.
Yeah. Does that include the software that they're getting for the programming?
No, the software the software is is the software is taken care of. It's a separate
Okay. Isn't it supposed to go down to Wait, I don't see the change made.
I haven't made the change.
We're in discussion. We're in discussion.
All right. Thanks. Sorry.
I'm not crazy. Well, maybe I increased.
Yeah, but that not because of that.
All right. Does anyone else have more commentary before we do take a vote on this one?
Yeah, I think Jeff made a good point to increase the fees for people just walk in and take those classes.
That may that may make up for it.
All right. Okay. I'll go around. Bill,
yes.
Liz,
yes. Louise,
yes.
Heather,
yes.
Nick,
yes.
And Kim,
Kim's a no. And I'm I'm a yes. So that's 61. And we're going to take this to 1185. reduced 5K 56 26. I should have that. All right. Okay, Lisa, you got a running tally of the cuts we're making, right?
Yep.
What are we at now? We're like We made a couple of two two three small cuts. We're at maybe 15,000.
15,000, I think. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. I mean, I don't That's We're getting about to as far as I really wanted to go, but we got to get to capital, too. I don't think there's much in here. We can
I know we talked about it. Oh, sorry.
Go ahead, Nick.
I know we talked about it before, but the lunches was What was the reason for the lunch fee?
Oh, the the increase in the lunches they would I think she was adding adding more of them.
She was research.
But are we charging as well, too? I'm just wondering.
We charge but we char I think it's I think they get charged. What is it?
Six bucks ahead. Something like that.
Five. Five dollars ahead.
It's five. Okay. I don't know why I thought six.
It just somewhere here. I had notes from Tess, but I I've lost.
And go out to dinner. How much everything has increased?
Yeah. There's no
That's not a big That's not a big increase.
No, it's not an increase. It was an increase from last year, guys. Yeah.
But I'm looking at it compared to the actuals
from the year before last. No, he's he's looking at it compared to what is reported in the the current line item for through January. And that's I mean I don't know.
This is this is the exact same budgeted amount for last year.
No, no, no, no, no. He's right. Nick is Nick is right. He's looking at column G.
Well, here
ven if I January,
we're still say we could still potentially save four grand.
I mean, what it is now?
Yeah, I know. I mean, this is an old figure,
correct? But I don't, Nick, and this is just me. I don't trust all of the line items and where everything is put. That's me. And on those types of items because you got to remember those are coming from the community center and sorry, some some issues. Yeah, I lost my v my screens above so my face got dark. so Nick, while I understand what you're looking at and you could sit there and cut that slightly, I don't think that that's the area I would cut. Just
hey're up to 6,200 right now. And don't forget, there's also that extra fundraiser line that I'm I don't think they've really dug in too much. That's in the L account.
there's a senior lunch account. That makes sense to me. I'm just saying if we we could highlight it or something if we I I just I don't know what the thoughts are on that. It makes sense to me. I'm okay with it as is. I just think if we're looking if we had a you said $6,000 and that what's the period of performance for that 6,000? Is that like halfway through the calendar year?
Get through April.
No, that's through.
Let me go back to it. That's like pretty up to date like right now. like 6,200.
Yeah.
So, if you reject that out for two more months or May, June, right?
Yeah. You're looking at an $8,000 total, but maxed out run rate. So, we got four 4500 extra in there. And and I'm just making everyone aware we we have the kitchen project that has to happen next year and that's going to increase the utilization on the kitchen and all the costs related to condition the kitchen and what goes into the lunches. So you can make a cost reduction on that. It's just not an area that I think I would want to go at because we haven't done a good job on we're trying to do a better job on utilizing the the community center, but you know, it's one of the few things our seniors really get from us.
I I I'm fine leaving it alone.
Yeah, I'm okay leaving it.
It's $4,000. It's
You know, we can we we we can talk about it next year if we're coming in under again.
Yeah, but I I think I'd leave it. Guys,
y
can I ask where we are? Lisa, on senior trips this year, what have we what are we up to on senior trips? Because
as of January, it only only looked like $2.49.
Yeah, it's still only around $600 that we've spent on senior trips. Again, I believe there's an L account for that, but I I don't think there's a lot of money in it.
You What does that mean, Lisa?
What does that mean, L account? Well, as far as I can tell, and maybe Jeff can correct me, but if if the town doesn't put these funds in the budget to do these items for the basketball, for the kids, for the seniors, for lunches, there's fundraising that's gone on and they're in this separate savings account that's not in the budget that if they run short or they want to use that for a special lunch or a special basketball program, they can go get that out of that fund. It's not in the budget and it's not town money. It's stuff. It's money they've raised as far as I know. I mean,
I'm not used to this. So, maybe somebody can make it clearer, but that's what I can tell.
Do we know what's in that? Did you just tell us and I forgot already?
No, I have I only have an idea because I haven't been able to reconcile those L accounts. We have like 25 of them including all the grants
and all that. Yeah. in the school, in the Capitol, and I just haven't had a chance. I did the Capitol, but that's as far as I got.
Well, what have you been doing?
Yeah.
My thumbs.
Okay.
Lisa.
Yeah,
it's Louise. Isn't there one for the fire department, too? They do fundraisers that took care of their ambulance cost.
I
totally totally different analy. That's what I was going to say. None of these. Yeah.
Okay.
What what what she's addressing is if
I made a donation to the lunch program, it would go into the L account,
right? Oh, come on.
Right. It needs to be presented differently. And that's one of those items where any of these items because what Nick was doing is 100% what you guys should be doing is looking at the expenditures currently to date and sitting there and determining if we're going to spend that much money and reduce those line items if they can be. And there's some items that if we just talk through it, we shouldn't reduce because we should be doing a better job of utilizing those funds to to improve services. So, but on the question of what is going on on school lunch, it's if somebody makes a donation or there's money raised from the lunches, they would be sit there and put into an L account. And Nick, and I'll say that potentially because what I'm I'm believing is that some of the money collected on the lunches has gone to offset the lunch expenses. So, I don't believe that that's all the lunch expenses. I believe that's potentially the lunch expenses offset by the the the collections from the seniors. So, if you wanted to cut that, you could,
but I, you know, it's all a question of what are our priorities and what do we want to take care of.
So, you if you want to hear you want to hear my suggestion on that, you leave the senior lunch program alone. You know, I there's there's a lot of people that go to those senior lunchons, and I go to them pretty frequently, and I don't see anybody on this call hardly at all that are participating in those senior lunches.
Okay,
I'm going to keep this tight. I appreciate you guys. I don't think we're going to cut it. Just let's let's move on and let's keep it tight. We got to keep it to the board. and we can get to,
you know, more commentary later. but no, I I don't think I think we I think we've talked that one through, guys.
I think we move on.
you know, unless there's somebody who's really hot to trot and wants to make a motion, I think we move on.
Okay. I was down at the reccomission,
right? Now we're in the rec commission.
Right. And I mean, it looked to me like we were expending, you know, this looks right, you know, and this was only through January. So, I don't know if this is increased, Lisa, but it was looking more or less correct. And we we had a specific request for a you know a registration fee and an additional concert. That's the entire entire $1,400 increase.
So what what is the WICSC? Can somebody remind me what that is?
I don't remember the
I don't think we ever found out. would have to ask Carol. I guess
an email asked that question and the answer was so confusing I I really couldn't
Can you slide over what what is that saying?
I I mean
potentially it was
Yeah. Isn't that related to the software program? Because the rec commission was trying to help the community center with the the computer program to do the calendar for the fields and for the basketball court.
But then I thought that Tess indicated that she had received a grant that was going to pay for that if I recall it correctly.
And and you're you may you may be right on that, Kim. So I was really confused by what what that all like why why why that was there. That's my recollection of that meeting.
they were going to split some that money I think and the recreation commission was going to use some of the software But I found my notes from talking to Tess. I don't see a specific I mean not sorry not Tess I I don't I don't know what the academ stands for. It's not a lot of money. I think we are likely to spend that line item. Lisa, I don't know if we have an updated year to date on this, but
I don't see like this is a fertile ground
for us to be cutting.
I think we should
I don't know. I kind of disagree.
Okay. I I I personally would like to see it stay the 6,000 only because we are so tight. and I I personally I sent an email and a text message asking for like a detailed breakdown like what what is what is all this for? and and I didn't get a response and I followed up and I didn't get a response and I just I don't know. We we paid 2425 actuals $5,000. is it necessary to have an additional concert? I'm not sure. I don't know. I I would make a motion to keep it $6,000 just under the current circumstance with us facing this budget crunch.
All right. Liz moves to reduce 603870 programs from the direct commission from 7,400 down to 6,000. That's a $1,400 cut. Do we have a second on that?
I'll second that.
Louise seconds. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll go ahead and take a vote. Bill,
I I wish I knew more about the WICSC. I'm going to say no just because I really don't understand it. So,
okay. Liz, your motion. So,
Liz is a yes. Louise,
yes.
Okay. Kim,
yes.
Heather,
There's a yes. Nick.
Yes.
I'll vote no. I don't I don't just don't I don't I don't like it. okay. So that I passes 52 unless I missed anybody. but back to 6K. all right. There's not much more here. These are percentage wise, but they're tiny numbers. we specifically added this last time. anybody. All right. I mean, unless there's stuff in here, these are tiny numbers. I I personally would leave them. we can talk about capital again, but as you guys know, we made some adjustments last time or in the budget process. my personal gut feel is I would rather take from unexpended fund balance than cut some of these, but I'm open. I I'm flexible on that. I don't want there are some funds here I'd really rather not touch. but I want to hear your thoughts. If anybody has ideas of you know where we where we
could find a cut then okay.
and we don't have those balances in front of us either.
we had a rough draft from Lisa a while back.
We should have put those in that memo column back when we were working on this.
I You're right. I That's a really good point.
I have it in front of me.
Oh, you do. Can you give us the balances and we put them in the memo column right now by any chance?
let me look. I just want to make sure I'm giving you the right one. New outweighs. Okay. Now, don't forget this was as of February. Is that when we did this?
Let's see. All right. it's been a long time since I looked at this. Let's see. Reserve Bank.
Okay. fiscal year to date balance. All right. On the reval, let's see, is 63 847. And
and of course, we need to
contingent is 39104.
Multiuse building.
Really? Okay.
Is 450 544. Wait, how much is in the multi-use building fund?
450544.
450 544. I'm sorry, it cut out on me. I heard 50 and was like, what?
I heard that, too.
I did too.
That's all right. Okay, go on. Go on.
Fire. Let's see the fire. Oh, the sale of asset was a question with that, but it stands at 413054. Let's see. Public works 130 230. road improvements 688 085. There was a little issue with going back and forth with the tree because remember transfer station and the tree it was to be determined I wouldn't count on more than 14,000
23759
that's bridge and cover but hang on What was building maintenance?
I have building maintenance 23759.
Wrong line.
Oh, no. I'm sorry. You're good.
No, I got it.
Yep. Bridging Culver.
Well, bridge and Culvert. I didn't get to bridge and Culvert. That's why you can't see it because that wasn't list. It was listed over in the grants. It wasn't listed in capital.
It was in Yeah, I mean it's in the audit.
It's with all the grants and so I didn't get into that.
It's in the audit. It's a healthy number, but we need a lot in there. I I I want to say we had about we were pushing 600k but that's I
but I have determined yeah what payments had been made and
that's not one we can fund that we can mess with I don't want to mess with that anyway right
let's see
how about the open
the building maintenance was 23759
the AES S capital Capital
496 871,
right? And we just approved 220 to come out of that for the bathroom project.
Yeah. And
open space.
Open space. That one is off also. I'm showing 41,000, but I can't guarantee that. So, I couldn't get I couldn't get that one to reconcile.
Okay. The other thing I'll mention with road improvement, we never show I know in the audit it lists another fund, the town a road fund. I assume that's where we put our town aid road money. And I remember there being a balance in there, but that you know, we don't have to get in too far into that. I would expect we're going to start, if we haven't already, as the weather has warmed up, we're going to be using we're going to be expending from from here. And and don't forget, I mean, these are something I did, you know, I did as best as I could. I I took what I could find and put this together with the audit. I matched it to the audit and what was in QuickBooks, and this is what I could find. So, but I'm pretty sure that these are, you know, relative to what's in there.
All right.
And it was a couple what, three months ago?
Yeah. Do does anybody know what does it cost to do revaluation? I mean, we have 63847. Does anybody know what the cost is to do the revaluation?
And the thing is we our reval got pushed back a year, didn't it?
It did. So, we're actually in the sixth year. So, I'm just wondering what I don't know if Jeff or somebody else online knows what it actually cost us to do that.
It cost them he's he's gotten quotes for like $66,000 last couple times in that ballpark.
And we have to do it next year, right?
Next year.
So, I'm sorry, Jeff, you said 40 grand. I'm sorry.
66. So
in theory we could make a minor cut there but it's it's about right. It's
about right then.
It'll be a little over but we we also also have to re start refilling it afterwards.
Yeah. We got to leave that one.
So what where what is the the fund balance? Like we also have a fund balance.
We have our unassigned fund balance. It's 2.1 million.
If you look at the audit that's the unassigned fund balance was 2.1 which they calculated at 15.1%. And obviously that's a moving target because if you change the outlays then you you change your operating budget then obviously that number can shift. But that's what we were at. We were at 2.1 million.
And what is that's where I would say we could we could bring that down. We could take a hundred,000. We we'd still have $2 million. I think we'd still be in good shape.
What what is the percentage that we're that they like us to have? between 12 and 15% you think
between 12 and 15
I mean do you remember that meeting we had where was one of Eric's last meetings where he was talking to us about new guidance from the state on that how they were saying they wanted two months which is you know one sixth which is a little higher than that but I think honestly I think we're in we're in a pretty good place there I but I wouldn't want to go crazy I just I think we could take a modest amount and re-evaluate next year.
I don't I don't want, you know, I don't want to reduce a lot.
Yeah, I think the fact that we have no debt, I mean, this is just my common sense brain. Since we have no debt, I think we're in pretty good shape in that department, right? Right. I mean, if we had
a lot of debt, then I think we might have to go on the higher side of that fun that unassigned fund balance, right? I mean, am I thinking right?
Yeah. I mean, it's also it's just about it's it's a massive contingency figure, you know, in case of all sorts of possibilities. thankfully, knock wood. I've never seen us in an emergency situation where we had to tap it. But, you know, I I'd like to stay within the guidance. You know, I if in that 12 to 15% range, I'd like to be in there. Maybe even a touch higher if if I had a perfect world, which we don't have. But I I really do think we could stand to to use a little bit of it
to just help this year, help cushion things a little bit, reduce that tax increase. So I I agree with that, but we're still in this this section right here.
Capital. So, I'm just and and nobody nobody jump out of their seats here on the tree removal fund, which I'm 100% for and I know that we need that, but are we spending 50,000 a year and how do we get up to have 140,000? Am I right?
No, you said 14,000.
14,000 is left. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to shut up now. Forget that hole.
It's all good.
Good try, Bill.
I don't think I don't think we have a ton in there.
you know,
no, I leave that alone. I was I thought it said 140,000. I looked at it quick. I was like, what? Okay, never mind.
do we have this? Do we have a lot of tree removal left to do? Like I feel like they've been doing a lot of work on it already.
It's been a multi-year process where we've really caught up
. And what it and the way it worked, the way Eric had it working was we we had a deal with Eversource where we would mobilize on the same day, partner up with them and get a lot done. so it's been very successful. I don't know. And I think my fe my gut feeling on this. What I would say is I'd love to see Matt be in there for a year and get his arms around everything and then talk to us next year about do we need to maintain at that level or are we at such a point where we could back it off slightly. But I I I think personally I think we've made such strides. I think it's been worth every penny. I don't know about you guys, but there was a stretch there where I seem to lose power
every time we had a storm, and now things are just dramatically better.
That's why I was asking like, are we have we caught up or not?
No, that's a it's a really good question. I I I don't know the answer to the question off the top of my head. So,
we're not we're not at all. Rob, and the tree warden is has already spent a lot of that money and the money for this this year. And I would say that I've already had two trees come down within the last month on Bear Swamp.
Okay. Well, I'd leave it alone then.
If you drive around town,
you will see there's still a lot of dead trees
around the town. And so I I'm not really in favor of cutting that this year.
I agree with Bill. I mean, tree removal is so expensive. It's shocking
how much
Lisa Lisa, one thing. I mean, we got to come back on this at some point because I I could have sworn there was a little more money in the open space fund than than $41,000. But
Bob, I remember around 237, I think.
That sounds right. That sounds right.
Yes. The 41,000 is what's in QuickBooks and I said it like was to be determined because the bank balance, you're right, says 234, but I didn't have a chance to go back and reconcile. Is that the correct amount? And why is it so different than QuickBooks?
All right.
So,
all right. Again, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I don't know if it's an egregious amount. I think I think I'd leave that, too. I I we added a little more money back in there, but because we had we had cut it a couple years back. So, I mean, last year. So, I I think restoring some of that funding is good. We're not all the way back up to the 50K that we put in 24.
Yeah.
25.
so I I I don't really want to do anything there. Bridg Culver, we've talked about repeatedly. I just feel like that that's a that's a fund where we could put every dollar we could scrape together in and and we we need it.
Yeah. The money's been calculated out, Rob. The money has been calculated out for the number of projects that we have and what they're going to cost and when they're planned to be done. So, you really can't touch
No.
No,
you can't touch it.
No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. has to be funded at that rate for the next years because it's going to be done 28. Yes.
Right. Work's already been lined up so you can't mess with that number.
The only other thing was, you know, when we on our public works, we have a new director, but I, you know, I want to revisit their capital plan at some point to see whether this is the appropriate funding level for public works equipment. we don't have a ton in there, so you know, I'm not necessarily in favor of cutting that either. It is a place we could tweak, but you know, because we do have some money in there, but it's it's not a lot. And I don't, you know, I think we've done a better a decent job of getting our equipment more up to date, but they, you know, needs come up. So,
equipment is expensive, but we do have a lot of new.
Jeff, do you have new trucks? We have new
drivers, mowers,
you know, I know that Liz said we don't have any debt, but this is one of the areas where we do have debt on the plow truck that we purchased, and that money is to pay the the
financing every year.
Yeah.
Right. And then and similarly, you know, we have the tanker truck that we're paying off.
Yeah. Those two those two line items are are loan payments or lease payments, whatever, however you want to categorize.
Lease payments. So, the majority of that 125 for public works is for the lease payment on the last plow truck we bought,
right?
And and and remember, they were not supposed to get any additional money money until that plow truck was paid off.
All right.
Well, I don't you know, I don't we already nipped and tucked here. I'm low to reduce anymore. But if anybody has any on the board
isagrees with me, speak now.
Well, I think we got to go to the next subject where Liz was talking about earlier and well, we all were and that's, you know, the fund that we have $2.1 million sitting there and
I think we could use $100,000 of that money.
I I I would I would like to. Yes. to to try and help here.
I'd like to add one other thing. the community garden. Can we look at that again?
We cut it.
We cut it pretty heavily, but
Yeah, we did.
Well, it was cut because of the $600 for seeds, which is a bit
I thought it was 300.
We cut it by 300 and some odd so that we could put that money toward the DMV lookups.
Right. Right. But what's the rest of the budget? It's we already I mean
I think there's a irrigation. Isn't there something has to be finished with the irrigation?
I don't see it in there
from what I remember.
It's under It's near the wreck. It's near the wreck commission.
Yeah. 45503 is wreck
and and I know what's his name came on. I'm sorry I can't remember his name right now. They came on and talked extensively about, you know, what that money was. Did
I go too far?
Sorry, these are just not in
Jeff Ballard. He came on and talked pretty extensively about I think it's the irrigation system if I'm not wrong.
Yeah.
And beds. I don't remember if they were putting in more raised beds. I forget.
and he said something about a new Didn't he say something about a rotor tiller and you offered to give him one?
Yeah, I know. I I need to get I need to get back to one. I really do have one.
He bought one.
Okay.
I said, "Oh, I got one I could give you." Oh, well.
sorry. Having trouble finding
We can't see the left hand.
Which column are you looking for, guys?
It was It was up above.
Oh, no.
It was right in the middle.
Where? Where was it? Yeah, it was right in the middle. I just this is such a small figure
right under library
and before Memorial Day before selecting
Memorial Day. So did I already pass it?
I think you did.
Oh, for goodness sakes.
Go slower. Just go.
I know. I apologize.
Bob, you're zippy.
I'm too I'm trying to get through this.
Go down to boards and commissions.
Yep.
This is near the end.
Stop. Okay.
1680.
We we we cut them from last year. So, I mean
I I'm assuming part of it was this number, but we you know, we were in the middle of the winter.
Yeah. And they spent it last year. Look at this 5124.
I know. But I I feel that we should cut a little bit more because I'm not seeing the community service type of thing coming from this. It's more individual and I I I don't feel comfortable paying our money to just like three or four people. You want to make a
I mean the gardens are there which are beautiful and very nice for people to use but
hey're all six of them are empty towns I guess. Oh and I guess is it the town's job to subsidize gardens for a handful of people. I guess it's kind of my question. That's kind of my question. I'd like to I'd like to make a motion to reduce the budget from 3 3180 to to 2180
to take a,000 cut.
Yes.
All right. Louise moves to reduce 603890 community garden by $1,000 from these are hard times to 2180. Do we have a second? I'll
second it. Liz seconds. We have any further discussion? All right, I'll just go in order. Liz,
yes.
Bill,
no.
Nick,
no.
Louise,
yes.
Kim,
yes.
Heather,
And I'm a no. So, that motion fails. 34. We leave it at 3180.
That worked. We can revisit it next year. We'll see what happens. can we go back to Let's go back down unless there's something else in particular. So, we were at capital. I think we've kind of talked through this. Unless there's a motion somebody wants to make. I just don't see anything here. I'm really comfortable cutting. So, I don't have a motion here.
yeah. So it looks like it looks like the cuts that we made brought us down to the town side a 5.59.
Yep.
From 612.
5.59 expenditures town. Yes.
Yep. Right. For a total a total decrease tonight of 16,783. Is that right?
I think it was.
Where did you get the 783? I got
I had 6,900. I got 15
I mean 15 sorry 16
4 no
164 164 sorry I was doing bad math
you got the 783 list
well I just took the original budget and I subtracted where we are now which is 3 million34954 so my initial starting point might be wrong because I it was 3 million 363737 that's probably where
oh That's a different number. Yeah.
Can you can you just go to the
slide up,
Rob? To the rec commission again because that's the other change. What's that number?
The 1400
right there.
This was a $1,400.
Yep.
Reduction.
Was it 1400 or 12?
14.
14 because it was at 74.
But back to 6K.
I should have said I should have said
minus 1,400
so that I know what the heck it was. But yes, it was 1,400 cuz they had asked for 7,400.
Yep.
So that's how you get to 164.
Okay. So 16400 is the total difference. Anyways, the point is and I do have one as I say to my husband. So, we're down to a 5.9% increase. which is
balanced out balanced out with a minus 2.92 from the capital. What does that net out? Well, I mean, we'd have to go to the we'd have to go to the other chart to see the impact on taxation, but I can tell you that every $100,000 is about 1% of a tax increase, right? So, if you cut
16, you know, you you've cut, you know, about 16 to 1% out of the tax increase. So, we you know, we have more to do. I mean we have we have if we take if we have the hund you know almost 100 from the state we have if we take a 100 from fund balance you know that's like 2%. With addition to what we just did so instead of being at a 6.7 tax increase we'd be about 4.7 at that
Val had mentioned that there was another $50,000.
Well yeah I thought it was $49,000 was my understanding where Okay. So what it is is in the 2526 budget
a 2425 budget. Apologies. The AES 2425 budget, the the one that you know is in the audit that's about to be completed, they had an underspend there, whereas they have an overspend this this budget cycle, but last year they had an unspend. They put can put money in the 2% non-lapsing, but it's capped obviously. So, if you take if you net it out, they put in I think it's 87,000 or so they can put into the 2% non-lapsing. The remaining figure of the underspend was $49,000 which could be returned to the town. you know, the original thought on the board of ed was, well, you know, could we put it in our capital fund? But now that we've had the bathroom project come in at half the cost we had feared, I think they're they're going to be okay with just saying, you know, it comes back to the town,
right?
So that's another $49,000. So from
Yes.
Does that
you know to income?
So if you if you think of it this way, right? We have
I'm going to do just fuzzy math for a second. Yeah. You have 98,000 from the state, you have 49,000 from AAS and if if you guys agree with me, you know, and take 100 from fund balance, right? You're just about you're just shy of 250.
And then you got the 16 that we just talked about that we just
Right. Right. And correct. Yeah, you're right. You're right.
16 more in there.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, and this is fuzzy math for for a second because we'll go to we'll do the right math when we go to the other chart, but you know, you're a little over 250 there. You know that get two if that's a 2.6% you're coming from from 6.7. So, you'd be at 4 one at that point. But before we do anything to the AS budget you know and so that's what so that's the thing to talk about if well again this is n this is my suggestion for fund balance we haven't actually passed that
you know and you know I want to hear what other people think if that's the right number if you think it's too high too low
I think we should concentrate on AES right now
and do our reduction with that and then look at the fund balance at that point
I'm okay with I'm okay with that will go in order. I mean that you know the other thing to remember that's the other thing guys we this is a
we don't know what's going to happen here but what I would say is that I guarantee this number will fall
the RAM le
right
how much
we're talking though we're not talking AES
I just wanted to mention that I wanted to mention that in context now we're going to talk about AES
okay
but it's going to lower our overall
yeah it's just I just wish you know we're just not going to be ble to know what it is unfortunately until that night, you know, until they they make they take action on Tuesday night,
right?
So, unfortunately, it it's just a it's just something to keep in mind. So, whatever you're thinking, you know, whatever you want to think of as your target, just keep that in the back of your mind. That's all.
Just just because I know you guys are talking about how to pay this, but the total town increase, if my numbers are right from what I'm reading at the bottom of this. So, I take the municipal budget for last year, the municipal capital budget for last year, and then what you're currently being requested or what's being currently requested. It's a $147,272 Just so you're all aware because it's really hard to read the way that you guys with the way that this is set up.
Yeah.
So,
are you saying in
expenses Jeff or
No, the expenses are right at 5.99 and then you have a negative 2.92 for capital budget. But if you just take them in total and you add the the town municipal budget for last year and the capital budget for last year, you get 4.198433. And currently the request is 4,345704. Difference is 147, you know, 2027 or, you know, depending upon where my I was I was trying to do this while Rob was moving the screen. So, but I'm coming to three and 3.51% increase is what is being proposed right now with the cuts that you guys made and
where we're at.
Right.
Lisa, can you do me a favor while we're deliberating on as stuff?
Can you send me the the tax rate calculation chart again? You got you got somebody everybody mute, please.
Mute your phone. Jody.
Thank you.
All right. Yeah. So, Lisa, just I want to make sure I have the most upto-date one that we went into town meeting with.
Okay.
Because we're gonna That's the That's the one we're going to need to flip to once we've sort of made our
Okay.
Last changes here. So again, we just talked about how we made a slight 16 16 and a half thousandish cut to the on the town side. I would my just conceptually my thought on this was I was looking at the advisory questions and I'm thinking okay a modest cut to a AES as well more a little more than the town side because the advisory questions indicate more people thought it was high. but I you know personally I would be I would be c judicious here. I'd be cautious here. So, I want to hear other people's thoughts, but you know, when I when I was thinking about this, I was thinking, you know, a modest cut to the town and then maybe, you know, one and a half, two times that for AES
and then see what the numbers with fund balance use and everything and see what the number comes out at. And then if we don't like that number, we can we can journey onward. We can talk about doing more. But that's that's my thinking. That's just where I'm at. What do you guys want to do?
Well, they've already take, you know, we've already received aboutund and well, not 150. How much for for education?
It's like 163 we're at now, Bill, because this this, you know, this is my fund balance suggestion. We haven't done it. So, we have the education specifically for education.
Oh, it was 80. We're going to receive 80
,000 plus the 50,000 that we just discussed 49,000,
right?
So that's 120. So we've already reduced our burden on AES by hundred and something thousands.
Yeah.
80 plus 49, right? 129. Is that correct?
Yeah. I mean the education money. Yeah. It's it's bear in mind, you know, that's that's RAM, but yeah. So the other way to look at it is so far we're down 163. We're down net it out down 163 in terms of what we need to raise in taxes because of the various aid we've received and the 16 you know.4 that we made cuts you know. So, so all I'm saying is if we did take the 100,000 like we talked about earlier from the fund, okay, the leftover fund, the 2.1, we took a 100, that puts us at 263. I guess my question is, what does the board feel our goal should be that we should get down to? What is a passable budget in the board's mind? What is our target?
So, I have I have some thoughts, of course. the the vote indicated people felt the AES budget was too high. So I'm not talking about what is going to end up how we pay for it. I'm thinking of the expenditures and an 11% increase in expenditures I think is the problem. U and I think we we all knew it was going to be a problem. We tried to get them down to 7 and 1/2 and someone on the board rejected that. I think we got here in a in a couple of ways. You know, last year they had requested an 8% I think
8.8.8 and we gave them five. So
we gave them we gave them five.
8.5 I think.
No, five. Okay,
gave them five. And they wanted the 8.8 to well, one of the drivers was to hire 3.1 new FTE, two of which were school teachers for fourth and fifth grade and 1.1 was for additional specialist teachers and part of a I think math interventionalist. so when that was changed, back down to 5%. They made minimal changes throughout the budget to meet that to meet that threshold, but didn't change their goals, you know, so they still hired the people they wanted to hire. so now we're in a point where they, you know, they hired the people and now they want to hire another sixth grade teacher, which, you know, we can't tell them how to spend the money. I I get that. I just want to kind of explain like a process that I went through to kind of cuz
last last time when I tried to make a recommendation, Bill said, "Well, what how did you come up with this number? Like what are you what are you thinking about?" So I think that was a very good point and so I kind of did some math and kind of came up with some thoughts. I personally when you look at the enrollment that they have every year it looks like there are 25 children right now in the fifth grade class. And I personally think hiring a sixth grade teacher right now for 25 students after they've been this awesome sixth grade teacher has been handling more than that. I so I question I question that. But I also
I also want to discuss and I don't mean to beat a dead horse. I want to discuss the preschool because preschool does in fact affect the general fund because part of the increases for the FTEES were to increase some of the specialist teachers and that got me looking at like well what what else does preschool affect? And if you look into the the preschool pamphlet, so they use they use they use everything the school uses pretty much. they use the art teacher, gym teacher, music, speech, librarian, and I also believe the instructional tech person. we know that we are covering the benefits and FICA that stuff. and then I would argue they're probably using the psych the psych services, occupational therapy, PT possibly. and they're probably using a lot more. Okay. But those are some areas that I kind of concentrated on. And in past years, there were two preschool classes. And then there was a decision made to expand the preschool. For whatever reason, we won't know because that decision was made in an executive session. So, we really don't know why. but when you look at the number of classrooms in the school, four out of 17 right now are preschool. So I did a little math and I looked at okay four out of preschool and I did a div I I divided so I I got a percentage four out of 17 is 23 and a2%. And if you add up all those expenses that I talked about, the total of those expenses is $499.91 and 23% of that is 400,876. If you
Wait, are you sure about the math on that? Wait a minute. You said the total was
49. So, the total of the total of those items that I talked about is 4.
Oh, no. I'm sorry. I take that. No, no, no, no. I'm wrong. I'm wrong. That was the Never mind. I'm wrong on that. I'm looking at the difference.
Yeah.
Nope. I'm wrong on that.
Can I Liz, can I interrupt for one second just to make a point?
Yep.
I really don't think I I you know those the building is the building. No matter how many kids you have in that school, the building is the building. I'm not a believer in that kind of concept. What I am and and listen, I'll take responsibility for for my letter and and what I wrote and I'm really honest about the whole thing. The the lever that the school and the board of education have not sat there and pulled is the tuition that the families are charged.
Right. I am all for I am all for a great quality preschool education for kids. I am. I just don't think that the community should be supporting that. And and the information that the board of education receives on a monthly basis to sit there and say that's a financial breakdown of the prek program is is not that's not it. I'm an accountant. I sit there look at this stuff all the time and all I'm like that's not what you need to provide.
And so I I'm just I'm a believer. I love the fact that they're utilizing the the school and the classrooms and they can do it. But you have four certified teachers, four paras, all the other services that Liz's talking about. And if Scott Soyette is telling people in his information that the town is paying $100,000 for the prek, you can guarantee it's three to $400,000.
So I'll just sit there and you just need to go over the numbers. You need the data. This is all I've ever been sitting there trying to say. People get mad at me in meetings and town meetings. Just provide the information and we can all make an intelligent decision for the best interests of everybody in the community and that includes kids and seniors and everything else. But please just provide the info. So
agree. So I guess my point is in the original in you know original way it was we were we had four employees there right two teachers two parents now we have eight employees and and I'm not talking about dividing up all the expenses of the school the school is the school but there are certain things that have increased because the amount of children have increased so I mean you could save $190 $7,000 by cutting back to two classrooms and we would still be fulfilling the obligation that we have to special ed. We would still be providing a wonderful preschool to the community.
That together with
olding off on hiring a sixth grade teacher could save us $280,000. because two rooms, two classrooms, and I'm not even
like that'd be like 26 27 kids per per room if if if you cut way no more than that.
Well, no, you you would you would have to go back to the way you used to have like why do we have to be why do we have to solve the problem of the preschool desert?
I'm talking about even if you removed all out of town kids, you'd still be in 50 some odd kids. Look,
because you can't remove those kids.
We have, we have, you know, Kate would like to to speak. Val would like to speak. Do you guys want to talk to the school of board about this or, you know,
or you have or are you building up to a motion here?
Well, I would build up to a motion, but
because I don't know if this is really accurate, but
I'm trying to ex Can I can I just say something about the prek program as well? When I I did a lot of research on different towns with preks. So, Columbia, Connecticut has two prek classes. They collect, I think, five or $6,000 from the kids. And any money that they collect goes back to the town because it's run in a school building or a town owned building. In Marlboro, Connecticut, they have half day prek and it's only open to Marlboro's kids and it's free. If parents need prek to go to work or they want their kids, they pay for a private program called Mecca to utilize to to pay. So there are instances where things are done a little bit differently.
I just
I think that's a good question. I kind of would I I think we have some folks from the board of ed here that are probably educated in this and I would like to pick their brain while they're on the call if we could do that. I think Valerie raised her hand.
But I thought this was not public speak at this point. I think we need to make a motion and continue. We've had such a bad recognize certain subject matter if we want.
Excuse me, Rob. I need to we need to continue doing what we're doing as a board trying to listen to the town people stating that the the school budget is way too high. We need to do an adjustment to that. So, we're just trying to educate each other.
Louise, can I interject for
We need to educate ourselves.
Please, please include them in the conversation. It's the only way we'll ever get information.
Thank you.
I may not ever get information. I may not ever get the information I want, but your board should because your board needs to make decisions on the town's behalf on how we spend the money. So, if you don't get the information and the knowledge from the people at the board of education, if we they don't ever give us the details, you can never make a good decision, you're going to be shooting in the dark right now with whatever change you want to make. So, listen to them.
Okay, I stand corrected and I didn't know whether that was proper rules to do.
We've been doing it all night. We've been calling on experts.
We can call on experts if we want.
Okay. So I would suggest
that we hear from Kate and we hear from Val on this issue and then we should move forward with what Liz was building towards and and you know actually entertain motions here. So if that's okay I'd like to go ahead and call on Kate
or Val to explain. you know, was it okay?
Hi.
so I'll be really brief. just a couple points to what Liz mentioned. so one of the reasons for expanding classrooms, I don't know if you guys are aware, but we changed the required age for entering kindergarten in the state of Connecticut to five. So kids are in prek for years three, four, and five. That happened a couple of years ago. so if you look at the increase in the classroom sizes that explains why because kids are now in pre-k for three years instead of two. additionally you can't just look at the number of children in a prek program and divide
the total estimated cost of something by the number of kids and say you're subtracting that amount from the budget for the services they use. the town is required to provide special education to any child who ages out of birth to three up until they reach going to kindergarten which is age five. So from age three, four and five. Any kid who qualifies for special education of which a lot of the services you mentioned psychology, speech, OT, PT, all of those are considered special education. Those would be required to be given to those children free of cost until they reach kindergarten, regardless of whether or not we have a pre-K program. And we're actually taking advantage of grants to reduce the cost of that to the taxpayer by having a prek program. If we didn't have the program, the cost of those services for those children would actually be higher than it currently is and would be an increased cost in the budget. aside from that, I'll let Val talk about more specifics for you guys.
Just so, we're clear. I do understand that we are responsible for the special ed portion of it. I I totally get that. I've never never disputed that.
Right. So, but but when you talk about like calculating a cost per child and subtracting a certain amount, it's not it's not like apples to apples. You can't say the cost of each kid is the same. Just like you can't say the number of kids in a sixth grade classroom last year, which was, I believe, at 29 for the majority of the year, those 29 kids are not the same 24 kids that will enter sixth grade next year, right? Like like an IEP or a 504 plan has to be taken into account when you talk about how many kids can be or should be in a classroom. That's all.
Thanks, Kate.
Bel.
Yep. So, I I'm a little confused about a few double standards, though, because earlier tonight, we talked about needing some assistance on the town side to assist with jobs to help Matt Streer, to help other positions and and and I think that's great, but now, Liz, I I know you said, but if those teachers last year managed to do the same job with the same number of kids, let them do it again this year. So that I I think is not fair to teachers. Just because they were struggling through a very large class and doing an amazing job for a year doesn't mean that we should expect them to continue to do that impossible job forever. That I would like to say we have amazing teachers. about the increase in staff. From 2015 to 2020, we lost 6.5 staff members when the enrollment went down and they didn't get them back. So, when you speak last year of some changes over and above those two teachers, that was to start to get it back for our increase of K6 students. When we did add a fourth grade and a fifth grade last year, that's two more gym classes, two more art classes, two more library classes. That has nothing to do with preschool. That had to do
with the fact that we added another fourth and fifth grade class. 18 is what you're going to put in each of those max each of those preschool classes. Two classes is 36. That doesn't even cover the Andover kids that live in town. And if you've looked at other programs that are free or half day, they are fully special education programs and they bring in no money, which means that there is a line item in that town's budget to cover at least the teacher and the parah that are in the room as well as other expenses. And we don't have that. I do think you said it right at the beginning when you said, "I hate to beat a dead course." And when we talk about tuition, the tuition issue is something that will be looked at just as soon as OEC and the state department of education in the next 24 months, 12 hopefully actually, decide what the changes to universal preschool are. At this point, they're building the plane as it flies unfortunately and we've got to kind of go with that. But we have the four classes. You couldn't put your and over responsibilities in two classes, Liz. That that just isn't going to happen. I do hope that during the course of this year, we'll have multiple workshops for parents and the community as that program at the state level gets rolled out further. We have a parent ambassador that will be doing that, Doris Maldonado, so that everybody understands the changes to the preschool program. The last thing I will say there and then Rob if you have a question please by all means let me know. the
tuition doesn't affect this because the tuition no matter what that is something a parent will get a tuition agreement this summer. They'll get a tuition agreement this summer and they'll know what they're paying moving forward. unless they're a a grant slot. We don't even have all of the enrollment yet for next year. I couldn't tell you right now what the anticipated enrollment for next year is. I can tell you what we're working on right now for this current year, but we're still enrolling for next year right now. So, I I couldn't even tell you if it's going to be 250, if it's going to be 300. I have no idea. and we are better off to have the grants. Those are solid. Those are anticipated. Those are expected. We know what's coming in. So the last thing is I don't like that we keep saying them they they're us. They are Andover residents. It's they're they're they're there's not anything wrong with them.
at the beginning when we say well they they use the school. Of course they do. so does pickle ball. So does basketball. So do the the town residents use our gym. Everybody does. They're us. They're part of us. The Andover residents. So if there's any You muted yourself.
Any other questions? But I don't see how this affects what we're doing right now.
I I have I have one two two questions actually. One is are any of the grant dollars used on out of town children?
No, the grant dollars are used on slots. It doesn't this the state they're on slots.
Okay. So, so when you reduce tuition, none of the out of town students are getting reduced tuition.
Our out of town students know when they come there to fill a slot. They can't be special education because we would have to provide other services at the taxpayer expense. So, we don't take out of town students that are special education and they pay full tuition.
Okay. And then you said you can't you can't give us a total number of students. You already know what your Andover kindergarten should be for next year or reasonably close. Do you have any kind of idea I mean as to the number of students for Andover that'll be K through six?
K through six.
Yeah.
Well, sure. it's our current our current enrollment that's there now
and the children that are moving up from prek to K, they're still doing screenings on waiverss. So we we should have a more permanent number but the end of May.
Okay. Well, what's the number currently in K through six?
In K through six, what is it? 198
192 I thought it was val. Did it go up?
I don't have it in front of me. I'm at home. But whatever the number is from the board of education packet that went out this week, that's the number.
All right. I'll have to double check, but I remember it being 192.
Go ahead, Bill. Bill.
Well, first of all, I think Liz should be able to finish her point, but then I would I would like to just ask two clarifying questions, but I think
Lyn, go ahead and ask your clarifying questions, then we can get on to making I I think my first thing is maybe they're not questions so much as but Val, as I was listening to Caitlyn talk, it sounds as if we actually save money by having this grant and having this program and taking out oftown kids is all part of that grant. So, if we didn't have it, the taxpayer would actually have a higher bill. There would be line items in your budget to pay for prek program, but we don't have a line item in that budget because it is funded through the grant and the tuition. So, there's not even a a item that we can discuss in your budget because there is nothing in there for the prek program because we save money by the program that we have.
Correct. What Liz has referred to in the past is that it would be her preference to to charge preschool program to use stuff in the building, staff members. she would want to take percentages of our already existing costs and charge the parents for that. And we don't do that with any bill. We don't do that. We don't do that with any program. Just like honestly, there are programs at the community center that guests come to from other towns. Test doesn't say, "I'm sorry, you don't live in Andover, so you can't pay to have lunch here." I've been there for lunches. It's a great program and they have out oftowners that go there. So, it would be unrealistic. It would be unrealistic for us to say we're going to start charging our own families
to a percentage to use existing facilities. That would be me like saying, "Rob, I know you want to use the gym for a town meeting, but you've got to pay me because it costs me."
For the record, I I never said that. For the record, I never said that.
You did. You did say that you think that the You did say that you think that the extra classes for like the gym teacher could be reduced and their salary could be reduced if it wasn't for for preschool. And that's not the case. That was a full-time gym teacher when we had two preschools. So, we didn't go full-time because we all of a sudden had four preschools. That did not happen. So, thank you. I'll let you get back to your meeting, Rob. So now, so because you have had to increase to four classrooms, you did not have to increase any FTE for any specials.
Nope. As a matter of fact, the one thing that I did have to increase a year and a half ago was speech services and we hired a different person, Karen, and paid her to do preschool speech screenings and took it out of the preschool budget. that was not a responsibility of the current speech teacher. So any of those extra things we paid this year for enrichment music, not our music teacher, another person to come in out of preschool grant funds. We paid that person to come do enrichment music for the preschool. So those expenses get passed on to preschool when they are preschool only expenses. And so there there would be no talk about increasing tuition. I mean tuition has been the same since further back than 2019.
Yes.
Right now with the changes going on with the state, we currently receive with early start which used to be school readiness and smart start. We receive $6,000 for each of those slots. They have not told us what's going to happen in a year or two with that program. They've said that there's this like checklist. Maybe those districts that take out oftowners will receive more if they have out oftowners. Maybe the increase to the early start funds is going to go from 6 to 10,000. Maybe the smart start is going to go from 65,000 to a 100,000. Maybe if you have more rooms rather than less rooms and you can show that you can check the checklist, there'll be incentivization money. I sit on about
four meetings a month. I have one tomorrow. Four meetings a month with OEC and the state department of education as well as the RESK as does my principal and the team at AES. So, I can tell you that we are following very closely all of the changes that are occurring for them to implement universal preschool. And we are set up very nicely right now that if there's any incentivization money that's going to be offered because our program is considered a benchmark program because we are a model and we are NYAK accredited with a 98.9% rating. we will be eligible for that and we're going to continue to maintain our level of rigor and our level of success with our students so that we can be eligible for more money come 2728 school year.
all those things are great, but I'm just going to sit there and and be the bearer of bad news, but the federal grants and the state grants are just not guaranteed. I mean, the state of Connecticut's going to lose a billion dollars in federal.
That's not true. The state of Connecticut listen. Come on, Valerie. You just spotted You just spouted all your Hold on, everybody.
Just let me talk about it. And even if my numbers aren't even if my numbers aren't even close to being right.
You just saw in this distribution of $270 million that our town of Andover got 90 98. It's a it's a joke. We have to prepare, right? We have to understand that there's there are constraints that we're going after.
Now, I asked you specifically for the number and I went into the last agenda that's out there for the for the board of of education and it says there's 187 current students in the school. And Valerie, I I really want you to tell me if my my logic is correct, right? And you keep going all the way back to 2010 when I think we had let's see how many kids do I have for for that period 31 students in K through six and currently we have 189 and you keep comparing the spending at that level and that that that's a problem.
No,
that's what you're doing. Just I'm gonna finish. I'm just gonna finish.
Yep.
Right. So I'll I'll go to a much shorter span for everybody to understand what has happened. So in the the year 2324 our actual spending was $3,789,000 on AAS. We took and put the difference into I didn't but the board of finance took the money and put it into the capital fund. So the over the under spend of $400 and some odd thousand went into the capital fund, but that was your spend $3,789. You had 174 children in your class. And currently we're asking your the board of education is asking for $5,63,000. And you've only gone up to 189 children. That's 15 children. And that's a $1,274,000 total increase in spending in a span of three or four years for 15 children. That totals $84,966 per child. That is unsustainable.
You're not comparing apples to apples.
How can I not be?
You are. You are. You love to take out
Those are your numbers, Valerie, not mine.
My turn. My turn.
You love to take out the preschool numbers. You said let's go back to 2023 and then 2010. First of all matter
I went it does matter. I went to 2015 when I did all of my comparisons this year. That's a decade. From 2015 to 2020 the budget was cut $418,000 to quote rightsize it because the enrollment was going down. We never got back those people. We never got back that money. And if you look at the budget from 2015 to 2025, the total increase was $244,000. That's a real number. They can look it up on on our website or the town website. So that's that's the real number, $244,000. You also will reference oftent times, Mr. Maguire, the actual expenditures, and you will say, well, you had a surplus that year that you put in the capital account. We most certainly did because we were responsible with fis fiscally responsible with our overage. I went to Robert and I said due to COVID and ARPA money and all of the other things. We didn't spend that money on nothing. We didn't build a building. We didn't do anything with that money. We didn't hire staff like some towns did to make it easier that we were going to fall off a cliff and not be able to pay.
We went to the board of finance and said we can put this money aside because we have no capital account and it's the right thing to do for taxpayers. So I do resent that being thrown back in our face where we took that money and we were reasonable enough to say let's put it aside for a rainy day for capital for 35 school road and at the time Robert and Joanne Heert worked hard with that. That is the reason why the bathroom is not costing a penny to the taxpayers more than that money was put in there. So when grants can supplant instead of supplement, we do and we do that well. So then you can't look at the actuals that year and say that's not fair because the town side has an overage every year as well.
And I don't have 57 funds to take money out of. We're looking at a million dollars this year alone funding those funds. And I don't have that privilege. So I just respectfully, Robert, and I'll give you back your meeting. I think that to cherrypick a couple of things like I'm not an expert in the field, but I think that you guys can go back to two classrooms. That's not true. It's not accurate. It would not even service all of our Andover children to say I think you added people for the sake of preschool without telling us. That's not true. You know, we added a fourth and a fifth grade class. So there again, those are two extra specials right there. So I think we do need to get back to the budget. I think we need to stop
attacking preschool. It is not a line item in this budget. It isn't.
Yeah.
well, just last last Rob Rob just one thing. One thing one thing one thing
to hear.
There is 112 student just in in K through six decrease from the year that the superintendent references 112 students down. And the reason why I focus on the prek superintendent Bruno is because you have told me in multiple years that it did not cost the taxpayers of Andover any money. So I have to take that out of the calculations because I am taking you at your word that it does not cost the taxpayers of Andover any money. So, I focus on the K through six because you have told me that it doesn't cost us any money. So, I'm just letting you all know we've lost 112 students and in the last few years we've had a significant spike in what you're you've been allocating to the school. And if you that's why you need your money. That's why you need your information to make these decisions because they're not easy. When I arrived, there was 175 students.
All right.
You referenced 2010.
No, I did not. I
That's what you did.
2015. Said it
2015.
Okay. Now, can we bring this in? And instead of having this back and forth hearing a grievances, can we I want to tighten this up, guys. This is
It's 9:38. We have decisions to make. I want to move to the part when we make proposals.
All right.
I think Kim has a question.
I do have I do have
Go ahead.
Since I'm sorry since we're I'm not sorry, but since we're on the subject of a big no there there's been a couple of things that have been brought to my attention and I I do want to ask Valerie for our little kids, you have three-year-olds and foury olds and I noticed in your you know your handbook, how do the how are how are the three-year-olds funded for like lunch and stuff like that? Do their moms and dads bring in their food? Do they buy food at the school?
Their moms and dads bring it in. And if if the school does provide things like snacks, the snacks are charged from Coventry Food Service directly to the prek account.
Okay?
The bill comes in and it's paid from the prek account. I assure you that you are not paying for their lunches.
Okay. And and our our also our three and four year olds transportation. Do they ride a bus? I haven't finished my question. Please don't interrupt me.
Do they ride a bus? Do they come in on their moms and dad's vehicles? How are the three and four year olds for our prek program getting back and forth to the school? And then so what happens with them at 3:00 when they're our kids getting ready to leave for the day and their moms and dad, do they pick them up? Like how does that work?
Just like every other kid in the building, their parents pick them up. our our children that are under five years old are are not allowed to ride the bus. So So
there's no no prek kids on the andor school buses. How about the vans? What do you mean the vans?
Well, there's they're smaller, but
No, the only we the only special the only vans we have are special ed transportation.
We don't have vans to take people home. Only special ed transportation.
So, no prek kids are on our buses.
I I just said anybody under the age of five is not allowed to ride the bus.
PreK kid who has not doesn't qualify for kindergarten. Maybe
that that is a possibility. If somebody is 5 years old, they can ride a bus. But nobody under the age of five can. So if you had a preker that turned five this month and the parent said, "Could I ride the bus?" They'd have to be an Andover resident, of course. But would Taylor say yes if they were five? She probably would. Yes, because then they're legally allowed to ride the bus. But obviously our buses only stop in Andover, so they would be an Andover resident. Okay. Okay. I just I I've noticed that there's a big jump in transportation. and I'm not equating it to that. I'm trying to sort it out myself. Thank you.
Oh, you're right. The bus.
Okay.
Do we have any further questions or can we move to the part where we talk about adjusting the AAS budget line? All right. Why don't we do that? Now, you were building towards something.
I was I was
So, if I wanted to continue and and if you have a motion you want to make, I have thoughts. I have I don't just don't want to dominate the discussion. I'm I'm trying to chair the meeting here and I I certainly have a figure in my head, but you know, I want to hear what others think. So, I have been waiting and have asked a couple of times for that aggregate number that we asked for for what it costs for the benefits and Medicare and stuff for the preschool portion of it and haven't gotten that. so, I kind of was doing my calculation. I'll take out the other items because there's no other way to do it because I can't get the numbers that I've asked for. $313,000 in expenses for Let me take that one off for benefits and whatnot tied to the preschool. Just I don't know. It's just a point. Just a point, I guess. I don't know. Rob, why don't you go, again, we still have to talk about fund balance, but we're talking about EES right now. My end goal here, I was thinking, can we get somewhere between, you know, three and a half and four for the tax increase from from the 6.7 we presented?
And if we were to cut 50,000 out of AES and use 100,000 in fund balance, right, you'd then be, you know, you'd be at 360, sorry, 313, I think. something along those lines. And that's a, you know, about 3.1% reduction. That gets you to 4.6. It's so not quite there. So, I was thinking I was thinking that and talk about fund balance and then do the math, see where we're at. You know, I'm not saying it's the it's the end game, but I I wanted to see what it did. I feel like if we cut them more on top of of that, I I worry that we could, you know, start to run into trouble. So I know that there are people members of the board who would probably think that's light. I understand that. That's my starting figure. That's where I think I think is the right answer. I think if you if you look at the mod the very modest cut that we made to the town
side and you look at the advisory questions which again you know both were deemed too high. More people said school is too high. Yes. But both came in with hey this is too high. So my thought is cut the cuts should be kind of measure it with those numbers, right? And if we're making a $16,000 cut to the town side, you know, 50 is actually significantly more than that on the school side. So that's that's my thought. That is my thought. My thought is 50.
What's that percentage, Rob?
What's the percentage?
Well, in terms of in terms of the overall budget,
no percentage decrease. Okay. Well, they're asking for about a 500,000. It's just shy a $500,000 increase, right? And that's that's your 11%. So, that that would take it down to, you know, 450.
Right. So, it would be more like a 10% increase than than a 11% increase.
I don't think that's going to fly.
I mean, I could do the math. I mean, I can do the math if you want. Five, you know, 50.
I don't really think that's enough. I mean, it was pretty clear what the the town people have said. I really think we need to go lower.
I think it was pretty even between the town budget and the AES budget. How about we ask AES to come back with the same 164 we did
16,000?
Yeah, it's the same amount we cut our budget.
Yeah, but you can't increase
our budget increase was not as huge as theirs. So, it's not really
It's not clear. That's That's not even
It's not apples to apples that
Yeah, I disagree with that. Yeah. And it is not apples to apples.
I I'm just saying I I my fear is and Superintendent Bruno was nice enough to give me a tour of the school. When I first started, I was looking through the line items and I was looking through the things and the school's decisions. I think the board has done all the assessment and made the right calls for what we needed. My fear is if we keep kicking the can with the school budget, eventually it's going to compound and it's going to be a bigger problem. and I I just that's my thought on it. So, I'm wondering if like we go just to show fairness, we do the same 168 for them that we did for us. I I I hear what you're saying there, but I I have to agree with Liz that I hate to say this, Valerie, but you're looking at the AES assets three times what the town is. So, if the town cuts 16,000, you'd have to ask for at least three times that to be if you were talking about being equal, which is about
$50,000. Rob, thank you. But so it does have to be proportionate to Liz's point. You you can't just say 16,000 Rob because that I mean not Rob Nick because that's not proportionate. You know what I'm saying? You're looking at 11% increase versus a I don't know 3 or 4% increase. So I do think you have to kind of make it proportionate.
Right. I've pulled up just for everybody's certification again the advisory questions. You can see the differences. you see a lot of just, you know, the just right numbers are actually pretty similar. but the too high, you know, Andover education budget was was deemed a little too high and the andover town budget was deemed a little too high. So, I look at this and I say, "Okay, yes, in consideration of the fact that, you know, we're looking we're we're dealing with an 11% increased request and that advisory question number was a little higher. I'm trying to do something that I'm trying to kind of mix and match that all together and come up with a number that seems equitable and I I arrived at 50. Your mileage may vary." That's my thought. if if and I'm happy to make that motion, but I you know, I know I know that there are those of you on the board who disagree and if
you want to make your motions, we can we can review and discuss. I don't you know, I'm not trying to ram through what I want. So, that's but that's my thinking, guys. I'm looking at the advisory questions. I'm looking at what we did on the town side. I'm looking at, hey, we're getting the state aid money. We're getting the 49,000 back from the 2425 budget. I'm looking at all those moving parts and I think if we did 50, you know, that gets us into a much more reasonable tax increase range. I'd still want to do the math on the other spreadsheet and get the exact number. but I mean, I think it would get us down into a much better place. So that's my thought. But if I'm willing I think we need to we're pushing 10:00 here. So we need to make decisions. We need to make motions. We need to proceed.
So I feel
actually can I Yeah. Let me I feel going that going from 11 to 10 is not going to make it with the town and we're going to be back here again after spending more thousands of dollars going through another referendum. We have to find out something that's we feel is going to be something that the town is going to accept
and I don't think 10 is going to make it.
So go ahead.
Did you consider the money that we the 100,000 and the 50,000 or the right we had the money that the board got from additional education and the money that they gave us back the 50,000.
So can I make some
if you add that in there as well then you're reducing the budget that much more. So
that makes sense.
I totally get what you're saying, Bill, but
I'm just
58% of the voters didn't know about that money that was going to come in. We know because we're on the board of finance,
right?
Okay.
We found out really late. We found out right before
Can I finish? So,
sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I apologize.
I I understand, Robin. We're all tired. I am, too. I have to work tomorrow. So, I feel like as a board of finance member that I need to kind of narrow my thoughts down to what they knew when they voted. And the vote was 58% felt that it was too high. And I also checked in with Wally Barton, and I'm going to quote him. He's not on the meeting. Sorry. 25,000 bucks it costs us each time we go through these votes and everything. And then there's another $500 for the clerk mailer. So that's the that's 3,000 bucks for the voting.
And then there is the fact that most people that I've communicated with before we even got to this point were completely shocked at even putting up the 7.5% So most people are saying I would really like to see 2 to 4%. So I'm just telling you what people are communicating to me as a board of finance member and I'm I'm trying to compare what I'm trying to do is compare apples to apples. And again, the 456 number is what our taxpayers told us before the, you know, the discounted dollars were showing up,
right?
I think that we are going to have problems if we don't listen. We're gonna go back.
Can I add to that? Can I add to that, Kim?
Of course. I'm finished.
I don't want to stop you. wanted to add that it we can play with the the numbers and grants and all we can, but what what it boils down to is the expenditures and these expenditures are going to be permanent, right? They're they're going to be permanent. I mean, we're over pushing over a $5 million budget now. You know, it's kind of it's a lot for a tiny school. And I think people are getting scared with that. So I I agree with what you're saying, Kim. I think we need to look at the expenditures. That's all. So
I want to circle back to that too because I also look at the fact that there is that large amount of money going from the taxpayers, but we also the school's also receiving a substantial amount of money in state grants. and they should. It's awesome. I think it's great. But it's still a large amount of money going into the school budget. There are federal grants that go into the school's budget. which I don't know. I dug around to try to figure that out. There's the tuition from the prek that they're getting. they have that capital account, which they should have. They're probably not going to spend all of that on that bathroom, but it's also a really nice buffer if something were to happen at the school. They would have some of that money to use for a substantial project. They've got it. It's theirs. It's it's in their control. We we kind of talk about it, but we know they could have it. They've also got that 2% non-lapsing account, which every year is going to be replenished. So,
it's not this year. They're drawing down from it this year, guys.
They're going to draw down from it, but I do believe that they're gonna it's going to be replenished. They don't have the money. That's it. Just just point of order and then I'll let you finish. I don't mean to I'm sorry. I just have the information. My understanding is they're going to be putting in 87,000 in change from the 2425 year and they're drawing down, I believe, 97,000 for this fiscal year. So, it nets out to about a $10,000 reduction. it's not being fully replenished, but it's it's closeish. Correct.
But but it's still I'm trying to say that
I don't I I'm not trying to hurt kids or, you know, make any bad decisions here. But I I do think that we need to look at like this huge picture of what is going on. And it's bigger than what the taxpayers know. It's what I know. I've looked at the budget and that's all I'm going to say. Thank you.
I I still think, Kim, that we have to consider the amount of money that we did get in additional. Yes, the town is going to receive that benefit that the budget is going to come down that much more based on that $150,000. If we take another $50,000 out of their budget, that's $200,000 the taxpayer is going to benefit from.
I understand that, Bill. But I also think that my responsibility here is to make sure that we explain everything to everyone
and we listen to them. And I get a lot of comments from our taxpayers and I'm trying to make sure that I convey that to all of you. and that we represent the taxpayers and our children.
It's very important that they receive the best education we can give them. But there is a big picture that our taxpayers don't see those accounts. You know what I'm saying? We know more.
Yeah, we do.
I don't disagree with you and I I I continue. never going to get anybody who who doesn't love kids
more you know I'd love more information in this budget I I worked on the presentation for a reason to to provide more information I'm always in that vein so I agree with you Kim what I would really like to do though board members is take action you know what my thought is
ome of you disagree with it I completely understand that I am totally unsurprised that's fine I'd like to have motions here and and and move forward. If you want me to make mine, I'll lead off. That's fine. But I generally like to, you know, let you guys have a crack at things and and then, you know, and then if I have thoughts. So,
make a motion the end over elementary school budget by $50,000.
Bill moves to reduce AES 50,000. I'll second it.
All right. We've talked. If if you have more comments, I won't shut them down, but we we've talked a lot. I'd like to just go ahead and vote on it.
I just want to make one comment.
Go ahead, Liz.
I just want to point out the fact this money that we're getting from the state, you know, for the town and for AES. This is a one-time thing. This is not money that's going to Yeah. Just I want to make sure everybody is aware. Everybody should be clear that it is not it's a oneshot thing as far as we know unless they go and they do it again. It is not teed up as a permanent increase to our ECS funding. That is correct. And it's it's that's that's an important consideration. You should you realize it's not ongoing revenue. Everybody clear on that one?
Yes.
Okay.
Important. Thank you, Liz, for bringing that up. I I I thought in my spiel I I probably missed I I added in my notes to to mention that as well. Okay. So, I'm just going to go through and we'll take a vote and we'll see where it lands. Liz,
You're no. All right, Heather. I'm going to say yes.
Okay, Kim.
No. Nope. Bill,
yes.
Nick,
yes.
And Louise.
Sorry, I'm I'm scrolling through. Louise,
Is a no. And I am a yes. So, that would be four to three. Motion carries to reduce by 50,000. And I'm going to get this note correct. Reduce. We're going to be right back here.
Absolutely.
Another 25. Another 25,000 to the to the town
wasted.
I thought it was 3,000, but yes. Okay. If that's
I thought it was 25.
I I got confused in there. I thought it was 2500 plus 500 equals 3,000. But
it's 2500 plus
Oh, I'm sorry.
500 for mailer.
It's not nothing, but it's thankfully not $25,000 a pop.
Yeah. Okay.
No, no worries. No worries. We just want to get it accurate. So, so that does that. Now, I we we still have to the last component here would be if people are willing to talk about use of fund balance. I'm going to get rid of this. This is all junk. use of fund balance. Again, it's the same issue that Liz rightfully points out. When we do something like this, it's a oneshot thing. If you dip into that savings of hours to offset something, you know, it's not ongoing revenue. You're doing it once, but I think it's appropriate. I mean, we did 190 last year. We did zero going into town meeting when this budget was rejected. I think we're in a good fiscal position. I think we can absorb 100,000 out of that that fund and be okay. And I think it's reasonable to do it. So,
that's my proposal. I want to hear before we, you know, go ahead and make motions if anybody has strong feelings one way or the other about higher, lower, not using it at all. You know, where's the rest of the board on that one? All right. In the interest of of not being on here till midnight, I'll just go ahead and make the motion and we can discuss. I'm going to move that we use $100,000 in unassigned fund balance to help offset the tax increase in the budget. Lisa, by the way, just out of curiosity, we we would put that on the other chart. We don't really have a line on this chart for that, do we? We We had it somewhere. I feel like And I don't think it's here. I think it's on the other chart. Is that correct?
What are you talking about for ch
use of fund balance? So, like for instance, I know it was here. last year we used 190 and this year we didn't. Yeah. Here it is.
Right here.
Yeah.
Right.
Yep.
Okay. So, right now is there. So, this we don't really have it on this chart.
Correct.
Okay. I just want to be sure I'm doing it right.
Yeah.
All right. So that my mo that's my motion. Do I have a second on that?
I'll second it.
Okay. Do we want to discuss? Anybody have any more thoughts on that?
I don't know. I'm thinking about it.
Okay. I'll come back to you. No problem. Kim,
Kim's a no. Louise,
no.
No. Okay. Nick,
yes.
Bill,
yes.
Okay. Heather,
Is a yes. Alisum,
yeah, I'm going to say no.
You're going to say no.
All right. it's my motion. I'm voting yes. that's 4 to three. We'll use 100,000. So now what I need to do is get this this chart updated and see what we've done. What have we accomplished tonight? and you're you're taking this down too, Lisa, right? As we go.
I'm trying.
All right. And now what I need
I definitely got the budget down. Yes,
these charts are not of course linked it before before we do this next year. Good lord, we got to get these back together, these two charts because they used to be one chart and you would propagate over and it was so much easier. my apologies for ranting, but it it was a lot easier and and it made errors a little less likely. So that's the AAS change. Now RAM expansion. By the way, everybody remember we are we're going to get something on off the RAM levy. We just don't know what. All right. municipal budget. Where is Oh, and we need to get on here. the revenueing well not revenue but the
you know the the additional special co stuff so if I'm if my notes are correct we did 50 off AAS 16.4 four off the town 100 from fund balance and we have the 98 in one shot I don't know what you want to call it revenue and it's not really revenue but you know the state aid
and then the 49,000 from
and the 49,000 right thank you Bill that AA as will return for fiscal year 25 so that total And I want to get the 98 number correct. It's it's it's actually 97 and change. Right. It's eight here. Let's get it right. 801 192 and then we put the other one in here plus 17 7. All right. So the net here is 313343. That's what I've got between additional aid and cuts and use of fund balance. That's the difference. All right. So just quick and dirty. If we take amount to be raised by taxation, we take this number. I I'm not going to fix this entire spreadsheet tonight because frankly I don't I want Lisa to to do it and and me to check it and
yes,
I I don't
I agree.
Right. Yeah.
so H. So if we if I just if I take this down. H, that didn't work. All right. we can probably have Lisa do this.
Sorry. offline. I know, but I wanted to to show people
my only point still have to go through public speak at the end of this and it's already 10 o'clock here.
I know
Rob, what was your calculation? You said by 100,000 in cuts would cut down. Could you use that just as a brief one until we can get a positive figure? You know what I'm saying? Give people an estimation with what you were saying earlier. I don't I don't know.
It's just a thought. Yeah, I mean 3 313 I mean that's that's a 3.1% reduction off of 6.7. So it should get you to 3.6 and I'm calculating 3.58 blah blah blah. So yeah, we're about 3.6% in tax increase now. We're down 3%. A little bit more than 3%. That's that checks out. I just wanted to make sure it checked out so that I'm not talking
crazy. Exactly. Not talking trash. so yes, we are roughly at that. I strongly suspect that that would duck us under the the auto mill rate issue and we back to be back to one simple mill rate which would be easier to explain to the public as well. okay. Unless there is further board discussion, I do think we should move on to public speak. We again have a lot of people to get through. So, I'll just repeat what I said the first time around. I'm going to stop sharing actually. Hang on a minute. Just try to keep it tight, people. Try to, you know, agree, disagree, have comments, but just try to keep it tight.
Should be a minute.
Okay. let's see. Well, Lisa, you're first up, but you're you've been involved. I don't know.
Yeah. Nope. I I'm gonna just keep watching.
Okay. Anna,
I just wanted to express that when we go to vote again, I will be voting no as a town resident.
Okay,
Kate. Hi. Yeah. I just want to thank you guys for the time that you've taken to commit to this tonight and for serving our town. Have a good night.
Thank you.
Thank you,
Diane.
Just a point of clarification that I wanted to say. I do hope you guys remember that if I read the new charter correctly, when we go back to referendum, it's going to be a bifurcated budget. So you just really all you achieved is
are showing the school budget as still a 10% increase. It is not going to fly. You you know just doing the percentage tax increase means nothing to the taxpayer. They want to know what their mill rate is and what the expense increase is for the town. I think you did what you can on the town. There's no more fat in that town budget, but you did not do that for the school and it's go and so we're gonna have a town budget that passes and we're gonna have a school budget that we're going to have a big problem with. So, you should really consider that. Thank you,
Elizabeth Partridge.
yeah, I I agree with Diane on this. I did think that it was interesting that when you went to the town, they bas talked about the town budget. They said basically, "Okay, well, whatever it happens to be, we'll make it work." And I laughed that we won't see that out of the the board of ed. they dug their heels in and they still refused to give complete information. The other piece that was never brought up was that that the school has all these solar panels on top of the roof and that we were told that that would cut their electricity bill in half right there. There's $15,000 worth of savings that nobody went after. And I think you're going to see you're going to be be right back where you were before. Eric.
Yeah. I will be voting yes in this budget. Rob and Bill, I want to thank you for your leadership during this meeting. It was great that you kind of took charge and actually kind of met in the middle. Like I requested at the beginning of my public comment. A few of you I'd like to I don't really like your attitudes on the board. So I would kind of fix that. Elizabeth Partridge for your reply to my first public comment. You are actually playing $70 less this year than you were three years ago. So, thank you.
All right. One thing I would like to tighten up on is, you know, let's not have back back and forth between the public comments. All right. Jen McColder.
Yes. I just wanted to thank the board of board of finance, especially your comments that there's nothing more important than educating our children. And I could not agree more. So, thank you,
Joanne. Oh, sorry. well, all right. We'll do Joan. I'll go back to Jenny Morel. Sorry.
Okay. I just wanted to say that I expected a little more work to be done tonight. you know, based on I knew all of you I had gone to all of your meetings and I knew you were waiting to hear from the public and they really made it pretty clear and I agree with some of you that again that I've tried to make this point again. It's the expenses that matter. It's not the artificially bringing it down for one year. I just always tried to keep myself impartial at these things and you know it's hard to but you have to listen to what the people say. So a lot of this is on the expenses and really there was a tiny bit of work done on the expenses when you know a couple things could have happened you easily I was looking back in the balances like that are in I know it's a sore subject but these are bank accounts that are there and have large amounts you know our road improvement fund could have taken a $50,000 hit this year I know you know and still had a huge balance it still has the town aid road Maybe another one could have, you know, reduced just 20,000. Again, there's big balances. Not the ones that pay for leases, not the ones that are spoken for, but a lot of
work has been done in the town. We've given a lot of, you know, so to come on and be ready to, you know, I figured you guys were ready to go. I mean, this is what it is. And luckily, that extra state money, which I read about, is coming in to help with education. That's great. and you know you reduce 16,0004 and then whatever's coming back and thank goodness you decided to use the fund balance but I just feel let down for the taxpayers that were looking at the budgets to be reduced not let's artificially bring it down but it is what it is thank you for all the hard times at the meetings and I just thought a little more could have been done that's all
understood Joanne Jenny Morell Hello. I'd like to just extend my appreciation for the very very hard work that you are all going through. to reference a couple comments that were made. I appreciated also somebody had quoted saying we're going to go to the experts and it was good to see that you were willing to go to, Val to, you know, get her expertise on something to help you make your decisions. and also, you know, no matter what happens, I think on the the school side, the town side, we will all make it work with whatever decision comes out. So, thank you again for your work.
Christina Frasier,
no comment. Thank you.
Katie Dixon,
thank you for your hard work.
Matthew Hagerty,
I appreciate everything. Good, good work tonight, guys. Thank you. Melissa,
I appreciate hard work of looking at the budget and I also appreciate those of you that were looking to look at the budget through a fair lens. So thank you.
Marcy,
I have no comment.
Thank you. I'm sorry. I forgotten who the Samsung is again. hi Dave Tibido.
yes,
I I guess I I mean I I'm in line with a lot of the folks online here with I guess I expect a little more from the town budget, but just curious why the benefits section got passed over so quickly. I I it went by so fast. I thought it was in the $700,000 level. So, I'm not quite sure, you know, what the town benefits are, but you know, seemed like that might have been an opportunity. the other thing
I'm not sure when like when the ram budget gets decided or whatever,
how will we know how it affected the town budget?
Yeah. So all right let me take your questions in turn. the first question the benefits line basically those are some of that's contractual. It's all basically governed by you know what we have for employees taking insurance plus the employees get payments in those who do not take the insurance get payments in lie of taking the healthcare insurance. And we have a huge spike in the healthcare premium this year in the consortium we're in. It's like a 21% increase. So we needed to have enough money in that line item to a pay the the the direct premium cost for the employees who do take the insurance and then the the contracts for the people who get payments in lie of it's tied to a benchmark of I believe a it's like 50% of the cost of a single plan. So it basically it all kind of has to go up. We we needed to make sure and I worked on this with Lisa. The reason I sped past it, it was I think we kind of been over this in multiple meetings where we wanted to make sure we had enough in there to to cover those costs. And I'm pretty sure that number is is right.
The second pay 100% of the cost.
No, no, no. I think that's Well, that's the town side cost, right?
Okay. Okay.
Yeah.
The employees contribute.
Yeah. Okay.
I don't know off the top of my head what the contribution is.
Yep.
I know at my work I pay 30% or something.
Yeah. Yeah, just curious less for municipal employees. So,
I'm sorry. The the second question was RAM. So, they have their meeting Tuesday night. That's the same time as we're doing our presentation at our town meeting. Now, our town meeting, frankly, it's for review and discussion and then the two budgets go to referendum and that's that. so, the RAM the RAM meeting, you might say, is is actually more important. They're going to do what they're going to do. Then we're going to vote on the May 26th. By by then, we should know what Ram did.
okay, that'll be posted somewhere.
I can try to make sure we post something to explain that. I'm sure also the Riverista probably reach out and ask what the impact would be on us. I I've been back and forth with them. but I I'll try to make sure that we try to communicate that as well as we can to the public in advance of the vote. yeah, and then if we if we that'll affect our mill rate calculation and we of course only set the mill rate once the budget is budgets are passed, we know what we're spending,
right? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Rob, just as a quick information, the both votes are still on are on May 26th. So as a town, we will be in referendum for all the budgets on May 26th. So
right,
we won't know RAM until we vote on it.
That's true. What I mean, what I'm sorry, what I'm saying is the proposal for whatever the RAM board of ed does in response to the the what happened.
Understood.
Yep. okay. Shannon,
first of all, thank you very very much for all of your hard work and discussion tonight. I greatly appreciate it. I just want to make two points. One is I believe that the town somewhat forgets that two or three years ago we gave the town budget a 16% increase. So, it's not surprising that the town budget doesn't need an incredible amount of increase. Why Andover Elementary School needs it is for all the reasons that you already know and we don't need to elaborate on it, but let's remember that the town got a 16% increase. And at that point, we relied on the expertise of the board of selectmen who said, "We need that. I really wish people would rely on the expertise of our superintendent and the work that the board of education does in telling you the budget that we need. The second thing is I appreciate what was said, but I do believe that people do
need to focus on the amount of the tax increase and not just get overwhelmed by a 10% increase for the school budget. We didn't get overwhelmed by a 16% increase for the town. I hope that that people will focus on the resulting cost out of their pocket. Thanks very much and thanks again for all of your work.
Tess, I see you joined us. You have public comment for us.
I do not. Thank you.
Thank you, Val.
Hi. yes, just to piggy back off of of what Shannon said, yes, you know, there have been other times that that we have needed to do this for the town. I can tell you that because thanks to you guys tonight, because hopefully we will not have to kick the can another year. Next year when we have this conversation, we won't be recovering from years earlier and we should be in a situation where we've gone through that recovery. As far as insurance, one of the gentlemen brought up insurance. Just a reminder for us, that's such a large number in terms of we have many many more employees than the town side. So, that's was a really huge thing. I appreciate you looking at the bottom line because the goal is the the balance on the bottom that for it to be that 3.7 as you mentioned or something lower than than what was originally presented. And so I appreciate that it was equitable in terms of not trying to balance the budget completely on the backs of children. And the one last thing is Betty brought up the solar it was live as of this past month and so we are only two weeks into creating power and we look forward to sharing that with the community as we move forward because yes, next year's budget we should see some savings as a result of it since it just went live. Thank you. Leanne.
Yes. I'm glad that Diane brought up the idea about bifurcation. I've been reading the charter. it didn't come up earlier and I've been reading the charter during the meeting and I am in favor of having this as a tool. I think it's appropriate. So, I'm glad it was brought up and I think it's it's going to be a good tool.
Yep. that's been in there since the last charter revision in I think it was late 20 24 that we put that through. That is that's relatively new to the town. Some of you may remember it. I think we've only had it happen once. I think it happened last year. so it is definitely new and and you know for those of you who haven't been through it before, it's a little bit of a change. Okay, I think I got everyone. If there's anybody on here that I did not call for public speak, now's your time. I apologize if I missed you. I just I think I went through everyone. Anybody? All right. I'd like to entertain a motion to adjurnn.
Motion to adjurnn.
Bill moves to adjurnn. Any second?
Second.
Liz seconds. All right, I'll go around the board. Heather,
I'm a yes. Bill,
yes.
Liz,
yes.
Kim,
yes.
Nick,
yes.
Luis,
yes.
Huzzah. We are journed. Thank you all for your work. We hope the best. I will see you all soon. Thank you.
Take care.