Meeting transcript
Board of Finance- Budget Meeting
March 18, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Mode. Alright. Hello, everybody. It's '7 zero two, 03/18/2026. So we're gonna have our war of finance special work budget workshop meeting, and we will go ahead and start with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, our god, indivisible, Liberian peace. For all. Justice for all.
Hopefully, I will see whenever Nick gets logged in. I'll let him in, but the rest of the board is here.
Hey, Rob. Can I make one comment about that, about Nick not being here? I had trouble a couple weeks ago getting in and the meeting ended up starting without me. And what I've found is that if you go on to the community calendar, that has different directions to get in versus what is in our packet.
I think I might know why that is this week. I can't explain it last week. Kate had weeks ago, was different. Yeah. Kate had emailed me that she was changing the meeting a little bit. Apparently, Jeff McGuire had talked to her about that the meeting shouldn't have a chat function, that it was inappropriate, and she agreed with that and was changing it. And it's possible that in her changing that, it changed the login info. Maybe she had to create a new one, but it didn't get updated on the town website. But that's a good point, and I hope nobody got tripped up by that.
Yeah. So it is still different because I just went through this. I helped mister Roy and Emily get on because they were having trouble as well. And, anyway Side, maybe he's having concerning because,
you know, I I would think if we had an updated thing that it would be available to the public because then we may be missing
participation. A lot of people there'd be a lot of people that would wanna be on here and can't
May maybe there's always Maybe that's why Nick's not on.
Yeah. That's why I'm saying I'll text him again, to see what his situation is.
Yep. This is this is Elaine. I just clicked right on the calendar. I always use the calendar.
I don't go through the calendar work. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. There are two different entries, so that might be oh, there's Nick. We're okay. Well, at least for him. Let's see what he says. Hey, Nick. Did you have any trouble getting in? I,
well, admittedly, I opened last week's meeting first. So that could have been part of the trouble. So I'm probably a bad one if you're gauging if other other folks are having trouble. Yeah. Because we were just talking about how there's some conflicting login info on
the town website. There are two different places you can sometimes find our meeting information on the town website. Like, you can go to the calendar, but then there's this like, you can go to the board of finance specifically. And I've I in the past, sometimes we have things posted where it's in one spot, but not the other, and people get confused. So, hopefully, not too many people got tripped up with that tonight. I don't know that I have any capacity to fix any of that if that's the case. The calendar
gave me the right meeting and password. I Okay. Go to the calendar link. If anyone's struggling, you click on the calendar link. It has the right meeting and password on the town calendar on the website. Okay.
Well, I think you know, we'll try and tighten that up. But for now, it seems like things are working reasonably well. So I wanna move on with our meeting. We're already at 07:06. So first things first, public speaker. I'm gonna go around. So the first one I see here is, Alroy Emily Timuruk.
They're here with me. You're muted, guys. So Alright. Can you hear us? Yes. Now we can. Excellent. Okay. What we're doing is we're just trying to affirm that the budget request made from our meeting on 09/15/2025 was, adopted and put into place. And I had heard unofficially that there was some confusion as to what the budget request represented and why it was necessary, etcetera. So I'm here to answer questions regarding it. But, basically, we asked what we considered a bare bones, nineteen o five, one thousand nine hundred and five dollar budget coming up for twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven. And we are asking primarily, probably the one of the biggest items is the board clerk who has preset payments was 07/25. And the reason that was is we know it's a revalue year for 2027. And we're expecting that because, for instance, the Lake District has always been considered an outlier for tax purposes. In other words, we're at the high end of everything if you're looking at a bell curve, and a lot of those people are not gonna be happy with their reval. We're just we know this from experience in the past, and so we're expecting a lot of people to question where their numbers are. And so we had to set meeting dates, and the initial meeting dates we had were significant. So moving on from that, we also knew that we needed training. Every year laws change and we have to be brought up to date. As a board, we attend a Columbia session of local towns that train the BA members on new laws and how it impacts our town and ourselves and that costs money. Additionally, Emily Timrick has been attending University of Connecticut's
program on assessments. And the assessment cost is all she asked for coverage on so she could go and enlighten herself on how everything works for the board. And it is a situation of she gives all her time, her materials, her research, her work. That does that's at no cost. All she was asking for is get me into the class. So that was all of that came to $800 for training. And then the last item was $380 for motor vehicle lookup. So there's a new system in place, and there's a way to look up if someone's disgruntled about their numbers and wanna review what happened. The only way we can do that is to use a passcode and get into the system. And and we've had discussions by email, with with mister Szaponis regarding it, and we asked for the passcode, but he did not wanna give it to us. So, basically, it came down to, well, if if he's not gonna give it to us and we do need it, the the cost for that is an additional $380 to get a BAA passcode
use. It's $38 up for one lookup, so we put 10 lookups in,
because people have come in front of us for that. I can just say that the the budget spreadsheet that Lisa sets around today has $19.00 5 in it Yep. For BAA. That's correct. She added a line with the three eighty, and that was definitely something that we I think, well, we when we get to that, we'll discuss. So thank you for the the explanation. I'm sorry. I don't wanna cut you off. You have more to say, go ahead. But, it is in there right now.
Do you have any questions? Any questions to anybody as to what the each item is and why we need it?
The reason there was a question was because one of the lines is nonexistent. And I think, Rob, that the board of finance has to approve adding a line because there is no line for the RV.
Have to create one one five dash something or other Yeah. So for that three eighty. That's right. That's on that's sort of on the list of things, and you had put that you had put a note on that, a memo on that. Yeah. And the only other I mean, the the clerk salary and the training, are both increases, and we can talk about that in in our board discussion, but I think you've given us the gist of why. Okay. So does any since we're here, I mean, it's it's it's public comment, so I wanna move on from that. But if bore if you're willing to stick around a bit when we get to more discussion,
people can ask questions and have you here as a resource if that's okay with everybody. That's okay with us. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Mute us. Mute us. Yeah. Go ahead and mute. Yep. Okay. So let's see. Elaine. Elaine Buchhart.
Hi. Yeah. I've been I've been away for a couple of weeks, so I I must admit I have not looked at anything or seen any meetings or minutes, or even the budget. But as chairman of the EDC, and we're just finishing up the POCD and had our public workshop hearing last night for the POCD. I just wanna make sure that there's ample money in the budget for a town planner, that that hasn't been cut or tampered with at all. I know the request was there for a town planner because we can't move forward with anything and anything on the POCD without a planner
and a planner who will help with economic development. So I mean, you guys have the budget, so you can look to see to make sure that there is money from the planner. Under the building department,
town planner wages, is that or is that that's a different is that a different one? Or because I'm just No. That would be that would be for a planner, a town planner. Okay, that's in there. Okay, good. Because we haven't had a planner for years and have suffered greatly for it. Mean, that's interesting because, I mean, it looks like we're spending money on it.
Well, because right now, that planner is John Gaskowski and he has been working on the POCD. The POCD is done. So I just wanna make sure that moving forward, we still have a town planner to work on other than the POCD.
Well, I mean, I'm seeing reflected on the spreadsheet that Lisa sent me that there's there's a line item for that, and it's been increased. So,
you know, we'll get to it, but it's there. Yeah. Yeah. Just putting my I my 2¢. It's like making sure. Okay. Here we go. Crisis. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. Okay.
So there's a phone number here. I don't know your name. Sorry. 742-5475.
Hi. This is Leanne Hutchinson. I'm here to listen. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Very good. Joanne.
Hi there. I'm just here to listen to I just had two quick points. Hoping that you all have the info that you were looking for. I'll be interested to hear your conversations tonight with those capital fund balances and stuff. So that would be helpful to hear that you have that. And then just kind of to to state the obvious, like when I looked or listened to all of you and you'll make your decisions, obviously, it's gonna be a tough year with the big increase, you know, the bottom line there. So if ever there was a year, I know I've been pulling for this every meeting I come to, to kind of reduce maybe a couple of the capital fund lines where you can, because this year there's so much turnover. Hopefully, they get a new town administrator in place. They get, you know, up to speed. There's, you know, the new treasurer who's doing great, as I keep saying, and then the new assistant assessor. There's just so many new people that just kind of the status quo will be a good thing for next year. So I think this could be a year where you trim some of those because I don't think there's gonna be any new projects. You know? Just my 2¢. Thank you.
Thanks, Joanna. Appreciate that. Let's see. Who am I missing? Well, okay. Leanne Hutchinson. I thought wait. Didn't we just have I missed anyone? Going through the participants here.
Is Lou do Leanne on wait a minute. Is Leanne on the phone and on
Yeah. I mean, I'm seeing that's what I thought. I'm a little confused because it looks like there's a phone number, and then there's
a person. Yes. You did call on me. Sometimes this happens. It's happened at other meetings where my name and my phone number appear separately.
That's weird. Okay. I just don't wanna miss anybody. So I don't I think that's it. I appreciate it. Thanks. I think we're good to kinda move on. I I hope everybody's had a chance to at least glance at what Lisa's has sent us in the last couple days. We've gotten a lot of lot of things. We've gotten the preliminary audit info from last year's budget. We've got new updated budget spreadsheets, both the, you know, town budget spreadsheet and then the calculation of, taxes and mill rate and such. One of the big changes in there not big changes. It's a small change, but it's still a change. One of the things that's developed over the last couple days is RAM In reaction to the increase of health care costs, they upped the levy request. So our budget has worsened a little bit because of that 6% extra. We are you know, they were, to recap for anybody who doesn't know this,
the schools, the town, they're all in a consortium, for health care, premium, and it was projected to 15%. And, unfortunately, at the last meeting, it came out that it's now 21%. So both the school all the schools, everybody you know, not just our school, all of Hebron schools, all of, you know, there's a ton of people in this consortium. It went up another 6%. You know? Basically, if you think about it, their their increase goes up another third. So, Ram, I guess, their superintendent sent around a new levy sheet. Collins sent it around, and and it does increase their levy request. We had been at plus $1.20, I think, and $10, and it's now $1.26 $9.22. So it's not a massive increase, but it is an increase. So that's already kinda put us backwards a little bit from where we were last meeting. Is is
Go ahead. Question. Is there levy their new levy request in this updated workbook that we have Yeah. At least you got it. Right now. I'm sure it's 4,000,004 million $2.04 $5.04. I wanna make sure I have the right one. Yeah. I wrote it down. 400000262454.
Okay. Thanks. So we're good there. It's in there. It it it at the end of the day, I think it it increases it, the budget, by point 1%. The the taxation number on on the tax spreadsheet. I mean, if you think about it, look. Every $100,000 is 1%. Right? Because we had a $10,000,000 taxation last year, just a hair over. So, you know, if you get $10,000, well, that's point one. So it wasn't quite 10,000. Actually, it's it's it's not quite that. It's it's more like 7,000, but there you have it. So that's one big change. Lisa also tried to get us some more information regarding our capital at my request. I've been asking about the capital funds. And, Lisa, thank you so much for the work you've been doing. I know it's been hard. We have a chart that Lisa provided. It's PDF document that you could kinda put, I guess, together with the audit info.
Like, I think that's the intent here? Yeah. There's a the first column yeah. The first column is what the audit gave us for 2425. And then Right. What what you voted on for budget last year is the next column. And then outlays that were spent, and there if you go two columns over it says description of outlays the amount that that in that column that says outlays is explained in description so you know what that outlay was for And then I I balanced that with the current QuickBooks balance in the special funds and everything and tried to match it. There are some that are off and I'm still gonna have to research, but that final shaded column to the far right gives you a much better idea as to where you are at with capital right now. I did not get to Bunker Hill, but I really wouldn't count on that because there's just been so much activity out of it.
No. I understand that. And also, would say, I think we all know there's another I always forget the name of it. There's another bridge project that is essentially the same type of project as Bunker Hill that we're transitioning to. So, you know, as much as I'd like to say, oh my goodness. We have hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bunker Hill. I know we have that project going, and I'm reluctant to miss that tonight. Same with bridging too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, bridging culvert is one of those things where we're saving and saving and saving, like, as much as we can. Yep. Because we know that fund, if if my understanding is correct, the idea behind that fund is to fund projects that aren't gonna be a 100% reimbursable like the way that Bunker Hill ultimately was. So we have projects coming down the pike where we might have to pay 50% of them. And if it's a million dollar project, that eats the whole fund. So that's one of those things. To the board, I guess, I want there are a couple things I want I had on my kind of my agenda tonight, if you will. I think we should try to quickly go through the town budget again, not as maybe we went through it in detail once,
and we had much more preliminary numbers. Then the new spreadsheet, obviously, incorporates the changes that the board of select would have made at their last meeting and updates like the RAM number and things like that. We can maybe go through that again, and then I do think we need to talk about capital. And that's that's those are the two things that I wanted to really press on tonight. We only have one more meeting, and the other thing I wanted to add on my list of things to talk about is depending on how far we get tonight about how much progress we make and how we're feeling about things. Think at the end, we might wanna consider the possibility. Just consider the possibility of trying to cram in one more meeting. You know? Because I I don't know the rest of you, but I feel like we're awfully close now to that April 1 date where we're gonna go before the town and present a budget. Well, sorry. Budget hearing. But still, yeah, that's when we're supposed to have our ducks in a row. And we have two meeting. We have tonight and next week.
So Do think it's appropriate to try and get that meeting together with the Board of Selectmen? Because it seems like I'd love to. Kind of in the process. Right? Yeah. Because they were kind of in the process of working on this, but they didn't really have a full document to work on either. So it might be better, like, to add them to at least part of the meeting, whatever. At least invite as many of them that could come.
Right. For sure. And I I was thinking about Tuesday of next week, but let's let's let's just kick that around. Everybody think about it and
tell what you think. But, yes, I do think that's a good idea. Mhmm. Can I just mention I I mean, I didn't know before, but there are two items that I haven't had a chance to talk to Jeff, but there are two items that I would like to talk about for the treasurer's office? Two important items when you get there if you want you don't have to do it now but okay well
well also do we maybe want to let Alan and Emily finish their presentation and then then they can stay or go if depending on what they wanna do since they Here's what I think we should do is maybe I'll share my screen. We'll go to their the assessment appeals,
portion of the budget and let the board ask whatever questions they may have. Because the budget right now that's there pending a motion on our part to create that extra line item reflects what they're asking for as I understand it. 19 o five. So do we wanna do that, guys? Does that make sense? We'll go I'll share my screen, and we'll do that. Alright. Let me see. Web back on?
Hold on one moment. I am such a smart person. There we go. Share screen. Share. Ay yai yai. Why is this so small? Alright. Hang on a minute. Hey. They're cute. Cute. See this? Yes. Alright. Let me get down to their portion. This is where it's down here. Recycling. There it is. Board of Social Appeals. Right? Yep. Yep. So here we are. These these are what we have to talk about. And as you can see, Lisa has put in this $380 figure that they explained earlier in public comment, is for that DMV lookup. And the rest is about, you know, additional training costs and a little bit of a bump in the salary, for the clerk. So do any members of the board have questions since we have our folks on here who can answer them?
Do you know what your ex do you have any expectations next year, Alan and Emily? I you know, you say we're up for a reval. Do you have any idea what that's gonna look like for the taxpayers? Because we're looking right now at this total budget and how the mill rate is gonna work based on this year's numbers. We also have, I'm thinking, need to be cognizant of the fact that a reval could look very different after that than what we're looking at right now. Is that right? So the expectation here
is having talked to a couple of realtors recently, people are putting houses up for three eighty, and they're getting four fifty. So the number different people are overbidding, and they think that that's gonna kinda, like, get the tax base moving higher. More importantly, in the Lake District because this is high end property even though we don't think that way. But so we think that the numbers are really gonna jump high, and that's gonna drive people to get a question out of us, you know, say, hey, why did you do this? You know, not that we did it, but we get to review it. And, we're very stringent in following the law. We have to we can only accept a certain formula. Right? You gotta be Connecticut certified independent appraisal service that's local to the area, and and it has to have comparable comps in the area. And if people hit all those bases in a presentation and can prove that it's less than what Mr. Chiponis has done, you know, we have to take a hard look at it, you know? So I think the the initial base is gonna jump huge, but how many people are gonna question it? Maybe huge. That's what we're expecting. But I think you're gonna see a a a big jump.
I have a question now. It's Louise Goodwin. If a person puts the house on the market, let's say 500,000, and it actually goes for like 700,000. Are the taxes based this might be a start. Are the taxes based on 500,000?
Because that's what it's Yeah. You know? It's what the the it's based on what the the assessor says it is. Right? Okay. So I'll give you for an example. My brother lived two houses over from me, and he had 600,000 into the house and he asked, he was selling it. He asked for eight. But a woman's daughter lives on the lake and this, they were extremely, extremely wealthy. They paid my brother 985,000, which was crazy money higher. Right? That doesn't mean that their taxes will be on that $9.85. That was an emotional purchase. Right? Right. Right. So it's it's the same with other properties.
It's So it doesn't it doesn't matter what you actually end up selling the house for. It's whatever the it's valued at. And it's going to be valued higher. And it's 70% of that that we tax Right. Right. It's going to be higher now because because all these inflated prices. The market
is just jumping with crazy numbers right now. Right. And if you look at the sales in the area, they're astronomical. The a lot of a lot of houses are double what the assessments were five years ago.
Yeah. Wow. So what you'd see then, if that comes to fruition, obviously, and you had a flat budget, what would you would see is this mill rate decline, which doesn't really mean you know, it's not a tax cut. It's just right? Right. But it can it it'll affect different people differently. My house built no one. I've had been here since o seven. It's aging. You know? My house assessment might go up, but not to the level of a house that's just been, you know, newly constructed or whatever. So it's a little there's a lot of moving parts. Right? Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts. And And it is up to the assessor to assess the part. Exactly.
Right. All we do is we Do it every five? Fair.
It's done every five years, but the assessor moved the,
revalt one year one year out. He was overloaded. Yeah. That's why I was looking back, and I thought we did it in 2021. Isn't this a revalue? Thank you.
That explains it. Because he moved it a year. I think Right. He works in Colchester too. Colchester's is 2026. Right.
No. I'm sure that's a much bigger job. It's a much bigger town. He he didn't wanna do two towns in three valleys. Yeah. Okay. Well, alright, guys, from the What's Oh, go ahead, Louise. Yeah.
I read somewhere that if the reval was delayed for a year or something like that, that they can I'm not sure where I read this, but they can actually use the current amount that we're paying now as the new reval for the next one if they don't end up doing the reval. Is that something you've heard of before? I have. Yes. Is
that something that can be applied to Andover by using the old? Well,
to the assessor. Right. I was gonna say, the assessor's gonna try to hit every house, right? And make an appropriate adjustment. Right. However,
will he be able to do them all in time? We don't know. So maybe he hits certain areas more than others. I I don't know. I I don't know what his criteria is and
you know? You know what? Do you know what it needs to be done by?
The when it's done by? What do you mean? Yes. In 2027. When does the reval start and when should it be completed? It starts October 1, and it is for the grand list for January of the twenty eighth. Okay. Has to be done. Okay.
So you get three months, one of which is full with holidays. And that's you know?
So he he uses the sales for the prior year to do the, assessments.
And the sales are are high right now. They're crazy high. In town in a little town like Andover too, I mean, comps can be difficult. I remember a time many years ago where I I had to have my house appraised because I was refi ing or something. And I got wildly different numbers from two appraisers. It was very bizarre, because they were at the time, there wasn't a lot of activity, wasn't a lot of purchase and sale going on. So they did finding a comp was ridicule it was really very hard. Now at least if there's a lot going on in town, maybe you have a little bit easier time with comps.
And some of the issues that present themselves to us anyway is people think, oh, my brother-in-law is a realtor and he can do an appraisal. He knows what it's worth. Yeah, exactly. We hear this all the time, you know, or I just refinanced my house and my bank gave me an appraisal. And we go, that's not an independent appraisal. That's a bank appraisal. That's right. So, we try to educate as much as we can, the public to understand the definitive evidence at our hearing, at our board hearing for your review, right? We know what we can look at and what we can't look at. In real estate appraisals, bank appraisals, any of that, we cannot look at. People have to know that. Gotta be independent.
So, I mean, for my board, again, if there's further questions, cool. If not, I I think our core thing that we need to deal with here is that line item issue. Personally, you tell me you need $380 for this DMV lookup thing. I'm inclined to to support a motion to to add that line in. You know, I don't want you
because prior prior to the new law change, we had books that we could use. Kelley Blue Books and the like. Well, yeah, J. D. Power and NADA books that we could look things up. But now this Yeah. Now they use J. D. Power, and it's an online online system. And it's a state set. Right.
And and we asked the assessor for the password, and he wouldn't give it to us. I mean, if he would give it to us, you wouldn't have to spend the money. Right.
Right. And we're not talking a lot of money. I make a motion that we add the line.
And we're only we're freeing 10 cars. Right? Lisa, can I ask you a question while we're talking about this line? Do
you decide what the new number for the line is? Or I'm sorry. I have to go in it's different difficult in QuickBooks because there's the columns that you see. I used to deal with, like, I think, nine numbers. But if there's already those nine three last of those nine numbers are used, you have to search and find something. Even though it doesn't have the same first two numbers, you have to make sure that third number isn't used. So I'm gonna have to figure out what the format is with you guys. I'll have to search for a number. Should we make just the motion generically then? To be determined?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Liz, is that your motion? Add a line under one fifteen dash to be determined?
Yeah. Yes. Whatever yeah. Two fifth yeah. Whatever is needed to add that $380.
Can you name that line without having the number? Like, just name it?
It says DMD lookup access right now. I'm Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Do you guys think that's okay? I think it's fine. Yep. That looks good to me. I'll second that.
Okay. Luis seconds. Very good. Any further discussion on that? Alright. Call for a vote then. Everybody, all in favor? Aye. Let's go around. This Kate's been yelling at me. Liz is a yes. Bill's a yes. Nick, you're a yes. Yep. Ken, you're a yes? Yes. Heather, you're a yes. I am also a yes. That's unanimous motion passed. Wait a minute. Louise? Louise, sorry. Louise is fine. Louise is the second.
Yeah. Louise, you're you're a yes as well. Yes. I'm a yes. Okay. Very good. Sorry about that. You're sharing my screen. I have a very, it's a little anyway, excuses. So I'm gonna I'm gonna stop sharing for a second because, oh my god, that was really hard to see all you guys while I was doing that. So I think, hopefully, board of assessment appeals, hopefully, that sorts you out for now. Yep. We're good. Okay. We're good then. I appreciate you joining us. If you wanna hang around, fine. If you wanna bop off now, I think we're good. Bop off. Thanks for the education.
Thank you for the info. Thank you. That was appreciated. Bye. Appreciate it. Okay. So let's check off. Right. Where were we? Okay. So this is a yes. Sorry. I've got my own little spreadsheet that I'm doing. Okay. So how do people feel about going back? Again, and I can share my screen again. We can go through it line by line, but specifically trying to focus on the the changes that have been made by, you know, at the last board of select meeting because there were several that were made. Do do people think that's a anybody got an objection to that approach going through there? I mean, we
go ahead, Heather. I was just gonna say that sounds good. Okay. Bill? Well, I was gonna say we we have to go through line by line one more time, don't we? I mean, anyways. Yeah. What Yeah. I I'm I'm talking about emphasis, but, I would I would go line by line and say if anybody's got anything to bring up, now is the time. And Agreed.
Get through as many of those lines as possible tonight, and then I guess add us another meeting like you had suggested, it's probably gonna be necessary.
I I expect it maybe. Yeah. And it may be valuable if we can get with some of the board selectmen. Yeah. But let's see how far we get, I guess. You know? But I I I I that's why I brought it up is I think we probably do need that extra meeting. So
Are you to share your screen again, Rob? Yeah. I'm gonna do that. Give me a sec. It helps me because I'm out of my house, and I can only see one screen tonight.
Fair enough. Alright. Hang on a second. Let me close let me see if I can son of a gun. Thank you. Can people see that? Yes. Okay. So I started at the expenditures for the town. This is obviously up here as revenue and stuff. I was gonna say, let's go through the expenditures. So we start we would start here and go down and get through as much as this as we can. The changes the things that are in pink, I believe, are the changes or the choices that were made at the last select meeting? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So for instance, this here is an example. They consolidated these lines. Right? Or not consolidate. Sorry. They increased this line. They left this line. My bad.
Yeah. The administrative assistant Yeah. Went like a regular salary instead of a stipend. Right. And they wanted to leave in the project manager because they were thinking this spring, might need a project manager.
Well, the road Well, I remember that's something that for years Eric had talked about needing.
Well, I think it's because of the bridge project, isn't it, Lisa?
They didn't really say, but I think so. Yes. Because there's so much going on with those. Oops. Sorry. Yeah. They got the Long Hill Road. Yeah. There's something. Yeah. Yep.
So obviously the big jump is here. So can you explain that better? I don't quite understand why the big jump. What is it?
Because one of the selectmen felt that it should be a full time position because I believe right now Kate is just getting, a stipend, and it's a very small number of hours that she can dedicate to it in the current budget. So this would add a person to be there thirty hours twenty hours twenty hours twenty hours yeah I think twenty hours is what they wanted so that somebody can be here because right now the tax collector shares the position and like the during slow times the tax collector isn't here a day a week and during busy times it's hard for her to answer what needs to be done for the town administrator so it's like she's playing two roles so I don't know how a new town administrator would feel about that but what do you mean how like I would think they would welcome that right right yes that's what I'm thinking yes because they're not going to know that they're going to have to figure out the town together and know town administrator goes to meetings and plans grants and things like that. It's like for where I was in as a first electman there's meetings all the time so if there's nobody there at the office.
I feel like Eric combined that, right? Didn't Eric, in which they didn't really need an admin assistant at one point and he moved her? Do you guys remember what he did there?
Well, is no office for her. She just has a desk in the tax collector's room office. So some of the times when she's slow on taxes, she'll do some administrator stuff. But when it's tax season for four different times, it's hard for her to go back to that desk when she's collecting taxes. I I I mean, I'm just saying how it is now. I'm not saying it's not my preference or anything like that. I'm just saying I think what was discussed. Yeah.
Lisa, just a good question. Is it twenty hours or is it nineteen? Like isn't there a threshold for benefits? Nineteen hours. Yeah.
It's yeah. Nineteen is part time and twenty is full time, I believe. Yep. And they went with
20. Think with so. 20. Oh, so there'll be benefits. Okay. As well, if you took not 30,000 for, I'm just trying to see what that would be an hour. Okay.
Because I was because if you had getting I was getting some information about their meeting suggesting it might have been 19 that they chose for specifically because of the benefits issue. So we may wanna tighten that up. Be it as it may. I mean, obviously, this line is just a salary. But, I mean, conceptually, I am fine with that conceptually. I'm just wondering if we as a board are trying to find cuts. Well, if we cut this, then, obviously, it interferes with the board of selectman's vision for what this position would be. I would be reluctant to go there, but it is it's $25,000 increase roughly. Other thoughts from the board? What what do you guys think about this?
I I'm supportive of them hiring somebody even if it's for nineteen hours. Mhmm. Because I just know that there's only so much Kate can do, and I think there's a lot of things that she can't get to. I notice a lot of problems with calendaring back and forth between the senior center and the town. And with the hours that she has to be able to stay on top of that stuff, it's just impossible. So I think it's a good thing that they're adding somebody. The question would be, do we say, yeah, we fully support this, but maybe keep it at nineteen? The other question is, Lynn, do you think will we get an added tab at the bottom so that we can see the
line level data for the taxes and the insurance and all that stuff?
I have not been able to do that, Liz. I just, I can't get there. It took me three days to do that capital sheet and I'm only supposed to be here six hours. Maybe I can get to it but I just I still am trying to do two other things that must that are priorities. All right I know you guys had it last year but I didn't get that until we're already in the process.
Okay. So Yeah. Know. Process. I get it. Just just to be clear, I mean, I I now am kicking myself because last what was it? A few days ago, Lisa. I Yeah. I I went over the weekend. I think I went back through all my old emails, and I I fished out one of our older budget spread from a past year, and I sent it to her. And I it honestly, Lisa, I'm sorry. It did not dawn on me that you had not seen that before.
That's alright. I I just and I I wouldn't mind doing it. I I'm a little flabbergasted,
honestly, that you hadn't been provided that already. I I I but I could have provided you that too soon. Say I got something like that, but it wasn't it didn't have, like, your Murph in there, like those tabs that you have in that one was Yeah. That one had, like, all of those extra tabs. I think that's what Lisa don't know what you know? Yeah. I don't think I saw that before. Yeah.
I I had a question. Partially on me, I I should've I I could've done that earlier. I wish I had. Sorry. Sorry. Go on. Oh. Hello?
Heather I think Heather was I just had a question. Just No.
If Kate Kaye is normally gets a stipend, so is that still included somewhere in here? This is somebody else? This would be a new position, I think, is what I'm saying. Kate stipend in here also somewhere? Yes.
It was $51.50, I believe, last year. So this would just this 30,000 would be over that. So that would be included in that. I am looking at my notes from that meeting and it from what I wrote down, I have question mark. Twenty hours times 25 an hour equals 26,000. So, so if I'm doing that right, times
So that would dead trigger benefits. So somewhere in the benefits line, we should expect to see a small change. Right?
Oh. If I'm understanding correctly. But if this is wait a second. Let's see.
Yeah. But if the $51.50 is in there, then they're only
they're getting paid the $24.08 50? The No. They're taking they're zeroing out this Right. Adding this to get to that.
Right. Right. So the the Stipend would go away. The stipend goes away.
Yeah. So that'd be 26,000 at for twenty hours at $25 an hour would be 26,000. So I think they put in 30 I don't know. Maybe that's they I don't know if they couldn't get anybody at twenty five or if they wanted to change the hours, and maybe they were thinking some benefits in that. Cause it $25 an hour only comes to 26. So maybe they were thinking I don't know. 4 k for benefits, you think? Maybe. I don't I don't I honestly can't remember. I wrote these notes down, but
Okay. That figure so this $30,000 figure, would that include the benefit figure or is that that would be on a separate line? It be a separate line item, I think. Right? Yeah. It would be an employee benefits,
I like would you say, you wanna talk to the selectman. I would just check and see what because, like I said, that calculation they were talking comes to 26. So I don't know if they just rounded it to 30 because they didn't know how many hours the person would have or what the salary would be, but that's kind of a close calculation to what they might be able to get.
So can we maybe suggest to them that they keep this at nineteen hours? I mean, it's a new position. It would be somebody starting out new. If it turned out that they needed more hours and they wanted to grow the position, they could certainly add it.
That would tackle the whole benefit problem. If if I understand correctly, 25 an hour, if you do nineteen hours a week, fifty two weeks a year, that's twenty four seven hundred. Twenty four thousand seven hundred would be the number.
Okay. Lisa, you Is that I'm sorry. Did you say twenty hours or nineteen? Well, mean, 19.
19 times 25 times 52. 52. That's what I did. 247. Yep.
Yep. Twenty four seven hundred. So that would be the nineteen hour no benefits option, I guess. Mhmm. So they're obviously tacking on, and I think we either we can make a change or we can if, again, if we're gonna try to pull together a meeting with them, that would be something to highlight. Here. Let me do that. You know, and and talk about again. 19 let me put another god. My notes are getting a little crazy. Nineteen hours at twenty five hour, fifty two weeks equals $24,700. Great. So Okay. I think that's something to to continue talking about, but I don't know if I wanna make would you guys agree that maybe right at this moment, it's not the time to decide to cut it? Like, we could be able to I wanna talk to Selecton. I I I think so too. I that's where I would be at. Yeah. Yep. We cut this to, like, $25,000 and tell them,
we're I think it I think it's an option. Putting our I think we should cut it to 25,000,
like Liz said too. Mean, I totally supportive it from the standpoint that we're gonna have a new admin come in. They're gonna need this position. Right? With a brand new admin. Yeah.
$25,000 in that nineteen hours and and then see how that goes till next year. Yep.
So you guys wanna do that? Wait. Do you wanna do that? Are you proposing to do that now? Or Yes. Okay. Alright. And then we could still discuss it with them and Yeah. Ponder and change. Do we have to do this as a motion or just Yeah. Yeah. We would move someone would move to cut that line from 30,000 down to 25. Liz, is that your motion? Or
Sure. I'll make a motion to cut that line to $25,000 at nineteen hours a week. I'll second it.
K. Do we have further board discussion on that motion? Alright. Everybody, hang on a second. I'm gonna minimize this because I need to see you for the vote. Apologies. Alright. If there's no further discussion, we'll take a vote. Liz? Yes. K. Bill? Yes. Heather? Yes. Kim? Yes.
Nick? Yes. Louise? You're muted, but I saw you say yes. And I'm a yes. That's seven o. Motion passes unanimously. We'll move that. We will go ahead and drop this to 25,000 for now. Okay. And we will put I'm gonna leave this highlighted on my chart anyway. This is my own I saved this to my drive. I'm gonna we'll come back to this to the extent that we can get the select board and ourselves together next week. We should I do think we should talk it through with them. But cool. Alright. Moving onward. We already kinda talked about the project managers. Does anyone have any further discussion they wanna make here, any proposal here? I I think we probably need it.
I think we need it because of the number of projects that we have and the number of grants that we have that and Long Hill Bridge, it's think that's why he won that position. Long Hill, that's the one. Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with it. Anybody else got anything?
I agree with Yeah, my only comment about this is that I know Eric always seemed to budget $15,000 for that line and was very insistent on getting that $15,000 in that line, and he never ended up using it. So I was kind of curious about the discussion from the POCD. What does that mean the POCD is gone or what? I I didn't I didn't really understand what she said, what her point was. I knew nothing about that line of business, so I'm not against keeping it in. I'm just saying. We've never filled the position. That's right. Right. He never did. Right. And
Right. And, I mean, this is one of the reasons why you'll see in past audits, you know, will come in under budget. And because in the end, we don't get this done, and, you know, the budget's in there. So, I mean, like, I I was looking at our our last audit, the one that's about to be completed, the one that's still preliminary. And, you know, we we had a we have a surplus again. So this is part of the reason
why I'm perfectly fine. I I'd like to see us if if we fund this, I'd really like to see us actually hire somebody to do the work, though. Well, again, I think Eric ended up taking that all on himself. Right? But Yeah. He did. If we get a new admin, they're gonna be pretty much under the weather, so they might need that extra help. I don't know. Yeah.
So because they didn't it wasn't used last year, is that 15,000 still sitting there?
So we won't know that fully until the next audit, which is just, I think, gonna start up. We every audit that we complete, remember, is a year back. Right? So the audit that we're about to complete gets us to June 30. That one shows a town budget surplus. Some of which a small bit of what I which I wrote them down somewhere was AES, and then there was a bunch that was the town. So I expect what you you know, when I say this is part of the reason, I mean, it's more complicated than that because some things will be overexpanded and some things will be underexpanded, and they all net out into a certain way. I suspect that when we get our 2025,
2026 audit done, you will in fact see, as Lisa's shown here, that we didn't expend that line item. And therefore, depending on everything else in the budget, you know, yes, that would be a plus 15. Okay. You know? And, you know, a $15,000
under expend. At least Although, I think they were thinking of possibly
to to using it this spring when some projects are working on. I think. I think that's what they said. Okay. And if that happens, then you won't see that. Right? The audit will pick that up, and and in the end, it won't be. Right? Okay. Okay. Let's see. This stuff, I don't have any comment here. This kind of is what it is. It's either flat or zeroed out. Yeah. Which takes us to treasurer financial. You guys may be aware the board of selectman voted to increase the treasurer salary line. I have to expect I I haven't had a chance to go through that meeting, but I have to expect this is in recognition of the hours, that our new treasurer is putting in versus the hours that she was hired to put in, but your mileage may vary on that. But that's sort of my assumption. The question would be sorry. I shouldn't have minimized that. You know, originally, I believe the hour the the hours were supposed to be supposed to be six hours a week. Right? Twenty five hours a month.
Twenty five a month. Okay. So that's probably more precise.
That was what, at the interview was. I put in several 100 so far, and it's been two months.
Hey. I've talked to you on Sundays. I get it. Yes. I'm here now.
Sure thing. That's not my you know? I'm just trying to explain to the board in case there are questions. Like, this this $10,000 increase, which as you can see is a a big percentage from a a fairly small small base, but at the same time, for not a lot of hours. But the reality, I I was suspecting the idea here is that this number right now at least until some things are sorted out, this number is a fiction.
And I'll be I if I can say something, I'll be perfectly honest that if if I start going back to twenty five hours, I won't have an issue if you go back to thirty. I just, I can't keep doing this. I can't. Yeah, be a fool. I don't think any of you would do what I'm doing for this amount of money. Agreed. And the only other thing that I really want to say is think about your past financial department and what you've gone through and I just don't know if enough time is spent in it. It's just maybe because I'm only going to be here a couple of years. I have grandkids, but I would think that somebody, whoever is going to take this over is going be here more than twenty five hours. I mean, Jeff is probably like, you know, if he's listening to this, he's probably saying, Oh, stop. But I just
want you to think about what you've gone through in your financials. If you're going to want somebody in here with a bachelor's degree or something, I don't know, I just experience.
Yeah. Experience? Experience. Ten years print municipal experience. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I again, Lisa, and this is awkward because you're on the call, but I don't have a problem paying for talent and hard work, and I know you're putting that in. So I just wanted to highlight. It is one of the changes. It's $10,000, and I wanted to talk through that with the board. It's, you know, no no shade being thrown at all. Nope. And, again, I can vouch that, again, I have literally had phone conversations with you on Sunday. So, you know, I know you're putting in the work. I know that you were tossed into a difficult situation. So in the future, can we hope to change this? Maybe. But for now, for this year, for for the year starting July 1, really, but,
I don't know what we're gonna do about because we're still in the last budget, and we may have to do something there. But for this, I don't I personally don't have a problem with this. Does anyone on the board have questions or comments or concerns about this line item?
I support it. If you think about the amount of hours just getting through this season with a meeting a week, that blows away that six hours, right? Just being here right now every week.
And I think that's the hard part and why is because we don't have a town administrator. Next year you should have a town administrator. Right. You know? Eric always Eric always walks us through this. So Right. A a lot of this boils down to that. Yep.
We need that administrator. We don't have it. Yep. That's where we are. So I'm gonna make a motion to allow that 40,000.
I we don't need to I don't think we need a motion to allow that. A motion. Good. We can just accept it. Just leave it alone like it is. Just leave it alone. I think only if we're gonna make a change from what the board of selectman did, I think do we need a motion release. Okay.
If I'm wrong about that, somebody educate me, but I I think that's the way we've always done it. Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah. And then we have a tiny change here to assistant treasurer to stipend.
Is this is just a 3%. They just they kinda went through and did 3% raises as we expected them to. Well, they discussed it too. They discussed either keeping it or not keeping it, and they they kinda tabled it. So they left it like that but there was discussion around it so. Oh so it wasn't like it's not a 100 about it. Maybe put a note in there that
like double check with them. Yeah. Sure and and I'm here I'm trying to do this so I have Yep. Okay. So alright. QuickBooks updates. Now oh, boy. Here's a can of worms I don't necessarily wanna open, Lisa. But
That was what I needed to talk to you about. Our QuickBooks Our QuickBooks expires in the support for QuickBooks expires in May. And again, I go back to the finance history that you've experienced and I would hate for something to go wrong and we couldn't get supported and something didn't work or something. But it's a couple thousand dollars. Now what's left in here so far this year, I was thinking was some cyber coverage, but we might be able to cover that in town town office town office building where it says software and maintenance. Mhmm. But
then I saw that I think we pay them $12.50 a month. Is that what I saw in here? Ask Can this question? Just just here, your your expenditure line is zero. Is that a real number or have you not just gotten it? Yeah. No. I just checked. It is a real number, but I don't know why my laptop went in here, so I don't know where that was put. I would have to talk with Chris and see where that went because that was 1,400. So unless it went into computer tech support on the next line, but let me just look at that because if that's 12, I don't know how much we'll have by the end of the month in software.
Yeah. And I I just I raised it only because okay. So we we're projecting $3,000 for a QuickBook update. That's in May. Alright. And is that a yearly is that a twelve month contract? No.
No. It's not even a contract. It's just buy an update, and it lasts you several years. Oh, until there's Are you talking about I I you're talking about QuickBooks.
Correct? Yes. Yeah. It's just I'm looking at your memo line saying QuickBooks updates. Yeah. So this is this is just, okay, it depends on how many times QuickBooks themselves do an update, basically. Exactly.
And it's at 23 right now, and we're gonna be, you know, 27. So it's it's things are I don't know. If it's in May, that's in this budget, not next year's budget. Well,
I mean, if that's what we wanna use it for, let me just look at this IT line. He's I I'm only saying if you're gonna need the money in May, us putting $3,000
in the 2627 budget doesn't actually get that done. What we actually need to do is probably approve use of contingency for that.
Okay. That 15,000 is gonna be eaten up in Town Office Building because it's $12.50 a month, and we're Sorry. 4 if I forecast, it's gone. Wait. What number? In Town Office Building, there's 15,000. I was thinking we could use that, but it says computer tech support in Town Office Building 4 213.
4213. Sorry. I'm way that's way below where I was. Yeah. Talking software maintenance. This Computer tech support. This year? Yeah.
Oh, there's software. There is list. There is some software down there. Not much. But Yeah. Yeah. Software maintenance. There's so there's $7,500. How does that equate to Well, no. That's $469
a month. So you gotta you gotta this is only March. So was March paid yet? No. So you have March, April, May, June. You got four more months of $4.69. $4.06 9 times four.
On your number for expenditure is only through January 31. So
It's gonna take even even the software, You're only gonna have maybe a thousand left in there because that's $469 a month for software maintenance. And the thing to consider You have, 100. 1,300 left?
Where? The software maintenance? For a town or for treasurer? Right there, we're at that town.
They're office building software maintenance. Right now there's two thousand eight and ninety five left, but we still have four more months of $4.69 a month to pay, and that comes to $18.76. So you have to minus that out of the 28. So you really only have a thousand left. Thousand. Yeah. Yep. The problem is there's a lot of protection that we have to purchase for cyber and for, you know, fraud and everything else. There's CrowdStrike we use and then another one the other day. I'm gonna go back up, by the way, because we were No. Go back up. That's why we have to put all that software maintenance in there.
Okay. I mean, I don't again, I'm not trying to nickel and dime this. What I'm saying is when you're telling me there's an expense that's coming within this current fiscal year, you know, putting money into next year's budget doesn't really help you. Well Felicity is doing good. Expires in May. It would I'm assuming it would last till June, which is June 30. So Oh, you just wouldn't do the update till July 1? Okay. Right. I see what you're saying. Okay. Again, I I guess I I I apologize. I'm thinking along the lines of a contract, but that's not what this is. Okay. No. Yeah. Alright. Well, I don't I mean, I don't have a huge problem with that. I mean, we can talk about QuickBooks further once we get through this budget season, but
Yep. It's gotta get done. Yeah. I just wanted to bring it up. So
And it's not a huge budget request. You know, the fact that it's not been spent,
this is the I mean, maybe there will be as far as contract software. If we can fit,
I don't know, this this because here's the thing. If we budgeted last year 2829, and we haven't used any of it, it's gonna cost 3,000 to do. I don't know. I mean, shouldn't we be able to access I mean, this budget money is in there. Right? Yeah.
That 3,000 3,000 I'm asking for was to make sure we had QuickBooks updates. I'm not sure because I wasn't here for the 2829 last year. What was on that? I would think the entire town office building would take care of the extra cyber stuff, but I could be mistaken. I'm not sure. I'd have to check with, Steven or, zones that we that does all our work for us, the South Windsor. Is there a list somewhere of all the softwares,
all the all the He's working on an inventory list for us, but I I don't know if he's working on on the software list, but that's a good question.
I mean, because we should be able to say, this is all the stuff we have. These are all the programs they need, and this is how much each one costs. Boom. That's the number. I can check with them.
I know we are on QuickBooks now, and QuickBooks has its benefits. But did they what I know there's different versions of QuickBooks and different other accounting softwares. Did they do we ever do an analysis on if QuickBooks is the best solution or any of those? There's
extensive history to this. A few years ago, I believe the town switched briefly to a different system. One, I think the tech the schools still use it? Yes. I think so. I think you Or something like that. Edmunds. They use Edmunds. Yeah. Right. Yep. We backed off it and switched went back to QuickBooks for reasons I I can't opine on. It was certainly not my decision, and I don't have any expertise to bring to bear on this. But I know there are many other options, and I would trust our treasurer, especially if our treasurer decides to stay with us, to give us a a frank opinion as to what we should be using and how QuickBooks is or is not working for the finance department. If I remember right, at Preston Public Schools, I used
not Sunrise. It was Sun something, but, boy, that was expensive. That was, like, $10,000, and that was over ten years ago that I was there. Whereas QuickBooks is a couple thousand to update and QuickBooks is very user friendly. I can pull finance reports on that. I do not like it for payroll. That was something else I wanted to talk to you about because it's very easy manipulated, which is good and bad. But as far as doing the finances, when you've got a small town like this, this is what I've always used. I haven't really had a problem So with it's really the payroll side that you were trying to tell me about? Correct. Correct. There's a lot of liability with payroll, with taxes. It's nobody I don't think anybody, unless they've done payroll, understands the time it takes. We're we need to do background searches. This this I got a quote today,
and it's 6,000. We spend 2,000 on the clocks. We wouldn't need the clocks anymore, it would be online or in phones that you do the punch. I'm very used to it from where I was, and the reports are just you know there's so many reports and they're very easy to pull so I mean that that would be an addition of like 4,000 because you're already a little under 4,000. All right
well from the standpoint of oh wait a minute you know what it would be half that because the first six months is is no charge. First six months is free. Right. But then going What's forward the name of that? What's the name of that? That's ADP. That's a Oh, no. That's real. That's ADP. Yeah. ADP. Yep. Because it's 6,000, but we're spending 2,000 already for the clocks, and then it's it's it's half of that. It's only 3,000. So it's really only another thousand for this year. It's really only another thousand when you think about it.
Okay. So Well, I think we can talk about that if we get through the budget cycle. But Yep. Yeah. The standpoint of this question, the the contract software maintenance line for now in this budget, You tell me that that's needed. I accept that. Just do any of the other members of the board have further comments, questions, concerns concerning this line item? Should we move on? We should move.
Oh, Nick, what do you have? What do you have? My only thought was if we caught,
like, with Lisa here and everyone, if we wanted to, I think now would be the time to, like, explore anything different that we wanted to do.
Yeah. I mean, I guess the question is this, is we have to remember, this is the budget that starts 07/01/2026. If we put something if you need that you're telling me that payroll software would cost x, do we wanna consider sticking that in? And I hate to add something to this budget when we're already trying to we're dealing with this this this increase, but it's if you're if you're telling me it's a thousand bucks Right. And it would make life easier, I mean, maybe that's something we should take up now. Yeah. That's a good point, Nick.
Or maybe put a note in your notes section, something to talk address with the POS.
Or yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I was saying. What was the system name again, Lisa? Can you give me that acronym? ADP. ADP. Probably your payroll of work. ADP. Mark plus, well, a thousand?
Think a thousand more than we're paying now. Yes. We're paying 2,000 now for the time clocks, we wouldn't need the time clocks anymore. But what's that? Potentially reduce liability and risk too because we're outsourcing Yes. It would ultimately Yes. Save Because something went wrong, it's on them. Yes.
Yeah. The w twos would be done by them. The taxes are paid by them. There's no guessing involved. I had prime pay where we were and actually they were poor and they just went to ADP. The Salem School loves ADP. I just think they're, what do I want to say, a standard of of payroll that has really done people like them that they don't have issues with them. Every company I've ever worked for used ADP. It's Yeah. It is the standard.
Yep. Yeah. Question, Lisa. So with ADP, if there are some people that like the clocking in clocking out system, is there a way to do that electronically
that ADP recommends? You know, it's funny you should ask. I just went through it in Salem, everybody some departments in particular said, oh, I don't know if I can do that. They started using their phones, and they absolutely loved it. They didn't have to clock in anymore. We had the clocks as a backup. We really they didn't use them. They started to, like because they and you can go in with that, and I know a lot of companies have it. You can go in and change your tax form by yourself. That's less time that this office is gonna spend making all these changes for everybody. They can go in and do it themselves. They can look at their w two, they can look at their paycheck. Right now In In terms of right now, we get notified when our check is ready to be approved. I've gotten it every week I've been here and I can't open it. So I there's no way I can approve my paycheck.
And that's what you're supposed to do is like, you're supposed to get like a preapproval thing. That's part of the the process.
That would change for sorry. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Nick. No. I didn't mean to stop on you. Do go ahead. Was That's great. So my my question is, so if you have an hourly cause I don't know how the town office works, but if you have an hourly employee and the expectation is that they clock in, does ADP work in a way that somebody could, like on their computer, I'm in for the day? Does it work that way or they just, it's like on our system?
No, those have to be approved by their supervisor. So they won't get paid, they can go into that online system and what happens is that supervisor and ADP gets attached to like their five employees so they will look and say oh well that person wasn't here that day that's not going through and question that employee there's you know there's that capability like at the library the public works we used to have the fire department those supervisors would go in and I wouldn't even get those time cards electronically they're not really cards, but those time sheets electronically until that supervisor approved their hours. Oh, good.
So, and then it comes through and it was really pretty cool. I thought it was a really good system. I just didn't like the problem with PrimePay was is they didn't give you a dedicated rep and ADT does and so what happens is PrimePay would get used to like we used to have comp hours you could earn instead of overtime but they all nobody could figure it out so every time you get a new rep on the phone and they had no idea and you'd have to teach them all over again how it worked. When we had a dedicated rep they were great but then they stopped doing that. I don't know if they were short staffed or they just changed their policy but it was it was a bad decision.
Seems like a nice update anyway. Yep. I like that. Nick, did you wanna say anything?
Yeah. I was just the only thought I had is I think it transfers I don't know if you're running payroll right now, Lisa, but it transfers some of the risk and problems, I think, onto a third party too. Yes. So I think, like, if some kind of major error was done with w twos or something, that party now is responsible. So, ultimately, if Correct. And and this is not at all intended for if Lisa leaves us and someone comes over and makes a bad w two mistake, we're not ultimately responsible. If someone fails to pay taxes for a particular employee properly, we're not that's all ADP. Your liability is definitely lessened. Yeah. So we could ultimately save money on that.
If it if it's just a if it's just a thousand dollars difference, is there do you think there's a a setup charge to start? That includes, I think, this four, the six months free, they waive the setup charge. It's like a $400 setup charge, and, they said they waive it for a new plus customer. I just got the quote today. So And that's only the first year, though, I assume, right, after that. Yeah. But there won't be another setup charge in the first year. It would next year. So next year would be the 6,000, which you're already paying 2,000, So it'd be 4,000 more next year instead.
Yep. Fair enough. I mean, here we are talking about a thousand bucks. So let's I I've put the note in. We should try to talk to them about it, but let's move on. If anybody disagrees, let me know. But, you know, we gotta get try to get through this. So let's go to town clerk stuff. Again, you're gonna see things you know, 3% raises thrown in here. I assume that board of selectmen I shouldn't say I assume that. Again, I had I had a chance to watch their meeting, but, hopefully, this was discussed and approved. What is alright. Eight adjust found
Yeah. Was adjustment yeah. So there was an agreement or something when this person was hired. I don't know if it was an MOU, Memorandum of Understanding MOU or something. And the adjustment was found by the Board of Selectmen after the fact. So that should be increased to this year. There mean that's that's contractually obligated? Right. Yep.
K. Okay. Land records. Let's see. How did he actual spend. That's a really good one. Yeah. I wanna spend a lot of time on it because it's not a huge amount of money, but I look at it, and I'm like Highlight it. Do you recall why that has to go up? No. I would have to check with Roberta.
I know Roberta. I can ask I could reach out and ask her. Oh, okay. So that's one thing I could do guys, as, you know, as a liaison, I suppose. I I I could I could text Roberta and ask her what what's going on there. But Because that's not, there was that worry. Oh, no. It's down below. We can Well, it's not Roberta anymore is the thing. Right? Like, oh, no. It's 10 clerk. It's 10 clerk. Yeah. I I keep thinking about assessor. Assessor. My bad. So I can't ask her that. And but the other the flip side of it is is if we get this meeting together and we can manage to get the board slip in, you know, we can talk to them about it too. But I can try to reach out. But that just jumped out at me because just based on this sort of the the the spending data we do have doesn't jump out at me as like, oh my gosh. We have to increase this. There's gotta be a reason. I doubt that that was done for nothing, but I there's nothing in your memo. So that's why I think it's fair to highlight and come back to. Yeah. And it's interesting because they're budgeting
like, our budget current budget is 12,000, and we've only expended, like, about $4 this year. I wonder why why the jump, but we can talk about it.
Again, I want you to put a note to talk to Roberta, and we'll come back to it. Yeah. I'm gonna do that. Sorry. I had some people in the waiting room I didn't realize
while I had my screen share, and somebody texted me to say I can't get in. So sorry. Okay. So ask
I'm just look looking to see. So far, about 4,000
has been spent, just so you know. Right. $39.00 2 is what you have in there. Okay. Yeah. So even if you double it seven months of spending, I don't know how cyclical that is. I don't wanna jump to conclusions, but it doesn't look like it's about to go over.
No. Even if you double it, you're only at $8,000.
Right. No. No. No. Some of these things can be deceiving that way is why I bring it up is that but yeah. We'll ask. Yeah. One.
Okay. Sorry. Apologies. People text me about trying to get in the meeting. Let me just double check my participant list. Yes. Okay. Test is in. Very good. Okay. Land records. Where were we? This is all zeroed. I don't know if anybody has anything to say there. I'm not in of the opinion. This here okay. So this is the one where I believe it was, Carol who brought up there was a grant for this. What got something Boris Selekman talked through and sorted out and agreed to that this is the right number? Historic dock restoration line? Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I guess. Well, Carol's one of the Selectman. She used to be there, and she insisted that we only list it as a thousand. So
Okay. Good. I mean, I don't have a problem with that. I just want to make sure. She
said, well, what she Claire what she clarified was because I always say, I'm afraid to do that with a grant because we never know if we're gonna get it. But what she clarified was and I asked her is, if we don't get that grant, the work doesn't get done, so therefore the expense is not there. So there might be expenses of 6,500 and it that's only gonna be there if there's a $5,500 grant. Right. Otherwise because we don't have the grant. We just don't do it. Exactly. Okay. Fair enough.
Alright. Where are we? Tax collector. Okay. Once again, we see our 3% raise. By the way, just I mean, I don't know if anybody we haven't spent much time in this. I'll just state my position for the record. I don't feel the 3% raises are in any way egregious, but if anybody wants to talk about these, there are there are clearly all throughout this document
kind of flat 3% raises for everybody. Can I add some, though for Kate? Yeah. Go ahead, Lisa. I she hasn't had the fourth class because Jeff said something about he was gonna check on that. But I talked to Kate, and we should raise that up probably to $45.08 $0.04. That we went and looked in What sorry. What class? Tax collector. Yeah. The class is for, to get certified as tax collector. She's had three. She has one more to go. They're only they're only given certain times of the year, so she won't be able to take it till fall. So would it be under conference seminar, or or are talking about salary increase? No. I'm talking about salary because it's in her contract, the union contract that she goes up and she gets that fourth. If she gets it, she gets to what? 45 what? $8.00 4. $8.00 4. 45. $8.00 4. Okay. Let me just put this. I put that amount. She would get more than that, but it's not gonna happen until after July 1. I did it for the number of months that she told me it would be done for.
Okay. Thank you for raising that. I I would have had no idea. Yep. So it's about 800 you know, not quite $800. Okay. Contract software maintenance. I mean, not a huge amount of money. Kind of a big jump. I don't know what this software is. Does anybody have commentary on well, any of this, frankly. Let's just talk about tax collector in general. Anybody have anybody on the board besides me have thoughts?
I do know the program she uses fails a lot.
I could tell you I can verify for you, in fact, that this weekend, I was trying to get some information from the town hall. I called in there. I was talking to Roberta, and I was asking I was I was just test collector there. Oh, sorry. It wasn't this weekend. It was Monday. I said, I I wanna come down. I I wanna ask a couple questions. And she said, well, don't bother right now. Our system's down. Yep. So I don't know if that's part of that 1,800. But they they answered my questions anyway, which is great. But the the the long story short, I noticed that. I did notice that. So wait. Is this gonna help with that, or is this just
I don't know. Lights on. I don't know. Or it could be something that she's mandated to get. I don't know. Okay.
We need to get more info on that for sure.
I feel like that would probably be pretty niche, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's a requirement, but it definitely is worth looking at.
K. Assessor, should we move on to assessor? Yes. Alright. Hang on a second. I just wanna delete this. I'm sorry. Alright. Assessor. Boom. Where are we? Okay. So, again, you guys see here well, let's not mess the spreadsheet up, Rob. We see our 3% increases here. If I may have issues with that, let's talk about them. And once again, we see software maintenance is again, I mean, this isn't this isn't breaking the budget, but, you know, again, it's there. So we have another we have a lot of software maintenance in this I don't know.
That software maintenance, that huge line down there, I know that's something they have to have because they we spent a lot of money all the time in this in the assessors department on software. So that's probably again, it's another probably upgrade that they have to take.
Alright. I I believe it. I'm willing to believe it.
It's not a lot And you look at the total, yeah, what we spend 25,000 for a year. It's it's the gem system or something, I think they call it. Gems? And both the tax collector and the assessor had a part of it in Salem. I'm not sure if that's how it works here.
K. I mean, again, I'm I'm not I'm not saying that this this doesn't tally to all that much, but it's just like we keep seeing it in every every department in a software.
Alright. Can I Can I just say something about the assessment? And I'll say this quick. It may be a very unpopular thing to say, but I'm gonna throw it out there and I think it's worth asking the question to the board of selectmen. I understand that the town of Wyndham does, what do you call it, business share, what's the word, when you shared services with other Regionalization, shared services, something like that. And
they are all set up to do assessor services. And I wonder what it would cost our town if we considered something like that. So, I mean, if our budget for this line item is a $100,000, and it would we could save half or less. I mean, is it worth something to talk about? That's all. That is not bad. You know what? Actually, we're gonna put here.
Let me put it there. Let me undo this. Give me a second, guys. Let's put it I think that's a good question. As the whole thing.
Let's put this. Okay. Rob's computer. Come on. Function. Thank you. Heard that they're set up to do it, and they do it for other towns. So it's not even something that would be difficult for them to set up because they have all the everything they need. So, I mean, I know we just hired a new assistant, a new assistant assessor, so that obviously would not be a happy story, but
I just thought it's worth bringing up. Well, I mean, the question yeah. The question becomes if we're spending a 105, and what's the what what would be the cost if we could regionalize? Yeah. Number, what would the savings be? If the answer is, like, 75, well, that's an interesting answer, isn't it? Mhmm. I have no idea, though. So it's a it's a question to ask, I guess. I don't know who could best answer it, but, I've got it in here as our one of our things to ask for. By the way, I should save this document so it does not die. Okay. Are we good with sorry. Are we good with this section for now? Mhmm. K. Let's move on to registrars. I mean, personally, this is, again, 3%, 3%.
What do we have here? Conference seminar, further travel distance to conference. Okay. It's a $100. Mileage is, I assume, similar situation, although interesting. I don't know if that's plane fare, and this is driving. I don't know. Cost increased office supplies. Again, it's a $100. I'm not inclined to quibble, but if people have questions and concerns, now is the time, or we'll move on to elections.
Yeah. Question. So the actuals was $2.31 in 2024, and right now we're showing zero. Oh, right. That's a really good point right here. And can we go back to the previous one that we did too to look at that as well? Because I think I saw something. Previous sorry. The previous section in assessor?
Yeah. There's zero. Like here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seminars are zero. Conference Oh, that's mileage. For office supplies.
Yeah, so why are we going to eight twenty five when we've only spent 158 in the previous year we only spent $5.47 maybe we could
Which one? Which department you want and I'll see if they've spent more, where are you? Assessor. For the first year, let me go back. Okay. Office supplies under assessor to We have spent a $158.
Yeah. So the question becomes if we spent $5.21, $5.47 Yep. And we're underspent so far I mean, obviously, this can be in bits and bunches, and I I don't I don't look at this and say, okay. It's seven months and doing math. But I don't know about that. Yeah. They're they're right. I don't know about that increase. I mean, what if we did 600? Maybe $5.50 or $5.50. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure.
I mean, for $50, I'm not gonna fight you. Right. I don't know. Neither am I. There's a of office supply lines because every little place has their own office supplies. Almost I kind of wish we could, like, centralize the office supply. Consolidate
one area. But then we wouldn't have the details. That's that's the flip side to it, Liz. Oh, I see to spread it out.
But so go Lisa. We had a supply closet. We had the administrator to the first electman order the supplies. She put your order in with her. We had accounts with Amazon and Staples. She would stock the closet with paper, pads, pencils, whatever, and you'd use them. The only thing that was billed separately was like the tax office sent different used perforated paper to send out the bills. But everybody else came pretty much used the closet, envelopes, file folders, it was all in the closet. So I don't know. I can tell you one thing. It took me a month to get a box of pencils. Okay. Well,
we, can we look at the line above that too, Rob? I mean, it went $0.00 35. 35. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I mean, does it really need to go up that much?
Dude, let me look at last year, though, because if they have classes, a lot of these guys have classes in the spring, and that's when they lose their approach in their conference. Conference. It's just the idea of what's going on there. Just seems like a big round number.
Yeah. Could probably cut it in half. Or Do we vote on any of these or we just gonna ask? Well, I'm I'm highlight I'm highlighting them, and and my intention, guys, is the next meeting we have, whatever that is, and we have to talk about that, is we either hopefully get together, try to get some sort of joint meeting going, and we can talk through these things and make decisions, or we just make decisions. I'm a little hesitant right this moment to especially for things that are this small. But if you guys wanna make motions, hey. That's what we're here to do. You wanna make That's what we're here to do. We we should be doing that. It's it's not the board of selectors job to do that. It's ours. If there's No. It is absolutely ours. I just feel like on some of these, I I feel It is small. It's it's not I'm not sure everything, but, yeah, I I there's nothing wrong with saying I make you know, I move to cut these couple line items a little bit.
As far as mileage, there wasn't any last year either. I would think that would be the assessor putting mileage in for when he goes out to look at properties.
I we have a reval year he gets paid for that?
I would think any assessor would get paid to use his car to go around and look at stuff. I know in Salem, we did. He got real question here is, you know what Is John gonna put mileage in, but he didn't he doesn't look like he did last year? I got an idea.
I got an idea. You guys I'm sorry. This is the wrong. I'm screen sharing my screen. This is a bad idea to do that. I was gonna go to the town website, look up the 2021 budget, and look at what we spent or budgeted at least, in that line item. That might be something to look at, real quick. If anybody has time while I'm doing this, if you go to the town website, you look at the past budgets, there's we could look at that line item for I believe it was 2020, 2021 that was the assessment year. I mean, it was twenty twenty twenty one we did the assessment. I just always get confused because the budget years what they're called, the fiscal year is the ending year, so 2021. So I think that's the budget to look at. And, of course, we don't have that much look back,
right, on this That's what I was gonna say. I think it only goes back to '21. I'm gonna go back and look and see. I think we have 2020. '20
we it goes back to '20 the year 2020 to 2021.
And Right. And I think that might have been the reval year. So that might be the one to look at. Because when I went back and I did a look back because I was trying to for my own identification and then I ended up sending out the board because I was like, that's interesting. I was trying to go back and look at, you know, our tax levels and everything over the last five years. And the first budget that's listed in there that's that's and by the way, I should just mention this. When I it has nothing to do with anybody here on the call tonight, but, there's a couple of those uploads that are not great, and one's completely missing. We need of the budgets,
if you look at them. You know, some of them are the right document. Some of them are not the same format, and then there's one that's completely missing. It just gives you an error. So,
something to tighten up at some point, but that's that's not Is that on the website? Yeah. On the website. Yeah. I noticed that when I was applying for the job. I'm like, what do you what? I can't find that. These yeah.
But I can tell I can tell you that in the year twenty twenty to twenty twenty one, that fiscal year, we budgeted 500,000, and in 2019, Oh, $20.20 500,000 for what? Oh, for for mileage for the 500,000? 500,000 or $500?
$500. $500. I'm sorry. Thank you. He said if anybody wanted to try and look that up, and that's what I'm doing. I apologize. It was just you said 500,000. You're about 1,000. It's all good.
Good. It's Thank you so much for looking that up. We did budget 500?
We budgeted in the year twenty twenty twenty twenty one. We budgeted 500. Now I'm gonna go into the next year and see if I can find the actuals from that year. Thank you.
We I don't know if we always had the actuals in there, but You know? 500 then makes sense for a revalue.
I don't understand this. It doesn't I'm back to June '22, and I don't see any mileage at all. I see that one for $35. It's not making sense. I maybe John doesn't put in for mileage, or maybe the well, Roberta might know. Rob asked Roberta. She was the assistant for years. Did she go to any seminars or anything? Probably not. But it I don't know. I guess John was not put in for mileage. I guess, because I'm not seeing anywhere. So we budgeted it, but we never spent it?
Yeah. That's how it looks. I don't I'm looking in this expenditure line, and I'm going back to 21. I mean, if if he's entitled to it, though. That's that's tricky. Okay.
Yeah. Then we could ask Roberto. How about if we look at the next one, office supplies? Do we wanna do anything there? Yeah. You guys want to make a
excuse me, motion to cut that or? I'd make a motion to cut the $5.50. Anybody second that? I'll second it.
Sorry. Was that you, Liz? Yep. Okay. Sorry. I'm going on voice because I got the spreadsheet up. Okay. So Bill moves to cut off supply, yeah, off supplies down to five fifty. Liz seconds. Anybody got commentary on that discussion? Alright. I'm gonna go ahead and call for a vote. I'm just gonna call it out by name. Liz? Yes.
Okay. Louise? Yes. Very good. Kim? Yes. Bill? Yes. Heather? Yes. Nick? Yes. And myself, I'm also a yes. So we will go ahead and do that. I'm gonna leave it highlighted. So cut from, what is it, $8.25 to five fifty. Motion passes. Okay. Sorry. I gotta I'm I'm also making notes as I speak here because now I've committed to asking Roberto two things. You know? I'm like, yeah. I could do that. And then so it's mileage or assessor. And apologies. I'm gonna scroll back up because I oh, there it is. Land records. Okay. Alright. I'll come back to that. Very good. Alright. So we're through
have a question. Is this saying the assistant assessor makes more than the assessor? Only here one day a week.
The assessor is only here one day a week? Yes. Can the assistants hear more? Okay. Yes.
There's a big hour difference, I imagine, between these two positions.
Right. And he's the he's the, like, licensed professional that kind of oversees the operation kind of thing. Right? So that's why he gets paid what he gets paid Right. Mhmm. For only working one day a week. Yep. Yeah. That was my my question too, Heather. The first time I started going through this, I'm like, what?
How is that possible? Yeah. I was like, lucky assistant. He only makes makes more money.
But, you know, working three times the hours or something. Alright. Are we good in assessor? Okay. Let's see. Else? So somewhere. My wage. Office supplies. So we cut that. We cut this one. Yep.
We got a question mark. I'm gonna I'm gonna reach out to Roberto about. And then this one is subscription.
Oh, sorry. 0% increase. Looks like it's bounced around a bit. I don't know. I don't this one doesn't look egregious to me, but because of the bouncing around. Yeah. I don't know much about it, though. Yeah. Another question mark, maybe. Mhmm. Sure. Sure.
Why doesn't she log in to these meetings? We could she could make our life so much easier.
So happy with me if I right. What is it? Book subscriptions? Okay.
Yeah. This is why we meet with all the departments in the very beginning into a bunch of calendar with departments. That way you wouldn't have to go back and forth like this. We have No. And and I mean, the reality is in the past
in the past, when we had experienced town administrator, we could ask these questions and either get the answer tonight or next. And he knew everything.
Yep. And it just is this is where we are today. We're in now now. Alright. So are we good? Can we go to the registrars? Everybody good? Yep. Okay.
Hold on. Oh, sorry. I just wanna yeah. Just Apologies.
Okay. So training I know training is gonna be This year? An increased cost. Yeah. We're oh, I'm sorry. We're on registrars. Right? No. If we're moving to registrars sorry. That's what I thought. Okay. Great. We're we're into registrars now. Yep. We're here. We're here now. Okay. So we got the salary increase. Again, that 3%, 3%. This year, conference seminar, further trav distance to comp. It's a $100. But is I'm this might because mileage and this are separate. So I don't know I don't know why we do it that way, but okay. Like, again, it's $200. Yep. Yep.
Yeah. I remember them talking about this on the board of selectmen meeting and with us being in a an election year, they did bump up this line these lines specifically.
So I mean, I know we're asking more in general Yeah. For elections people. Right? So Mhmm. I'm okay with it. I I just Yep. Once again, we have an office supply line. Yep. We've got Yep. Low expenditures and apparently a zero? For office supplies? Yeah.
Let me check. And then we've got a I mean, I again, it's a $100. I'll begrudge it, but if we're not I I believe that was becau that they're expecting,
to have to have more ballots or something. Oh. Because I think that's the reason for that line. If I remember $58.58
dollars and they bought badges and something from Amazon. So tow the two together equal $58. You mean you mean the zero number is 58?
Yes. Yep. And part of it, it says, is a ROV badge recognition.
I think that I think that the rest of that, I think, was that they were planning for ballots or something. Additional ballots. Okay. I think. Or you could you could put a question mark there. Is that for ballots? And then if it turns out it's not, then we can say, well, you're gonna have to be more careful with your paperclips.
No more Post it notes for you. Okay. Membership. It's 220. I I sorry. 200, 200, 22300. I don't know what this means. I'm assuming it's a membership in a some sort of Yeah. Organization, and it the dues are what they are? Mhmm. Yep. I think so. Okay. Right. Elections. So here we have a 10% increase Oh. For poll workers.
Oh, so I might have been wrong with my salary comment from the previous. That that's probably in the elections department. Right. This is So maybe that office yeah.
So those are registrars. So maybe that that office supply would be a good area to consider cutting only because what I had mentioned about additional ballots and stuff there. There it is. It's on the supply line down below. This year? Yeah. Additional balance. The balance. Yeah. Correct.
So So let's go back up and address that one. Yep. Yeah. Fair enough.
I mean, again, it's a $100. But if I look at this from our experience, and then, obviously, we we don't have a further look back, but $1.66, $2.31 on track for something in this range. You know? I think it's mostly cut to $300. Second. Pin that.
Okay. So Bill motions to cut one twenty five dash six ten from $600 to $300? Yes.
Alright. Second. Who is the second? Kim. Kim? Thank you. You're welcome. Seconds. Any discussion? K. Let's call for a vote. I'm gonna go around again. Liz? Yes. Kim? Yes. Heather? Yes. Louise? Yes.
Bill? Yes. Nick? Yes. Myself, I will also be a yes. That's unanimous. So we cut this down to 300. I'm a leave it in the notes and then highlight it to talk about if we get that meeting together, we can talk about it with them. So we know what we caught. Right? So but that really, yeah, that makes sense to me. Okay, guys. Good job. Back to elections. Yeah. By the way, where are we in the spreadsheet? Good lord. Alright. It's coming up on the alright. We may do this thing where we get I don't know about you all, but I think if we get down to here maybe, we may and it's 09:00. We may wanna discuss whether we wanna continue or try to schedule another meeting. Elections. Election salary increase of 10%, more poll workers. I know that in the last few years, based on early voting and all this other stuff, that we put putting more on our elections folks. Yeah. That said, what's, this well, this year I guess this year is not a great year to look at. The fall. Yeah. So,
I mean, my gut reaction to this is that makes sense. But it is, you know, it's a jump. Yeah. We we budgeted 22 this year. And is this right, Lisa? What? This $4,000,
not even? Yeah. Mean, the though, she it looks like due tabulator maintenance. There must be a high cost of maintaining the new are there new tabulators? And then there's a new contract maybe for the software licensing or they added software licensing. And again, that could be something Wait. No. Elections are for the elections. I don't know. We're in election salaries, though. So Oh, salaries. Here.
So what I see here now this has gotta be there's no cyclical like, there's no, month by month. It's just election or nonelection. Right? Right. So this, we spent about $4,000 this year.
And it has jumped for the last two years or so then be
except for our, I guess, referendum for budget, assuming that that's part of this, you're done. Right? No. No. The referendum would be before it, but in November, there's gonna be That's what I was saying. The midterm election. In November. Midterm election. November. I don't know what I what I'm saying. Sorry. You're correct. It's the past, but I this is where I get mixed up too. Sorry. You're right. This is the next budget. This is the midterms. But the what what I mean is sorry. With this number sorry, guys. Let me just see.
Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. That would have been the last.
This is last. This is this year. That would have been the local. Right. Yeah. That would have been our local. Saying is if that's what we really spent, aren't we kinda done?
They show this Well, no. We got the May election. We got the referendum election. We're getting the budget. Yeah. So okay. Fair enough.
But if you look back to the two years before that, it's still a huge increase. Yeah. It is. 2022,
'25, '26. You didn't open up to two districts or something, did you? So they could have that No, more, you no, no, no, no, no.
What did I just do? We need more of a, I think, a line level breakdown for
this. Maybe we should ask for that. And don't we also, we combined our two elections to have them on the same day for RAM and for the town, right? Yes, we did. We did. So it doesn't seem right that we're up to 24,000 here when we were like ninety nine thousand, 12/2005. I don't know, it just seems like a big
I'm just looking at when the checks were out. Were last November and that was all, you know, is it, is it the registrations? It's the pre registering, isn't it? Cause this started, these checks started to be paid on October 22, and there's a lot of checks in here all the way through December 17. So it looks like that's when people were working. Did they go to classes or were there, pre registering or people coming and vote outside of the regular voting day? I don't know. I mean, and that's why you need all that extra
extra staff because of early voting. Early voting is not to say is what I'm saying. Yeah. Early voting is the obvious answer here. And I Yeah. Alright. Excuse me. Bless you. Oh god. Okay. No. I I get that, and and I'm I I I have problem with I don't have an issue with it. It's just getting our actuals and looking at the jump in the budget for last year and then the expenditure, it raises the question for me. But, I mean, again, conceptually, I understand we're asking more from our elections people than we have before, in the past, and that's okay. It's just I guess it's the question that needs to be asked. And Hi. This is if we had those folks come talk to us. I don't think they did this. Hi. This is Elaine.
I've been a little bit as an election worker for years. I'm gonna go ahead and recognize Elaine just because Yeah. Just this next coming year, we're gonna have primaries. And with your primaries, you double the staff because you have a democratic line and you have a republican line. So that's that's primaries that we really didn't have last year. And then, of course, the November elections, and then, of course, you're gonna have your your budget votes too, your referendums. So there's, like, there's a there's the possibility of a whole extra election that's going to take a good number of people for voting. And and when it comes to the primaries, I don't know if you get early voting for primaries too. You probably do. That was my next yeah. That was my question. Did they do I don't know about primaries,
actually, because, I mean, some of us do caucuses. It's weird. I'm not sure. Yeah.
But but if the caucus goes ahead and the one of the people gets at least 14% of the vote during the the caucuses, then there's going to be a primary. I know that's probably going to happen on the Democratic side anyway when it comes to governor, but I don't know what's going on in the Republican world when it comes to primary. Mhmm. No. I hear you. At this point. But I but but yeah. No. Just in my looking at it, yeah, that looks kinda high.
But I do know that it's gonna be more than it was last year. But Right. It just it it's one of these things where maybe it's a thousand dollar increase instead of a 22. Yeah. Yep. Okay.
Thank you for that, Elena. Thanks for piping up. That was helpful. Yeah. So training, I mean, this is a tiny increase, whatever. What is this? Equipment maintenance, new tabulator maintenance contract. Well, it's contract. So Yep.
I'm assuming that's locked in. It is kind of is what it is. Supplies, additional balance. We talked about that. That makes sense. And this is mill expenditure that I know they'd asked about that. I don't have a problem with it. If anybody else does, speak up now. I'm okay with that. That's this is not a huge amount of money, and I think I don't know that well, I will say this. There is this experience.
Mhmm. There is. We don't know how many election workers we're talking about and how many days. I mean, it'd be nice to see the math. 50% increase is pretty big. You know? Right. See the math. You should be able do 2,500 and still be a fairly decent increase. I would I would think. Yeah.
Right. We don't know how many people that's for. I guess that's the problem. Right. How many people? How many days? Yeah. Let's yeah.
Okay. Save that. Fair enough. I mean, unless people wanna move I mean, we can move now. I some of these are I'm kinda putting for later, but we could again, Bill's mentioned this before, and he's right. We could take action right now if we wanted to. Some of these, I'm more inclined to be like, well, maybe we should ask, you know, our elections folks to come talk to us or and or have that Boris Lechman try to have that joint meeting. But absent that, I my my thought would be we'd come back to all of these. Right? We've highlighted all this stuff, and we would come back to them. I'm okay going in either direction, guys. If you wanna make a cut or not make a cut, I personally would be fine with leaving it and coming back to it, but it's up to you.
I'd rather, talk to Linda and find out ahead of time before cutting it and have them go back again because I'm sure there's a decent reason for that.
Okay. I I I mentioned that may be the case. So I I'm kinda with you there. Alright. Building department. Well, what we see here is I think it's just all wage. Mhmm. 3% wage stuff. Yep. Yep. Yep. Boom. Across the board. This is one thing where, you know, none of us we've we haven't really talked about it. We haven't challenged it. My personal take is that 3% is perfectly reasonable wage increase, and I don't have a problem with it. But if anybody wanted to say, well, what if we took all those threes and made them two and a halfs or something? You know, this is your time to talk. I don't know how much that would produce. You know? How many of these people are union?
Yeah. Well, I thought I thought a lot of these I thought a lot of them were that they the board of stockman had to make choices for the nonunion people, and I don't remember if this is clearly laid out in this document. So that's a really good point
because there's some things you just simply cannot I would think I think one is good for the other if you have Well, do too. I agree with you. I
think only one in that department is union. Think the rest are all part time. Right. Oh, part time? Part time? Well, look at their salaries.
I mean, look look at these numbers, guys. I mean That's not a big job. 20 This is the one that looks like full time. 18,030
thousand. Though though, that's not a full time job, I don't think. Right. Wait a minute. Town planner?
Didn't we didn't we wait a minute. Town planner? Didn't we
We had the planning what was it called? Up up top list. You're right. PO. PO CD or something? Yeah. Yeah. The $15,000
project. Take this. Okay. Alright. Now I'm trying to remember my lore. This one, I think, has a specific role. But
Oh, wait a minute. I know. It's that's that's teachy. Is that teachy that does, that's who that is. It's teach you planners. It's an organization. It's a business, and they help us with all we we had them at the other town I was into, and they are very good. And I will say that we were The waistline. Okay. But, a town planner, like, we had one that's another shared service that we were using until we got TYCHE, which is spelled T Y C H E, I think. But some individual, like, planners that we were paying were, like, 65,000 a year. So, I mean, to have them at 48,000 and do the things they do,
I don't know. I guess talk talk to your building department and see what they think. But I thought I always thought they were worth the money. That's just me. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying they're not worth the money. I just wondered They're an organization. It's not a person. It's like they send one or two reps out to cover whatever you need done.
Alright. Sorry, guys. I lost my place. Was trying to go up and find There it is.
Did I miss I'm sorry. I had a call. Wages, IWC, what that is? Inland Wetlands. Oh, Inland Wetlands. Thank you, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yeah, not all the acronyms are clear.
They present to me, in my opinion, we all know what it's like. I mean, none of that That's the sort of gas. Everything's gone through the roof. I mean, to tell people some people with the racing, well, don't I don't know. It's I'm
okay with it. I just wanted to raise it as an issue because it's propagated throughout this budget. Yeah. So far, we've I personally am cool with it. But So far, we've cut a lot of supplies. Percents.
I would cut more I would cut more supplies before I would touch somebody's Right. Somebody's selling too.
Speaking of which, this is interesting. Look at this thing bounce around. Wow. That must be very variable. I don't wanna mess with it necessarily based on that, but, wow, it really seems crazy.
Office supplies? What kind of office supplies do you need for $1,800?
Apparently, we spent 2,100 one year. Look at that. Yeah. But For $97. $20
this year. Yeah. That doesn't make sense. I I really looking at that. Could supply be, like, a printer or something which Yeah. That's what I'm looking at right now, and it does say Oh, it's the ink. You all know. It's the ink. It's the printer. Yeah. There's several charges for for
supplies of $493.56 That almost sounds like a lease for a postage machine or something unless, oh, is it possible a broad printer lease, like quarterly, I wonder? Like the big, broad printer for larger, did we lease that? I don't know. But then we stopped. Well, how can we go from 197 to 2,100 to $19 Yeah. I'm
going back to 21. I was just trying to go back and see because you said back through the years, but Extremely so variable. Wow.
Yeah. So far this year, it's only been two Amazon purchases for 16 and $18.
So So we're above this 16 and 18, you said? $34. I'd be in favor of cutting that. But
There's something else in here for blueprints. Oh. Action blueprint and supply. So that was in May of last year. They spent $240 for that, and then they spent that again in January of last year.
In due course, there's a lot of work going on again with bridges, school work. I don't know. Yeah. I don't I don't I'm a little hesitant here. Yeah.
Like, the amount of savings we could find here is so small that I don't know. I'm gonna We can ask about it, but if we caught this, I'd I'd recommend a small cut, guys. That's my take. That's just my my take, but it is. It's interesting. 201 year, 2,000 another. That's bouncing around like crazy. And And, again, I'm just thinking about some of the some of the projects. You know what I'm saying? Like, the bridges or the school or the Yep.
I don't know. I'm okay with it. I don't know. And here we have equipment for $2,250.
And I don't even know what that means. Right. In in the past two years, there were zero zero, and then the current year zero. Is that just a fluff line just for What? This year? Oh, you mean this year? Yeah. Sorry. This year is variance, but yeah.
So Yeah. Let's never $2.50 last year. We didn't spend it apparently, or at least not yet.
Didn't spend anything in 2023, 2024, didn't spend anything in 2024, '25. So Yeah. I mean, one we could Seems like a seems like a fluff line.
I don't know if we went back. You know, again, one of these things where you go back.
But Well, I'm back to '22, and I'm not seeing anything.
K. Well then, folks, I mean, that's when we could realistically probably cut unless there's a specific purpose for this money. So we could zero it out. Yeah. We could zero it out and ask, is there a specific need?
Is that a new line item that that line item I would
Oh, right. That's a question. It was not put in new. Is that something that's supposed to be added? I mean
If I go back question. Let me go back to all if I pull all transactions. The earliest transaction was June '22, but it's not a purchase. It's to record summary from admin system. If that gives you a clue about the Edmunds system. That's how far back this goes, and there's nothing else in it. So I I know this is what I didn't do it. I wasn't here, but I don't know what that's all I have for a memo to record summary from Edmonds system for 03/2003 in June '22. This is the building department. Right? Yeah. Yep.
Well Well, we're being generous on office supplies. Maybe we can zero this one out.
That that's fair enough. Did anybody wanna make a motion on this?
I'll make the motion to zero out the line item.
Okay. Bill motions. Anybody second? I'll second. I have a question on this. Yeah, Action Blueprint, it's actually a printing. It's a printing solutions company. And they deal with high end CAD and graphics printing solutions. So I wonder if there's some sort of a thing. Maybe because of the opening of the senior center. Maybe they did something special for that. I don't know. They may have needed, like, property line Yeah. Stuff?
K. Well, there's there's one in October '23 to action blueprint. There's one in September '24, and there's one in January '25 and another one in May '25. They're all around 200 let's see. $90, 240.
They're all about 240 except Okay. So hold on a minute. Wait a minute. Where are those? Saying there's $240 expenditure. You know? So the '20 Why is zero? This year. Zero. No. No. No. This was back in '23 and '24. This was years ago.
It's Okay. '0. '23, '24 actual is zero here in this chart, but if that's not about office supplies. I'm not talking about yeah. No. I was talking about office supplies. Oh. With with action blueprint is in office supplies years ago. This is why we get to 2,000 here. Yeah. Okay. Right.
That's what you're talking about. Yeah. I didn't We're down here. We're down here. We're on equipment. Yeah. Equipment. There's there's
I don't see anything in there. There's, like I said, that's back to '22, and there's nothing in there.
Alright. Right? So Wait. Sorry. So Bill moved to cut it to zero. Kim, was it that you that seconded? Yes. Okay. Do we have any further discussion?
My only thought is is that budget accidentally getting locked looped in with the office supplies? Because if you add that to the 1,800, you're almost getting closer to where that actuals hit for the office supplies. For for 25 24, 25?
We, if I add the total 18 if say I add 1,800 plus $2.50, then I'm getting closer to that.
Yeah. So I'm wondering if they're miscoding the purchase somehow. That's a good question. But
Fair enough. They can make do for 1,800 with 1,800.
I I think it's surviving. I can do 1,800. Disagree with that, but I'm wondering. Yeah. No. That's an interesting thought as to maybe why it happened that way, but, okay. Do you sorry. Is there any further discussion on this motion? Alright. Let's go around. Liz? Yes. Kim? Yes. Luis? Yes. Heather? Yes. Nick? Yes.
Bill? Yes. Me? Yes. Seven o? Passes. So let me put this to zero. This to zero. Again, of course, Lisa can track this her properly, but I want this in my way. Okay. So that's billing department. Very good. Where are we? It's 909. Let's think about where we are in this spreadsheet. Good lord. We have not gotten anywhere near capital. Oh, boys. Yeah. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but we need another meeting. Probably. Even if we get through, I'd like to get through a little bit more, but I don't know about you guys. I I'd like to maybe try and call this at about around 09:30. How do you how do you all feel about it? I'm good to 10:00, but I'll I'll go with what everybody else wants to. I just feel like there's a point at which after about two and a half hours, everybody starts to get fried. Yeah. I'm good with nine to 09:30. Okay. Great. That's my goal, but I'm not saying it's has to be exactly that.
What do you think, Bill? Sorry. No. I was just thinking, like, in the past, we kinda tried to highlight some of the bigger changes. We've been looking a lot Yeah, did. And we're going really slowly and minutely here. You know, 100, you know, dollars 50, you know, maybe we could try and bang out some of the bigger ones and that are gonna make a difference.
Yeah. I hear you. I'm trying to move along quickly, but, yeah, you're right. We're we're getting we we are banging down a bit at times. Oh, sorry. Let's let's move on. So with apparel services, I I'm guessing this is a third party?
No. That's the member. That's the $189 a month for the time clock.
Oh, yeah. That's the time clock. Yeah. So if we were to make
if we switch ADP, we could get rid of that line. Get rid of it. This was zero. Get rid of it, but you'd have to put 3,000 in then for ADP because what I'm saying, it's a thousand more. It's you've gotta include that 2,000 in there. Oh, alright. Hold on a minute. We talked about it up up higher. Is it Right. We did. Treasury. Yeah.
We're we're talking about change in operations here. That's why We're talking about here.
It's it it here, it's, sorry. Here. It's 3,000 ish here. But if we did it, when we get down to this, you'd zero that out. Right.
Right? And that's down to about a thousand. And operations are the same. To take up. We're not supposed to
Yeah. Correct. But we're just we're tossing an idea around. Yeah. And I think it's a great recommendation.
I wouldn't make any cuts right now. This is just a talk. Yeah. So we should bring up with the BOS. Hopefully. A lot of this is zero or under? Let's look at office supplies.
There we go. It's a zero. Hey. It looks like actually, it looks like we're doing well here. Yeah. Very good. This one for the the first one, I'm like, oh, actually, that's fine. Yeah. I have no issue with that.
This is the town office. That's how jeez. What do they pay for? Sorry. Town office building. What kind of office supplies do they buy for $6,000?
Of paper would be my guess. A lot of paper. Yeah. You're right. Let and probably Turner. I don't know. Inks. I don't know. Oh, no. Printing is here. Printing separate. I don't know. Oh,
printing. No. Printing that's probably for mailers and stuff. Right? And there's eight on mailings. Yeah. How many frontiers do you have? There's one I know. This is know, in each office. Yep.
This was up $500. This is probably clearly a particular thing. It's just not explained. It says 0%. Oh, no. It's sorry. It's the same. Sorry. We haven't spent it three years two years running. So we're good. So I don't know. Think there's $500. Yeah. It looks like I don't know if it There's
there's a bill in here for checks and envelopes, that's pretty big for office supplies for all the checks.
Oh, there you go. That makes sense. Do we wanna move on, or do we wanna linger on, say this, $500 I'm
okay with moving on. Okay. I'm good with moving on. Advertising is flat insurance. No increase given yet by Kerma.
Yeah. On the workmans' comp. I've written to them too, and I still haven't heard anything. I should call them again. I have a doubt.
I have a doubt. But okay. I mean Doubtable. About whether it'll be 0% increase,
but we'll see. Way. Yeah. Because we're asking for a three year price. I don't know why they haven't gotten into us yet, though. And they can't answer you. Lisa,
three year price. So for instance, this year, this year, like, these were a lock in.
Right? Yep. Yep. And and that's And Yeah. Yeah. And You can there's, you know, the next year, I'm just assuming that it's gonna So
I can't imagine. Like, this looks low to me. I mean, this is property casualty. Right? And stuff like that? Yes. Yep. K. It's workman's comp. It's workman's comp is claim side. I'm not an actuary. But
Well, could it have been locked in at 01/22 last year for a couple years?
I don't think so. No. But again, I don't know. You know what? They're probably sending the email to the town plan town manager. So I don't know if we're just not getting that. I wrote to them and asked them to write to me, but I don't know if it's going somewhere else. So I don't know why they haven't gotten back to me because I did contact them and they haven't gotten back to me. They're usually pretty good. But it could be they don't have me on record and they're sending the email with the increase Dude, Jim where it would bounce. Right. I don't know if Jeff would see it or not. But that's why I I contacted them and said, please send it to me, and I haven't heard Yeah. I'm glad you did that.
Yeah. I keep trying to run that down, I guess. Yeah. That's a really good question. And, I mean, I just I look at this number. If if the contract's up, right, then we we had a three year deal and it's up, no way. Not a chance to know. Anyway, moving on. We gotta we gotta run that down, but there's nothing we can really do with it right now. Nothing we do right now. Right. So let's move. This is benefits stuff. I'm assuming this basically just keys off of Payroll. Payroll and what we're being told, you know, oh, here's my question. Sorry, health dental. Lisa, as you know, the consortium went up to 21%.
Yeah, see, again, I haven't been notified. If the same that I can change it if you want, but I'm not getting a I lot know. I think we only have a few people on our insurance. Like five or six.
Right. But this has to be updated. This isn't the right number, I don't think. You mean the 15%?
Is that what you're talking about? Well, I don't know. Okay. So here's my question. Right? Does this line is this just the people we have on our insurance, or is this every Don't forget the buyouts.
This is probably where all your buyouts Do we increase our buyouts?
So okay. We had a 15% premium increase for our health care consortium. Right? Mhmm. That affects directly, like, four, five people. Yep.
The other people, have we as a course of performance, would the premiums go up for everybody else? Do we increase their swipe end or what whatever we call it, the the offset? The thing that we give them to not take our insurance?
I'm not aware of that. I thought it was just a flat This is a flat 15. Uh-huh.
And I'm thinking to myself, okay. Is that even first of all, was this right before? And then is it right now? Because alright. We have a 6% further increase. Again, directly hitting four or five people. Then we have these other people that we essentially pay. Oops. Sorry, guys. God. I We touched the wrong part of my keyboard. We pay them if they don't take our insurance? Yes. Yes. Yes. Because it's a great deal at the time if they don't take it. I think it's I think it's up to, like, $6,000 or something. Like, we give them a flat amount of money so they can stick it in a health care, savings account or something. Well, that's awfully nice of us. Well, I don't think option is they just take our insurance.
Yeah. Rob? And the insurance is very expensive per person.
It's Joanne real quick. I do I have info on this just since you're on this.
Sorry. Elaine spoke up just because Is everybody okay with me just letting Yeah. Joanne explain?
Sure. Any complaints? Okay. Go ahead, Jay. No. I mean, it is it does go up. It's it it is a benefit that, you know, the town has been considering possibly dropping in the future. But it is still in their policy book. But, you know, for people not taking insurance, they get half of the single insurance rate. So say it costs $14,000 to insure a person who takes the single insurance. They get seven. They get half of that as a stipend instead of what other towns do, which is offer like $1,000 or $1,500 You know, So a we policy that's being looked at, but we can't speak to that. So in their policy book now, to answer Heather's direct question, they do get paid to not take insurance to that high rate. And that's good for the taxpayers to know, too. And then the other thing is, you know, even though it's been argued that, you know, people will only take insurance if they need it because they have to pay their 14% or whatever your, you know, whatever the going rate in the contracts are. That thank you. I mean, it's it's hard to hear things that I know direct info on because I've researched it so extensively.
But, yes, that that will go up as well. But I don't think you guys if you haven't If I understand you correctly, Joanne, Just to break in.
If we have a percentage increase Yeah. It is in fact potentially appropriate for that percentage increase to propagate across everything, like, because the stipends go up too. Correct.
Okay. Wow. So instead of That was the key thing that I was trying to get to. Is that line item right? Is that what we need? Shouldn't it be 21 now?
Yeah. But the thing is this, Rob. So I think to Joanne's point, are people that go out and buy insurance, you're married and you get insurance through work. Right. Your wife works in a town where she's say, Oh, if you're not gonna get me a stipend, I'm gonna buy the insurance. No, they're not gonna buy the insurance because they already have it. It depends.
Am Really? I It depends. Because as an example, Bill, I'm sorry, Lisa. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, that's okay. Because what will happen, Bill, is what they'll do is they like, I was on my husband's plan, but your premium that you pay is very small when you go to a single plan and your husband goes to a single plan. So people will leave their husband's or wife's plan because it's still gonna be cheaper for them just to take the town plan as a single. So they're not on and the average, the thing to remember is a single plan, last I knew that I looked, is about $18,000 a year for the town. A plus one is probably 25,000
and a family is probably 30,000 a year for the town. So paying them 6,500 is a lot less than putting them on the insurance. And people will, they always I hear you, want I just had a hard time thinking that people are gonna do that, but No, there, people, I debated it myself. When I had it, I had a stipend where I was, and if they took that away, I would go off my husband's plan because it would be cheaper for me to get the single plan than stay on his plus one plan. I think it's Never heard that. And that I mean Yeah. I mean I a stipend don't if I don't take my insurance. No. It it was an incentive. Well, sometimes some companies will increase your salary because you're not taking the insurance.
So it all depends on the company. I don't think penalize you at work. I every year, I have to give what is almost an affidavit to my employer to say that I have no other health care I could take. My employer just started that this year too. We if we if you could get It's been about two three years of Travelers. Yep. If I had I mean, I'm I'm not married anymore when I was. Well, she worked for Travelers too, so it didn't matter. But if I had had a spouse who had, you know, benefits through a school system or something like that, I would have disclosed that, and there would have been an impact. So there's a lot of this going on.
Maybe All I'm saying is this line item, I I I have to wonder if this this should be 21%, not 15, guys. Like, this number here, this formula right here in this line. Right? Should that be 1.25 to one, one point two one? Probably. It should be. Yeah. Probably. I think it is. Also, by the way, I think this is broken right here, But I have to fix that formula somewhere. I think that formula is broken. So I I have maybe a a thought. Yep.
I was last year a 100% against this whole stipend business. I didn't get it. I didn't understand it. Okay. I kind of see it a little more now because of the point that yes, if it's cheaper for someone who is married to let their husband stay on their own plan by themselves and then opt in on our lesser, like we have lower paying premiums, I can see that point. But maybe we need to have the discussion with the Board of Selectmen. If these aren't contractor, like if these aren't contracts, maybe we discuss renegotiating that stipend and make it a flat number. You know, let's no longer make it based on Percentage, half or whatever. And help, and so make it a flat $5.
Yeah. Instead of because as insurance goes up and up and up, that's gonna go up and up and up. Maybe they'd be happy to just get their $5 and just stay. Yeah. It's all a question of what the incentive what incentive works. I mean Yeah.
Everybody has different situations. I'll say I'll say this. Yes. My ex wife and I both work for the same corporation. Mhmm. We have health benefits that are in part dictated by how much money you make. The kids are under me for a reason. Right? My kids are on my plan, not hers. It saves us money. Right? And so And the same Everybody's making those calculations. Right? And so, yeah, it's it's a question to ask, but I you know, I'd be careful. My my question for the board is, should we, for the time being, increase this number? Yes. Or should we leave it? We should. I think should go to 1.21, frankly. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And I don't know what's going on down here, but we're gonna fix it. The other thing I heard today too was
it sounds like the consortium is trying to add another town into the consortium. And Yeah. East Hampton. East Hampton. Might lower it it might lower it a little bit?
I mean, yeah. And then I'm not sure if that'll if that'll come through or not, but, yes, I believe and I thought they voted I was talking to Val about this. I I think it might go through.
Oh, so that might, because I heard their experience might be a little bit lower, so that might help. But to be on the safe side, we probably should use the 21%.
I know. Yeah. I think we should go to 21%.
And the 21 is anthems or whoever they it's their first go at it. So it will probably come down, but I would put 21 in there.
Okay. So let's let's get a motion to do that so that we sort that out. Anybody wanna make that motion?
I'll make a motion to increase the health dental line. Before
I I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is dental included in that consortium? Anybody know? Says it right there, health dental.
I know. It's in that. Yeah, I'm thinking it's in that line. Okay. Apologies. Dental separate for me at work. So my bad, Liz, go ahead.
I'm just thinking that we increase the health dental line from 15% to 21%.
I'll second it. K. Lose motions. Bill seconds. Discussion? Anybody? K. I'll call for a vote. Kim? Yes. Heather? Yes. Liz? Yes. Liz? Yes. Bill? Yes. Nick? Yes.
And myself, I am also a yes. That's seven to zero. I've already made the change on my spreadsheet, Lisa, if you can update yours. This takes us up to $2.54 $7.99 Yeah. For that line. Down here well, we can talk about these lines in a moment, but down here, total time expenses, I I think something's wrong with this Oh, yeah. This line right here. This looks broken. Yeah. It shouldn't be zero. It should not be zero. Something's raw off here. Me I'll take a look at mine. J and h. Why is it? That's weird. 190 j and h.
So this is J and this is H. So it's this and this. That should not be computing to zero. No. Why is it doing that? That's bizarre. Formula. Delete the formula.
I'm gonna delete it. What I was gonna say. Yeah. And okay. It was this. Wait a minute. What is your saying? Wait a minute. What is your saying? It said j and h. One ninety j and h. Yeah. You have to divide. You have to divide the variance by the previous year's budget. So you're gonna take that. Sure. But why is it 0%? Right. It's just shouldn't be Yeah. You know, some of the cells, I honestly can't tell you why because the formula is in there. Oh, you know why? I know why. And it should be it's
Yeah. I just There you go. There go. You you you Whoo. Yep.
Fixed it. Alright. I've done my one good deed for the day. That's what it was. It was set to the wrong settings. Okay. The formula was fine. So there we are. Oh, your four you mean the format is wrong. Is that what you're saying? The format. The format is wrong. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The formula is okay. The format's wrong. Yep. Yeah. That's what it is. Yep. Alright. Yep. This is nothing, basically. Okay. Are we good with this section, guys? Can we move on? Yeah.
Anybody? Okay. Community center. By the way, I got, I spoke to Tess today about this She's on Oh, she's on now too. Yes. So if we and she was very clear. If people have questions about any of these line items, she's here to answer them. So she's our resource tonight. I I feel like this might be our last big section tonight, and then we should probably vote on whether we wanna stick try to stick another meeting in and invite the board of select. So let's do this. This is test herself, obviously. This one is an assistant, which I as I understand it, this is a new position. This is not the position that exists. We're gonna hire somebody. Yep.
Hi, Tess. Alright. Tess is using her hand. Yeah. Tess is raising her hand. Do we should we just invite her into this discussion, folks? Yes. Since she's right here. Alright. Hold on one moment. Where are you, Tess? Go ahead. Un unmute yourself and go ahead and contribute.
Yeah. This is not a new position, but it was it was a position that was in 2024, 2025, and that person in this position left the position, and so we haven't filled that position as of yet. What the Board of Selectmen did do was agreed that in the last meeting, and I don't know if it was the Board of Selectmen or Board of Finance meeting, but the Board of Selectmen did agree that this position was approved for fifteen hours at $25 an hour. And so there is that is available as we would hire somebody for that position. Currently, do not have an assistant. Currently, what we do have is two directors.
Right. Which we discussed and Right. And it's an issue for the current budget, not so much this one. Correct. Starts in July 1. But yeah.
And the 19,500 does reflect, which we discussed Rob earlier, was nineteen hours at $25 an hour. Yep. Sorry, nineteen not fifteen. Excuse me. Pardon me. You're correct. Fifteen fifteen fifteen hours. So so so No.
No. I just wanna get it right, and I have notes. I've scribbled notes here, but, you know, I'm dealing with my own handwriting. Okay. So that's that's appreciated. That's for the two of you. You know, ultimately, hopefully, get somebody in there, and the two of you can run that building. Folks, you know, the board, let's is there anything, you know, in here that people wanna oops. Darn it, Rob. Anybody wants to ask Tess about while we have her? What's the conference seminar? Just here. Yeah. It's zeroed out. No way. Zero. Yeah. But what is it?
Yeah. I'm not sure why that was zeroed out because we do belong to CAST. We do belong to a couple of different organizations that supply education to us, and so I'm not sure if that was something that I did or that was zeroed out for whatever reason. We do use that line item.
Can you tell us, Tess, why it dropped from $3,400 down to $600
I'm not sure. I was here in August 2024, that was when I was hired, and that was when the building opened. So I'm not sure that looks like I don't know the answer to that, Rob. Or excuse me. I don't know the answer to Bill. Yeah. Okay.
So but you would probably expect to need at least a $600 budget for that line. Right? We we would need something in there. Absolutely. And because it looks like you've already spent 537 this year, so I would imagine you would need at least $6.06 $6.50 next year. Yeah.
Again, I will defer to you. I will let the number speak for itself. So if it's $5.37 or if it's 600 or 650. But you expect to have the same expense test?
I would expect to have the same the same expense for conference and seminars. Absolutely.
It's not I'm looking at what I got test, and the line isn't there in what was given to me that line just is is gone it
so maybe it was an accident it's kind of weird yeah it's not there if
you adjust you adjust $5.37 as seven months out of 12, you get to $920. There's a case to be made here. This should be, like, a thousand bucks. I put it at $6.50 again. But Okay. No. Well I'm just going off. Like, again, there's different ways of doing it. But, yeah, you could do that. Yeah. I see. Because I don't know how if this is literally is this just really seasonal?
So I will say that I haven't yet had a full year in this position yet. So I was away for a while and I came back. Was in the middle of a fiscal year being in, or just starting in August, I didn't set that 'twenty three, 'twenty four budget that was set for me. And so I do know that we have memberships to different organizations. So, Lisa, you said what was spent already?
On conferences or trips, which are you talking about? Conferences or conferences. Let me see. So that's $5.37 on your chart. I can't imagine it being that expensive.
So far this year, $536? Motion motion picture license and aging seminar.
So that, I would not have considered that. I would consider that a contractual, a contract, something that comes every year. And so that's where we are able to watch movies and things like that. I'm okay to decrease that line. So we do watch movies. Some of those movies now, we do have videos, actual videos themselves. And so I didn't know what that meant. So it's not conference. So maybe we should
Remove it. Move it. Yeah. Change Where would you move it? Where would you move it to, Tess?
Wouldn't move it. I would rename it. Yeah. I would rename it. Okay.
Wow. That would make a lot of sense to me to rename this. What would you rename it? Like entertainment contracts or because that's not under your senior activities or anything?
No. You know what? I would say if we don't need that, let's just take it out completely. Let's
just take it out completely. Alright. So it's out. That's It's already out. Mean, it's already zeroed. Yeah. The question is, do we add a line? We add a
why can't I get this to work? I don't think that would be named properly, and it it would have been under contractual, not under conference seminar. We're contractual.
That's what I'm saying. It isn't. That's what she say maybe change that line to it?
I would say if we don't We haven't We necessarily used do have the DVD machine that we bought, and so we have videos. So the only reason why we would do that is to watch a video for our seniors, a movie day. And so we have the actual DVDs to play. We don't have to have that.
So that's not the license for the movies like, I don't know, I'm not sure if you have Amazon or anything like that. What are the movie channels? We don't you don't have anything like that. Right?
That would cover it, but we haven't used that in it's been there. Yep. We haven't used it since I've been there. Okay.
Yep. I think we just leave it and move on. Yep. So what about
Oh, go ahead. So what about education, educational conferences and whatever? Do you guys do that?
We certainly do, and I think that is so I that's why I was confused on conference seminar. I believe that's under senior center.
Oh, you think it's under senior center, not community center? Yeah. So that's the problem. I think there's a little bit of
There is an overlap, which I did check while you're talking. Yep.
You passed it. And there was there were two pass it? Yeah. There were two things that overlap. There it is. Senior transport senior citizens. Training. Senior training.
Let me just think about this. Mhmm. We talked about this a little bit. Kitchen supplies was overlapped with with community training.
And don't understand what the $39 was. Lisa, can you tell me what $39 is? Where's the 39? What do you where are you? Because I'm over here looking at my screen too at the same time. Public public welfare, senior citizens training. And that doesn't make 39. Okay, hold on. That doesn't make sense either. So I wanna go down to senior citizens.
And I do know that as as municipal agent, if this is under so resident services coordinator, I think that's just a different name for municipal agent and social services. Municipal agent does not necessarily have to have a salary, but social services, I think that's what that is for. Is there training for that? Yes, there is, but since I've only been here since November in that position, I don't know what that line's gonna look like. Is it $2,000?
Wait, go back to the $39 Let me get to that first. It says, people's choice oh, it's a it's a credit card charged at Walmart. That's all I have here for a memo. Tremendous.
Yeah. I have no idea. So I would say decrease decrease that line item. Training?
Yeah. This is one we talked about earlier today, Tess? Well, there I think it's somewhere else. Because remember, you had zero in the community center trading line and two k here. And you said something about my notes. I'm reading my notes, and I'm like, oh, these made sense to me at the time. And now, you know, literally two hours later, can't remember. Memberships conferences had been you've been you had been using out of this line or somebody had been using out of this line. Is that right?
So, yeah. So so if we go back to community center conference seminar, what that was for? I guess I'm thinking, and that's what I put my line item under was cash That's why it was zeroed out. In all of those things was this $5.37. I didn't realize that that was that contractual membership to movies. I would say take the movies out, but again, there needs to be something in there for training. So I think these line items don't necessarily accurately depict what is being used in them, if that makes sense.
Conference seminar does. I'm trying to figure out the best fix. If we go here this is zeroed out right now. Right? And then if we go down here, where were we? Did I pass it again?
But I did. Right there. Right there. Oh, right there. Hey. Yeah. Alright. That training, though, in that line is for volunteer food handlers because they have to have training, safety training, CPR, and first aid. It's the 600 increase.
If you look at so it was six fifty that got cut up top at a 600 increase here. Unless this stuff went up, that could be the net out, and it actually could be okay. Well, the re yeah. Properly is another question. Okay.
Reason the reason the zero is up there is because the in the budget worksheet that we were given, there is that line is not in that budget worksheet.
That's why it's zero. Therefore, this 600 was not intended as an offset. No. Right? Like, if you'd gotten her budget and she'd zeroed that out and said stick it here, you would have seen that, but you didn't. Yeah. Because then the line isn't there. Which means this is not an offset.
But we don't need an offset. Right? Isn't the $6.50 for something we don't need? Right. Right. Yes. So Mhmm. Should move on. Sorry. I guys, I'm I'm working off notes and and my earlier conception, and I'm still adjusting.
So are you saying you wanna put that 600 extra in training? You wanna move that up to to training for a community set? I'm not saying that. I I I guess,
honestly, I think alright, guys. I think the answer here is is we're talking about $600. And I think that Tess needs a a year in the position and can maybe we fix this next time. Like, in terms of where it should be put. I think we were at the okay I think the numbers are fine. Where exactly they should be displayed, maybe give Tessa a year in a position.
You know? Yeah. We could talk that over with the BOS when we get together with them. Yeah. It and I will test
I was gonna say maybe, Tess, you can talk to them, get it straightened out so that when the time comes and we get together, it's just bing bang boom.
Yep. Right. I can do that. I will say the volunteer food handlers, once we get the stove ready, we are gonna have to train the volunteers to know what to do in the kitchen. And that will I'm okay with the way it is. I would say take away the Six fifty. Take away the six fifty. Okay. It's it's done.
The the 06:50, it was already It's already done. Already done. Yep. Alright. So we're good. We're good there, guys. Let me just go back up. We weren't done with that section. Hopefully, we can get through it. Where where are we? Come on, Rob. Community center. We were down 4214. Yeah.
Okay. Kim's dropping off. So we were here that way for myself. Do we have alright. Building the only other question I had here that jumped out at me was the building maintenance line. Going from I mean, it's a brand new building. So, obviously, that makes sense. Zero. Whatever. We've spent very little this year. We budgeted 1,500. We're nowhere near it, and then we're increasing it. Right. You know, if there's a specific reason for that, I don't a problem, but, I don't know. Yep.
So maybe there was I have the same question. Yeah. I have the same question with the HVAC line. It's brand new. Is there something?
Like, how much could filters cost, basically? I don't know what you're doing with h sorry. Maintenance. I mean, obviously, you're gonna get a tune up to your system, I guess. But are these really, oops, are these real numbers, I guess?
Yeah. I think they're just I think they tried to stay status quo from year to year when they did this whole, you know, for the stuff that they didn't know.
Well, this was an increase, so that's that's what jumped out at me. But, yeah, you're right. This is I would make the motion that we that we cut back the billing maintenance. Back to 15? Back to 15. That HVAC might be actually a service agreement.
Sorry. Test raised her hand. Do you have information for us, Tess?
I really don't. But what I do have to say is that we do have that grant that came in after this budget was put forth. So I don't know if ICE tried to stay status quo, but again, if that grant covers the completion of the building, then then again, yes, these numbers would go down, I would assume. Which was the grant?
The I think the one that covers primarily the generator,
but apparently not just I thought there was a kitchen grant, wasn't there?
Yeah. Or something we're throwing at the kitchen. Anyway, I I'm a little I got a little turnaround on that, but I know we had the grant for the generator, for the hookup, for the three buildings. And when Tessa and I were talking and earlier today, there was some question as to whether that grant was solely about the generator or if it covered a few other things, like maybe the kitchen. Excuse me. So building maintenance Bill, you've moved to cut this from 2,000 to 1,500? I did. Anybody second? I'll second it. Luis seconds.
Great. Any discussion? Alright. Let's go around the horn. Liz? Yep. Kim? Oh, Kim left. Duh. Sorry. Luis? Yes. Hey. Heather? Yes. Nick? Yes. Bill? Yes. Me? Yes. That's six o. Again, we're missing Kim. She had to go. So I will re I'll adjust this. Cut from 1,500. Boom. K. Save. Okay. Everything else here is either flat or a cut. Does anybody have excuse me. Well, we were you somebody raised this one. Right? Yeah. That that could be a maintenance contract. It could be. Yeah. It could be. I don't wanna necessarily mess with that because I I don't Yeah. Yeah.
Like, again, for the amount of money you'd save to to screw something like that up, I'd rather leave it. Yep. This is a weird number too. Maybe put maybe just put the question in the memo where we can ask if it's a contract. And if it's not a contract, maybe it's an area that we can Contracts. You got it. Yeah. Okay. Everything else looks good going down or What flat
about janitorial supplies? That's a pretty good increase right there. There you go. Oh, dishwasher. Supply, ice maker cleaner, and I'm assuming I could be wrong here and maybe Tuscan pipe in. You know, if they complete the kitchen, might they might need a little more? I don't know. I I I know it's not the furnish not the furnishing. The cookware or whatever. That's in a separate line. But, we haven't spent very much, so that's up a fair bit. Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, how much dishwasher supplied ice cream cleaner?
Yeah. It seems like I I would roll that back to last year's amount, 15.
Or maybe split the difference. Yeah. Or split the difference. And make the motion Tess, go ahead. What what do you got? Only that
with the new stove coming in and the hookup and things like that, I don't know if there's going to be more people in the kitchen generating more soap, more all of those things. So it's not just dishwasher supply, ice maker cleaner, but it's also paper towels and things like that. That's that's what was my initial gut reaction was, like, if we get the kitchen done.
It's not a huge amount of money, but I also would not be horrified if we cut that to, say, 2,000 or something and save $500. Would cut it to $2,000 And and I can agree with that. Yep.
Okay. Alright. Sorry. Do we have a second? I'll second it. I'll second. Sorry. Who seconded who got that in first? Louise. Thank you. Apologies again. I'm going off voice. I think I knew everybody's butt. Okay. So Bill motions to cut from 2,500 to 2,000. Louise seconds. Do we have any further discussion? I will call for a vote. Liz? Yes. Heather? Yes. Louise? Yes. Nick? Yes.
Bill? Yes. And myself, I will also vote yes. And, again, Kim isn't with us anymore, so that's six to zero. Motion passes. We will adjust that line. Okay. Okay. Computer repair service. We have a look at that one. Spending it? Zero. Zero.
I mean, I get it it almost feels like contingency. Oh, Tess, go ahead.
So sorry. There was my my computer is broken, and and every time I open it, the whole sides will literally open up. And I have that too. So I
did see that line item. I thought that this was for the IT person, but I was told it wasn't. That's why back in December, I believe it was December, I did order a new computer for myself, which was in the budget. And so that was on hold for however long, for whatever reason, that probably hasn't come in yet. So maybe Lisa can speak to that if that has come out of my line item or not. Am I Like right now it's Sierra. Correct, Lisa? Because I did pay for No, no, right now it's $14.75
and it's 4 yeah. The laptop is now in there. Okay. Because it was Plus there's another little per People's Choice thing for a $100. Yep. So wait. So it's $15.75? It's $14.75.
That includes the People's Choice of a $100. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Okay. So That's what I'm new computer, can what's the 2,500 for this year if you got the new computer? So
what we were thinking was to add a computer for the community to come because a lot of the seniors can't do, are unable to do IT by themselves, we were going to help them do that. So if we had a computer at the center for the seniors, that was primarily what that was for, just a basic computer that they can, maybe renew their driver's license and we can help help them with some things, some IT things for them.
I would say that that is an excellent idea, but in a year that we have an incredibly large increase we're looking at, it might be a want and not a need. Okay. I don't know if anybody else feels that way. I'm just throwing that out there for discussion. And can't we use the library computer for that too? To help Yeah, there's a number of library computers.
If the library has that, a lot of our seniors just don't go to the library. Lot of them come to the senior center while they're already there for other activities. So we thought that might be an ideal time to help them. So again, I'm completely open if the Board of Finance believes that that's not perhaps that's a want and not a need, then absolutely I would defer to them.
I think it's a great idea, but I kind of remember, was it this past, I don't know, whenever there was the big board of selectmen meeting and it had you guys on almost a panel that this was brought up and did somebody suggest talking with the school about second hand computers or something that they were would hand down? Just I mean, I'm not poo pooing this at all, but is there a way of reusing
other equipment that might still have good amount of life left. That's all. I think Yeah, that's a great idea. Didn't Eric at one time say that there were a number of used computers that kinda get replaced and then they're just sitting there that there was other computers that could be used. Yeah, that's kind of what I was wondering, yeah. Yeah, I would love to know that.
That's what Eric said at one time, I think last year. Again, I think it's a great idea, but I do think there's other resources that these people could use in a year where we're looking at an extremely high budget.
I don't know, are you talking another, How much would be how much would a computer be? Is there a used option? Yeah.
Can we knock it down to a thousand dollar? I mean, I looked at computers.
You know, there are cheaper computers than that for sure. Laptops. And you can you can buy a you can buy a pretty basic laptop for $5,600.
Yeah. $5,600. I was just looking at them at Staples. So I do a favor of making a motion to drop that to a thousand dollars. I don't if anybody else. Well, does anybody second that motion? Second that.
Okay. Nickel second. So bill moves, we dropped this from 2,500 to a thousand. Nick seconds. Any further discussion on the matter before we vote? Think it's kinda low. Oh, sorry. No. Who states this low? Liz. I think I I think Okay.
Think a thousand is low. I'm gonna say no. Okay, that's fair. You wanna throw a different number in there, Liz? Friendly amendment? I'm open.
I mean, would knock it down to 2,000. I think the senior center needs resources to do what they need to do. And so I might knock it down to 2,000, but.
I mean, I'm okay with that. If people wanna amend the motion and
do it again, I think the vote if you wanna continue the vote on this first motion,
that's fine. Can also do that. I mean From Nick and Heather and Louise
just to see what your thoughts are. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Fair enough. So this is a no for reasons stated. Okay. Louise.
I'm on the fence with this one because, I mean, you can also get it from I mean, a lot of people donate like Joe. He can he he has certain computers that we can probably just donate. We didn't even know that they needed another one. Yeah. So I you know, the year is going to be tough. Be a tough year. Yeah. And test now, no offense. But yeah, I just don't think it's needed. K.
Oh, you're doing another? So I say no. You're in favor. So you're in favor of the 1,000. 1,000? No. No. I'm in no.
I just don't think the whole thing is needed. It's 2,500.
Right. But the motion on the floor is to cut to 1,000. So yay or nay on that. No. You're a no. Okay. But you you would go to zero? Yes. Okay. To be clear. Okay. Okay. So Well, Megan, Heather. Do we give Heather. I I would do the thou the thousand.
I can see you're a yes. Yeah. I'm a yes. Very good. Nick? I'm a yes for the thousand. K. So that's two yeses, two nos. Bill? Yes.
Yes. Terry Tess is raising her hand in middle of the Tess, what do you have to say before I make my vote? Tess?
You're I'm so sorry. Is it possible to put that on hold for a thousand dollars and check to see where those extra computers are and see if they can be used? And if if they're available, and can they be used with, I think IT has to cover them with
The software package or whatever? Yeah. Yeah. Like Windows support or? Correct. But, have the coverage for viruses as well. Sorry. Norton or whatever it is. Yeah. You mean the ones in the school?
Wherever. Somebody somebody had mentioned that there are used computers that are available that Eric had mentioned. Okay.
And again, that was a year or two ago. I don't know if they're still available, you know, at this time, Tess. And I'm okay with a thousand dollars. Yeah.
Okay. Rob. So I gotta make a call here. Here's my take. I'll I'll vote yes for now. We'll end up at a thousand, but I wanna revisit it. I like that. So that would be motion that would be motion passes, I think, four to two or three to two. No. Wait. Wait. Wait. Hold on a minute. Me, Bill It was four to Nick, Heather? Mhmm.
Okay. Those were our yeses. Yep. Liz is a no thinking it might be too low. Luis is a no thinking it might be too high. Alright. Motion passes for now. But, yeah, I I wanna come back to this. So how do we run that down, guys? I think computers available question question question There's definitely opportunity to explore that. Yeah. Yeah.
I think there might even be opportunities at AES for some reason, I thought. Maybe. I mean, I we can reach out. I can ask Val. I don't know what she's got. It's late tonight, but I'll I'll try and Yeah. Yeah. For sure. That would be a great pal
community type of thing. The pal program for one of the kids to show one of the seniors how to do that on one of their computers at the school. Yes. Oh, god.
I remember trying to oh, many, many years ago when I used to actually be the whiz in the house, you know, and trying to explain to my father trying to explain to my father how to go onto the Internet, find his cricket scores. I gotta tell you, I it ended up being a 45 step process because I had to tell him things like click on the thing. Do it twice. Okay. So Anyways
we're I'm I'm clearly fried. So Yeah. We're at the end of the cleaning center line. My thought is we should probably stop here because I don't know if I've got anything left in the tank, and I don't know about the rest of you. I would suggest we now discuss whether we could get a meeting together maybe for Tuesday night. The reason I say Tuesday, I would normally pick Thursday, but I've got something Thursday. And it gives the the DTC caucus, so I can't bail on that. Given that, what is people's availability for Tuesday night next week? Tuesday, twenty fourth. The twenty fourth?
I'm good. I'm good. There's an RTC thing on Tuesday as well. I think it's quick.
You might as well probably trying to do the same thing we're trying to do because it's a very tight time frame there for Caucus stuff. Yes. Would this be at seven? The picked Thursday. You picked Tuesday. Oh, no.
Yeah. So RTC has a meeting on Monday and Tuesday.
Oh, good god. Alright. So you're shot for Monday and Tuesday, and I'm shot for Thursday. I mean, I could I could bail out a DTC and do something Thursday, I guess. Like, I I just think I think we need it. So We absolutely need it. I I I think we need it, and I think I just I might have to tell the DTC, sorry, guys. It's more important for me to do this. So do you guys everybody else back around the horn? Is Thursday of next week the twenty sixth okay?
Okay. Hang on one second. I'm reading my let me just read my meeting. Let me read my email real quick. Yeah. I can't do the twenty sixth. You can't do the twenty sixth. I can't do the twenty sixth. No. Liz, do you have to go Monday and Tuesday?
Yeah. I'm I'm looking at my email real quick. Per the state, we must pick delegates in It May for
is so tight. We have that starting on March 24 and get this information to the state by April 1. We can discuss the delegates on the twenty third, but cannot pick them until Tuesday. Tuesday's meeting should be very short.
I mean, I could just tell them I can't make it. I mean It's up to you. I mean, I don't wanna pull you out of that. There's other Republicans in town. Skip my meeting on the on Thursday. But if Tuesday got everybody, maybe we do it. If Tuesday yeah. That's the second spot. This the idea behind this meeting is to propose that we try to get the any board of selectmen we can. Right? Yes. Correct. Okay.
I mean, we could even Well, yeah, I think we should get them. I mean, we have a meeting next Wednesday as well, but We do. We do. I think the earlier we get them, Either either they come with us on the twenty fifth and then we do the meeting on the twenty sixth or they come with us on the twenty fourth.
Yeah. Liz, is your twenty fourth or twenty fifth? Is your meeting on the twenty fourth at 07:00? That was the next thing I was gonna check. Because maybe could we start at 07:30 if if that's the case? Don't know.
Let me see. Let me go back. Please mark your calendar. Attendance is. Can they possibly give us a time? Nope.
It's almost certainly seven, though, don't you think? It's it's most certainly seven. I think that's the assumed time. That's usually when we do everything too. Yeah. Unless there's a special reason not to. It's usually usually seven. Seven.
And if that's the case too, that might affect the board of selectmen that might wanna join those meetings as well. That's right. And and yours is on Thursday?
Tues mine mine is Thursday, but I'm the only one affected here. Get well Yeah. I'm the only one who's, like, a member of the DTC that would be affected. So Yeah. I my inclination would be if everybody else could make it, but I I think Louise already said she couldn't, I would skip it. I'd do that. You know? And if I skipped it, we would have six. I
we do what we gotta do. We It's a thing. We gotta do something. But I also you know, the the point that's being made here about it sounds like the RTC meeting on the Tuesday is the one where they're gonna be making choices. Ergo Yes. The most likely one where people kinda need to be there. Ergo, if you're gonna lose people to it, that's like, you know, board of select my members, that's the one. So Yes. Yes. As much as I'd like to say, oh, you know, we'd only be losing, Liz for for a period of time, and maybe she can join lit. You know? But, no, if we're losing Murray and, like, multiple other members of board of selectmen, then what are we doing?
But is that meeting gonna be short for them on the on Tuesday, Lisa? I I I mean It's going to be short.
Yeah. It's gonna be short. So unless we say, let's start our Tuesday meeting at, say, 07:30 Or eight.
Or eight, not that we wanna do that, but that would give If
if the idea is we can get the board to select ask them discrete questions about, like, 10 light items we highlighted, maybe eight could work. A limited agenda? Might be having kids. Just a limited agenda would Yeah. Don't know.
Yeah. But if it's a special meeting Yeah. It's a special meeting. We have an open ended agenda, but we would we would try to focus it, obviously, I would think. Right?
What about what about Monday? Can we start early on Wednesday? Well, Monday, you have that other RTC thing.
I know, but I think the the more important meeting of the two might be the Tuesday Like or I was saying. Yeah. They have to do the delegates.
I mean, Mondays kinda suck for me, but I I could try and do that if that's what works for everybody else.
I mean, sure the urgency won't be very happy with me not not being there on Monday because that's Well, that do the bulk of their stuff. But, I mean, what are you gonna do? What I'm I'm trying to I'm just trying to come up with something here.
Can we start early on Wednesday at six? Would that help at all? An extra hour?
That's true. We did do that for the Yeah. But based on this based on this meeting, I feel like we need more than an hour.
I think so too. Yeah. Well, if the point of if the point of that hour is yeah. Yeah. No. You're right.
I think we need we might even wanna do Tuesday and start early on Wednesday. Right. We're just we're just with you, Heather. I think we Right. We have a lot to do. I I I absolutely hate to say that, but
so alright. First things first. Alright. Six 6PM on on Wednesday, I could do. Are we trying to do something on the Tuesday? Sorry.
Where were what's the decision on that? Just let's just do it Tuesday. Let's do it Tuesday. Okay. It's what it is. Let the other republicans in town do it. Get it done. I don't honestly, I've never been to one of those, so I don't even know how it works. Maybe Tess could explain that to us how it works if anybody wants to hear that. I mean, because she's she seems to know a little bit about it. Have you ever been have you ever done that before, Rob Me? On the DTC?
Yeah. I mean, have to we have to yeah. The whole candidate nominations and voting and everything. I mean, it it's, I I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but I I've definitely gone in the past. And I don't recall it taking forever, but they you gotta get a quorum together and you gotta make decisions. So, I'm just putting together an email here to Kate to tell her oh, well, first of all, we have to vote on this real quick. But assuming we vote on on this to have the extra meeting and then so the extra meeting on Tuesday would be seven, or do we wanna push it? Yeah. Okay. Seven. And alright. So Yeah. I'll make the motion. Let's add a special, board of finance budget workshop meeting Tuesday, the twenty fourth at 7PM and invite the Boris Lechman. And we will move the start of our twenty fifth, the regular meeting. I believe that's our regular meeting Yep. To six. And also mentioned that any board of select where we can get to that would be also appreciated. I'm gonna send an email to that board and Kate to that effect if we pass this. I'll second it.
Okay. Great. Do we have any further discussion? Alright. Screw it on the horn.
Bill. Okay. So I just wanna review one more time. So it's Yeah. Seven on Tuesday and six on Wednesday. Yes.
Yeah. That's the motion. I'm I'm good. You're yes. Okay. Heather. Yes. Nick. Yes. Luis. Yes. Liz. Yes, sir. I am also a yes. And someone should just let Kim know. Hopefully, Kim yeah. We gotta loop Kim in on that. Liz, can you contact her? Thank you. So, hopefully, we didn't just do something that doesn't work for her. Thank you all for that. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna finish that email. In the meantime, however, I suggest that we oh, great. I don't have my PDF up anymore. I believe at this point, if we're gonna stop here for the budget, it's one round last round of public speak and then adjournment. So let me see who's left. We've basically got Joanne, Tess, and, of course, Lisa who's been here the whole time.
Joanne, do you have anything for us? I will do that to you. I have I have thoughts, but good luck. Good luck. Another long meeting for you. Take care. Appreciate.
Tess, do you have any further for us? Thanks so much for the information you've given us tonight.
Yeah. Just thank you so much for listening. I appreciate your, your guidance.
Alright. And before we let it go, Lisa, are you good for us for tonight? You have anything further to say?
I think I'm good. I think I've oh, there was one item, and we can talk again. But I did talk to the auditors, and they're going up a thousand dollars. So it'll be 42 instead of 41,000.
So Oh, for for that line. So we just the next time we get a spreadsheet, hopefully, you get that in there? Yep. I just didn't wanna put it in there without telling you guys first. Oh, I understand. That's not a crazy amount. I I'm not surprised that they went up. Yep. Alright. Well, thank you for that. Yep. Okay. So I have a couple items to do. I have to get that email out to board of selectmen and Kate about the meeting changes. And then I promised you guys I would try to touch base with Roberta about a few things. Other than that, that's what I've got. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I make a motion. Okay. Second that.
Okay. Bill motions. Lee seconds. Huzzah. Let's go around. Liz? Yes. Bill? Yes. Heather? Yes. Nick? Yes. Luis? Yes.
And I, myself, have also a yes. Thank you all. Thanks for making yourselves available even though, you know, it's difficult. I appreciate it. Mhmm. Thank you. And I will see you next week, and I will report whatever I get. And Lisa, of course, will, I'm sure, continue to email us. And Yep. Everybody. Okay. Don't stop recording. Stop recording. Okay.