Meeting transcript
Board of Finance- Regular Meeting
June 24, 2026 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay, everybody. Welcome. This is the June 24th regular Board of Finance meeting June 24th, 2026. We will go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, [clears throat] one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Liberty and justice for all. And I just admitted Matt separately. I don't know again, it may be because I'm logging in as Town of Andover and I'll and I'll next time around I'll try to make a note to myself not to do that. we were doing that when we didn't have a town admin, so. In any event, right. So, looking at the agenda here, we have round of public speak and changes additions. I do have a change addition, but we'll start with public speak. I think the only member of the public we have here, you know, who's not a town employee. Oh, no, we have two. We have Joanne and Scott. I'll go I'll I'll start with Joanne. For public speak.
I'm all set. Just here to listen. Thank you.
And Scott.
Me, too.
Very good. Alicia, you're our treasurer, but if you want to speak, go ahead. No, okay, you're all set. You're muted, by the way. Okay, so changes additions. I got a call yesterday at work from Caitlin Greenhouse, chair of the Board of Education, regarding the status of the bathroom project at the school. There has been a substantive development. So, I want to add discussion of that as we can call it whatever we want. probably as we'll make the town administrator's report 4A and we'll make update on school bathroom project 4B. Liaison report, if you will. My understanding is there was a meeting was it this morning, Bill?
Yeah.
regarding this.
So, you know, Bill can kind of report in and and I I chime in as needed. But that's my proposal is to make town administrator's report 4A and school bathroom project update 4B.
Well, then you wouldn't need the liaisons on it, too, right? You would be
No, that would just be calling it some what you know
Got you.
update. Anybody second that? Everybody okay with that change? I'll
second it, Bill.
Okay. all in favor?
Aye.
Okay, looks unanimous. Thank you. Very good. So, in the interest of moving along, does anybody else have any changes, additions, etc. that they want to bring up? Going once, going twice. Okay. Town administrator's report. Matt, you're up. And you're
muted.
Hopefully we're not having technical difficulties. All right. How about this? Why don't we
I got I finally got it off.
There you are. There you are.
Sorry about that. I was yeah, so Matt Streeter, my report. I did talk to Val today about the situation at the bathroom. I guess that we'll be talking about that in a little while. so, I know that there has to be that there's going to be some pipes that had some additional possible asbestos wrap wrapping on them. I guess we could talk about that a little later, but there might be an additional cost for that. as far as all the other things with the administrator's report, just knowing that the budget passed that the tax collector was getting everything ready to be sent out. The assessors worked on the the mill rate and I did submit a list of the things that was working the previous week. I don't I'm currently working on a list of my to-do list for the past week, but a lot of it has to do with getting ready for the end of the fiscal year, making sure that we are filing for reimbursement for certain grants, making sure the grant projects are moving along and that being said, I'm here to answer any questions.
Okay, so I see it's about a page and a half here in our packet. that you prepared. I guess this was prepared originally for a board of selectmen meeting. do you want to go through it, Matt, just briefly at an overview? typically that's what we would do. But that's up to you, Rob. I don't know if that's
I'm sorry.
Well, some of it is just is is fairly basic, but
Yeah, it was really just a it was just a sort of like a great shot of everything that was going on. I did go over a lot of the items with the select board at their meeting. I just thought it would be good to have you have see you know, the same situ- same thing I had reported to the select board, but I am
Okay.
that's jumping out at you and then in the future I can just make sure that I prepare ahead of time that I can give you a more updated because obviously that's been a week and a half since that one was was put together.
Okay. Well, I mean some of these things I think are probably more relevant to select board. Like I I I'm a I'm a little curious about the you know, collective bargaining item, but that's not really our bailiwick. so if anybody else has questions, I'll I'll I'll throw it out to the board, but I'm just going through here. This all just looks like kind of You're getting your You're You're digging in.
Yeah, that is correct. getting and not only that, but I'm getting above water. I think when you the first couple two to three weeks it really was like a lot of things were going on. You were dealing with the you know, things with the budget and the different referendums and town meetings special town meetings and other meetings that were going on. But now that things have sort of I can say calmed down, the waters are clear clear and I'm getting to know a lot of the people and how things are working. So, with that I can confidently think that
every meeting moving on that I'll be in a little bit better situation to you know, tell you what things that are going on and speak more intelligently than I probably did at the first meeting I was at.
[laughter]
I appreciate that.
Sorry, just as a
[clears throat]
just as an aside on your comment about being participating in or not your responsibility related to collective bargaining. You guys I hope to get one of the members of the Board of Finance on a committee.
Okay.
As we do negotiate with public works. salaries are the most they're the biggest cost that we have as a town. You guys should be engaged. So, we got to get somebody on there. We got to get an understanding of what it will do to us in the future as to the increases and you know, the benefit items that we sit there and and give out in collective bargaining. So, you guys should be involved.
Absolutely.
What's the timing on that then, Jeff? When would you need that person designated from our board?
it would be nice if we could do it tonight, honestly, because this is something that we have to get to because Matt, the the timing on that contract it really is July 1st, isn't it?
Yeah, it expires at June 30th. but you I have reached out and I have talked to the and not only the union steward but the agent for ask me and they were understanding that you know, with the changes in the certain positions that we had, especially the town administrator position, that they they had sometime back in January sort of just sent out a like a unofficial letter just saying, "Hey, we're this is where we're at. when you're ready to move forward, we're you know, we're ready." And they you know, the people I've talked to the union members that they're on they're understanding that
you know, this will be done in hopefully short time. But we do need to get going and it would be great as the the first selectman said to get some representation from the the board of the board of finance so that we can kind of figure things out and cuz this this once we do this step, it'll be you know, next year we have the next union contract that's going to be expiring. So we want to kind of plan out our strategy as we move forward with these.
How many unions do we have? Is it two?
In the town we have two.
In as part of these contract negotiations, does that involve as well the payment in lieu of health insurance issue?
And that's part of contract, right?
Yes.
Okay. All right. So I guess the question would be because we you know, we get a we'll come up with a board member tonight. I think it's good idea and when do you think
When do you meet with the
that person would need to be available? Like what when not when not in terms of the next week, whatever, but the day of the week, do you have any idea when you're going to try to meet on this?
It would be to try and figure out mutual times. So whoever we get, we would like to try and I'm really available at any time. So I can make my schedule available. So really it'll be between the first selectman, the person for the finance and again, whoever is representing the union.
Yeah. As as as I actually would like to, since I work full-time, I don't think I'm the right choice. does anyone else on the board want to throw their hat in the ring on this?
Just so everybody's aware, it would be during the week. It would be during the work day because the union representative is not going to want to do it at night.
It's kind of what I was thinking.
Yeah.
Okay.
Did Kim were you interested? Is that why you were
I heard Kim saying yes.
volunteer. Yes.
Okay.
Fantastico. I'm I'm good with that. I don't know if anybody else, otherwise we'll just go ahead and thank Kim for her service.
Awesome.
Yeah, I was going to offer, but but I saw her raise her hand.
[laughter]
I mean, if if you want more than one person, I'm happy to join in as well, too. Whatever.
Thank you for that.
So, Kim can be the member of this committee and kind of our liaison. [snorts] let us know how it's going and
Sure.
Fantastic. Thanks for taking that on. and I, you know, agreed that it's good to have us all involved. when I said before, not our bailiwick, I meant, you know, it's it's more the select board, but I like this I like this approach. okay. So, anything else on the town administrator's report that people want to dig into? I mean, we've got a lot going on. is there any of I guess what I what I would say, Matt, my question to you is, in this list of various projects and things that are going on, is there anything in there that you would highlight that potentially has, a budgetary impact where, you know, we're still in the 25-26 budget. Is there Is there an item on here that's
possibly going to be, you know, lead to an overage or anything like that that you would bring up?
I'm not thinking of anything overage. I think I'm One One the things is really just kind of making sure that all the grant projects that we have, the bridge project, everything that, you know, that the funds are somewhere out there and that, you know, that we are moving forward to, you know, use them. And there are some things that possibly had been either some earmarks that had a component that had a match or and some that don't. So, I want to make sure that if there is funds that are out there that had already been appropriated in the budget, I got to kind of like see where they are cuz I was told like there was a I'm trying to think if there was a parking lot that was possibly talked about being done and the money was put aside for it. And also that there was possibly a roof for the
a building at the DPW that was approved. just to make sure cuz we'd have to, you know, start thinking about either whether we're going to have to, you know, go put out an RFP for, like say, for the roof project at the DPW. I don't I don't I Those are the things I just really got to work on and try to see that make sure that there are as funds available. Okay. If there's things that are pushed off.
Fair enough.
I have a question.
Yeah, go ahead.
Can you talk Can you talk about number six? Matt set up on accounts and procurement, processing invoices. Can you talk about that item?
Sure. Part of it is that I had to get put on the as accounts and also I had get the authorization as a procurement agent for the town for, you know, certain things that when I when I sign either documents for certain vendors that we have. it's in the it's in the charter, you know, that talks about some of the responsibilities that the town administrator has as a procurement person. But it's really just making sure that I'm put on some of these accounts and that I'm getting the invoices on them. A lot of the invoices say, hypothetically, say like Home Depot and those bills, they're still coming in. Some still say Robert Burbank, some are saying Eric Anderson. It's really just a procedural just kind of like making sure
that they're getting to the right place, they're getting to the right email. Things may be still going to an old E. Anderson email instead of a town administrator email or it's really just making sure that everything payroll for payables which also say when I say procurement, I'm thinking everything that we're spending money on. Most of the small stuff.
Thanks.
You're welcome.
If if you guys don't mind, I'll I'll sit there and I'll go through a couple things that Matt has here so you guys are aware of what's going on. So, Long Hill Bridge is moving forward. As Matt said, we had work this week to sit there and make sure that our grant reimbursement process is is smooth and that we have all of our funding all of the monies that we're dispersing coming back to us as quickly as possible. The Veterans Field project is completed. There's going to be a grand opening on the the the field on July 1st. So, the committee for that field is working on a a grand opening and they're planning on it for July 1st. It should be in the paper so that everybody can sit there and come down and see what a nice job Christine Rondazzo and really Scott Person did to sit there and utilize the grant funding that we have.
A quick question, Jeff. Is that open to the public yet or do we have to Is there wait till the grand opening or can it be used now?
Well, if you want to go down there and play pickleball, have at it, my friend. So,
I want to use the slide on the new slide.
You can go to
The slides, yeah.
Yeah, as long as you make the weight protocol, right? You know, there is a weight limit. but yes, that that project is is completed. The pavilion looks phenomenal. I know that there were some contributions on top of that to put in picnic tables into the pavilion. So, the pavilion has six picnic tables. We have four pickleball courts, and we have a really nice playground that is ready for use. It has been used, but July 1st is the grand official opening for the town. And number [clears throat] five, you have the diesel fuel system. You know, we've had a problem with the fuel system, the pump down there, the software for the pump you know, finally quit. that is going to be something that we're going to deal with in this fiscal year, but we're actually not going to get it. It's going to It's a six six seven week delay on getting the pump ready to go. So, that's a big That's going to get done. And we need it because, you know, we have to bill all of the the entities that actually use diesel. So, we have to bill RAM, we have to bill AES, we have to bill the fire department So, there's a lot of things that the treasurer's office and public works have been having to deal with it. We have systems that needed to be upgraded. So, we're doing that.
Hey, Jeff, just a quick question. In the interim, if it's going to take six weeks, what are we doing? What's the backup?
They're doing it manually. Rob, so we have to sit there and take the information and do it manually. So,
It's a pain.
And and really, the biggest problem in in just so everybody's aware, the biggest problem is the initial month that it went down. we have to estimate some numbers. Now, it's it's worked pretty well from what I'm understanding is that the the buses actually record their fill-ups each time. So, we're you know, we're going to be pretty good on the school side. And on RAM side, but we're going to have to make some estimates and get it done. So, Lisa has been working on that.
Jeff, what is the hold up? Why does it take 6 weeks to get that?
It's the piece of equipment. We're we're actually getting a whole pump. It's not just like a computer.
Oh, okay.
a whole new pump and a whole new system.
Got you.
Right? And so, you know, six, Matt has been set up as the global administrator on the banking side. I sent out some information to Rob on banking. one thing that's going to occur on the town side is we have 24 bank accounts at the town. 21 of them are small little things. We're going to consolidate all those to get down to three bank accounts
Excellent.
so that we can sit there and be able to manage this a little bit more effectively. And and and really the goal is to earn more money for the town. Because if we take those bank accounts, there's about $790,000 that's currently in those 21 accounts. Those accounts are either earning 0% interest or 0.1% interest. So, if we take those funds and we move them into the stiff account, we can earn 3.71 currently. So, that's what we're working toward getting that done. That all those funds will be transferred by the end of this month. And just for everybody to understand I've had multiple conversations with the auditor so that we're offset as far as
how we sit there and handle the fund balances that are currently in there. So, some of those funds are funds like the Norton Scholarship Fund or the Moody Scholarship Fund. Those those entities need to get the interest on their accounts. So, we're going to try to get them more interest, but we're going to sit there and do that as a manual calculation. So, the town has let's say 2 to 3 million dollars in this fund and it earned 3% interest. And then we're going to sit there and move the 3% interest over to those charitable funds. so, that fund balance keeps escalating. But there's other funds that don't that are getting the 0.01% interest that don't need to get that interest. It's really money for the town to offset taxes. And if we can do a
better job in the finance department of moving that money to the stiff account, all the better.
Perfect. Agreed.
So, if we can do that, that's great. And then grant administration, Matt has like he said, he's been doing a a very good job. And and Lisa and her group of Brenda is the new town assistant treasurer. you know, she's they're she's very good. So, if you get a chance to go in there and say hello to her, Brenda is is doing a great job. Lisa is doing a great job. We're going to sit there and get the grant. Matt is working to make sure that we get all of our reimbursements on the Bunker Hill Bridge project. that's first on the list. And then we've made two payments on the bridge for Long Hill. We'll get that done. And the steep grant for the playground will be reimbursed also. And we also have some other funding that we're getting from the state related to that playground. So, the biggest issue on my mind has been reimbursement of all the funds that we've put out. So, once we can get all those money back, I'll be much happier.
Jeff, is there any update on the firehouse?
Well, if you I I I gave Matt kind of the marching orders of things that I would like to see done and how I would like to see them done. So, I'll go over them with you. the first is get all the grant money organized. But then, as far as projects go, the next project that really needs to be taken in is the generator project at the town hall and this the, community center and the firehouse. So, we're going to put the generator in and connect up all three buildings. And then, right after that, I want him to get on to the kitchen in the the senior center because you know, we have funding on these different projects, so we want to sit there and get some of these
things accomplished as quickly as possible. So, it would be the kitchen at the community center. And then, we need to focus on the downstairs in the community center. So, I asked Tess to sit there and do, get some feedback as to what we really can do in that downstairs area. then, Bill, it's gone to the firehouse and getting the the, facility for all of the the, vehicles completed. That one might be something that we end up having to come back to you guys on. We have to determine all of the financing issues related to that one because, the initial, plan that Eric had developed was for a single story building. That caused us some problems, so we're going to we're potentially have, I have to look at what we've done in the past as far as what we tried to sit there and allocate
to that, but we're going to have to sit there and work on that. And that one is something I think we were going to probably have to come back for, you know, let's say 30 to 50,000 dollars, but we need to get that project done as well.
Wasn't there, something with the grant there though we have to do certain work, possibly at the museum or something like that or spend some money somewhere else to, you know, get that money, right?
I remember of windows being involved. And window frames or something.
Well, there was a discussion Rob about the front door and then the roof in the back building. but basically that was you would never believe it, but the old firehouse is in historical zone. And so because we wanted to sit there and tear down a an eyesore, it's a historical zone and SHPO required us to make some commit some dollars to another building in town which Bill, that was correct. It was the old town hall. And to be really honest that this this board along with the the Board of Selectmen, we should be looking at that building the old town hall now. So, I'm getting a little off track, but the old town hall, we should look at that building as you know, maybe a cultural center or something else that we could do with it. I know we have the museum there. I know we have you know, events maybe once a month, but it is something that that's a nice little building and has historical significance to the town. It's on a very nice visible area for the community and we should probably be as creative as possible with that building. I know that Bill's wife is heavily involved in that and she's talked about putting up a it's not a pergola.
A cupola?
Cupola, there you go. Like because if you look in old small pictures that the museum has, there was a cupola on that building previously. So, certain things that we should be doing there, but we've got to finish the the old firehouse as the as storage for the vehicles and then the other project that we need to sit there and get our funding in place is for the Percy Cook Trail. So, we need to get that funding in place and do that because that's that's something easy that we can do to connect the trail to the town complex. And then the one that's just sitting there that is going to be a little bit more difficult and I told Matt is
something that we really have to work on and even determine what we want to do with it is the connector that Eric had been working on from the from the bridge to 2 3 up 316. So, that connector. But, that is a a a another problem. El El and then one last one, sorry to bother you, but the Wales not Wales, the Basola Bridge project is something that's coming up in the next 12 months. And so, we have to get a bunch of easements from the property owners down there.
I'm sorry, what bridge is that, Jeff?
The Zola Road. It's a
Oh, Zola, yeah.
The Zola is the culvert.
Culvert.
Yeah. And so, once we can do that, then we should be So, Matt's got a lot of physical projects on his plate that we got to help him with. But, that's the outline of what I told Matt this week that we've got to sit there and get accomplished.
Great.
So, I have a question. with the Yeah, with the fiscal year coming to an end, are there any accounts that haven't been reconciled yet that we know of?
I'm not able to answer that question. I That's probably something more for the treasurer's office.
I mean, yeah, we would ask
Yeah, it's Lisa. Lisa is not here.
Are you talking about the grants reconciliation?
No. No, just accounts. Bank accounts. Yeah, bank accounts.
I can tell you and there you go, Lisa, you can answer it.
[laughter]
The general bank account, I'm just finishing up May. the STIFF account, you can see well, when we were going to get to the budget to actual, I was I'm just mention that. The STIFF count is going to be pretty much on spot. you might have a a surplus of like 10,000 in there. So, that I can do fairly quickly. as far as your other accounts, not the grant accounts that Jeff is talking about, but the liability accounts, we're trying to get to those, too. we're getting there, but it's a long process cuz there's so many of them.
Well, you're talking about two Louise bank accounts.
Yes. Yeah, I'm talking
accounts. All the bank accounts and records.
Yeah, right.
All right. There are fund accounts that that because of how they were done previously, we made some adjustments and we we will be able to provide you out of the finance office those by your next meeting.
Good to hear.
So, so what you also have to do for us, and I mean, I have a vision of what I think you guys should want to see. You should want to see those funds because now that the bank accounts are going to get closed, those funds are just going to be balance sheet accounts. And so, you know, reality is I had been asking for a balance sheet for the previous treasurer for years and I never really got it. So, that's the one thing that I've been asked Lisa to get done and we're going to work together to sit there and get the balance sheet together. So, everybody can see the funds, everybody can sit there and see what's remaining in them and
So, just speaking for myself, what I want to try to work on, and I was going to at some point maybe meet with Matt and and talk about this, is not only would I like to be able to see the the the funds kind of in real time and as opposed to, you know, every year at the audit, but also you know, as a town, we we I we could put together a proper capital plan, town school, the whole the whole nine, and then we can line them up. If we have funds where we know where we're going to be spending money that we've actually allocated, you know, we we should have a document maybe that links that up and and shows on the one hand, here's the fund applicable, here's the expenditure we expect for XYZ projects. And I And I'm not sure if it should be on the same document, probably not, probably a different document. On the revenue side, you know, there is there's money we could that comes in from the state that in in general in our budgetary documents we've never displayed, things like town aid road, things like that. You know, some some of the grant money that comes in that I would love it if we could, going forward, work on displaying again in kind of real time for the board so
that we can see the you know, a trued up you know, this is what we spend in road work a year. You know, we load in What it was it? $385,000 to the budget, then we take that and we add town aid road, and then we use it on X, Y, and Z. So, you know, things like that so that we can we can get a fuller picture, a more holistic picture of everything that's going on both on the revenue and expenditure side. So, you know, that's maybe not as articulate as I'd like, but that's why I why I was thinking about sitting down with Matt and just sort of hashing it out.
I I'm I'm in absolutely
Yeah.
I'm in I'm in agreement with you, Rob, but I think the one guy that we got to include in this is the auditor. So, at our July 22nd meeting, you should be prepared, everybody on your board, everybody from the board of selectmen that wants to attend, should be prepared to ask him questions regarding that because
Yeah.
I agree with you that that there are specific grant dollars that should Town Aid Road is the one from the town that is just the only I don't know Lisa, is there anything else that I'm missing? Town aid road is the one that's
Is the largest one. Yeah, and you've got your steep and your low sip, but those aren't anywhere near
Low sip small, but it's but still I want it on there, yeah.
But but those are not
The other ones are
Those are not consistent grants. I don't believe
fluctuates?
I think
Well The board of Ed has I I mean we get that list from the state. We just got to review it.
Yeah, but
Categorize it better.
Correct, but from the town side, the town aid road money is consistent and it should be put what we should do is put the town aid road in our income
Yep.
calculation
Absolutely.
and our spending on the roads on the expense side. So we all are aware of what we're doing. So I I 100% agree with that and you know
That's what I follow too.
Yeah, [snorts] I'm in with the agreement with that as well.
Yeah.
I don't think there's any really other Rob any other consistent grants.
Smaller.
And that and that was the other conversation I want to have and by the way I was going to bring that up too that our next meeting we have our auditor. So this is exactly the time to to talk about this stuff with with the auditor on how to handle it. How to how do properly handle tracking our inconsistent grants. Our conditional grant, whatever you want to call them. You know, grants we we get for a specific issue or grants that fluctuate or what have you. How how is the best way for us to approach that and you know receive and disseminate that information. So that that's another one on my list.
Yeah, I think that you have the smaller consistent grants. You have the one for historic preservation. You have the library one I believe there's one for that. And then you had you just had a $10,000 one for community center. So, I I'm thinking the library and the first one are consistent, but they're small.
They're the Yeah, I mean
And it just so just so everybody on this board understands how the finance office is doing this right now is if there is a grant come that comes in, so the community center grant that came in that community center grant was specifically allocated towards the software that that was being purchased and has some impact related to the fine of the transportation program. So, the treasurer's office and Lisa correct me if I'm wrong just so I I don't want to say the wrong thing, but that money would then go in and offset the expenses for for that specific line item.
Right.
So, so the community center might spend $15,000, only have $5,000 budgeted, and then the grant money comes in and reduces the expenditure. I do not like that at all, like in any manner. But, I personally think we should sit there and have a grant income account, and then under the grant income account should be sub accounts and say, "Here's this, here's this, here's this, here's this." So, you see it, and then at the end of the the year make the adjustments on the financial statement to get the audited statements to work. That's what I believe, but you got to ask the auditor cuz you know, find
There's the registrar's Yeah, the registrar's grant grant was
Yeah.
That was difficult, too, cuz that pays for salaries.
Yeah. I mean, and and that that fund accounting is a really, odd accounting world, all right? And so so to me, I almost would rather sit there and look at it going, "Okay, here's here's your income streams and your income sources. Everybody's aware of what the income streams are and then you're spending money and then at the end you make the adjustments for the audited financial statements to reduce a given line item for an expense. That would be better visually for your board and for the rest of the town to digest rather than doing things like has been done for years and years and years with town aid road where you take the grant and put it in and offset spending that you've done on the road and then that that fund does keep the balance rolling, but it would be a lot easier to see if it was done in a different way.
I agree.
I agree, too.
I've been that's been kicking around in my head for a while. So, I think it's great if everybody thinks about that for our next meeting. and we'll chew it on it with the with the order.
Sounds good. All right. So, before we move on the agenda, if is there anything else in this administrative report that anybody else wanted to ask about, dig into? Or shall we move on to our report on the school situation?
just just so you Manigan here. that I I I was remiss to say talk about like you know, we did have the new assistant treasurer start. I think we would we did have a New England Wetlands agent start. We have a lot of you know, some projects that you know, we're trying to get going with that. we are doing interviews for the assistant community center coordinator starting tomorrow. we have posted for a new public buildings custodian. And we are also posted for a transfer station attendant. So, I think that you know, we have some other positions that are are coming on. I think that other than that, I I we're things are pretty stable, which is good to say. We have a lot of new people, but I don't I'm
glad to say that, you know, I I'm confident that we are going to be have some of these positions filled, and I will definitely keep you informed, and hopefully by the the July meeting, when we meet with the order, that I'll have further information for you.
I will say it was quite noticeable that we don't have our our cleaning crew that we had in the past. The couple did a great job. I was in there a couple times over the last couple weeks, and the amount of dirt and dust and straw and leaves on the carpet was just embarrassing. but hopefully we do get someone to fill that position quickly.
just just, you know, and then Sorry. Sorry. You're 100% right, Bill. And and we got Matt will we'll work we're going to work on that. a couple things I I I should have brought this up. We did offer and did agree to a 3-year contract with the community center director. So, for all of those you didn't know, that that position is going to stay the same. And also we had two resignations from the Board of Selectmen. so, I know that the members of the Republicans that are here and and that their town committee met, but if you have any anyone that wants to sit there and put forth for one of the openings, please let it be known out there in public.
And I think I know the answer to this question, but I'll ask it anyway, since you didn't mention who were the two people that resigned?
Jeff Murray and Carol Lee.
That's what I thought. Okay, thank you.
So, has the town administrator's contract been approved as well?
Good question. The answer to that is no. We had a special meeting in place. Just so everybody knows the the reason for the delay on that is related to retirement contribution, how we do it. The MERF is a is one option and there's a 457, which is another option. And we were supposed to have that on an agenda for a special item, Louise, and that meeting was canceled. So, one of the members who was going to attend couldn't. So, we only had two members at that meeting and that was also a meeting with e Hop River Homes board because there is a a tax credit that has been granted to them for 40 years. And it's a question of is it should the town continue to do that? It's it's 10 to 12,000 dollars a year and should they should we do it based upon what is getting done for the community.
Do we know how many residents are actually Andover residents that live there? What's the integer?
We asked that question, Bill, and the question that I really asked was more along the lines of do do Andover residents get priority? So, if an older resident who has come upon hard times or wants to sit there and downsize, would they get priority on the facility? And the answer is no. So, it's basically USDA run property and USDA has has a list and so, it's a it's a it's not as simple as this these are all positive things that happen for the community. It's It's a low-income housing it provides a service to the geographic community and you know, it's it's a question. Where where What we asked really is the softball field was always the ticket in my mind. You know, we used to we leased the softball field for a for a dollar and that was but we have no sports in town. So we don't have a softball program. We don't utilize that field at all. So the question was could we do something creative with that? And so that's what we're trying to think about doing and
the Board of Selectmen has to decide what they're going to do with the tax credit. We didn't vote on it. So
Interesting. All right. More information there. so [clears throat] per the amended agenda 4B is the the bathroom issue. as I mentioned, Caitlin called me about it, but Bill probably has more detail than I do. So I'll turn it over to him regarding this discovery of asbestos around the piping.
So the good news is that all of the demolition is done. So whatever's going to be discovered has been discovered. So at this point there's a few things. There's the asbestos. They have a contractor picked out to do the remediation. There are There was some contracts I guess that were a little bit cheaper when they went out for price. But the way this thing works with the state is each contractor has is a 10-day waiting period that you have to get to the state. So if you select a different contractor other than the one that we are selecting and already submitted to the state, it would keep pushing the project out further. so it was decided because of the small amount of money that they would go with the contract they've already chosen because the date it's already been filed with the state with that contractor and so things will move forward quicker. just stand where we are with that. There was also some issues where they thought there was a chase in the wall that they could use. That chase is not there that they have to build. some urinals have to be moved about 6 in to the right from where they were originally planned and along with that there's some small electrical changes. So all of these are change orders that will cost will cost the town probably around $30,000, but we won't really know the exact
extent of of those changes until the end of the project. But because the demolition's done, they don't expect any more change orders or any more surprises to come out of the project. So they feel pretty confident that that's that's the end of the change orders right there. so unless there's any questions on that, but like I say they're looking somewhere around $30,000 for all of those changes.
Yeah, Katie Katie said something like 25 to 30 to me. Yeah, and and you know, just to chime in here, one of the issues with the timing is if you push out the project much, you run into the school year start. Right. So they're sort of under the gun with that. the asbestos issue just you know, I I I'm tangentially involved in such things through my work. It is what it is. It's unfortunate. It's unlucky. but you have to deal with it and as I understand it, you know, you're in a school, right? the state is going to want that out of there for sure. deep is going to want that out of there. So they got to do what they got to do is really what it boils down to and and unfortunate. but I I assume that once the once that comes through we can have a meeting regarding releasing, you know,
whatever the final additional cuz we we released 220 what the final additional is that we need to add there. Now, in in order to keep us up to speed, one of the things I asked Caitlyn for was I guess Eric Sanderson is kind of running oversight on the whole thing and he's writing up reports. And I said, "Look, the next report, the one that talks about this, can you get that to the Board of Finance, please?" So, we get a copy and we can all see it. his write-up of what happened when they opened up everything and what they found. So, that we're not you know, when the request comes in, everybody's kind of had a chance to look at it, digest it, understand it as best we can. I thought that would help for down the road. That's all I've got.
Can [clears throat] I ask that those reports go to the town administrator? Because Matt, did you get that report?
I have not I don't believe I've seen that. No.
I will I will I will ask Caitlyn to include Matt as well.
Okay. And then Bill, were you part I know you were part of the committee, but did the committee have another meeting or was this you just showing up or this is
no, they have a weekly update and Eric Eric Sanders Eric Sanderson, who's oversight for us, he's on that meeting as well as the the contractor that we're using and Caitlyn and Val and myself. So, it's a once-a-week meeting on Wednesday morning 8:30 and I'll be going to all of those meetings every week so I can keep you guys up to date on, you know, everything as it progresses.
Okay.
But that is a weekly man- meeting.
Is it a Is it a Zoom meeting or is it a
Yes. it's a Teams meeting.
Teams meeting?
Yeah.
can you make sure that
Yeah, I'd like to get on that.
Exactly.
Okay. I'll talk to Caitlyn, make sure that the invitation goes to Rob. Did you Was that you?
No, that was Matt.
Oh, that was Matt. Matt, I'm sorry. Matt, I'm sorry. Matt. And selectman, okay. I'll make sure you guys both get that. Anybody else?
No, just Matt.
No selectman. No selectman.
Just just Matt.
We don't We don't want to sit there and and and overstep our bounds. Matt Streeter
Okay, just Matt then.
Yeah.
Very good.
Are members Are members of the committee able to go in and like have I don't know, weekly walk-throughs or maybe not weekly, but
Yeah. they said I was able to go in if I want to see the work. I'm not sure, you know, I I'm sure I have to give get permission cuz you have to have a hard hat on. You have to notify the contractor you're coming on site and all that kind of stuff, but Caitlin and Val both said, you know, I was welcome to go in there. So, if there's somebody that wants to go in there, I'm sure if we ask you know, Caitlin or or Val, we just have to get permission from the contractor cuz they own that site when it's being you know, worked on right there. They have to know who's on and off the site and all that stuff. So, yeah, but they said absolutely I could go in there. So,
I was thinking maybe I was thinking it might be appropriate for Matt to be able to pop in every now and then. That's all.
Yeah, I'm I'm afforded the opportunity. I've talked to to Val and she was going to show She gave me the progress. She showed me pictures, but one of the things as far as you know, the public going in there, when they're doing this remediation as Bill was mentioning
Nobody goes in there.
No Nobody there Well, A, no kids can be in the building and I guess there is some sort of summers program that goes on and is outside.
summer camp
Yeah, the summer cool Yes, and then if they used to use the bathrooms and they're not allowed in there, they they can use the community center of the town hall. But adults or anybody over 18 can be, but it usually it's it's just wise that, you know, while they're doing those type of projects, they do a pretty good job of to try to limit it any extra people from being in the building, but I can definitely at some point set up a time and you know, with anybody members of the finance committee and the school administration if they want to just get a I'm sure as Bill said walks walk through when it once it's a little bit safer.
There was a bunch of pictures too that the contractor did share this morning. So I mean if there's any pictures of the work that's been done in the demolition, you know, the pipe, the lack of the chase, you know, where the location of the urinals are going to be, you know, he took pictures of everything and so it made made for a very good meeting this morning. We could ask questions. We could understand exactly what was going on. So I'm sure if anybody wants to see those pictures too, I could always ask that they be forwarded along too.
Bill, can I ask a stupid question?
No stupid questions.
What's what's a chase?
Oh, so lots of times like the best way I can describe it is I have a old condo in Newport and it was built before water, electricity and sewer. So they build these little walls might be like 8 or 12 inch in a corner of a building where they use it to run pipes and wires up and down from one floor to the next. So there's like heating pipes and water pipes and sewer pipes and you'll you'll see this little jog in the wall and that's just to house those pipes or wires. So they call it a chase.
I was wondering what it was. I was wondering if
Thank you.
[laughter]
Going up I guess they they thought there was a chase there that's not there. So they're going to create one.
Going up is ventilation.
Yeah.
As much as anything. So Bill Eric Sanderson is our our supervisor our super on the project, right?
Construction manager, yeah. I guess you call him.
Construction manager. All right. And so he's he's participating in the weekly meeting.
Yes.
All right. And then just so I understand, what was the what was the cost for that? Anybody?
all together everything was $30,000. The way I see it that including
No, no, no, no. You're talking asking about what Eric's role cost.
Yeah. Eric's role.
Oh, Eric's role.
Yeah, yeah.
I I don't have it off the top of my head, but I can get that for you, Jeff. I I don't know what that Whatever it is is well worth it. He's
No, no, no. I I
Yeah.
You know, he's having weekly meetings and he can provide reports to the to the
Yeah.
to everybody who's interested, that is positive.
Okay. Do you want me to get that cost for you though?
Oh, I I just think the whole the board should know. I I would like to know.
I have a I I honestly I think we talked about it, but I can't remember the number.
We did. We talked about it a couple months ago and I for some reason between 8 and 12,000 is
I was going to say I know it's sub 20.
That's not a lot. I have a I have 11 in my head.
What?
Okay, so somewhere in there.
That sounds right.
you're pretty darn close.
we can hunt it down.
Yeah.
I had 11 in my head. But but from the town side, right? Just include get Matt included so that when somebody needs to ask a question or has needs information, he can at least provide it to anybody who's asking.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Yep. Yep. It's good. We do we do need to get Matt involved in everything. So, anyway, that's the deal. That's the situation. Think the sooner we talked about it, the sooner we got info on it, the better.
I have a question on that.
Yes, go ahead.
If by chance everything doesn't get done by the time the school starts, what's what's plan B?
well, see there's there's there's the penalties the contractor. Financial penalties and they're they're pretty heavy if he doesn't finish the project on time. there's a word for it, I can't it's escaping me, but anyways, they're going to finish on time. That's why they're going with the contractor they first selected because there's a 10-day period for the state. that's why that was important, and where they are right now and what they've said today is they don't see this pushing it out, Louise. So, I don't I know that's not the answer you're looking for. I don't know what the contingency plan would be if it actually wasn't done, but at this
point they're still saying the project will be done. I think they said the week of the 20th of August or some I forget the exact date, but it's still scheduled to be on time. But, I don't know what plan B is, Louise. I can always ask that question, too.
Yeah, just curious.
Yeah. I am, too.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's a that's a that's an ugly scenario, so I think they're just going to work really hard to avoid it.
They're they're going to do everything in their power to make sure they finish that on time.
I'm sure I'm sure they will. Yeah, I'm sure they will.
It's it's a financial hit to them if they don't.
Yeah.
Costly.
Exactly.
Okay.
It's per day. For every single day, it's a it's a pretty hefty hit, so.
Okay.
All right. in the interest of moving along, the next things on our list here is budget to actual. It's old business. We're going to go through our usual you know, budget to actual, check register review. anybody chime in if and when you you see something as as you you know, if you've gone through it already, great. you know, there are some things on here I think we've seen we've talked about in the in the past as to why they might be over or what have you. but, if anybody has a question, you know, Lisa you can and Matt can help us figure it out.
Like I said, I looked through it today and I think most of the ones that were, you know, jump out at you we've already talked about. So, but I'm not sure if anybody else saw anything new.
I had a question at the very end cuz I just can't remember. What What is the ask my accountant? You know, we talked about I just can't remember.
We inherited that. We inherited that. So, and in the chaos that it's been since I came in January, we've put a couple things in there and we are going to review it and put it in the proper place, but sometimes when we've moved along to get things going, that's a temporary spot until we can like allocate like the fuel bill for $3,000. It's just like where there's others we have questions where to apply like we've said, where to apply a fund money or something like that, but it's going to be resolved, but those those that's something that they were using before. It's a temporary spot. It will be allocated before it by the end of the year.
It's really like ask Lisa where this goes.
Yeah.
Where does it go?
Or ask the accountant. I mean, it's just like the real auditor and say, "Hey, should this be like we're talking about? Should this be revenue? Should this be applied against expenditure?" you know, like you were saying with the the community service grant and then the bill that came in for, you know, the for the transportation. It It's a temporary spot.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. I would say I just want to say the interest income for the staff, that is only reconciled up to February and I I looked quickly and we have another 15,000 coming in for March and April and probably close to that. So, we will reach that revenue and have a little bit more than what we are expecting for budget. the thing that is most over is legal. so, that's something that we'll have to contend with. The only other thing that's really really over that are salaries, but there's some that are really under. So, they kind of offset each other. I haven't really figured out if one way or the other they're up or down. But, you've got like five that are a little bit over and you've got four that
are under. So,
Some of that's the turnover, right? We've got, you know, people helping out their replacements or what have you.
Yeah, I mean you're over, you're under, you're over in the town clerk assistant, but you're under in town clerk. you're over, you know, in snow and in temp public works, but you're under in regular public works. You know, so these things like you're over in elections, but you're over in registrar, but you're under in elections. so, they kind of the only one that I can't see any coverage for is the community center. I I don't know where that might come from. The other ones kind of offset each other. But, that and the legal are the things that that I see that are a little out of balance.
Well, if memory serves, we have 48,000 in contingency left worst comes to worst. Not that I want to tap that, but
Right. Yeah.
Okay.
I will say we just to update you like I did with the Board of Selectmen, we did have some the problems with someone tried to handle the bank account to you know, got into our email. That's been taken care of. we updated the QuickBooks cuz I was worried about that. We initiated the ADP last week. We're working out the kinks in that. Everybody's coming forward and asking about their balances, so we're real busy with that. Brenda has been great. it's going to take time. She'll learn municipality, but that's going good. We'll be glad when the fuel pumps are done. I'm still trying to get together a
accounting class per se cuz I think there's a lot to be learned by a lot of people as far as W-9s, how you we're going to start using purchase orders, approvals, account numbers. the auditors, we will probably start the next one middle of August cuz they've already signed up. They already asked me about that. you know, and we're working on the funds and the grants like Jeff was talking about. So, we're very very busy. So,
I hear [snorts] you.
Yep.
Lisa, have you talked any more or have you done anything about payroll? You were talking about getting a payroll
system company.
I did ADP. We initiated it last week.
Oh, you did. Okay.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. and it had, you know, some glitches but we're working out and the employees have been asked to start using their phone instead of the time clock.
Oh, good.
And I had one person go online and try and use it and she succeeded, but no one else has attempted yet. but we'll get there. We'll get there. I think everybody will love it once they get it cuz they can get their W-2, they can get their pay stub. the reporting is much better to me than QuickBooks. The glitches are probably too from they said converting from a QuickBooks instead of versus Paychex or PrimePay or another payroll company is always a little bit more difficult than like another payroll company, so.
Yeah.
But it is Lisa was the cost more for doing that? To to run the payrolls because of the new system?
Because of QuickBooks?
Yeah. No. No, before QuickBooks going.
it is a little bit more cuz remember we talked about it in budget season. We were already paying $100 a month for Intuit and $200 a month for the time clock. Those are both going to go away. so this is a little bit more than that. The other thing was they quoted it more on 35 to 40. We have 49 employees. We have we had 54 to start before I took some off that had quit, so that's another reason I wanted to go to a payroll company is because it's it's a lot. I I think a lot of people don't understand there's a lot of election workers. There's a lot of library workers. There's public work workers. There's town hall workers. You know, the list goes on and on. There's there's selectmen get paid. Everybody has to be initiated on payroll. Everybody gets a W-2. So it it's a lot more I think than is realized, so I think it's a better fit for that many employees.
So if we're over that number that they quoted us on, they might charge us a little more cuz we're going to be over
It's it's $3 a paycheck, but I mean you look at a lot of people get paid [clears throat] once a year, quarterly, twice a year. So those are the ones that we didn't count on that are like coming out of the woodwork now to tell me that I owe them on July 1st and I'm like, "Who are you?"
[laughter]
So
Oh, you owe me monthly salary.
basic ones are probably 40 a week that we pay and we had quoted on that. But whenever they input all 50 of them, they were like, "Well, this is a little more than you told us." And I'm like, "Well, I didn't know either." So.
Let's see who we can get rid of.
[laughter]
Well, I think some are so small that they really could use a 1099 instead of being on payroll. If they only get paid once or twice a year, and now the threshold is going up to 2,000 instead of 600. I mean, you know, I don't know. If that small, do they really need to be on payroll?
Right.
so. I don't know.
Something to keep an eye on moving forward.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, thank you, Lisa.
You're welcome.
Thank you. All right, so unless there's anything further on the if you got if if anybody has anything more on budget actual or check register, let's talk about them now. Otherwise, we still have this
[laughter]
little item on our old business that I feel like we've been punting on for months and months now because the budget cycle was more important. and I'm I'm hoping I'm remembering it correctly, the donation request thing.
Oh.
you know, the request I I think this was a Diane Grenier question.
Diane Grenier.
Yes, sir. You know, does the town have a mechanism to take in a donation and and deal with that. Now, I think at the time one of the things we said was we're not sure, we don't have a treasurer right now. And we have too many accounts as it is, right? We're trying to consolidate our accounts and track our funds better. So, I guess what I'd say is I mean, might be inclined to punt again, but at some point, Lisa, maybe we could have a chat about that if there's a mechanism if there's a way of doing it that would be appropriate. Maybe the auditor even.
I was just going to say, maybe you should bring that up to the auditor.
Okay.
Because it's hard because you know, you can't count I mean
But punt punt again because it all comes down to process.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, it all comes down to
[gasps]
how the money is received. I mean, listen, the treasurers in the finance department can't sit there and get It's hard when you sit there and you're bringing cash in and you're asking the finance department to count cash and deposit it. So, if I would ask you a punt until we can come up with a process that will work for the finance department to not make it difficult on them and to also take the money that the residents are willing to sit there and put to good use for the community. So, we have to do it. We're just not prepared right now to come up with the right process.
For sure. And I don't want to make it I don't want to do anything that's going to add to the load right now. you know, I want I want Lisa and I'm sorry, who who was our second
us to say Brenda, Lisa
nd Brenda.
I would like Lisa and Brenda to have room to breathe
Yeah.
and settle in and catch up before we say, "Oh, here. Here's a little boutique thing for you to do." no, I just want to it's on there and I wanted to just briefly chat about it. But I think Aston answered for now. I think it's down it's down the list of of priorities, but it's definitely something I'll put on the list to at least bring up to the auditor, see what he thinks next month. Liz, go ahead. What's up?
I will also tell you I spoke to Diane Granier and I if I'm remembering correctly, I think she found a way to do what she wanted to do with the donation. I'm trying to text her right now to say, "Am I remembering things remembering this right?" I think she found a mechanism to do a memorial.
She did, right?
She did it through the Hartford Public Giving, but that's still
doesn't answer for anybody
for you know, it was a one-shot
Well, she she did it because she really wanted to get it forward. So she did it for the Hartford you know, for public giving fund. But we have to do we have to figure it out. It's not like it can't be done. It's just how creative are we? How do we make people understand this is the process if you'd like to do it, this is what you have to do and we make it as easy as possible in the finance department. And because there's also the other part about this which is you got to handle Well, let's say Diane. She wants certain uses of her fund and she wants the town to manage those uses of the fund. It then becomes another side of the whole problem and we have to sit there and do that. So like right now
Like Norton or something it says it has it has
And in the Norton the Norton funds are charitable organizations and they were established 100 years ago. So we just have to do a better job and it's just something that there's other priorities right now in the finance department. We get through that and we can get back into the how do we do it? First thing we have to do is get Lisa out of the office and get to a more reasonable timeline.
Yeah, yes. Get it Get her back to semi-retirement.
Yes, well we we have
and my mom.
[laughter]
Understood and completely agreed. So yeah, I mean I'd like to move on to the tax collector's request here. The new business 6A the
Suspense report.
The suspense list. Yes, thank you. I was scrolling and I lost the page. Yes, if memory serves this is a annual thing the tax collector goes through. They takes a look at our our who's in arrears and you know, as you see if you read the letter here, you know, this is for the most part this is people who are either deceased or we can't find them. And therefore highly unlikely to be a collected although as she notes every once in a while we get a little bit collected but I assuming this is this is before us for the board to okay it. so you know, if anybody wants to make a motion to accept to approve sorry the tax collector's proposed suspense list I'm I'm okay with that.
I'll make a motion to approve the suspense list as presented by Kate Fuller.
Dated June 22nd, 2026. Do we have a second?
I'll second that.
Thank you, Louise. Very good. Liz motions, Louise seconds, any discussion? Further discussion? No? All right, call for a vote.
Sorry, I I have I have one I have one question just for
Sure, Jeff.
Is this is this is this personal property taxes or is this vehicle taxes? I mean, what what are you looking at? Just so we're aware.
I would assume I all right, I I shouldn't say I shouldn't assume things but I would if you look at the the list itself it looks overwhelmingly to be property to be houses.
It can't be houses.
Or at least tied to houses but then in the amounts some of the amounts are very small. So it's possible it's probably I would I would expect it would be inclusive of all outstanding but unlikely to be collected property taxation.
Yeah, it's hard to know what what they are. It could be
cuz there's addresses there's addresses listed but there's doesn't actually tell you if that's their you know, their car tax or their house.
It just tells why she's put it on this list. I mean some of these items are really really old like I thought I thought I saw one I thought I saw something from 2016. Did I see that or did I imagine that?
No.
Well I mean there's one that's there's it starts with 2012.
Well I see see that one that one Rob you can tell is personal property because of the PP. So 07 PP personal property. It says I'm business. So I'm assuming that a lot of this is vehicle taxes and they're
Are they license plate numbers under like are those license plate numbers on phone under their address?
There you go. I got I've seen now I like it. We're thinking good job.
Yeah that that makes sense.
Now that makes sense. So so those are vehicles. So even if someone's even if someone's deceased I guess the car would go somewhere anyway. But it doesn't matter. I I they always just for my mind I wanted to know what kind of taxes it was. So yeah Heather is right. That's that's that's a a license plate on a lot of them. So a lot of the deceased ones it's a license plate number it looks like.
Yeah. I agree. And then number and the amounts make sense.
Yeah like if that Boston one so let's say the fourth one there the thousand and sixty-six dollars.
Yeah.
Yeah that looks like a a lot the property map and block. Like 1917.
It it also appears twice.
Because they're different years.
They're maybe different years. Yeah so three times.
One says yeah so I see so that's been starts off at yeah 2018 2019.
Oh yeah that's it's on there.
And so so my question and Matt this would be something you guys can approve this because it's still collectible if you read the letter it's
Yeah she's not giving up on it but
Matt like that thousand and sixty-six dollar one there should be a lien placed on that property.
Exactly.
And and I'm not sure that she's telling us that there's been liens placed on those, but that would be in my head what the the town would want to do. So, like I get when somebody's, you know, unable to locate it, I I don't think you should be able to re-register the same car without paying the taxes, but maybe that's what's happened. But on the on that thousand anything that's like it's the same woman or same person on Boston Hill Road
Yeah, Boston Road.
multiple times on this, it's probably 10% or half of the total
Half of the total is probably 10 grand.
So, Yeah, I just wanted to know what you thought about that.
I'll try to get an answer for the next meeting.
Yeah, and we can I mean, I can ask you know, anybody catch Kate and ask her, you know, for more detail on that as well.
Isn't Isn't there a probate [clears throat] when someone dies? There's a probate and they're supposed to pay back, you know, any taxes or unpaid bills or liens that I I thought
Well, I I would think the car goes to somebody else.
But yeah, but there's still taxes when you go through probate. Like my mother Well, I'll get into it. Never mind.
Yeah, I agree with what Bill's saying. Like you have to settle the estate and that's
You have to settle the estate. Like I had to settle my father's estate. He died 8 years ago. My mother I got power of attorney, put her in a home. So, I had to I had to go through probate and make sure there was no outstanding taxes or bills or liens or whatever else. I'm surprised that there's this much of this that has never gone before probate. I guess is my surprise.
Yeah, like if you have a credit card before you can collect from the estate, you have to pay off that balance.
Exactly.
Normally, a judge wants all bills paid.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So, there's a question of whether the judge knew about it. You know, we do it all the time.
Gordon, it was just a lot of money.
[laughter]
And And it could be that there's This only lists the primary. If it's say like Matt and Carla Streeter have a Subaru and and the bill comes to Matt Streeter and Matt passes away, but she still has the car and didn't pay the taxes or something like that. Could be that there are other mechanisms for why these perhaps didn't or they were given to another kid and went out of state. So, but let me check with Kate and try and get a more coherent answer for you for next meeting.
Sounds good. Thank you.
Sorry, you guys haven't voted yet.
No, we haven't, but I was going to just see if anybody had further discussion and then I'll proceed to call for vote. Everybody good at this point? I think that was a good chat.
[gasps and laughter]
all right, so I'll go around then to take the vote here. Liz.
Oh, yes.
I'm next on my screen, so I'll vote yes. Nick. Unmute yourself, sir.
Yes.
Thank you, Louise.
Yes.
Heather.
Yes.
Bill.
Yes.
Kim.
Yes.
Thank you. That is unanimous. Motion passes. We can have our tax collector do proceed along these lines. Excellent. let's see. Liaison reports. Well, we Yeah, as we discussed we we discussed the school thing already. I think that's the only liaison issue unless anybody else has anything. I don't We didn't have CIP. So, I don't have anything to report from Capital Improvement Committee. We would Given that, unless anybody has anything further, then we would move on to our long-standing meeting minute approvals.
I read them.
Huzzah.
I read them, too, but Liz is the expert. I'm telling you right now, if she says yes, I'm a yes.
[laughter]
Did we go through the check register? Did I miss it?
Oh, I'm sorry. I did sort of melt them together with a bunch of tax. Well, did you want to go back and talk about the
I had another question. I couldn't remember what Sirma Sirma something like that. T I R
Sirma is the insurance carrier.
That's the insurance. That's Karma, I think that's property casualty insurance liability insurance.
And workman's comp.
Work comp, liability, yep.
Yeah. Okay, I thought so. I couldn't remember I thought it was some sort of insurance. Okay.
Yeah, it's one of those acronyms for a for
Connecticut interlocal regional municipal, yeah.
Consortium.
Thank you.
What was I had one on that one too. What's Casella waste? I don't know if we
Transfer station.
Is that for the the dumping the the picking up of
It's it's it's for it's for when with they when they come and take the the the solid waste, the recycling,
[snorts]
bottles, cans, all those things. They go to Casella and then we get charged a rate for those tipping fees.
Tipping fees. That's That's the thing I was trying to remember.
Technical term.
Yes. Yes. Like Like the thing you asked about earlier that I didn't know either.
Yeah, I was looking to E F T P S.
Electronic funds transfer.
Oh yes, thank you.
for the payroll and the taxes.
Yep.
Got it. And then I was just curious about a Janelco. It was $514.93.
What's the date on that?
Find out for you.
Or the check number. My report's at the office, but I've got my laptop.
Oh. I could May 8th, Janelco 5704. Janelco check number 13396. Thank you. That is the cost of printing and mailing the either the town meeting or the referendum notice. Okay. Yeah, okay. So, we outsourced And you're going to you're going to see that multiple times. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to get my names down so I Thanks, Deb. Yeah, no problem. Actually, no, I lied. It's the one underneath. First time ever. No, I don't lie. I apologize. Guillermo Printer is the one that we do. Oh, yeah. Let me look up Janelco. Janelco, I don't know. Let me look. Says vehicle parts, hydraulic fittings, plow. Oh, okay. That makes sense cuz it was right by a Dubai Automotive one. Okay. It sounds like we It sounds on a Yeah, working on a machine. I mean, a vehicle. Okay. That goes through the public works account. Yeah. Public works, yep. That'd be a public works question. Yeah. When I was looking at the check, it seems like there's some helpful notes in the memo
section, but it seems like that memo is getting chopped. I don't know if that's something we could It's QuickBooks, and then I can extend it and look at it, but it won't let me print that. Oh, that's not good. Yeah. So, it goes away when you print. I can try it landscape instead of portrait and see if I can get any more if you want. That would looks like. No, that that you're you're Nick, I was thinking the same thing. It like you like for Kerma, we have to put in the memo insurance. And it you know, it it can be in there. And and Lisa, it it the problem probably is if there's multiple bills and and the check is paying multiple bills, it might not come up, but we we can do that. Some of that will come up.
It's actually gotten much better because much better.
Much better.
In the past there was no memos. And I making a real point and so is Brenda to try and fit whatever we can in there. So, when you pull it up and when this prints, there's an explanation in there.
Yeah, cuz it helps. It kind of just gives me a good idea of what it is.
Yeah, it it it helps us avoid asking, you know, something we've already asked or you know, remember how we had like multiple questions about spring?
Yeah, right.
Yes, because that's the insurance.
And we we we have the answer now. We don't need to know spring it.
[laughter]
Yeah. I will say though, you know, Jeff, I'm looking at this, but is that the check for 24,000?
[clears throat]
Right?
Which one?
The the Kerma check was for 24,000.
24,785.
Yeah, cuz in the description of the bills, we put in there lap insurance premium, workers comp insurance premium.
But will it go on the memo of the Will [snorts] it print in the register even if I put it in the memo of the check?
Well, the question is do we put it on both memos? You know how sometimes you If you put it in one memo, it comes up in one spot and you got to Brenda's been very good about putting it in in both memos and then it comes through. I mean, listen, and this information needs to be We need to find it.
that yeah, down at the bottom.
Okay.
It's not there. It's on the memo of the invoice bill itself.
Okay.
And and Nick, I think we can I think we can get with the finance department and make that happen. It's just how it all fits together. It's you know, does it need to be in both the memos and then the report comes out this way cuz you know, I would also probably want to provide you guys you know, I as I look at this like if you look at the Comcast bill that would the check that was written on 5/8 it says DPW internet. Those are things that should be in the memo. It should be like hey, this is a for this department. You know, like if you were looking at QDS on here when QDS gets paid, those are either tax collector or assessor's office and we should find a way to put in the memo a way for you guys to see that and understand it so that you become more familiar with these vendors as the finance department is paying them.
[clears throat]
Yeah, like when particularly the smaller ones cuz I know I go for the bigger ones when I'm reading the list. But the smaller ones it would help to just kind of know what they're for. And like I'm seeing some good stuff in the memo but it it gets cut off. Like the first one is attorney Dennis O'Brien and it says quantity three.
That That might be I Jeff that might be I might be able to do that landscape. That might be an answer to that. If the memo is there.
I think it's a different report honestly.
What I've had luck with with formatting that is I I have to do some similar things for work. I print it legal on legal paper and I do a print to PDF and then I rotate it and it comes out I play a game with it. But if it thinks it's printing on a legal paper and then you rotate it it kind of it looks a little interesting in the PDF but it comes out so you could read it.
That has never occurred to me to try that, Nick. That's interesting. So, it's almost like a pseudo landscape cuz you're using a longer sheet and then you're flipping it?
Yeah.
Interesting.
So, it gives you a bigger essentially gives you a huge playground for that data to sit on. So, I print to computer and then I move it in and it's like tricky to read, but you can zoom in on it when it's electronic.
Sometime. [clears throat]
Yeah, Nick, I actually do the same thing with my work. It works. Print to PDF.
Yep. Yeah, print to PDF is great. I just never thought about using till I get to legal paper to to kind of trick it. That's interesting.
Yeah.
Very inventive, sir.
Tabloid [clears throat] if you want even bigger. Yes, it gives you options.
Yeah, 11 by 17, baby. All right, cool. Good to know. So, while we're on the topic, is there anything further on the check register that we want to chat about?
Just I have a question that's I'm sure I don't know. 5 8 at the bottom, office of the treasurer. Is that a payment to the treasurer's office for 3,766?
The Connecticut treasurer's office, not my office.
Oh. Oh.
Yeah. Cuz you All of All of your departments all have reports, whether it's department inlands, clerk's office. They often have all these reports they have to send to the all these different departments. The clerk's office must have four different Connecticut state offices that we have to send fees to. So, they do a monthly report and then we have to send it in. So, I would have to look.
What What is the check number on that one?
it's 13412. It was 3,766. Yeah, state of It does it say it says office of the treasurer state of Connecticut.
Yeah, well all of yeah, on the page all I see is office of the truck.
Yeah, this is from the clerk's office on mortgage releases.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. I'm good.
Good. Okay. Do we want to talk about meeting minutes then?
Yes.
Eight, A through G.
[laughter]
Should we go through one at one at a time? Did anybody else read them or
I read some of them. I didn't finish.
I did I didn't have a chance but I'm I'm relying on you.
I said to myself, self, I better get this done. We got to get [laughter] this done. So if we want to go April 8th, it looked fine to me. I would make a motion to accept the April 8th, 2026 meeting minutes.
I'll second that. Was that you, Bill?
Yeah.
Okay, thanks. Sorry, I'm scrolling and I don't I don't can't see. Okay. Very good. We have that motion before us. any further discussion? Take vote. Okay. let's go in reverse order. Louise.
Yes.
Kim.
Yes.
Okay. Bill.
Yes.
Heather.
Yes.
Nick.
Yes.
I'm a yes and Liz.
Yes.
Is a yes. Okay. Motion passes unanimously.
[gasps]
Next date.
April 9th. I see it.
this looked fine by me. I would make a motion to accept these minutes for April 9th, 2026. It was the annual budget meeting.
It was the first budget meeting, right? Yeah.
Yep. The town of And- Andover annual budget meeting in the school gym.
Indeed.
I'll second that.
Louise seconds. Excellent. Very good. go around. Nick.
Yes.
Heather.
Yes.
Phil.
Yes.
Kim.
Yes.
Louise.
Yes.
Liz.
Yes.
And yes. That's everybody. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, so that's the 9th. Great. That brings us to the 22nd? April 22nd?
The 22nd. so I had the questions I had about this one. If you go down to new business the new business section,
Yep.
discuss discussing possibly create meeting minutes from the unrecorded 325.
Yep.
I had I had emailed everybody and I think I heard from Heather and Rob and I don't know if that's part of this or not.
Oh. Oh, I I well,
Should be added in, shouldn't they?
Or no?
Well, it it should be a So, that email I forwarded it to myself again, so it's up at the top of my emails again. Basically, we need to look at that and we probably should have added the agenda.
Discuss and possibly create meeting minutes from unrecorded 325 special budget meeting discussed discussed recording not started.
Yep.
I mean, I suppose we can accept this.
Yeah.
And we can decide to maybe add that special BOS I think that was a special meeting at the beginning with the board of selectmen.
think it was that first it was that first hour. Yes, 6:00 to 7:00 joint meeting.
Yep.
which, you know, believe me, I'm still kicking myself for not pressing the button.
That's okay.
But yeah, maybe when we put through when we have the 325-26 minutes put through, we attach something
Or it's just I think maybe we we put that for next month's agenda say add approval of that of that and I will resend it. Maybe I'll send it to Kate and have her prepare it and send it to us as part of next month's
Yeah, as proposed recreated 325-26 special budget meeting minutes.
to call it an addendum to those minutes? something like that.
Huh?
An addendum?
actually No, it's actually it's actually the the meeting minutes. It's a recreation of the meeting minutes because the the meeting wasn't recorded.
Right, first meeting. Yeah.
So the meeting taker was not able to take the minutes. So it's actually a separate meeting minute.
Right.
That's never been uploaded. And it really needs to be uploaded.
These minutes can be approved and then the 6:00 meetings' minutes can be forwarded to all of us to approve at the next meeting. Right.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing.
Yeah, I agree I agree with that plan. There we go.
Okay.
that plan. So do we need to You otherwise Were you otherwise fine with these with this
I think so. Yeah, I think I think so. Yeah, I'm fine with that. It looks okay. Yeah, I'm just looking at it. It looks It's okay to me. Yep. It looked okay to me. Okay. So I would make a motion to accept the April 22nd regular meeting minutes. Thank you Liz. Do we have a second? Second. Great. Bill seconds. All right. Let's go around. Liz. Yes. Tim. Yes. Bill. Yes. Heather. Yes. Nick. Yes. Moi, yes. Liz. Yes. Yes. 7-0. Motion passes. Budgets, sorry, meetings minutes accepted. That brings us to Wednesday, April 29th, I believe. Yeah. So on the first page, number three, number three, the second paragraph, the third line up where it says substantial completing. Can somebody read that and tell me if it makes sense because Sorry, is this the paragraph that starts with your name? Yeah, it's the bottom three lines. Substantial Substantial completing. It should be substantial complete, shouldn't it? Substantially completed with time prior to completed with time prior reopening to complete punch list items. That's an odd sentence. Yeah, it's a it's a What it is is a phase of a project. Substantial completion. Okay. So that's that's that's the word substantial completion. I think it should be completion. So we should amend completing to completion. Right. Okay. Okay, my brain wasn't on wasn't firing when I was reading that. Like what happened? Yeah, no, it doesn't make sense like that, but it is a phase of a project. So, substantial completion.
with time prior to school reopening to complete punch list items. That makes sense.
Yep.
that was the only thing I saw on that.
So, we I would make the motion with that correction, we accept these minutes. From substantial to substantial sub- Yeah, from substantial completion.
We wanted to say substantial completion. Yes.
Substantial completion is what I want to say.
Indeed.
[laughter]
Hopefully hopefully Kate gets that. All right, so do we have a second? Or did we wait? Do we have a motion?
I made the motion with that change.
Okay. You made the motion with the change. Liz seconds.
I'll second it.
Oh, Liz Louise seconds, sorry.
Yeah, I second it.
All right. we'll take take a vote. Liz?
Yes.
I'm a yes.
Heather?
Yes.
Bill?
Yes.
Nick?
Yes.
Kim?
Yes.
And Louise?
Yes.
7-0. Great. With that one change, that one's done.
That gets us to May 6th.
workshop.
Special budget So, page three of XX, that footer needs to be fixed. That should be five. Page three of five.
There on on literally on page three. On the other pages, it's fine.
Yes. Yep. It's just It's little things.
The footer on page three, yep.
Yep. And then I did not re-listen to this meeting, but I think this might be incorrect. If you go to page four, the second paragraph, when we talked about the end goal to get somewhere between 3 to 4%, blah blah blah, Rob second in the motion seconded motion carries with Liz, Heather, and Louise voting no. I don't know if that's
I think it was probably Liz Liz and Kim.
That's what I think and I did not go back and listen to it and verify it but I'm pretty sure.
sure as well. that's my that is also my recollection.
Everybody agree with that Heather do you agree with that?
I'm trying to think Well this was when we cut it to we cut it $50,000 at initial
cut. Yeah the first small cut.
Oh yeah I think I I think I
You were on the yes side.
I was on the yes side I think.
You were too.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay. So we should so we have two changes right now on this one the footer on page three and it's instead of Liz Heather and Louise voting no it's Liz Kim and Louise voting no on the second paragraph of page four.
Yes.
Okay.
With those changes I would make a motion to put the May 6th special budget workshop minutes to accept those minutes with those changes just reported.
Second.
Bill seconds. Great. Very good. Kim.
Yes.
Louise.
Yes.
Nick.
Yes.
Bill.
Yes.
Heather.
Yes.
Me yes and Liz.
Yes.
All right excellent. Motion passes unanimously unanimously gets us to May 27th.
And then on the first page of May 27th under the public speak Scott Soyatt this sentence doesn't doesn't really make sense either.
Oh I think what it should say is didn't see Scott didn't think that the results of the referendum were a band-aid to make to cut AAS budget deeply. Right? So it says right now don't want to see results mandate cut to AAS budget deeply. I would say what he as I recall his comment, he did not see the results of the referendum as a mandate to cut the AAS budget deeply. That's the way it seems.
So didn't see results as a mandate.
Right.
I can confirm. I can confirm that's what I meant.
[laughter]
He's not on the line. He's on the ball, so.
Yeah, right.
Very good. Thank you, Scott.
AAS budget with tutor. Okay. All right. So for the for the recording I'll say it out loud again. Didn't see the results as a mandate to cut AAS budget deeply.
Results of referendum. Yeah.
Yep.
Yes. Okay. So with that change That was the only one. Yeah, with that I would make a motion to accept May 27th 2026 regular meeting minutes.
I'll second.
Louise seconds. Excellent. Very good. go around. I'll take it from the top this time. Liz.
Yes.
I'm a yes as well, Heather.
Yes.
Bill.
Yes.
Nick.
Yes.
Kim.
Yes.
Louise.
Yes, and thank you, Liz. I want to thank Liz for all that.
Oh, yes. Thank you.
For all the examination.
[laughter]
Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I had a little bit of time, so.
Oh my gosh, we're at the last one. It's a miracle.
It's the last one.
[laughter]
And I have to abstain from this one cuz I wasn't here.
This is a bit This was a tough one. This one
Yes.
this was our setting the mill rate. And that looks right to me. So I will go ahead and move that we approve the meeting minutes Wednesday, June 17th special budget meeting.
I'll second that. [snorts]
Thanks, Olivia.
That was a quick meeting.
It was, thank goodness. It was a work It was a work day for some of us.
Okay.
all right, very good. so Liz wasn't here, she was away. much deserved, I'm sure. So she'll be off of this one, so I'll start with Heather.
Yes.
Very good, Bill.
Yes.
Nick.
Yes.
Kim.
Yes.
Louise.
Yes.
And I'm a yes. That's 6-0. Motion passes.
abstain. Yeah.
Yes. And you Oh, you know, I'm sorry.
abstain.
Thank you. Apologies. I was so hard to try to get through it. Okay, very good. That concludes section eight of our
agenda. That brings us to board open discussion. If anybody has anything further at this time, I feel like we've had We've talked about a lot, but if you've got anything to bring up, this is the time to do it. Okay, hearing none. correspondence. I'm behind on my emails. I can't think of anything in particular. but I have I like I said, I'm behind on my emails.
[laughter]
I have to get through it. anybody else have anything they want to bring forward? If not, we can go on to public speak.
Perfect.
Okay. Very good. Public speak. It looks like we've got one, two, three at least. So we'll start I'll just go in order of who's on my screen. Scott, you're up.
I have nothing to Thank you.
Thanks. Joanne, you're up.
Yeah, a couple of quick things. I understand the need to, you know, have the better payroll system. I just thought from listening to all the meetings you were going to be purchasing out of next year's budget. So, obviously there might have been money left over, so they went ahead and got it started in June cuz I thought that, you know, so I just wanted to note that for the meeting since it crossed my mind. And then the other quick thing that crossed my mind, too, and thank you for bringing it up, Rob. when talking about the contract negotiations, and I know the town will be undergoing that, and you know, that takes a little time, and it's important to have, you know, a good contract negotiation presented from management versus the employees. The only thing I was going to say is that that Rob had brought up the fee in lieu of, you know, thing
The in lieu of the health insurance.
Yeah, exactly. And I know, you know, for the public and putting it out there on the meeting, that it has gone back and forth in emails for about 3 years now, that it was going to be looked at, and that, you know, the price has gotten staggering for the town. And if the town is, you know, contributing about 35,000 or so, and I'm not privy to what you all see, just from, you know, that's gotten really, really high. That money could be spent I don't expect any employee that gets it to ever want to say anything negative about it. Why would they? It's a great, you know, it's a great feature for them. But, but, you know, it's it's you've talked about, you know, I have a good memory for all these meetings. So, you know, you've talked about capping it. You've talked about, you know, we're the only town that get has such a high, high thing, and we're such a small town. then it's been talked about, well, if we don't do this, I just feel like it's important to say this tonight cuz if you're these contract negotiations will be done before you know it. I, you know, I know how Andover goes. But you know, you think about well, if we don't do this for the employees, then they're going to take the insurance, so we're saving money. As someone that works in HR, that does payroll, that does it, there's a cost to taking health insurance. The The employee has to put out about 14 to whatever it's at. And with these staggering plans that we have now, I get it. That's a high amount to just put out. So, I don't think the employees will just
take it. So, I hope that Andover, you know, talks about it and and you know, in this negotiation that has to kind of encompass the whole town, the policy book, it's finally time, you know, after now that these things are going to increase, increase, increase. And then the other thing, and I I just as someone that looks at conflicts of interests and people being on committees, you do have someone that you've had join that committee tonight that has family members that are affected. I don't know if that's a good look. Listen, everybody that volunteers to be on committees are good, but if you're going to vote on something that employee receives or doesn't receive, you just might want to have someone else have that post, you know. It It's just a conflict of interest. We don't do it in my town and
have anybody that has a relative or someone. Thank you.
Thank you, Joanne.
I Yeah, I didn't mean to go on and on. It's just important for this tonight. I'm really hoping this is the year that Andover does it, but
Okay.
Thank you. and I I hadn't considered that last point. All right, next public comment will be Elizabeth Partridge.
I have no comment at this point. Thank you.
All right. let's see. Where does that bring us?
Got Scott, yet?
I did, Scott.
Oh, I'm sorry.
with him. He said he had nothing.
Okay.
I went I went the other I went who's in my screen.
I got you.
So, do we have a motion to adjourn?
I'll make the motion to adjourn.
I
What what's up, Bill?
Sorry, Bill.
Well, I was just wondering based on what Joanne just said, should we address as a board first the member that she has a conflict with and and nothing against that that person. I'm just saying is it a valid point and should we consider it and B, should we have a talking points for those negotiations that the Board of Finance would like to see discussed in those discussion. We're just going to put it out there and leave it. But, should we have some kind of a a plan going into those discussions?
What I'm not sure what conflict of interest we're talking about.
We're talking about a town employee
Town employee.
related
to Kim.
I I would This is Matt. I would just say let's I would not want to have any discussions on this public meeting if we're talking about strategies for negotiations at this point in juncture. I think that we could talk about I can have a one-on-one conversation with Rob about maybe trying to set up something. But, I but to to go into details at this point might be I don't want to say premature, but also you'll get tip our hand in some ways. So,
All right.
Thank you.
I just wanted Yeah, I just wanted to say to clarify this since you asked the question. It's just if you have a family member that works in a in an organization, you you probably shouldn't be on the committee that's going to decide wages and things like that. I'm not I'm with Matt. You don't discuss it publicly. I just mean who's going to comprise the committee. That's all.
I mean when I agreed to do this, it was to learn more about the contracts and the union and that is solely it. My role here on the Board of Finance is to represent the town.
Court.
If it
I think it's probable.
then
conflict
I can pass it off to somebody else.
I don't mind doing it or or even doing it together with Kim. I don't know how you all feel about that.
It
Fine.
Yeah, I'm not clear on who's in what union. So and I this is obviously a tricky situation. and it's and
I'm not either, Rob.
What?
I'm not either, Rob.
Okay.
Should we get should we get Dennis involved in this?
No. If let's find out who the who's in which union and if Joanne is correct, I would sit there and say let let's do it. And Kim, it's no it's nothing on you. It's just let's let's not have it.
Avoid the even the appearance.
Yeah.
Okay.
I completely agree.
All right, great. Let's let's sort that. Who's in what union? If it's applicable, Liz, thanks for stepping up. You're a backup. otherwise you'll be kept. Fantastic. Thanks for that. I appreciate it, guys. And you know what? Good to bring that up, Joanne. It completely slipped my mind. All right.
[clears throat]
Anything further or should we adjourn?
I'll make a motion on the floor. Oh. Oh, we have a Yes. I made a motion to adjourn.
Thank you, Louise.
Second. I'll second.
At the same time. Who second? Liz.
All right. In favor, let's go around. Bill.
Yes.
Heather.
Yep.
Dick.
Yes.
Louise?
Yes.
Pam?
Yes.
Liz?
Yes.
And I'm also a yes, therefore the meeting the motion passes the meeting's adjourned. Thank you everybody, appreciate it.
Thank you.
Appreciate the volunteers, appreciate all the information. And I'm going to stop the recording. Have a good night.
Good night everyone.
Bye-bye.
Good night.