Meeting transcript
Tri-Board Meeting
October 12, 2023 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
So thank you all for coming. This was my vision for us to kind of have a meeting where all three boards could work together. My name is Kate Greenhouse. I'm on the board of Ed. Paula King and Joanne Hubert helped me to kind of orchestrate and organize this to coming to fruition, so I'd like you to thank them as well. And then we will go ahead and get started. Paula had a couple couple words to say as well. So Just just a couple housekeeping things. I think everybody saw we've got a sign up for the round and take some notes tonight and post what we normally do for the meetings. As you know, the acoustics in here are not great. So if you're soft spoken, just try to speak up and and remember to project. And like Caitlin said, Joanne Caitlin and I have been working behind the scenes. So this is a work in progress. Right? We've never done anything like this before. This is great. I love it. But we're asking for patience and grace and understanding. We're gonna come out of here tonight, and we already have a list of things that we're looking at doing differently for next meeting. So if you have any suggestions, let us know, but just be able to understanding that this is organic. It's gonna it's gonna evolve as we go. So just please be patient with how the process is gonna go tonight
in in the future. Does anybody need to sign anything? Yeah. Okay. We'll send we'll send that that way, and there's some agendas on the phrase or the book, just meeting agenda. So that's all that's all I have. Okay. So, yes, then we'll call the order and do the pledge of allegiance, and then we're gonna elect the moderator. So we need to, like, moderator. So we have the people that were asked to attend this meeting.
Do you want to? I would like to nominate Jed Larson, chairman of chair chairman of. Second. I'd
like to nominate Bob Hamburger as mom Bob Hamburger's name. I'll second that. And then can we move on to vote by Johann Berger? Okay. Please, a show of hands, we would like to have Bob Hamburger as moderator. Okay. You're welcome, Bob. So
I'm still asking for you to sit at the table, please. Was it Mike here? There you go. Yeah. You're in trouble?
Yes, sir. Well, you heard my name, Jeff Morrison. I'm chairman of the zoning commission, and certainly happy to try to assist in getting a little bit better working relationship with the different boards here. The couple of ground rules that I think it goes without saying everybody's gonna be cordial and respectful tonight. We are friends, family, neighbors. I hope he's hard back to you know what? The disciple of scheming. Said, see first and understand, then he understood. So I hope they would have him do some learning tonight and understand better with the with the peoples who turned our other other ports that we that we're working with. I was looking to have each spokesperson for each of the different groups tonight speak from the podium for about five minutes. After that's done, the other people on that particular commission that if they got something that they wanna add, you can have to, it can take about a minute to
add whatever they feel, you know, they need to to amplify on what the what's already said there. So we'll go through all the different goals that are on the agenda tonight in order, and we won't do questions until we get to end of all rules and responsibilities. At that point, we'll we'll rotate through the different boards. And if somebody's got a question, you've you've got thirty seconds to raise their question. We'll get a thirty second response, and we'll alternate with three different boards until everybody's had a chance to ask a question. At that point, we'll have a discussion on, you know, the binding or capital improvement, that sort of thing. And I think that's all the rules that we've come up with for tonight. I think that's all. Any questions before we start? Okay. So with that in mind, the the spokesperson for the board of select
Sorry to interrupt. We we just need comments from the public.
Yeah. Okay. At at this point, we'll do comments from the public. And, hopefully, the opening comments from the public are on items that are not on the agenda for tonight's. We'll have public comment again when we get done, and, Okay.
Thank you. So I just have a few points I wanted to go over in regards to the motion that you're debating. So because this is the very first meeting of all three boards, I think our time to make it to the extent that it's not gonna go to goal, and the responsibility of each of the rewards. These role and responsibility need to be clearly defined before
I think we extend the scope of our discussions. If we were to discuss the role of the town treasurer, we we should also be discussing the role of the school finance manager. However, neither is relevant to the person's.
The director is a county employee who has no oversight of boarder education. In the same way, the school finance manager has no oversight of the county. Therefore, the county developed its policies to define the contractor role, while more education develop policies to define the goals with planning. As such, the discussion of the role of the contractor is not pertinent to the meeting. I would now like to reference the auditor's review of the 2020 fiscal year. In that, the auditor raised concerns about how that bank rent to pay how which the economist chair, Ms. Anderson, responded to a 06/30/2023 letter to the office of quality and management for with OPM. Please note that the auditor found no issues with how the school's finances were conducted and only found problems with how the town didn't talk with any reference at all with the school with the school's accounts.
Would like to make an issue worse or else we rule that, and we're done. You hear it in the quarters. K? Understood.
So what I would be referring to is the audit planning corrective action plan that is dated 06/30/2023. Mister Anthony, note that the board of education has a separate bank account since July 2022 such that, and I quote reference on the letter that the town will no longer be responsible for reconciling and provide information directly to the auditor. Mister Anderson also agrees to the independent reporting to the auditor, and the completion date is noted with accounts directed action, miss Garrard, on page three of the handout on 08/01/2023. Floor. I have this piece here, but I have half page, and then under this piece.
We're gonna go we've got more items on this letter and then then wrap up with with my. So please All of them, including the greater understanding of the board of education, is independent, and it's beholden to the auditor directly. And just one final point, in regards to the town charter for the chapter eight, finance and tax rate section of the town charter, sections eight zero five zero fifteen o seven, made it clear that order is basically excluded from the accounting and purchasing. So, yeah, I wanna thank you for allowing me the time to speak. And, yeah, it's a really important note that I did make prior to my speaking. So thank you. Any other discussion, Paul?
Just just two things. I appreciate the time, and you tried to share that. So we shared an agenda with all four all three boards ahead of time, and I'm I'm surprised that this motion is put on the floor. I'm just looking at this document now. I don't even know how to respond. And we had packets that we shared usually with the public. So let's maybe think about for our next meeting. If if we wanna share within the pub with the public all the information of StandOut, think that would be very helpful so that if something's handed out, I'm I'm dying. I don't have time to look at this right now and to internalize this when we have to vote about this immediately. So can we just maybe think about our next meeting
to look at the agenda at next time? And maybe let's talk about if we're concerning something on the agenda, and let's talk about that. And then can you submit anything that you wanna talk about that, like, the meeting to conclude it in fact?
This is a collegial meeting. This has no effect on anything that we get done. We're not gonna go and get something accomplished here today. It is just to understand what the role are for all of the organization. What you're missing what you're really missing is the treasurer is not just the treasurer for the town entity. The treasurer has a role in this hospital related to ordering all of the informations from the school and branding it into the financial statement that presented. So the only thing the only reason we would want to talk about the treasurer is to get an understanding what information do it with board of education and not make any final information, but let you afford all that and and understand what information your board is responsible for providing the treasurer so that she can prepare. So we can get into the weeds. We can have our alerts go out and have a negative meeting, or we can just talk well, sorry. I apologize. Go ahead. I
kinda I echo what Jeff says too right from the get go when I was feeling good walking in. I outlined hearing opinions and getting information presented to us, but it just put me back right away. And I'm all about education too in the setting of education. And like Jess said, I wanted to just not to make a decision on who should do what more with the board of ed. But I like to learn. If I'm an elected member of the board of finance, I just wanted to hear a five minute, you know, synopsis of the role. You know? It just would have been helpful to me. I think, you know, we were just learning about goals, responsibilities. I mean, I spent time putting something together. That was my first meeting, getting together too. But now I can get back on my heels even though I was really looking forward to this. I just have a different feeling, and I'm gonna get ahold of it and listen and learn, but that's crazy.
Any yes, I would question a vote on what he's asking for
administrator to pull together the boards of the town to discuss things. And, you know, I didn't think any action you would take in. I think it's just suggested final action that would be, you know, legally, you know, effective.
I can help. Alright. Let me ask, unless somebody's got something really important that we haven't heard already, let's say, I don't see that. Yeah.
Is it possible just to talk about this at the town of the treasurer next meetings? We're gonna have another meeting just.
The motion on the floor is removed. The discussion of the rule of the downed frigate on the agenda. All in favor in the people voting are the board of selectman, board of education, and the board of finance members. All in favor of the motion is presented, raise your hand. Five. All opposed? Okay. So the motion fails. The agenda remains Well, I would have been smiling a lot more
before that vote. Listen. The board of selectmen is legislative. It's the overseeing body of the town. And the town is represented by the board of selectmen, and the board of selectmen has specific responsibilities. It it presents a budget to the board of finance, which the board of finance approves or rejects, makes adjustments, and it's it's a it's an overseeing body. My whole goal with this meeting, and I had hoped I'd asked Jerry about this a long time ago, is that we just have a collegial meeting and understand in a common sense way what we have the authority to do and what the board of selectmen don't speak for and what we don't have the authority to do. So in my case, it comes down to attorneys. I'm not going to give you the statutory issues that that relate to my board, but I am going to tell you that I know enough that our board will be responsible to the town and to the residents, and the the board of education is responsible to educate the children. But the board of education is another agency and another body of the town. And I it is a body of the time. Listen. If if mister Mooney wants to correct me, I'll let him do it later. But we're all part of the time. We don't have the ability to tell the board of education how to spend money. We don't have the ability to tell the board of education to move their monies from budget line to budget line. We don't have the ability as a board of selectmen to close this world. It's not within our purview. But please understand that this is this is common sense.
When we get to talk about the treasurer, which is the most important item on this agenda to me, right, is the role of the treasurer. What the treasurer of who it is, what rule what what governs that that person. It's in our charter what the the treasurer can do. It's in state statute what the treasurer can do, and we're not asking. I mean, this is where I feel there's been a negativity coming from the board of education to the board of selectmen that we want to tell you how to spend your money or that we're concerned that you're spending it incorrectly. No. All we're asking for is that the information as the financial statements are presented or presented accurately and with all the information so we get all the findings off of our board, all off of our our audit. That's what we're asking for. And the only way we'll do that is if we work together. If we do not work together, we're gonna come to these meetings, and we're gonna be fighting over silly, silly things that we don't need to fight. So roles of the board of of selectmen, I will let attorney O'Brien sit there and address it. If you want it in a statutory manner, I will allow him to do that because I think I'm done with my five minutes, Jed. Is that okay? On your head is good. Head is good. Two minutes.
The board of select and some legislative power in the board. I think what they call minor. But, essentially, the legislative power well, it mostly would be, I'd say, the board of finance or acquaintance to the budget as an administrative function also. And, of course, with the with the voters at town meeting. So those folks they are the executive board. They fund town on a day to day basis. And this gentleman, they're aide the town minister. Okay? And and that's where, you know, they're like, you know, the president or the governor or the executive.
One thing I do wanna say, I'm on the records to to the board of. I don't work for Eric. Eric works for the board side. Okay. Valerie, you don't work for Valerie. We Valerie is fine. We are responsible for her actions. Your your voice is. We are the software prepared actions. Mhmm. And I just want educate him how he can at it because that I don't necessarily know comes across in everything that we do and how to communicate between our words. The role of the treasurer. The role of the treasurer is to accumulate financial data for the town to prepare an agency. There are requests that have been made in various documents that the treasurer has asked to sit there and obtain documentation from those schools in the board of education that has not been made available to her because
there is a belief that those documents do not need to be compiled.
And what I am saying in a common sense letter that if the treasurer is looking for a reconciliation that has been performed by the boyhood of his family, It is within her life and within her role to get that information. And all I'm asking is that you agree to reply, to a reasonable, to a proper information, to spread yourism. Nothing more. Nothing less. I'm not asking you to have her decide whether to expand the line correctly, whether you're moving money to the right spot and not moving money to the right spot. And her request is is to get information. Please. It's it's we we talk about transparency all the time. Know you guys can't explain our request to transparency, but that is what the treasury's role is. Getting very common sense. Thank
you. Robin, please. I need blue book. For a reason.
The role of the board of education is very clear, and our roles and responsibilities are derived from the state of Connecticut. These are clear rules are are not open to interpretation, cannot be changed unless the state of Connecticut, state legislature, governor changed them. Our roles as the board of education are to hire. Our superintendent, Valerie, is in that role right now. She is our CEO, and she provides the leadership for the school district. We develop our budget and oversee its implementation, collective bargaining with the unions and nonunion employees about their contracts and employment, review and adopt all board of education policies, create and clarify the goals of the school district and the mission for the Andover Elementary School and the board of education, and we engage with the Andover community. Based upon recent interactions, I believe that all three boards would benefit from a more detailed description about what is and what is not a role or responsibility of the board of education. So I invited the two experts to share their wisdom with all of us. There's board of education attorney, Tom Mooney, his name's on the big book, from Shipman and Goodwin, and Nick Caruso from the Connecticut Association Boards of Education. Attorney Mooney literally wrote the book about connected school law and has been practicing school law
for more than four decades. Nick Caruso has trained and worked with almost every board of education in the state of Connecticut to help board of educations understand their roles, best practices for board of education members, and how to run board of education meetings. I very much appreciate their being with us tonight for them to share their words of wisdom with us. Okay. You guys are on.
Good evening. My name is Tom Mooney, and I appreciate the opportunity to make some brief remarks to to you. I did have an opportunity to read the packet that preceded this meeting, and I'm just like you know, I just showed up. You've been living with each other. You've been having your agreements and your disagreements, but I just wanted to say that as I read the packet, I think that the areas of agreement are far greater than any areas of disagreement. And I think it's really the any disagreements you have are more in the details. I think that and and I hope that through this this is a wonderful opportunity for you people giving of your time to your community to talk together. Just a couple quick comments on boards of education. Boards have had have a dual status, and that's led to litigation. It's not a simple matter. Sometimes, you know, well, what what does that mean? But I I understand that the concept that the board of is an agency of the town has caused some consternation. The board of Ed is an agency of the town. The board has dual status. The board is here to serve the community, elected through the charter,
to oversee education here. And in reading the packet, I saw important agreements that the board of education's right to extend its appropriation in its discretion is not disputed. The the town appropriates to the board of education and back to the dual status. I said that the board serves as an agency of town, but that the statutes no other town agency has an entire title that the general statutes devoted to it, and the board of ed serves an important state responsibility to implement the educational interest of the state to fulfill the state's constitutional responsibility for educating children. And so in that state role, that's why the board of ed has discretion independent discretion over expanding its operating funds. One of the tough issues and and I sorry to say that I was around with the New Haven case, which is one of the issues about capital budgets and operating budgets, and I was, personally involved in that case.
Capital budgets are are one of the more it's just not totally clear. And I'll say this, the town owns the property, and the town has an important responsibility on capital projects because what you do with a capital asset can affect future obligations. You know? So the town has a a vital interest, but the board of education has clear and control of property used for school purposes. And I I think that there was also agreement that maintenance I thought my time was up. Sorry. Keep talking. Keep talking. Okay. You could empty it by extra time. I'm here.
But the board of education has current control of property dedicated to use for school purposes, and I don't think that's in dispute either. So this is the area of board of education operation where cooperation is essential. You neither side can can control the situation when it comes to capital expenditures and capital the the asset and how you maintain it. But the board of ed has that responsibility for maintenance, and then the town owns the property. And so when you talk about investing in that property, the town has the interest in doing that, but the town can't, like, take control of the school building to make a capital improvement that is a a collaborative effort under the statute. This is an area of the law, and and I appreciate the kind words I have been doing this for forty six years. This is an area of the law where where one of the critical statutes is ten two forty one. It's a mess. The same statute says that school districts build buildings, equip buildings, hire superintendents, create libraries, and and and there's no clear delineation in that statute as to what a school district's authority is between responsibilities allocated to the board of education and responsibilities allocated to the town. The same stat and so the the town the Connecticut Supreme Court in the New Haven case tried to wrestle through that and try and figure it out, and they came up with the, holding that capital budgets are not the same as operating budgets. And although the board has the absolute
discretion to expand its operating budget, the capital budget is a shared responsibility, and and it can't be unilaterally implemented by the board of education or by the okay. Or by the I was having fun. Yeah. Or or by the time. But that is I've said my essential piece if I if there are any questions. Well and and I
I don't I have much more to say, and I do want to, again, say that I hope this is the beginning of a collaborative discussion because you are all giving of your time to serve your community. So let's focus on what you all want to do, which is educate the children. And not and so I have just a couple of comments on the town treasurer. The town treasurer's role here is mechanical relative to the operating budget, But the town treasurer does have an so the town and I didn't hear anyone saying the town treasurer is gonna say, oh, you can't buy that textbook. That's that's a a board of education responsibility. The town treasurer has no oversight responsibility, but the town treasurer does have an accountability, responsibility. The town treasurer pays the, appropriation out on accounts drawn by the board of education within this the limits of that annual appropriation. But, to the extent that the town treasurer and now I don't wanna get into the weeds, and I'm not drawing any conclusions because I don't know about the details. I would just say this, that the reporting issues are a bit triggering for boards of Ed because it's like, hey. You know, we're we're the board of Ed. But every document that the contractor may want to see is accessible under the Freedom of Information Act anyway. So so you would I I think just want to you know, I I wrote down reasonable requests. Well, let's hope they're reasonable. And if you think they're not reasonable, I think that's a conversation because all of these documents are accessible. So I'd be happy to answer any questions, but I do want to thank you for the opportunity to just lay out
my view of how these two these three bodies work together in accordance with the statutes.
I'd like to address the question, Jeff. We get through the rule. We have said that there will certainly be plenty of opportunity to get you present to that one.
Yeah. I just would like to say thank you to Tom. They didn't sign to be with us tonight.
I'm Jillian Heber, and I'm the board of finance vice chairperson. Mark Brinker couldn't be present tonight, so I'm gonna do my best just to give a general overview. I had asked to be moved to the bottom so that I could watch everyone else. Now I wish I was at the top because that was a great bringing us back together, and we really appreciate that. That is the purpose of why we're here, and I have met you in meetings before and sat in towns that I work as well. So, mine is, like I said, more basic. Andover's board of finance is an elected board consisting of seven members that each serve an overlapping four year term. The board of finance is tasked as the financial oversight agency for the town of Andover. We follow the rules and regulations set forth in the town charter and the state of Connecticut general statutes as they pertain to the board of finance. We are able to set and establish financial and fiscal policies for the town, then oversee them, and revise them as we see needed. We also try to be a collaborative board, often inviting other town, stakeholders to appear at our meetings, which happen once a month,
to present to us and maybe, I don't wanna go off task. I should just read. To present to us, things that will be needed at that time or in the future. We receive financial updates from the town treasurer in the form of, monthly expenditure reports and the check register. It's at these meetings that we're able to talk and ask questions, receive information regarding anything that isn't going according to our original plan or additional funding may be needed so we can better meet the needs of the tenant. We also have the responsibility at the end of the year that we are able to change and transfer line items, if funds are available in other accounts. During our busy budget season, we are heavily involved in that preparation. We hold multiple meetings and compile budget documents discussing and assessing the needs of the town at the present time and going forward. We do have the right to request financial data and backup information, follow-up information from any department in the town as part of our process. We will then bring forth, a recommended budget at the annual town budget meeting to the town. After the budget is voted on, it is also a duty and a role of the board of finance to set the mill rate for the town. This is a really small snapshot of the board of finance rules.
I, open it up to our town attorney to add anything that he feels I could have left out. Thank you.
At this point, Dennis, you wanna make something on that? No. I thought that was very good. I think I just wanted to add one thing.
The general staff and crew crew provide that each town agency. So I think the board goes to which is the town agency. Most report and make this record available to the board of finance. With the board of finance, they won't bill the. So that is, you know, as Tom said, that stuff is acceptable under the FOI. We don't want that to go the FOI. So it is it is required. The board I'm not particularly fond of the board of finance And it has to fulfill its launching of both, you know, providing of taxing, providing budgets, and taxing for the town and making sure that the town agencies can find it. The one thing I wanna say about the board of education, sorry about that. I called them that that agency of the town, but further on the people's lives on because of the you know, the important function as under the constitution and the state's actions. It takes all those opportunities for a self governing that you mentioned.
God bless you. Okay. Thank you. I recognize that I forgot after we had the pleasure of listening to Tom Lee to go back to the other board of education members and see her benefit. But at this point, I'm gonna go around the board of finance first, and then we'll finish up Janet, did you have anything you wanted to add to what we heard from the board of education? I think the only I was concerned
So at that point, that that includes the initial discussions of the goals and responsibilities. At this point, I'll try and keep things mixed up with the different words, and we'll go around and see if there's any other questions that you would like to ask, any of the words at this point in an effort to better understand. So I'll start with Scott. Robert? What was the question? I'm sorry. Yes. Alright. Paula?
I would just like to say one thing. So when we move forward here with item number nine, then maybe we can get a couple minutes by each board on what they feel capital is doing in this so we can open up the discussion.
At town and then agents get in the state. Because I you guys both talk about it, but I'm still super confused as to what that actually means.
Yeah. Terms of the dual status Yeah. I I must say, oh, I spent all my time working in the board of So when I hear about the the board of selection directing the work at the board of ed, I that that you guys said, and I but I'm not hearing the board, so I can say that they wish to do that. The dual status is reflected in the statutes. When it comes to the physical plan, you're married. You have to work together. And
Can you can you say that one more time? Please louder.
Correct. You you didn't work. Yeah. Right. You're you're what on capital stuff, you you are together. You have to work together because you control the property. The use of property by statute is the care, maintenance, and operation of property dedicated to school use with solely within the jurisdiction of the board of education. But the town has an absolutely legitimate concern about the fiscal plan because the town health company is gonna have to pay. So if, for example, you're you wanna put this comes up sometimes. You wanna put solar solar panels up on this whole roof. And that's great. But you can't do that without a town's agreement because the school buildings are the towns. And when you put solar panels on somebody's roof, that creates future obligations, whether it's to repair the roofing or to repair the solar plant. So that's an example of where they have to work together. But I would say that the board of education, as you educate the children, have extensive discretion within your appropriations, and I would be perhaps better able to offer something constructive. I heard about a way in which the town is serving control. I heard this, you know, this documentation that said something, and that may be the devil's in the details. But as I read the material, I don't hear the town saying that it wishes to second guess court decisions
on the operating budget. Perhaps a point of contention is school property, and and I'd be happy to to hear from the town on that. But school property in several different respects is acknowledged under state law that they're in the board of education, the term jurisdictions. If we want to this this rule, if you wanna open it up to community groups, that's bystander, the importance of education responsibility. I think the real is the capital piece and the investment in break the
opportunity to have a question here. I did have two questions. I'm. Right.
Well, I asked too. Have to do, like What was the other? Is there anything that stipulates how often the board of education have to give reports to an attorney?
There's nothing in state statute of. Attorney O'Brien is much more conversant in title seven, and so there should something there. Sometimes the reporting requirements are in charge and charge for issues are binding on the board of education. And this is another opportunity to argue about something. But it's inconsistent with things that are important to be efficient operation. So this is why it's better to work together and look at the way this
The the phrase you just gave is is one that is is firmly in my mind. If we can't do maintenance inimical to the basic function of the Board of Education
it could be work out. Like, I don't know if that, but we are bringing some of the table. If that is too much, I have to know with the with the work, you know, the people available. I'd be asking I you know, asking the board of finance person for the child's finance person how often they need the report. So
but that's, you know, that's over the details. Well, I read a lot of stuff that said the requirement was annual.
I don't think there's anything that concludes us from doing it more frequently than that. Well, I think it should be, and I think that you would want it, but maybe months to the fifth. You know? I think it's something to work on. Also, when I was at Grantsytown in the town of Manchester, was always on the phone with a town person. So that's I wasn't aware of that employee. I had no problem calling into the town financial person, Maddie, who lived there for the longest time, and I went to the town of Gold Center, who needed to report all kinds of things.
And is there a capital share responsibility for the whatever the capital project is, what the board is like, and this. So I I I'm not sure if it's a question or it's just kind of clarification, but I think, clearly, the town is only asking for, at least, the treasurer for other purposes for reporting, not trying to control in any way the report that probably. And so, clearly, the state statutes and our say that they have to provide that reporting to the town of treasury. That's just in the laws, in the state laws, in our Biden laws. I don't understand what the bug is. Just report to town. Well, how about trying to spend your money to tell you how to do it? Just ask them for reporting purposes and his public information anyway. So, again, I don't understand. Maybe he's gonna clarify the point. I don't understand. Jerry, would you like to respond to that one? What's the problem? Why would you wanna buy the treasurer with reporting that is necessary for the while? We're not trying to put the town's not trying to put not to spend your money or how do we allocate the money or anything else. Just report it so that auditing can be done according to state and house entities. There's a lot. So
take an annual report. The auditor does an annual report after the fiscal year closes. So there's no need to make monthly reports. There's no need to report to the town treasurer on a monthly basis. That's the rub. The rub is what's the big. Because we discern our attorney will be by state laws of how often can a report that's the rub. Why why you're being asked at the Board of Education to provide monthly reports when those aren't really necessary. And that's according to our auditor that is not really necessary. Okay. That completes the round of questions. At this point No. No. I didn't. Know, I'm.
So I'm gonna go to attorney, and I'm gonna ask the board of education members how the board's liking that's interfered with any of your function.
Specifically, the board of collect. Yeah. That's that's Not not.
Well, the board of finance has an integral role, and and and we can we can sit there and say it together because I'm doing both our boards. It's not a two man shoot, but I I as if the board is like, what have we done, or how have we tried to interfere
in the application of your role and your response? We were not able to get a permit to pave our upper parking lot over the summer, and, therefore, it is still sitting unpaid and dangerous for people to walk on and beam. Okay. Think that is interference. You believe that's the interference?
I do because we were told about four different reasons for why we were not able to have that burn before we finally gave you an agreement that we would give the money to the town and the town we impacting
how we do your job, but we tell you how we want to spend money because if if you're educating kids, you guys do a great job updating educating children at the time. No one on this board or that board would sit there and cannot the board of education asking has done a phenomenal job. So I'm asking you the very specific question. Can we ever interfere in the way that you guys are performing your role as board of education? That that is right. And and then I'll locate, and then we have to disagree. We have
and then the meeting are the issues gathered. Respectfully. It means, you know, when when the the what I understand happened in meetings that was supposed to be collaborative to get to an understanding of what was gonna happen with the community center was not respectful, was not. And that's where all of this is, I would say. So that would come to a second issue, which is a safety issue for the school. And, again, we're supposed to collaborate. It's a capital. All we need was a permit. We could have this done in the summer. And now it is four months later, we're getting in the fall where, even according to Eric, we may not be able to get the done if the contractor doesn't come through, that you approved of it. You have not knocked up of,
So you're a different fact and the fact that we did not acquiesce to the parking because it didn't then you didn't ask us about doing it. Right? So we're gonna go off the catapult. So I just find the understanding of turning them into perspective. Have we interfered in your operation? The answer is really no on an operational standpoint. No on an operational standpoint. Disrespect. Disrespect. Disrespect. Disrespect. Disrespect. Disrespect. I'll I'll let you go there. And the fact that we can acquiesce the way that you want to do a capital improvement project.
I think your terminology there really gets at it, Jeff. Yeah. You're talking about acquiescing? Yeah. Okay. How about agreeing?
What we're supposed to do to the board as well. Okay. Alright. Okay.
At this point, next item on the agenda is defining a capital approved,
I don't know. Someone else wants to talk about it, but I'll we did have a meeting where it was discussed that it has come up that there are some improvements that want to be made. And I think there was a discussion that started with, you know, money that that I've worked, that money comes up over the end of the year. And we started talking about maybe it would be time to start a capital improvement account for that. So that instead of maybe spending unused money at the end of the year going forward for supplies because there's been meetings where things have been talked about, could they and I was taking the genesis of it. I apologize, but could they maybe put that money into a capital and put it in the chat? I think we were all in agreement for it. Like Jeff McGuire has said time and time again, anytime that there's been something that's been asked, we all are in favor of whatever we can do to benefit, you know, the school system and the children and education. So working in the school system itself, we we put capital improvement list
Right? And that is capital purchases for equipment and projects, estimated cost of 15 k or more, and annual or annual maintenance or leasing cost of $45,000. So there's your pay. Right? And that's probably for the number on that's a big project. One is small instead. Okay? And really what I'm gonna do is the operating expense, even if you're salary, that's really not bad. Right? But if you're building if you're making perhaps a substantial maintenance project or something that's gonna involve, again, a significant extent, that seems like a. The town has, of course, support the site report where we go through what each town department, again, not the BOE, but each other town department, things they need for equipment in the next five, ten years. What does the fire department need to fire trucks? What does the town need for his trucks, mowers, etcetera? And those are the things going to do with the community and it's capital plan for each crew. So, you know, the town public works department has their capital plan. And, again, all about large sale purchases,
equipment, and all of that, I guess, we put that in too because, obviously, anything you're gonna do is gonna roll off that kind of requirement of continued expenditure that's kind of capital as well. But, obviously, there are things that are not bad, like paying your employees, you know, things like that. So constructive one is is the short, it was specifically a part of the the DOE from it. So this is for the. Yes, sir.
So in part, it's defined by the annual audit, and the annual audit defines what a capital asset is of the town and what things are capitalized and not. That comes from the auditor relies on the board of finances, the vision and determination of what that is. Supportive finance have put together two policies. One is purchasing policy. The other is the capital asset policy. So if you're gonna use a common definition of what a capital asset is, ultimately, it has a flowback to the audit. So you should probably use the what's defined by the order of finance for that purpose.
Common sense tells you that a capital asset is a building a parking lot, anything that is structural issue that they would And in common sense, how if the board of education wants to do maintenance on its parking to take the. The town is not going to be telling you you can or cannot do that because it's within your purview. It's on the body of of property that you control. But if you're going to do something, such as a roof that you did six years ago, right, that's an accounting project. That's a project that goes to the capital improvements. And I'll ask the board of education because you hear you know, Shannon got me upset about this. Shannon, you're a member of the Board of Education.
Is that part of the matter? The CIA doesn't have any oversight.
God. That is that is a lot of common sense. In respect, it is being shown to to the level of the community because it's it's undecidable.
Yeah. This is we're we're beginning to understand. Yeah. And this is the rub. I was a little surprised, and I don't care. It's $20,000.
But if you're doing something to your physical asset, I'm controlled. I as we as a board or firm ranks, and I'm going to tell you, we're gonna close your first class tomorrow So so I can't sit there and go, I have to go and we have to page that parking lot and shut it down to the judgment of the children. Because in the end, I'm
gonna tell him, the only the only group that will suffer in all of this
you and I, and Eric had a conversation. Correct. And you thought that Eric would explain the asset in helping you understand what was needed to get parking lot done. Correct. I thought that was a great example of collaboration that we always probably started earlier because I understood it down, but they were gonna have to pay for the parking lot meeting at some point. And, you know, so it really all the way around. Right? I thought that was an example of how if we have been collaborating, we could do much better.
I think, Chad, from what I'm hearing and seeing tonight, and we they were asking for it all across the room. I'm looking at everything, and I'm thinking that I there's certain things we need to play this fight for UberEat on that up to this point that I I've been just willing out there. We when we just find the capital building, that's for the. When we talk about Even if that process is a. Okay, Jack. The service man came today, and
Obviously, this needs to be done. It's an incredible project.
We don't have that money in our little piggy bank. So that's the kind of thing we need to be able to get going, I think. And if nothing else can matter as we can, if it's that, I think it shows when we agree on things and what we can do to contribute to make this more of a positive experience for the volunteers who are sitting around the table. That's right.
Need a new boiler. New. Right. That's right. That's all it's. It's not functional. It's not. But it's the We found this. That's why I'm asking this back then because
It's got a call next to it that says, where are we gonna get the funding? You know, it could be down. It could be from the board of ed budget. It could be. You know, you name it. But that's one of the things that outside of this meeting, we need to get together
think it's important not to get too hung up on definitions. I think that the most important thing is to look at your appropriation process because the statute governing the board that said the board has care, maintenance, and operation of a building. So what is or is not maintenance of operations? I I think that it's very important to look at what you ask for from the town, your itemized budget estimate, and if the town appropriates that goes funds, then you have, I think, discretion to go ahead and use those volumes for the purposes, including maintaining your buildings. But there are certain instances, and I have to argue with this. That was an interesting verb that But So Chad may be a good example of where you have to go outside the normal appropriate process and say, we have a capital need. We need to do something with our plumbing, and you go to the town and you ask for an appropriation. That would be how it would normally be. But I really hope that we can or you all can not focus too much on definitions, but rather on options. And if through the appropriation process, you get funds to do your work,
I really don't know that it's all that important, whether it's called a capital or not capital. It's an operational issue for you, and you do have the authority to to maintain your facility. But there are going to be it's if I'm correctly understanding, there's not currently a capital fund for the. Right. Right. And, you know, you have to make your own decisions, but that's, again, related to the appropriation process. That's a fund that you would not have in unilateral control over. That was the New Haven case where there's a operational fund, appropriations made, and there's a capital fund. And that is where you're married, and you're gonna have to work together.
Hear about other other communities, which are. They have the ability to employ people within the board of education who have background in maintenance and whatnot. We are a much smaller school, much smaller district. I think we need to find a way to to utilize the skill set that we have in departments like public works and that the town has I've been talking about parking lot. Our single employee, we didn't hire to know how pay parking. We don't have anyone in the in in our realm to do that. So I internally, I don't know if this is a policy that should be created internally to the board that I do think that we should have I understand the attorney's thoughts are not over defining, but I think that you should have a clear cut process that says these critters tend to see IP. So there's not any but to do with this. They're not the same common sense, but who you know, coming from the military, like the idea that everything, it doesn't matter who sits, everything's defined, but it goes through a a process. We can run with the ease of the future. So I do think we should define what the capital improvement, whether it is specifically for the board of ed, what would trigger them,
and understand that the reason we're doing this has been about where the money comes from. It's all the same amount of money. It's all coming from all of us taxpayers. It's all going to our kids in the school and the. We wanna make sure that we're involving people who have the expertise in these areas so that when we do projects, especially, we spend a $120,000 that we're making sure we don't have to do it again five or 10 rows. We didn't go and ask people who knew whether or not this was right handed. So I I do
want to define that, and I don't know whether that's something that's a joint policy or something that would be an internal or a dead policy. My thoughts.
I I did that for this. Do you wanna get a pen at? Yeah. I He took the shit. My understanding will speak with the.
My understanding is the idea of. No. This was and that's probably not. That's. Right? And one of the ideas of the back game with our tool was, well, sometimes we have some money on our operating budget at the end of the year. And right now, without the back of the fund, we basically have two options. We can we can pass that down on stuff we need, but or we you know, you go and we ask for it to do a lot of two percent on average, which is x, or we get it 9%, and it's a.
Right? That's a and then the other way to do it is the budget process and the town agrees for a budgeting process to fund something. You know? I don't expect the school to be able to put up money away that way to properly fill out the back of the split. Okay? Right? That's the way that it looks at the end, but the the lion's share of it is probably ultimately gonna be through the channel and the budgeting process. Then the question becomes, how do we think it out?
And this is to everyone's point too. Those would be why does that even matter if it's money that's going I doubt understand, and we can fix that. But it's a good thing that there is a that exists, and we can transfer that in together. It's all gonna go into a pot of money for capital improvement for the board of. I solely agree with you as far as having experts. I mean, that you're gonna spend a $120,000 in our store, go to the classroom. We never have enough room. You want that permitted. You want electrical right. You want all the radians looking at it. So if you're saying that, it's funny. You have to get town permits. You have to. You know, that's where the candidate comes to the town. That's it's so hard for me, and so I'm glad that I'm able to go like this part. It's just all good. Like, this is great. We're trying to create a capital account that hopefully can be funded through some budget money as one of these
Right? We we know what's gonna happen to us. So let's talk about it. When you were talking about ways to fund the account, I was surprised that you didn't mention the branch. Would that be a possibility to fund the capital improvement?
When the tabletizes grant money, it's given the money, and then it has to, you know, go out and use it. And often when the tablet's money, there is
Or we can do what we do for RAM if
that's what the town wants to do, which is we vote every year on putting money to pay for the RAM's recommended capital budget and their operation budget. But the reason, as Caitlin has said, that we had the money at the end of the year was money in our operational account. And the only reason we had money was because we had an incredible superintendent who gets grounded. So the money was not used for operation, and the board of education who oversees the maintenance and let's see how you speak to Biden. The care and maintenance of the property, is there any way, has broad discretion as to how to maintain our property. So there's the rather.
Is it a capital improvement?
Is it maintaining a parking lot? How does that define? And here's where the problem goes, and that is that we had money in our operational budget that had already been given by the town, so to speak, pursuant to their or paying our budget, and we could have used it for anything. What we decided that we wanted to use it for was painting the parking lot because that was really necessary and. And. So if the preference is this is what's an. If the preference is that we now spend the amount of effort so that we can call it operational or whatever, then we have worried, going under CIB. That's what's in my hand. And that's not on the best of use of the kids, going to school, or the town. Shit. And that's how that's what we gotta get good information on. How about that? Do we intervene? So the whole point of, again, saying positive weight was we understood that. Mhmm. We had the board of finance meeting.
And so we decided to take baby steps to get to where we want to go in any town in board of education or even at Raymond because we look at them every year, we see that huge number, you know, and and different things like that. But they have a wish list, so to speak, which is their capital improvement plan. And then they give you the dollar signs of what each thing will cost. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think in our 80 step approach, we're not trying to solve the world issues right now. We're trying to make this happen and have this fund that we created, the board of selectmen verified, and, you know, we got it into existence. Maybe it wasn't the exact fund. I understand. Maybe on the accounting side, these digits need to be entered into the computer to make it an account. I understand what that means setting, but it's still positive positive because it's money more than one of that.
When and I'll go through the steps. The board of education applied for a permit on for a $128,000. The board of education flies by the government with the funding that they got power back because we're not involved. You are missing the point that the board of Spectrum, Cohen, and the board of claims hundred
The only caveat that we requested was that the Department of Public Works and the town administrator create specifications for the job so that it was done correct. That's what we asked for. That's all we asked for, and we'd be able to ask. You you as a board So you understand. I went back and said, hey. We have a $128,000 left over because our superintendent has done a great job in France. I applaud you. That is incredible work. But you've got to work together to sit there and get the project done correctly. And that's what you and your board have failed to do when you went around the book process
It's a planning and zoning issue. Then came in with at least another five requirements of our pay. They now seemingly have gone by the wayside and can actually be done by our public works. Fantastic. We're most of the collaboration with regard to working with our paper to give a permit and to tell us what public works could do. Because I'll tell you, if I was Constantine and I was told that another supervisor had to be paid for to supervise my work, I wouldn't be paid, and that's what I'm doing. We will love a capital improvement fund we created. What wasn't created is a capital improvement fund, a new account that the board of finance and the board of education will collaborate about, which is what we do with the 2%. The cap that everybody talks about is an existing account from more than a decade ago, and it is on the general ledger of the town, which is overseen by the town, Not appropriate
for the Board of Education's funds unless we have an agreement otherwise to be overseen by the town. We're fine. 2% nonlaxing again. That is defined by state law. I
he's an accounting expert. You know? I work on board finance, and I'm. You know? Maybe some again, it's all to me. I still feel that, like, control thing. I feel like we're all and I I'm not trying to directly think that we're having a conversation. I just feel like it's a positive thing. We just need to set up some grand burst if it's a huge thing. Of course, the town are gonna be involved with permits and, you know, maybe sort of things are done right. I I'm not seeing where you think anyone is gonna say no, like, in the control everything, everyone's sentiment is being outstanding for the seventeen years I've been here in Washington and. You know? I might just move forward. Like, okay. So if there was maybe, you know, some bad feelings or this and that, let's start fresh. You know? I know that the feelings are gonna be but we really wanna be positive moving forward and and establishing the account, setting the guidelines. Of course, if it's a huge project like grouping, getting experts, you know, things of that nature. But the money, at least in my opinion,
the money, that was cleared up. It's been cleared up. The permission to do probably is not. Yeah. It was good to protect. We don't promote we're talking about money, and care can't help. I hope you're gonna talk about all the good things that we were able to try and do so that we didn't end up my example is how many times have you seen a road replay, and then the next thing that happens, and somebody's out there cutting it up so they can work on a plate. I think Eric was trying to avoid that. And and and so Eric
saying that you you got the floor. Okay. So, generally speaking, we're now handing over the projects. Aiding projects are controlled by the public works supervisor. But by me, but primarily in we you know we usually utilize our accounting in the area when we're writing specs for a gating job. And it's been it depends on what the anticipated traffic is and what the material of the meeting is. So when we found out that the school had an independent payment, it sounded like the board of Selectmen was going to agree it to that. The first thing we did at public works is we got a public works supervisor
and a general engineer within about five days of us knowing that this was happening to come back with a set of specifications for doing the job correctly that address three things, primarily. The first thing was the drainage under the parking lot, and one of the dumbest things you can do is repave something before you make sure the drainage is fine. So and as you know, because you had asked us to do it, public works had repaired sink holes there fairly recently. So you should have an inkling that your drainage was messed up at the beginning. So we did two things. We looked at the drainage.
We dug a hole in the and did what's called a sieve test, which is basically you dig out the subbase, and then you send it off to Nathan Davidson's testing lab, and you get a material sample back for what's under the park lot. We did that in two areas. So we had representative samples. And based on that, the town engineer and public works director gave a set of specifications for how to do that correctly. You talked about oversight of the contractor. You're right. The town when we set out a project to a contractor that's a specular reclaimer we pay, we assume that we are always gonna test. We're gonna test for proper compaction before we pay it, and we are going to test that they properly compact the asphalt while we do it. And we accept the fact that we're gonna pay additional money to do that because that is our assurance that the job is right. Because if it's compacted properly, you put down the right amount of asphalt, the right type, and then the right depth, you know, you're gonna end up with a good result, and you're gonna sit there for the next twenty five years with a leased parking area. And no paving company is going to volunteer to do that. That is something that you're going to have to tell the paving company that they're going to have to do it. And they'll all give you 50 reasons why you shouldn't do it, But, you know, and Constantine is a good paving company.
I mean, so so that at least gave us some assurance job would probably be done correctly. And the second thing that we ask is we ask that you change the type of curving for the job to something called Cape Cod curving. If you look in your lower line, you can see all the spots where the curving is rectified the town plow set. Okay? Because and you would end up doing curves, you know, downward. So the town's not the town wants to ensure that both you and us get a quality product,
In the town, we clog your lots. We salt your lots. We deal with the drainage of your lots, and we do some repair work of your lots. So it's not like we don't have vested interest in the lot. And all of your drainage comes through the town, the property indexes out back there. So the the last thing we insisted was that the contractor produced what's called an ENS, the erosion sedimentation plan, so that we know we're not gonna dump a bunch of sand in our structures, which is gonna cause you problems in your lower block and lots of energy will go up. So
I think years ago, we used to get, like, a five year roofing plan or something down the road through the board again. If we had something like this, it would give us a heads up, and we would come to you and say or Eric would come and say, okay. You're gonna do this. These are the steps. So if we had okay. So one of the things that I'm hearing from a lot of people is oversight. First, accountability. But during when we said that earlier, and I think that that is for me and as a person who oversees the school itself, that's huge. And you know, we're talking about the parking lot. I think that is where there's a breakdown. Biggest breakdown is I watched the board's not a new meeting from two days ago, and there was, you know, a lot of block of changing their decisions and things. So I think that oversight instead of help and accountability,
I can add a meeting on where we got we wanna make sure it's gone right, but I didn't even see it as oversight You asked a very valid question. You said, what's the rub? And for Terry, the rub was that could you please revisit that proposed policy and look at it from a lens of is this oversight, or is this Jeff raised the question about the. And I want you to know part of that, you know, that came from me part of that because I've been here. This is my fourth year, and I have So I went to the emergency and issue, and it was we do, unfortunately, have the history of being overwhelmed with that project. So, to your point, hoping it'll get better as the future cause.
Any other comments on the capital improvement account? Sounds like we had a there was something moving forward. I guess from what I read, I thought it was done, but maybe it's not done exactly here.
Just as a clarification, the capital improvement account is established the day the Board of Finance approves it. Okay. I mean, that is their role. The money was transferred from the old account that was set up for the last Andover Elementary School standard that's been sitting on the books for the last fifteen or so years. It is unspentable because the standard is complete, and there was probably not a likelihood of another standard. So the board of finance, we've concursed that the board of selectmen agreed to set up the AES Capital Fund, and I'm I'm a little bit of a concern with what they called it because they called it the same name as CIP. So I think the
creditor has renamed it slightly, and the money came from that previous account. So that account was there. That money is spendable right then. If the board of finance wants a $122,000 check to be deposited in that account, it will be. The reason I did not deposit it was once Constantine told me that they were moneying and paid it this year, I thought the board of finance might wanna reconsider the decision to put money in that account. But that money can go in Monday if you so chose at the moment. I just don't wanna be that at a certain point nor does it work for.
If you I can take over what Eric said. I I I requested that I told Eric we were not depositing that account to the board that's waiting
so that we have to subtract that from our budget? Or does it is it sitting in the capital account, and it stays there, and it's not a factor on any budgetary stuff for this coming year? Because we're not spending it.
It is it would not be on your that money sits with the remainder. The town has about six or seven capital expenses. Bridges, culverts, work improvement fund, tree fund, all those things, buildings, department, public works equipment. All those are permanent multiyear funds that roll from year to year because they are all for purchases that we are probably not gonna come up with the money any single year to do. We're not gonna spend a million bucks in tax savings in the one year for the fire department. Therefore, we fund the money in their equipment fund
we'll get on this here. I'm gonna take it. I'm just not as. They can't. We're excited for
that. That's a good question. And straight out, the board of and board of finance, absent any policy that was in place, would have the ability to transfer that money to some other capital fund.
Yeah. So that is a legitimate I think that's the fear. Like, talking about fear from the word of Ed and society, that's that's the fear of it. Not that we think anything would do that, but you could. You could Part of the reason why it's rejected Having a putting a policy in place,
being being very immediate, but they were dealing with request, would it just Well, the way it works brought out of state.
But there's probably different groups that would like to be working on that thing to maybe come out right. So if everybody saw eye to eye, there's a little bit one person viewpoint, and then that gets other people upset because they didn't get a chance to provide input. Right.
Can I make one further point? Yep. So we're talking about two potential funds or two funds. One is the 2% of the.
The board finance keeping up to 2% of your annual work rate in that fund. That is completely under your control. Only you can decide how to fund it. If you decide to do a capital project with it, you go out to share that responsibility with the town, but you control that funding lock, stock, and parent. Town has no input. Treasurer has no input. I have no input. Board of Finance or Board of Select. If it is in the other fund, then that is ultimately under the purview of the board of finance as is every capital fund. And the board of finance at times has rated one capital fund to supplement another
and we're thankful we have to do that. So we need to have policy in place so that that can occur so that people feel more.
But the point the point really means is that I don't care if it's for education or if it's for other work. I mean, come on. We're all volunteers. This board of selection has control of about 2,500,000. Your board over there for the benefit of the children has a level of 4,000,000. God bless you. You're doing a phenomenal job. But please understand we're not adversarial. We should never be considered adversarial. It is it is hurting me to come from these meetings and sit there and think that we can't work together. Agree. I'm just coming. Agree. Yeah. I didn't discuss in particular that we're at
at the next one. I'll put ten years as board member myself. Tom was a young talk to my first pet of. Silly. That's right.
I think I love the idea of collaboration. That's what I do when I work with boards is right, you know, if we have a common understanding of the problem, we have to figure out the solution that everybody
can live with. It is why we have three different interpretations of what the problem is, and we're never gonna we have a solution. So and give you credit.
Probably most important thing, you know, like, board of bed, the board of finance to work together to come up with something there. Any other reactions, like follow on meeting to this point or
that So, initially, when we had proposed about having benzenewing day, you know, we just wanted to start with baby steps. But I I think it would be great to have something like this perhaps quarterly.
So because it's a different environment than one of us
Paula, did you have any thoughts on that when I know you were instrumental in setting this one up. So I
think it was important tonight. I think we all were able to talk about our problems and our issues and hear directly from people rather than assume. I I think another meeting is important. The election's coming up. I hope that we're all back at the table, but that might change. So maybe we'll we'll have to wait and see and schedule something if we're doing it quarterly. But next time around, I'm suggesting that we get a little more input maybe from the from the agenda. I know we we were like, said, we were doing baby steps. You know, I I think we did well tonight. I thought it would go longer, honestly. I think we did well between keeping things in time. But, you know, we the three of us wanted input from our rules. We we wanted to be honest and say, here's what's on the agenda. Here's what's in the packet. So we want input from everybody. But that's that's all I have for that. Caitlin, thank you. Joanne, thank you. Thank you for everybody for coming. This is a great start.
I don't want you get ahead of us here. Mhmm. We've got some public folks that exactly would all want. And I would like to get your of them and get them started with Bob.
I'm gonna go up here. This way this way I have your face. So I
know about half the people in the room. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Bob Hamburger. I've lived in town thirty five years. I've previously served on planning and zoning commission. In fact, I was chair just, before before Jed was. I I think it's appropriate that we all give Jed a round of thanks for I have to I have to confess I breathed a small sigh of relief when Jed got selected, because I knew that this could be a real hornet's nest, and he's done a good job of keeping you vipers all under control. So thank thanks, Jed. The subject of capital came up several times. I'm an electrical engineer. I've been practicing forty years. I've worked on a lot of construction projects, a lot of manufacturing projects, multimillion dollar equipment. I just wanted to introduce some of the concepts from my world when it comes to capital because maybe these ideas can be useful moving forward, some of the the terminology. And, you know, when I work on something, it's always capital versus expenses or capital versus operation. And when it comes to the school, we're talking about computers and parking lots versus pencils and paperclips.
Capital are usually uniquely budgeted outside of ongoing routine expenses.
They have a for Bob. You're sending the standard for everybody. Well public person to. They they have a tangible lifetime.
Okay? And for tax purposes, in my world, you know, these things are depreciated over their working lifetime. I don't know how applicable that is for a school. So repairs are usually expenses. They're predictable and routine. If you have to patch a roof, you patch a leak on the roof, you have to go up there with a bucket of tar, that's an expense. Okay? That's a predictable routine thing. If you have to retar the entire roof, that's capital. That's something that you have to have to foresee and predict. So you can see that there is there is a gray a gray zone, you know, where one might might go into another. And, again, in my world, the earlier you ask for a cap, the easier it is to approve and to appropriate. And that goes into somebody here mentioned a five year plan, long term planning. Okay? To the extent that that can be used, that's always a good thing. And, you know, I'm a little bothered by the upper parking lot because that didn't just happen overnight. So, you know, somewhere in the process, something broke down. Somebody hasn't been looking at it. We haven't been planning. I realized, Eric, there's a million things. Know, You there's there's how many miles of road in this town that have to be have to be repaved? So, you know, hopefully, we don't we don't run into a a problem like that again. The other thing that I keep hearing with regard to the school, with the parking lot, and also I was on the,
the the commission that helped design the, the the senior center. And there were questions that came up. I sat with Val a couple of times. These were engineering issues, and I would like to think that somewhere in the the population of 200 parents or so of the the the students that are there, that there's gotta be a some engineer, a civil engineer, or a road planner, or a city planner, or something that you can cajole to to volunteer. Because it seems like there are engineering issues that come up with regard to the school that could probably be handled on a volunteer basis. You know, again, little things before they get big. So that's what I had to say. Thanks.
I'm glad to see that we're beginning to get more collaboration between the boards. I back when we were going through I was on planning and zoning, and we were looking at the approval for the community center, I saw a lack of collaboration there. We asked the board then was asking for collaboration, and it was refused. So I'm glad to see now. I'm sorry we get some collaboration. And I think it's face to face is better than text or email because you can have a lot more communication face to face. So I think this is great. Glad to hear that you're talking about doing it more. Thank you.
And both mentioned that, it was probably an effort collaboration. It might not have been exactly where we wanted it to be, but I think there was effort made to collaborate on both the agenda and the senior center. They have fallen toward the park. That's why we're gonna talk, and but over alert, Paula. So
the agenda was worked on by Caitlin, Joanne, and myself. So it was it was collaborating. We had a a member from each board talking, and we were we were emailing and texting and all of them. So we as far as the agenda and everything that we talked about tonight from moderators and and how we're gonna run it. It was not one-sided. It was two sided. Emily?
I don't know who you have. No. I don't have. It's just Okay.