Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Special Meeting Budget Workshop
May 23, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
It just started. Yep, looks like that worked. Good job. Amanda can get back in at some point anyway.
All right, so again, just want to thank everybody for joining us this afternoon. So I said it's not particularly where we want to be on a beautiful summer like Sunday, but here we are. This is all part of the process. Just a couple things before we move on to the agenda for the meeting. I think everybody here understands the process. Just about everybody who's in this meeting has probably followed along at least to some extent. Just to reiterate what our job is here is we presented a recommended budget to the to be reviewed in the town budget meeting. That budget was passed without any changes. It then went to referendum and was voted down at referendum and per charter, it's up to the Board of Finance to review the budget and present either the same or a revised budget to the town at the next town budget meeting, another town budget meeting, which has been scheduled for Tuesday, May 25. If the meeting then passes a budget, and it'll go on to referendum if we agree on a budget there and do this again. So that's
the process. Also, a reminder, there are certain parts of this. I'm not going to go through the entire budget. I think we've all seen it. If you haven't, it's been posted on the website for quite some time. It's been covered in many meetings. One part of the budget that is not up for any debate or change at this point is the RAM budget. That is handled through a separate referendum. During that referendum, it has passed, so there is zero value in my opinion in discussing the RAM budget today. I would also ask that during the public speak sessions, we've got a lot of people in their attendance today who have already participated in the meetings. I think we pretty much know a lot of people's positions. I think more to the point is we know what the town's position was in the last budget. It failed pretty significant margin. We'll just say that. And so what I would ask is that we, in the interest of moving this meeting along, that if you have specific additions or new information that can be presented or should be presented to the Board of Finance, is relevant, then we welcome your opportunity and welcome your input in either of the public speak sessions on the agenda. I would ask that you not restate things that have already been stated
previously. Again, I think we all kind of understand what everybody's position is. If you have something new or you've changed your mind or that, and we absolutely welcome your input. But I would ask in the interest of moving this along for all involved that we do try to keep this to a fairly targeted discussion and keep on new information. We've got a lot of work to do potentially. I'm hoping this isn't a long meeting, but it may be, and there's this just all part of the process. We got a lot to do. Okay, that being said, I'm going to move on to item. I'm also going to state too that we generally try to keep to a three minute time limit, and I don't always enforce that. What that means is that you'll be given up to three minutes to talk. I do want you to keep to that limit. If everyone's spoken and you have more to say, we can come back around to you. We're not going to stop your ability to
speak at the meeting, especially particularly if you have something that you want to add. But I do want to keep to that limit. I'm not sure that there's much value in going beyond that, but we want to make sure that everybody has a chance to speak and that we move this meeting along efficiently. Okay, that being said, let's go on to agenda item number two, which is our public speak. Amanda, do you want to go around and see if who's got input if anyone?
Sure thing. Okay, first up for public speak is Scott Persson.
I'm all set, Amanda. Thank you for asking. Thanks, Scott. Jerry Cremay. You're muted.
Thank you. I would like to participate if that's okay. I come before you today as a fellow resident taxpayer and a senior citizen on a fixed income. I wanna thank the board of finance for giving up this Sunday afternoon to come together to work on Andover's budget. As town residents, we must change the way we think about the budget. Realistically, we cannot expect the taxes will stay the same amount year after year. Everything goes up in price. As a town, Andover's a great community. We've all made the choice to make this place our home. As you discuss and deliberate the budget, please keep in mind that it is counterproductive to pit one segment of the town against the other two segments. Senior citizens are important. We want them to be able to grow old while staying in Andover. Our senior citizens need and deserve a community center for which they have been waiting for many years even decades. We'll serve as a place for them to socialize and share a meal. Let's not pit the seniors against the school and the town and create competition for tax dollars. Children are important. Andover Elementary School is an extremely valuable asset to this town. Parents of school children will be the first to tell you that AES is a school that cares about this town's youngest residents and it provides children with the best that education has to offer. Our school building and grounds are kept in pristine condition. Let's not put our school district in competition with the town and the seniors for support of tax dollars.
Finally, our town's infrastructure is important. We must support the budget of the board of selectmen. We must take responsibility for fixing roads, bridges, culverts and removal of dead trees. We have to provide public works department with the trucks and equipment they need as well as our volunteer fire department. We must provide the employees of the town hall. We must not place our town's budget in competition with the AES school district budget and our seniors. The solution to this problem, work together in a respectful kind manner. And any tax dollars spent for the town's board of education, school budget, the board of selectman's town budget, or the senior citizens community center is money well spent. Benefit all residents of Andover. Let's make Andover the envy of all small towns in Connecticut. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. Next up Valerie Bruno. You're muted. Are you all set? I'm okay on this end. Have shared Okay, thank you. Next up, Joanne Hubert.
Thanks Amanda. I'll be brief Mark. I think it's important. I know we've all stated our things before, but it's important since we're all taking time out of our busy Sunday to be here that we do get a couple minutes just to address things. I just wanted to say that since the budget has failed, the townspeople have spoken, and I know all of you currently elected Board of Finance members wanted to be on that seat. So now it's time for you guys to do the hard job, and I wish you luck. I won't join you till July, I just have a couple things to say. So it's clear that we can't afford the 6.7% taxation increase. These are true numbers due to the loss of revenue that we know is going to happen with the surplus amount going down, and the taxpayers can't bear that amount. So also, it's been clear from the beginning that you've asked the Board of Ed already to supply some scenarios. And I've called it a strategy in the past, and a strategy isn't a bad word at all. I use strategies all the time. So they're continuously not giving you anything to work with. So today's the day you've got to take the hard line, come in at a zero increase for them. They can do it. The declining enrollment
can withstand it. If they don't want to give up teachers, they don't have to have them find the money somewhere else. Again, when I get on that board, I'm not going to waste my time. I'm going to just come up with things. Want to hear from everybody. I want all of you to have input today. Then lastly, I want to address any parents that are out there. This is quick. Money does not equate education. Please know that you partner with your children. I work in a school. Three of my kids have had 20 to 25 kids in their classrooms. If you send them to school with great manners, being respectful of their teachers, doing a good job, those teachers will teach your children. They will do a great job. So money does not equate. You start at home as a parent raising model citizens and sending them to school. Thank you. Good luck. Thank
you, Joanne. Thanks, Joanne. Next up, Kathy Palazzi and Mike Palazzi. We're fine, thank you. Thank you. Chris Bernard.
Good afternoon. Thanks. I will certainly try to keep this as short as possible. So first, I am a member of the board of education. I wanna start off by speaking as a citizen of the community though, and a relatively new one having only been here for about two years now. I do fully support the end of our budget, having come from another area which had relatively high taxes. I think the taxes are in line for what we're trying to do. It is imperative that we have a quality school as it directs not only our families and our students who are currently here, but also as we have seen from some of the Facebook comments, those who chose to move here. But it also has a direct effect upon our property values long term. I have family of friends with young children who have seen the impact of not having their children in school over the past year. And I think the fact that Andover elementary maintained an in person operation throughout the year demonstrates not only the staff members and teachers commitment, but the administrative commitment to doing this in a well thought out manner.
And I keep hearing complaints from the town about budgets being impacted because we've not maintained roads or culverts, trees and stuff like that. And I get it, and I understand that and that's past decisions that have been made. But if we don't properly fund the schools, then we absolutely will impact our students. And, I certainly respect Joanne's comment, but I do disagree that money does occasionally lead to better students because that means we can hire and retain proper teachers in the organization. It has been just demonstrated time and time again, that if we do not provide the proper commitment to our students when they're young in research, that there is after effects. And you have myself, I'm doctor of education. I know exactly, I've done research, I've done this. We have Valerie, she is very adept at what she does and always takes the students in consideration. Now flipping over to my board of education hat. And this is speaking of me as a board of education member. I feel we have put forth a very responsible budget that is in the best interest of AES students. And I think that's the challenge. We've all put forth budgets that we think is in the best interest of our respective constituencies that we are trying to serve.
All of our working sessions and board meetings have had an opportunity for public comment yet with a few exceptions and Joanne has absolutely joined our meetings and provide her comments and very welcome comments. We haven't heard from anybody else in the community for the most part at those meetings about the conversations and the concerns there are. Again, AES administration staff had done a phenomenal job in acquiring additional grants and monies to help support the schools. If the decision is made to cut the AES budget, I as a board member, we'll make the commitment that we will try to make it work as best as possible without impacting the students and or the families. However, we have looked at the budget pretty closely and very carefully, and I'm not sure there's a place that we can make an adjustment without affecting the students and or the families. And so with that, I thank the board and I wish everybody the best of luck. I know this is a tough decision and going forward and we're here to help. I second Jerry's comments that we all need to work together proactively.
And I'm not really sure having been with me for two years, I have seen that. And so I'm looking forward to changing that way of working together. Thanks. Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. Kimberly Person. Nothing at this time. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you. Celeste Willard.
Thanks, Amanda. I just would like to echo my fellow Board of Education members comments. I think Chris and Jerry did a excellent job in putting forth the goals of our board. And also that unfortunately, there's a lot of divide in the town. And I think Jerry really kind of hit the nail on the head when he said, you know, we don't want to, you know, pin the seniors against the students and the students against the seniors, because that that's not that that's not a way to run the town that that's not a way to, you know, to interact in the town. And it's it's not a there you shouldn't have to choose it should be not so much of a divide. And unfortunately, with Facebook and the comments and the back and forth, I just think it's really kind of unfortunately gotten out of control and there's a lot of misinformation out there. So I really want to thank the Board of Finance for doing a wonderful job. I think we finally have some boards in town where people are willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work. And I'm proud to be on the Board of Education and whatever we need to do to get this budget passed, we will. So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Celeste. Liz Lokic.
Hi. I don't have anything to say publicly. I've sent my comments to the board. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you for all you do. Thanks, Liz. Adrian Mandeville.
Yeah, thanks. Know, I have to say, you know, I do appreciate the Board of Finance putting in the time. I speaking as a individual not as a selectman will say that you know I look at this and I'm a little frustrated, I feel like we're pitting, you know, we are pitting one side against the other. And that's, that's hard to, it's hard to deal with. You know, I have friends on both sides of this. And we, you know, I got a ton of phone calls this week. You know, people that were frustrated on both sides. But the one thing I will say, you know, I appreciate the Board of Education's efforts, I do. But I think they missed an opportunity at the last meeting on the twelfth. You know, they realized they had 138,000 leftover. And instead of looking at what they could return to the town, as even Ram did, they decided to spend it. And they decided to stockpile, you know, dollars 54,000 in grants that don't have an expiration date on it. And then spend down to their 2% cap that they can keep if the Board of Finance approves at the end of this budget cycle. And I think that's frustrating. So they had grant money put aside for something and they decided to use budget dollars instead so they can hold the grants for later. And we're not talking about education
in an abstract. We don't live vacuum. And so when we start talking about value of education, we're not talking about a teacher, we're talking about an outside classroom. It's not a need. It's a want. And I think that's the problem is that, you know, on the town side, we all see the needs, we see the roads, the bridges, the culprits on and on. And on the school side, we see the needs, we see, you know, we see the need for teachers, and we see the need for, you know, educational materials. But sometimes it's those those wants that creep into the budget that are an issue. And I think that's the frustration I think a lot of residents, myself included, see, it's, it's that simple. It's it's wants versus needs. I don't think anyone should be looking at the school budget and saying, you need to cut hundreds of 1000s of dollars. I did get those phone calls, I got those emails this week. And I candidly said, you know, you need teachers, you need a teacher for every class. You need paras, you need some of these things. But I think it's unfair to say that you need an outside classroom.
So that's, that's my take on it. Good luck.
Thanks, Adrian. Thanks, Adrian. Leanne Hutchinson. Leanne just press 6. I know you're calling from your phone as well. If you need to unmute yourself.
Hi can you hear me now? Yes. Okay thanks. Yes. I want to make several comments. I want to join other people in thanking you for the work you do. I'm willing as a citizen to do this as many times as we need to get a budget passed. I personally feel that it's going to take the equivalent of at least half a mil for the budget to pass. I've been trying to participate. I've either listened in on all the meetings that the Board Finance has held this spring or gone into the YouTube channel listen to them later. So I've tried to stay up on what's having been done. I will tell you central input that I voted no both at the town meeting,
voted not to send the budget to referendum and I voted no at the referendum. As far as what money is being spent where, I think it's a fact the elementary school, the board of ed chose was asked to go back and make a list of an impact statement just like Eric Anderson was asked to do on the general government side. And the Board of Ed chose not to do that. As Adrian just said, they said that they don't have any wants, everything is in need. And I feel that that's a fact. That's not just my opinion. That's not a judgment call. That's something that the Board of Ed came back to you and said,
we don't care to do. So I think that should be kept in mind too. I know it's an emotional this whole thing is emotional. But as I said, I don't think this is a judgment call. I think that this is something that everybody saw and that Eric came up with several dozen possible impacts to cuts in various areas to the general government budget and that we need to see some more of that from the Board of Ed. I guess that concludes my comments. Thank you.
Thanks, Leigh Ann. Just press 6 to mute yourself. Thanks. Okay. Shannon Loudon.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much to the Board of Finance for all of your work and for conducting this meeting this afternoon, and for everyone here taking the time to be here. I wasn't going to say anything in this initial public comment. I was going to let the Board of Finance do your work, but I want to now say a couple quick things. I support what my fellow Board of Education members have said previously and very eloquently, so I won't reiterate any of that. But I think the Board of Finance needs four important bits of information, and clarification on a lot of misinformation that has been provided by members who are even on this call this afternoon. Number one, we have not had a decreasing student population in Andover Elementary School for four years. So please stop referring to that. We have had a stagnant population for four years, and we have had no budget increase for those four years. We now need, need a budget increase. Number two, I have reviewed the enrollment reports of Andover Elementary School going back to 2008, as far as the class sizes in Andover Elementary School. They have not decreased in size. They have not decreased in size. Since 2008, the average class size of almost every single year has been approximately 15 students in a class. So don't tell me, please, that while your students were your children were students at Andover Elementary School, they were in class sizes of twenty and twenty five.
They may have been in the upper classes. The average class size in Andover elementary school since 2008 has been approximately 15, which is what it is right now. Number three, we are one of only five schools in the entire state of Connecticut that received no money whatsoever from the American Rescue Relief Plan. Please keep that in mind. The town of Andover received $319,000 I would like to know how the town of Andover is using that money, which is not budgeted money, not taxpayers money, that's money that was given by the federal government to our town. RAM received approximately $260,000 That is in addition to RAMs having received ESSER I, ESSER II, and coronavirus
relief money. So, number four, unlike RAM, AES has no capital fund whatsoever. We have no reserves. So last week, we did vote to put approximately $78,000 into our non lapsing account. That already has, as everybody knows, because it is transparent, dollars 180,000 into it. Why did we do that? We did that because in a year, if we have one outplay student added to our student population by somebody who moves into town or by somebody who needs those services, that will cost the school $100,000 If we don't have any reserves whatsoever in our nonlapsing account, that screws up our entire budget. I wanted to make sure you had that information. I don't think I've talked about much of that before, and if I did, I apologize. Good luck to the Board of Finance. Thank you for this meeting. Let's keep it respectful. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. Paula King. All set. Thanks for being here. Mercy Miner.
Hi, I don't really want to say much. I've already sent my letters to the Board of Finance, but I did want to say that I want to say this is about trust. A lot of taxpayers don't go to all the meetings because they trust that you guys are doing a good job and we all feel that you're doing a good job, but there are certain times when things come up that they wonder, is this really the best thing for the town? So, I came up here because I saw a lot of bullying to the Board of Selectmen from other members. And to criticize me for not coming to earlier meetings, it feels like an attack to me. So please don't do that to me or to any other taxpayer that comes up late in the game. Okay, so that's all I just wanna just say it's about trust. We trust that you guys are doing the best thing for our town. And as long as you guys, as long as we feel like you guys are compromising, perhaps if there needs to be, budget needs to be constrained like the town, obviously have tried really hard to keep taxes down. We're okay with that. We just need to be able to trust you guys. And that's all it is. Thank you.
Thank you, Mercy. Kathy Hartnett. Kathy if you would like to participate just unmute yourself. I'm all set thanks. Okay thank you.
All right I believe that's it and I just wanted to remind everyone if you would like to submit your public speak in written comments to me I will put my email in the chat but it is adminassistantandoverct and just submit it by the end of day today. Thank you. Are we through everybody?
Is that what she's I believe so, but Diane Grenier just joined. So if she would like to participate. Diane Grenier we are in public speak and your last but not least if you would like to join you're muted we can't hear you On mute. Can you hear me now? Yes.
Okay. I'm on the Mississippi. I'm on the Mississippi River right now, down New Orleans. I just joined because it's not the same time. I was waiting for one o'clock, but it's at 12:00 this time so no I have nothing to say.
Thank you to hear. Okay, we're all set. Okay, thank you everybody.
So, addressing my fellow board members. I think we all know what's in front of us here. We proposed the budget. They did get a fair amount of discussion at the town budget meeting, but obviously was not passed a referendum. Probably most of us are not that surprised by that given some of the discussion and stuff that's going on. So I guess I'm going to open the discussion to the board members and see if anybody has any particular points that they want to make or thoughts about how we perceive here.
I'll go Mark. So I was trying to think about just how do we organize ourselves here and what our realistic options are and the way I see it kind of boils down to four different things. One is a further discussion on the revenue side regarding the relief funds that we kind of put aside in some of our earlier meetings for reasons that I think were reasonable but revisiting that is something we probably need to do. And then two, kind of three different categories of possible cuts to make one, obviously which has already been discussed back and forth in public comment, the BOE budget, two, taking another run at the trooper and three town capital which I know we're all very reluctant to do for good reason. But those are the only things I can think of in terms of broad categories of where we need to be looking. If others have other thoughts by all means, but maybe we can kind of go through that in turn and see what we can do.
Okay, thanks Rob. I think that's a pretty good summary. I mean, to be explicit, there's also the town operational budget. That is an option to address. I'll stay right up front. I'm not in favor of that right now. I think that we all know what the challenges are and I don't necessarily see that there's a lot to be gained there without basically affecting services. We all know what we're trying to accomplish. We've been through this a lot, but I do want to open that up. And I would like to give Eric an opportunity to address that in case he has any further input on that.
No, I think you hit it on the head. I mean, of the four categories, obviously the troopers are controversial decision. There are people that are adamant that we should eliminate it. And there's a lot of people that are adamant that it needs to stay. So there's no clear guidance on that. Capital in any year capital can be trimmed, but just look at the long term ramifications of that. I don't really, I think if you really look at the operational budget, the only big decisions you could make with the operational budget would be the trooper, or else something even less palatable. Most of what the town does is, a statutory obligation. We have to collect taxes. We have to have an assessor's office. We have to maintain a building department. We have to maintain a town clerk. We have to have a highway department. So there's not a lot that's really doable there.
So from my perspective, you know, at this point, if you're going to do significant cuts, you're either going to have to suck it up and, you know, eliminate the trooper, or you're gonna have to start reducing capital budgets. That's really all you've got on the town side.
Mark, you're muted. Sorry, Kevin. I got you every time.
Said, do you have any, Eric, do have anything else on the relief funds? Any more information or clarification on that?
Oh, we did finally get some guidance from the state on what's spendable out of that. I really need to sit down with the board of selectmen and the finance director and start talking about how that can actually be spent because those decisions really aren't mine. Those are really the kind of board's decision and also your decision as a board of finance. But there's not really anything that we're discussing now that we're likely to pay for out of that. So it's not like I can just use that for capital. So I'm not sure that really does us any good pertaining to this year's budget.
Can I just throw a rejoinder in there? Because if this is the May 19 office of fiscal analysis document section six talks about storm water management. I found that fascinating because that line to me screams culverts Eric. Yep. We have culverts up the wazoo we need to deal with. We have a fair amount in the capital budget now I think to address that. Can't we use that if we could plug $160,000 in for our culverts, doesn't that offer us some substantial relief?
Maybe. I mean, will tell you, I don't have a definitive number. I mean, if you wanna roll the dice and get rid of the money for the culverts, roll the dice and get rid of the money for the culverts.
All right, I'm pointing it out just because this is the first time that I've seen a document that where I could really line it up personally just looking at it. Before what we had was so vague and it was a paragraph. Now you have a document, a multi page document with various sections. Some of it I think is clearer than others for us. But that really gave me some hope for the first time that we could find a targeted use for this stuff and frankly if I'm correct that wastewater management can be used at a culvert and the document says I think on literally every page that we're to have broad latitude in the usage of these funds within the right categories then I mean it makes me feel an awful lot more confident that we could at least consider that in the revenue side for the you know to plug that in or to cut the capital budget by that expected amount because and we have more than $160,000 in culvert work to do right that alone if we're right about that eats the grant money. So anyway I bring it up for that reason that's the one that really piqued my interest there's a couple other categories in there as well in that same document.
Rob I have a question does it specifically say wastewater or stormwater?
Stormwater, that's like believe me if it had been wastewater I would have said uh-oh we don't have a wastewater treatment plant. No no no it says, and I quote, where is it, Recipients may also use this funding to invest in wastewater infrastructure projects, hold on, including constructing publicly owned treatment infrastructure, managing and treating storm water or subsurface drainage water, facilitating water reuse and securing publicly owned public treatment works. So to me that comma, the first bit's about wastewater treatment and the second bit is about storm water management. And those are two different things. So I mean, that's I how I interpret
just wanna be clear that a river is not stormwater. A river is a water course. I'm not saying that it's not possible to spend some of that money on some of the culverts, but I read that too. And as somebody who put in and wrote most of the town stormwater management section of the zoning regs. Yeah. I'm not so clear that that is a, you know, that's why I said you can roll the dice and there's a reasonable chance we can use it for that, but it's far from a guarantee.
We have Eric remind me one other thing before we let you know move on from this for a minute. Specifically in our storm water, you know we have the drainage on various town roads and everything. Do we have work we need to do there that would be maybe less questionable to use that funding for?
Oh God, yeah. I mean, we've got hundreds of thousands of dollars of stormwater projects we can do, no question. We got at least a ten year backlog of public works work
to address our storm water. Okay, and as we speak now in the current, before this relief thing passed, how were we funding that out of town Aid Road or something else?
Mostly out of Town Aid Road. Frankly, what we've done is we've done it at the rate where the town crew can supply the labor. So we're just looking at materials costs and the materials tend to be the minor cost. It's really the cost of labor and we're just doing it at the rate where we can, which is, generally speaking, one major drainage project a year.
Okay, so there's another potential usage for that funding. Maybe I'm wrong about the culverts but even if I am, I feel like there's another place to target that money.
Yeah, it's not that we're not gonna be able to spend that money. The question is simply can we spend that money to decrease our current budget? And that's the harder question.
Yeah, I hear you. Well, how does that help us in this fiscal year that we're trying to get past right now? I get it. I'm just trying to find a way. Okay.
It sounds like some of that would be, go ahead.
Okay first of all based on what jerry said I agree as far as classes not classes of people but seniors versus parents and school age kids that's always every time you go to you're going to see that. Know when the kids are young and your new parents and young parents you want the schools to have more money but as you get older you don't need them it's kind of given where seniors want it in different areas. Feel this kids in Andover school by staying in the school this past year, last year, is that an advantage? A lot of towns didn't have that. Most towns had to go to online learning and all that, and it's been very hard for a lot of struggles for parents at home, for the kids themselves, and the schools. And because Andover stayed in school I kind of feel they're kind of at an advantage where
they kind of went as normal. I know some parents had they had the choice to stay home if they had the kids stay home if they wanted to, but that was their choice. And I feel because of that, at the issues that we need to look at by process of elimination. In my mind, it's kind of going down to the trooper or a yes. Unless we can do, if we can possibly put the trooper on some sort of a referendum to have the town actually vote, do we get rid of the trooper or not and just base it on that vote? Then to me it sounds like AES, we would have to kind of concentrate on that. And it's unfortunate but based on what's given here I hate to see money taken away from the town from the operational process because we need to keep going. And those are my comments. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Louise.
Support what everybody else has said. Mean, we have, we've worked so hard on this budget, and we have tried to figure out a million different things and it's not easy. There's just not enough money. You know, so, you know, I feel the town operational side is pretty bare bones. I think we're really treading the line where we're affecting service in the town. I mean, I hear a lot of complaints now and a lot of feedback from people. You know, the capital budget, We have these projects that have been put off and we have a ten year plan and we're kind of executing the plan and every time we don't stick to it and execute the plan, we kind of dig the hole a little deeper so you know, we have a pretty decent plan. And we're very careful about the money that we put into those budgets and we hem and haw over it, you know, and change our minds back and forth, know, it's difficult. The school is still at a 4.5%
increase as far as I can see it. That's the only place we have room to get money from. And that's kind of where I'm sitting right now.
Okay. Thanks, Dan. Anybody else on the board care to make a general comments input, Linda, David? David, you unmute, go ahead.
On the town side, Eric's worked really well with us presenting some worst case scenarios to cut different things. And the only thing I would entertain on the town side would be the trooper. And for the record on that, I was on the board when it was cut and Rob was there. And you know, town responded in a way that they didn't want that. So I guess I would need to see some evidence that's what the town wants. If we're going to go that direction so on the towns that's the only area that I would entertain discussing. That's the only area you would entertain discussing reducing? On the town side. On the town side. Just to clarify.
As far as AES, for the record, I'm not an educator. I'm a financial guy. And if you look at our surrounding towns, the student to teacher ratio is not in line and the amount of money spent per pupil is not in line with joining towns. I think looking at those numbers, those towns seem to get it done. They do a good job. I think those are some areas we need to consider. Okay, thanks Dave. Linda?
Hi, I Well, I wasn't here for the vote. Was in California, but that's beside the point. But I'm speaking to friends and neighbors. It was a Board of Education. It was their budget, the Andover Elementary School that they didn't like. And the reason it was voted down Ram. Look at the size of Ram, the number of students, the number of courses they have to offer and their budget went up less than 2%. And I believe for the budget to pass the Andover elementary school is going to have to come up with a budget of less than 2%.
That's it. Yeah, so budget increase of less than 2% you're suggesting there. All right, Kurt you're on mute Kurt.
We go. First is a comment, maybe a question to the people listening. During the budget vote, why wasn't there some questions marked on the ballot regarding the town operational budget? Do you support it or don't? The Board of Education budget, do you support it or don't? And even because we're into this major capital improvement ten year program, maybe even that on the ballot to get the total amount of people that voted, which was very high this time as everyone knows, but to help us get a better handle on what we're doing here today. Can anybody answer that? That may be on the meeting here?
Yeah, so I can answer for you, Kurt. It actually is up to the purview of the Board of Finance to have that option. You guys can, on this next referendum vote, are, you are able to do that. It has to be obviously a yes or no question. So you have to structure accordingly. So you can say, know, is the town budget too high? Is the school budget too high? Is the, you know, do you support, you know, eliminating the trooper, you know, in oncoming budgets or what have you? You can ask pretty much anything you want as long as it's yes or no, and it pertains to the budget.
Okay. I wasn't sure if that came from the, whether it be the town clerk, the board of finance or even the board of selectmen. So you guys would put it forward and then the board of selectmen would approve it going
forward, but it would be up to you guys to make the decision. All right. My first comment. I do
agree with Eric. There's two things. We have the operational budget, which basically is the trooper and the rest of the town operations including capital. And then we have the AES budget. And that's what we should be looking at today. So that's it, Mark, for now. Okay.
So we've got some general input. I personally would like to know more about whether how we might be able to at least obtain some offset to our current town operating or capital, maybe on capital expenditures for using the relief funds. Even if it's only 20 or $30,000 if we think we can get some drainage work done that is, as Eric said, been got a year's worth of work to be done. I mean, may well be, even if it's just reflected in additional work or some reduction in some of the department budgetary costs, then we add some revenue line expecting that we're going to be able to use 50,000 of that, then I think it may be worth talking about doing that. I would agree with that. My personal view on the trooper is that. I think if we took it out of the budget we risk. Having another budget failure due to that change We and the Board of Finance would do that. I think it'd be more appropriate or likely maybe if we hope that somebody were to propose removing it as making a motion during the budget meeting, and then it could be voted on again. And then it's a larger group, it's not just the Board of Finance. If we were to take that out and the budget were to fail, it would really muddy the water as to why it would fail. So that's a concern. It's one option. Personally, I'm not sure that it's worth the cost of the state trooper to keep in there, but as David and Rob had pointed out, and I voted for it last time, I'll say it publicly. I voted to keep that trooper in budget,
but I'm not sure that going forward that we really get the benefit out of it that the cost represents. But it is something the town spoke loudly about. So I guess I'll say that. And I agree that the loudest complaints have also been about the AES budget. There's no doubt about that. And I understand that from the Board of Ed and Valerie's presentations, what we're trying to do and what we're trying to cover, and we're trying to make sure that we don't incur additional costs down the road and that we're trying to make sure that we recover from the impacts of COVID that the pandemics had on the kids. I think we've heard all that and I don't want to rehash any of that. I think it's there, but I think what we also heard is that clearly the town at a pretty wide
significant differential voted down this budget. I think that it's fair to say that the large part was probably discontent with the increase in the ES budget. So I think that's my position, that's my belief, my view of where this budget is and where it's likely to go. I think if we were to do what is in our purview to either increase or pass on the same budget onto the budget meeting, maybe it'll pass a budget meeting, but it's going to get turned on a referendum again. Think it'd be very naive of us to expect that we're going to get much differential. It's possible, but I wouldn't count on it. So I think that our job as the board is to probably is to make a change that we think is reasonable and can go to the town meeting and pass the town meeting and has a as a solid chance of getting passed at the referendum it's not an easy one.
There's no doubt about it. I guess, saying that I would like to go back and revisit that first one about the relief funds Eric if you what's, what are your thoughts about about any offsets we might be able to tackle you know there.
I mean, the only real way you could do it would be you could take it directly out of the road improvement fund, although that's typically used predominantly for paving and for chip seal, because where most of the little items in public works get taken out of is the state's Downey Road Fund, because we don't have a specific fund for little culverts, we don't have a specific fund for guardrails, we don't have a specific fund for catch basin. So we tend to take all of those expenses directly out of the state town aid road grant, as do we take most of the materials we use, like gravel and process and all that for drainage work. So the only real way I could see you doing it would be to reduce the road improvement budget, if that's what you wanted to do, and then hope that you can shift and spend some of the Town Road money on road improvement by spending some of the Town Aid Road stuff from the relief grant funds. And that may very well work. I'm not telling you it won't. I'm just saying I'm not guaranteeing it'll work.
Well, the also the other question is really what's the scope of that change, right. I mean, what's it really going to do for us maybe 30,020 thousand,
You know, mean, it's to give us what we need. No, well no, it's part but not enough.
Yeah, and there are some other categories in there that I a little, maybe a little fuzzier to me, but there's some stuff in there. There's an argument that some of the categories listed in that guidance document from the state, you know we might be able to throw some of it at senior transport for medical, you know there's a whole thing in there about basically helping people get to medical appointments or what have you. And there was something in there, I forget the exact term behavioral healthcare or something that struck me as but I'm not, that's a term, I feel like that's a term of art that I'm not familiar with. So I don't know what to say about that, but there may be an possibility there because as everybody here remembers the billing is now mostly on the town side. There is still a little money coming out of school budget but it used to be split fiftyfifty town and BOE and this year changed how they build and building each town kind of for the full amount. We have 88,000 I think this year for So there's another category I don't know.
So I just want to point out one thing and if I'm wrong please correct me but my understanding and reading through this stuff previously is that you cannot use it to reduce taxation. So we would have to make sure that whatever, let's say that you're taking it out of X line, that you're not lowering X line from any previous year's expenditure, or allotment, right? Because if you go below that, then you're reducing taxation. Got it, right. Yeah, thanks, Adrian. Guys, just please
ask in the chat to be recognized. I just wanna make sure we're on an inappropriate comment, but just wanna make sure we're all moving forward here.
I mean in the situation maybe it's a technicality but last year's line item was 40 some odd, Because it's late to change in the way they build it. Yeah. I don't know how that would be interpreted.
Well, clearly I think it doesn't represent the spirit of what you're saying of not offsetting the tax.
I know I'm just trying to find a way. Understood. We've discussed before you know I am perfectly willing to try the trooper thing again I just you know I don't have a high degree of confidence that that's going to be our silver bullet. So in any event we have this in theory we made a decision as a board a couple meetings ago to leave the 160 ks out of the revenue side of our budget because we were not confident that we could use it in some way in this budget and so that's where we are. That's about what half a mil a little bit more. 160. Know that 1 mil is $2.71
so yeah. Yeah a little bit more than half. You know again we can cut the trooper, we can arbitrarily somewhat cut the board of ed budget because we don't know the direct impact and we could and or we can cut town capital. Town operations other than the trooper I honestly don't think there's anything there we could do that would not have an immediate impact service wise. I mean you want to cut hours at the town hall you want to do stuff like that you can do it but if memory serves when we walk through this with Eric in the past it simply doesn't save you very much money. It's just not really any money there so I don't want to spin our wheels on that again it seems counterproductive. So I think we just need to start thinking about motions, thinking about
where we I do wanna say something. This is a bit of a personal philosophy as well as an observation about the practical approach to this. So sometimes we talk about the budget is if you know what, we need to have a target and we'll work back from there. And that can be an effective strategy when you're struggling to kind of reach some kind of point of compromise where you think it'll pass. I think that that's reasonable to approach. Do want to say though that we could cut a lot out of the town budget or wherever else, and there still would be a lot of angst over the additional spending at AES. And what we really need to do and certainly what we do in business and I know the town is not a business, I know the schools are not businesses, but generally what you do in your budget, it's bottom up budgeting. And what it means, you start from zero, you see what your needs are, and then you fund appropriately and
see what you're willing to spend the money on. But we as a town need to decide what we're willing to spend the money on and what services if we're going to cut the costs or cut our budget, services are we willing to do without, as that's ultimately what it comes down to. Assuming there aren't some efficiencies to be gained somewhere, which sometimes there are. We did it by using a joint finance person between the AES and the town, and we did it in the town by combining some positions. So sometimes you can do that, but ultimately you get down to which services you're willing to pay for. And I don't necessarily think that there's this magic number that we have to hit that is going to satisfy everybody. I just think that's something we have to keep in mind as we go through. That being said, clearly where we were is not going to fly. It didn't go the first time. I doubt it's going go a second referendum if we don't make some significant change. So I do agree with that.
So that being said, does anybody want to make a motion or further comments and board Diane.
Go out there and I'm going to make a motion because right now the way it sits. I don't have enough information about these really funds and what we can spend them on. I think that's something we're going to really look hard at into the next budget year, but I kind of did some legwork yesterday and last night trying to figure out other towns and put that into their budget and I couldn't find anything. I don't know if anybody's aware of any other town, putting those into because a lot of the information is not there yet to make a decision. So, so and I'm pretty much playing by the rules if you know you have to follow the regulations the regulations. So, I think we've done a really good job of whittling away the town budget
to basically, you know, bare bones, you know, I know we're kind of, I think we're kind of affecting services and turn times for the public on some of the town services but that's what we chose to do. So right now I would like to make a motion to reduce the AES budget by $138,000 that will bring their budget in a little bit less than a 1% increase. And as part of that motion, I would definitely like us to consider when we go to referendum again to have the three questions on there and talk about town budget capital budget and
AES budget so we can we can we entertain that maybe as a separate motion Diane, I think we don't have a lot of money in the water so can you give me that number again please. $138,000.138.
So you're motioning that we approve the last or we decrease the last recommended amount for AES from $4,078,008 to, it looks like $3,940,008
Dan, can you just for my own personal identification, where's the 138 from? Was that based on anything in particular? That's me making it up. Okay, darted aboard got it thanks as we have it's
pretty close to the it's pretty close to the 2% budget that 2% number that Diane tossed earlier I'll just say that we have a second on the motion before we discuss Mark, I'll second for the we can have discussion on the motion. Okay, Kurt seconds the motion. Let's go ahead and have discussion.
My gut reaction and it's just a gut reaction is that it's a pretty that's a pretty significant cut and I don't know if what other people are thinking but I'm thinking if we're going at this from you know if we're putting aside the relief funding stuff and we're just talking about cuts I'd like to try and make those you know any cuts we propose to be you know not just from one or the other but you know kind of try to balance things a bit. I don't know that's a fairly large sum but from in comparison to where they are at now from that takes as you said you said that takes their increase down to a little under 2% is that what you said? Correct. It brings their increase in around 1%.
So is it a four and a half? Roughly 1%. That's a pretty big whack. This is my gut reaction though.
What effect would that have on the increase for the child as far as the do you call it?
So quickly I did some quick numbers and anybody can check my math because in case I made a mistake. Way I look at it that would bring our mill rate increase, it would increase the mill rate by point eight five mills. So it gives you about a little less than half a mill decrease from where we're at and brings the total percentage increase to 2.39 Okay. From, I think we're at 3.83 right now or something. So, you know, it's a significant amount of money, but it doesn't get us a lot of reduction in the mill rate. But it gives us close to half a mill. It's nice to have a million. Yeah, not quite.
I have a question. Does anybody have the exact dollar amount of the proposed leftover monies wasn't like 160 ks the AES was expecting to have.
Hang on I had that somewhere. Well Valerie's here too we could always ask her but I thought it was a little less than that.
Yeah, don't have it handy. Valerie, do you have that information? Actually it was 138.
So it was $138,001.38, yeah, okay. Mark, before you move on this, can I just talk to one point?
If it if it's pertinent, please. It is pertinent because,
you know, I'm we did discuss it at the last board of finance meeting. At the last board of finance meeting, I brought it to your attention that the town had owed us $21,000 and had not paid that. I at that point then when you were struggling as a board with trying to figure out how to put money into the tree fund, I told you that, you know, that hasn't been part of our budget for next year, and you guys had already approved as a board a 175,000 to go to referendum. So with that $1.75 going to referendum, I felt that we could very easily eat that 21,000. However, when we talk about the cooperative agreement that was agreed upon before I even became superintendent, that cooperative agreement was made between the town and the board of education to, number one, create a position of the finance director that would save the town money. You'd have that one director and it would have transparency. You'd have one person that would be able to be working on the finances of both boards. In the interim, it has saved the town quite a bit of money because the town hasn't paid 1p for that merger. The town has not paid for the finance director's salary. It's in our budget. They had did not pay for the cooperative agreement. And they did not pay for the admin software at $34,000 Nothing. We outfitted both offices, the one at Town Hall and the one in our building, and made sure that there were laptops provided to both the treasurer, which is also the finance director, as well as the assistant treasurer, which is in your building and is one of your employees. So I do feel strongly that that needs to be discussed before
you vote to cut us 138,000 because although I had no intentions on us having to ask our board of ed to revisit that, that would be a scenario that we would have to revisit because right now we are eating 100% of the cost of the finance department that we've merged with you guys, which includes the salary and benefits for Sherry Holmes, which includes, and she is the treasurer, acting treasurer for the town. So the town does not have to pay that salary at all. And we ate everything as far as Edmonds. So I would ask this board to consider the fact that we have already paid $50,000
and now next year in our budget have included an employee that works for the town as well. So I would ask that you consider that before you vote on this. Thank you.
Yep, thank you. Duly noted I think it is for I mean it's just, have one question. On, guys if I could, let me recognize one at a time. I just wanted to say that that is true, AES did absorb that the cost of the software and Sherry's salary. Mean that's this fiscal year. That's part of this fiscal year thing and should be taken into consideration in regard to this fiscal year, which is part of what we're talking about now. All right. Diane, you started to say something. Not sure who else is talking about. I guess I'm not When this combined finance director
position was created and there was an agreement, put together, what was the agreement as far as cost share that should be formalized. So if it isn't.
Well, I'm sure it is but I think what the fact is that Valerie is, well, I don't know that it is, I assume it's between the board of, let's talk about the Board of Education, but the reality is that we have the cost of the finance director and the combined budget. If part of that or all of it, which is what we're saying is in the AES budget, it is something that should be considered as an added cost that they're bearing that they were not. On the other hand, they're also not paying for their part time person. So it's not the entire cost, but there is, they did have Laura Edwards last year, so there is an offset there. Mark? Go ahead, Jeff.
I would like to make a recommendation that the Board of Finance consider making a reduction to the town's capital budget related to the roads of about $25,000 We're
talking about another motion here. No, no, no. This is to offset the Board of Education's request on the finance director. Okay.
So that is true, and it was last year. But if the Board of Education is concerned that that money is not accounted for correctly, I would sit there and make a recommendation that you do that. I have spoken to the other members of the Board of Selectmen related to that as well. I just wanted to bring that to you. You restate that, Jeff? What were you suggesting? A $25,000 reduction to road improvement work.
To cover the salary of the finance director partially? Primarily,
the money is related to the Edmunds software as much as it is related to You're talking about this fiscal year? Correct, in this fiscal year. Okay, so not because Because of the my whole point, Mark, and very simple for everybody, it's all the town's money. I don't care where the town spends it. I mean, I do, but it is all of our money. So if it's allocated to the Board of Education, if it's allocated to Public Works, if it's allocated to RAM, it's all our tax dollars. And I really have a problem when we sit there and differentiate between money that goes here or money that goes there. It's all the money. So if the Board of Education sat there and covered those costs and simply said, there is no documented agreement as to cost sharing or any of that. What occurred was there was a union position at the time. They covered one thing. And there was a position at the school, and they covered the other thing. So I'm just sitting there as a way to sit there and resolve that point. This should not impact your overall cut. Your overall cut should be
where it needs to be because to get this passed, you're going to have to cut. So that's what I'm recommending.
Just for the point of order, such a motion would not be entertained at this meeting. It's not part of the agenda today. That's relative to this fiscal year. I understand what Jeff's saying. There is a relationship to the discussion, but it is really not part of the agenda today. They would have to be taking place at Wednesday's Board of Finance meeting, which will be held in just a few days, but we could certainly do so. And I understand that it is kind of an offset to our discussion today. Any other board members? Just again trying to keep it to the motion that's in front of us, which is to reduce the original request the original recommended budget amount of $4,078,008 to $3,300,000,940,008 dollars So Rob, you were starting to talk before. Did you have something else? Okay.
Not at the moment. I'm still thinking or trying to.
Yeah, and I think as I stated that, let's see I'm not sure that's okay we don't have a. Don't have a number right there in front of me on the increase but. Any further discussion?
Mark, if I may? Absolutely, Kirk. I may direct this to Valerie and maybe Jerry, if I may. Just finding out in my research recently about this surplus money, at least that's what it's called. Is that true? There's a surplus in the school budget of $138,000
Did someone answer that for me? That's what I understand. Yes. It was the unencumbered funds and there was a list. I brought it up at the last board meeting as to where it came from because a lot of it was brought to us not as taxpayer dollars. It was through grant. Yeah. Unencumbered basically is the same as surplus. We all use a different Right. I want you to know that it wasn't all money that came through from budgeted amount. Yeah. There were a lot of changes that occurred. If you want the list, I can go down the list with you, but I'll No. I don't I don't need the list. Based
based on my long term history in dealing with budgets and so on and so forth through the town, I know all boards and commissions, and I'll speak for the fire commission, we have a surplus left over in our budget, which we have had, it automatically gets turned back to the town general fund. And I think most other boards and commissions in town also, if they have an unencumbered fund balance in their overall or yearly budget or a surplus in their budget, they also turn it back to the town general fund so that they could do some proper budgeting for the next budget. So, and I also, is it true? I mean, this, of course, you know, the rumor mill, but it's going to be used for an outdoor classroom. And if that's the truth or that's your plan, can you tell me why?
Well, so we did discuss this at the Board of Ed meeting. There are things that are not tax I mean, not taxpayer dollars. Those would be other grant funds, funds that came from other revenue that were not taxpayer dollars. Yes. The children are outside a lot more. Yes. They utilize those spaces because it's the recommendation to have kids outside and have them spaced. And there is an already started place out there that we would like to finish. We also would like to finish it because it's on it's a perfect place for the town to be able to utilize. And that was the argument that I brought forth to the board of education, that that is something that everybody could use. But the 138,000, Kurt, was not all money, as I said, that was taxpayer dollars. It was grant money and it was other sources of revenue as well. So it absolutely and that's why we talked about it at the last board meeting. It was not all from our budget. But it still
becomes part of your budget overall budget doesn't it? Even grant money?
No. Certain grants do. If I go write a grant, I have a grant that I wrote right now that I'm waiting to hear back on. If that grant comes in, since it's earmarked for a project, it doesn't necessarily have to be something that gets added into something. Like, I write grants all the time for things that aren't in the budget is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. We do too. One of my grants that I wrote is for something that's not in the budget, but it's something that would take place at the library. So a lot of the grant money that comes in. For example, a bit of the revenue that was referred to was desks that was bought with COVID money, that was COVID relief money from last April. And those desks were not needed, were not used. They were sold actually to another town. So that money then needs to be spent on the kids, obviously, but it was not ever in a budget. So no, it wouldn't be money that would necessarily be turned over because that was given to us for COVID related expenses, not to be returned to the town.
Can I ask a clarifying question on this because some of this money was grant money rather than an over budget or something? If it were to be removed, are there restrictions on is that the money's in the door but are there restrictions on its use such that like we were talking about with the relief funds for the town that if it was cut that the money would not be usable for something else. Like if we cut your budget by $138,000 and you say to yourselves, okay, now we can't complete that outdoor classroom like we want to but we can can you shift that money somewhere else to plug a hole or not? That's a good question, Robert, because I mean the answer to that morally and ethically, we shouldn't be. Because we know how we got, for example, $9,000.
We got $9,000 to purchase those desks. We sold those desks to another town and so that money to your point should still be used for the things that had already been approved as COVID related expenses. And the first two tiers of that outdoor seating by the way, that was done with a grant. And so, for example, I know that that was approved through another grant. So morally and ethically, I think, well, if we were to reallocate the $9,000 from the desks to that, then that is still something that had been approved as an expenditure. Are they going to come, you know, back and ask us, so where is this money and where are those desks? No. But yes, I mean, that that is something that should be there. The other thing about the extra that occurred within the budget was it wasn't an over budget. We had a change of staff members this year. And when those staff members changed, for example, they budgeted in Sally's old salary versus mine. I make less than Sally made. So there was a little bit extra because they couldn't have known that because I started after the July 1 budget had already been passed. So there was a little bit in there. There was a change of a music teacher during the year. There was a change of an OT person that we brought in a lower cost person. So they weren't over budgets from last year. I don't want you to think that Sally and Laura had created a budget that had a lot of leeway in it. These were unexpected things that nobody could possibly have seen occur. So that's why I want that extra. Didn't
Laura stay on longer than she really should have as in a few months versus with
Sherry taken over? She did. And that actually part of it, she billed us and the town accordingly. So there were weeks that if she had worked at the town, helping them with an audit, her hours were billed to the town. If she works to help Sherry on school stuff, those hours were billed to us. So the extra hours that Laura worked were not all built to the school. She separated it. She was very fair about that. She billed Eric when it was due to work she was doing for Eric, and she billed us when it was due to stuff she was doing on our end. So Okay.
Just just a just a point. So so you're you were saying, Valerie, that I I just wanna this is a point of terminology. So technically, it was we were over budgeted, but we didn't know. But we're saying it wasn't really padded. It wasn't like intentionally padded. It was just unexpected savings. So that it's the same.
Got it. Alright. So They were unexpected. For example, as I said, the music teacher Yeah. November, she was at this salary with benefits. The new girl that came in is at this salary with no benefits. So I have There was unexpected savings that happened. It definitely was not stuff that they could have known about.
Right. And and I don't think that's really yeah. That just hard to make it. So I think that's understood and we had some benefits in both sides that happened. So it was good. And again, just to get back to the coming budget and some of my comments you made, Kurt. It is true as we know that any surplus at the end of the year, any actual surplus rolls back to the town unless it's requested by the superintendent that we can do that up to 2% now to go to their non lapsing account. But that's kind of their future thing. So as I understand it, that money was, they spent some of that anticipating the surplus. There isn't actually a surplus because we haven't reached the end of the fiscal year. Calling it a surplus, it certainly was extra money from savings and stuff that they apparently opted to spend. So that was kind of what the nature of that was. But yeah, if there were any to be any actual surplus then it would roll back to the town unless we allowed up that 2% to go back into the amount of One more thing and then I'll mute myself is the biggest savings in that believe it or not was,
do remember you at the beginning of the year, I did announce that I cut a bus because parents were so helpful that they were going to drive their children and we rerouted and things like that. That saved us $30,000 So that was our biggest. Right? So again, these were not things that were padded in there. They were changes that I made to try to to save money that I didn't realize I must have done a good job because at the end of the year now, we have that money sitting there. And now we have to take a look at what sorts what is the best way to utilize that. And as I said, a couple of the decisions I felt would be a benefit to the town as well. Right. Really, while you mentioned the buses
and it's just a thought, I mean, what's the projection for next year? I watched the high school and elementary school buses go by my house with three and four students on board each way. But you still gotta have buses, right? So I understand that. But I mean, what's what's the Go back to normal. Mean Does it hopefully go back to normal or or what? Think, Kurt, I think it will go back to normal. And so, we
have to project based on what the state has told us and the fact that we are in full in person, no remote. We have to budget for the four buses again. We absolutely have to for the four buses again because we're going to be as normal as we can again next year. So
that's something that has to be there. I mean, I can just say just Kurt, I'm a parent, I'm working, I've been working from home during the pandemic, but that is going to come to a close. The unofficial word corporate has not laid down the law yet but the unofficial word is come September which I always thought was gonna be the case lining up with the start of the school year. They're gonna bring us back to the office at least three days a week. So at that point, a lot of parents are gonna stop. I've always driven my kids to school because I live a mile from the school so and it was on my way out anyway but a lot of parents are gonna go probably go back to the before situation put their kids back on the bus. So don't think you can responsibly budget for three buses just crossing your fingers and hoping that
I didn't make that suggestion. Just wanted to what the I plan was for next wasn't saying cut buses. I'm just letting you know that, you know, right now the the four we have are empty. So
that's my point. Happens. All right. Guys, I'd like to keep the discussion if we could on the motion at hand, understanding that we're asking for some clarification. So I know that that was part of it. All right. I hate to So get I didn't need I don't want to derail this at all Jeff McGuire you still available I'd like to ask you a question about what you're proposing earlier, I may have misunderstood it. You were you proposing that for the future for next year's budget we reduce some of the town road funds in order to cover. The salary of the finance director to partner you're talking about this year this capital year this fiscal year right. No I'm talking about this budget you're discussing right now to make an adjustment to the capital funds budgeted for $25,000
Okay, essentially is an opportunity to cost share. Correct okay Wouldn't we also That need to would be a separate motion, just I misunderstood you. I'm sorry, misunderstood what you were suggesting before. Thank you, Eric. And this is not relative to this motion, this is not the motion on the table, but what Jeff is suggesting is we can make another motion to reduce the town aid road fund and then thereby add a line potentially do cover the cost of the of the
finance director salary merger work. Yeah, I was always that was what I was kind of trying to point out is we need to we kind of need a two parter. Yeah, you make the cut and then you authorize the payment. Yeah. Right. Back to the school.
Sorry, Mark. Just make your cut to the school for what you need to make it for, but take into account that the board of selectmen or we're asking you to make another motion to cut $25,000 from the capital for the town as an additional reduction. Does that make sense to you guys? All the same pot of money. If you think the cut should be $200,000 or $300,000 I don't care where you go, take $25,000 out of the town's capital side.
Okay. All right. Okay, we have the motion at hand, we have any further discussion. Linda Dave Luis any I think, wrote particular comments on this? If you don't, that's fine.
I'll take it Yeah. The only thing I'm going to make is basically what Diane's proposing, We can look at it this way is that the proposed extra funds are returned to the town like Ram did. That's basically what way I kind of see what she's asking for here. That's all I'm gonna say.
I'll just say you know my gut reaction to this is the if you allow if the decision was made that 2% rule I believe is about 78,000. So just, I just want to point out that if you were to looking for a way to do this in a more moderate fashion, what you could say is keep the 78, the difference between 78 and 138 and 60, right so that would be another potential number for those of us who may be finding 138 a large one. I'll leave it at that for the moment. If that made sense, I hope that made sense. Could
you restate that Rob? What I'm saying is okay so you know $138,000 surplus as you know the board of Ed is I think subject to approval by the town able to keep 2% in a surplus to put aside for future needs because they don't as has been pointed out they don't have a capital fund or anything like that. So that 2% of the prior year's budget I think equates to about $78,000 Of the $138.78 would be allowable under that 2% number. The difference between 78 and 138, so sort of the extra above and beyond surplus, if you will, was 60. Correct? If I'm doing my math right. Hopefully I can do math on a Sunday afternoon. So if you're looking for a number, all of these numbers are somewhat arbitrary, if you're looking for a number that you think 138 is too high, those of us who might be struggling with that a little bit, there's another number sitting right there and that's the 60. Just throwing that out there as an option but before we vote on this one.
All right, any further discussion by the board on this motion.
Actually we could also one other suggestion is to go 138 the 25 that we just discussed, that Jeff just discussed. That might be another option. Just a thought.
Further discussion? Okay, just to restate the motion. The motion on the table is to reduce recommended budget to $3,940,008 That is about a 1% increase over last year. We'll go ahead and call a vote. Hearing no more discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay,
it looks like we have Kurt, Diane, Linda and David. Correct. Voting for Me too. Also.
Louise, Kurt, Diane, David, and Linda voting for. All those opposed, nay. Nay.
Okay, Rob, nay. And I'm going to abstain from this vote. Okay, so the motion passes. The line item for the AES budget will be set at $3,940,008 Okay, thank you. Move on to any other discussion or motions Jeff had made a suggestion that we also reduce the town capital expenditures for the roadwork by about $25,000 having discussed it with the Board of Selectmen.
Mark, I'd like to make a motion before we talk about Jeff's suggestion. Go ahead, Dave. I wanna make a motion to have four questions on the town. Basically, if you guys want to rephrase them, I'll just kind of give you the gist of it. So the first question would be, is AES budget too high? Yes or no? Second question would be should Trooper be cut to lower town budget? Or no? Third question should be should town cut services? Yes or no?
What should town cut services to lower the budget is that. Yeah,
exactly. And then the last and final question should be. Should capital improvements be cut to lower the town budget yes or no. If you think those should be worded differently than the rest of the board. That's fine. I think that pretty much covers the categories though that I agree we should get that on there. I want to get where the town's at because if this budget fails again, we gotta kind of we need to kind of know where
the town wants stuff cut. We need guidance. I agree. Mark, I'll second Dave's motion also.
Right. Thank you, thank you, Kurt. So Kurt seconded the motion. And so Dave explained it basically the idea that if this motion were not to pass, then we would have some data and information about where the voters in particular were willing to cut additional in order to have a budget or reduce taxes really. Even if it does pass, this will give us some interesting insight, I think. Further discussion on that? I think it's a good idea. I think we may want to word the questions. Think we can work with the Board of Selectmen to do so to make it pretty clear, but I think we should keep it fairly simple. We may need to put some explanations the lines, know, explain, for example, capital expenditures would be things like road improvements, etc. Just to make sure people understand what we're talking about. Yeah, I thought on that, Mark, what we might want to do is you could add it, maybe add a parenthetical
of the sort of the total cost of that category. So the AAS budget is 3,900,000, yada yada, that can be in parenthetical like that's what that costs. Capital, our total capital expenditure proposed in this budget is X. Trooper, the trooper line item in the budget is X. So with these questions you have right there for the person trying to answer it what the raw dollar cost is. I think that would be helpful to somebody trying to make that call right there. Yeah, I think when
we miss side, we work with the Board of Selectmen and the best wording for that particular for those questions, It may well be done. Does make sense to provide context as long as you don't make it too complicated.
That was going to be my statement, Mark. I mean, you don't want to write a novel on the ballot because then the people aren't going to mark anything. So I think we wanna keep it simple and as
simple as possible. I wanna keep it simple too. That's why I'm just saying a parenthetical with the number. To me
Currently, the state trooper is currently $176,000 which represents x percent of the budget. Right. And potential savings then would be the entire amount. So we see it gets a little complicated because nobody's gonna want to reduce the entire road thing, you figured the state troopers and all are not type thing. Right.
People will probably figure that out. Think it's still worth doing. Do we want to entertain an amendment to this motion to include one more question regarding I know that here today it's pointless to talk about RAM because RAM is done this year. But if we're looking at this from the standpoint of going forward and what we need to do and getting gathering information do we wanna ask about the RAM budget as well?
You wanna make a motion to add a question about the RAM budget to
the current motion? I mean, problem, the only worry I have with adding it Right, you wanna make a motion Rob to add that to this question or just throwing it out there for discussion? I'm throwing it out there because I have, I could kind of argue this either way. The downside I see here is that it could confuse somebody like RAM is locked in this year. We're done. We can't do anything about RAM this year. Whereas a voter could realistically look at those questions, voting down the budget in the next referendum and say, AES is actually too low. So I'm voting no, actually we might wanna have the end of my might wanna say is not to say is the AS budget too high. It's just, is it too high? Just right, too low three options. Know I don't think you can. Put But RAM in there, they might erroneously that something that can be done about the RAM budget at this point and it can't, not for this year. Think it's gonna be too confusing actually because The RAM doesn't pertain to our referendum right now. So I mean, no, not right now. It's useful information maybe for the future, but you're right. And I'm sort of talking myself around in circle here. Apologize. Okay. I think
I think it just muddies the water Rob because we want this information in case vote is down. Yeah,
tend to agree. Let's focus on the task at hand. Further discussion on the motion to add the four questions to the ballot or recommend that the Board of Selectmen ask the four questions to the referendum? Mark, I call the vote. Hearing no further discussion, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, motion passes. Thank you, Dave. Think it's a good idea. Okay, further discussions or motions on the budget as it stands now?
I'd like to talk some more about what we might wanna do on the town side, maybe the trooper. We just took a pretty good whack at AES's budget. I for one don't like the idea of slashing them and doing nothing on the town side. So I'll just do it and whether it works or it doesn't work. I move that we remove the trooper line item 165, dollars $16,076,000 cut to the town budget eliminating the
Okay, Rob, moves anybody have a second? Okay. No seconds. Okay, I guess not this time, Rob. All right, just gonna bring it up. I think it's absolutely worth discussing.
Might I suggest you prepare a motion for that at the town budget meeting and just flat out say to the residents, look,
as a board, we're not really in favor of it. However, since this has been brought up a number of times, here's what a motion would look like if somebody wanted to make it. I think that's a good point, Eric. I actually was gonna talk about that in the budget meeting that that would be one option that would be but having a motion statement prepared is probably not a bad idea. Yeah. Okay.
I guess that brings us to back to kind of the Jeff's suggestion with a small cut to the road funding. What's the basis for that again? Is that just,
was there anything? Think it's just good faith reduction and it kind of helped make some of the fact that we're just what you said, I think you're taking a whack at the AES budget. We should really take another hard look at the town budget. I think we all agree it's fairly lean, but I think that that's the intention there. The current road improvement front just for context is the current approved amount is $300,000
I have a question mark. Yeah. Is it possible to ask these four questions that we're going put on a referendum at the actual hearing meeting and ask for and we have a vote there while people are staying there. Know it's not going to be the whole town, but it might give us a little flavor as to what those people who take the time to come to the hearing are thinking.
We could, but I think that the fact that they have an opportunity to speak publicly about the budget already gives them the opportunity to say I'm in favor of the state trooper or remove the state trooper. I think that that is already satisfied by the public speaking opportunity that would be my take on it, if we, you know, and the other thing is that there. Know, I suppose I'm not sure that it fits within the purview of the agenda of the of the meeting, even though it is budget related I don't know if somebody may have a different opinion on that. But I think my feeling is that people are going to kind of say what they're going to say, and they're going to vote it up or vote it down and somebody can make a motion to remove the state trooper at the thing or to reduce the town aid or the road funding or something. Kurt, So sorry, you're starting to talk. Yeah,
I'd like to take the first Lechman's recommendation and make a motion to cut $25,000 from the town capital budget. From the road improvement fund? Yeah, road improvement fund. Jeff's suggestion. I'll second that. Okay, Rob seconds. Okay. Further discussion?
I don't really like it but we gotta you know. Yeah, I don't even know. We all know the infrastructure budget is if anything lean already, but.
It's almost a time out of our budget, so it's a decent amount. It is.
So anybody who thinks it's not a lot of money, mean, decent amount. I'd like to hear from the town administrator. I
mean, look, I I'll live with it. I mean, let's be perfectly honest, if you cut me $200,000 I would live with it. That's that's what we do. It's, you know, dollars 25,000 is not nothing. I mean, you know, I'm still hoping that we can backfill that from, you know, the grant. I don't know for sure, but I would, I would hope we can backfill some of it. We just don't know at this point. But if I have to absorb a $25,000 cut, I have to absorb a $25,000 cut. I mean, remember, we're talking about $300,000 but the town also spends about $100,000 and that $300,000
really goes into just surfacing of roads. So, in addition to that $300,000 you know, we also put about $100,000 a year from Town Aid Road into the road surfacing. And this year, we also applied for and got a steep grant for about $128,000 which also goes into, is going to be applied this year, you know, for road surfaces. So, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, we can deal with a $25,000 cut. I mean, it's, you know, for, you know, if you think about it this way, out of 34 miles of road, that means you're gonna do about a half mile less road this year in terms of crack seal, shim, chip seal. That's what it comes down to. That's what a $25,000 cut is if you look at it that way. Might be your road, you never know.
It's not about us, it's about the town. Hey, it's good contact. You know I personally have a. I don't like this idea for the obvious reason it's just not, that it's just a half a mile a road, but it's just another instance of kicking the can down the road. We've done a lot about that. Know we've talked about it. You've heard those words out of my mouth several times over the last couple of months, but I understand the spirit in which it's done so. I don't like it either but. Understanding the spirit in which we're trying to. Make some effort here. Anything else from the board discussion about this particular line item. We could increase it as well increase that reduction.
I would just personally say that if we were going to look for more reductions in capital I wouldn't pick the same fund to take a bigger bite out of know maybe take a slice somewhere else but no I don't think I want to we don't really wanna slash this stuff. We don't wanna slash, we don't wanna cut any of this, I know. I don't like this at all, but.
I mean, do you have a feel for, you know, in your guts, how much we still have to reduce the budget before we'll pass that referendum? Can we kind of start with that? I mean, we know if we come in with a zero mill rate increase, it will pass. But what is your feeling on what we can practically get through?
I don't, I'll say that outright. And I'm not really always comfortable with that being our target. I wanna budget appropriately, but the reality is we're there, I get that. I don't have any particular feel and just for context for everybody, I think where we are right now, make sure I have the numbers plugged in. Yeah it looks like where we are right now is we are at a. Estimated mill rate of 36.46 which is in percent ill mill rate increase of 2.4%.
And I think the issue that a lot of people bring up is that the mill rate increases not the whole shebang because the rebound.
The rebound, yeah, exactly. It's not going to be the net result in everyone's taxes. Again, because some of the personal property tax increase there pointed out a lot of it's the cars and everything that there is going to be some increase there. So. Yeah there's there's going to be an overall increase in taxation for sure. Mark, can I be recognized quickly? Absolutely. Listen,
I appreciate that you guys are hemming and hawing on this, but in the sake of fairness, the town does need to take a cut. You know it's not it's never in a perfect world, but the budget was rejected. Don't have 100% clear information we did hear a lot of people complain about the school budget, but you know we did hear people talk about the town budget now, and you know. Eric said, whatever you caught us, we will work with that it is what it is, you know that is, that is the role that we take on in municipal services that whatever that budget is we got to work with it, so I think in the sense of fairness, you know you should cut the 25,000. That's just my take on it. Okay, thanks.
Agree with Adriana on that. Because we've done what we did to the school, I think we need something to show that we're trying on our end to the town.
Chair Other discussion? Okay hearing none I'm going to call for a vote, so the motion is to reduce the. The capital fund for roadwork by $25,000 all those in favor say aye. Aye.
Any opposed. Any abstentions nope Okay, the motion passes all right, Thank you, Rob. And everyone. All right. So I'm doing a lot of scrolling here. It's a long budget. The road improvement fund, is 11 is reduced from 300,000 to 275,000. Okay, net result just for the record is this, the new mill rate would be in the budget as it stands now is 36.37. That is a percent mill rate increase of 2.14. Total taxation increase again for the purposes of just clarity is if I've got all this updated it now at 4.9%. That's the overall tax revenue, including the increase in valuation, etcetera. But a mill rate increase of 2.14. Okay. Further discussion on the budget line items? Give me two seconds, Mark. You checking my numbers?
No.
It's not a bad thing. We should always check the numbers. But I think this is accurate. Just a reminder to everybody, this isn't gonna get any easier next year because we will not have the $250,000 on the fund balance that we're using this year. And we're gonna have a further cost reduction or further revenue reduction in our educational cost sharing in all likelihood.
Yeah, that is something I wanna remind you next year gets kind of grim because the reason the RAM budget was actually decreased this year to the town was because they gave back 135 or 130 because they weren't in session due to COVID. ECS, we're losing an additional 70. And we're probably not gonna have much in surplus to add back. So, you know, potentially we're looking at a budget gap next year already of about $450,000 if we keep level budgets, both town, Ram and AES.
So I'll just throw in there the only silver lining is that we won't have a debt payment on the school bond that's 90 ish you can put back out but still $3.60 instead of yeah
We'll be doing this again next year. It's hard to make the cuts, but it's going to be harder next year. We got to do what we can do. Or you guys could all be optimist and remind yourselves that Ram also has the adjustment in
bonding payment next year. That's a million dollars. So if they don't tax something massive onto the thing that's a $100,000 offset.
We're gonna need to definitely work on that next year with the ram budget you know in advance not at the eleventh hour. Yeah, we need to do a lot of research. We need to really make a full court press on that exact issue. Eric, you asked for some time are you?
No, I was just looking back through the latest audit numbers which I sent you and Jeff to see whether we could increase the $250,000 we're putting in but the reality is we really can't. No, you might have a couple thousand or something. Right, so that's not going to be a valid source of revenue. The only other thing to consider and you know, I keep going back to it is the you know transfer station revenues. I mean, if you think about the areas where, you know, on the revenue side, the only place we really have to collect more money is a transfer station. It would have to be the Board of Selectmen to do it, that does it and it's going to be terribly unpopular. But that is one thing you could do to increase revenue to some extent.
Yeah. But a lot of people mad in the process. Well, there's two things there. Mean, first of all, as I've pointed out before, that's just another method of taxation. And I understand that, but these people are tying that to a service that's being provided. And I don't know how many people then would, and this is something the board selectman would have to consider is if you increase the fees is that start making private collection services more and more valuable. And then there are certain people who are may say, you know what, I'll just have it picked up. I don't know that, but it's just my comments.
Yeah, I mean, was I remember being comfortable with taking us from not charging at all to the level we're at now. Increasing it is kind of another story in my opinion. I actually do have pay for pickup Mark. So I know what it costs. It's still a great yeah I think I'm paying there's probably a pretty classic supply and demand curve there there's gotta be absolutely there's gotta be that tipping point where it's like well yeah I'm paying more but don't have to go to the dump every Saturday and put put everything in the bins so yeah.
Sure and at some point the reality is people just start throwing it out on the road we chew up all the public works time picking it up you know.
Well, I mean, I know you guys are kicking it around, but keep in mind too, we're probably gonna have to increase that number next year anyways because the tipping fees.
Yeah. So we're gonna have to basically start tying that number to tipping fees. Yeah, it's not a bad thing to do. All right, but it is a little bit off topic here. Further line item discussion or motions from Board of Finance. Well, we can make a motion to have this our recommended budget.
I'll make a motion to have that the recommended budget. Let the budget recommend the budget where it stands As we just discussed.
Okay, thank you, Louise. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay, Diane seconds. Any discussion further? Okay, let's go ahead and call for a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? I abstain Mark.
Thanks Rob. One abstention, that's Rob. Was on aye, Mark. Got it. I think everyone was in favor and we had one abstention which was Rob, correct? For the record all right, thank you everybody, the motion passes. Okay, any further discussion by the board on the budget for the fiscal year twenty twenty one twenty twenty two. Okay, thank you guys. Easy. Hearing no more discussion, let's move on to agenda item four, which is our closing public speak, public speaking opportunity. Mandy's still with us can we? I'm here so
all right we will go through everyone. First up Jerry Cremay.
I wanna thank the board of finance for the work you do. Now talking as the board of education member, it's a tough place to be in. And I know it's not an easy job for you guys either. I'm wondering if there's something we can do collectively as three boards, the board of selectmen, the board of education and the board of finance to get together starting with the beginning and see if we can avoid being put into the position we were put into now at the end of the budget at the end of the year that we have to come up with a budget. I think this is something we might want to consider working on together to come up with a solution to make this a little bit more palatable to everybody. I just would like to see us all communicate with each other in a respectful manner not start going at each other we're all residents of the same town. I think Jeff McGuire said it's all our money whether it's at the board of finance giving it to the board of selectmen or giving it to the board of education or whether you build a senior system yes it's all our money but we have to come up with a way to talk to each other. And I don't mean
by putting things on Facebook or by talking to the river east, we need to be people with each other and we need to be respectful of each other, listen to each other and try to work out a solution that makes this to be a much better process for everyone involved. I thank you to the board of finance. I don't envy you. It's a hard job. I know that it is. And I respect you for that. Thank you very much for your. Yeah. Thank you, Jerry. Appreciate it. Thanks Jerry. Found Bruno. Hi, thank you.
It is a tough job. I have to say I'm a little disappointed that there was not more of a focus on the refusal to use the relief fund, the 319,000 I am a little disappointed that there is a refusal to use that. That there was no discussion about the surplus that the town had this year only the surplus that the Board of Ed had because the town did already at a previous meeting reallocate their surpluses accordingly. The $37,000 increase if that does pass that referendum, that doesn't even cover our increases to our contract negotiations. So we had two contracts this year. It doesn't cover and we'll need to revisit it, but it doesn't even cover our increased costs to the finance director position. So that'll have to be revisited because 37,000 isn't even enough for that and to maintain our pristine facilities.
You know, I'm a little disappointed, as Eric always says, both sides would have to make it work no matter what, but it doesn't cover any of those things. So I just wanted those noted. Thanks. Thanks, Al.
Thanks, Val. Jane Grineer. Maybe she's floating along. Oh, there she is.
Yeah, I'm all set. Thank you. I appreciate all the work that the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen and everybody's done. Good job. I think you're on the right track. Thank you. Thanks Diane. Kathy and Mike Palazzi.
Thank you, Amanda. We, oh, I do have a few things. The first thing I'd like to say is to the Board of Finance. Thank you very much for trying to satisfy the voters of the Andover and make this process painless. I think it's very disturbing what I heard today. And also I would like to believe that the Board of Finance should actually take the current budget before today's cuts back to the town meeting. I do not think they should be cutting the budget again. Additionally, I do believe that that they should not be cutting that road improvements or road work or whatever you want to call that budget. I think our roads are not in the best shape and I think that Eric has done his best for us and I do feel that we should not be taking money away from that. I heard today at the beginning of this talk that no one wanted to pit one group of people against another and that is exactly what has happened today. It's not right to take away from the AES again. The superintendent Valerie Bruno has asked us all if she could have one more year to stabilize the budget and she asked us to give her a chance and I'm willing to do that based on everything that I have heard from her. Additionally, I would like to say that about the trooper, I'm not in favor of all of that, of having the trooper removed. When I call the trooper, I am the senior coordinator for the town for twenty three years. And when I call the trooper because I'm concerned
since I've not heard from a senior in a period of time, it is with great relief that the trooper will check out the senior and in cases that comes rapidly to mind, one senior was dead at home, had no family immediately in the state, within the state to help him. So I was very happy that our trooper did do took it upon himself to do the wellness check immediately. It wasn't I'll wait and do it tomorrow. I'm having a coffee. No, it was immediate that he responded. And I had a senior that was living in true filth, had no idea what was going on, what kind of day, no idea day, night or what. And he has advanced dementia and I'm very pleased that the wellness check was proved as fact and he was taken care of and put into the right environment.
The trooper checks on AES every day to make sure the children are okay. I've seen him there and I know that for a fact. He checks in at the polls when voting takes place to make sure that everything's okay, that this is kind of a distension we have right now, just to make sure that there's nothing unpleasant happening at the polls and that everyone is okay, that none of the workers are in danger. He the trooper runs the deer program at AES and it's very successful and I saw pictures of that this year. It was an excellent turnout and it was a beautifully done program. It's comforting knowing when my alarm goes off at 3AM that he's available to check the property. Doesn't mean that it's gonna be the current person. I think his name is Chris, and I have to admit, I don't know Chris, but
that's just how I feel. It's feeling good to know that the trooper is here, that we're gonna get serviced. When a drunk ran up my front lawn, wrecked the front lawn. The trooper was here within ten minutes after I called 911. Made me feel good. And it happened to be our trooper that was on duty that night. It gives seniors the peace of mind knowing that the trooper is here. We're too old and in some cases too frail to handle any problem should anything occur on our property, should anyone try to rob us, break in, we aren't fit and able to do retaliations. So the bottom line is I do believe that this what you're proposing now today will fail. And I hope to say that I will be one of the people voting no on Tuesday.
I'm really sad. I just like to respond that the trooper has not been removed from the budget. It's still in there. It's just I one of those heard you say that Mark, I wrote it on my note. You did not say that. Is that correct?
You're saying you did not take that away? We did not take out the trooper. The trooper is still in this recommended budget. It is. Discussed was giving that option. That's an option at the town budget meeting. If the town residents feel strongly that that should be removed on budget meeting that that's their chance to make a motion and then take a vote on it. But the board of finance is not recommending the removal of the trooper in this budget. Thank you, Mark, because I did then get confused and I'm old. So I did get confused and
that was I do believe that Robert England made the motion and I did think that you had gone through and talked about it. Okay, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. But I still feel that way, Mark. That's the way I feel about the What
I would suggest though, is that if you're at the meeting on Tuesday, if this motion were to come up and be presented and seconded and therefore discussed that you may wanna make some of the same arguments you just made because I think they're important to be heard. Right now this trooper is in the budget. That's unlikely, but I think possible that it would be removed at the town meeting. That So would be the time we need to
All right. And so my question to you, Mark, is so you removed today, correct? 138,000 more from the school, correct? Correct.
And did you additionally remove 25,000 from the roads? Correct. So that was 163,000 more from the budget? That's Yes.
Yes. And additionally, I just wanna make sure of my facts. And additionally, did you already take away 44,000 from the AES last time? Correct. And that still stands, is that correct? Correct. Yes. Okay, thank you. That would be 193,000, I believe, the 192,000 from the school, is that correct? The original request, yeah. I think so. Okay. Thank you. And thank you Amanda. Thank All right. Next up, Chris Bernard.
Good afternoon. And I just want to thank the Board of Finance. Certainly difficult discussion. Obviously, as a Board of Education member, certainly I'll say what Jerry and Valerie said, which is certainly disappointing from our side, but that means we've got our work cut out for us. And we'll do what we I think from our side, I think we've certainly had some missteps and I think they've been commented on here and certainly we'll try to address those going forward, but thanks for your time. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Kimberly Prasan. Nothing right now. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you.
Adrian Mandeville? Leanne Hutchinson? Leanne, are you there on the phone? Yes, I am. Nope. Okay. Next up, Shannon Loudon.
Thanks, Amanda, and thank you very much, Board of Finance. I know that this afternoon was very difficult. And while I appreciate the difficult jobs we all had to do in coming up with our budgets, I'm very disappointed by the vote that the Board of Finance just took. The Board of Education, after four budget worksheets, approved an increase that ended up after further reductions to what we had approved at 219,000 You just approved $37,000 increase. That's 17% of what we asked for, telling you that we needed it. And Valerie's already told you that we approved two contracts. We actually are in the process of approving the second one. It's not going to even allow us to meet the increases that are required to pay for those contracts. I believe, and I'm not naive enough not to believe that the AES budget was a great part of why people voted down the budget referendum last week, but I also believe that that budget referendum was voted down based on a lot of misinformation that has gone on Facebook, gone into flyers, and has flown around this town. So going forward, two words that have been wholly misappropriate
are transparency and trust. If we want to trust each other, we're going to have to be transparent. I do not believe that the town has been transparent about its use and ability to use $319,000 that was not adequately discussed by the Board of Finance this afternoon. And I don't know to whom that blame falls, but I believe when you've got $319,000 of relief money that is not gonna get a dime of and is not coming from the taxpayers, that needed to be better addressed. So I also, like Kathy Palazzi, will be voting no next on Tuesday, and we'll see what happens. But I do not believe that giving AES a $37,000 increase when the Board of Education approved what resulted in a $219,000 increase is in any way meets our need. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Shannon. Mercy Miner.
I just wanted to say I agree with Jerry Kerme. We need to do a better job at getting finding out from the townspeople what they want. That's about it. I don't think that this should be the town against the school or the seniors against the town shouldn't really be like that. And as far as misinformation, we have asked to have someone highlight what misinformation was actually on the flyers and haven't heard anything about that. So that's it. Thank you guys for spending this day in the middle of a Sunday to do this. I know it's really hard. And so you guys are doing really good. So thank you. Thanks, Marcy. Thank you. Joanne Hebert.
Hey, Amanda. Yeah, I just wanted to pass along that I think the board of finance did a great job today. It's not easy like you've all said but that's why we're elected to positions of this to make hard decisions. Know, we've got to keep emotion out of it though. I'm at a point in my life that I can keep emotion out of it. My children are grown, you know, but I also have that experience of having them gone through a school system as well as working in a school. And thank you various board members in town for recognizing that when I speak it's because I am everywhere. I take time to go to your meetings and listen firsthand to your discussions. I'll always be polite, I'll always be thoughtful, sometimes I'll have too much caffeine like earlier today but I'm a little calmer now. My target amount was $200,000 to bring the total increase in taxation to 4.5%
and you came, you know, closer than I thought you might today so I'm pleased with this. I also again with talking about the emotion though, I just would like to just go in be fair objectives, state your case and then and that's okay. And a couple of people have brought up that grant relief for the town. And I know that Valerie has spoken to this and maybe this is something that can be considered down the line. Hopefully you can use it for some of the culverts and all of that which will help with funds being you know either leftover or reappropriated. And then the school has said there might be some needs there that they could use it for so all is not lost. Know there might be some funds there that Eric can't use at the town and then the school can use so there's always that. Again thank you.
Thanks, Joanne. Thank you, Joanne. Kelly Hagerty, last but not least.
Hi, thank you. I'm sorry to have gotten on so late. I just do appreciate everybody's time. I think the one takeaway I have from this is we obviously put off work that needed to be done for a long time. I know twelve years living in Andover is considered relatively new in town to many residents, But twelve years and hoping to make it forever at this point. So I hope that we learned a hard lesson that we have to keep up with the maintenance if we want to continue to move forward. And obviously that means in every way. So effectively, we vote yes, we're choosing roads over education at this point, keeping emotion out of it with three children in the school and also having worked in a school setting my entire adult life. I feel disappointed, but I understand about necessity. In the same respect, I just hope moving forward, we're very aware of the needs of the town, the needs of the school, and the needs of the people who live here. So thank you again, and it's not an easy job. Thanks, Kelly.
All right, I think we're all set. You to the Board of Finance. Appreciate you all. Thank
you, Amanda, and we appreciate you and the work you do. That is the second to last item on our agenda. The last is adjournment. Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved.
I'm sorry, was that Kurt? Yep. Okay, Kurt, do we have a second? I'll second it. Okay, I think I heard Louise first. We'll call Louise as the second. Thank you, David though. All right, any discussion? I guess I'll just say that I know that the sales department of the company I work with, the VP of sales always says, if nobody's happy at the end, you probably landed in about the right place. This process isn't over, but again, I want to thank everybody for participating. It's not easy and we still have a ways to go. Let's hope this goes forward and we come together as a town and find our place and keep going. I think everybody really wants that down deep.
Mark, just before can I just quick question? We talked briefly about this, but I don't think really close the loop on it. The four advisory questions or three advisory questions we're gonna put on the ballot. You said we needed to maybe circle back with board of selectmen on exact wording. Yeah. Now and when the next referendum is, what's the plan? That's
a good question. Think what I was gonna suggest is I would recap those questions, send them over to you guys for any comment and send them over to Jeff McGuire and then they can consider and make any edits. We'll just kind of go back and forth. We would like to get those handled quick. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that we have It's a good question. I'm sorry, I meant to comment on that earlier and I think it could be somewhat informal process.
Mark, typed up a first draft of that. I'll email it to you right now. Okay, thank you, Eric. You can monitor as you desire.
Thanks, Eric. Yeah, saves me the time. Any other comments before we adjourn? See you Tuesday night.
Tuesday night and Wednesday then night we have a board of finance meeting remember so. Both.
We'll have some other things to talk about so. Fair warning, gotta bring the kids to the Tuesday night meeting. Don't know. Awesome. Yeah.
So one of the things I think we need to have a discussion with at the Wednesday night meeting is what our plan forward is if the next round doesn't fail or doesn't pass. Basically at this point, if we go We're running out of time. Budget meeting, it fails. Budget meeting, referendum, we still have time to send out tax bills. If we go budget meeting, referendum and have another hard fail, we're already past our statutory deadline. We got to decide where we're going forward with that. Good point, Eric. Let's make sure it's on the agenda.
Or at least talk about it as part of the budget I
think we had to do that one time on one of my earlier years on the board where we ran out of time and we ended up putting out like a provisional mill rate. But I actually at this point it's a little fuzzy in my memory so we have to revisit exactly what we did there.
And in the end it's up to the voters. That's exactly right. Yeah.
Right. If I keep projecting we have functional issues. And this is what Eric's talking about, you have some hard deadlines.
Yeah. Anyway, sorry. And probably worth mentioning at the meeting on Tuesday as well. Okay, everybody. I think we're done here. Everybody voted in favor. Did we take a call to vote on a German? I think we did, right? No, I think we did. No, we didn't, didn't we? Okay, sorry. That's why we were getting this in. All right, any other discussion before adjourning? Okay. All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. Thank Appreciate it and talk to you too soon. You soon. See you soon.