Meeting transcript
Board of Selectmen - Special Meeting Budget Workshop
January 26, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
So let's go back to the top. Excuse me. Come on, Jeff. The pledge. The pledge.
The pledge. I know. I know, Jeff. There we go. So we're gonna call this meeting of a special meeting for the budget workshop for Tuesday, January 26. We'll call that order and we'll do the pledge of allegiance. We pledge allegiance to the flag flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation one nation under god under god indivisible indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right.
This meeting, we actually, at our last meeting, we asked Eric to reach out to other departments for presentations so that we could get a feel for where all of the other groups were within town. So I'm glad that we have all those groups together. On the schedule, it's listed as Andover Elementary School and the Board of Education Superintendent Valerie Bruno. So Valerie, if you could give us some time. I know we got the presentation and I believe that presentation was provided to the Board of Education.
Yeah, and it was placed on the website to for anybody who wanted to see it. And the recording of the last board of Ed meeting and we did it in January so it was earlier than I think some other towns are doing it so gotta jump on that. First of all, I wanna say hi to a lot of the faces that I haven't met yet. And and some of you I've seen with masks. So it's it's nice to meet you all, even if it's via Zoom. Hi, Valerie. I'm Scott Persson.
Hi Scott, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
So the selectmen that are on the call, think you may know that Scott, there's Paula King, Adrian Mandeville and Jeff Murray. Valerie and I spoke today so. Right
Jeff it's funny because I just saw you on there and I went so that's what he looks like because I've spoken to you so many times but I haven't seen you in person and without a mask so it's nice to see you. Yeah with a big shiny head. So Jeff, did you did you want me to just start?
I I I would like you to just do a brief overview, and then I know that, we'll have some specific questions as to where the budget is going for next year. Okay.
So I'll do the best I can to do it kind of quick and overview ish here. So the at this point, my particular budget that was presented to the Board of Ed did have an increase request for operational budget of 329,000. This is still a budget that's less than it was seven years ago. And we don't have a dip in enrollment this year, which is good because we've been stagnant. So this budget represents a stagnant number of students, but thankfully not a dip. I know, unfortunately, I know Rams had had a dip, but we've been steady. So we're going to keep our fingers crossed. We did have budget workshops at the budget workshops. Anybody who wants to review the video, the long video on the weekend, maybe when it snows. You'll see that there were a number of things that we discussed that came up with that budget that we're going to continue to discuss, because it hasn't been approved by the Board of Ed yet. There were some questions regarding each individual line item that we went through. One of which had to do with the driveway. There was a question as to whether or not we should continue with some of the projects that we're doing to maintain. We do take pride in maintaining the best in town there. And so there was a question on that and that's still gonna be a discussion at the February 10 meeting, I assume.
There was a question about Wi Fi upgrade. We had a placeholder in there for about 20,000. That's probably a little high. And maybe if we're lucky enough to get COVID money under Biden and under the new administration, perhaps that's something that could be addressed there too. But that is in our budget and I have had questions about that. It is something that is necessary. And the 20,000 that's in there right now is a placeholder. That's perhaps something that can come in a little bit less. And the third question that I had already about the budget was about the protocol that's been in place for about five years at AES regarding field trips being covered. And so that's certainly something that'll probably come up at the February meeting as well for the 9,000. So those were items that were already discussed at our budget workshop. On the summary that Eric had sent out, I know there were a couple topics on there. Pre k had come up as well. He had put a couple of things on there. We are going from three pre k classes to two due to the sheer numbers of students that we have. The pre k program would be self sufficient if it wasn't for the insurance that needs to be covered for the four staff members that are there. So that's the number that you see there at 72. And again, we are still between now and February going to work on taking a look and seeing if there's something else that needs to be done with that but right now, the only cost over and above the revenue would be the insurance.
Speaking of insurance. I know that some of you are also on the calls monthly. I know we had a call this Thursday on the insurance consortium. So the insurance consortium in this particular budget, they had told us to use the 5.5 as the placeholder for the increase. And that would be for all of us, for Ram, for myself, myself, as well as for the town. We had a meeting Thursday, and they told us that 4.9 would be very conservative. And by the end of the meeting, everybody had decided that we could be a little less conservative and keep our fingers crossed and go with 3.2. So if we go with 3.2, that would put us at about 10,000 less than we thought from that three twenty nine. In terms of negotiations, know that again, in this particular packet that Eric said, he had mentioned that the town didn't have a negotiation. I know Ram had two. We unfortunately didn't finish both of ours. We did do our teaching negotiation. We were very successful. The teachers thankfully were very collaborative. We did light up with a four year contract negotiation. That was an average of 3%. So we were very happy to come in pretty low there. The other one is not finished yet. We're in non cert negotiations right now, but our budget has to reflect the
increases in both of those contracts. So in terms of staff, we do have one teacher retiring, and we do have one paraprofessional that'll be slated for going into the classroom to replace them, and then we would have one less paraprofessional. But other than that, everybody else that currently works there would stay there. I know some people have questioned the 14 classes. Last year, it went from 14 to 16. We did look at that, and we are still slated. We have the same number of kids. So we are still slated for 14 classes. But I know there was some question as to why we would do three k's instead of two of another grade. We're very much trying to avoid the COVID slip. We have eight incoming pre kers that have not been in school at all.
And so, you know, we're very concerned about the fact that we have eight new kids. Know very quickly, I promised Eric I would stick to ten minutes, but I was on a call with Beth Bai yesterday, and we were talking about the fact that all over the state at every level, there's about 15,000 kids right now that are not enrolled in school. And they're just lost, unenrolled. And 8,000 of them are pre kers, preschool children. So kindergarten next year is going be really important. And if we have to have a small class size someplace, that is really where we want to look to make sure. Because otherwise, the thought is we'll be paying for it later on if some of those students are overlooked and we wind up with special needs and services that are are gonna need to be provided to them. So that's really why we're looking to place that extra resource there. On that paper too that Eric had sent, it did say that there was 90 k for an AES debt. Sorry, I've only been there six months. I did inquire on that, and they said that that was town bonding from way back, and this will be the last year that the town would have that for some kind of a bonding project that was there. Wasn't sure if it was a ram bonding or an AES but
that's that's they said it would be the last year. So I know on Eric's sheet, he also said we don't know about funding levels from other sources this year. I wish that I had a magic ball and I could tell you that we were gonna get COVID money from the state and from the federal government and from other places. We will keep pursuing it. And as we do, obviously, that'll get put in and and eliminate some of the things that we're asking for. But the last thing that is in our budget, besides the things that I've mentioned so far, is we will have a bit of an increase. We're merging obviously the most of you know on here, the finance director position and so there will be some costs associated with that, that we'll have to talk with the town about. But you know, and I understand that this is just an update, but I do hope as everybody looks through maybe for the first time that budget presentation, and does have to make sure that we pay attention to the fact that we have RAM and we have the town and we have the library and we have all these other places. I really would be remiss if as the superintendent I didn't mention to this whole group that I that I'm lucky enough to see right now that I don't want us to have to choose between funding our middle and high school kids with RAM and funding our elementary school kids. I would hope that everybody in town sees that the elementary school is equally as important as everybody else, you know, and and when we look when we look at cuts that we're we're very generous with understanding that, you know, these are all AES kids there too. So
those are the highlights, and I urge everybody to take a look. We did record these sessions so you can see them on the website if everybody's interested. So as I said, grab some popcorn and have a seat this weekend and binge watch.
All right. Valerie, thank you. Just a quick question before I turn it over to some of the other members. Sure. The last year, if I remember correctly, the total enrollment number that you based the budget on for AES was about 195. So the enrollment right now is 192. And you're anticipating your enrollment for next year to go to 197?
Right now the well, we do have it's not that it's going to go to 197. Right now due to the fact that you have some students that will go to distance learning and then come back. We've had some students move. We've had some other students come in. I'm not sure exactly how much it varied from year to year, from month to month, but we do report it monthly at the board of ed meetings. And I can tell you that from the start of the school year until now, it's gone from a low of one seventy nine to a high of one ninety two. So and when I say the eight other kids, Jeff, those are eight students that are not enrolled right now, but we know that they are enrolling for kindergarten next year. So I couldn't guarantee that there wasn't gonna be one that's no longer with us, but we know that we have eight incoming into kindergarten. So I would say one ninety, Jeff, to 192
is a very, very accurate description of where we're going to be. Okay. So we're flat from year to year? We have been flat. Flat from year to year. Okay. I know that other members have questions, and I'll go to the vice versa electorate. We'll start with Adrian. And I'll try to answer them. Adrian? You're on mute. Is your computer going to He's Okay still on mute. We're gonna go to Jeff. There
he goes we got it. Sorry I'm running two computers I had the wrong mouse. So I watched your budget workshops or I should say workshop really you didn't really go into anything on the second one other than to say you weren't going to have another meeting, answer one question, it was like thirty minutes long. So basically you had one budget workshop and quite candidly I was a little frustrated that no one did go line by line you know because if you go line by line there are some things in there that probably need to be looked at extensively. As the board of selectmen, we're just asking because we know from a town side this year that we're in a tough spot. We have a couple of bridges that we've got to deal with, we've got culverts, we have things that have been neglected for years. I noticed that you said that the budget was the same, it's actually lower than it was seven years ago but I don't know if you realize that the budget at AES went through a period where the population dropped by half and the budget went up by 25%. There was a lot of giving for a long time to the school and now we're basically just finally at a place where we're asking the school to stay right sized to the population that it has. You know I noticed you mentioned class sizes in kindergarten. I looked and it looks like Bolton's averaging 15 kids to a class for kindergarten, Glastonbury's at 17 kids to a class for kindergarten, and both of those schools are ranked very well if not ahead of us, Glastonbury in academic excellence. So it's not a question of an academic excellence issue,
you know, and I have to say that's the number one thing we hear from residents is actually I even hear complaints from parents complaining that the class sizes are too small, you know, So it makes it hard, you know, if you if one kid's not getting along or something like that.
Wait. Adrian, I'm sorry. Can I just interrupt? I'd like to just Go for Go for it. Okay. So, you know, I agree with you as I looked back through the seven years. And again, I I wasn't here seven years ago. I was only here seven months ago. I only mentioned it because you did. I know. I know. So I I I do wanna tell you that I agree with you that I noticed that, you know, seven years ago, eight years ago, perhaps the budget was reflective of things that maybe were extra that were in there when there was a large number of students. However, I do have to say the last few years AES has taken cuts for the last three years and I looked, you know, very dramatically through them to see if that was reflective of the loss of students. And I would agree that it definitely was reflective of the loss of students, But this year is a little bit different. Remember we have an operational budget. We don't have a capital budget. And so deep within our budget, unlike the town or RAM or another place, we have to make sure that we're maintaining things along the way. That's really important to me. It's really important to know that we won't have what happened. I think you just mentioned the town's in bad shape because there's lots of things that need to be fixed. I don't want that to happen at AES on my watch. I wanna make sure that we're doing everything that needs to be done, but not
doing the extra wasteful things. We're doing the necessary As far as the size classes, I will absolutely agree with you. I come from times towns rather where, yep, when I taught, I had, you know, 25 kids in a classroom. And I've had this conversation with the board and with Jerry, and I do not disagree with you, Adrian, that when you look over the years, there are some class sizes that have been very small. I'm not gonna guarantee that next year, I wouldn't agree with you 100% and say, yeah, the class sizes need to be eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty two. I'm not gonna disagree. That's why the sixth grade is not getting two sixth grades even though there's two fifth right now, because I think that 22 is a very fair number. I've also have special ed background for anybody who doesn't know me. And so I took great pride in looking at, you know, who are we servicing, because that makes a big difference. Class of 12 kids versus 30 kids. I can tell you as a teacher, administrator, and now a super.
Very different if you have students with special needs. So that is huge. When we look, there's no reason to reduce the 22 in the sixth grade. I agree. There's no reason to reduce 18 in fifth grade, 18 in fourth grade. I absolutely 100% agree with you. And next year I expect to see not three first grade classes even though we're going to have three kindergarten classes or the following year. But this is COVID gap related. This is the fact that we have eight incoming kids with no history of being schooled before. And I am a very strong believer with my educational background and I could get lots of data to show you that if we don't take care of those kindergarteners this year, we will wind up later on with a problem if we've not addressed the fact that this is gonna be their very first schooling. And so, Adrian, if we were sitting here during the 2223 budget, I'd say you're absolutely right. I don't need to have three classes there, two classes there. The class sizes would be bigger, but we're not sitting in 2223
budget. We're sitting in 2122 budget. So as for as for Glass wait. As for Glastonbury and Bolton, the larger the communities, the more resources that you have that could be shared from class to class. And so coming from larger towns, can tell you, yep. It's way easier to have larger classes in a community where you have full time social workers, full time guidance counselors, full time school psychologist, and all of those other people that can assist the teacher in the classroom. We have every administrator at AES is part time except the principal. Every social service person, the psychologist, the social worker, the speech language person, the OTPT, they are all part time. The special ed director is part time. I'm part time. We are bare bones. And as I mentioned a few minutes ago, we'll be down one para as well.
So that is the difference between some of those towns and us is that they have a lot more bodies that can come in and help in a class.
And so But you could but you could bring in a part time para as a preventative measure, go to two classes, and have that person hop between the classes as needed. You know, having three full classes, that's a 100,000 expense to have that extra teacher. No. No. No. We're not adding a teacher, Adrian. It's an existing position already. My point is that you have three classes of 10. If you eliminated one of those classes and went to two of 15, you're saving a $100,000. Even if you even if you spent 50,000 on a part time para, you're still ahead of the game and it still gives you your buffer that you're worried about. These other towns aren't factoring in a para in that classroom. You could do it a different way.
Think my frustration is that
you have very clearly stated over and over again both in your presentation and even in the paper that you're not gonna cut staff. This year there's no staff to cut. We are as bare bones as we could be. And I just said Adrian if it was another year perhaps there would be but there is we are as bare bones as they can be and properly service these children. We are bare bones.
Yeah. I I just don't I don't see that you're gonna get the support for 10 people in a class, especially when you have three classes in the same grade that way. Adrian, can I cut Yeah, please go ahead, Jeff? Yeah, I talked to Valerie about this a lot and I agree with your position. I also agree that that extra
kindergarten class does have a pair in it and so it would be of savings about 175,000 if we did eliminate a class. And then it's not like we're asking to go from 10 to 20 students, we're asking to go from 10 to 15. And Valerie, you said something pretty interesting. You said earlier that you said eight kids coming in. Do you have like documentation that those kids aren't going to another preschool somewhere else or have some kind of deficiency that they're gonna need this. We're gonna need this extra class that's gonna cost the town about $175,000
John does have the documentation that the eight students that are coming in have no prior schooling. And in terms of documentation for knowing what their limits are. No, we don't know anybody's limits before they arrive. You test them before they come in? They're not students there. We wouldn't be going and testing them. I'm just asking the question. Yeah, no, we will know what their limits are when we get them at the beginning of the year.
So you don't think 15 per class in a part time para for probably about $20,000 saving the town about a $150,000
is not a good idea? For post COVID, I don't think making
that cut is a good idea. Again But to use that reasoning, you would have to apply that to all the grades and say we'd have to expand all the classes because all the kids have been out, my son's been out and he's lost a lot of time too. So if you wanna play catch up then we would have to expand every class and give every class personal attention. Well luckily the personal attention that your son needed as you know we already had available within the building So Of course, and we have that now. So my question is why can't we look I at
just wanna finish the thought. The existing staff that I'm asking to assist with kindergarten is already available within the school too. I am not asking for any more staff. I am asking for the existing staff that's already there and getting rid of one pair position. And where the savings is in terms of the cost is we have the teacher that's retiring at top step, and the teacher that's moving into that spot is at starting step. So I don't want the taxpayers to assume that this is costing any more money. It's still costing us less
than this school year Yes, but it would cost us a lot less if we eliminated a class and right sized the kindergarten to what the neighboring towns are. I mean, it's a big ask. It's a really big ask. Know what I The
town of Andover in our situation to kind of front that kind of money for 10 students.
Jeff, Jeff, I'm gonna ask you to be respectful to Valerie and let me answer your question because I'm really getting frustrated. Shannon, you're out of order. Shannon, you're out of order. Answer your question. You're out of order. No. I'm not. Yes. You are. You're not a
Everybody, listen. Listen for one second. These are not easy conversations They are not. Excuse me. They are not easy conversations to have. This is not anything that anyone here is trying to drive a stake through anything. We're trying to understand. So everyone needs to understand. We're just asking to get information to understand what is best for the town of Andover. Exactly. And this is not personal, Jeff. No, think Valerie Listen, I'll
go back through While the budget looks nice, Valerie, I love things that look nice. I like details. I've always liked details. I'm an accountant. I want to see down to the line item what's going on. That didn't give it to me. The time is the same way. Need to understand. So everybody just more information we get, the better we'll all be, the more we'll be able to make a right decision.
There's definitely a frustration when we look at the budget, even when we looked at your budget with notes, that is still woefully inadequate compared to surrounding towns. If you go on Columbia, Bolton, Ram, Coventry websites, I can get more information off of their budgets by far than yours. It's almost like we're missing off the information. So I fault the board for not being able to go through line by line because they don't have line by line. They really don't. Basically they were given a budget and let's be clear, a budget which up to this point in their discussions they have made literally not 1p of change, not one. They didn't go over one line that they thought, you know, maybe that one we should cut. That's disconcerning,
you know. And I just want to address what you and Jeff both said before we move on because I know other people are gonna want part of the meeting as well. So Jeff, first of all, I don't take offense to the conversation that we're having. Know you're happy. No, not at all. This is just As good as I am. But I do have to say, Adrienne, to your comment about penny by penny going through things. The one thing that I would like noted and with the same passion I make this statement as Jeff's making it on behalf of the town. So I really don't mean it to be at all confrontational, but I really feel as though it's a request always to go from every stapler that we spend on up through AES and yet our kids are equally as important as Ram. And I don't feel as though we go line by line through RAM's, and I hope I'm gonna be wrong. I don't feel as though anybody starts off the budget season saying they're gonna cut this, because quite honestly, I've asked about 10 people in Andover about how it works with Ram's budget. And every time what I'm told is we just pay it because we have it, we have no choice. And so I don't want that to be a confrontational statement. I just want you guys to know that I welcome the dialogue. I welcome the conversation. I welcome us going through the line items.
But I'm here for our pre k through sixth grade kids, everybody, but our pre k through six specifically. And I hope that there's the same passion toward AES that we have toward the writing out the check toward RAM, and that's where I'll end that because I don't want there to be an argument there, but I feel like I can assure
you that our reps at RAM ask their board to go line by line. And if you were to go to one of their budget meetings, they are five or six hour trenches and they are multitudes of them over and over and over. It's not two and a half hours on a thing like you guys had. There's literally give or take forty hours worth of budget negotiation that happens up at RAM. Now granted, we don't always come out on the right side of that. Unfortunately, we are the smallest in the group. So we don't always have the amount of say we would like up at RAM but certainly I have personally gone up with representatives from the town and had the same conversations with RAM and gone to the presentations for the capital expenses that they have. So I can assure you the same vigor is applied in all areas whether it's to our town budgets. You can watch those, we go through those line by line and to your budgets. It's not your budget that this is only one that's getting looked at. We literally go through ours in the town, even though it's a bit smaller, we go through it line by line. And the reason we do is, I'll give you an example, you've made the statement several times that these are only necessities, but I find it interesting that you had to ask your technology person what you might need, but there weren't any complaints. There weren't any complaints noted that you needed better WiFi. Your technology person told you you should put a placeholder in for WiFi. Not necessarily that you needed it, not that you had a bunch of complaints about it, but that your technology person said you should.
So No, that was that was the business manager throughout the whole year, obviously when COVID struck, knew that that was something that was gonna have to go into the budget for this year.
Because she called them in the meeting she said she called them and they said well the only thing I can think of coming down the pike is you're gonna need to look to upgrade your Wi Fi. That's what she said in the meeting. I just watched it this afternoon.
Just for me, I understand that the meetings and that level of information may not have gone through exactly the way that we would want it to have gone through. But if you have specific questions for Valerie, please ask them now because we have other people that are on this meeting. So specific questions. And I know, Paula, you had something that you wanted to address.
Sure. I just wanted to share my thoughts. So as far as the class size, I've got a little guy there still. I love the small class sizes. Val, I know you said that you're concerned about these eight kids coming in. But I wonder if the 15 would be a little better because I've had some experience with small class sizes and grouping the kids is always a challenge in a smaller class size. I know it's like this is more like a social thing, if one kid is not getting along with another kid you can't find as many any as many friends or you know so small class sizes are great in one instance, but sometimes maybe not in great other in other instances. Just my my mom thought throwing that out there. I love the small class sizes, but I'm wondering, like 10, you know, I'm looking at it from my I'm now putting on my select person hat, and I'm thinking that's going to be a challenge. And I know that last year when we're having these conversations during budget season, we were, you know, we had a challenge last year and we knew this year it would be even more of a challenge. And, you know, are hard conversations and we're all scratching our head how to make this work. But I thank you for everybody who's on tonight and preparing for this and listening to our questions and answering our questions.
Paula, thank And it is the ten is not just for those eight. As I said, remember, this is post COVID and our pre K are the ones that had the biggest loss in terms of distance learning. And so it's not just those eight. And and it again, if it was if it was the following year and we were looking at thirty first graders, I wouldn't be saying let's have three first grade classes. I'm I'm saying when they get to first grade, absolutely. We're gonna wind up with bigger classes. And you'll note that I did keep the higher grades much higher in numbers than they've had in the past at AES, And there's no apologies there. I agree with people who say our class sizes could be bigger. In the upper grades, they're already gonna be bigger this year. There's gonna be one in each one. But, you know, I I I do want us to just please be reminded that we can't have the whole city budget on the backs of the pre k to six kids either. And so if this is what the kindergarteners need, I would like to have somebody at least look at the data and see with the COVID gap, with kindergarten, with kids who don't have preschool, what some of the financial repercussions could be of that in the future because they're strong and they're distinct. And remember, if we had even one of our 30 kindergarten kids
due to gaps and things that winds up out placed in a year or two after that, that's a $100,000 right there. But to be clear, those are those are Excuse me. Excuse me. Theoretical. Me. It's theoretical.
It is theoretical. The way that we service our kids is the obligation to make sure. I know Jeff asked, well how will you know? Well what will we make sure we do in house next year with our kindergarteners that had the biggest gaps? And the state will say the biggest gaps is we will make sure that they all get all the services that they require in kindergarten with our existing staff to make sure that there is no loss. Because I hear a lot of people like to compare us to other towns which we're not. But the two towns we should be comparing ourselves to are Hebron and Marlboro because those are our children's classmates all through the middle school and high school. So it's lovely for us to always look at Bolton or Or Columbia, but our children unfortunately, don't go to school with those kids they have to compete with Hebron and Marlboro kids when they get to Ram and I want to make sure that your children because my child doesn't go to school, he's a grown man now in Andover, I want to make sure that your children can compete with Hebron and with Marlboro when they get to Ram. And that's my thought. Valerie, I'll tell you, our kids at RAM do great. I mean, they
do Doctor. Right now we can say that. And we appreciate
that. But Valerie, I'll sit there and go as an accountant, I look at it in a little bit stricter sense. I'll ask you the question you just asked. Where do you fall from Marlboro and Hebron on per dollar per student? Where do we fall? Well Yeah, does Andover fall
And for where that needs a disclaimer because I live alone Well, no disclaimer. It is I live alone, so my mortgage is for one person. So I have a very high per person expense. If two people move in, my expenses are a third, a third, and a third. So we are the tiniest, Jeff, of the three as well, which means that yes, our expenditures, I have to have a third grade teacher, for example, whether I have five kids in there or 25 kids, that makes it more expensive. I know where you're going. Today. No more excuses.
Understand. Just what is the number? I mean, and how far out of whack are we? We're not that far out of whack when you look at And I don't want the information right now because this is a long thing. I'm assuming, Valerie. I'm assuming you're going back to your board and listen, this is going to go to the Board of Finance. This is going to get kicked around. You can obviously tell the same thing that we did last year is probably the same thing we're going to have to do this year and set a number, but what I would ask you is please look at those surrounding towns and look at the per student number, and I agree, I want the best for our kids. If my kids are not in school, I want the best the kids that are in Andover, but there is a financial level that we have to look at. So I would ask you that question. If you're going to bring up our other Marlboro and Hebron, please let us know what the expected per student spend is going to be between the three towns. I haven't seen their new budgets, but I will get that and I will send that to you. I appreciate that. Can I ask a couple Okay? More Anyone else before we will let Valerie go, I know she's the Board of Education,
is the biggest issue that is a it's not the biggest issue, I'll rephrase that. It's one of the largest spends. There is RAM, there is the board, there's AES, and then there's the town. Going down the list of who spends the most of our tax dollars, it's RAM, it's AES, and then the town.
Jeff had some ideas on how to adjust the preschool numbers. Yeah, I
had it. Oh, go ahead Paula. Yeah, just had two more things I just wanted to throw out there. So I've been going to board ed meetings, you know, as a parent for over a year now. Then when I got on the board, of course, I, I don't know if this was given more thought I think it was brought up by actually by a board member. As far as field trips and supplies, know we brought this up as parents one time, you know, to offer to send in supplies, a lot of other schools do that I know we're we're talking about let's not always you know compare us to other schools, but I wonder if that would kind of help a little bit if if we can ask the parents to, you know, donate or send in some money for supplies and field trips. And then for maybe the kids that can't afford it, you have a little fund on the side. I don't know if that was kind of thought of, but just throwing that out that there is a suggestion again. Kind of did bring that up a couple of times and passed board event meetings and just throwing that out there again. So I don't know if that would be helpful to be considered. And And it is being considered, thank you.
What was your second thing Paula? That was it. Did you have Field trips and supplies. Okay. Jeff? Jeff, you're in.
Valerie and I had a discussion on the phone. I went through the budget pretty carefully as much as I could given the level of precision that we had in it. But I was really interested in the preschool amount and that 72,000 that was asked for the town to cover for benefits. I did some searching on the grants and was trying to figure out where we arrived at the $600 tuition amount. And it appears that that's just set by the school and off of the grant based on income levels families pay a percentage of that tuition amount. It's a sliding scale. And as I looked through the budget presentation, I kind of did some math and I realized that we have about after the $90,000 that comes in off of tuition, we have about 35,000 remaining that looks like it's pretty much unaccounted for. It just says in the budget it's used for snacks and school supplies and must be some pretty decent snacks and some pretty good supplies to equal 35,000. So I think there's some probably some money there. And as I said to Valerie earlier, the board itself should probably look at increasing tuition because neighboring private sector preschools are in the thousand to $10.50 dollars to $1,200 range per month.
And I also suggested her to go to a weekly fee schedule instead of monthly because we have a lot of months where we have five weeks in the year. So it would be more advantageous to charge during the week. And if you just went up probably 25 to 30%, we could probably come in with 45 to $50,000 more in tuition and that combined with that 35,000 would probably eradicate that 72,000 obligation that she's looking for the town to cover. So I would ask that the superintendent and the board take a closer look at that and see if they can get that amount down because I think it's tough to try to ask the town to cover that for a preschool. And if we need to try to do our best to make that self sufficient and revenue neutral, just so we don't want you to be generating a profit. I mean, if these private sector daycares can charge $10.50 dollars to $1,200 and still make a profit, There's no reason we can't get in that same realm and stay underneath those private sector
businesses and still provide a decent preschool. So I would just like her to really, her and the board to take a really close look at that.
Jeff, as we, as when we mentioned that today, I told you that the preschool is something that, you know, I definitely have to be able to take more of a look at in the next six months. I've only been here six months. The cost in the spring, when I looked back at the costs, couldn't have anything that was consistent to look at because when COVID happened they were the rates for parents when the kids weren't there, they weren't paying. So I didn't have six months to go back and look and see. Yes, when we talked today, we said we can certainly look at price. And see if that's something that we want to go up on for our regular payers, not for the students that qualify
and actually our grants qualify because of our low income. But absolutely, we talked about that. You and I talked about places for us to look. It would be self sufficient if it wasn't for the insurance to cover the employees. The salary and everything else is certainly there. So that is a goal of mine. I told you that today is to look at that in the next year. But we do want to make sure our families stay with us since there is preschool in Hebron and Marlboro end up at Ram. So they do have options. So we absolutely don't want them to go someplace else, but we wanna make ourselves competitive as well so we can keep that open.
I would like to keep you stay competitive as well, but I just think we need to be fair to our taxpayers. Yep, I did talk Preschool
needs to be competitive and we need to be more revenue neutral and make sure We talked about that today. Is definitely I don't but I want the other selectmen in the public to hear that we can make some changes and make that new and do away with that 72,000 if the board had and gets together and works that out because I think that's definitely possible just with the numbers that I ran.
Right, Jeff McGuire. I just have a couple of quick line questions if Val has the information or not. Hopefully. Yeah, so $4.32, I'm guessing you went from 3,000 to 23,000. I'm guessing that that is your 20,000 for Wi Fi? I'm sorry, say that again?
It's under 2,580 admin tech services. 432 is the line item. It went from 3 to 23. I'm guessing that's your $20,000 placeholder for Wi Fi. And unfortunately, the pages were not numbered in your in your sheets. So 2580. Yep. And then go to four thirty two. Is that your placeholder? I would have to find out You go under comparison by function doc. It's a comparison by function department.
Mhmm. I'm on that page. Yeah. But I wouldn't wanna answer that for the business manager because I don't have all of them myself. I wouldn't wanna answer that for her and say that I'm a 100% sure that's what it was. Because we have another 20,000 under six fifty computer I and was just gonna say because remember we also completed the one to one devices and that could be we had to upgrade the existing devices that we had. And then we had to make sure obviously for distance learning in the spring. We had to make sure that now we maintain one to one devices for the students. So I don't know, Adrian, I'm going to get that answer for you, whether that's four thirty two Sure. Or whether that's six fifty. One of them would be Wi Fi and the other one would be the fact that we have now one to one devices for the kids and that's where we're going with those for the year going forward. So I'll
find out the difference between those two and which one is the Wi Fi and which one is in fact So if we're doing one to one devices, do we have a bid contract or something that that's under? You know?
What do you Well, I'm hoping that was put out to bid. I'm that was prior to me. I'm assuming that what the final was was a bid, but I don't know the answer to that. Find out. 610610
operation supplies and buildings it looks like you went up give or take, you know 11,000 something like that 10,010 thousand $9,006.10 under $26.30?
Yeah $6.10 under $26.10. So it's not cleaning supplies and it's not cleaning support. It's just regular supplies. You were a lot you were light last go ahead. Under operation of the buildings. Yep. So
we can find out what the specific things are there, but remember with no capital budget everything's in an operational budget. Everything that's in here has to do with that. So
I will say even in the past as limited as the budget information has been that came out generally those things were highlighted. Anything that was above you know 5 or $6,000 we'd see a number for and what it was for. So like $4.30 repair and maintenance again Hang
on one second. But but you're looking at $6.10 under 2,610 and you're looking at the proposed. But if you go back to the year prior to COVID, it was 30,156 and then 30,452 so you know we can't just look at the line that is when we were closed during COVID under operations of buildings we really do have to look back at '19
But that's your current approved budget. That budget was approved.
Right. So unless you're saying that you moved money out of that line item somewhere else. Well there was if you look back and again I feel bad taking all this time from everybody else so perhaps we'll have to do this with another session. But remember, if you looked back through the slides and you said you listened to the presentation, there had been a $189,000 worth of things with COVID shutdown that went back to the 1920 school year.
To be clear, we always have had about 160 to $180,000 of overage anyways. So it's not assumed that that would been
would I'm have been shifted from a not making an assumption, Adrian. I'm just saying that if you wanna compare the proposed to the 1920, the 1920 was 30,000 and now it's 23,000 going into the next one. So, yes, I will get the the specifics, the building operations there for you and send that to you, but it it it's not far off from where the budget was the year before. So whatever is in there is something that's a constant.
So I will find out what that is for you and send it would have been a yeah, it would have been a constant last year if that was the case. That line doesn't say that. So the other thing is teachers you have 68,000 under library media twenty two twenty. You went from 50,000 last year 50,000 the year before to 68. In library. I'm sorry where are you?
Twenty two-twenty so twenty two-twenty library media. We're spending 18,000 more on teachers and 3,000 more on books and periodicals.
22, Tony. You're we're spending under teachers, the 1920 budget, because we have one librarian, and that librarian is a point six, so that's the 65,000 in the 1920 school year. When you go to the 2122 school year, it's 68,000. There's no change to teachers. It's we have whole librarian still. Under comparison by function department,
under 02/02/2020, 2220, we went from 50,000 current budget to 68,000 next year. And your unaudited actual for 1920 was also 50,000.
But when you're looking at the current budget where we are now,
I'm going to make a recommendation. Adrian, if you can get together with Valerie and have her answer those specific questions, it might prove more valuable than trying to do it on this Zoom meeting. Does anyone else have any specific questions for Valerie that they need to have answered now? I know we all probably have some that we need to reach out to Valerie and have answered, but anybody? How about Scott? Scott, do you have any comments? No, everything that I had questions was answered.
Okay. Scott, you're the only one then. Right. Valerie, thank you very much for taking the time. We really do appreciate it. We're not trying to be confrontational. We're really looking at this in a very simple way. We have limited resources. We have find ways to save money to do things that have to get done, and teaching our children is the utmost priority. But when you get me back my answer with the three numbers,
we'll discuss where it's at. Okay. And I echo Jeff too. This is just we're going through a really tough project process right now and we have to look at everything. Please,
I know what that I'm ask is that we look at everything. I know that some
people still on our phone call take things personally like it's a personal affront. This has nothing to do with personality or we've got to come to a bottom line and a bottom number, and somehow we got to get to something that works for everybody, that's all we want. Ideally,
Valerie, what we want is a budget that can pass for you so that we don't go back over and over and over again. And there is always the fear that once the town votes a budget down, then they get in the habit of voting them down. And if you don't believe that, look at Wyndham, they had eight referendums and ended up with no budget going into the next year after voting on it for a whole year. But
there's always the fear too that once a budget's cut like it was four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, last year's, that it always gets cut too.
Do have that fear that no matter all of it. Valerie, if it gets cut in relation to the number of students, it's like a business in my mind. I know I say that and people go, I lose customers, I got to make decisions, and I have to be realistic in making those decisions. It's not easy to make those decisions when it relates to children. I totally understand it, but that's what you got to look at. I make it sound really cut and dry, but it really is. You can't get to a point where you're spending $30.40 or $50,000 on a student to go to school in Andover. It doesn't financially work. Not that you're there yet. Actually,
if that budget passes, she's there. She's just under 30. No.
So we'll get those numbers though and have that friendly conversation.
I just I'll stick bet in on that right now. Thank you so much. I'm gonna
mute myself and listen to the others now. Okay, let's go. Thank you, Val. Thanks, Valerie. Thank you, Valerie.
So we get to move on to three point two, which is the RAM Board of Education and the Chair Stephanie Bancroft, who happens to be our Andover representative to the RAM Board of Education. And Stephanie, welcome. Thank you very much. Let's talk about RAM and where you see RAM going and what our town can do to influence your budget a little bit more.
Okay. Well, hi, everybody. We hope that the budget process is transparent and we welcome everybody to join in with the process. I'll talk about some dates. We just started last night was our first budget presentation. It was the first time we were looking at it and first night that Scott was presenting it to everyone. So we're really beginning process of starting the budget, so it's very fluid at this point. We have budget workshops all through February 1, the fifteenth, the twenty second, all Mondays at 06:30. And on March 1, we are having a public forum where the public can join us and ask questions, and we will be able to have a back and forth conversation with the public on March 1. So we're looking forward to that. And then if we need to continue discussions in March, we will do that. And if we feel the need that we need more public forums, question and answer sessions, can we have a room to do that as well in March. Stephanie, are you guys gonna record them and post them? Yes, everything will be recorded and posted. Yes. Great. Thank you. Including last night. Last night was a regular board meeting, but it was the presentation of the budget to all of So I just got this. I hope I can answer your questions. I have Scott on speed dial. He is in a meeting tonight, so but I can I can text him questions if if need be? So alright. So here we are. The operating budget right now is at 4.25. Just a few hours ago, I spoke to Scott and it's already down from that. We're
now looking at more of a 3.52, and please keep in mind this is before we know what our audited surplus is going to be. That's running late this year because of the state, And this is also before the CARES Act funding has been granted to us. So that's more money that's coming in that'll go toward the budgets. So that is an increase right now at 4.25 of 1,067,072 But that's expected to go down significantly. 4.25 number? That's off the 4.25 number. Yeah. Yes. Sorry. 1.1 what million?
$11,267,072. That's at the 4Point25 for operating. But that, like I said, is is already being reduced today.
So you're closer to 600,000 at the new number. Correct? I
haven't done the math yet. Just got off the bus not long ago. We're at 3.52 as of a few hours ago. So there were some changes in special ed that's starting to look like the numbers are going down. And like I said, we have not taken off the audited surplus, which will be 1% of the budget, which is I believe around 300,000 and then the CARES Act funding. And he expects to find other savings along the way as well. The capital budget is at a negative 12.78, which is a difference of 43,872. It's down from last year. I'm on the facility subcommittee. We were hired to really prioritize what we thought we had to have knowing that the budget was going to be difficult this year. So that's at that that's at a high negative number. So combined, the operating capital sits right now at 4.06. That, like I said, is already down to to the three point I should have clarified. The 3.52 is a combined a combined percent that Scott feels that he's at right now. But it's it's due to go down. He thinks it could end up in the twos, which would be great news. My question for you is right now we have we're working on an enrollment number for Andover of two seventeen students, and that was an October 1 number. We don't know if that's gone up or down at this point in the year, so it's hard to say exactly the percentage. I know Hebron, the population, we've had they've had a lot people move into town, so quite a few sixth graders going into seventh grade, so I know their numbers are going up. So I think the percentage that we're gonna owe is gonna change depending on population, but I know the Hebron population has gone up quite a bit. I know that because I teach in Hebron, so
I'm just there. I don't know anything about Marlboro population.
Our original projections were the Andover was going be flat for about a three year period, so okay I don't I don't know that those have changed substantially.
I can answer part of that I had a conversation today with Scott based on our decrease in population compared to the ram overall decrease he's projecting we're going from 17.34 of the overall budget to 16.97 So that's roughly a 2% decrease in our share. So that's at least right now that seems to be where we are.
Okay, last year you had an increase, correct? I think you had more students last year. We did. Yeah, so even though we had a negative point zero one budget, you still ended up paying more because of the number of students, I believe. Relative to other populations, yes. Yeah.
Given that we're hearing that you guys are down give or take 100 students.
Adrian, one second. The package that you get, Stephanie, that you got last night, when would that be available and to be posted for the community?
Know it's going to be posted online very soon, if it wasn't today. I hadn't checked today, but it will be online soon. It's slated to go online. But like I said, it's a very fluid document at this point.
Understood. Adrian, did you have specific questions that you wanted to ask?
Just given that we're hearing about 100 kids decreased, given that rather than looking at an increase, they looking at ways to, in general, restructure so they can take advantage of that?
Yeah, we are losing two teachers. We are not replacing two teachers due retirement to reflect the decrease in population. I know that. The NSDEC numbers that we have as far as projected enrollment, we don't feel really reflect the COVID bump that we're seeing in the communities. So I don't think it's actually going to go down as much as the NSDEC projections. So we're but but I know that there is there's there are two teachers that are being not that are not being replaced. Like I said, I just got this yesterday. As we go through this,
know, I'll know more. Would it make sense for us to have you back at one of our later meetings?
Yeah, you know, I really think that I'd be more than happy to come back, but I think I would recommend that you also ask Scott to come back as well. He knows these numbers and can pull information out much better than I can as far as the details of staffing and all that. That's fine. It's not
posted as of yet. We appreciate you coming on. Doing things on Zoom helps a little bit. We can all get more attendance and more people to sit there and be available. Maybe what we'll do, Stephanie, is once we have a chance to look at the numbers, we can sit there and come back and invite you back on to ask specific questions so that we can go through it. Because just like I told Valerie, my biggest issue is if your numbers are going down and your per student spend is not changing in accordance with that number, it becomes difficult. I mean, it becomes difficult for what is the increase and why. Hopefully
you guys addressed that. Something that think everybody has to keep in mind too is that COVID costs were significant this year. Even, you know, we're not getting what we spent back from the government. So, you know, that is something that we're all struggling with right now. And, you know, has to be taken into account. Like our meal program is $107,000 in the hole because of the seamless summer program. So, you know, and we're not sure how much of that we're going get back. So it's, you know, there are challenges. Now there are also more savings than you see at the elementary level due to sports that didn't happen, busing for sports that didn't happen. But but the costs you know with COVID, with the supplies, with the extra cleaning, you know, it's just that was very much impacted and will continue to be for next year as well. So yes, we're looking at ways to decrease with declining enrollment. But I don't think, you know, it's to have a negative budget two years in a row, I think is going to be very, very difficult. But I do feel confident that we could get in the twos, and I think that's very reasonable. You're getting a good bang for your buck. We are the lowest per pupil expenditure
of the regional schools at a little over 17,000 with a very high ranking. As far as, I think we're one hundred and fourth out of 166 districts, so you know, I think we put out a responsible budget. I think I'm sure this will be a responsible budget. We worked really, really hard last year to get that down. Knowing that we were going to have difficulties this year, we gave extra money to the towns. We cut a lot of capital out. And we also really oversaw the spending that was happening at the end of the year with surplus. In the past there had been what we thought was extra spending that didn't need to happen. So we did a line by line oversight of every single dollar spent at the end of the year with surplus, hoping to
be able to roll money into this year's budget with as much punch as we could. All
right. Do any of the other members of the board mind if we invite Stephanie back to a future budget meeting and not take up any more of her time? No, I think that's a great idea.
Just a heads up, it looks like the budget presentation was in the meeting packet for last night. It's not posted in the budget section, but it is in the meeting packet.
So it's not in the budget section of the website yet? Nope, but it's in the meeting packet from last night.
In a PDF form. You could pull that out and pass that along to the other members and to Amanda. That would be helpful. Stephanie, thank you very much for your time. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you for volunteering to serve on that board.
All right. Thank you. Thanks, Stephanie. Thank you, Stephanie. Right. Good night. Good And
next on the list of department presentations is item three, the town clerk and Carol Lee. Is Carol with us? Hello there. Hi, Carol. Hi. Hi, Carol. Hello. We're all here. We're waiting patiently for you.
Okay. Well, do you have questions, first off? You do have my budget, correct?
The request? You gotta give us one give me one second, but the other members can go ahead. Okay.
While while everyone's pulling it up, Carol, maybe you can just give us the highlights.
Okay. So I did ask for a 6% increase this year in my salary. Most of the other lines have stayed pretty close to the same. I was just looking over the years I've been there. I've been here twenty two and a half years and several years I was given no raise. Other years, I was given a lesser raise than other employees, and I've averaged about $500 raise per year over the twenty two and a half years. The duties in the town clerk office have increased. Transfer station permits are issued over the past few years since they've been implemented where they've been charged for through the town clerk's office. Pistol permits are in my office. And now if anyone wants to do bingos and raffles or anything like that, that too is in my office along with election duties increasing.
Carol, your total budget request is for $139,000 Is that accurate? No. No, that can't be right.
You get a bigger raise if you give her that.
If you want to do that, that's okay. Carol, so you've had like an $11,000
race. Eric did what I asked. That includes the health insurance and the dental number, so the total budget for okay. Carol's budget is as we normally would see it, is $97,500 She requested the 6% increase, which comes to $2,874 You asked for a 3% increase for the assistant town clerk, and you asked for 20 in training.
Jeff, Right. Do you need So the 3% is contractual through the union contract, And the other is the training that I don't know if if it was Eric or if it was the board of selectmen that wanted to have the assistant go through the town clerk school training.
Okay. And then the reason why my number on my spreadsheet was higher is because the health insurance the dental costs for the department totaled $30,629 And the retirement contribution made by the town, which is based upon the gross salaries is $10,965 So those lines were added to our spreadsheet so that we could get a better sense of the total cost of each department across the benefit line items.
If you're calculating it that way, I just wanna put out there that the town clerk's office collects a lot of nontax income. So I wanted I believe that the transfer station permits are about 35,000 and plus the recordings and other fees that are collected. Again, nontax revenue that come in. I wanna say we're right around what it's costing the town to run that office. Basically, the fees that we collect
Carol, you do know well, I'll speak for myself. Carol, I know that you work hard in that office. I appreciate the fact that you're coming here and explaining to us your line items. That is tremendously helpful to this board. We may not all agree, Carol, but I will tell you, everybody in this board that's currently on here knows how hard you work for the town, and we do greatly appreciate Even though we're really cheap, Carolyn, we don't wanna pay anybody anything.
Jeff, I wanna point out she's literally worn the tips of her shoes off in that office. All right.
Does anyone have any specific questions that they wanna ask Carol and the team? Carol, did you know what the salary was when you ran for the position repeatedly? Yes, I did. So you weren't really expecting a raise, were you?
I knowingly did it and I do love my job. All right. Just making sure you know it's your own fault. Truly do. I do know it's my own fault. I do love my job though.
Okay. So anyone else have any specific questions for Carol? Carol, while you're on here, please express to Eric anything that you need from us that I know you hesitate to put it in your budget, that's fine. But make sure that even if it's moral support that we provide as much as we can. Thank you for everything you do. Carol,
can I ask one quick question structurally for the office? I don't know, but go ahead. Is your backup system automated yet or is you guys still doing some of that manually?
We are still doing some of it manually, but that is only for the minute books. That that's it. It's basically the minute books. And is that is that minute book not
is that minute book not on a Internet connection or something, or is there a reason that it that can't be done?
It's not on the Internet connection yet. I know the our IT people were in there the other day, you know, hooking things up. And I'm not sure when he's coming he did say he'd be coming back soon, but I'm not sure when that's going to be. But, yes, he is going to put that on. Okay. Just curious. I know we're making some progress in there, and I wanna see how far along you'd gotten. That's all. Right. We're still doing the backups, you know, to the thumb drives and sending them up to be microfilmed Okay. Just to make sure that we don't lose anything. Thank you. Okay.
Thanks, Carol. Anyone else? All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Item five, the registrars, Wally Burton and Lynde Derek.
I don't know if Lynde is on or not. I haven't seen her. She is. She's waving at you, Wally.
Now I should I'm unmuted, I am here. Okay, you're there. Thank you. Basically, on our registrar's budget, the largest increase is for salary for the two registrars over the past year. We've put in a tremendous amount of hours, and the problem coming forth is that the secretary of state's office is looking at major changes for the future. One, a change on absentee balloting, another on possibly early voting. And right now, I just got an update from the registrar's organization that they're looking to change the Connecticut voter registration system itself, the system we use every day basically to enroll voters. We don't know what that looks like, but it's coming down the road. The other thing the state is gonna do is they're planning on replacing our tabulators, whether it's this year or next year. They haven't said yet, but they said the lifespan of our existing tabulators has basically reached its limit. So again, there's gonna be a transition training and a change when we go to a new system. The other increase that I'm basically here to talk about is our poll workers' rates for the elections. Because the state is going up to the $15 an hour minimum wage, we have to increase what we're paying our poll workers to stay above the minimum wage. And I know that the Board of Selectmen has to vote on this pay scale. And from that, I'll take your questions.
So, Wally, just so we understand, the total line item that we're discussing here is 120 fiveone 100 salary for the registrar, so that money is split between you and Linda? That is correct. We each get the same amount. Okay. All right. Any other specific questions to this line item or to the overall budget for the registrars?
Wally, so we're just looking at a salary increase. This isn't like you guys aren't getting an hourly rate?
No, we kind of tied it to what we get paid for working the elections, which is we're asking for the $20 an hour up from the 19 we're at now. But it's again, no matter how many hours we work, we have a flat salary for the year that we're paid semi annually.
Okay. Do we run afoul though if all this stuff comes down the pike and you end up working too many hours, don't we have to get you a certain minimum?
No, I hate to say that, but this year, the 2021, we far exceeded the number of hours that we're getting compensated for. But again, our job is based on an annual stipend. Okay.
I just want to make sure we're not running a foul some labor law for retired firefighters or something.
Okay. Anyone else? Wally and Linda, thank you very much for coming. I appreciate it. We're going to move on to our last department at the library, and Julie Victoria is presenting from behalf of the library.
Hi, Julia. How are you? So the library, I'm sure you've seen our budget. Our increase is basically in salary. And we had put a 2% raise on that for the staff except for the librarian. For the librarian, we added four hours. And that is to make her compliant with the new town personnel policy. She has been working twenty six hours a week. The policy says to be a full time employee she needs thirty hours a week. She has been employee for twenty two years, two months and we'd like to keep her in compliance with the town policy. Is she currently a full benefits employee? Yes.
Yes. And she is a contributor to the MRF, the Municipal Employee Retirement Fund.
So that she's actually going to work an additional four hours?
Yes. She puts in a lot of time now that she's not compensated for. But yes, she will be working, increasing her hours to thirty. And so is the library able to cut
someone else for four hours? Well, we tried to keep two people in the library. We were told by the trooper, the state police trooper, that we really should have two people in that library at all times. Sometimes we don't. And if it's the second person, it usually is Amy the librarian who is the second person. So she will help cover that two person shortfall that we have now.
Are they worried about the library getting robbed or something? We have had people come in off of Route 6.
We have a security, I guess they call it a push bar or something where they can just push it under the desk to signify the police. We've had some weirdos come in over the years.
I'm assuming that since library payroll is everyone involved, not just Amy. It's all And of does Eric have a breakdown of that?
Yes, I gave you all on the employee salary worksheet, it lists all the library employees. So one of the things I just wanna say is that the town has, Amy has basically been treated for twenty something years as a full time employee, even though she has not been, she's typically been paid twenty six hours a week. And the problem is if you look at our personnel policy, especially our new one, that kind of contradicts what we're doing on the ground. So we have to do something because we're not following our own rules. And, know, there's different ways that could be addressed, but yeah, that's where we're at right now. Okay.
Does anyone have any specific questions for the library other than that issue? Scott, Paula, Jeff, Adrian? Nope. Okay.
All right. Julie, is there anything else that you would like to share with us or you want to give us feedback on? The
library is running well. I don't think so. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
Is Mrs. Claus virtual reading well attended? What's that? Was Mrs. Claus virtual reading well attended? Yes, was very well attended. Excellent. Enjoyed. Yeah.
Julie, would you be the person we talked to about asking, I know there was a building ask about repointing the chimney. Yes, yeah. Are you familiar with that? Can you elaborate a little bit?
None of that is included in our budget. We're still trying to get quotes. Our chimney needs to be repointed and underneath the windows some of the bricks need repointing. And our chimney liner is also cracked. We need a new chimney liner. So we think it might be enough to go to CIP. We might have missed CIP for this year, but we will get our quotes in order for next year. Well, maybe not. Just see where you come out. The CIP has forwarded some things, but the budget's not a done deal yet. We're having a heck of a time finding people to give us a quote for repointing brick.
Yeah. If anybody knows I'm trying to get different quotes just to see what the cost would be. People say they might give us a quote, but then they don't.
I will put the word out see if I can come up with some people for you. Thank you.
How much of the brick needs to be repointed? You know Adrian? What's that? How much of the brick needs to be repointed? The entire I'm not familiar with that. The chimney. The entire chimney and underneath the windows.
We have quite a few windows, two windows to each side. Is it just the roof up or is it interior as well? I don't know. I don't know that. Okay.
Yeah, it's definitely the roof up, but I'm not sure about the inside. Yeah, I'm not familiar with how big that stack is up there. That's all. Yeah. And the liner has to be done. So you're gonna do it all at the same time, probably. I would think so.
Right. Yeah, it might make more sense to just put in a stainless liner though, you know.
We don't use the fireplace it's just for the furnace. Yeah. Stainless liner. That might be a lot easier.
Yeah, generally yes. Okay, so you guys could sit there and give some guidance to the library as to what they're doing with that. That would be helpful. Yeah I'm going try to reach out see if I can get a hold of people. You're right there's not a lot of people that do just pointing anymore so.
And since I have zero mechanical skills I'm going to not help with this one.
But would you like to help with the pointing though? Could operate a trawl, I can.
Well, it's two trawls, one to hold the material, one to point with.
I told you I don't know anything about it, but I can operate a trawl. All right. Thank you very much,
Julie. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Now, we're onto our point where we discuss and act upon the town budget. Does anyone want to sit there? We got a lot of information tonight. Do we really want to go and dig into individual line items tonight? Anybody? No? I don't think so.
Think let's digest and hit this again. Probably need Do to schedule a couple more
Tuesdays work for everybody, first of all? They're fine. I'll make a mark. If we could just keep going at 07:00 on Tuesday and know that our meetings are seven to nine maximum.
That's great. How are Wednesdays? I I can make Tuesday work, but sometimes I have other meetings on Tuesdays. So cancel.
What days do you have meetings on Tuesday that you need us to move? How about Saturdays? No, not happening. How are Wednesdays
for you guys? That's fine. Just tell us which one. Do you want to do them all on Wednesday? No. No.
I have a meeting usually the first Tuesday and the second Tuesday of the month. But I can mention Let's
do the third, the tenth, the sixteenth, and the twenty third. Two Wednesdays, two Tuesdays. Anybody have a problem?
Wednesday the third is not a good day. K. That's Paula's first Tuesday. We can't do the fourth. I think that Which one of us do you want more, Jeff? Me or Paula? You have to decide right now. Oh, there's no doubt. Paula. Yeah, it's gonna be Paula. I'm losing that one.
February 2 is Groundhog Day. So I probably really wouldn't be losing Paula. He's pointing out that it'll just repeat every day. I've been called worse.
It's okay. Let's do the second. We'll lose Paul and then we'll do the tenth. Then we'll do the sixteenth and the twenty third. Anybody have a problem with that? Eric, nice that you could show your face.
Nice that you grill somebody other than me for a while. Was working in the background, everybody. Okay, so 22210. 210-1623. Yep. 1623.
So for the record, you are supposed to supply the board of finance, the budget one hundred and eighty days before July 1. And what is that date? You really owe them a budget on February 1, which does not appear that it's gonna happen, but I don't think that's ever happened. Well, I understand. I'm just telling you that that's what the Never.
Well, then if that's the case, then next year we're gonna get started a month earlier. So that means we have to do this during the holidays. You can't though. Starting Wait, so we could change the charter. What a novel idea.
I know a couple of people that could help with that.
All right. So Eric, we're planning on giving it to the board. We'll try to get it to the board for March 1. How's that? Well, thirty days late in handover is probably not bad.
Well, Mark Brinker's on, so if he wants to comment on that, he certainly can.
Mark, do you have a problem with us getting the final budget to you March 1? I do.
But I'll accept as an improvement over past years to the expectation that next year will be even further ahead. Further comments for the public speaker. We appreciate that. All right.
Anything else? I apologize to the public. I failed to offer public speak at the beginning of this meeting. That was my mistake. I take responsibility for that. I'll let everyone Real
quick, Jeff, before we hop into that though, two things. I saw Kathleen Duroch on here. Do we want to talk to her about the email she sent out about Veterans Memorial and the committee?
Yeah, left. Probably not on the agenda, you really can't do that when it's kind of a special meeting. You can't change Sorry. The
Well, could certainly discuss the budget. Yeah, it's a budget meeting.
Fair enough. Just don't take any action. That's all. Yeah. Just while we had her here.
Sure. Well, we won't waste her time for another meeting. Kathy DeRosier, you're on.
Okay. So I'm trying to reestablish the Beautification Committee, which has dissolved. I've spoken to Joan Foran, the past chair of quite a few members and Jerry Wright, because it's my understanding that the board of Selectman has put Jerry Wright in charge of the Veterans Memorial Park. Park. So I spoke with him as well regarding his plans, what he didn't want to take care of that beautification has taken care of in the past. And I just gathered all the information of what was being taken care of with the past five people. So we have five or six people that have volunteered to step up and do this. And also Eric, I've been working with Eric right along through the whole process. And then I looked at what we need, what we need for money to make this happen. We have free labor, but but we can't expect people to buy the supplies needed. And I really don't want to put together a committee if we don't have the funds to do it. So with that said, I submitted to Eric and also to the board of selectmen a budget for the mulch, which goes on the hill at AES is a thousand dollars. Mr. Hanfield will not be doing that any longer. He contacted me early summer
and said, here you go find somebody to do it. I'm not doing this anymore. He is going to continue doing the heart, so that's fine, but we still have to pay for the flowers. He doesn't pay for the flowers, but he does put them in. So basically there's the budget I sent, I put it together as best I could going forward. This year, we understand we're operating with $1,500 We probably will be short, but we'll do what we can do and beg and borrow where we can to make it happen. But going forward, I think it's only prudent and wise to gather new people to be on a board and at least have the funds to make things happen that were happening in the past. So that's kind of where we stand. Joan had said quite a few donations came in. She didn't know if those were forthcoming. I guess people got sideways with whatever happened. I don't know. It's not what I'm working from. I'm working with a new group moving forward. So that's what we submitted. Questions?
Are you sure that that's all you're gonna need, Kathy? Absolutely not. Have you been to my yard? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I'm asking. Why don't we just take flowers from your yard?
Perfect. Yeah, we can recycle. You can get new stuff, donate the other stuff to the town, we'll give you a discount. Previously
wasn't that the mulch money taken out of the museum
money? I know. I think it was. Okay. So Eric and I spoke today about that. I'm not sure where that came from. So that we'll have to investigate. But really it should come out of beautification. We should lump this together, have a true actual budget because going forward to keep this committee going, they need to have a budget and we're trying to be as true as we can. I think we can do it next year with that amount of money, the $2,050 whatever additional that we may need for whatever projects, we'll figure that out. But I don't have the project, so I can't put money in there that's can't expend money I don't have a project for.
Yeah. All right. Well, the line item in this current budget or the previous budget was $1,600 which none of that has been expended to date, Eric, I don't believe. Correct. It's a
spring thing. Yeah, that'll all be used in April and May.
Okay. We're talking about a $450 potential increase for beautification projects within the town. Just so I understand, your focus is on the town hall and the Veterans Memorial primarily.
The museum, the Veterans Memorial, the town hall, and I guess the gazebo. There's a gazebo, there's two planters over there as well. So all of that will be taken care of. Now, Eric, the conversation Eric and I had, we're not looking to become a grounds committee, sprinklers, flagpoles. That's not what this group is doing. This group is basically going to do the planters, the mulch and start from there. So I just don't want, I guess that kind of got clouded with the last beautification committee and they were super frustrated because things didn't happen. Meaning the sprinklers, they said they were working on getting this done. It never happened. The wells, the well at the Veterans Memorial didn't work most of the time. I'm just telling you what they told me. And then the key Scott for the well up at the museum, I was told that well didn't work and I don't understand why. I mean, the key's wrong? Why wasn't anybody notified that this key could not operate that well? It makes no sense to me, but I will let you know if those wells aren't running because we are not logging water.
Right, what are saying the key Kathy, does it lock? I guess this is John Hanfield has that key, he's the only one that has one.
Joan Foran has a key. Well, he's got a key. John must have given it to Joan. I have no idea why this key or what It's the right key. Obviously,
we will make sure that we as a board and with Eric's help, get you all the resources you need to make the town look pretty and better. We'll do everything we need to.
I don't believe that they're gonna be able to do it for that
amount of money. Let's discuss that a different night. Just wanted to, Kathy was here, I wanted to take the time to give her a chance to discuss it. Saw the email this afternoon. And one more thing, we will be doing the planters
at the Covered Bridge. There's two large planters there that haven't been done for quite some time. We also included those. So yeah, I mean, this is the best guess I could give, but I did speak with Eric and he's willing to work with us as well as far as making these things happen. And like I said, if we get together with a committee and we have some great ideas and we can come back to you with a plan, not for the budget you're working on, but the following year, that's what I would do. I would push it off until that year because we just don't have the money and everybody will understand this is what we have to work with.
Kathleen, if you get to a point where you have bigger projects, we can utilize the resources that we have now with Facebook and Indoor Support Network and some other things. We can put something up there that you're looking for volunteers on a certain day to help out and try to make this a little more manageable.
Thank you. Yep, we appreciate it. We'll do the best we can.
Just for myself, Kathy, I think that I like to see the town look nice and I'm really happy to hear that you put together this group and I am completely for it but I believe that probably it's gonna cost more money than that to make the town
nice. One thing that has come up to us is the planting of a town Christmas tree. We're not going to take that on this year, but many people have said to me when I've discussed joining this committee, a centralized area for a town Christmas tree. Don't know where that is. Don't care to do that this year, but that's a big expense when you look at a $2,000 budget. So it's something that maybe in the future will come up. Jeff, you have anything to say about this? About me? Which Jeff McGuire, esteemed.
Yeah, mine. I totally agree with her about the Christmas tree.
Do. Jeff Murray, do you have anything to say about this? I don't feel like you're represented here. No, I'm born out.
For the record, there is a Christmas tree on the rail trail that gets decorated every year by random cyclists.
That is something that we do need to discuss and we will discuss in the future. But supporting Mrs. Claus and the Christmas tradition, we could do a better job. But we have to work on a few other things. Let's get this budget out of the way and then we can do goals and where we would like to. Can I make a quick suggestion on our budget schedule?
Sure. Let's lock off the twenty third, try to get the budget done by the sixteenth form.
Sure. Leave the twenty third scheduled and we can always cancel it. Yeah,
leave it on there. I think we can be done by the sixteenth let's see But in case you talk too long, Adrian.
Okay. So what do you all need from me between now and the next budget meeting? What do you want to see from me?
Well, we're going to have to still go over the details line by line. Let us look at it. And if we have any questions, we'll email you and ask you. I mean, it worked well this week with the emails that went back and forth between people asking you for information. I thought that worked well. Did any of the other members have a problem with it?
No. I know we're getting a little further along. We've talked a little bit about some bonding. Eric, is it possible, I know you did a ton of work last year on road improvement. Is it possible to pull that spreadsheet back together and put an updated number to it? An updated number for what? Not sure what you're For your total that you'd like to do.
I can tell you right now, it's the number somewhere low 4 millions range.
If we could see the spreadsheet of the projects, that would help us.
If you can put together another spreadsheet for Basically, we need all the major capitals that can be put into a bonding package. Roadwork, culvert, the bigger culverts, bridge.
Okay. If all the members are in agreement, I would like to sit there and open it up for public speak. Does anyone have a problem? No.
Amanda, if you wouldn't mind letting people speak if they would like to. Diane Grenier is up first. I'm all Birthday Diane. Motion to adjourn. I'm all set. Thank you.
Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait. Before that, is it truly Diane Grenier's birthday? Oh, yes. No, it's Mrs. Claus' birthday.
Yes, I put that in the chat, Jeff Maguire, but I'm not singing. I'm going to be 85.
I don't know about you, Shannon. Wait, are you serious? I'm singing, have to reach for my phone because
I get to put Diane's birthday in my phone so that I remember it. Now, come on Diane, how old are you? I'm only 73.
Okay. But another important date today. Today is National Peanut Brittle Day. Do you have any peanut brittle there?
I'm all out. I make peanut brittle brittle by the gallons at Christmas time. I am all done. Great. It's gone.
Don't you think that's pretty irresponsible considering all the people with peanut allergies out there?
Know, I have no sympathy. Derek, we would only expect that kind of comment from you. Diane, peanut allergy. Amanda, moving on before this deteriorates. Happy birthday, Diane. Happy Happy
birthday, birthday, Happy birthday, Diane. Okay, Diane, do you have anything you want to greet us with or just you're done? I'm done. Okay, excellent. Let's move on so we can see. Thank you. Mark Brinker.
Left. Thanks yeah I just want to make a couple of points for the for the town departments and and you know the boards of Ed and. Everybody in participating in this process. You know it's two things and I won't speak for the entire board of finance, but I know for me personally that. You know it's not my intention, certainly to go through the budget line item by line item by line item and ask for explanations of variances etc. But it helps us avoid that if there is a significant amount of detail about what is comprising those variances and why those things are actually needed. If that detail is not there, then the questions are inevitably going to come up. That's just the reality of the situation.
So, know, and this is a development process. Obviously, we all have to kind of get there on our own and understand this, but the more that's provided upfront I think the truth be true for the Board of Selectmen but also the Board of Finance, the easier it is for us to get into a common ground and understanding of where we are and where we need to be. The second thing I want to comment on and I've heard it from both the RAM budget and also for town budget, the ES budget, is COVID related expenses. We all know they're there. Absolutely. I hear there's some vendors every week in my business, know, how their COVID is driven, you know, costs up or it's driven, it's driving delays and we know what happens. There's no question about it. But we can't just apply that as a blanket statement to justify increases or offsets or whatever. I did hear some numbers around, so I think it helps if those are identified ahead of time. This is where we save money, this is where we lost money, the net increase decrease
is here. Let's just get it out on the table so we all understand it. There needs to be a good understanding of what comprises all of the accounts and all of the expenditures. Honestly, I haven't always seen that to my satisfaction, I wouldn't always feel comfortable with it. And, you know, that may be the experience of some of the other board members that, you know, the Board of Ed or the Board of Selectmen that they've been in those weeds, and have seen them and they feel satisfied with them. But I think there needs to be a good solid explanation of kind of what's contributing to all of those accounts and where they're going. There's not, you know, we're not taking from here and putting from there. Just call it what it is and get it all up front. So detail helps, put it all out there. Let's get it out in front. We're all smart. We can figure it out together. So that's just my comment on the budget process. Mark, I was just gonna say that,
I mean, my take from a board select bid having been on the board of of is that our frustration was always that the board of selectmen hadn't done the due diligence and gone through. Listen, I don't think you have to look at every line, but I think you have to look at every outlier, you know. I mean there are projected cost expectancies. Think if the school budget had come through with just the increase in personnel costs, you know, to contractual obligations and hadn't had much else, wouldn't have questioned it at all, but as soon as you start seeing the outliers and I think the other issue becomes we see other school districts approaching the supply line for instance like you said differently, whereas they said we saved money last year so we didn't use a lot of supplies so we don't need as much this year whereas our school is going the opposite way and saying hey we need a lot more. Well yeah I don't want to I don't want to what I'm saying is that really a criticism of
you guys doing your due diligence, I don't want it to be taken like that. Well, my point is really more for the department and the boards and the superintendents so that the more data that they provide a prong the first in the first place variances. Okay, we don't have to ask those questions. Right. May still have some additional questions, but we're it's not going to feel like you know we're picking and applying and pulling but we're going to have to pick and Brian Paul, if we don't feel like the adequate explanations are there. Thanks. You. You know, the more I think that everyone's going to feel comfortable with where we end up. Thanks for the explanation. Thank you.
That's all for me, thank you. Thanks mark. Kathy did you want to add anything. Nope I'm good, thank you.
All right, Valerie, you are still on and with us. Would you like to participate? She's eating peanut brittle. All right, thank you. Shannon Loudon. All set, thank you.
Thanks, Shannon. Diane Shakut. All set, thanks. Thank you Joanne have a
quick thank you to the board for doing their due diligence and the hard job like spent described asking all the tough questions and everything like that I've sent multiple emails so I'll spare everybody but I do appreciate your board's process you know it's tough to ask difficult questions but they need to be asked thanks thanks Joanne. Cindy Murray? Jeff is she sleeping?
No I'm here I just had to get off mute I apologize I'm all set. Thanks Cindy. All right Chris Bernard. I'm good thanks. Thanks for joining. Absolutely. All right that is all.
Okay. Before we vote to adjourn, we will be saying happy birthday to Ms. Grineer. I want to make sure that the board is all aware of it and there will be no anyone getting upset when I start singing Happy Birthday, will there? Unmute yourself. I'm unmuted. No, everyone else so you can sing.
Shannon and I, I don't sing. I'm horrible. Oh my god. You guys all Shannon left the A capella or something, Adrian. And that's exactly why I don't sing.
Diane, thank you so much for all that you do for the time and the community and all the people that are involved. Thank All right. Now you're muted. Everybody's muted. You're muted. All right. Does someone want to make a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. I'll second. I seconded. All those in favor? Aye. All right. Thank you very much, everybody.