Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen Budget Workshop
February 26, 2024 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
All right. Welcome. We're going to get started with the Board of Selectmen's Special Meeting Budget Workshop for Monday, February 26. We're starting at 07:05. Our first point of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, and we're gonna go to item two of public speak. Joanne Ebert, you're it. All set. Just listening. Thank you. All right. Okay. Eric, we have item three, budget workshop for fiscal year proposed budget. Share your screen so we can go over the things that you want to talk about.
Okay. Okay. So I'm sharing with you something here that I we've referred to for the last couple years as kind of a workaround. And I want to explain why it works. We can change it. There is a more correct way to do it. So what we have not been doing the last, well, since before my time, was accounting for the fact that we never collect 100% of the taxes in any given year. So, but at the same time, we have also not been including as revenue the supplemental grand list. And the reason is those two things, most years cancel each other out pretty effectively. So the last full year, the year we just finished the audit on, we had 200,000 in uncollected taxes, but we got back $142,000 in the supplemental grand list. So, they don't quite balance each other out, but most years, plus or minus 20,000, they tend to balance each other out. So, I can show this in the budget correctly, or I can continue what we've been doing, which is less confusing, but also less accurate. So that's my first question for all of you. We said we were going to talk about this later in the budget cycle, and now it's that. So how do we want to see this displayed in the budget?
Are you showing us the information for, I'm I'm sorry. Oh my god. I'm looking at the wrong computer. Are you showing us this uncollected taxes for the current year? Correct. But what did you collect from the prior years?
So we collected about 140. So the last year I have a full year of data is the one that just got, we finished the auditing, which was last year, not the current fiscal year. We ended up collecting 145,750 in back taxes, which was slightly below what we estimated and collecting $47,000 in interest. And then off of the supplemental, if you look at what the supplemental brand list has been running about 4 and a half million dollars. So from the supplemental brand list, we generate about $143,000 in additional taxes above the official grant list that's posted before the budget gets started. Does that make sense?
I'm having problems following it, so I got to ask some questions. All right. Okay. So
in our budget in our budget report, we told everybody that we would collect, $200,000 more. The way you're currently doing it, the way it's currently been at, we're we're saying we're gonna collect, $10,000,000 or 10,000,010 million $200,000. We only collect 10,000,000.
Right. When we assume that for budget purposes, when we set a mill rate that is based on, we collect 100% of taxes owed.
Okay. Now we don't include supplemental, which in this case, the supplemental is $142,000 Correct. All right. But we collect back taxes. And, and I guess my question is, is that $200,000 just the current year?
That is for not the current year we're in right now. That is for the year that just got audited. So the year that ended 07/01/2023. Okay.
Alright. So, Eric, if I look at this, are you telling me I collected back taxes from other years of a 145,000 plus 47,000 of interest, a 192,000? So I have a supplemental number of one forty two and other taxes collected of $1.92. So total's $3.30. Correct. I've collected more money than I have uncollected.
That is true. But, but in the budget, we also put in a number for how much we think we're gonna get in backed taxes and how much we think we're gonna get in interest.
Okay. What's that number? Because you're giving us half the story. Like, because to me, I'm sitting there looking at this going, okay, if I collected $3.30 and, you know, I'm a 130,000 over the number, I'm in a better position. The town is in a better position.
I'll cut to the The year that this budget occurred, when you propagate it all through and you look at what the auditor gives us at the final year, we collected about $20,000 less in taxes and back taxes and fees than we assume, If that makes sense.
That's the only number I care about. So we're $20,000 short. Correct. So in essence for everybody's decide we, we ate into $20,000 into our fund balance.
Correct, except we were under on on expenses too. So we netted out and we got some other state money into that. So overall we did fine last year, But yes, our revenue overall was up, but our revenue from taxation was about $20,000 you know, out of roughly 10,000,000 less than we anticipate.
All right. So we could sit there and try to go through and do a more appropriate calculation, and we would have to sit there and use the history of we are short $20,000 and we would make an adjustment to say we're under $20,000 and we tax everybody for that $20,000
Yes. What I'm saying is year after year, most years, the math works out about right by not accounting for supplemental and not accounting for the fact that we don't collect a 100% of the taxes.
Then I'm in favor of not doing it moving forward. I mean, guess everybody else needs to sit there and vote on it. I mean, we're just so I get it, we're talking a $20,000 $20,000, change.
The last year we had accurate numbers for it, The difference was 20,000 And the year before that?
I didn't calculate, but it looked like it was about even the year before that. So on average, this approximation works pretty well, but it's a total approximation.
Yeah. And if somebody goes out and does a better job of collecting and does a harder job of collecting the taxes, we'll probably end up in a positive. Correct.
It's up to the board. I I mean, I I wouldn't go through the aggravation of trying to calculate it because the supplemental number is a total it's totally based about who buys cars when and what gets added to the total number. So, yeah. Anybody want it done, and and take the $20,000? Mean, because what we would do, I mean, in in the end to make it as simple as possible, we would take the $20,000, we would short we are short. We would lower our expected revenue by $20,000 and collect $20,000 more in taxes split across all the residents. Anybody? No. But I agree with you, Jeff.
I'm sorry. I have a little, maybe a silly question, but what's the supplemental grand list?
Okay. So you know what the grand list is, right? Yeah. Okay. So over that next period of time, over that next year, so the grand list comes out in October. But what if October 31, somebody goes out and buys a $100,000 automobile. They don't go a year without getting taxed, they get a supplemental bill, and they're gonna get eleven and a half months worth of bill. So, and there's actually quite a bit of that, that turns out to be about 1%, little less than, you know, 1%, one and a half percent of the total, you know, total in a year. So that's what the supplemental is. Okay. Thank you. Yep.
Okay. Well Anybody else anybody else have a problem with doing it the way we've done it in the past? No. I'm
fine with it, Joe. No. Keep it that keep it the same way. Okay. So we get rid of that, and we don't worry about that. That's good. Share screen. And now we go back to where we are. I did find one error that was fairly significant in the calculations, and that error has existed in the calculations now, at least the last four budget cycles, because I went back and looked at all the other Excel spreadsheets. And that is how we deal with abatements and exemptions. So abatements or an exemptions come in two flavors. They are tax abatements to members of the Andover Volunteer Fire Department for their service if they respond to enough calls in a given year. That's number one. And the second thing is a tax abatement given to the Hop River Homes, which is largely in exchange for them allowing us to use their softball field, among other things. So we have the the way it's been is this number right here, which is the number to be raised by taxes. If you look at the formula assigned for it, it's item number five, which is total expenditures minus total estimated revenue minus the use of fund balance, and it should be plus the abatements and then minus allocation of existing funds to fund balance. That formula was incorrect. So that does have a net correction of the final estimated mill rate. So the estimated mill rate is what you see right there. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay. So,
wait, wait, wait, I mean, I'm looking at something else on this. So, I, that that makes sense because. From a simple standpoint, you're, you're, you're doing it a little bit backwards, but you're saying here are the total expenditures. You're, you're minusing out the estimated revenue from the state. Which is F6. And then F7, you're minusing out the use of fund balance because you're not going to have to deal with that from a taxation standpoint. You're adding F8, which is, in essence, an expenditure, and you're coming down to a number that you've got to generate. So the line 11, the amount generated.
But we're not really gonna generate that number in taxes because we're going to generate that number minus the abatements, but we have to build it into the calculation for the mill rate, if that makes sense. Yes. Does everybody understand what I'm doing there and why that is so?
Yes. Eric, can you slide your little wheel on the bottom there to make this a little bigger? Sure. Thank you. Yep. Perfect.
Okay, Eric, can you come down to, the section below this? Calculation. Column G. I don't understand how you get to that number, 193. So you have, an increase in the AES budget of 113,000. A decrease in the RAM budget of 320,000. Correct.
An increase in the town budget of 611,000. Right? And a fund balance of a 100,000 that we're gonna use. How do you get $1.93? Oh, maybe I included $1.93. Let me ask. Let me see what I do. I get $5.00 4. Well, let me do this a different one.
And or if I just go from the big ones and I just go, this is the change. It's $4.00 4 minus 4 $0.04 minuteus a 100,000. I guess I would take that and you're going f 33. I don't get that. It should
be, like, 303,000. 304,000 is the change. I I I want to sit there and and and get your final spreadsheet so I can look at the formulas and make sure I'm comfortable with where your stuff is going. You do have that. That number does come out right, which is total expenditures. It's the main budget. So that's the three items that we add up. And then you're you are using a $100,000 fund balance. You're getting estimated revenue from e ECS. But I just don't I don't get the differences. Maybe I'm being slow. The difference
between those two numbers is the fact that, what is the difference between those two numbers?
I mean, I just take the top three, the difference between Andover elementary, the RAM and the town budget, I get $4.00 $4.02 58.
Right. Me too. Subtract a 100,000 from that. You get $3.00 4. Yeah.
Exactly. And so I don't understand how the number maybe this number is wrong. So that number comes from f 11.
So that's so there's more estimated revenue that's coming through this year. That's why there's a difference. Okay.
Oh, you know what? That is the 140. Part of that's $140,000 in interest we're getting now compared to last year. That's a chunk of it.
Yeah. So so the way that the spreadsheet's working is you got this total estimated revenue up in row six. And so that has a $190,000 change?
Yes. So so we were estimating more revenue this year, not a lot more, but most of that is interest. Interest revenue. And that's, that's a big that's the biggest chunk of that.
You would still think I would I would be able to get to it. I got that number. All right. I got to look at it. I mean, it just I mean, I had said this after the last last year's budget meeting that just even looking on the screen, we could sit there and see where some of the numbers didn't. Match up so I'll work with you on that because I look at it as a there's a $304,000 total increase in spending in what we're requesting what what's being requested by the three entities a $113,000 for AES.
A minus $320,000 for RAM and a plus $611,000 for the town.
Right. But then we're generating $140,000 more in interest than were last year. And we're planning on using at least $100,000 of fund balance. So those two things combined, you know, make a difference of about $250,000.
But you used fund balance last year. You didn't use fund balance. Okay. You did not use fund balance last year. I mean, because if I just take your two estimated revenue numbers, they get to 175,400. So the total number doesn't come all the way back. I'll get with you on it. I gotta look at the spreadsheet because I I I get concerned over it. I I really look at, I mean, I'm just gonna tell everybody. I only look at the changes in what we're asking for money. Like, so AES is asking for a $113,000 more. We're getting money back or we're reducing our total expenditure to RAM by three twenty. And the budget that we have currently, if everything comes through correctly, we're asking for $611,000 of additional money for the town. Which is huge. Yeah. It's not small.
Right. So let's let's kinda look at then the summary sheet of what the big cost factors are, because that's if you're gonna make a change, that is essentially where you're going to make the change. Let's see it. So of that, we talked through the exemptions. Right now, we're looking at about a half mil increase. And if you look at it on the town side, there's two major drivers of that. The first is capital spending, that's up around $280,000 And the second is the all up cost for running a community center, which is about 127, which includes staffing, cleaning, and then everything associated benefits, everything included with actually running a community center.
So those two things combined are about $407,000 out of that $611,000 increase.
Okay, so there's $204,000 of additional spending. How does, how does the board, how can we see that? What do you mean by $204,000
That's the difference between the total 11 and those those two items. I mean, I would like to sit there and see what we're up $2.80 on. And so we all see it on the screen and then. What the total, what your 127 equals and just so we're all on the same page because I believe we need that individual and we need to sit there and we need to tell the community that that individual's job is also gonna be raising is gonna be to raise or to collect fees for different programs to utilize services. So got to get to that. We don't know that number just yet. Hopefully, we'll have a better understanding. I would sit there and say that that person,
you know, through all of the fees that they could raise, they should raise 30 or $40,000. But that's just a shot in the dark. I'm not sure that that position will generate that, but that's what we need to get at. So Scott and his pickleball people need to kick in $10 to sit there and offset the town budget. Right, Scott? That's what you said you'd do. No, forget it. Okay. So I hope you had that taped. Yeah.
So can you show us these? So when we're talking about this, if you look at the big ones, you know, you talk about what levers you can pull relatively easy to make a change. The first thing is, you can tap more than 100,000 in fund balance, if you so choose. You know, now that we have the audit, the draft audit statement, you know, we could safely go all the way up to $200,000 and stay over the 10% minimum that the town should keep in its unexpended fund balance. So that's the first lever you could pull if you want. But that doesn't affect spending. That's just where we get the money from. Other than that, if you look at the permanent funds, the two new ones that we're putting money into are the AES Capital Fund and the Open Space Fund. Between those two is about $150,000 The multi use building fund is $50,000 And then after that, if you make a decision not to go for a full time person for the community center, you could probably figure on saving at least 20 ks in salary. And that automatically implies if they're a part time position, they have healthcare for one, not healthcare for two, which is what I was estimating in this. So that would net you about 34,000 in savings. And you could also not add the line item for a construction manager. That saves around 15,000.
Nope. I don't know where the rest of this went.
So so slide up for a second. We're saying the fund balance, the increase to the fund balance that you have in here is 280,000 of that, 150,000 of that is in the AES improvement or capital fund. How much is in that fund? I mean With the AES capital fund? You you have to in the future, in the future, I'm just telling you, you gotta use Excel to do these things so that you can see the numbers and how they add up. You put them on Word document and the number the total numbers aren't adding up. So somewhere in your spreadsheet up on top, do you have the capital funds, all of them, so we can look at them? Yep. We'll go right back to that. Yeah. Okay. You went here.
So these are all the transfers that make up the capital funds, what we budgeted the last few years and what we're budgeting this year.
So $50,000 in contingency, we budgeted that the prior year. 50,000 in multi use building fund, we budgeted nothing the prior year. So we're up 50. The fire engine tanker fund, the budget ended up at 125. We're at 137 this year. Yep. Public equipment fund, 125, same number. Road improvement fund, $4.10, same number. Tree removal fund, 50,000, same number. And then bridge and culvert fund is the other big driver, 75,000
on that one. Correct. But practically, if we're going to actually do the culvert, we can't touch that because that gives us two years to generate enough funds to pay for that. Yeah.
So you got open space. Actually, I'm just going to sit there. So so
you got AES Capital Fund in open space. You got $75,000 in bridge and culverts. So that's $2.25. And you got $50,000 in the multi use billing fund. That gives you $2.75. So that's that's $275,000 in total increases to capital.
Correct. So if you want levers to pull and, you know, I mean, you could trim a little bit off, you could trim a little bit off road improvement fund, you could trim a little bit off the tree fund, you know, you can trim a little bit off the building maintenance fund. I mean, it just depends what you know, when you do that, you affect the town's ability to do projects. But I get that people don't want to pay more taxes. So, so that really is the, you know, the decision point.
Does anybody have a desire to cut any of those increases or to reduce the items that are held flat? No, I don't. No.
I have a question to do with this though. I know that CIP had approved the refinishing for the gym floor. Is that in this budget or is that something for a future budget? I didn't know Well, where that
my assumption is that we would fund that out of the building maintenance fund. That would take up roughly $35,000 or a third of the building maintenance fund If you're gonna do the gym floor. All right.
You're saying that that would wait one second. And just so we're all clear, it's on a three zero five nine one five? Correct. Okay. Go ahead, Anne. Sorry. Because
I've been thinking that here we got $119,000 back from RAM in the surplus, and that money was earmarked for education. I would think that should go into the AES Capital Fund because that way it stays earmarked for education and not going back into
just the general fund. Well, then Anne, we should ask AES to cut their budget by $113,000 because that's the increase for this year. Mean, so you're playing you know, when we sit there and say that those funds should go back into education because they were, originally for, you know, RAM, you know, you're you're planning I that's not, I don't think we can sit there as a board and look at things like that. Like, hey, let's put that money because we save money at RAM, let's put it into the building fund. We have to do what is correct for the community at the point in time we're at.
Well, they gave you the list, Gillette Willard sent the list of what the needs of the school are, and they need that plumbing work that's $200,000 They need the elevator upgrade that is 50,000 to $60,000 They need the blacktop sidewalk chip sealed, and they need the upper parking lot reclaimed and paved.
And just like for everything, we have to sit there and pick and choose what we can do and when we can do them. You're not going to get all of those done in one No,
but those are things the school really needs. I don't think that the want for having the gym floor refinished could be getting done before the needs of the school. That's If you're gonna take that money from the gym floor, it said it should be going to the school needs. They said they need these things. They don't need the gym floor done.
Well, those are things that we can sit there and you're not even you're looking at it going, that $100,000 that is in the building maintenance fund, it can be used for anything that the choice is to make. So I would sit there and not have a problem evaluating what we're doing, but I'd go, Anne, you know that gym floor? I don't know, I'm on it all the time. I would sit there and tell you that gym floor, you know, the floor in itself in total hasn't been touched in a long time. You know, it's been resurfaced. Get that. They resurface it once a year, but it has not done anything.
No, they just put new poly on it. It needs to be sanded down. There's high spots in the floor. It's bad. It needs to be fixed. It
may not be great, but they've got three bathrooms in that school they can't use at all. It's not a matter of, well, the gym floor should be standing down. Yeah, probably should if you got money for everything. But the thing that really needs to get done is plumbing. Kids can't use the bathroom there because they have to go run into another part of the school because that thing ends stinky.
Well, and to be honest, not our decision to decide what we spent the money was. That's the Board of Education. So that's our call.
Well, no. I think don't ask the Board of Education That if they want is not the board
correct, Jeff, because if it's a $200,000 expense, that is a capital expense. And as the building owner, you fall, you know, you're one of the decision makers for that expense.
Eric, just as a side question. Sorry, John. That come to CIP yet? No. Okay.
Yeah. And I guess that is a good question. Why didn't the Board of Education bring that to CIP? Because I know the floor wasn't brought to CIP by the Board of Education. It wasn't. That was brought by the Rec Commission because the Rec Commission is in charge of that building, so that's why the Rec Commission did it. But Ann, that's a good question, and we have to get back to Celeste and the Board of Education. Why isn't the representative at CIP bringing these items to CIP and asking And CIP to weigh in on this goes to another question that I have, and Eric, I would love for you to sit there and get through this. Anne brings up a good point, like money saved and how money is spent and where it goes. Can you get from the and I know this is a question, and I'll probably have to ask Celeste for this, but I would love to get a list of the maintenance projects that the school thought were maintenance projects, such as air conditioning, such as other items that have gone through the Board of Education budget that were spent out of their budget. I would love those. I mean, because I know the only project that I remember that the town weighed in on the board of on the AES school was the roof project about three or four years ago. That's the last one that I know came in front of CIP. But what are what are the things that have happened over the last four or five years
that we were not brought into and included on, so that we can sit there and go? Because, Anne, your question is really a good question. It really is. Your question is, what are the priorities and how do we spend the money according to what priorities are laid in front of us? And so I think as two groups, we need to be very clear as to who is responsible for spending and setting those priorities. I do think Jeff Murray is 100% correct. It's got to go in front of CIP because we as a board aren't going to put it into this budget unless it went to CIP.
Yeah, and that was my point exactly. It was just these things need to come through the process and they need to go through CIP. Yeah. Every other capital purchase in town.
Correct. And I would love to see a list, because we're not made aware of that, we don't have the data. I would love to see all of transactions that have occurred that the previous boards have made decisions, and the Board of Education specifically has made decisions to do what I would consider improvements, because this goes into this whole lighting issue and the email that we received. Just so everybody understands the lighting, I do little kid basketball at the school on Saturdays, and there are three switches on the wall that used to turn all the lights on. And one of the switches no longer is active and works to turn on any of the banks of lights.
And so when I sat there with that, I immediately sat there and said there's some electrical work that had to have been done on the lights, because that doesn't normally happen, that all the lights go on and one of the switches doesn't work. So that is why I brought up, not the fact that I know the lights have changed, I don't know that the lights have changed, I just know that one of the switches on the wall doesn't work anymore. And so my question is really simple, what changed and what occurred? Now, I could be unobservant and I don't necessarily think that's the case on this situation, but it was just an interesting thing that happened about two practices ago, about three weeks ago, right before our other meeting. And that is why I asked the question, did lights get changed? The superintendent wrote a nice email stating that the lights have not been changed since she has been superintendent. But what I'd like to know, Erica, is and what I had asked her before this whole thing is, when did those lights change? I asked her for a date, and I told her that I would gladly tell the community that this
is the date when the lights were changed. Not pointing out to the school or blaming the school or the school board for anything, just simply telling you guys when I was in the gym, the third switch doesn't light anything else up. I turn it, flick it on, nothing turns on. Flick it off, nothing goes on. So, and I would ask Scott, because Scott, you're in there on Fridays. Right.
Did you notice that light switch? I mean, because you know there's three light switches on the right. There's three light switches. Right? Yep. Only two of them now can do anything to the banks of lights. So in my mind, how did the third one get pulled and why?
Right. How long have you been walking past those switches? How long have I been doing it? Yeah. Like ten years.
Probably ten years. Yeah. So I just asked the question. That was my point. My point was not to accuse someone of something or, you know, but I do believe that we as a board and the Board of Education, so when they listen to this, we need to work together and we need to get the information out so that we can do the things that are necessarily for that asset because that school is an asset. It has to be taken care of, has to be maintained. But the reality is, it's got to be maintained in accordance with the town's policies. And the town's policies say that all of these improvements need to go to CIP and CIP needs to approve them. So Ann, you're gonna end up being our representative of CIP. You would be approving these things to come to the
board of selectmen. We may not agree to put every one of these things on the budget, but they need to be on the list. If And they're not on the list, we're just going to keep running into the same cycle and the same problem. 100% correct. Put it on the list.
From my understanding was probably before your time on the Board of Selectmen that the school had asked for some of these capital improvements and they kept getting turned down. So they started budgeting for them in their own budget. And that had not changed over the years. So now if they can get things through the capital improvement in the town budget for maintenance and major things in the school, they'll do that. But what you just said,
Anne, drives me to a different thought. You're telling me they have budgeted for these improvements in their budget, not line items. They're not shown to the community, shown No, I think it's of education.
I'm not sure how they did it, but I know they had to come up with the money themselves.
Okay. So let's work on that and not get into the weeds on it, but please, Anne, go back to the Board of Education, and I will communicate with Celeste. They need to go to CIP, And if it goes to CIP and it gets approved, then it will at least be on our list because right now we're looking at, as we said before, a $400,000 increase in total dollars. That's all I'm after is total dollars. Yes. Mhmm. Have a $100,000 of extra revenue because this board's done a good job of putting money into a a stiff account thanking the the town administrator and the treasurer. So we're seeing interest for the money that we have in reserve. But that's only the town money because I'll sit there and I'll ask the same question. Well, what's the board of education's balance and should that money be still in the STIF account earning interest? I mean, this is where we go into the whole other side. And my accounting person comes out in my mental side like, well, we need to be running this as a town, and we need to be maximizing our interest earning potential. And so we need to do some things differently. And those differently those things that I'm saying are different cause everybody else a huge problem because, Anne, you're 100% right. The previous boards before I became first selectman had a totally different way of dealing with things,
and we have never said no to the Board of Education. We've never given them pause to sit there and think that we're looking at things in a different way. Yes, we have disagreements. There's no doubt about it. There's certain things that we might do differently, but we just got to do it right, and we got to fix it sooner than later. So CIP, Anne, please communicate to the Board of Education that that's where it needs to go. They want the bathrooms done. Please get them up on a list. And then we as a board of selectmen can determine if there's priorities or not priorities, and then we can pass it to the Board of Finance, and they can determine if our priorities match their priorities, and they're agreeing to fund it. Because in the end, we don't agree to fund anything. We don't we don't approve anything. We just submit our what we believe are our priorities. So as a board, the only thing that I've looked at this and go, we we are we are basically saying we want to fund more of the capital projects. So I think we're doing what the town needs us to do, which is we're putting $275,000
away for programs. I mean, you know, if I sat there and looked at it, 50,000 for open space, that would be the one that I would target. I understand planning and zoning wants to keep it. I'd be okay with it, but that's what I'd be looking at. So what do we have for a balance in that account right now? Around $230,000.
And when's the last time we had an expenditure out of it?
Took took some open space funds for that parking over on Lake Road. Yeah.
We also bought that piece of property that the parking lot is on on Lake Road. Yep. We also spent, you know, a good deal of money doing the appraisal for the property we were trying to buy on Shoddyville. Those were the last expenses that we spent out of that fund.
And how has something been funded in how many years?
Well, so to be honest, this, that is not something that was ever really funded directly via taxation. Most towns do fund open space. We had only funded open space via fee in lieu of funding. So that $250,000 or $270,000 was when it was a peak. That
was about twenty years worth of fee in lieu of open space. I'm not sure that's accurate, Eric, because I know that they stopped funding it. There, it has been funded previously.
Okay. Well, that's prior to my knowledge and you, you may be correct, but as far as I know, the whole time I was on planning and zoning, it never got town funded. So I've but I've only got probably thirteen well, fourteen years of institutional knowledge. Scott,
I will tell you that previous board member, board of select member before this group and before the first four years I was on it, she had been a developer in town, and she used to sit there and say, very well, that was money that her and her husband funded. So a lot of it came from the developmental
money. I know. I know. I know. But we we took it out. I don't know what year it was, but we took it out in the last two or three years, Jeff. I I know that it was in there and it was taken out. We never put it. Hebron funds their open space fund every year, 50 or $100,000 every year. And they have a different model than we do. Yep.
Yeah, I just wanna make one more comment. It's like you've seen my email about the ceiling fans in the gym. I was in there this weekend and there was tournaments all weekend. And when I was in there, that furnace pretty much ran constantly the whole time we were there. Then I find out, I did some digging and that we're burning approximately 38,000 gallons of heating oil in that school per year. And so, this is something that the Board of Selectmen wanna work and try to get some energy efficiencies because if we can save 20% to 30% of heating that gym by putting these fans in, that's a significant savings. And it's a significant reduction in the carbon footprint of we're just putting oil up a exhaust pipe of a boiler. So those are things that we need to be smart about and start working together on because those are small, good little capital projects, but they're gonna have a big impact and have payback
twenty or even thirty years into the future. So those are the things that I really wanna work with and try to get the school engaged in. And I hope that the board of education sees that and they wanna work with us.
To go along with that, Jeff, that's where the lights kinda in my head were at. Are those LED lights or they're not LED lights? And and can we get Eversource in there to do
an analysis of things that we can do for the school? Yeah. An energy audit for that space. To improve. What could we do to improve? And are there any grants out there for things like that? Yeah. Because if we're not doing setbacks on those thermostats and everything for weekends and nights, then, you know, there's a huge energy savings we could get right there. So those are the things that's kind of going through my brain as an engineer, especially these fans. I was talking to some application engineers today and they were saying, you know, with that heat going out the ceiling there, all your heat's getting trapped up and it never gets down to the ground level. And that's why you need these fans to push the heat and mix everything. So, I mean, there was fans put in originally for that purpose and we haven't used those things in years. And so guess how much money we've been wasting and just going out the roof. I mean, those are the things we need to get fixed and get some energy efficiencies.
And if they're not LED lights up there, there should be. A lot of lighting in that, Jim. There should be, but I mean,
I don't know when they were changed. I don't know what they, what, I mean But those are easy to swap. You can just swap out the lights.
You don't need to change the ballast or anything. The lights, they're just a direct replacement.
Well, those are things that we have to do after our budget is organized. I mean, we all have to work together more. I mean, there's no doubt about it. And so, Paula, when we're done with this budget stuff, you I know you've talked about the board of education and the board of selectmen having another meeting. We should because these are things that we should be talking about with them. Not not I I think they think we're talking at them, but that's not really what we're doing. I I think this board just has a good mix and a lot of different ideas as to what is going on. And we just have to get with the board of education and say, okay, this is what we can and can't do. I mean, there's some things that we all as a town and as a community, I mean, we're asking for a lot of money this year, and I get it. I mean, and it's not like we're having a lot of new revenue sources other than the interest income that we're generating. So it's going to end up on residents. It's going to end up on property owners. And I don't think any of it is not needed. I think we might have to peel some of this away. But I think it's all needed. It's just a question of everybody's gonna have to pitch in. But let's talk about these numbers, these numbers, and sit there and see if we wanna reduce any of the items that are on here that we currently have. So on the capital funds, which is $275,000 increase, are we? There's $50,000 and Eric, tell us what's in the $50,000
for the multi use building. What are you going to use that for? What is your anticipation?
So my anticipation is that two things, if you look at what we have in the existing multi use building fund, we've accounted for all but about $20,000 that's currently in that fund to do one of three things, either upgrades to the community center, the town's contribution to build the senior transportation garage, and then the town's contribution to fixing the steep grant for the ball field. So that is the majority of everything we have in that budget now. So if we're not anticipating any projects other than what we're doing now, then you don't need to fund it. But sure as heck, we're gonna run into other things and potentially cost overruns and things. So it makes sense to be continually putting some money in that fund. Okay. That's my take on it. Okay. So and what's your fund balance currently for that number? Around 430,000.
Okay. So it's $430,000 and we're funding an additional $50,000 to allow us to, potentially do work on any building in the community.
Correct. Okay. I mean, was basically designed for new construction, major, you know, renovation or new construction projects. That's what that fund was originally, you know, put in as opposed to the other fund, which is the building maintenance fund.
Okay. This goes into the this board attempting to save money for future things that we need to sit there and plan for. Okay. Correct. Alright. Does anybody have a problem with that $50,000 and that they, you know, they need it removed? No. K. Okay, Eric. Let's go on to bridge and culvert fund. That's a $175,000. So it's a $75,000 increase. I mean Correct. I don't necessarily know we need to really review that because you're telling us that it's gonna cost us how much to do Lake Road?
Yeah, roughly between us and the state, roughly 1,800,000. We're on the hook for about 900,000. So if we add $175,000 to that budget for the next two years, that fully pays for the cost of that bridge with what's already in the account. Okay. Right. Anybody have a problem with that fund? Nope.
Nope. And so what we're doing basically is we're asking, we have the state local bridge grant. We are asking for an extension to push that out with the intention of 2026 construction season, so fund, so we have two more years to collect the money.
Alright. The AES Capital Fund, we are funding that at a $100,000. Obviously, that money can be used for any project that's currently available or currently in need at the school.
And But with the with the stipulation, it has to go through CIP.
Well, correct. I mean, that's accurate. Mean, obviously, there's more that needs to get done at AES, but in reality, I don't necessarily know we're positioned to fund anymore right now. But, Eric, if needed, we could sit there and use some of the money that's in the multi use building fund if necessary.
Theoretically, yeah, you could. We could. Yep. And the other thing is that we're, because we didn't do the paving project last year, they were supposed to transfer what ended up being $124,000 to the town, but their surplus wasn't actually 124,000. So what the auditor has has said they could theoretically transfer to that fund is a $112,000.
So So after the audit, after the audit, that's that money is available? Correct.
Okay. However, that project was, you know, dollars 130 plus thousand. So right there, there's still an $18,000 deficit in funding just for that project. Now, I kind of assumed we were going to end up sucking that up out of the road improvement fund. But ultimately, that's a board's decision where you want to take that money from. If that project goes forward, which is still waiting on an agreement between the two boards. Well, what we end up having
to have happen is they have to go to CIP with all of their requirements, and then you would have that 100,000 plus whatever over, over, or amount of money that the board of education has available to put into the fund. And then we can sit there and look at the the priorities and then determine if we use any of the money out of the road fund. Right. So you'd have $2.12.
Well, you have $2.12. But if that's the case, they're gonna come back and say, we need 200,000 for the bathrooms and 130 for the parking lot. And then we're, as a board, we're working with Board of Finance to come up with that total amount of money. So that's the reason why we have to put all the priorities in line and say, well, this is what we can fund this year, and this is what we can fund next year. Because as a board, we've done a fairly good job of trying to put money away for the projects. I mean, we put money away for every one of the projects that we had there. And the money that's in one of those funds though, Eric, is also because we had started putting money away for Bunker Hill and Bunker Hill is getting a 100% paid for. Right. Correct. It's in the culvert fund. Correct.
So at some point in about four years or so, we're going to be able to return a significant amount of money back to the unexpended fund balance. But we need that funding as the swing because we're going to be paying, you know, we're on the hook for the bills, we will get rebated the month for that bridge. So we have about $450,000 in cash in the Bunker Hill Bridge Fund. But we're, you know, we're gonna have to outlay that and get reimbursed. Okay. So but in presumably, that fund will run and will be rolled right into the Long Hill Bridge Fund when we're done with Bunker Hill, which is good because they're spaced about two years apart. And then we'll pay the, you know, the contractors out of the Long Hill Bridge Fund for that. And then at the completion of the Long Hill Bridge Fund, two things can happen. Either that money can get dumped in the bridge and culvert fund, which would probably be smart because we have some more failing culverts,
or it can get run back into the general fund.
Alright. So that's something we'll think about as we move forward because you're gonna have to put it in the culverts. I mean, unless the state does something from a funding perspective, we're in trouble on the culverts in total because, you know, if we have an event, let's say a Vermont event, we're gonna wipe out a bunch of these culverts that are already in some trouble, and they're gonna cause us a lot of problems all at once. Well, then if that's the case, does anybody have a problem with the let's just keep going. Does anybody have a problem with a $100,000 to EA's capital fund? Nope.
Alright. Does anyone have, I mean, a problem with the $50,000 for open space funding? Well, I do. I mean, I think that one I would sit there and not fund because, Eric, do we have any potential developments coming on the line that anyone's even talked about in town?
That we're gonna get money for the open space fund? Yeah. No. And in truth, the zoning commission, when they went to cluster development, they changed the way they allocated open space and they haven't really been requesting fee in lieu of open space. They've been requesting the actual open space to stay above the state threshold. So I suspect that's really not going to get funded through subdivisions going forward, or if it is not very much.
If we don't fund it this year, are we going to get in trouble with something next year? Or is it going to be an issue?
Or if we Well, the question is always, is there something that we want to buy? And having a reasonable amount of money in an open space fund lets you pick off properties when they come on the market that you want. And that's usually done starting with either the Conservation Commission or a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission that these are properties that it would be worth the town acquiring. And the town in the past hasn't been too excited about moving other monies into that fund. Either you can, you have enough money in there to buy it or you don't.
If you had your way, Eric, what would you want that fund to be at? Couple of million.
Jeff, let's say you take the 50 out of that from the $2.80. What what are you left with? You still have a increase of you know? No. You have an increase. That's not the point. I still have an increase of $2.30. So what you know?
Yeah. If everybody's willing for it to go to the town with these numbers, that's fine. I'm just going over them. I mean, this is the majority of the money. I mean, it's this and it's the person at the, at the community center. Community center. And I'm okay with the community center, to be really honest. I mean, I, I want that person in place because I think it's valuable for the community and the town to have someone there and then to sit there and evaluate, how we can help have them generate some money to offset their total compensation.
So it's I don't think that you're gonna get a lot of pushback from that, from the community.
Okay. Well, then we got $275,000 here. We have 80 some odd thousand dollars. Mean, Eric, what was the number at the 127,000?
Yeah. Full up costs for the community center around 127,000, I think. Okay. Yep. And that's still set as full time. Correct? That says that's with a full time employee.
You know, now with the with the community center not being fully operational, is that do you think that that's still a good? The forty hour, the full time position is still doable?
I think if you're gonna have programming and staff, you know, and you're gonna try to ramp up programs, yeah, you're gonna need that person there. You know, the other option is just to say, okay, I gave you a wishlist of everything I thought it was appropriate for that person to be in charge of, you pull back and say, okay, these other things we're going to continue to do with volunteers, instead of assigning a staff person to do that. You know, those aren't possibilities, but those come with costs also. Right.
Yeah, I just think for the transitional period, I don't think it would hurt to have that be a part time position to start. That's just to get it going, because I mean, don't think it's gonna a full time position to start. I think it's gonna morph into a full time position, but in the beginning, it probably won't.
But then how do you get how do you get somebody that's gonna wanna apply? And then you're you're cutting your chances of that person being available. Checking around.
Yeah. I mean, you're always gonna have people, like, you're always gonna pay people probably trustworthy people that are gonna be paid per diem to open and close the building and make sure that things are done after events. Because that person is not gonna be available 20 fourseven. So you're still gonna need other people to go and open the building, close the building, make sure there's no damage, that type of activity, which would be built into the user fees of the building for an event. You want to have a birthday party or something in there, that fee would cover the cost of that person to go and close-up. But like I just said, I think it would be hard even a full time person to expect them to be there weekends and 20 fourseven to support the community center without additional people per diem to go and assist.
Well, that is not something I'm building into the budget currently. We can build in additional funds for part time staff and then try to build in a revenue number that we think is realistic if you want to try to do that.
Well, no, no. Let's go backwards. Jeff Murray is accurate in that he's stating that the fees for the events should cover the extra costs that we're talking about because you haven't built in any fees for the community center because we don't know them. So we can't really build in the costs of the additional part time staff for after hours closing of the buildings because we don't know them. It's not like we're gonna be doing this. You know, the if the building is open and someone is using it, there's going to be a fee in it to allow us to close it. So I don't think you need to do those two right now. The question that Jeff Murray brings up is, is it a full time position or a part time position? If it's a full time position, the number is what you have currently at, dollars 127,000. And I think you wrote if we reduce it to a part time position, we would save $34,000 Right, roughly. That's pretty good. Roughly. So
the question is, does the board want to keep personally it
can't see a full time position to begin with, but then you do have the problem. My fault is that, will that person that would be a good person full time someday, would they be willing to apply when it's only part time? Or are you gonna have to search again for somebody else when you decide to go full time? And I don't think you're gonna be able to get enough fees out of that to support very much of their salary. It's gonna be on the town mostly because that's not a very big building. Can't
You're not just dealing with the community, you're dealing with every other recreational program. I mean, that person's job has to include the gym, the field, everything that the town has available that we might be able to utilize or somebody's wanting to use. There should be some structure to the usage. There should be some fee to the usage. That person in my mind is responsible for all of those buildings, all of those structures.
Now are you going to start charging fees to use the gym more than you already or do they do now charge for use the gym? I don't even know.
Right. There's a fee for well, I would sit there and go, I don't know what, pickleball does, Scott, but I know for basketball, there's there's fees for each participant. Now how much of that ends up getting left over and utilized by the town is probably not what it should be. But, you know, right now we have fees that we charge for the field, and those could be organized better. But that's what that person would do as far as I'm concerned. That person's responsible for, you know, there's nothing to sit there and say the pickleball, the new pickleball courts can't have a, a fee to lock up a time. And, you know, all it all it is, is it's not a not an excessive fee, you're just trying to sit there and make sure the right people are using it, and that you're getting some money to offset the costs of the recreation program. So, and we may not use anything, and it's going to be at the board's discretion.
I just don't want to hire a full time person just having them sitting in their office most of the time. That's the one concern that I have. I think this person actually is probably going to report to the Recreation Commission because I don't see those people going away. I mean, far as the structure and everything like that, I mean, that, that person is gonna answer to the rec commission and, and work to what, you know, their recommendations and what their directives are.
Right. So what I said initially, and what I supplied you before was that I anticipate essentially three committees, you know, interacting with whoever's in that position. One being the rec commission, dealing with all the recreational assets, one being a commission of seniors, dealing with all the senior programming, and then a general community. Right. That's how I understood it.
But I mean, that's open to negotiation. If you do a part time position, you're probably peeling back some of that responsibility. And you've got to decide what it is you think you want to peel back, you know, and go from there.
Well, position and we can start with a a part time position, but that position has been needed by this town for years. As long as I've been involved, it's needed that position. And
I mean, my take is my take is once the public sees the value in the programs that are coming into that center, going from full part time to full time is probably not as big of a jump as going from not having a position to automatically a full time position. All right. I think we need to demonstrate the value first in the community center in this position first before we go to a full time status on this person. That's just my 2¢.
Remember this person is de facto a senior center director, a community center director, and a parks and recreation director. So they're wearing three hats. I don't think that's a part time position if you're gonna do it with any kind of reasonable, do any kind of reasonable job. That's my take on it. Effectiveness.
But I mean, maybe the thing is you don't give them the responsibility for anything related to recreation. And maybe you keep that in, you know, volunteers' hands with the rec commission. But certainly enough people have expressed unhappiness with that, which is why I thought appropriate to roll that into this particular position. But ultimately, that's a decision that could be revisited.
Jeff Murray, if we were to do part time and then go to full time, are we talking about the first year the person's gonna be part time? Or do you think, how would we fund that if we're doing part time for six months? And then can we do something like that? What were your thoughts on that?
Oh, I think it would have to be for the budget season. It'd probably have to be till next June or July. I mean, I mean, we still have a lot of volunteers that want to stay involved and I don't see them just, you know, just putting their hands up and handing over everything to this new person. I think there's gonna be a transition period. I think once we have somebody in there that's confident or competent doing this job, then I think you'll see more of that responsibility go to this person. So, I mean, that's just my opinion. I mean
All right. So if we're gonna do that, so Eric, you're saying the savings would be $34,000 if we moved it to a part time position. Yeah. That's my guess. Up to 34,000.
So that would be the savings in the health insurance and
Correct. I mean, you're gonna need to have, you're gonna need to offer health insurance for a single person anyway. It's just a question of do you, if they're a full time position, then they have the option of being on a family plan or having a spouse. So I budgeted for the one plus one, basically, in terms of health care benefits, whereas if I was budgeting for a part time position, I would only budget for a single for health care. Now, you know, who knows? Maybe we get somebody that was single anyway, you know, and that would save us 10 or $11,000 But I mean, since we're nowhere near the hiring point, we have no way of knowing.
So I mean, I'm not opposed to having it be a full time position. I mean, for the Delta, it's not really something that we should really squabble over for, you know, an hour. With that said, you know, I'm I'd be okay with just making it full time. I mean, it's up to it's up to the rest of the board.
Okay. So do we leave it as a full time position? Yes or no? I'm in favor of full time. I'm in favor also.
Just to say if we have somebody that comes in and they can't work full time and they're qualified and they wanna do it on a part time basis, I mean, I think we should consider it.
Yeah, I guess when we cross that bridge, we gotta figure that out. I think we just gotta be prepared that there's gonna be a learning curve, but I think it's gonna ramp up and it's gonna be, it's gonna need to be full time and somebody's gonna have to really
attend meetings or whatever and, and put paperwork through and gather their thoughts. I think, I think there'll be enough to do for full time. I, I would be just more comfortable if we had a job responsibilities and you know, what was expected of this person. I mean, we really haven't defined that yet. So we're just saying it's a full time position without defining what this person's role is really.
Well, we started kinda chatting about it tonight. Right? Eric sent in his thoughts. You want do you wanna talk about it tonight? You wanna because we're kind of
up against the wall. Yeah. Think this is budgetary, so let's just leave it in for now. Yeah. And we'll see what happens at public meeting. Yeah. Yeah. I think we can justify it as
full time. I'm in favor of that. But before now in the public meeting, I'd like to get something written down of what the responsibilities we think this person should be, because we're gonna get asked that at a public meeting and we should be able to answer that to say, oh, we'll do it later. Then they're gonna say, how do you know if it's full time if you don't know what that person's responsibilities are? Well, should we add it to next month's meeting? Talk about it. I I think Eric has given us something.
I mean, I did basically give you what I thought were the job description for that person. I can certainly send it to you again, as a group. I have no problem with that. I think that's a good
point to start with. And then at next month's meeting, have a discussion about it and maybe add or take things away or something. We've kind of touched on this a couple of times, but we haven't really sat down and talked about it. That's my suggestion is to talk about it, put it on the agenda for next month
Well, yeah, between now and then, can we talk to, you know, Kathy Palazzi and Roberta and the Threat Commission and have them put together a list of what they think this person's responsibility should be so that we're all on the same page?
I would sit there and say yes. There and try to do that for the next meeting. We should talk about it because it's a big component of the budget. We may as well be prepared to answer the questions, as Jeff said. Not a problem. So, Eric, there's $204,000 of additional expenditures. Right. What what are where are they also coming from? Everywhere.
Everywhere. So Ram is 30 or is $31,000 for that. Why is that? 31,000 That's a subtotal of six, which is the
They're about $5,000 of that plus or minus. So that's senior
so I was looking at the six subtotal. That includes a bunch of other things, not just but other items. Right. So a chunk of that is the treasurer's salary? Yeah.
A chunk of that is the if you go down to the registrars, we're asking for an increase, it's not a big increase, but it's a few thousand bucks. They were asking for extra money for election salaries. That is offset by additional revenue that the state has provided for the towns, but they are asking for an increase which shows up as a budgeted amount. That's line 116. The zoning Manager. Agent salary yeah. We'll go back to that in a sec. The zoning agent salary last year, partway through the budget season, you asked me to increase those hours to nineteen hours so we could get on top of more enforcement actions. That's a pretty big jump in the budget, even though his salary increases only slightly. It's because even though we're making him work nineteen hours right now, we didn't bake it into last year's budget. So that's the difference you're seeing there is the increase in budget under 01/28. Permit link fees are up, but that's just directly correlated to how much permit link fees we charge. So even though that's an 18 percent increase, it's not actually money. It's not money coming from well, it's money coming from taxpayers, but not through taxation. Library payroll is up. That was the the jump to some extent in the children's librarian, plus the contract for the for Amy Orlamovsky, the director of the library. That's why that's a bump. There is so there's a pretty big decrease in elevator permit for whatever reason, we screwed up the number and didn't catch it. Last year, we budgeted 2,400 for the permit. So that made it all the way through, and that was an oops, so we get that back. We did increase
building maintenance, but we did that looking at what our actual building maintenance costs have been the last year, and we bumped that up a little bit to correspond to that. Software maintenance is staying about the same. Our costs for alarm monitoring are going up. Costs for T1 Talend dispatch has been staying fairly steady. They changed their formulation, but fortunately for us, we haven't had a ton of calls from Andover. Therefore, our budget for that didn't go up very much. Postage has gone up, so we're spending more. That's the US Postal Service, can't really do a lot about that. Office supplies, you know, we've held it low in the 3,000 to 3,500, but the reality is we're going through a lot more than that in office supplies for the town building every year. So I set it to what we're what our actual expenditures were for the last year,
which is about 55. All of this is the fee structure for the community center. That's just based on some very basic assumptions of the custodian line item is not built in here. It's built into the exact actual custodian line item. That's but I put it in here so you realize that there is you know, we are accounting for the custodian for it. But that's its own building maintenance account and account for HVAC maintenance, because you have an awful lot of ductless split AC units, and they all require annual cleaning. You will eventually, I'm assuming, use VoIP phones for the building, and you're going to need to provide internet service to the building in some form. So $14.75 is the cost to put cable in the building. It would be a little bit more if we went fiber,
but we'd also have to run the fiber. That's going to be expensive and pain in the butt. So from the beginning, we're going to assume we're going to go with just a cable connection. Cost of electricity, that's a crapshoot. That's just based on what heating and cooling loads are and then what expected plug loads are. That could be a couple thousand dollars higher or lower. You know, it depends on the final, you know, what we end up for the building. So, you know, that's the that's the big jump there. It says defibrillator service. Eric, did
you already purchase a defibrillator for the community side? I did not, but we're going to have to. I'm assuming we're taking that one out of the $150,000 we're kinda allocating from the the multi use building fund to fit out the building that given how many senior activities we're going to be, a defibrillator will be a requirement. How much do those cost?
They're not super expensive, but it's but you do have to maintain them every year and you gotta redo the batteries and you gotta test them and blah blah blah. So that's why I built that into there. Insurance is a, or employee benefits is a pretty significant jump because health and dental insurance is going up significantly and we're adding an employee. So Social Security and Med is going to go up. Actually, that's going to go down. That we overestimated in last year's budget. And we had we had been pretty heavily overestimating unemployment compensation.
Eric, just so I'm trying to follow you on the budget on your subtotal. So you have subtotal one is going up $43,000 That's basically, just so everybody understands, that's all the salaries related to civil preparedness, library. It's it's the costs related to the town operations. Right?
The way you look at this? I mean, I'm just I mean, to be honest, the way I did it was I just didn't wanna sub. I didn't want to come to one final total because I figured it was too easy for me to make a mistake in which categories I sum. So I sum throughout. I just made subtotals for all the expenses up to that point to make my life easier when I'm coming up with a final total.
So the increase, the first set of increase, your first subtotal is increasing to those operational jobs that you've just talked about, dollars 43,000. Correct. And then you come down to your second section, which includes the new community center, which is the biggest. So that, and you included employee benefits in it, subtotal too is $134,000 I did the totals on my spreadsheet on the side. So but the difference between $6.19 and $7.53 is $1.34. $82,000 of that is the community center costs related with the employee at full time.
Correct. But not including the effect of that on benefits. So here in employee benefits, you're also talking about the difference in Social Security and med, you know, health and dental, the insurance, MRF, and all the the stuff that goes along with having an employee.
Okay. So this section went up $134,000 in total, $82,000 related to the direct costs of the community center, not the soft costs, not the benefits or anything like that, which are a greater portion. Then increased salaries and everything else related to the rest of the town in this section add up to another $51,000 Seems about right.
Right. And if I sit there and I'm just going to try to visualize it for myself, so let's say, The insurance represents well, the insurance is actually you actually have the insurance going down. So the $50,000 extra is all of the benefit increases. It's So mostly into the health insurance. Okay.
And the unknown, because we don't have it yet, is what our number is going to be for MRF. The reason why there's a reduction is that last year, the state comptroller's office came up with a whole new formula and agreement, yada yada yada with the unions and everybody else, which reduced the percentage costs that the town put into it from like 18 something percent down to like 15.85%. But that's an actuarial number they calculate every year. So I don't know what it's going to be for next year. All I can do is set it to what it was last year and hope it stays roughly the same, Which is why you see the reduction in there in the retirement in MRF. Because remember, we're going be adding one more person to retirement in MRF, but we're going down from 18, like 18.6% down to 15.5% for that program.
Okay, so in this section, what we are adding is the cost of the community center, we are not in really in control of the other $51,000 which is the increase in health insurance unless we go out and get out of the consortium and sit there and try to do our own stuff. So that's a $51,000 increase that there's nothing we can do. There's $82,000 that we as a board can either choose to put in or not put in. We've all talked about putting it in. So let's go to the next section, section three. There's really no increase that relates to your old town hall, town garage, old firehouse, just the basic expenditures. Correct. And so that total increase is only $1,875. So really not worth talking about. Works for me. Go to your next section, which is section four. There's a $37,000 increase in this section. You
are flagging the transfer station, you flagged on the spreadsheet I have, the transfer station wages. Is there a reason? So
I was just surprised that it only went up 1% when everything else was 4%. But I looked at the number of hours we're working and it seems right. So I'm comfortable with pushing that through the way it is. So you can take that flag off. I did relook at that since I did the sheet.
So you have about $20,000 of increases in the public works section of this. Majority of that is salaries. K. Snow removal budget basically stays the same. The transfer station budget remains the same. Recycling costs are up slightly, 1,000. Nothing. Ground care is up $1,500 Street lighting, down. The custodian is up $13,000 and I'm assuming you're taking that in that increases related to the community center as well. That is correct. That's the majority of the cost.
Will is getting the same 4% raise at all for all the other employees, but he's now taking one additional building on. So we have a $20,000
increase in public works and a $13,000 increase on the custodial costs, and that's really what's driving the $37,000 for this section. Correct.
Okay. And on public works, is there anything that we can do? And the answer is probably no. So 12,000 is related to wages. You have a little bit of increase in overtime, and then you have vehicle maintenance that's increasing. So a lot of diesel increases, regular small increases, but they total $20. Yep. All right. We had talked about this with Jay. So section five is resident state trooper, fire department, fire commission, and the fire marshal, dollars 16,000 increase. And that is related to the fire commission asking for an additional $13,000 or $15,000. Correct. And have they presented you with their budget or they presented it to the Board of Finance?
They've presented me with the budget and I have passed that on to you. I could probably pull that up if you want to review it.
I would think that's probably What are they asking for an increase for?
Off the top of my head, I don't remember because it was a couple months ago. Let me pull that up.
And someone refresh my memory. Have we looked at that as a board? I don't remember looking at the fire commission. Anybody?
I never did it. Saw it either. Think so. I'm only talking $200.
You're talking last year, the fire commission budget was $1.52. This year, they're asking for $1.67, 167,000. I don't know if Eric has it up there. Right? Yeah. It's it's I'll get it in a sec. No. It's Row 343. Row 1. 9% increase.
Yeah. I have the details on that. I just can't find it at this very second. I'll keep looking. If you wanna keep moving on, I'll I'll I'll find that. It's not the fireworks. It's budget. No. It's not that one. Sorry.
Okay. If we go on to the next section, which is section six, senior citizens, the $5,000 increase, the senior citizen budget. So we're always underfunding that.
No. No. No doubt. I I I agree with you, Scott. We are. But that's what's in the budget, an extra 5,000 there. $20,000 additional into senior transportation, which we've underfunded that prior. Small amount there. And then is an extra $5,000. So $5,000 on the senior programs, $20,000 on senior transportation, and $3,000 on for a total of $31,000 to be spent additional than you know, an increase over the prior year, all needed. And then the next section is section seven. That only goes up by $2,300. That includes the board the selectman budget, which is decreasing by $800. Board of Finance is staying flat. Conservation Commission is staying flat. The Board of Assessment Appeals is going up $400, $425. Flat. Recreation Commission is going up or requested $3,000, and and you wrote a note wiggle room for incoming senior director. What does that mean? Sorry, where was it? Where are we?
Four thousand five hundred three Recreation Commission. Four thousand five hundred three. It's Section 7.
So I guess part of my thing is that if we are assigning, if we're putting a professional person in charge of the rec commission, We need to give them a little bit of room for actual programming, you know, and money for programming and rentals of equipment or whatever is needed. Because I don't really have a feel for what that recreation commission should be doing, or paying for. But I know I've had to fund pickleball out of my own personal pocket, you know, initially to get it up and running because the rec commission refused to cough up any money. So I sort of feel like that's an area that's been underfunded consistently. I don't disagree with you. Thank you for buying those nuts, Eric. Use them in good health.
So there's nothing in here other than the recreation commission increase that's significant. So it's a recreation increase for $3,700 and then there's decreases, so the total segment only went up 2,300. So I don't really look at that. And then the last section is section eight, which is capital the capital line items that we talked about, and that's going up $279,000. That's it. So is there any sections that anyone wants to sit there and go and reduce? So we have talked about the $279,000 in the capital items. We talked about the biggest component of our increase outside of that, which is the community center. I don't necessarily know there's a lot more for us to talk about unless we wanna go at different sections of this and reduce. Eric,
do you do you have the fire commission information or you can't find it? I'll be honest. I can't find the damn thing, but I know they've given it to me, which is a failure of my accounting unless I stuck it in the wrong year or something. Alright. So I apologize for that.
Well, we can get it down the road. I mean, it's not like it's an excessive increase. And if we look at it, we can sit there. So when do we need to pass this to the board of finance? Ideally, tonight, but before March 1.
Okay. So we have four days. Anybody want to make any adjustments to this budget as it's presented right now on the spreadsheet that we were provided in our emails and Eric has up on the screen?
Eric, we not to change the subject, but we $5,000 revenue for the rental of the bus every year from the school?
Yeah, ballpark. Yep. Yeah. And and we're not we're, you know, we're not trying to charge them all that much for it. We're just trying to get out the kind of minimum. You know, we're just trying not to lose money, Right. That's what I'm thinking too. Yep. Did I miss that revenue item?
Where what line is it on? Is that on a revenue line anywhere? I don't see it.
Pretty sure that's in one of the miss that's accounted for in one of the miscellaneous revenue line items. I did not break it out into a separate its own separate line item.
So under miscellaneous revenue, all you have is $5,000 So that's it for miscellaneous? That's probably it. Yep. Okay. Then we could call it what it is, and we should lay it out exactly what it is other than saying miscellaneous so everybody sees it. Okay. Again, I'm just gonna ask. I mean, we can either approve this budget in totality and send it to the town send it to the board of finance and let them have at it and reduce if they choose to. Or we can sit there and make some changes to it. What's what's everybody's preference? Let's vote. Yeah. Let's vote on it. K.
So, Eric, just so I I'm I'm clear, and I so the increase the increase is $600,000 $611,119 Of that, 280,000 is for capital funding. 120 is 7,000 related to the community center programming and staffing required? Correct. There's an additional $204,000 of increases from operational functions that have gone up, such as our health insurance and our insurances, and 4% increase in wages. Correct. All right. Well, then I'll sit there and make a motion that we pass the budget, which totals $12,000,000 Well, we're not responsible for all of that. Where is our total, Eric? What section am I looking at?
Well, you could look at the mill rate calculations if you want to just know. I mean, really, the only thing you really vote on are total expenditures. Yeah. The only other question is how much of fund balance do you want to recommend using? Yeah. I have a 100,000. So could do any number up to 200,000 that you so chose.
Okay. So I'll make a motion that we send the town budget to the Board of Finance in a total of $4,351,970
Anybody wanna second that so we can get going? I'll Eric, bring that bring that screen down a little bit so we can read that. The town budget to what? Yeah. $44,000,351 $9.70? Yes. I'll second that.
Okay. Discussion on that number? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Aye.
Okay. All those opposed, so nobody. I'll make a motion that we I'm going make a motion that we use $200,000 in fund balance to offset the monies raised by taxation. Paula? I'll second.
Okay. Further discussion on that one? So let's have a discussion. So Eric had proposed 100,000. The auditor tells us we can do 200,000 and remain at 10% reserve funding from where we're at. Correct. Okay.
I'd be much more comfortable at 150, but it's just my opinion. I think we're pushing the limit at 200.
Okay. Jeff, if you want to make the motion for 150, I'll take mine off the table.
I'll just amend your motion from 200 to one fifty. K. I'll second still.
K. Further discussion on that? Alright. All those in favor of the $150,000 use of fund balance, aye. Aye. Okay. So, now, Eric, this, the remaining pieces end up at the board of finance. And so now we're gonna push the $404,351,000 budget with a $150,000 use of fund balance. K? That is correct. So, can you can you prepare an updated spreadsheet and send it to everyone? Because I would like to review the formulas on this just to make sure that what we're sending is appropriate. I can certainly do that.
I'd prefer not to do it tonight, but prefer to look at it fresh in the morning. No. You have until the first to present it to the board or to get it to the board. We have till the first to get it to the board of finance. We know the numbers. We just wanna make sure that what we're sending them adds up. And if it doesn't add up, then we're gonna sit there and get together again because 50,000. Okay.
Is there anything else anybody wants to talk about at this meeting?
What's the what's the the mill rate is negligible, right, to change from point four six to what it's
The way with 31 per so what? Yes. It's it's basically a change of about point three in the mill rate. Zero three point zero three. No. It's 31.29 to 31.58.
Oh, but I'm saying that the increase the increase. Correct. Is point it's yeah. It's point three. Point zero three. No. Point three. No. Point zero three.
Talking about the mill rate. I'm talking about the increase.
I mean, considering this year with the inflation numbers and everything to come in with that kind of increase, I think is more than reasonable.
Yeah. The only thing, I've said this to you before, and I've said it to the Board of Finance also, is that we are in a dip in our funding for RAM, and that is not going to last, and that is going to correct. And when that does, in the next three to four years, we are going to see some pretty big increases in the funding to RAM. I've been trying to get from them exactly when we're going to see those increases to get a better feel for it. But, you know, three years down the road, we're going to see definitely a bigger bill to RAM than we're seeing now. So we're not going to continue to be able to see decreases.
But that also goes into us as a board trying to increase our revenue sources. So, I mean, you know, look at what occurred. We got the grant funding for the bridges, and we now got to fund our culverts for something that we would have had to pay for the bridges and fund the culverts in greater amounts. So we just have to do a better job of looking for grant money for other things. It goes into our roads. We could get a significant grant. I mean, if we'd gotten the grant that we applied for for the roads, we would have been able to offset some of the money that we would have had to put into to that. Now we can't count on it, but that's, that's what we, as a group have to
request happens is that we move and we try to get more grant funding to do some of the projects that are a for the community. Because listen, I mean, I've always I've always believed we've got, you know, mean, if we listen to Eric and we believe him, which I do, we got an excess of $25,000,000 in overall expenses that are going to come from culverts, bridges, and roads. I mean, if we wanted to do it all right, I mean, as a little town, we can't just fund the $25,000,000 out of taxation. We'd have to do a lot of different things if we chose to get it all done, which is really hard within a town like ours because there's no additional funding source other than household taxation. So property taxes on our houses, that's it.
Right.
We do not have a lot of commercial brand lift. That is for sure. But although everybody complains about the Dollar General, you know, it's nice to have that extra $40,000 a year or so from them. Actually, 40,000. Pretty
good. We need to work on getting more development along the main Road there. I mean, some small businesses.
Well, actually, Eric, that's a good thing. Can the next time, can you have the assessor's office or the tax collector give us a list of the top 10 commercial, taxpayers so that we can understand exactly how it's calculated? Because I was I would wonder what's the difference between the Dollar General and its $40,000 and the Extramart or the mobile or whatever it's called now. Like, what's the difference between Nope. That facility and the other facility? What they pay them.
I asked about the, Dollar General, but I never asked them about the gas station. Like to know what they pay. It's usually building an inventory. It's
building an inventory and they're supposed to pay some money on, you know, and we should actually ask the assessor as to how it's calculated out because there is an additional, component to a business facility like the Extremar. I I'd like to see what the numbers are because then we can ask we can then go back and ask other questions. Like, are we Do you wanna see real estate or do you wanna see personal property?
Both. We could have one line for real estate and one line for personal property. That would be great. Well, I got two different spreadsheets. Which do you wanna look at? Put them both up, put one up and then we'll put the other up. All right. Think it's still still Scott Electrocrafts. I think they're still number one.
Where do all your people go? Sorry, I got to figure out where to get back to the zoom meeting. Okay. That is the real estate, the top 10 for the real estate. Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Perfect.
Alright. K. So what's this what's the first one? Saman Properties? Is that Scout electrocrap?
No. They're 84 Route 6, but they're probably paying more on, equipment than they are real estate. They have a lot of high-tech, machines and equipment in there. Perfect. Where'd that go, Eric?
Put, Eric Eric, I'm ask you to do it for our next meeting. Can you do that again and sit there and put the total taxes paid? Because whenever you put the assessment, no one understands what the total taxes are. If you compare the total taxes for the and I was was thinking it would be just the commercial properties, but it's really kind of sad to say that some people, personal property tax owners are in the top 10. Yeah, it's kind of sad.
That is correct. On personal property, you know, the the big two are CLMP and the gas transmission plant. Third is Scott Electrographs. Those
are the biggest things on the grant list. But but what bothered me there is we don't understand what the properties are on the list that you had put up for us. So you have to you know, you're giving us the the taxpayer's name, And so we don't know what that translates to as far as properties go. So if you could translate that to where the properties are, like what is the Shell gas station pain and what is the Extramarc pain and what is the general pain, it would help us all understand. But I would like that list and maybe expand that list. Let's get outside of the top 10 and get to the top 20 so we can all look at it as totals, and the total amount of taxes paid by each one of those taxpayers. And then the personal property taxes would also help us because that's a secondary source for the commercial properties that we need to look at.
Right. Okay. So you want the top 10 or the top 20?
The top 20 from my end, 20 real estate and and understanding where they're located. So addresses would be helpful. And for reference so that we know what the extramart is. Because that's really what I was after. And then, if we could sit there and do the personal property tax totals, it would at least get us to an understanding of who's paying what. And we can also sit there and see if we feel as if we're missing some of the entities.
At least for personal property, there's your top 10. So you can see where they fit in relative to each other.
Well, that's just an assessment. I I'd like to know the taxes paid
or collected from any all of these entities. Right. Sure. Yeah. Like I said, I can get that. I just yeah. I haven't asked for that before, so I haven't provided it. Okay. Well, we gotta start looking at different things,
so that we're all we're all aware of where the money is coming from and who's paying it. And if there's issues and we can we see the details. And in a meeting like this, we have, five smart people. We can all sit there and say, okay. This makes sense. This doesn't make sense.
Fair enough. One good note. I sent everybody on the board the proposed audit and audit findings from the auditor. The from the town's perspective, there were no material weaknesses or audit findings that the town can address. All of them were either by the school or for the school refusing to share financial information with the town. Therefore, the town couldn't actually do its job. So from the town's perspective, this is our first on the town side clean audit, certainly since I've been here. So that's encouraging. Mike did give us a list of things we need to work on, but nothing, you know, nothing, you know, really significant. So I would really like to thank Cheryl for getting us to a place where, you know, we're we're in reasonably good shape.
K. And we, as a board, have to work with our other boards to make sure that we fix all the rest of those items. So Right. Sit there and get to it. Is there anything else that anyone wants to do in our meeting tonight? Okay. Then let's move on to our last item. Item four, adjournment. There's no public speak on the agenda.
Oh, there is none, but we're gonna let Joanne Ebert speak.
Thank you, Paula. Joanne? Hey, thank you. No, I didn't know if there was any public speak. I just appreciate listening to all of you. I know you put a great effort into it. I had put the one thing that I was thinking of in the chat just that with such an undertaking with the you know community center getting built and how big that's going to be for our community which is so small I was in favor of a full time person just to get things set off the ground in a good way. Hopefully, do some of that work that Jeff's talking about with programs and recruiting and just kind of outreach to some things that we're bringing in for the seniors. And, you know, that was my 2¢ there. So thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, Joanne. Now we'll move on to item four, adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Second that.
Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you very much, everybody. I'm sorry. Last