Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Regular Meeting
October 27, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay. We'll call the meeting to order at 07:01. We have our pledge of allegiance. Ready? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America. To the republic which stands, on nation, under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all.
Thank you everybody. First agenda item is the second agenda item is public speak. Do we have anybody who would like to contribute to our public commentary at this time? Okay, hearing none will move on to additions and deletions of the agenda items. Does anybody have any proposed additions or deletions to the agenda items.
I just wanted to and I don't know when it's appropriate so I'm just going to ask this question. I wanted to start having a regular agenda item to talk about budget going forward. So because we have a new system and you know, and we have a lot of things probably to coordinate to make sure we get all the data we need. So I didn't know if that was appropriate to have something on there, a standing item at it. I knew I'll have to talk about it today, but maybe going forward. I think it's gonna come up quick. I just think it's gonna be take us longer to put a budget together this year than it did last year. Possibly,
yeah. I think it's something we could talk about at the board open discussion and then we can make a motion just to add it. There's nothing that says we have to do it through a vote or anything, but I think it makes sense. The other thing I think I'll I'll mention is that. Got some input from the board of selectmen that they would like to have a Member of the Board of Finance attend the meeting, their next meeting, which I believe is November 8. They have some stuff, know, over the budget and doing some doing a review these like some potential Board of Finance Member input. I know I talked to Adrian in particular, he mentioned Diane that you've been going to most of the budgets and you're kind of cognizant of some of the issues. You know we don't I don't think we need to actually add an agenda item for this, but we can we can if we if we choose to have further discussion on it, but I think it's just something we could agree on in the board open discussion also.
I normally go to all their meetings anyways since it's a zoom meeting, so I kind of always attend, so that's not an issue for me. It's easy. Okay. I go a lot.
Good. Well, we'll circle back. Don't think it needs to be an agenda. Would circle back during the board open discussion and kind of, you know, just make sure we have a commitment to for somebody to go and that that particular meeting is not it's not that week is not going to work for me. I've got physical inventory counts at work that week and I've got to come responsible for that. It's a tough one. But if you want to you guys or both can go, that'd be great. Okay. Any other additions or deletions for the agenda items?
Mark, can we strike up a discussion on the outdoor classroom
at the school? I don't know what you want to put under new business or? Yeah, think we put it under new business eight H would be a motion if you want to make a motion to do that to the new business. Yes, like to do that I'll make a motion. Okay, so Kurt's making a motion as I understand it to add agenda item eight H which is the outdoor classroom to discuss it. That correct, Kurt? Yes. Okay. Anybody second that motion? I'll second. And Diane seconds. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Do we have any abstentions?
Louise and Rob I didn't hear you say I think you guys might have both muted so if you want to. Aye.
Just wanted to make sure I didn't want to miss the vote. Alright, motion passes unanimously. We'll add agenda item 8H which is the outdoor classroom. Okay, thank you Kurt. Any other agenda items to be added or deleted? Okay, hearing none, we will move on to Item four, which is the town administrator's report. Eric, you have the floor.
Okay, thank you. I apologize for not getting you a written report prior to this meeting. I'm kind of running straight out right now. A couple things. One, we've done a lot of construction work has taken place fairly recently at the Andover Veterans Monument Park. As probably all of you know, the majority of money being spent was fundraised by a town resident, Jerry. The town has at the board of with the board of select men's concurrence spent some of the money or a good chunk of the money that the town received last year. In COVID relief funding to finish that project. The town's total expenditure for that is going to be somewhere around $20,000 Still waiting on the last bill from a contractor at this point for the electrical work. But the biggest expense, which was the topsoil and spreading the topsoil was a very generous donation by a local business and a trucking firm that had access to good topsoil. So, you know, and one of the other vendors did it for basically materials only and didn't charge us for labor. So saved us an awful lot on the labor charges for that. So it's coming out reasonably well. Hopefully the grass grows a little bit before it gets too cold and stabilizes a little bit. And we're probably getting ready to start construction, or some of the construction for the connectivity grant project next week. We have a project coordination meeting tomorrow, and expectation that physical construction will start as early as next Monday.
We're pretty much wrapped up with the paving season. We ended up doing an awful lot of shimming and chip sealing this year. We are delayed on some of our drainage projects. If you have any specific questions for me, I'll be happy to answer them. There's a few other items we'll get to a little bit farther down in list.
No issue with the bridge with the rain and this little storm we had? Everything's good? No, bridge was fine. We didn't get that much rain anyway. We didn't get what they said. No.
Which is good. No, we didn't really get any wind damage or very minimal. There were about 600,000 power outages in New England. Right. And that badly
affected it looks like it. It stayed just far enough off that we didn't, we didn't take the beating, which is fine. I'm happy for Massachusetts and Rhode Island to get beat on. Yep.
Eric, that, pothole in front of the library on Route 6, is that part of that connectivity, work that was going on with those, lights lights and walkways and stuff?
I'm not sure what pothole you're talking about. There's a there's a sewer
there's a sewer grate that's probably six inches down, and you'll you'll find out if you hit it going 40 miles an hour through there. It's right right on the front right on the front corner of the, of the of the post office on Route 6, and that they were digging around there when they were running those, stoplights and stuff. By the post office?
Not the post office, mean, the library. The library. That's it. Contractor was out on Route 6 last week, this week, or last week, doing something in front of the library post office kind of area. It's a big opportunity there.
So I don't know what they were doing. I mean, they've
been doing a lot of replacing of drainage basins on Route 515. I don't know. I have not seen it, so I don't know exactly what you're talking about. I'll try to take a look tomorrow. Okay.
But nothing related to the connectivity grant should have been done this week. Was it DOT doing the work or who was doing work?
You know, the, you know, the walkway lights they put in to cross route sticks? Yes. They've they've changed. It was part of that construction right in front of the library. The like the, the pavement's all built up and there's a very deep hole to a manhole cover. You'll you'll you'll see it because you can't miss it. And just, don't drive through it like most people do like myself. Because you'll probably break your axle, but, it's a good one.
Okay. Any other questions for Eric? Okay, hearing none, we move to our next agenda item, which is the finance department report. Right.
Good evening. In your packet, you had a copy of the town budget summary, which is the final budget summary that I am submitting to you with the final Board of Education expenditures in that report to be Let me find it here. Okay. It's 3,844,327.80 was the total expended to date. That leaves $58,072.20 And this does reconcile with the Board of Education report. And as far as I know, this is the final report for any town expenditures as well. We haven't received any recently. So we're assuming that this is the final one that you'll get in your packet. The second report is the new system report. The top report is the custom revenue report for 2022. And that has been updated. I sent you an updated one that includes all the taxes recorded through 09/30/2021. We are still collecting the October month's taxes, so I'll be able to record them once we close out that month and move on to November.
Sherry, it says at the top of the header there, it says year to date as of tentwenty one. Is that just for the month or is it year to date?
It says current day rates, 10/01 to tentwenty one. Yeah. There's a column that says current revenue. So any current revenue in that month when I ran the report will appear there. But year to date is the actual total that has been collected so far. Year to date revenue. Then the final column, which is Excedeficit, the programmer suggested I use this column. Although I'm not really 100% happy with that, I don't know why they can't just put a balance column here, but the revenue report in the custom module doesn't provide for a balance column. So I'm working on that with the program to see if they can tweak this report to where we would like it to be, similar to last year's report for the Phoenix report. I'm trying to use that as my guide to move forward, hopefully. Yeah. I have a question.
So on this report, revenue report, column one, two, third column in. So the header says adopted current revenue, and there's two columns under there. So what do each of these columns represent? Adopted. Because the header doesn't really give you a good description. Right. The adopted is what was put in
during the budget for revenue. So can we do you have control over the headers? Can we say budget
or budgeted or something to indicate what's really problem? The custom report only gives you certain headings and you click on that heading that's in the lineup. I don't have a budgeted. Have it adopted, but not a budgeted one or approved one.
And that's the only one I have. It's just like it needs to be spaced out a little bit. It's just Well, that's
that's going to require a programming behind the scenes, moving the columns over because I can't do that physically. That's the way the report comes out. Question.
So I don't know if you need excuse me. I don't know if you need the current revenue. I mean, I could eliminate that and we could just go with the year to date revenue. It's going to be a cumulative amount. I don't think it's necessary that really you need to know the monthly amount of revenue.
Right. The only thing that stuck out for me on that column was I don't know what these negative numbers represent in that current revenue. There's two items on there. I don't correct me if I'm wrong because I don't have my accounting hat on. A negative number is increasing the adopted budget balance
under current revenue? A negative number is taking that number that you've collected and reducing it from the adopted number, saying that you've got 6,172,511.41 to collect of your 9,739,497.
Walk me through this first one that says current grand list. This is the $9,000,000 of 197.09. We had to cut a refund check.
Those are refunds. That's And then year to date revenue is just the
total we've collected. Okay. Then the balance should be what's left to be collected. Right. And if it is not a negative one, but it's a positive one, we over collected that particular budgeted amount. We took in more than
we said we were going to take in. We got two. Right. Okay. So now I have one other question. And I went back cause I'm retired. So I do have some time on my to look at this stuff. I went back to the original approved budget, the revenue items that were in it, and I found two discrepancies and maybe something changed and I'm missing it. But the state property pilot item, we have $12,127 as the adopted revenue. And the budget shows that it was $9,631 when we did the final budget.
That's because we got notification that they redid the formula on those.
Okay. Then the municipal stabilization grant, our budget had $43,820 in it. And now this shows $20,219
And they did the recalculation on the pilot grant that reduced this grant to $20,219 and then restructured this $12,001.27. I have a document. If you like, I'll show it to you. I think we need to know about this. Don't wanna change it. Because that's what I you know, initially, I was gonna book it that way. But then when we got notification from that, I booked it what they were telling us that we have anticipated to receive. So so the year 2022.
Okay. Because that's important for me to know why. So okay. Okay.
I can send you that. That would be perfect. I will I'll send everybody that copy so that you can have it to take a look at.
So now, so, and Mark, this begs a procedure question for me because we have the final budget posted on a town web site and it doesn't reflect what we're looking at.
That final budget be updated to. I don't think you can update the budget because that was passed. Right. So,
maybe we have an explanatory notes or something. Right. It's just something we have to know when we go to do budget again that there was a change and why. So that begs my question.
Also, I have in the same document I'm going to give you what the amounts are going to be for our budget coming up too. So we're going to know what we are going to receive in both of those grants.
Okay. So that would be good to have that. My other general question on reporting, because I look at these things, Can we get these reports now in an Excel format so I can put a column? So when I have questions and variances, I can document what we discussed and things like that because it's very hard. I don't want to print stuff when I'm home. I like, you know, and I had to print this out and go line by line to try to use my little hand calculator instead of my Excel to be able to recalculate things and figure out things why. Because as things vary, we need to keep track of why. And that's what we lose when we get into these budget discussions because we're all scratching our head. I can't remember that. And I like to keep notes as I review stuff.
Okay, here's the problem with that. I was as a finance director, I normally print out the reports directly from the software system. That way I know what you're reviewing is what I gave you. That shows it right there. And then I can't tweak any of those numbers because they're in the system. If I give it to you in Excel, then anybody could tweak the numbers and, you know, it becomes very confusing at that point. So I've never I never have given them out in Excel form format.
I think Basically, they're PDFs. Other parts of town is gonna have to buy us PDF writers so we can mark up our PDF documents. And a license for that is about $600 a year. Yeah. I spend a lot of money out of my pocket to cover expenses, but I don't think I'm willing to cough that up. You know, quite frankly,
we had that capability in Phoenix, and I thought it was great that we didn't have it moving forward a new software system that we could print the reports right off the system, you know.
We shouldn't have to print paper. Right there. You know? We shouldn't have to print paper. It should be electronic now. We're in the electronic we're in the electronic world.
So for reviewing this stuff. I think how you get your packets are electronic. Are they not? Yes. Okay.
I'm just trying to get it right. If I can, you know, if I could convert these to Excel myself so I can make my notes, I would do it. I mean, I'll take a look at it. A piece of software to take a PDF and then they don't convert really well. Okay. From a PDF to Excel.
I know there's a way you can change a PDF into Excel,
and you can work with it. And lose all your headers and your formats. It's kind of a it makes a mess.
I have to say, I am in agreement with Sherry that distributed reports should be not alterable, right? They shouldn't be editable. Well, the other thing is I would what think if you're printing, you should be able to print to a PDF. For one thing, think what would be a lot more readable here if this was a PDF and maybe that's something you guys can work on. And if we could concurrently export it to an Excel file, those of us who may have time to go through it, and we all will, right, when it comes down to budget season, then it might be helpful for them. So it's just something to, I think is reasonable request,
but you're right. We absolutely have to have this locked down and everyone has to understand that I whatever have a problem with it being locked down because I agree with that, but some tool for us to be able to as we review reports and we discuss, you know, going forward variances and everything, that's variances should be documented. I mean, I know to me, I'd like to I keep my reports that I review, and I have an electronic file. I would love to pull them up and look at what my notes say or what the reason it varied for. Especially when we get to budget time because sometimes I go back and look at stuff. So, I mean, it's just hard. I can't print out paper and do that.
Is also another thing that the auditor told me is that his question was to me, are these reports printed right off from the software system, directly from the software system, or do you go in and manipulate the figures? And I said, absolutely not. I don't. So it's an auditing concern
I'm just trying get better, more efficient with our process, I guess. Right. And
the more sophisticated we get, the more I think some people are not going to be happy with the way it's coming out. But I'm concerned about what is perceived by the auditor when I give him reports and he goes back to the packets of the board and, you know,
and something was to be different than what I initially said I gave, you know, I did not edit any of your reports. I just want a mechanism for me to be able to do what I need to do. Oh, I understand. Yeah. I don't want to be able to edit your reports or get those in that format. I was just asking questions if there's different ways to get information. Let me see if I can come up with something that will work for you. The other question I have, and I'm on now the detailed custom expenditure report for 2022. Okay. When I'm looking at the column headers, there's a column header that says modified budget. Yes.
So I always wanna see what the original budget was. And I would love to have a transfer column added because the piece that I'm missing is when we make adjustments between line items, the only way you could see is looking at an adjusted budget item and everything. We don't see what made up that change. I would love to see. I've seen a lot of town reports where they have a transfer column. You can see that budget was not and that would be so easy for us to track our transfers and adjustments to the budget. Well, I
can tell you there haven't been any transfers yet made. And this modified budget column is only to capture if there were any changes being made. But as I told the programmer, there isn't going to be. There's going to be another column that will fit here that will say transfer in, transfer out. And you can see what has been transferred out of one budget line item and put into another budget line as we get going. But I did not do any of that at all.
So, we can have that budget come out, the approved budget, and then have what the Right.
Right. I'll unfold the modified budget column when they give me an extra column to add, because I'm asking for two more columns on this report. I'm asking for a percentage column here, as I told you, are whole numbers, and I ran the report with the whole numbers and they made absolutely no sense at all. So I sent that off to the programmer. They're working on an update for that. Hopefully, in a month, that will happen. I also said I need another column to bring out that transfer in and transfer out columns in there. Okay? That only provides for the columns that you see right there. That's it. That's all I'm restricted to. So by opening up two more columns, I'll be able to satisfy or three other columns I'm looking for, basically. Because I'll take adopted budget, transfer in and out will be a second column, and then we'll have all these other columns here and the balance. And then the final column will be the percentage column like you see on most reports, the percentage you. Right, percentage expended or whatever. Yeah.
And that will as soon as they give me the capability of doing that, then I certainly will put that in. But I can point out to this date that this expenditure report does balance all the way through, and we have no negative encumbrances in the encumbered column. So they did fix that one for me. If you go through and you take your budgeted amount minus your extended year to date, and that is your balance. So unlike the previous report that we were having issues with, this is now balancing as I run it.
I'm I have some other questions. I don't wanna take up everybody's times, but there's some questions about I have about things I don't understand on this report. So I don't know if other people wanna go before me and circle around or you want me to continue with my questions. I don't wanna hog everybody's time.
I just want to say a couple of things before I forget them. That's all Diane. So, I'll just ask her a couple of things while you're gathering those. Cherry, I wanted to Yeah, I like how you've gotten some things corrected. I like I actually like paper because I stare at a computer all day long. So for me to focus on this And I do agree with Diane that it is good if we can have more information when things like she mentioned happen, but I think we kind of need to keep notes ourselves too, not with the revenue and switching and all of that, but
I'm certainly gonna keep notes on my paper and, you know, try to track things or see where things are, you know, maybe, well, one of the questions I have, it looks like there's been no POs yet. Correct? No. I don't see anything encumbered.
There's nothing there yet. There are probably very little POs on the town side because there is really not a lot of need to have the purchase orders. We get the bill. We pay it. We order certain items, and those things I'm trying to put on the POs. And then when they come in to pay off of the PO. So there'll be some, but there won't be a lot. You know, I think it's gonna be a gradual process getting everybody used to doing purchase orders, number one. Number two, asking yourself, do you really need a purchase order or you just need to cut a check with an expenditure form signed off and approved, you know, which we do that now. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Very simply, we do it now. So nothing goes out the door without Eric Anderson's signature. And then I approve it for an account number if need be. So I back it up with that, and that's when we cut the check. Why I was asking the yeah. A document in place. So we're still working on that to find out which way we're going to go.
Do they use a lot of purchase orders on the BOE side? Absolutely. Yeah, I would think. We should know. I was going say, that's why I'm like, you're right. Also, the agent account doesn't have as much, but it's more the approval process of, you know, there being an actual process that they're gonna buy this, they're getting it from this company, this is the best deal or whatever, and the manager finds it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's
in place, and we're streamlining a lot of it even more.
And then just my final question on your reports. So getting back to the town budget summary, you're saying that the final board you know, the final board of ed total is that one line, correct? Correct. Okay.
That's what's on your report shows a one line, what is budgeted for the Board of Ed, what is expended to date for the Board of Ed, and what the balance is left. Okay. And that does agree with the Board of Education budget report. Thank you. You're welcome.
Back to my questions. Sure. Question. On page nine of the 2022 report, we have the first item dues memberships fire marshal. It says we budgeted 140 and we expended $8.26 so we have a negative balance. So we spent more than we budgeted. Yeah, that one's going to be a problem.
Okay, because I don't know if that's a posting error or if that's actually what we spent. No, that's actually what we spent.
There's hopefully gonna be revenue taken in on the other side for the fire marshal, but I don't know if that's really going to offset the expenditure or we're just going to have to figure out how to cover that.
And then we have an item that we put under COVID expenses. 1,200, but we didn't budget for it. I don't know how we could spend it if we didn't budget for it.
That would be transferred to a grant account as soon as I set that up.
And specifically the fire marshal, the fire marshals is required to take a certain number of hours of yearly training to stay certified. What we do is we split the cost of that training fiftyfifty with Columbia, which is the other town he covers as a fire marshal. Okay. That was a bill for his training. Okay.
Right. And I think you said that last last month too because that was a question. Yeah. Last month. Just came in higher than expected.
Yeah, so those are the kind of things I like to see notated on the reports kind of when we go so we don't have to talk about it because we can know what it is and it's legit. The other question I have is on page 12 under the contingency fund. We have to expend we have we've expended $500 out of the contingency fund. I don't remember anything like that. I don't know if that's a posting error or if that is real. Under the contingency. Yeah, page 12.
Last page. Right now, I believe I have $500 in there.
But why would we spend something out of contingency? And then budget item? I don't know. I don't.
I think that one's on me and I'm pretty sure I told him Yeah. Was trying to think something out of contingency because if there simply was not another appropriate line item to take it out of. Right. And I I can figure it out, but not off the top of my head what that expense was.
Okay. That's all my questions on this report. It's just making sure, you know, going forward as we have variances and things that show up on here, would be nice to have some explanations on those items.
And what I'd like to say is now that I'm getting somewhat caught up and I'm not so buried and things are being reconciled and balanced and so forth, and it's a little less overwhelming. I'm going to do a report that I did in my other district where I came from is I will walk through the entire budget object code by object code and let you know what my concerns are and where those variances are and why. That's perfect. I think that's what you're looking for. I just haven't been able to pull that together. But now, like I said, I've got some time that I can do that. And I think that will help out a lot if I go through the expenditure report and say, is what's happening in the salary account or in whatever the object code is and just say that and how we're dealing with it, you know. I think that's what you're looking for. As well as I could do the revenue side if there's any changes to the revenue. I could give you a heads up and I will certainly supply the copy that that we were sent on the two grants from the state. The only other wish item I have. There's another one? Yes, there is.
You know, I only work four days a week and so many hours a day.
You know. I know we have those American relief funds, and I know we have approved an item to be paid out of there. I would like to see an accounting of that money every month. Okay. Should be on our agenda. Okay. We booked the money last year.
And we have we have billed an expense to be paid. As a revenue.
As a revenue. We have no expenditure out of it as of. No,
we do have one expenditure, Sherry, but it's about $1,200
Well, that's it right there. Is that the Marina's laptop or computer? Oh no, that
was a refund to the Eastern Highlands Health District that both the Board of Selectmen and Board of Okay. We do have about $1,200
All right. There you go. There's a 1,200 right there. Okay. So that that wouldn't be a problem. I can put something together for that.
I just want to make sure that we're carefully tracking what we're spending that money on because there's a lot of restrictions on it. Right. And
I was last now. Maria had to get a computer. Is that where we're going to be taking that from or no?
No, we another place that yeah, we agreed to take that out of last year's COVID funds, which transferred into the building maintenance fund. Yeah, so I told Marina to take it out of there, because that was what we had originally earmarked part of that money to pay for computer upgrades for you and her. So, but then the board of Ed originally said, no, don't bother. You know, we threw the whole thing in the building maintenance fund and then subsequently her computer died.
All right. So I'm gonna double check on that, but I just wanted to get that clarification too
as to where we are. I lied. I have one more question. Sorry. Well, you know, we could go on online. That's cool. I'm on the final report from the town budget summary for 2021. Okay? And I'm looking at the contingency account that now shows, you know, a balance of $13,008.47 32. And I'm assuming that the difference is the money we took from transfers that we approved in June to take out a contingency is what is driving that number. So I have on the spreadsheet that you did for us back in June that we were going to take out of contingency 30 60076628 transfer. Okay.
And I'm assuming that the difference in that contingency should be that number, and it's not. The difference in the number is less. So I'm trying to figure out did something change. Okay. So what page is that on that one, please? So on the last page of the town budget summary, we have contingency original budget of 50,000. We adjusted the budget down to 13,847.32, which I'm assuming is how we're treating the transfer of funds to cover the over expenditures. And the difference between that is $36,152.68 On our budget transfers document that you gave us right at the end of the year for what we were transferring around, We had that we were taking out of contingency 30 60076628. So I did go through this document and make sure all the money came from the right place.
That's the one number I couldn't reconcile. I have to make sure that that was booked. And if it's not, I can book that as a journal entry. But let me look at that.
It was supposed to And my question is that's how we do it. We're not gonna show it as an expense, a year to date expense. No. No. We're gonna So the the adjusted budget numbers and other other departments would would adjust upward.
Right. By the amount of the debits or credits we did. Right. Yes. Exactly. And that's what I have to double check. It should have been done. I was so but I I
was just going through that. If I had Excel, it would have taken a simple fix. We can just journalize it, and then it'll be in that column where it will show
moving from there to the other line items. So I'm assuming that if we needed that money, I don't know why the number's different, I guess, is what I'm saying. I don't know. It's something
that I have to take a look at, and I've been doing that
all this week. Before we put the town budget to I'm making things
down. So it's just one more thing I have to do. Okay. Okay. Oh,
lied again. On this town budget summary from last year, the road improvement fund, we have $300,000 but in this budget item, we never had $300,000 in the original budget item. I mean, don't think it makes a difference, but it makes the numbers not fit correctly because we're working off the adjusted budget item. It's in there. Is that something we had a problem that we never put it in there? Wait a minute, let me just write down this. So, have the original budget for the road improvement fund is zero and that's not, we approved $300,000 it's going in there. And then the adjusted budget says $300,000 So, the numbers are there, but the original budget totals won't fit correctly. Do you know what I mean? Somebody was looking at this report where it looked like we spent more than we budgeted and we didn't. What page is that on, please? The last page. Very last page. Rachel, that's my only question on that. And what account are you looking at?
Road Improvement Fund. So it says transfers to other funds. We approve transfers to other funds. It's missing the $300,000 It has a zero in there. Okay. The original budget items.
So the total shows up in the balance at the bottom. Correct? No. Because it should be $300,000 It's $300,000. Same, the original budget and the adjusted.
Adjusted budget is correct, but the original budget. That's what I did. I It's added there. It it was probably in a different location, right, in a different account because it's Joanne is saying, if you look at the grand total, the original and adjusted budget balance, they're identical.
It's it's right there with the But added the 300,000.
And then Oh, but it's not in the original column is what I'm saying. So if someone looks at this, it looks like we never budgeted for that. And we did. The original budget had it in there. Well, didn't They
don't balance actually. Okay. So I'm just looking for the numbers match. Do you know what mean? $5.00
5. Yeah. Yeah. They don't balance. Okay. Right. Small numbers on my screen. Okay. Right.
I know. I go blind looking at this stuff. That's my only I'll
see where it came, where it was and came from. Mary, can I ask one final? I'm done. I'll keep quiet now.
I'll check on that as well. Eric, maybe you can give me some help on that.
You would, we'll work on that Monday, maybe. Yeah. I don't know why that's not in the original budget because that would have been put in by what do you call Barbara? I mean, the only thing I could think is that she put the money directly into because remember these what show up here in that column mostly are just transfers to permanent funds, right? Because we're booking $300,000 because we're budgeting for it in the road improvement fund. And then we're immediately putting it in that standalone fund because that fund rolls from year to year. Right. So I suspect that's it, that she booked it directly, but I couldn't tell you exactly.
Yeah. Well, maybe if we all can put our heads together, we can figure it out, and then I'll fix it. All right.
Sherry, just my final question. I had emailed you asking you about the change for next year's budget for the Board of Ed, you know, where they made their deductions. Yes. And you directed me to look on the website. Yes. Which is fine. I mean, am I look and I didn't have a chance today. Am I looking for a document that's gonna spell it out or am I looking at the budget? I'm looking for the final Okay. Budget for 2122. Okay.
And there's a page in there that shows it? Yes. Before I came on this Zoom meeting, it's right there. I looked it up to confirm that it did get uploaded. Before I left the office today, was confirmed to me that she did in fact upload it. I double checked it just a few minutes ago. It's there.
I looked at it real quick. So, I looked at it real quick and the title's wrong on it. So there's a top that says twenty twenty two twenty two budget and then underneath it, it says 2021 detail. And then the detail report comes after that. So it's very confusing. You can't figure out what it is. It says the final budget. But the document itself says '21 on it instead of 2122. So that's all I'm saying. The header on the document on the page on the first page. There's several of them on there.
Under the that says final. So the headers on the final, it says 2022 budget, and then underneath it, it says 2021. After that, there's two headers and they conflict with each other. Yeah. I'll
it's not supposed to be that way. I'll just look it up. Yeah. So I think there's an error on that. I just wanted to have it. I scanned it. It's there. I just want to have it because people go and look at it. Just want to have it to be. Yeah, I'm in charge of uploading. No, I
agree with that. I just wanted to ask my kids. Scanned it to her. She said she got it in.
But I think it looks right. It's just that one of the table headers is is discrepancy from the title. That's what it is. It's just looks like a column header didn't get updated.
And then, Sherry, did it just get added today? Is that what we're saying?
Yeah. Because I had to scan it, and I didn't have time to scan the And that's why I don't put things in an email. I don't want it to be critical. You know, sometimes you ask follow-up questions. I'm just asking. No. It was the first time that I had actually, I had to stand there at the copier and copy page by page because it's a shorter version of the budget in Phoenix. The last two columns of that had to be cut off with a paper cutter. Then you couldn't put through the copier. Trust me, I know you're laughing, Mark, but it's my world. Then it kept getting stuck in it. And I physically didn't have time to stand there and do it. Finally, today I did, and I got it through so I could scan it, the full copy, without the two last columns that are meaningless. So that's why. Now next year will be a heck of a lot easier because we'll be with this new system, and I'll be able to actually scan reports and PDF them and it'll be easier. I won't have to cut any columns off.
Stand up the copier for hours. Reminds me when I was transportation manager and had to scan everything through and send it to every school. There you go. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Sorry.
That's okay. All right. Am I done? I don't know. I mean, let me see my Any other questions for Sherry?
We ground that question. Can I say I lied when I said I didn't have another question? No. I'm sorry. It just sticks out like a sore thumb. You what? You know what? In all honesty, Diane, if you want to email me your questions, I'll be happy to answer each one of them in detail. I tell you. If I had a document that I could highlight and yell and put notations on it and send you, I would do that, but I'm working with paper here. Okay. I just and you may know this at the top of your head, and Eric's here. I'm looking at the final budget report for 2021, and the town administrator salary has an adjusted budget of 84,500 and third $553, but the year to date expense is $62,000.
Did we not pay Eric all his money? Yeah. I think we had talked about that in a prior meeting. Eric
I don't know. I I don't remember that. So No. Here's what happened. You're gonna have to know before.
We screwed up my salary because the previous assistant finance person couldn't divide by 52, apparently. So, we realized it fairly late in the bubble. The year, and I ended up giving back essentially I ended up going six weeks without a salary at the beginning of last fiscal year. Not selecting and then paying the rest of the money back. So we that number then. Okay.
Yep. Got it. So, really, we don't trying to make sense out of it. Never mind.
But we overexpanded the year before. It's a tough shot. And that was the balance. That was the Right. To offset that. Right. Well,
we didn't overexpanded the year before, because we went a couple of months without a administrator number one,
and number two, Joe got paid a hell of a lot more than I get paid. So I don't mean for the budget, but it was just offset by what you got paid the year before.
Right. And that's part of the reason I think we didn't catch it earlier was because when you do the percentages of the budget expended, you were under budget for in the year, we were still fine. So, you know, it wasn't till we got really close to the end of the year that it seemed odd, which, you know, remember that.
Okay, any more questions for Sherry? We can save some for next month. Yeah.
All right, thanks Sherry, appreciate the time. I think it is a good baseline. I think we've got a pretty good understanding now. There's always going to be discrepancies and variances, and it is good for us to understand them, I think so. Okay. Fair enough.
Town Aid Road spending, nothing really to speak. We don't have any over expenditures, correct? No. Town Aid Road. Oh,
I know Town Aid Road, that report out of the new system It's missing a lot of information. I just would like to know if we can add some stuff back to it that we used to have.
That was just a detailed account report that comes out of this account maintenance. So I guess we'll have to develop another report and
try to do the other one. Used to have in the other in the previous report. What it down? Maybe
we should have kept the previous software system. I don't know.
Everybody told me reporting was gonna be nervous about this now. So
okay. So so, like, the things I would be looking from from this town aid road thing is an invoice date, a transaction date, the name of the vendor, and the description of the expense. We used to have that information. It was helpful for us for me to know what kind of big expenses we're running through there. This is just remember
we were already also doing that manually last year. So that report was a manual report? Yeah, that was a manual report done in Excel
that tracked what those expenses were. I will do an Excel spreadsheet for that then.
But I mean, are you telling me okay. Let me ask this question. This new system doesn't allow us to do any ad hoc report. We can't just pull a report.
No. They're all custom reports that are made by the the software company.
And Because otherwise, we just have a date, and I don't know if that's just the posting date and an amount. And Yeah. That's can't even tell what it's for. Do know what I mean? I said cash disbursement. I mean Yeah. We're we have any reference numbers or anything we can put in there to put a description in when we're paying this stuff? And
we can't pull a vendor name on this. I mean Well, I can give you detail on it because every time we run a check, we have a check detail report that we run. But it gives you everything. It just doesn't only give you this account, it gives you everything that we processed for that particular check run.
As we're going backwards on what information we had before. So, I found it helpful. I don't know what the rest of the board thinks. We've spent a lot of money out of this account. I like to really know where it's going and what it's for. I don't want to make extra work though for people to have to do a spreadsheet because I don't believe in that either.
I don't know if that can be awarded. That's all. I'm just saying. I will go back and take a look if I can run some of the other check detail reports to only give me information on these checks maybe. There might be a way to tailor it. I'll check that. If I do come up with that detailed report, I'll I'll email it to all of you
with that information. Are you overall happy with this system? Or are you mean it's No, too to
be honest with you, it's not as sophisticated a system that you think. It's one step above Phoenix. Have worked with much more sophisticated systems than this. And it frustrates me every time I ask for something and it is like, well, we do not have that. Or you didn't buy that package. That's kind of what I'm getting right now, which is frustrating at best.
I know you've worked with a lot, so I just wanted to ask MUNIS, that
if you know MUNIS. Everything you can export into Excel. Has a mechanism that you use for reporting at the end of the fiscal year.
Personnel, we use it for personnel too tracking everything HR, everything accounting.
Right, and Infinite Visions is the same thing. It's from Tyler Technologies. But it's pricey, but you also don't have to buy the system. You can use it as software as a service, which is what Hebron does. They pay an amount billed to them, but they don't actually own the software itself. They just house that on their server, you know. So I don't know. Am I happy with it? I guess I'm going to have to be. Because quite frankly, I know that Andover can't afford anything more than this.
I'm going to have to Yeah. Work with I'm disappointed for you because like Diane said, I hate to see you have to do separate spreadsheets and, you know, I mean, again, I know we've talked about it a lot, so I don't wanna drag it up, but I'm just feeling it. I'm feeling like it's not.
Yeah. That was done with Phoenix. So it sounds like it's gonna have to be done a little bit with this one. I
mean, the report I have from last year looks like a system generated report. It doesn't look like a spreadsheet because I have it from the last meeting. Can I can I suggest we move along unless we have any specific questions for Sherry? No. That's my only question. I don't have an idea what it says because I don't know what the money was.
Diane, actually, I think I can because Jay runs a separate Excel spreadsheet of all the expenditures that public works makes and he and I go over that, but we haven't really pushed that forward to the board. But we probably could, and that probably would answer a lot of your, you know, your questions on Town Aid Road. Now one of the things I think we had talked about which I'm in favor of is just simply fun folding Town Aid Road into the road improvement fund that the town adds most towns don't keep them as two separate entities. Towns create one rolling account throw everything in it, expend everything out of it. I think going forward that's probably a smarter way to do it. And Sherry and I have discussed that, but we haven't gotten to the point of taking the, you know, creating the standalone funds yet. That's the next project
that the auditor wants me to do is take all those 3,700 accounts and build a revenue budget for them and an expenditure budget for them and run them through our regular system. So that's the next project that I will be doing, and that one is on the list to do. It will Because we spend a lot of money and
are going to be spending tons of money on roads.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That will be worked on. I think maybe. Other questions? We're done. We're done for now? Putting myself on mute. Good conversation.
Let's agenda item six is budget transfers. Do we have any budget transfers or supplemental appropriations? No, not yet. Yeah. And any over expenditure requests?
Yeah, we've got at least one, but frankly, I haven't put it down on paper yet, but that's on me. Oh, because I haven't seen it yet. It's like where?
Okay, are we good for the next meeting on that then? Yeah. Okay. All right, let's move on to agenda item seven, which is old business. 7A is the software chart of accounts. Looks like you're getting that set up. Okay, any update? Anything we need to know about? Basically,
that's all set up. It's just working with it. Okay. So I think we can probably take this off of the agenda then if we don't need to talk about it anymore.
Yeah. I mean, I think we can This is all done. That project is done. And we just got to move on to the reporting piece of it. If I can get that done, then we'll be good.
Always a good work. So I'm gonna ask this question because I don't know the answer to this. I noticed when I went through the new reports compared to the last year's reports that some accounts, we have fewer accounts and some accounts got eliminated, accounts we never use, but there were some accounts that we did use that we consolidated into new accounts. Yep.
How are we gonna get reporting for all what we spent last year and this year when we start doing budget? Because now they're not the same anymore. I don't know what accounts got consolidated into one account where everything gets posted now. And so and those happen to be a lot of public works accounts got consult consolidated down. Mhmm. And so when you now have a supply account, I don't know what previous accounts now go into that new bucket.
That's why I'm building a crosswalk right now to do that. I'm going over with the public works director when I finish, and I will share that with the full board when it's finished.
Okay. Any more questions on that? Okay, let's move to 7B, the audit status. Any update on that, Eric or Sherry?
I'm working with the auditor right now to get a list of things that he is going to be looking for. He said that he should have it by the end of this week. He has to give me access to the website so that I can scan and upload the documents once I produce them. And he's going to review that and then give us some things that he wants pulled. Once we have all those documents that he wants pulled, he will send his auditing team out to take a look at everything, And we'll continue to work together, him and I, in tying everything together. His hope is that we get everything done before we have to submit a report in December. And that's my hope as well. So that's what we're trying to work towards right now.
Okay, thanks. Anybody have any questions or concerns on that? I would propose we just leave audit status as a standing agenda item here under old business just so we can keep you Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. That'd be great. Okay.
Item 7C is the community senior center building committee. Think Kurt and Diane have been involved in that some degree. Am I right? Or yes, no, maybe not really. Do you want me to give you an update? Sure, yeah.
We have signed the contract with the engineer for the site design and the preliminary drawings. Last week, I think it was last week, weeks run together, we met on-site, Ed Serizli and I and some of the members of the committee, And we walked the site with the engineer and with the architect. We visited local senior centers, created a, you know, these are the services we have, these are the needs we have, this is our wish list, gave them all that information. And so they're supposed to take all that information and start their piece and start putting that together. So, Eric, I don't know if the engineer has contacted you to coordinate the test pits or anything like that.
Yeah. He is not for the test pits. I shipped a ton of mapping today. We've been going back and forth about what mapping the town already had for this project. So I spent a couple hours with the town clerk reviewing everything we have and then forwarding that to him. He said he thought they would be out Monday doing the initial boundary survey and identifying everything that's staked in that they have now and doing the initial TOBO. So the survey stuff should start Monday.
So it started. Hey, Diane? Yes. What firm did you end up with? Because I know there was a question between two of them. We went with BSC and I forgot the name of the architect. Okay, good.
Thanks. Any other questions for Diane? Okay. Sounds like progress there. It's good to hear. Okay, item 7D, public works excavator and plate compactor purchase. They're purchased. They're purchased. All said and done. Okay, I think we can remove this item from old business. Does anybody have any other comments or questions? Okay, thank you. 7E is the credit card purchasing policy.
So we sent you, I don't know whether it's in this packet or last month's packet, a copy of a revised town purchasing policy for credit cards and wondered whether the board had any comments on that or questions regarding that.
Wasn't it the last meeting, at least the last fall meeting. Somebody have any input?
I can't remember at all. Was it a policy about using a credit card to purchase item or employees getting credit cards? It was That was employee
use of credit cards. Basically, we made some very minor modifications to the previous policy, which basically just says you have to fill out the paperwork ahead of time. Oh, it's the form. Okay, know, and that if you, you know, or a butthead, we're not going to let you keep using the credit card. If I were to account for everything. Okay. Yep, that's correct.
So when that bill comes in, does somebody reconcile that we got forms for every one of the charges? Yes. That's all in place? Okay. My assistant does. Any other questions?
Yeah, have a question. Diane, refer to page 11 of the town budget summary. Sorry, but I was just working up the numbers here. And on contingency, the account for $50,000 in original bucket, it was brought down to $13,847.32 The difference between the two is 36,152.68. Yep. Which means that that's the exact amount I told you I was taking from contingency and putting in all those accounts. And so that's a minus in the contingency. So there will be pluses throughout the budget in the areas that I told you I would put the money. So what I'm saying is your spreadsheet
for the budget transfers that we approved in June has a different dollar amount coming out of contingency. It's not 36, 152? No. It's 568? It's 360076628
is what your spreadsheet says. Okay. I'm fine. Small discrepancy.
I'm just trying to make sure that is must be another difference in there. Okay. Got it. Alright, I want to know what else I need to do to make that balance.
Thank you. I mean, it may be just a typo on the spreadsheet. May be correct. I don't know.
Yeah, I'll check it out. Now I know what I need to check. Okay, thank you.
Okay, hearing no further input on the credit card purchasing policy, unless somebody has any, let's move on to agenda item 7A. Actually should be F, I suppose, typed A in this packet, but road line striping.
We did the striping for the year. I'm not actually sure why that's on there.
Might have been an artifact or something. Okay. Well, I think we can remove that for next next item. Consider it closed. I was glad to see it. I live on Lake Road. Looks good. Okay. If there are no other questions on that, we will move to agenda item eight, which is new business. The first item is 8A, Ram Multi Use Turf Field Project. So I think everyone saw the letter that we finalized in our special meeting that was submitted to the River East Bulletin. It was also posted on the TAW website by Amanda. Thank you, Amanda. And I was pleased to see that it got into the River East bulletin in its entirety. I was a little dismayed to see that there happened to be like 43 pages of letters to the editors in that edition, and we ended up on page six.
So it was pretty buried in there, but it did appear in there. I personally haven't gotten any feedback on there. I don't know if there's anything more we need to discuss on this, but A lot of feedback on social
media and over So there's banter going back and forth on that. Yeah. Was there any particular, you know, side to it Everybody's one way or the having their opinions, pros and cons. Do know what I mean? So it's just interesting to read what people think. I mean, I don't know. I don't get the sense that everybody's overwhelmingly in favor of it, but Yeah. In town. But it seems balanced at this point in time. Don't know. See a lot of signs up in Hebron. See a lot of no signs in Hebron too. Those have started to come up. I have too. I've seen only a few of those. A lot of times they're placed right next to the yeses. I know, and they're the same colors and they look very deceiving. Yeah. Just previously placed.
So I think we've probably done our duty regarding this. I don't know that we did you take any more action? Does anybody feel like we need to add anything to this or take any more action? Or should we just remove this from the agenda? See what happens in the second.
We know why I think we did what we could do as a board. You know what's left now is what we can do individually. But as a board we took a stand. Do
we know why the board of Selectmen didn't take a stand? It chose not to. I mean, so. Yeah. I didn't know what to do with reasoning. I don't know. I think it's because it's appropriate for us because it affects the budget. Right. But, you know, there's there's two ways of looking at it too. It would have been a lot more support to have both both of them, both of us doing it, but whatever. It's a lot of money. It'll be interesting to see how the vote goes. Yep.
We did our part and then like Rob said, individually, I reached to people awareness out. And I like how Eric has kind of on his comments, the few that I've been able to see has stuck with the financial ramifications, which I think are big. You know, I don't wanna debate turf fields and injuries and versa. And I mean, there's a huge thing, but we'll see. K.
Get the money spent elsewhere, like we've. Seen what happens.
It's all up to the voters. Okay, I think we can move on to agenda item 8B, which is a Board of Education request to the letter to the Board of Finance request regarding a 2% transfer of funds. If I understand this right, and again, I wasn't at the last meeting, but this is the amount, the excess funds that are available are based on what you were presented to us earlier, Sherri, which is that figure of 58,000. I'm not sure what the number is here off the top of my head. Hold on one second. It $58,072.20
At $20 yep, got it. Dollars 58,072.20. So you have in your packet the letter from Jerry Creme, the Board of Education Chairman. It's just pretty straightforward. He's looking for us to return that to the School Improvement Fund. It's within our purview, we have to approve that or we can decline to take action on this item.
Jerry, can you tell me what the balance is in the school improvement fund right now?
Let's see. I believe it's 160 something. I don't know I don't have the report with me, but it's like in the 160,000
range you think I don't know the exact number by this one I just want to I can't give you the exact number but it is 160,000 range. Yeah, what I had in my head was 161. In that That's
fine. Yeah. My question for everybody is, do we want a corrected letter with from Jerry with the exact hour.
Don't see that it's necessary. Okay, I'm fine. He knew that it would be in that rough. You know, they just didn't have the financials when they Right. Yeah. Issued this. I don't personally He's see this
aware of the number because he was given the number today by the superintendent. So, you know, so he knows what the number is. And it was my task to make sure that I balanced out both the town and the school and came to a final number. And that's what I did before the Board of Finance meeting.
So that final balance, would that be before they spend the money on the outdoor classroom, or have they paid that bill yet? They've already paid the bill. Okay. I'll I'll wait till we get to the discussion then ask you how much it was. So we I
have a question. Go ahead, Louise. Based on what I'm reading in the letter, it seems like they want the money for potential type of things. In my mind, I would rather see it ask for if it's actually in need and to maybe leave it right there for now. That's my thoughts on it. Because it doesn't look like any urgent money is needed at this point, just potential. Is that what everyone else is getting from it? I think we have to put the money somewhere.
Can't just Well, the money either rolls back into the town.
Right. Or it'll go to the school improvement fund. Well, can't we leave it in the town a
It can, but I don't know that there's a mechanism to transfer it back to the schools should they need So-
They would have to request an appropriation probably kind of go through that process if they need.
So if you decided if you had to move 58,000 back to the school later, because that's over the point 25% of the budget number that would take your sending it to town meeting, and there would have to be a town meeting to transfer that back to the school board, if if that was what was gonna happen in the future.
Joanne, we're not hearing your audio. Oh, I gotta move.
I'm in a different spot. So are we oh, can you hear me now? Sorry. That's better. Yep. Alright. I'm moving. So there's only 150,000 give or take in that contingency fund that they have and they want to add the 58 in there bringing it over 200,000? That seems correct. Yep.
Is that something you all have done in the past? I just don't know where that number usually stands
because I We've done a mix of that in the past. The last, I think two years ago, they made a similar request. We asked for if they had specific plans and where would they use that type of fund. And we basically got no response. So frankly, we took no action because we thought that it was appropriate that we would understand kind of what their plans for such funds might be. So we took no action a couple of years ago. I believe last year, there ended up being no funds that we rolled over, if I remember correctly. That's been the experience at least in the last couple of years, if I remember.
I mean, I'm glad they have a fund already, and it's already funded to the tone of 150,000. So I just see a lot more needs in a town fund. But again, I don't I don't wanna be the over here, so I just thank you for the background. That's just my thought.
K. Around Kurt, Rob, Louise, Diane, any Linda, any input there?
My feeling is it's fine. And, you know, you know where I stood on the on the school budget this year. So I'm in favor of agreeing to come and putting that money in the school improvement fund. Your mileage may vary.
So the one other thing I wanted to say on this fund is there's a couple things that have happened with this fund in the last three or four years. The first is that the state has raised the cap from 1% of the budget to 2% of the budget. And then the second thing is the state through the legislature has really broadened what that money could be for. It was much more restrictive before. You know, and now it's able to be used a lot more flexibly by the school board. And I'm not saying you should approve it or don't approve it. I just wanted to put that out there for the board. That's a good point that changed two years ago I think you're right. Yeah, And I believe the restriction is still has to be used for educational purposes. So you couldn't take the money and, you know, do something else with it.
So it still has to be tied to an education expense. Sure.
Do they have any any requests or plans to spend any amount of that in the next year or two?
Think there are concerns that there may be potential need for an outplacement sometime this year. And I don't know any more about that than the details. And that's quite an expensive item. So I think that's what they're thinking they need it for.
As Jerry said in his letter, the outplacement costs can be nearly $100,000
Yeah, that's likely to probably happen this year for sure. And we did not anticipate that happening or taking place, so, it's gonna be a necessity for sure. It does.
I can understand if we do end up voting it and say yes, and then we just like Diane wants to do going forward, I'm certainly gonna monitor it and see if it's used or not. And and I am reading, I have the letter here. I'm reading the full letter here. I apologize. I didn't get to read the whole thing and know there was an outplacement. That certainly changes my view. So I just want to follow that. So let's as a board see how it goes if we do vote it in. Not saying they have to do exactly that. I just want to be presented with a true item that could come. That makes me feel like we should if that's legit and it's going to happen.
I want that I think it was uncertain when Jerry wrote the letter. It was just July, but that was their concern. Guess we got a little bit more information from Sheridan following up. I
know the superintendent has voiced that the whole time through the whole budget talks that we should be prepared for funding. You know the special the special Ed costs, and I certainly know how expensive those can be. I just and I had sent her a request for some information not reaching anyone's confidentiality, just wondering what the numbers were. I mean, this was a while ago, so I haven't received it. I could reach out to her again because I know that they bring that up a lot. So for such a small school, such an enroll small enrollment, I would kind of like to know the number of or the just the percentage of of students. But that's that's neither here nor there. That's just my opinion. If it's for this exact cause, then I think it should be funded. I think it's to support that possibility. Can
I say something? Go ahead, Linda. Is there some way we can say, okay, we'll allow you to bring it up to 200,000. But beyond that, if you need more money throughout the school year, you're going to have to come and request it from the board of finance. Well, I think the only thing we could do, we could change the number. We could, whatever that number is, if it's $40,000
or $39,000 that would be the amount that would take it up to the $200,000 We could vote to allow them to apply that amount to the school. So I just don't know. Then the rest would roll back to the town. Yeah, I don't know. There's no way to have a dynamic like either vote or we don't, right? We pass on a certain fixed amount or we don't.
You know, one of the things I was going to suggest is the Board of Finance might, it might make sense that you as a board decide what target threshold, you're comfortable withholding in that reserve account and state that up front and then whether you get there this year or whether you get there in a few years, you basically tell the school, look, we're, you know, we're comfortable with holding up to x, you know, and then work towards that. You know, whatever that number is, I think that might be one way to address your concerns Linda.
I guess the other question I have that I don't know the answer to, since the school's budget only got approved at a 0% increase, and I know they had to make cuts, Do they need are they going to be taking money out of that account to meet somebody's budget shortfalls? I didn't know that or not. I don't know where the money is coming from to fund these shortfalls that the schools said they needed.
As of right now, they have not taken any money out for that purpose.
Yeah. Would presume if they had something specific, Jerry wouldn't put it in, but it was July, it was early when they were. Right, right.
Remember, part of the reason the school will be okay this year is they did receive some additional funds backfill from the state, if I'm correct, Sherry. Yeah. COVID related.
Yeah. COVID related. Like all school districts, we're worried about what the future is going to look like because not having these funds and still have been mandated to put certain things in place, you know, where are we going to get the money? Because it seems like every town is having a problem with this and they don't want to fund it, you know, so we're not alone here when this is going to become a problem. I don't know when the well is going to run dry kind of thing, You know?
Would anybody like to make any motion regarding this letter or this request? I don't wanna cut off discussion necessarily, but, ultimately, we'll we'll need to either make a motion to allow them to roll over a certain amount into the school improvement fund or we don't take action, in which case then it does not happen in the funds roll back to the town.
I'll go ahead and move that we approve the move of the funds, the 58,000 and change over to the school improvement fund as requested by the BOE. Okay. Maybe I'd like to second that motion.
That means discussion's over. I mean, I was gonna speak, but I don't wanna speak over someone.
I like to the idea. I'm just gonna throw a Hold on a second. Sorry, guys. I didn't hear that. Do we have a second? I'm gonna second. Seconds it, then you can continue discussion. I'll second the motion to.
But yeah, we don't have to vote right away. We can still talk about it. Yeah, I mean,
just opens discussion up. Okay, so now we have a motion on the table to transfer the $58,000 roughly money or allow the school district to transfer that into improvement fund. Now we have actually direct discussion on this motion. So go ahead. I'm
just giving it a minute. Always seem to jump in at the wrong. Yeah, I like the idea of maybe topping it off at 200,000. I know that that's really close this year. I think that that allows them with this. I'm thinking of this particular school, this particular budget, this particular enrollment, and having worked in schools. Think that's a good, you know, a good amount of a contingency, whatever we call it, for emergency circumstances that they could dip into for real needs. I would hope this is real needs. I have no idea what's happened with the outdoor. I'm so busy in my own life and job that I don't know what's happened with the outdoor classroom and I'm afraid, but I'm going to listen to that afterwards. But a real need definitely special ed students getting whatever they need. I'm for it, but yeah, I like 200,000.
Is it isn't isn't the isn't this fund a it's a fund that they can they can use however they feel, you know, they wanna use it for? Besides, I mean, that out- out- outplacement student was looming during our discussions throughout the budget. And as you can see, it hasn't happened yet. That's not to say it's going to happen. And what would that approximately cost to- to outplace a student if anybody have any idea what that what that costs approximately? I think it's close to $100,000 per child.
Probably depends on the services required. Yeah, that's kind of the Right,
Mark. It depends on where the child is placed and if that's going to include transportation or not. Some of them are very high cost.
Right. Yeah. My understanding from the past has been that 100,000 is the ballpark kind of median number. But obviously, each individual case can vary.
Alright, then now back to the, it's always been called the school improvement fund, like we have the fire engine fund and the town equipment fund, and those, the public works and and the fire department usually is is used for, capital equipment, I. E. A fire truck, a large piece of, you know, equipment that that we use on the trucks or, in conjunction with, the same with public works. So, school improvement, I know with Valerie was talking about AC units, you know, they've been replacing AC units and things like that, which is what, least I remember the funds of, you know, the school improvement fund being used for. So just I kind of like the idea, Lynn's idea of capping it also at 200,000, at least we can somehow keep a handle on it, think, which we need to do personally. And that's- Let's look at the regulation,
you know, back in the summer, I think when we initially started these conversations And the law has changed, like Eric said. And, you know, I think it was named the school improvement fund and had restrictions to be used for capital improvements. I think all that's gone away in the regulation. It's now you can put up to 2% in there, but the money can only be spent for educational purposes. There is a limit on what you can spend it. It's not like they can go out and buy, you know, a new car or whatever, you know. Correct. So that's how I understand it to be. And they would have control of the money and they're the ones who would have to prove
what the educational expense would be to come out of that.
Shall we take a vote if there's no more discussion on this particular motion? Happy to hear So
we have this discussion. Are we I heard a favor of capping at 200,000 to 200,000.
Are we looking at a cap or voting on the toll? No. We have a motion in front of us to to allow the transfer of the
$58,072.20. Which if memory serves gets us to like $2.20. That's the difference. Right? That's the difference. $1.61 plus 58 and change. So the difference we're talking about is a $20,000 difference. Just so everybody's clear on this. So my motion is that we agree to to move it as Jerry asked. If you want to vote it down and make a different motion for 200 ks as a cap, that's what's another option. Yeah, that's a different motion though. Right now, the motion That's right. Is to vote on the 58,070 Right. Like if that's your preferred option, you vote mine down and you propose yours.
Any further discussion? Okay, I'm gonna call for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Aye. Okay. And any abstentions? That'll fail.
So I think that was Rob and I voting yes and the rest of the board voting no. Okay. All right. Thank you guys. So further discussion on this topic, we can entertain a motion as Linda suggested, to transfer an amount that would take it to roughly $200,000 We don't know the exact fund amount, so I suggest a ballpark is probably appropriate if you choose to do that. Anyone choose to make a motion? I would be willing to make a motion to
transfer sufficient funds to bring I think you have to have a number on there, Diane, because we don't know what it'll be, just Oh,
okay. If we think it's $1.60, $40,000. $40,000 to cap the lapsed unlapsing account fund at 200,000.
I don't know what we're calling It won't it won't cap it, but it'll, you know, bring it to the about that amount, right? So you really don't know what it is. I stuck in it, whatever it is. Okay, so
as I understand it, Diane is making a motion to allow the school district to transfer $40,000 of the surplus from the previous fiscal year into the school improvement fund account as requested in the letter. And Joanne seconded, I believe. Correct. Okay. Any further discussion on that motion? Or any discussion at all, I should say.
I know that this year, the figure is very close and, you know, it would only be this or that. I just think it's nice for us to just have that. All of us kind of seemed in agreement with the 200,000, so I think we should just do it or else we're going to kind of yeah. So that's why. No, that's all my discussion. I don't think this is an unreasonable approach. It seems reasonable Other to
discussion? Okay, let's have a vote. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? I'll abstain.
Okay. So we have, I believe, six ayes and one abstention. Move for Rob. All right, the motion passes. Thank you, everybody. I think with that, we can move on to the next agenda item, which is the HC, the town hall electrical upgrades.
Eric, I think this is yours. Yeah, it is. And I don't have enough details to give you a real update. I'm still trying to wrestle the contractors because there's about six or seven contractors that are that I need quotes from. I'd like to keep it on the agenda, I will hopefully have something more for you next month, but I do not right now.
Okay, thank you, Eric. Any questions for Eric on that? Okay, thank you. We'll move on to item 8D, which is the Veterans Monument Park upgrades. We have flagpoles, Battlefield Cross, and irrigation. So is that also yours, Eric?
I guess I can take that one. So I'm going to talk about what the town's expenses are. And then, you know, so, so this is gets a little funky because most of the expenses for the total project are being borne by fundraising efforts from Jerry right. So, but the town has agreed to put some money into it, based on the last coven grant and spend out of that grant. So I'm going to tell you about the stuff we've kind of agreed to pay for right now. And then we'll talk about the one optional expense board of selectmen agreed for new acrylic sign for the replace the existing worn out creamery sign that was $1,100 We needed a new well,
not the well but the pump itself that was done by Chewanac in the summer, that was $2,800 We hired a callback design consulting as a plumber to because we have a well. And we have a sprinkler system, you need a backfill preventer to be legal. At the same time, we wanted a frost free shut off. So we could blow the thing out easily, and a drain back system. And then also a robust sand filter because we've had problems with that well producing a lot of sediment. So that bill for all of that work was $2,800 which was about $1,600 of that was parts and the other 1,200 was labor for that. We hired Lenco to do the electrical work. I do not have a final quote from Lenco at this point as to what the cost of that was, what the final cost of that was. We spent $4,500 on the sprinkler system for the monument. Was from Ron's landscaping. We spent a total of $3,474.43 on various and sundry materials to the public works. That's the, the, you know, actual inch and a quarter drain pipe that runs all the way down from the monument. That's a bunch of, you know, cast bronze fixtures. That's the process material. And the precast bollards and fence for the museum pressure treated posts, you know a bunch of little stuff it all added up to, to that. So our total not including the electrical is 16,792. We originally knew we had just over $20,000 to work with that you probably have a little bit more than that and now, because we had initially earmarked about 4,000 out of that covert relief money for
computer upgrades for the finance department, but we ended up not spending anywhere near that much out of that. So we probably have somewhere around 22,000 total to expect. Now, there's one expense that Jerry has asked the town to cover. And that was the cost for all the low voltage lighting and reconfiguring the low voltage lighting. As part of that, and that was $2,118 I told them, I didn't. It's not up to me to decide because the board. The board of selectmen had not yet decided. It agreed to that everything else that I've, I've mentioned to you, the board has agreed to that that was part of the town's responsibility for this. Also got one of the most expensive items on this essentially comped to us. And that is that Andover landscaping. And another contractor provided all the top soil and the seating for this project. And we were initially thinking that was that was going to be our single greatest expense at around $14,000 And they basically they footed the bill for that, and didn't charge us anything. So, you know, we got more than we expected from the town's money out of that project,
but, but that's pretty much the accounting for what we've spent there so far. So I'm going to go back to the Board of Selectmen and ask them whether they're willing to pick up the extra $2,118 cost for the low voltage lighting. That's up to them to decide. If you guys want to weigh in on it, you certainly can. You know. Anybody have any?
I'm gonna ask a question because I'm trying to remember. I thought originally when this went to the Board of Select when I was on a meeting and I thought, and maybe it was one of our meetings. I thought the town's contribution was capped up to $20,000 Did that change?
It might have been capped up to 20 I'm thousand
not actually I remember I had a hard time coming up with numbers.
It was, but I think it was capped because we had a $24,000 pot of grant money, and we had already accounted for 4,000 of it. So now we've unaccounted for about 2,000 out of that 4,000. So potentially we could spend a little more, but you know it just kind of depends. And part of the reason is I don't want to make any final decision till I know what the final bill from the electrician is. I think I've got them willing to do basically use basically to agree to not charge us for any of the labor, and just simply charge us for materials for that project, which would be awesome if Rick is willing to if Lenco is willing to do that I mean I can't guarantee it, but I think that's what's going to end up happening with this project, because they've been very generous to the town with donations in the past.
So there's nothing for us to do here. You just need to go back to the Board of Selectmen and find out they're willing to pick up the other piece.
Are you looking for us to do something? No, not really. I'm just keeping you informed that, you know, of of kind of where we are at it. And honestly, I don't have an accounting, you know, as to where Jerry is in terms of fundraising for the battlefield cross. You know, or the POW monument or the granite basis for the monument or anything of that stuff. That's kind of separate for me, I haven't been really kind of tracking that at all. You know, because it's not town money. So, I don't know where we are with that the board has asked Jerry to give them give a summary of where we are with that at the next meeting but, you know, but I don't have it. Sherry. You're muted. I said,
that's nice because I didn't know that. So, there's another thing on my plate.
Oh, Jerry. Jerry, did you say Jerry or Sherry? You carry accounting. Jerry? Jerry?
The guy who's fundraising for the yeah deep breaths okay. Yeah okay I'm good.
Okay, thanks, Eric. If anybody else has any other questions, great. Otherwise, we appreciate the update. It's looking good. I've had a couple of people who don't live in town that drive by have made positive comments about improvements there. It's looking good.
Eric, did you mention he has plans for a Vietnam Memorial also? POW Memorial or something. POW? So Jerry has many plans, many plans, kind of busy up there,
know, and, and I think the board has to have a real serious discussion with them about where we're going. Because, I mean, Jerry, yes, Jerry has talked about adding a fourth flagpole, adding a nother monument for all the conflicts that have occurred after Vietnam because our board essentially ends there. And then he's got a concept about re doing that sloped area between the thing in the museum with a wall and make it the Purple Heart Memorial Wall. And then he's also contemplating adding additional flags along Monument Lane, one for each of the services, and then also adding a separate like contemplative area across Monument Lane. So, I don't know where it's all going. Mean my job is just to whatever the board agrees to to try to to make happen and expedite.
That that's a board question as to where all that's going. Board of Selectmen's question. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
You look nice right now. I've had people say it too. And I like, I know Kathy Derozier has taken on, you know, the beautification parts of things. She does such a great job. I hope that they do a little bit across from Long Hill that I talked to you about it. Just I think Andover's looking nice that little stretch there, but I mean the memorial really looks nice now. I would be afraid to do too too much to make, you know, I don't want to ever first, you know, stand on someone's dreams and all of that but it looks really nice now. Yeah, I think it's come out well. Okay.
Any more input? Okay. All right. I don't think we need to have that on the agenda going forward unless you have more to talk about. We're always interested to hear it. Okay, item 8E is the deep grants. We've got two items, Coventry, Nathan Hale Loop and the Route 316 Multi Use Path.
Okay, so one of these is a grant the town is kind of co sponsoring, it will be cost neutral to the town of Andover. It's primarily a grant being submitted by the town of Coventry. And that is to extend the road where Bear Swamp Road ends that still official Coventry roadbed, and to regrade and bring in gravel and fix the drainage. So that can be a walking and multi use path. Then there's another road back there called Judd Road that they also own the roadbed for. After a long fight with DEP has acknowledged that they do it, the town does in fact own the rights to it, even though it's in the state forest and connect a multi whole path. That would go from basically Bear Swamp, you would be able to get all the way back to, to the Nathan Hale homes property on a well finished. And what we've agreed to do is to essentially allow the installation of sheriffs and signage to make a loop. You know, Andover would have the on road portion of the loop. Bear swamp and wheeling would then get you know signage. So it could be a loop with about half of it pedestrian only in about half of it, a shared bath on the road, and potentially a share of connection, down to Long Hill. So there's a full connection to the existing rail trail. So that's one grant that's being submitted primarily in Coventry that's going to be, you know, probably a $300,000 grant submission on their part. But it's it's not something that Andover will bear any expense.
If we get it will benefit from it but we won't share. I originally had it on the thing because we were talking about putting a parking area at the end of Bear Swamp on town property. The board of selectmen decided to nix that because they didn't want to contribute any funds to the project. So, at this point, it will be primarily if Coventry gets it it's primarily a project. Worst case scenario is public works for a day to put the science in.
Can I ask a question on that or do I have to wait for both? No, you can ask, ask away. This involves my neighborhood, and I just heard about it you know when I listened to the bear to the board of selectmen meeting I'm all about hiking and walking but are you saying that the road is part of the loop so we're just going to be having people walk down Bear Swamp Rd as part of it. Sure,
no, I'm just listening. I like to learn. Mean the first was the Board of Selectmen. I I mean I did. I did kind of. And and I'm speaking as a board of finance Member too, but as an interested party because I just heard about this. So we are going to have a loop going down Wheeling down Bear Swamp, and then they can go to the end of the road and because I I used to live in Coventry, so I know that Judd Road area. I always, you know, and then the unfinished whatever whatever it is. I think it's a gravel
path right now or something okay so that's that's the plan that's different I would I didn't even know that the parking lot was the part that got me at the beginning when I was listening just because I I don't think I heard this has been discussed in other meetings.
Yeah, we've been talking about that parking lot for a long time. Okay, because Nathan Hale is such a popular destination for mountain biking. Of course, in there is a quote unquote unofficial parking area on wheeling that has direct trail access to one of the mountain biking loops. But the town would probably at some point be better served with a parking area on town property at the end of you know, at the end of Bear Swamp. And the second thing that would accomplish is it would keep people from parking in the bus turnaround area which has always been problematic at the end of that road. But anyway, the Board of Selectmen decided they didn't want want to deal with the parking lot. That's not in the plan at this point.
Yeah, I did hear that part as the meeting went along, I heard. And again, I have to digest it I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for clarification.
And you're right. There was not a ton of notice on this, but yeah, didn't hear anything. Yeah, as a possibility about six weeks ago. So everybody right now is scrambling, you know, to write the grants and get the submission in, you know, once they opened up the actual grant submission. So in the second one is in the plan of conservation and development, and in the complete streets plan for the town. You know, for about the last six or seven years there's been a plan to eventually make a connection, a essentially non motorized connection between the rail trail and the town hall school. New community center property. The town's kind of preferred route is to run it right along the edge of Route 316. There's some issues in that. Was originally going to try to go for kind of a home run ask for a lot of money. You know, for the entire design of it. Just go straight to an engineering firm. But you know I bet, you know, I've been fighting with dot over that for a while and dot basically said, you know, this has too much impact on the dot for us to ever allow it without you doing a true design study first. So I kind of backed off a little bit. And the second thing that was kind of not in our favor was the DOT is pushing for if, if their expected start date for us to do the work, you know, to actually kick off the grant is if we get it is February or March. And if we ask for a lot of money remember the towns on the book for about 20% of the money.
So if we really went straight to the design phase, you know, and budgeted a couple $100,000 that means we would have to come up with about $40,000 as our contribution to it. And frankly, don't think we have the budget to do it. So we backed off, we're going to ask for about $40,000 to do a feasibility study to look at all the possible routes, because that backs it off and that makes us only have to come up with about $8,000 to fully fund the study when we get it. So that's what I'm kind of going for with the multi use path that's on the list. That makes sense.
So basically, I mean, in a sense, it's because we don't have the money in the budget. It's a little bit of kick it down a little bit. See what if anybody can come up with some brilliant solution to the problem, because I'm just myself sitting here thinking about how you connect those two things. And three sixteen, the issue with that is memory serves. There's no shoulder. There's no it's a narrow, twisty road.
Where are you gonna put it? Yes, you would have to put it on the side of the road and you'd have to create a standalone multiuse path that runs along 316 between School Road and cider mill and then use cider mill to get the rest of the way down. Yikes.
Yeah, no, it's, it's doable because there is a fairly through most of that. You know, remember the the state doesn't just own to the edge of the pavement. Yeah, you have about like 10 That's a much bigger easement. Yeah. But unfortunately, they're not uniform easements in that area. Because the state acquired that, you know, in the 20s and 30s. You know, at some point, if we chose that route, we'd also need some pretty extensive surveying, because the last mapping and surveying we have is from like 1927, the old blue images with white lines. So it's very difficult to and obviously a lot of things have changed since then. So I think probably we're on the right path, which is right now do a design study. And from the design study, we should be able to understand
what the cost, a more accurate cost to do a full blown design and construction is. And the town can decide whether we seek funding for it, or how we proceed. That that's kind of where we're going, or where I'm going with it now. And the reason I'm telling you is because if we do get this, you know, we're going to need to come up with somewhere around $8,000 Yeah.
Okay. You're muted, Mark. I got it. Any more questions for Eric on this topic? Okay, we'll wait to I guess we'll wait to hear how that rolls out. Next agenda item is 8F, Animal Control with NECOG, which Northeastern Connecticut with Council of Governments, right? Correct. That yours also? Yep,
that's mine also. As many of you know, sometime over the summer, our Animal Control Officer decided he didn't want to be the animal control officer for what we were willing to pay him. We made a counter offer to basically double his salary. He said no. So, we looked at other alternatives. I interviewed like all the local area ACOs seeing whether somebody would be willing to pick us up in addition to their own. The answer is generally no. I did get a after a long discussion with me cog. They will agree to provide animal control services to the town of Andover, and they charge their member towns of flat $3.15 per capita to provide the animal control services. So it works out to around $9,500 a year, which is more than we budgeted, but that seems to be the lowest cost option that we have available. So we're doing this essentially on a quarter by quarter basis, because we're a little outside their normal range of coverage. And the kennel facilities is quite a ways from Andover also, we're going to try it and see whether it works for us or them. I am also kind of in talks with Hebron because their animal control officer is planning on retiring from being their animal control officer next year. And there's some question about whether we could kick in with Hebron. You know, so it's at least a good solution for now, depending on how it goes, it may be a great long term solution, it might not. But one of the problems we have is finding somebody that's willing to work, you know, and be on call essentially,
you know, '24, you know, 365 is difficult without paying a fair amount of money. And most of the larger ACO organizations are pretty pricey. I looked at a couple others and the cost basis for covering Andover would have been a lot higher, like three to five times what knee cog was charging. I'm willing to give it a shot with knee cog and we'll hope it works out pretty well as a shared service.
Eric, what were we paying the guy who's leaving us?
We were paying him about $4,500 a year. I had increased his salary from 3,000 to 4,500. And there was some other money in for mileage and for other things that we were just kind of paying him. You know, we would have gone. And basically what I did because it's hard to find a CEOs so I essentially told them that, you know, as the administrator I could see upping it to somewhere around 9,000, you know, beyond that, because I kind of had agreement from the Board of Selectmen to support that. And if he wanted more than that, I would consider it, but that would have to go back to the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance. And that was still way under what he decided he wanted. So he just told me he wasn't willing to negotiate further. So now we're looking at 9,500 ish to use the shared service. Okay. Yep. Yep.
So that will at some point be over budget. The good news is we didn't pay any ACO for a couple of months. So for this year, we made up part of that by just not having one. So tremendous solution. I love it. Yeah, I don't.
Kevin. Other questions on this topic? Anybody got anything for Eric?
Is the service used a lot? That's gonna be my question. Three times a month, you know, once a month or does it just vary?
You know, honestly that I never got, that was one of my real frustrations with our previous ACO is I can never really get him to provide me like numbers like how many times do you get called in a month? How many calls do you go on? How many dogs? How many this? How much stuff do you have to shoot? You know, an understanding of what the job actually entails. I mean, I know what the legal requirements are for training, you know, but I couldn't, I don't have that information. I'll tell you in the couple months, we didn't have an ACO. You know, there have been probably four or five disgruntled people that we haven't been able to address their, you know, missing pooch or, you know, I was out on over by Shad Blow looking for some wounded bird that somebody called in and was convinced, you know, was a hazard. So, not a ton.
I listened the night he was, you know, on with the board of selectmen, I believe, you know, so I could hear his frustration and, yeah, I, so I listened to his story. So, thank you. Yeah. I didn't know how often we use it.
Yeah, and I mean, being on call 20 fourseven, you know, and only making 5 Yeah, $100 I have no, I'm not surprised he's upset, you know.
Yeah, I guess we have to try this. You know? There's not a lot of solution. It's a lot more Hopefully, money. But the human thing bears fruit. Correct. Seems to be a reasonable interim solution. Can Yeah. Good
long term solution. And I can tell you that I know Wyndham is considering converting to nee cog, which for our perspectives would be wonderful, because Wyndham has a new fully, fully up to snuff kennel. What this that would allow us to do is have a much closer kennel, and likely have an ACO on duty much closer to us. So, I think there's a potential for that to work really well for us. And Nikon is getting really big. I mean, they provide this for like 22 towns right now, something like that. So, I mean, they're providing this service for an awful lot of towns. Most of the ones I've talked to have seen relatively happy with it.
Yeah, I think I've seen that facility actually, the Wyndham pound. So, that works, hopefully. Mark, you're you're muted. You guys aren't reading me telepathically? My my lip reading is is slipping, I'm sorry.
I mumble on the best of days. It probably wouldn't help the lip reading too much. All right, it just said if nobody's got any other questions for Eric on that, we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is eight gs, which is the 2022 regular meeting schedule. You've got the proposed schedule in your packet. It basically follows the algorithm we're using this year, which is every Wednesday of the month or the third, sorry, fourth Wednesday of each month, seven to 9PM or 7PM to seven to nine. We don't need to go to nine, just wanna make that clear. Seems to kind of be our block of time, but this works for me. Don't know if anybody has any other input or likes to do some, likes to look at something different.
Know, as you know, mean, works for me. Yes, one of the reasons we do it on Wednesdays is my schedule. So I appreciate it.
Sorry, Linda. Go ahead. Okay. I was gonna say, I think in the past on November and December, we went with the third because, well, the fourth Wednesday day in is the day before Thanksgiving, the night before and Yeah.
That's my only date that I would like to move. Yeah. If we ever move
a little bit. So I think in the past we've we've used we've moved both November and December to the third Wednesday. That makes a lot of sense, and you're right. Yeah. Well, November to move to the third Wednesday, the proposed date is the twenty third,
which is the day before Thanksgiving. Agreed moving it to the third Wednesday would move into the sixteenth. So I would certainly find that appropriate. Yeah. The date in December is the twenty eighth. Wednesday between Christmas and New Year's to moving it before is the twenty first. It's a few days before the Christmas holiday.
Yeah, I would rather leave. See it's 06/06, '1 half dozen the other, you know. I'll just say that I'm more likely to be around for the twenty first. If you guys don't need me, I'm fine with that, but I'm a lot more likely to be available on the twenty first than twenty eighth. Probably true for me also, but not always so.
Or we could cancel the December meeting and just accept that we're gonna load up in January because the budget cycles start.
And we typically start having special meetings for budgets anyway then. You know, there's not always So much to be dealt
I just wanna be honest with you both. At this point, I am planning on being gone in January and going to the North American championships rice boating. And in February, I will probably be at the world championships somewhere in Europe. So I will probably miss the two meeting dates in January and February. Just to let you know. The early budget cycle, you're going to be gone? That's why we have a finance director. Yes, yes, indeed. Oh, boy.
Okay, thank you, Eric. If I'm understanding everybody correctly, what we need to do is change January and February to make sure Eric is here. No, that's not what it was. Thanks for It sounded like everybody's okay with the fourth Wednesday of every month with the exception of Wednesday, November 23, we would change to Wednesday, November 16. Agreed. And I would propose that we leave the December 28 where it is and we can change or add special meetings as needed. I think that one's just a little tougher on the holidays either way. There's probably a solution there. Yeah, just to understand like the twenty eighth, there's essentially zero chance I'll make that meeting. Yeah.
If you back up the January meeting to the nineteenth, I could make it.
I was just joking Eric I want you to go. Oh, I know but that's okay I mean I don't. I don't mind.
Eric, I'm sure in your absence between Sherry and Amanda, we can, they can cover your spot. Well, honestly, we normally have multiple meetings in January anyway, don't we? So we didn't start until March. No, you gotta go to first. You had some of December left. Men
cranking away in January. Usually, the goal is always to have a budget in your hands about March 1. Right. You can put your heads down for the next five months until it passes. Okay. Time is weird now. What can I say?
I'm okay with moving January to the nineteenth, but I'm also Flag is fine. I think we can handle it without Eric too.
Yeah. I mean, I I would just say if it doesn't really matter to anybody, let's do the nineteenth so we have them. What's the harm? If nobody else has an issue with the nineteenth, I mean.
I'm perfectly fine with handling it too. So I've been through many budgets over the thirty two years of my experience. So this can't be any worse.
Jerry, what are you doing? She just she just just I'm out on the wind now.
Oh my lord. I'm gonna go run and find some wood. I'll be right back. Yeah, right. No, that'd be fine. I have faith. Okay. Move November. I like that one.
Yeah. All right. So do we need a motion here, Mark? Yeah, let's have a motion, please. All right. So let's move to move the November meeting to the sixteenth. That's the date, right? Yep. And otherwise leave the schedule alone.
That what we agreed Okay, that's my motion. That's the motion. Anybody second that motion? I second it, Joanne. Thank you, Joanne seconds it. Okay, any further discussion? Okay, let's take a vote. All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Sounds like unanimous. Thank you very much. We will use that as our schedule and post it for public consumption, which is something we need to do before the I think it's thirty days before the first meeting. We need to have that schedule posted. So I'll take care of that. Okay, that's the end of our agenda item eight. Agenda item nine is the approval of the meeting minutes. 9A is the approval of the meeting minutes for Wednesday, 09/22/2021 regular meeting held on that day.
Somebody want to make a motion. I think you skipped over my age.
Oh I'm sorry Thank you Kurt I wrote it down here and I did So I'm sorry, eight H is the discussion of the outdoor classroom. Eric, Curtis wanted to add it to this agenda.
Yeah, was I saw the equipment at the school and I got nosy weekend or think it was last week or weekend or the weekend before, and I I swung through the school, and I I see Ron's landscaping working on the the sliding hill, the sliding hill. And the first thing I thought was what what am I gonna tell my grandson about how we can't go sliding at the school no more. His his father and uncles, slid down there. I slid down there myself, for all the years that I've been here. But they apparently, that's I found out that that is the new outdoor classrooms built into the mountain, you know, on the on the outside of the school there. My question is, Does the school have to follow? I mean, did it go out to bid? What was the cost? They they didn't come through CIP with it or anything. I guess they don't have to do that. They can just go and do what they wanna do up there. And I know that during the budget session, there was a lot of lot of discussion regarding that outdoor classroom at the time that it was really, really wasn't wasn't needed based on the budget. So I just had a lot of questions
once I found out that that's what they're that's what they're doing up there. It's
Can I throw something in, Kurt? This is just since you mentioned, I noticed the construction as well. And I actually asked my eldest about it because, you know, obviously she goes there and my memory serves the existing setup is there's two levels of stone seating there, right? Or there's two terraces basically. And her understanding, and this is my kid, so just bear with me, was that the third was being put in. Whenever we've sled it over there, we avoid that pole area and there's a whole another section of the hill that we've always used. So I don't know. I don't know if they're really expanding it laterally. It seems like they were going up the hill. I just use I use that that
Rob I use the the sledding thing just as a deduction to my questions, you know.
I mean, I think the short answer is that that I don't think that the school, I think that the school board has complete jurisdiction over how the money is spent within the district. As long as they're following state regulations and their own guidelines, Eric or Sherry, I don't know if you have any additional comment on that.
Part of it was paid for out of a grant, COVID funds. And one of the suggestions from the state of Connecticut was that we put in an outdoor classroom because it allows the children to go outside and be socially distant from each other while the teacher conducts a classroom outside. And so partly it was funded from the grant, and the other part was approved by the Board of Ed last year with reallocated funds in the budget.
So that's how There's not really an extra expenditure there.
My my my my thought originally was some type of, you know, like like a overhead, you know, four corners, like like a like a, you know, with a roof over it, maybe out near the parking lot or something like that with with some type of would it be picnic tables or, you know, things like that? Like an open pavilion, you'd find it at a beach or something like that where the kids can go out there, they can sit, you know, socially distance and stuff and and they could they could they could be out there in a rainstorm and and have classroom time just not not not a bunch of terraces built into the into
the into the hill. That's all. And then do you know how, how much it cost, Sherry? What the total cost was? Total cost was $30,000. 30,000? Mhmm. Okay. Alright.
Most of it was paid with grant funds. I I I heard that. That's fine. Okay. I'm good.
Thank you, Kurt, for bringing it up. I hadn't known. I'll have to take a ride by. And so this was mostly grant funded according to Sherry and then Sherry so if any of it came from the board of ed I'm imagining it was from last year's year
wouldn't have gone into by the board of ed which is their right to
do that. Oh, yeah. I think I was at the meeting of the board of ed where they were reallocating some funds. Yeah.
Okay. Well, thank you for bringing it to our attention, Kurt. I hadn't even known that. Thanks. You bet.
Other comments or questions? Okay. Sorry for jumping the gun there, Kurt, but thank you for stopping me. Okay. Item nine is approval meeting minutes. 9A is meeting minutes for Wednesday, 09/22/2021 regular meeting minutes. Does anybody want to make a motion to approve those meeting minutes? Motion.
Kurt makes a motion to approve the meeting minutes from Wednesday, 09/22/2021. Looks like Linda's seconding. I see your hand up. Okay. Thank you. Any discussion? Okay, let's vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? I abstain.
I'll abstain also Yeah. So because that wasn't at the the motion passes with Louise and Mark abstaining. Okay, thank you. We'll move on to item 9B, which is Wednesday, 10/13/2021 special meeting minutes. Does anybody wanna make a motion to approve these minutes? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Okay, thank you, Louise. Anybody want to second that motion? Looks like we lost Joy. You're back. Back. I'm sorry. My computer.
We got there. All right. Who seconded that one? Diane? I didn't see. I think me and Linda did it together. Okay. Take your pick. You're at the top of my screen, Diane. So Diane seconded I'll call Diane as a second for that motion. Any discussion? And all those in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Abstain.
Okay, Curt, abstains. Okay, the motion passes. Thank you. Okay, agenda item 10 is liaison reports. I think typically the only liaison committees we have are the community center and also CIP. I don't know anything going on with CIP, Eric or Kurt, we haven't heard about.
I guess there no meeting last month that that I know of. That's right. Because there was Rob was on there too. Right? Yeah. Rob Rob Zarley is a board of finance.
Okay. And, there wasn't anything, so there's nothing to report. Okay.
Anybody have anything else. Okay hearing them move on to item 11 which is board open discussion just one topic we hit on earlier is that the board of selectman has asked that we have a representative available for some of their discussions that may need to go into executive session. I know Diane, you've been going also Joanne says she's been attending some of the meetings. But Diane, you said you were willing to be there on behalf of the Board. I'll be there. Okay. And if more, of course, for all of us, we're encouraged to attend. I can't participate in that one. Appreciate it. Any other items before the board we should talk about?
I guess the only one thought I want to put out there is as we go into the budget process, we had that spreadsheet that we all worked on last year. So it gave us the history, do know what I mean, the previous year's budget and the new budgets and the columns. And I want to make sure we're going to have that in that same format going forward, even with the new system this year. So, and I don't know how that data gets into that spreadsheet. I don't know if there's a file that gets uploaded to it or whatever. So, I just want to make sure, you know, we all worked with that spreadsheet, kind of worked pretty good for what we had. So, I don't wanna have to and it was an Excel spreadsheet. So
Yeah. That's fine. I have a copy of it. So,
I will just I don't know how that gets created and generated, you know Well,
reports will be generated from the system, and then those reports I will use to upload the data to the Excel spreadsheet. So I'm keeping the same format. Since you have worked with it, I think that's an easy
And my 2¢ is I would love the school budget to look the same way. Yeah. Because it makes it much easier to review.
Well, I think you'll find it much easier this year because there will be some changes and with the new system, it's easily done that way. And I think give us a chance, you know, we're going to make it better. So it's all I can say on that side. That's a different hat now than the hat tonight. But I've got some ideas I've got some examples from other districts including the district I came from so I'm gonna put those into place and see what happens.
Okay. Good. Sounds good. I like that. Any other open discussion on the board?
I guess I just want to ask the question, why is it that the board of selectmen are asking? And Diane's going to be there. That's fine. I always go to the meetings as well. But why are they needing someone there? Just a rep for things that they want to talk about? They have
some personnel or salary discussions that may take place as I understand it. And so if they just felt like it would be appropriate to have somebody from the Board of Finance there to maybe represent the board of that discussion.
Are we both allowed to be president, or does it have to be one person?
Just asking the It's up to the board of selectmen. I think that when they go into executive session, according to the rules and procedures, typically they can ask whoever they choose to join that executive session. There are some limitations around privacy and personnel matters, etcetera. Oh, of course. Yeah. It should be done in private. I agree. I think it's good that they do that. Yeah. Specifics, if it's a specific Yeah.
Can go into executive session, discuss certain things, but there are other things that remain separate. Thank you, Mark. Yep, just wondering.
Okay. If we have nothing else, then let's move on to agenda item 12, which is public speak. Do we have anybody in this public asking for public speak? No one? No one? Okay, I guess we can move on to agenda item 13, which is adjournment. Anybody can make a motion to adjourn the meeting? I so move.
Second. Okay, Rob has moved. I saw Kurt's You hand up to want to second it, Kurt? Yep. Okay, any discussion? No. Think I said enough tonight.
Hearing none, let's have a vote. All those in favor of adjournment, raise your hand, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, thank you everybody. A lot to cover this tonight. We did a good job. Thank you for getting through it. Thank you. Everybody take care and we will talk to you next month. See you in November.