Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Regular Meeting
June 23, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Let's see. Seven zero two. Let's call the meeting to order, and let's do 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. Nation. Under God. Under God. Indivisible. Invisible. With liberty. Liberty. Justice for us. Thank you everybody.
If anybody sees Rob pop up. Rob here, he's on. I'm here Tonya, I just got in. I'm sorry, I had the wrong link, my fault. Okay, hi Rob.
Hi. We're all here. The party's ready to go. Okay. We have quite a few people on the call. For public speak tonight, I am going to limit everyone to one minute. Have a lot to cover tonight. So I would like to do that. And Amanda, we could start anytime you're ready.
Okay, welcome everyone. So I just wanted to remind you that for public speak, if you have anything that you would like to submit for written comment, please email it to me at the end of the meeting. My email is adminassistantandoverct dot org and I will put it in the chat. So we'll go one by one here. First up is Liz Lokiak.
I will pass for right now. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Kathy Palazzi and Mike Palazzi. We're good. Thank you, Amanda. Thanks. Sarah Warner. Hello. I'm gonna pass for now. Thanks. Diane Greiner.
I have nothing to add. I just wish the Board of Finance all the best. You have an unenviable job ahead of you, and good luck. Thank you. Jerry Cremay.
Thank you for having me. I have no comments at this time and I'm just here to give moral support to everyone. Thank you. Shannon Loudon. Nothing at this time. Thanks Amanda. Thanks. Erin Boris. No comment. Thank you. Thank you. Kimberly Prasan. Nothing right now Amanda. Thank you.
Thank you. Linda Derek, I see you just popped on. Would you like to participate in public speak? No, I'm good right now. Thanks, Amanda. Thank you. Kathleen Barrett.
Hi, thanks very much. Thank you, Board of Finance for your really great hard work and thank you for your continued efforts. Thank you. Chris Bernard.
Nothing, just here to support AES budget and listen to the conversation. Thanks.
Kelly Hackerde. We'll circle back around. Jenny Morell. Nothing. Thank you. Thank you. Stacy Kluzwinski.
No comments at this time. Just curious about what will be talked about during this meeting based off of yesterday. Thank you. Thank you. Melissa Liteska. All set for now. Thank you. Thanks. Elizabeth Partridge. No comment right now. Thank you. Thank you.
Mary Hoeller. No comment right now. Thank you. Thank you. Mercy Miner. No, thank you.
Thank you. I see another Louise has popped up. Louise Goodwin, is that you or is that a new Louise? It's not me. It could be a neighbor.
Okay. Louise, would you like to participate in public speak? All right, next up, Adrian Mandeville. We'll circle back around Christina Fraser I have nothing to say thank you.
Thanks. And it looks like Katrina Clay is connecting to audio. Okay, Katrina Clay, would you like to participate in public speak? Okay, it looks like we're all set here. Okay,
thank you everyone. Okay. Board finance members, do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda that anybody wants to make? I'm good Diane. Okay.
I'm gonna take that as a no. So we have no additions. Okay, let's go to item four budget workshop. So here we are. The budget failed referendum again, and by a greater margin than last time. So I think the town's taxpayers has spoken pretty loud and clear and they want a much more conservative, fiscally conservative budget. So I'd like to go around and get anybody's thoughts on, well, I can tell you where I'm thinking right now. My thoughts right now is to take the town budget and the school budget and come in at a 0% dollar increase. It's kind of where I'm thinking right now. So I would like to get feedback from everybody else on where they're thinking we should go. We've kind of tried every other combination of things and nothing seemed to work. So this seems to be the only option. Have just be aware if we come in at a 0% dollar increase, it still will create a mill rate increase because the amount we need to raise by taxation is coming up. It won't be a 0% mill rate increase. So if we're thinking about doing a 0%
mill rate increase, then we have to find more money. That's kind of laying the ground. Rob.
Quick question, Diane. I'll opine later, but just did you run the numbers to see if we zero out the town budget, what the mill rate increase is? Of course I did.
Yes, if we take the town and the school both to zero, okay so town and school $0 increase from their previous year's budget That would bring the new mill rate to 35.88, which percentage wise is an increase of 0.76%. And the mill rate increase would be 0.27 from where we are today. We're at 35 Just six
for everybody's info. That's Just a small increase, but not a zero increase. But is that the difference in us not using as much this year from the general fund, from the unexpended fund balance? Right, right. So, have a question. I'm sorry.
Go ahead, Rob. You're still talking. No, I'm done. I'm done. I'm good. Okay. I have a question. What happens if we spin our wheels and go through this a couple more times? Is it basically does it go revert back to what the current budget is? Or is there so many so much time we have to decide on a budget and if it doesn't pass we go back to the original budget that's currently? So, go
ahead Eric. I can probably answer that if you want. So the basic thing that has to happen is the town can practically delay the budget an absolute maximum of a month without going back to the bank in securing a line of credit. Because basically in August, we typically have roughly $1,000,000 worth of bills or correction in July. And in August, we generally have between 2 and a half and $3,000,000 worth of bills. We currently have. You think about what 10 a 10% reserve is on the downside. That implies about $1,300,000 So normally in when we do collections, like if the tax bills had gone out for July 1, they're not actually late until August 1, which means a large fraction of them come in at the end of the month.
If we delay thirty days, that means a large fraction of them are coming in just before September 1. And there's a chance that at some point in August, the line of revenue coming in plus existing funds and revenue going out match. And we basically run the town down to zero cash, which is problematic. So what is going to probably happen is the Board of Selectmen will likely meet in a special meeting tomorrow, and they will set a mill rate. They have the right to do that in the case that there's no budget as of July 1, which will clearly be the case. And they take their best guess as to what the mill rate will be. And they file it. And the tax bills go out based on that. If they guess low, then there will be a supplemental appropriation to the taxpayers, which A, gets everybody wound up, and B, costs us about $5 to send out a supplemental appropriation. It's actually around $4,600 So if we guess on the high side, the town simply returns the excess money to the taxpayers in the following fiscal year. So that does not come with an additional cost. But then people are angry because you charged them more money than the ultimate budget was. So that's really what's likely to happen.
But it's the Board of Selectmen's job to make that determination. And hopefully they will do that tomorrow
so we can get the tax bills out as close to one time as possible. But do we have Go ahead. Just really quick question because I remember this happening once in the past and I remember it was the board of finance that set the mill rate and maybe my memory is wrong. So anybody can correct me. Eric, is it really in the it's in the town charter that's the Board of Selectmen that does it? Yes,
it's a combination of charter plus the applicable state law. And I think I gave you Last day you read Dennis's opinion. Yeah,
I gave you Dennis's legal opinion on what had to happen for that. Okay, fair enough. I haven't had a chance to read every email. I was at work today fairly late and I just got home. So my bad, I just remember that being different in the past and maybe we did it wrong back then.
Probably what happened is you recommended to the board what the mill rate should be they adopted it and I would suggest that based on your discussions today, if you come up with what you think your target mill rate is, that you make that recommendation as you did at your last meeting to recommend, you know, the mill rate that we pushed to, you know, to town referendum, whatever decision you guys make today, probably push request the board, set the mill rate at that. They can't ignore you, but you know, but they would probably listen to your recommendation.
They are scheduled for a meeting tomorrow night, right? First and foremost, discuss that exact thing you just mentioned. Correct.
Yeah. So eventually we do have to pass a budget. Was my question. We do have to pass the budget and this is the process what happens when during that time that where the budget is not passed.
Right. And we can't spend any more money than we currently have. Right. And Eric, we default to spending it to last year's budget level until we pass a budget. Still have to continue the process and pass the budget. Right. And
there's also some additional burden on you of the board of finance because you have a lot more responsibility for approving spending between now and any budget when there's a budget in place. So I think that means certainly there will be a meeting sometime in July for you to approve spending if a budget is not in place by then.
Questions about the process? Okay. Anybody else's thoughts? Come on. Kurt.
You stole my thunder, Diane, but you are the co chairman. I was going to suggest the exact same thing. I was present last night with Jerry Cremay and Eric when they read the result. And I was I was very much taken aback by the by the numbers and and basically the townspeople have spoken, you know, even with a resident trooper. I mean, that's there's there's no way he's leaving. But anyways, I was gonna suggest the same thing you were that we zero out the Board of Education and the town budget to zero and and go from there no matter how we have to do it. As far as the numbers go, I mean we can't tell the person we can't tell the board of Ed but how to spend their money other than the fact that we can we can set the set the costs, but we should do the same thing for the town. And that's basically it. Think it's it's the only right now the only way to get out of this thing. Right,
Okay, have another question. Okay, Louise. Okay, what happens to the Board of Ed? Their obligations as of right now If the budget is not passed, what happens to their obligations? Do they have to scurry and find money to pay for that elsewhere or?
Well they would be limited to what their current budget is. Do you mean the new teacher contracts, Louise? Yes, the new obligations, yes.
That's the question. I can't answer it, I just wanted to clarify what she was asking. Yeah. Is Valerie on? Maybe she can answer that.
In the charter, Eric. I am on and we do we do obviously, they get paid every two weeks. So if we were continuing with the same budget, we wouldn't get to that point where we were beyond the budgeted amount from last year in the fall. Does that make sense?
Basically, you will get by for now just like the town's going to have to do. Right. If we zero without.
Right. Because for the time being our spending would have to remain exactly as it was, but teachers don't get paid all at one time, they get paid biweekly, then yes, we would do exactly what the town is doing. I think we all understand that.
Okay, thanks. I agree then with that point that what Diane and Curtis saying 0% increase at this point. I go along with that.
Okay hi and I also go along with it. Linda okay Dave your last question. I'll
be the one dissenting voice and not even really a dissent. I'll just throw a monkey wrench in the works. I'll just this is a reiteration of things I've said the whole time. This is the struggle we've had the whole way. A budget that we can get through town meeting apparently can't pass referendum. A budget that we can pass at referendum may not make it through town meeting. I understand everybody's take that we have to zero everything out and see what happens. I am sincerely confused as to how that would possibly pass town meeting but so be it. If I mean clearly the votes are here and I don't have them, you're going to do that, you're going to do that. I fully expect that if we take a zero increased budget to the next town meeting, it will fail. But hey, maybe we have to do that. Maybe that's part of the process. So be it. But I'm just saying we took, you think of it this way, we took a budget to town referendum the first one, the one that failed fifty fiveforty five that one was higher than the budget that just failed sixty fourthirty six I think was the numbers I ran them I did the math on Eric's
numbers when I got the email. So you know clearly at the referendum level people want cuts. We also know that we took lower budget in two town meeting that fell or not even lower. Mean this whole process has been this dichotomy between what happens in the town meeting and what happens at referendum and how to thread the needle. I am comfortable with going along with the board if needs be. I'm not going to be the only vote anyway if I disagree, so fine. But I don't expect if you zero it out that you're going to get a budget that passes. That's my thing.
Dave? Far as what? Your thoughts on where we should go next for 0% increase or any other thoughts? Any other I thought
you heard me, said I agreed with the previous comments before Rob. Okay. All right. So, Diane, I think
the one thing to consider, and it's something to consider, you know and ultimately you guys are going to have to make the decision on that because there's pluses and minuses and that is plugging some of that with the America's Care Act funding you know, and, and I don't like to do that because you're basically propping up a budget with this for lack of a better term temporary funds, but because you have a dichotomy in the bud in the voters, and you have to do something. I think it's pretty clear if you bring the school budget back in at a zero budget increase. They're going to bring enough teachers to the meeting that it's going to fail at meeting, is happening. Know, so my only thought is that if you do commit to spending some of the America's Care Act funding for the education side, you might get away from that criticism and you might get it up enough to get the support of school, but reduce taxation enough that you get a majority of voters to agree or not. How viable is that Eric?
Don't think you have purview I think that's gotta come from the border selectman side because someone's gotta look at that stuff. Looked at the regulation and there's a lot of stuff that is secure. How it's viable. Make an opinion out of it. You have to read the regulation. And if you haven't read it yet, we're not gonna get it right. So, and I don't know how the town wants to roll that out. That's a more selective. Yeah,
can I just throw in for a second here? Is that possible? Sure, Adrian.
So I have three concerns here. First of all, it's not up to the Board of Finance to decide what happens with those funds. Those were that would be board of selectmen. Two, we don't have the money in a bank account yet. I am not gonna spend money we don't actually have yet. And three, we don't even know exactly how we can spend it yet. And there's been a lot of people banding around. You can spend it on this, you can spend it on that. But the one thing that was very clear, the one thing that was very clear is you're not allowed to spend it to reduce
taxation. So basically everyone talking about spending it to offset this budget is going down the wrong path. You can't do that. That's the one thing you absolutely cannot do. They were very clear about. You cannot do, you cannot offset taxation with it. So, if there was something specific that, you know, that somebody was looking for to make something happen in town and it was wrapped into this budget as a capital item, you could maybe try to pull that out. But to say you're going to spend it to offset the school budget is that's the one thing you can't do. And you can't spend it to quote unquote, offset the town budget. So that's going on a path that's gonna get us all into a bunch of trouble. I broke up there Adrian.
So I understand what people are saying, but it's kind of going down the wrong path. And I guess, last but last but not least, I think my concern is that when we start talking about this, the one thing that was very clear in the referendum is that the school budget was too high and that the town budget was too high. So, supplementing the school budget by taking money out of that so that the school budget still stays high but the taxpayers don't pay it now. They just deal with it later. I don't think it's the answer either because then we are in a bigger issue next year. You know, it's it's a we're if we put those guidance questions on there, the taxpayer speak, we're supposed to pay attention to it and the school budget being too high was very clearly, you know, in those questions, I mean, it was 400 and something to, you know, to 200 something. It was literally two to one against that school budget at the number it was at. It's not just about what the taxpayers are spending, it's about the tax that It wasn't, you know, are your taxpayer dollars going into it too high? It's was the school buses high period? And the answer was yes. So you're two to one against on that. That's just my input.
I have my one quibble I'll throw out there. Don't disagree I with would just say that because of the lack in the question for a it's okay level. We probably had what we had about 100 under votes there. I can say I was one of them for instance when I went in to vote and there was an option of too high or too low and I thought it was just right given that I supported the budget I was one of the big voices that wanted that compromise budget through. I did not vote on either of those questions because I thought they were both appropriate numbers not too high not too low. That said even if you add in all the under votes I get it you know you have 400 some odd to 200 some odd I get it. I just want to add that quibble that's still an issue for me when we do these advisory questions that we need to do them better.
Yeah, the problem is that you can't put three on the advisory line. There's something we actually asked for and unfortunately we were told we couldn't do. How do we fix that?
Do we fix that? We have to talk to the rest of our voters about getting different computer card or something. Would guess. Honestly, I don't know the details of it, but that's definitely something we can ask about because it's frustrating for all of us. Food for later.
Let's not get into it now, but some other time. Exactly. Yep, exactly.
Okay. Thanks everybody. Do we, does anybody want to make a motion?
I'll make the motion that we zero out the town budget and zero out the board of education budget for the this this fiscal year.
Motion on the floor to put a 0% increase in the dollar amount for the town budget and the school budget for this coming fiscal year. Do we have a second. I'll second it. All right. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye.
Aye. Dave, are you an I? I said I. Okay. Rob, are you an A? I'm a nay,
because I think it's the wrong answer, but I understand where we're at.
All right. So, hey, we got something done. Check out those. Okay. So the motion passes. So Sherry, I would be looking to you and I hope you're on the call. I am. I am. To make the changes to the budget spreadsheet. Add the educational cost sharing back in because we didn't talk about that and that did come back in. We add that back in. We take the town down to zero, the school down to zero, and we'll leave it up to Eric and the school to decide where to find their money to make their bets meet. Eric, I don't know if you, it's $50,000
and some odd cents for the 10. I don't know if there's a line item you're ready to tag that too, or if we'll just work it now and you can think about it. We're not going to tell you what line item to cut just that you have to get rid of $50,000
Okay, I mean, I can tell you it's all at this point, going to have to come out of capital, because there just isn't enough the operating budget really couldn't sustain that level of cuts so so it will happen
We have rose budget to go to town meeting next week. So let's move on. So we're down to item five, the town administrators report.
So the only thing I don't have a lot in terms of my administrators report frankly, you know, the focus has been two things. One is the budget and the budget process. And the second thing is getting all the end of year stuff done. I will say the audit is complete at the next board of finance meeting if you so desire we can have Mike our auditor present and walk you all through the audit at the next meeting if you so desire. I guess that kind of depends on whether we actually have a budget by the middle of or by the third week in July or whether we're still in the budgeting process. So I would suggest that would be your kind of next task and presuming we don't have a budget, Sherry and I will be coming back to you with spending requests in July. Because technically, all spending has to be approved by the Board of Finance until there is a budget in place. So that will default to all of you.
Diane, I have something I want to raise. So we don't have line item control over the school budget obviously, but we do in fact have line of control over the town budget, So if we're zeroing out the town budget, shouldn't we specify what we're doing?
Well, there's $50,000 on there, so right now for that some do you care where Eric tags it to?
Well the only reason I raise it is one of the past budgets we took to town meeting we had cut $25,000 out of the
road budget I believe. Yeah but we put it back in. I know that
we did and now we're cutting 50. So my thought is if we're gonna do this maybe we need to specify what we're doing that that's my only comment I don't have a specific thought as to how to divvy it up because well frankly I think it's a bad cut so I you know I'm the sole no vote so but I just raise it from the standpoint of I get it from the school budget we have no line out of control we can simply say what their overall budget can be but at the town level we absolutely have line item control and maybe we ought to step up and if we're going to make a $50,000
cut specify what that's going to be.
Well then the only cut areas are capital and those are all those funds.
Right, it's capital, it's roads, it's trees, it's community center. Public works, building maintenance fund. Fire department equipment fund. Yeah. So What's up, Kurt? Let's wait for Diane. Yeah. Go ahead, Kurt. I
have a lot of faith in the town administrator and his decisions on where the funding should come from. He's got a handle on it daily and I would support whatever he does as far as making the cuts personally.
I mean, the one thing I have a hard time right now, and I agree with you, Kurt, and Rob, to answer your question, we have all these capital things. I'm not close enough to it, not right now to know where we would do the least amount of damage. And I guess I would be looking for Eric's recommendation.
So if you want to hear it, I'd be happy to give it. Okay. So if it were me, I would reduce 10,000 from the Bridge and Culvert Fund, 10,000 from Public Works Equipment Fund, 10,000 from the Roadwork Fund, 5,000 from building maintenance and 15,000 from the fire department that would be my you know if you had to if I had to cough up $50,000 that's where I would take it
All right, I'd like to turn that into a motion then. Okay.
If we are to pass this particular budget, understanding of course that I think it's the wrong course of action that we should in fact endorse that specific list of cuts to the town budget to town capital.
So let me just repeat what I think I heard make sure we all got it right. Eric you're recommending 10,000 from the culvert fund. Yeah, bridging culvert fund yes culvert 10,000 from the public works equipment fund. Correct. 10,000 from the roadwork fund. Correct. 5,000 from building maintenance fund. Correct. And 15,000 from the fire department. Correct. All right, that's my motion. Okay. Anybody want to second that. I'll second it. Okay, Louise.
All right, all in favor. All right. We make those changes to the budget spreadsheet. Now fix that. Okay. On we go. Okay. So, Eric, anything else for town administrators report?
Nope. I think we got bigger fish to fry right now. Okay.
Finance department report. So does anybody have any questions on any of the exhibits that came into the package for Sherry or Eric? I don't have any, we're this far into the year, so it is what it is. I think the biggest thing we have, is there anything in there, Sherry, that you wanna bring to our attention or that you're concerned about or Eric, Anything?
So I just want to say one thing. We did get a request from the Eastern Highlands Health District that when we're spending the money that we're getting in, the relief money that we're getting in from the state, that they're asking for about $1,200 go to the health district to offset their additional costs for doing the vaccine clinics. That's a prorated chair for each town. And for the record, the majority of the costs for the vaccine clinics were borne by the town of Mansfield. The town of Mansfield kicked in about $120,000 to the health district to fund the vaccine clinic from their share of the previous
vaccine relief money. That is an eligible expense. Very definitely.
Mean, I don't, we don't do we have to take action on that now or is that something we have to do in July?
No, I mean, we're not going to give them the money because we don't even have the money yet. Right. Right. I'm just bringing it to your attention that that's the one I would say we definitely as a board you probably should endorse.
Anybody have any questions for AARC on that? All good? I have. Yes. Hi Sherry. Hi.
The one thing I would say is that on the revenue report, we are pretty up to date as far as recording all the revenue that we've received so far. There's a few more entries that we are going to be making in this month to bring it up to speed. But I think a lot of it has been booked and has been tied back to the bank statements. So I think we're in a good shape that way. As far as the expenditures go, we're processing checks and trying to get to a point where we know we're going to be. Think truthfully, I think we're going to be in good shape. We're going to be in the black, which is
good. And, you know, we're just trying to get to the point where we can say, okay, this is what it looks like. You know, making sure all the bills are paid, making sure that if we don't have an invoice for something, we call and contact them. We're doing that now on a few vendors to make sure that we are up to date on our bills. And in particular, we I contacted this week Dime Oil to make sure where we were at with our contracts for diesel and heating fuel. So I have the figures for that as well. They will be topping off the tanks, the diesel tanks before the end of June thirtieth. Because we're low in them and we have the money. We have the allotment already in there. We haven't used everything yet. So we're authorizing them to fill the tanks up to the top as much as they can without being dangerous or whatever, because truthfully, they don't like to do it too high during the summer. So they will do it carefully and bring us up to speed on our contracted amount that we were supposed to use. Other than that, I don't think there's any major problems here that I can see at this point. But it's, you know, I continue to work with it and try to come out with a budget that will be in the black and that all our bills will be paid.
And that's my goal right now. Thank you very much, Sherry. You're welcome.
Does anybody have any questions for Sherry? On everything? Everybody good? All right. Item seven, budget transfers. We have a nice little spreadsheet. Thank you. I love Yeah,
right. Which is why you didn't get your agenda packet. I was determined to stay there as late as possible to get it done.
Yeah, I mean it's important to get this done before the end of the year so yes and absolutely. And so
we did that. Does anybody have any questions on the budget transfers? It's a spreadsheet. It was in our packet.
Let me do one thing for you. Go ahead. And go forward and tell you strategy I use with these budget transfers. Overall, what I did is tried to cover within departments throughout the budget first. And if I couldn't do that, there were particular line items that were too high and I couldn't cover them, I would try to cover them with other departments who had surpluses in. Because at this point, you can cross other departments and do that. If that didn't work, and there was only a few of them that didn't, then I left those amounts, totaled them up, and they were well within the contingency of $50,000 So that's my that was my plan of attack. And I thought it would be systematically clear certainly to the auditor when he reviews this and the entries are made.
I was able to follow this. This was set out very nice. Thank you, Sherry. It was easy to follow. Does anybody have any questions? You're welcome. Did we use contingency last year? I can't answer that. Sorry. Yes,
we did. We used some of it, but not a lot. Not as much as we did this year. Okay. No. And that was one of the requests from both the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen is to produce a budget that's tight enough that a significant fraction of the line items are going to be over. So this is about as close as you know this is a budget that's in the black but it is barely in the black and I would anticipate next year's budget you know will be looking exactly like this and we'll be praying it stays in the black because there's not a $50,000 contingency you know on a 3 and a half million dollar municipal budget is not a big contingency fund.
Yeah, so what it does is it leaves us with plus or minus $14,000 And if everything else hopefully remains the way it is now, we should be okay, is my hope and projection.
Are the Board of Finance members any questions on this? I guess I will make the motion to say motion to approve the budget transfers as listed on the packet spreadsheet totaling $85,948.80 Second. Second. In favor? Aye. Aye. I'm hungry. Okay. Any nays? Abstain? Okay. Motion passes. Great. Thank you very much. Okay.
Old business, I guess Sherry, can you give us an update on the software transition and how it's going? Sure.
On the sixteenth and seventeenth, we had training with admins on the software that I believe went very well. They have downloaded our data and they have secured it on the icon that was placed on our computers so that we could and it's a training icon so that we can go in and look at our data in the training environment. Yeah. Work with it and play around with it and make sure everything looks right. So that's what we're doing now. We're going in there and making sure that, you know, things look the way they should look. Tomorrow at one hundred thirty,
they will do another data pull on both the town and the board of that. And that what that does is anything transactions from last data pool up until now will be brought in before going live, you know, so that we have the most up to date as possible to work with when we start to go live. There will be some journal entries that need to be made, I'm sure. And he, I mean, Eric Leonard from Edmonds, who was an accountant, is going to be working with me to make sure that both databases balance before we move forward on live. So We anticipate all of this year's data to be loaded in?
Mhmm. Okay. Yes. Yes. What they're doing is they're loading in fiscal year 2021. And then we're starting fresh live with 2122. Now, technically, if we had a budget, could get that in the twenty one-twenty two module two, but we do not. So that can't be done just yet. But at at some point when we do, he'll be able to upload that from a spreadsheet. Simply, you know, put all the figures where they need to be, and we can work with it. The good news is, like any other software program, is that if you don't have a budget, it's okay. We can still process things, you know, and pay things like payroll, which is going to be very important. It'll just give us an error message, which, you know, something we'll pay attention to and make sure that it's well within what we have in front of us that's not approved, but will be at the same level as, you know, last year. So we'll do that manually and start the process of, you know, making sure that the payroll is done. We're fortunate in that we outsourced our payroll. So payroll is just a journal entry that can be downloaded into the system and recorded app to all the accounts, which will be nice. So we won't physically have to make that journal entry. We can just download it and it'll bring it right in, making it easier.
Looking forward to seeing the new software up and running and reports.
Yeah, I'm excited. I think in a lot of ways it's going to streamline a lot of our operations the way we do things now and make it easier to produce reports that are similar on both sides, town and board. So hopefully it'll be easy to read and understand. And, you know, it'll be all uniform, which is what we want to have happen.
Anybody have any questions for Sherry on new software? Are we good? Okay. Audit status. I guess Eric touched on it, but Sherry, is there anything you want to say on?
It's done and we had the final draft. We're just waiting for them to print them up. Believe they normally print up booklets for everybody. Okay. And then, like I said, he's willing to come to a meeting and present it and go over the entire audit with the board, which is something that is customary for them to do, I think that would be a good idea to have him do that. And then the only other thing is I have to write up a corrective action plan of how we're moving forward with new software, making things more efficient, putting some controls in place that we need to have there now that we have a staff, an assistant, and finance director. I think we need to put things in place so safeguard any future errors or whatnot. You know, it's important to do that. So I will write a corrective action plan, putting those things in order. I will have him review it. He will say either nay or yay and offer his opinion, which I will incorporate that, and it has to be submitted to OPM
with our audit. So that's where we're at with that. So, work in progress. I tend to work with him next year to get the audit done in a timely manner. It was certainly way before what we're dealing with now. We should ideally have it done by December. And OPM has drafted an email memo to all districts who need to comply with that, and we're one of them. So we need to really step that off and work a little bit better and faster, I guess, on this whole thing. Part of it was COVID because it was real difficult. I know in my other district to do the audit, was difficult doing it remotely, you know, when you had to scan so many documents and back and forth. They were working remotely as well, right up until I'm still working remotely actually. And I'm hoping that that changes because they need to come out and do preliminary work. And I'd rather have them here on-site to do the preliminary work for both the board of Ed and the town. We'll see where that goes. I'll have a conversation with them on that.
Okay, thank you Sherry. You're welcome. Update on the community center building committee. The committee continues to meet monthly. We've kind of put out have committed as a committee to put out a little update document to the town that goes on the community centers building centers web page that will give a brief high level bullet point overview of where we're at and what's going on. We've published a preliminary draft site plan from the town engineer. And I think really we're just working on the RFP. Eric, do you have any update on the RFP and
Yes the RFP was posted as of Monday of this week. We've already had two you know survey outfits contact me I have a site walk scheduled for I think next Monday with one of the contractors so hopefully we'll get a bunch of response. We put it on the state BizNet, we published it, we put it on our town website, and I had our town engineer compile a list of all of the civil engineering firms that he felt were in the area that would handle a project such as this and Amanda sent them all copies of the notice. So, you know, we're doing what we can to broadcast it as widely as we can to those civil engineeringarchitecture firms that would likely take on this.
So that's where we stand. Things are moving along. We meet monthly and let's keep everybody updated. Veterans Monument Park updates. Don't even know if there are any since. Eric, do you have anything on that.
Significant at this time. We've paid off Ron Bisson the original contractor for all the masonry and the site work that's been done to this point. That was done pretty much out of the funds raised by the Buy a Brick program. The town used some of the COVID relief money to fix the upper well that was problematic plus the well pump blew. And then we also had to install a sand filter because we were getting too much sand in the you know, so we have a temporary sand filter on it also. We're anticipating more expense for the what do you call it? For the irrigation system and then also at some point when we bring in additional topsoil or we do a surface treatment on the facility. So there will be additional expenses. Much of the physical work will be done by public works in terms of trenching from the existing well down to wherever all the sprinkler control systems are. And from there on it would be the sprinkler contractor. Contractor. And I've also had a long meeting and site walk with Lenco Electric to look at the electrical requirements for it. So that's where we're at with that.
Any questions prior? No, everybody's good. Online permitting system, how's it going?
It's going slower than I would like, but it is coming. They have pulled the, the basically all the property dump property information from vision appraisal. So they have gotten all that into their database. So that's kind of the first step and they're supposed to be working on integrating and building out the forms. He seemed to think that the first week in July we would start training on the software.
Any questions for Eric on that? Everybody good? All right. Let's move on to new business. On the agenda, we have Jed Larson on the call, correct? Yes, I see him. So Jed has a request on here for funding for the Planning and Zoning Commission to hire a consultant to develop an affordable housing plan in according with a new state law. Hi Jed, you wanna bring us and up to what you're looking for?
Well, so I think a meeting or two ago, Eric came in and discussed the fact that we've got a requirement to come up with an affordable housing plan by July 2022. And we were looking at using some money that was set aside for the upcoming plan of conservation and development to do that. We were asking the finance board for that funding at that point in time. I was not able to attend that meeting and you folks rightly thought that I should come and make my case a little bit. So here I am. Since then, the state put out, they sent us an email saying they were going to do round two for grants to fund the affordable housing plan. And so we didn't make it in on time for round one, but Eric, you know, helped out essentially did the submission on that the day after the last board of selectman meeting, they approved us requesting the grant that we get. And I think Eric heard back yesterday that the grant was approved. So we asked for I think $9,500 to go off and do an affordable housing study.
Jed, one correction because I had to ask because the email that we both got was pretty vague. They approved our submission they didn't actually however she said it was first come first serve and we were pretty early in the process yep well I do we basically told us we would get it
very good appreciate the clarity on that. That was my question when I saw that, but I assumed that she sounded enthusiastic. I thought we were going get the funding. Anyhow, so the purpose of the request tonight is what I would like to do is go off and try to get Bill Warner to do the affordable housing study for us as opposed to going through the request for proposal process, which again July 2022 isn't right around the corner, but it's going to come up fast and I don't know how long it's going to take to get all of this done. But with the money we've asked for, which exceeded what Bill Warner thought he was going to need to spend to do it, I think Eric and I talked about there's some things we can do to make sure we get a good quality product and in fact that we get a product that will fit right into the next plan of conservation and development. I'd like to go with Bill because he did our last plan of conservation and development. He did a subsequent Andover incentive housing zone write up, which I think is the basis for the affordable housing study. Bill likes Andover. He's familiar with Andover. He knows Andover. And I would hope that we would be fortunate enough to get him to do our next plan of conservation and development. So that's really the nature of my request tonight. We've got the money coming from the state. None of it would have to be paid for by the town. And I would like to go get the guy who's worked with us on several of these plans in the past continue because I think he knows what needs to be done.
I have a question. So Eric, I'm going to address this to you because I don't have my charter stuff in front of me. Our charter requires us to do three bids. Correct? Does that apply for using grant money? Your
purchasing policy policy requires that. Right. Remember that is your Board of Finance policy and you as a board can decide to use your policy or not. So there's no charter issue that I know of with doing that, especially not on something that's not taxpayer money anyway. It's just simply a policy decision, whether you feel comfortable with the argument that of soul sourcing it, you know, because of prior history with the individual. And, and I would add that the, the town got a $20,000 grant which I wrote to do the incentive housing zone, which is part of the reason we're able to do this so inexpensively is because we had an initial grant and we did most of the legwork in the background for that initial grant. So, I think just for the sake of continuity, it would make sense because Bill Warner did the original study for the grant, having him do the follow on and produce the actual plan does make sense to me.
Where is that policy published? Is it on the town website? I guess I just haven't read it. So it's just for me, I haven't read the policy, so I'm not really kind of.
No, I can certainly send you a copy of the purchasing policy.
This is something that we can Number one, I'll speak for myself. I would like to read the policy to understand, and I don't know if we've ever, and if the policy applies to grant money versus taxpayer money. That's a question in my mind. And if it requires us to get three bids, I'm just trying to understand have we done? Have we ever done this in the past and under what circumstances? And I don't have the history on that. Does anybody from the board of finance have any other questions on this? I get your continuity of information working with somebody who knows us and I agree with that.
But before I can say we would waive a policy, so to speak, we need to understand what it says.
Correct. I will read you the paragraph where it says competitive bidding a minimum of three responsible quotesbids shall be obtained for purchases in excess of 5,000 but less than $15,000 capital purchases or contracted services require public bidding in accordance with this policy so your policy does state that you should go through a competitive bidding process. I can tell you that your board has authorized me in one case so far about a year and a half ago not to do that and that was because time was of an issue for something.
Board members, any thoughts? Guess. I think we have a policy in place for a reason. I don't think we have a burning time issue. Think as long as we're we're timely in getting our bids out and getting them back in, we can still meet the time frame. I don't see at this point in time any urgent reason to waive our policy on that. Does anybody have a different opinion?
Diane, Dave here. I think we should get bids. I still think the town has the prerogative to select a certain bidder, even if they're not the lowest bidder. I think it sets a bad precedent so we start just assigning jobs to people. We need to be transparent and open. It doesn't mean we can't select this individual I just I think we need to be transparent in the process.
So I guess, are you looking for a motion on this?
I have a question before you make the motion. Go ahead, Louise. In the policy, is that a guideline or is that a mandate where you have to do it? I mean, it is your policy.
Yeah, it's our policy. So it really is not if you feel like doing it, it's because it's a written policy. We would be We should it. Unless we affirmatively waive it, yes. Right.
So here's where the wiggle room is if you so choose. Under applicability, it says capital purchases or contracted services of any value must be publicly bid in accordance with the provisions of this policy. However, the following supplies, materials, services, or construction may not require bids. One of the categories is those providing professional consulting or technical services such as architecture, engineering, planning, medical accounting, data processing, legal personnel, or management services. So you're not technically required to under your policy, but it does seem to be very strongly suggested. That's why we brought it to you for a decision.
I am inclined to keeping with our policy just to keep, I don't think there's any great sense of urgency looming on the horizon. Would rather follow the policy. Does anybody?
Because we don't know it that well, I'm thinking about maybe holding off on that and maybe talking about it for the next meeting because we don't have a deadline on that. Should we look into that a little bit further?
Well, you're going to put it off another month, we'd probably be better off just putting out a bid and not wasting another month of discussion if that's gonna be the you know, I looked at it and said either you're gonna authorize it or you're not and if you're not we'll just get on with the bidding process. Not a problem.
So I guess what I'll do, any other discussion that anybody wants to have on this subject? Consensus is to put it out to bid, follow the procedure for now, and let's just move
forward Kurt? With it. We don't want to hold them up, like Eric said, if we know, put it off a month to discuss it some more, we're still going to end up with the same same results. Personally, I think we should just put it out to bid and follow our policy.
Eric, are we looking for a motion on this or just verbally guidance?
So I think at this point we were looking verbally for guidance because the next thing will be to put out the RFP. The only discussion I think is still worth having is on the off chance we don't get the grant, would the Board of Finance go along with taking money from the POCD implementation fund to pay for this because this will be a part this will be added to the current POCD and it will basically be one of the chapters in the future POCD so it is applicable to that. I'm just trying to, I don't want to put out an RFP, and then find out we don't get the grant and then be stuck and then the grant deadlines coming.
So we have to provide this document anyways to the state, correct? So there's a deadline coming. Correct. So we have the funds put aside for it already. We do. Okay. So if we've budgeted for it and if we don't get the grant, then we'll have to look at, you know, using budgeted money for it.
Right. As long as the board is understanding and okay that if we do not get the grant, we're going to end up having to tap the POCD implementation fund early to pay for this part but this then will just be one of the chapters in the POCD.
Anybody else have any questions on that, or any concerns. No. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. On here, timing for tax collection for upcoming year. Does that count for what we discussed on how the mill rate gets us and we're gonna send the bills out and so on and so forth? Or is there something else you wanted to talk about on that?
No, I mean, I just want so I had sent a timeline to the Board of Selectmen, which basically laid out, for setting the mill rate what would happen. So that you all know right now last year fiscal expenses in July and August were about $3,640,000 between the town, border bed and RAM. The usable cash on hand currently is basically $3,000,000 actually less about $300,000 about $2,800,000 July 1. We're going to have somewhere around $2,600,000 of cash. Normally in August or in July, we spend a little over $1,000,000. And in August, we spend around 2.7 to $2,800,000 So if we do not have, if we have not gone out to taxation on August 1, we'll be down to about $1,400,000 total cash on hand going into a month with $2,700,000 in expenses. So I guess what I'm saying is, you know, there have been a number of people who have just said we should just hold off and do the taxes when we know what the final mill rate is going to be. And I don't think that's financially prudent. And I would suggest that you as a board Make your opinions known to the board of select men and encourage them to pass a mill rate, set the mill rate and put out the tax notices.
Where we stand today they have a special meeting on deck for tomorrow to really set the bill rate, right? That's their intention. Well, that's their discussion. Okay.
Whether they do it or not is, I would hope they do it, but I thought they would do it at the last meeting and they did not.
For finance member, we kind of made a motion to have a zero percent increased budget, which would bring the mill rate to 35.88 mills. Is that what we want to recommend to the Board of Selectmen for a proposed mill rate going forward. They can always do something different, but so if we're expecting a 0% increase budget and this budget passes, this is what the mill rate would be. I'm not in favor of really over collecting taxes. I'd like to be close to be on the money. So, I, it's a crapshoot because we have no idea where this budget is gonna go. So, I think it's something the board of selectmen have to take under consideration. But right now all we have for them is what we think we want, you know, are going to town meeting next week with a budget, which would be 35.88 mills. I would rather have the selectman set a mill rate and issue the tax bills. If they set the mill rate tomorrow, can the tax bills go out? Earl first week of July?
Pretty close. So if they set the mill rate tomorrow, the tax collector will be working on it either Friday or Monday, and we should we've got a bunch of paperwork we have to submit to do it. So I don't think we're going to make it's not going to be in everybody's hands July 1 but it's not going to be a super long delay. We're talking a three or four or five day delay.
So we anticipate to really technically issue July tax bills that have to be due and payable by August 1. So no one's discussed extending.
Well, there may be a regulation that requires us to give people thirty days from the time they get it to pay. I sort of feel like there is. So I suspect we may be looking at a final taxation day of like August 7 or something like that. Okay. All right. But we'll do the minimum delay we legally can.
Does this require a motion on our part or is this just, we do, it's a recommendation. We don't have any authority to set the mill rate. It's in the board of selectman's hand. Does anybody feel any differently on what we should be recommending to the board of selectman? I do. Go ahead, Louise.
Yeah, I think we maybe should go up a little bit higher than that just in case. I don't know if it would do any undue hardship on people. It's better to get a refund next year than to have to pay extra. So, I would go a little higher. Well, would be saying if the budget increases. Yes.
Good luck on budget increases at referendum. Don't know. So the downside of keeping it, let's say if we keep it at what we're proposing for a budget right now, and for some reason we propose a higher budget, we will have the expense of sending out a supplemental tax bill. Correct. That's about a $4,500 expense.
Right. The other side of the coin is if you over collect if it's not a huge amount of money, we do not have to give it back to them, you know, until the next tax year. But we would still have the PR issue of what the taxpayer thinks. And what if someone wants their money you know, then are we gonna process refunds for every person who complains?
The answer would be legally we're under no obligation to. The normal way that's handled is just you true it up the following year. Right. So either way, it's not a good thing.
So as I understand it, it would be the cheaper way to go a little bit higher now Because you're not going to do supplemental.
We will only have to do supplemental if we Go under.
To the extent this budget does not pass, right then you're into either supplemental or refund or roll it over to next year land which you know I kind of think is going to happen but you don't in the past the last time this was done, my recollection is we did overshoot by just a touch. We were just a little bit high. It was not a significant amount of money and so we did in fact roll it into the next budget. That's what happened last time. I do not recall great public outcry over that a year later
when it came up again. I could be wrong this time but you know I see the point that you don't want to spend $4,500 just because the flip side is you know what do we think the likelihood is of a higher budget passing we've taken two higher budgets to the referendum that have failed so you know you could pick your poison basically Linda you have a
I would rather do a tad higher than what zero is. I'd rather be on the safe side.
What's the midpoint between the budget that just failed and now and what we're proposing?
I don't think I would go that high because the budget that just failed was a two and a half percent increase on the school. That was, hold on. Let me see if I have it right here. It was 36.67 mills. And the current proposal is 35.88. So the difference being less than a mil. If
you split the difference you end up with what not even half a mil. 79 mils, 0.79 mils. Right so basically 0.4 mils is the split difference number. If
you I'm just throwing this out there, know, to clarify what a midpoint would be. I'm not proposing it. I'm just saying if want to pick a point between them, there it is.
It would be like 36.28 and kind of be like a mid.
Right. And recognizing this is a recommendation, we're not even setting it ourselves.
Diane? Yep. Yes. If I can ask why would if the Board of Directors have to make the decision, they already know what what what we've done to this evening. And and we keep, you know, going back and forth about what we should recommend, what we should recommend. And it is just a recommendation because they have to do it by charter. We just go in with what they want and then let let them decide what they're gonna do. They're the they're the governing board of the staff. They know what we've done. Right. That's a good point, Kirk.
It's a good point. I'm, you know, I would kind of think they kind of know where we sit by the action we took tonight on the proposed budget. Exactly. From there they can take that information and do what they would like with it. Right.
So, the only thought I would have is if you yes it's ultimately the Board of Selectmen's responsibility but you are the Board of Finance you know and this is pretty much the center of your job responsibilities. If you are concerned about wanting to consider a slight overshoot, if you set the mill rate to 36 even that would accommodate a potential overage of just over $30,000 So that would be one possibility if you wanted to go from 35.88 to 36 even and send the set the mill rate at that. If you were looking to hedge your bets slightly.
I'd like to make a motion to do that. To set the mill rate point three six. Okay, motion on the floor. Recommend that the board's like
one of 36 mills. Is there a second for that. I'll second it. Linda seconds. All in favor. Aye. Linda, Dave, Rob. I'm gonna abstain, Diane. You're abstaining.
We have Dave said yes, Linda said yes, Luis said yes. Kurt, how do you feel?
I'd like to leave it like it is, but just let the board of sweapon make the decision.
Join me in abstention, sir. No, I'll say no. Good Okay. Match.
So I'm going to say no, so it passes. Three say yes, two no, one abstention. Does it? Only half said yes. That actually fails.
From the group that's here now, one, two, three, four, five.
Two no's and three yes's. But there's six of you present.
Right. Majority. So it's a slight extension made it fail majority.
And three said yes, out of six that's not a simple majority. Oh so the abstain is what screwed us. Correct. Yes it did. You know. Okay so that's okay Rob as Kurt pointed out is not our purview anyway.
All right so thank you Eric for guidance on that.
So can I just verbally tell the board that the mill rate that you would you're shooting for at the moment is 35.88 based on the budget that you've recommended to go to town meeting? Okay. Anybody have a problem with that? No. No. Okay. It is what it is. Yes.
With the board of directors take the hit. Yeah. We took ours.
Talking again next week. All right, so let's move on to approval of meeting minutes. So, the essence of time I'm going to make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for Wednesday May 26 of a regular meeting, and Thursday, 06/03/2021 of a special meeting minutes. Second, I'll second that. That Rob seconds, all in favor. Aye.
Aye. Okay, we kind of talked about liaison reports already. We're down to open board discussion. And I wanna say thank you everyone. You're a wonderful group of people to work with and I know it's been tough for this budget season. We have to make hard decisions without any information and it's a difficult spot to be in. And it's like getting crystal ball. I think we gotta get a magic eight ball and now do that to make our decisions because it will probably help us, you know, because it's hard to predict what's going to happen. I appreciate everybody's opinion and everybody can counts. It makes you think it makes us better at what we do. So I thank you for that. And I want to say Dave Hewitt, thank for all your service and all your hard work. We'll miss you. I'm sure you're not going to miss us that much when we're meeting on the other side. I
really feel bad for Dave. We can't get rid of
Yeah. You should have ridden the elephant to the sunset already. They got one to go a long time ago. Isn't it for tomorrow? Gotta attend?
Yeah. Yeah. We have a meeting tomorrow. Yeah. Thanks Dave. So I thank you Dave, know, it's, you know, takes a good person to work for the town and volunteer your time because it's important that we do this work and thank you. You're welcome.
I'd like to thank you, Diane, for taking the reins when Mark's not here. You're welcome. Fine fine job.
Thank you. All right. We are, anybody have anything else you wanna say? Kurt?
In regards to the money coming from the federal government, 900 and some odd thousand dollars, I know I think Sherry's working on it with a document and I don't know who else, but personally I'd like to see some transparency and get the word out to all the boards and commissions in town of what this money can be spent on. I think right now it's still up in the air of where and what it can be spent on, And I think the townspeople, along with the boards and commissions in town, know that in case there's some requests out there that may pop up, whether it be the senior center, whether it be the school, the fire department, or any other library, what this money can be spent on, and then everybody line up to to put in their requests. But right now it's just a it's a document of 150 some odd pages or whatever it is. 137 pages.
I started looking at it, but oh my lord it's you know.
I have read the document, I have it as a PDF and I have yellow highlight all over it of salient points that I think are relevant to us. I've done that legwork, but I don't know what the town is doing as far as digesting this because with the treasury regulation, you have to read the regulation and figure out what it says and then try to apply it to our situation. So there's a lot of leg. That's my point. So I
think it should come from the finance department along with the town administrator and and just, you know, and the board of selectmen to to let everybody know, you know, what we have to do and then let us do our part on on however we have to administer it.
Anybody wants my document that I've marked up, I am more than happy to share it with you. It's a long read.
Would the town attorney be included in that as far as researching it? The town attorney?
Right. You're going to pay a lot of money for that. Yeah, that's true. You're
going pay a lot of money for that. For that? Okay. No, I think between the town administrator and the board of selectmen and the board of finance, we can get the word out to everybody that, you know, what's what's available and what's not available. Then it's gonna come in two increments anyways. So, you know, we got plenty of time to to look at it and plan, I think. I
I have sent to the board of selectmen a preliminary list of the things that I parsed that we could potentially spend that money on. There are definitely other things not included in my list just to give them a little food for thought. I think that is going to have to be a serious order of selection and discussion as to what they want to spend that money on. I just I just think it should be transparent
to everyone in town, know, especially the boards and commissions in town of what it can and cannot be used for.
I think we all feel that way, Kurt. I agree. Yeah.
Diane, what's the date on that document that you received? Because we've received several
other documents. I am actually looking at the regulation itself published in the Federal Register. And it's from May 21. So I'm not looking at any fact sheet, no summary sheets, because they will never tell you the whole story.
We do have a contact person that is handing out the information to towns and to anyone who's applying for the money and getting it. So he has the document that says there is flexibility within spending of that grant.
The contact is from at the state level or the? Yeah, at the state level. State level? Are they willing to give you information in writing?
Yeah, because I have the emails. I'll just forward them to you. Most recent ones. Please do, Sherry. That would be good. Because the documents with documents right on there we had a PowerPoint presentation, given to us to that's on their website that went into what we can spend this, this money on. And it went through a whole detailed process of the flexibility and things that they've opened up where we can explore and safely spend that money. And what state office has published? OPM. OPM? Okay. That's
where we're getting the money from. It's coming from OPM.
So I think if there's information that is interpretive that we get it in writing and it gets sent to us because we should be looking at it. Do you understand? Okay.
Well, that's why I wanted to know what date you were using. So I will share everything
to date that I have. With the understanding, obviously, it's the Board of Selectmen is going to make a call. Right. But it's good for us to understand it. If there's information, if there are emails that are going around,
we should see those. Okay. There is also in the federal regulation, there is an email address to ask questions of the Treasury Department. So in the past, I have worked with Treasury people on banking regulations because that's where all the banking regulations come from. So, I do have a contact person. His name is Martha. Of course, they're not that helpful. I'm telling you because they'll just refer you to the section of the regulation to read. They will never opine on anything They don't want to make a legal opinion. The more information we have the better, I think, that we share it all. Okay.
I'll get that out to you. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome.
I can tell you at a town administrator slash town manager level that's a frequent complaint right now is still the thought that there's some lack of clarity on how it's actually going to be implemented and how the requests are going to be evaluated. Know, so I don't think anybody's lining up to necessarily spend the money the day they get it in their accounts. I think everybody's still a little unsure about some things. I mean, think the categories on which we can spend it on have become clear, But what documentation has to be submitted and what that has to relate back to is still less clear.
I think as long as we do our due diligence, when someone's from the state level is giving us, oh, you can do this. And if the regulation itself is contrary to that, then you wanna get something in writing from the state to say, yes, it's okay. Because you're gonna have to answer to somebody for the money because we have to report on what we spent the money on. Right. That's the whole reason I brought it up. Right. And, know, so, you know, somebody, you know, a lot of this stuff is very gray and we don't wanna be stuck holding the bag, We
do our due diligence and take our reasonable course and our appetite for risk, which is the Board of Selectmen's purview. All right, we have public speak, go around.
So we are going to kick off public speak with Scott Person. I'm all set tonight, Amanda. Thank you.
Thank you. Liz Lokiak. I'm all set. Thank you. Thanks, Valerie Bruno.
Thanks Amanda. So first of all, Kurt I'm really glad that you brought that up. I'm a little disappointed, though, because for three months, the response to when we thought we had 319,000 and now we have a million. The response is it's a gray area and Sherry told us two months ago at a meeting that there was clear guidance. And so I'm a little disappointed that for three months, the answer has been we don't really know how we're going to use it yet. I'm really hoping that tomorrow night that the board of select men will have an answer because that's the last chance that will get before referendum. To know if they intend on using that to supplement some of the cuts. Understand the response of the Board of Finance tonight saying the town will come in at zero and the Board of Ed will come in at zero. And that sounds great on the surface, but if we don't address the million dollars tomorrow, what happens then is the town after referendum has an opportunity to spend that million to supplement the loss in their budget and the Board of Ed does not have have a way to get the $97,000 that it lost. So that is very difficult and it's not fair to the taxpayer to say for three months we knew that this money was going to come in, we didn't do our due diligence to find out how we can spend it. Sherry has clearly said that we know how to spend that. So I hope that Adrian voicing his opinion tonight does not speak for the whole Board of Selectmen tomorrow. And I do hope that the Board of Selectmen will listen tomorrow to the potential of
securing 97,000 of that money anyways in costs and expenses for the board of Ed. I do hope that happens so that they then will get the support of parents and the rest of the community at referendum on Tuesday and we can put this to bed. Thank you. Thanks, Val. Kathy Plazi and Mike Plazi. Thank you, Amanda. We're all we're set. Alright. Thank you. Diane Grenier.
That would be me. I just wanted to comment on a comment from Rob Englund. It's an ongoing issue about the advisory questions on the ballot. And it looks like we can have four or five questions, but each question can only have two answers, too high or too low. I'm just confused as to why this option hasn't been brought forward before. If question one was something to the effect of Board of Selectmen's budget is too high, too low, question two, is the town budget just right? Yes or no? We can add questions. We just can't add answers. Why hasn't that been explored? And I guess it probably has. And I just don't know what the answer is.
Or it's worth I have the same question. Thanks, Diane.
I think from what I recall that the Board of Selectmen had a special meeting to go over the questions and I don't know. I didn't stay for that whole meeting. So, don't know what the end result is but it was their purview to craft the questions and that's kind of and the and the four questions I think came out of the board of finance. We would like to know these things. We propose things and evolve from there. That's how I know. Eric, I don't know if you have a different take on how it evolved.
No, it is the Board of Selectmen's decision to ask or not ask questions at the referendum. There is a state law that states that you can only ask essentially too high or too low alternatives. The town's attorney has verbally told me a couple of times that his interpretation of that even though it pertains kind of to voting. Although it says like voting tabulator. His interpretation is that their intention is for you to only ask yesno questions, not you know like three possibility or four possibility questions on a ballot. But I could see Diane Greiner's point if the Board of Selectmen so chose, they could ask that question in multiple ways so they had more than two possibilities. But I also wonder at what point is it too confusing for the people
voting? You know, and that is always a concern. And I think we also need to make it clear that when we send people a notice and that notice includes a copy of the ballot, they can't just fill that ballot out and send that back into the town because several people have done that probably thinking they just voted at the town election. And I don't know how to solve that problem either. But that's clearly happened. Okay, thanks Diane. Shannon Loudon.
Thanks, Amanda. I just wanna thank the Board of Finance for all of your work, and I mean months worth of work. I unfortunately don't believe that your budget will pass next Tuesday evening and agree with Robert England that for some reason we can pass budgets with increases out of budget meetings and then they fail at referendum, and that's a conundrum for Andover right now. But given that Chair Choquette stated that even a zero budget increase for the town and or the Board of Education will result in a mill rate increase, I just want to let you know my belief based on my reading of the regulations and the Local Recovery Fund Act is that there should be no concern whatsoever about the use of American Rescue Plan funds for education, for example, to be deemed ineligible by the U. S. Treasury Department
because they would not have been used to fund a reduction in net tax revenue nor to make a deposit to a pension fund, which are the two specified ineligible uses of American Rescue Plan funds. So I just want to be clear to distinguish what Mr. Mandeville keeps on spouting, which is that it can't be used to reduce our taxes. Based on what Chair Choquette said this evening, there's no possibility of that occurring. So that there should be very flexible use of the American Rescue Plan funds, and I hope that the Board of Selectmen will actually make some allocations from that and recommendations on that at their meeting tomorrow night. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Kimberly Prasan. Nothing at this time. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks. Kathleen Burratt. Hi. Thanks. I'll hold my comments. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Chris Bernard. Good. Thanks.
Thanks. Jenny Morrell. No. Thank you. Thank you. Aaron Boris. All set. Thank you. Thanks. Jed Larson? I'm all set. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks. Kelly Hagerty?
Hi, Amanda. Thank you. I think I'll hold my comments, for now, but thank you very much to the Board of Finance for all of your hard work. And I hope we can reach a common ground. Thank you. Georgette Conrad?
I just wanted to thank the Board of Finance for all their hard work. I know how hard it is. I've been there and done that. Other than that, I have nothing else to say. Thank you. Thanks, Georgette. Melissa Lateska? All set. Thank you. Thanks. Elizabeth Partridge. No comment at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Mary Hoeller? Nothing to add. Just wanna thank you guys. Thank you. Marcy Miner?
Hi. I'm sure you guys are tired and want to get going, but I did have a question about the survey questions. Has anyone ever discover looked into a way to do that differently? We basically spent $2,500 plus a lot of time to ask a lot of questions, or actually just four questions. And could this be done a different way? Perhaps SurveyMonkey or, you know, I don't know what if there's different ways to get those answers without having to go to referendum. This is something I was throwing out that would throw out there to see if anybody explored that.
I I haven't, these advisory questions have traditionally been done on a referendum type situation from what I can remember. The only other way I know how to gather may is to get some kind of survey, town wide survey done. And you you either do it on a website or, you know, but I still, you don't get a lot of participation on town wide surveys. So there's a lot of options available. We just haven't really put our heads up thinking about what's the best vehicle to get feedback. Last year, one of the things we did do because the board of finance had to make the decision on the budget and there was no referendum. You know, we put a lot of information out on the website and tried to get feedback via the website. And it was helpful information, but it didn't tell us a lot. So there would have to be a better way of gathering information. That's my experience. I don't know, Eric, if you have any different opinion.
No, the last time we sent a townwide survey, we sent it to every household multiple ways including a hard copy had copies in the library the town hall everywhere we could think of transfer station, we got around 200 responses. So one third of the number of people that voted in this referendum. When we asked questions, so I think that the problem is getting enough of an accurate representation of the public to be able to make decisions based on that survey. I wish there was some better way of doing it than what we're doing now. I'm certainly willing to explore other possibilities because I don't want to go through six or seven budgets every year that's annoying and expensive.
I have a feeling you if you put a group together to find out you could do better. There's a lot of new, you know, a lot of things, a lot of new apps and websites and gather information.
Well, last year to put it in perspective, we spent a lot of time trying to get feedback on the budget. I think all total, over all the platforms we asked, we probably got feedback from no more than 30 unique individuals. So, you know, that represents one twentieth of the people that voted in this last election. So and that was with a concerted effort to get feedback every way you could. You know, we had an email platform, we had a platform through the town's website, we had a separate survey form, we did it via Facebook and social media in general. You know, I'm sure there are other ways to do it, but you know
I'm not sure we're going to get enough of a sample to really do what what you're you're hoping to do. Yeah.
Thanks, Marcy. Yeah. It's a good idea. Alright. Christina Fraser. I have no comment. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Paula King. All set. Thank you. Thanks, Paula. Joanne Hebert.
Oh, it wouldn't be fair of me to comment. I had a an important conflict. We're So having a hard time hearing you. Okay. So no comment. I had a conflict. Thank you.
Thank you, Joanne. Thanks for being here. Alright. Did we miss anyone? You missed me. Oh Jerry,
last but not least, go right ahead. I wanted to thank the board of finance for their hard work as well as Eric Anderson, Sherry Holmes and you for giving up so many hours to the budget issue. It's a very difficult issue. You're being asked to read people's minds correctly. And sometimes that's a difficult thing to do is to read somebody's mind correctly Between the town meetings and the referenda, it's a difficult task. And I appreciate the fact that you're all willing to give your time to be here and to do this. I'd also like to thank all the people who come to these meetings and care enough to educate themselves about the process and what is going on. There's no easy answers to this. And my hope is that some point we can use the money that's given to us by the federal government. And I feel like they're giving us this gift and there's all kinds of strings attached. They're like giving you a present and telling you you can't unwrap it and open it and use it. And that doesn't make sense to me. I really don't understand why it can't be used in the town for the things we need, be it the education budget or the town budget.
It just doesn't make sense to have money sitting here that the government gives you and they say, well, they give you a 100, what is it Diane, 137 pages? Yes. I mean, that's a lot of pages. And you need probably need to be a Philadelphia lawyer to figure them out. But I just appreciate all the work that everybody does. And I hope at some point that money can be used to the benefit of the town and the school district. District and I hope everyone has a good night thank you for being here and thank you for your work that you do.
Thank you Jerry. Okay did we miss anyone else and I do apologize the little boxes keep moving around every time someone arrives or leaves. So thanks for your patience.
I'll let you think. All right thank you. All right we are at the end of our lovely time together. Do Do I have a motion for adjournment? Make a motion to adjourn. Sure, makes a motion second. I'll second. In favor? Aye. Thank you everybody. See you Tuesday Dave. Good night.