Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Regular Meeting
April 28, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America
and to the republic which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, Okay,
thank you. Hey Linda. Okay, welcome everybody to the April 28 meeting of the town of Andover Board of Finance. We do have a lot to cover today so this could go long but we'll see what we can get done in the time we have. I'll make the time available I guess. Our first agenda item is public speak. I just want to again remind everybody as we often do during these meetings to try to keep it concise to the point. And if needed, we'd like to limit you to about three minutes. If needed, we can always come back to you if you have more you'd like to say, and also as usual, try not to, you know, reiterate too much somebody else has said just say you know I agree with, you know, that person and try to keep it efficient. Will have another public speak opportunity at the end of the meeting. Okay, Amanda, do you want to go around and see if anybody has any comments?
Yes, okay. First up we have Kathy Palazzi and Mike Palazzi. I'm all set. Mike's all set. Right, thank you. Valerie Bruno? Amanda, thanks. Okay. Thank you. Carol Lee? All set. Thank you. Georgette Conrad. For once, have nothing to say.
Thanks for being here. All right. Next up, Jeff McGuire. I'm all set. Thank you, Amanda. Thanks, Jeff. And last but not least, Dan Foran. I'm good. Thank you. All right. No public speak.
Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. We will move on to agenda item number three. This is the opportunity where we have the opportunity here to add and delete items from the agenda. Do any of the board members have any suggestions for additions or deletions of the agenda? Eric, are you aware of any other business we should be dealing with that's not on the agenda? Okay, Eric's not shaking his head no. Okay, hearing none, let's move along to item number four. This is to discuss and act upon the budget. So there's some things we need to talk about here. Some things have changed since we had our public hearing last week. So the agenda item A1 is to discuss feedback from the public hearing. I think all the members, board members were in attendance and heard basically what the comments were from that meeting. Was there any other feedback that we received anyone has that they want to discuss? Okay. Item number four, A2, state legislature, municipal funding decrease. Eric, do you want to give us a summary of that please? Sure Amanda, can I share my screen? All right, go ahead. Okay.
Okay, so you should be looking at a table which says estimated town ECS grants for fiscal year 2022 and 2023. So as most of you know, the state has not adopted a budget yet. The governor proposed essentially level funding in the same ECS formula as last year. However, the legislative appropriations committee has proposed increasing the overall appropriation, but revising the ECS formula. So the long and the short of it is if you look at the first pink column under FY 2022, they're predicting a ECS grant to the town of Andover $1,936,854 which is a decrease of $67,928 in revenue to the town of Andover. Now this is not final because the budget is not passed and one of the questions is since they did it at such a late date and most towns have already pretty far along in their budgeting process, would they consider a hold harmless for the towns that are getting reduced? And I had a long, it was a subject of discussion,
you know, at the Crogg Policy Board meeting today, and we spoke to our, you know, the CROG's lobbyist, and the lobbyist indicated she did not think, nor did, you know, Representative Nunez, who is on the appropriations committee, did not think they were going to, they're not really even discussing seriously or hold harmless. So both of them were pretty sure that this is likely to hold throughout the budget process. But again, there's no adopted state budget. So the best number we have is that compared to the budget we presented a week ago today, our revenue will be decreased by $67,928
Okay, thank you, Eric. So the just to clarify, hopefully everyone understood that, but the there was some discussion of what Eric called a hold harmless. Clause, which is the idea that you know hey what we will do is, you know these towns that are losing money we're actually going to hold off on that and we'll keep the increases to the towns are getting an increases, but not redo the reductions. You're saying now Eric that sounds like there's not much appetite for that, from what you can tell so far. Yes. Conversations
in Sierra Grove, okay. Right, so far everybody we've been able to talk to that's part of the legislative process has said that's not gonna happen. And as you can see, lot of our neighboring towns are taking a pretty significant hit also, but it's up and down.
Yeah, okay. All right. Board members, any questions for Andover here and for Andover for Eric here. I just wanted to point out that this does affect our revenue line. It's not our expense line, but there is the educational cost sharing line item there. We'll take a look at the budget spreadsheet and how it impacts it in a minute here. No questions for Eric on that one? Okay, it kind of sounds like it is what it is. Just have to decide what we're going to do with it.
Okay, I have a question. Go ahead, Louise. Did they specify what the reduction was or is it a flat dollar amount.
There's a formula right and it's if you look at the Eric I didn't share this stuff I probably should have with the Board of Finance I didn't realize initially they weren't on there. But there's a there's a very specific formula based on your demographics and issues and all those things that actually calculate based on the demographic in the town situation that results in that number. It's not something that somebody selects, know, it's not like somebody randomly says Andover doesn't get this anymore, correct? Correct.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, I don't have a copy of the formula, you know I read through the formula basically they're doing a couple things they're adding more funding to they're increasing the kind of weighting factor for English language learners you know, and they're adding more money to the Open Choice and some of the magnet programs, know, and VOAG, none of which is really applicable to us per se.
Any other questions or discussion? Okay, let's move on to item 4A3, which is the adjustment of the building admin line item. Eric, do you want to give us a summary of that please?
Sure. We had kind of worked out the numbers before the last meeting, but since we went to public hearing, the last public hearing with the numbers we had agreed at the meeting to previous to that, we've just refined. We I had originally told the board it was roughly a $45,000 savings by combining those two positions. The actual savings when you when you really account for all the items is a little more than that. So the line item for that position, for the building admin position, been, you know, was just a flat $45,000 decrease. Now it reflects the actual expected expenditure. So that has decreased the town's budget by three or four thousand dollars It's not much.
I think it's closer to 6,000 went from 45 to 39 something that line item.
Yeah, let me just pull it up. So I'm not speaking off the cuff.
Yeah, you have 39,301 we originally budgeted 45,000. So about $5,700 Yeah, that's about right. Okay.
So that's, that's the positive that's, that's a decrease in expected expenditures. So partially offsets the bad news, we got an educational cost sharing. And that takes into consideration benefits and everything, right?
Well, because it's a combined position and her benefits are already encompassed in the town clerk's position. The only thing it adds to the benefits, accounts for the contributions to social security and accounts for the additional contribution to MRF, the retirement package. So it doesn't account for additional health care benefits because it's just one person.
Other questions or comments discussion on that item? Okay, let's move on to agenda item for a four, which is to finalize the budget for the town budget meeting. So we've got some new information today that changes our picture a little bit from the last. The last meeting we had which is the public hearing. We have a net increase to our expected costs of about $61,000 So we have to decide how to treat that. So Amanda, can you let me share my screen please? Go ahead.
Make sure the right one here Okay. Alright, so this is just the department totals. There's some notes over here on the right. This is probably a little tough to see if you don't have a large monitor so I'm going zoom in a little bit. So two line items changed. The first one is in the expense option or the expense line item here for the building department. Excuse me, I was making sure I went through going with the right one. There it is. So the building department line item, you can see this in the department summary total this originally was. I can't remember where we took this down somewhere. I think we allocated a little more money, this expenditure item is at $39,301 whereas previously it was at about $44,043 So yeah, I'm sorry, it's probably it's a little more like $5,000 not $6,000 So there's about a $5,000 decrease in our expenditures on this particular line item, everything else in this is remains the same, based on what we presented at the public hearing last week. And then the big change is actually here in the revenue column. So in the revenue column, have educational cost sharing is this line right here. Okay, We'd originally expected roughly about $2,000,000 Pop over to see the actual amount. Yeah, the educational cost sharing was about expected to be about 2,000,000. Well, it's the same as previous fiscal year. It's right there $2,004,007.82. And we've got that reduction to 1,000,009 and 36,854. So those are the two line items that have changed in this budget here. The rest of those notes. So what's the impact right now?
So we were looking at last budget, we're looking at a percent mill increase of 3.43 estimated mill rate of 36.83. With this new information it takes us to 36.97 would be the required mill rate under the current budget. So taxes would increase by that amount. The percent mill increase rate increase would be 3.83. I think we as a board need to decide how to handle this change and finalize the recommended budget to be presented at the town budget meeting next Thursday. It seems to me that we have roughly, I guess three options three main options. One is we reduce the budget for the town or AES or somewhere both to accommodate that $67,000 decrease in revenue. We can let this tax increase stay where it is, you know the the calculated tax increase it takes it up to 36.97 mills.
Or we could assume, which is kind of what I was hoping I hear something different from Eric but we could assume that state lead is going to come through and actually do something around that hold harmless clause and not make any changes to the recommended budget. Obviously the risk with that last option is that the state doesn't take any action around that which is what Eric is hearing, and then we would have to handle that differential through some type of contingency funding. To me, that's not a wise option. I think we have to be a little more conservative and how we approach this. So I would think that we either need to reduce our expenditures or we accept this mill rate increase as it is calculated here and pass that on to the town, or we do a mix of both. And just a reminder of the process, know, once we pass on the recommended budget to the town, we do not have the opportunity to increase it. The town budget meeting, we can only change line items and do an overall decrease to the budget. So that being said, that's kind of my piece. Any comments or questions from the board?
I think this is Diane. I think we need to find a place to reduce this and live within our means. And the only place I can think of getting it from is from the school AES budget. I'd like to hear what everybody else thinks. Other comments or input?
No, like Diane said, this is Dave. There's only two line items that have any significant cuts and it's AES and it's a Terper and we've talked about that before. Yes, we did.
We're looking for a net of about 61. 66 roughly, yeah. Oh, 66. Yeah, I thought it changes netted out.
No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's 67 was the reduction against about a $5,000 saving 62. Right.
So the one thing is if we're really talking about this budget, I mean this budget overall in terms of the actual total expenditures, our year over year increase in expenditures is about $120,000 on a $12,000,000 budget. So we are 12 plus million dollar budget. So for the year, year over year in terms of expenditures, we're up less than a percent. You know, I get that, you know trying to explain to the taxpayers you know because the taxpayers are going to feel a much bigger increase but it's not really an increase in expenditure overall.
Yep understood. It's decrease in revenue plus the pulling less out of contingent not contingency sorry out of balance. Sheri,
what's up? Sheri, go ahead. I have a question. Eric, where are we showing the $319,000 grant that the town got for the American Rescue?
We're not because first of all, only half of that would come in this upcoming fiscal year. Okay. And we can't use that to offset taxation. I understand that, but I just wanted to know,
you know, how that's a good point. Know, we should certainly put that on the budget message. Explain that a little more, Eric.
So we are, you know, according to the American Rescue Act or American Recovery Act or whatever you call the thing, Andover is slated at some point to get two allotments of money. Each one will be around 159 or $160,000 but it's money that can be spent for very targeted things and what you absolutely can't do is use it to offset taxation. So I guess what I'm saying is in the federal government still has not released the actual rules for expenditure of that money at least as it pertains to things that are of interest to the town. Like there we know there's some things we can spend like we could give money to our town businesses
legally, we know we can do that, but what we don't know is what town stuff we can spend that money on. We're going to be able to spend a fair bit of it to do some good for the town but we frankly don't know what the rules, the real rules for its usage are going to be.
So what's your level of confidence that we could use that money against any of the line items in our budget versus something that we haven't considered spending money on?
I mean, the only things we There are some things we could potentially spend it on. Depending on how liberally or how narrowly they define categories, we're allowed to spend it on broadband infrastructure, water infrastructure, and sewer infrastructure. If they brought in the category, you know, sewer infrastructure to cover septic systems and things like that, we could potentially use that money for relocation of the main septic tank that covers the town hall in anticipation of putting a community center in. We could use that to pay for the AES septic repairs that need to be done. If it's, if we have a really broad definition of, know, water infrastructure, maybe we could use it to pay for the sprinkler system for the Veterans Monument. Broadband, it's possible we can use that to put a VoIP system in for the town. It's also possible we can use that to fund I know the Board of Ed had to pull back a request for you know an updated wi fi system in the school. So all these things are possible we just honestly don't know at this point. It's kind of maddening that they haven't put out the rules yet.
Know. Right stuff is in our current budget so to speak would all be future projects. Correct.
Correct. Does it get us out of this little quandary we're in right now?
Not that I can see. I mean are there some things? Yeah, I mean, guess you could maybe reduce money in the building fund and think that some of that expense you could shift. But I don't know. I mean, if I knew, I would strongly consider that. But don't really know.
Eric, what about the trooper? Can we reallocate any of that expense to that grant perhaps?
I don't think we can. We can't allocate See, here's the funny thing. We can pay premium money for some reason. We can't pay employees salaries but we can give them bonuses basically. If you look at what was actually in that bill you're allowed to pay essentially for lack of a better term, a COVID bonus.
Like a contractual amount maybe in the way of security or safety, that kind of thing during COVID?
Yeah, like for instance, they give the example of if you wanted to give your firefighters or your EMT personnel premium or shift differential during that period for having to have dealt with COVID patients because of the increased risks, you could clearly do that. But I just, you know, I feel like we're really hamstrung because we don't know what the eventual rules are going to be. Yeah, we're going to be able to spend it on something. I just don't know what yet.
I just been researching what a couple other towns are doing, and they're allocating some of that money to the troopers dealing with COVID related instances and also with the town fire department kind of thing. The EMTs then whatnot that are getting called out on COVID calls and that kind of thing. So I just bring that up because I know a couple of towns are going down that avenue and somebody must have gotten some okay from somebody at that level to in order to do that, you know.
When you say trooper it's probably the town police department that are rather than a state trooper like we right, right, it's a town, ours is a flat fee there are no additional funds that we would have to pay due to covert related expenses at least with a trooper is that correct, Eric. That is correct. So we can't find it hard to argue that there's COVID specific related costs there. What nothing nothing is worth worth the the shot. Know, as an idea, you gotta think about these things. Yeah, I'm thinking out of the box.
Exactly. Eric, nothing that has anything to do with the educational costs related to COVID in this particular grant?
No, I mean, our elementary school didn't get any grant funding through that as far as I know. I mean Val can give you a more, but we kind of got screwed on that.
And this is specifically for town costs not educational costs? Well, specific infrastructure costs you talked about or support costs.
Yeah, I mean I think potentially maybe backfill one or two of the things the school wanted to do but couldn't. But again, I don't know. I mean, I can think of a couple of things that we potentially can spend the money on, but I'm not confident in telling you what that is until somebody comes out with an actual set of rules. Right now the rules are like three lines: water infrastructure, sewer infrastructure, broadband infrastructure. What does that mean? Know it's something that both cost council small pounds and CCM are you know trying to weigh in on with their legislative you know with their lobbyists trying to get as liberal a definition as possible to make it as flexible as possible but whether they succeed or not, I don't know. I wish I did.
That's a good question, Cherry. Okay. So it doesn't sound like you're confident that we we'd be able to apply any of that against our current budget line items.
No, in fact, is the one thing that's made absolutely clear in the act is that you can't use it to offset existing taxation.
So we're smart we'd be budgeting for these extra covert costs anyway so to me it's kind of a moot point, you know, I mean, yeah, record saying that if we're smart we're doing that and, you know, we'd be lucky to get the additional funds and we use appropriately but anyway that's that's maybe. Anyway, it is what it is. So, Valerie, do you have any insight into maybe school line items that, you know, might be applicable fall under this.
I actually can sit with Eric and go over. I'm actually the opposite of Eric I'm 100% confident that that that there's going to be places in our current budgets to be able to spend it. I've done this twice already with ESSER grants because we got corona at the beginning and then ESSER one and two. And, you know, it I actually was able to put through under air quality control. It's all in how you word it, boys and girls. I was able to put in air under air quality control to get air conditioning in the preschools. I know Sherry's like, yeah. So people said you'll never get it through. I did because of the age of the children, the heat, and the fact that they were most likely not to wear masks. And it went through. And so, you know, that Sherry knows she's good at it. I'm good at it. I've done this a couple of times now. I'm 100% confident that we could get that $3.19, whether it's in the town budget, the, you know, town, whatever, school.
I know that between the three of us, we could take stuff, Mark, that exists already in this budget and get it covered. I'm 100% confident of that because we've done it already actually three times. Esser one, Esser two, and corona relief and got in everything that we asked for. I did not get a single one of those grants sent back for revisions.
We you just have to be creative And you also have to keep in mind, they want you to spend this money. They don't want it back. They seriously on the state level are giving this money to us so that we do come up with these ideas creatively and spend that money.
And, you know, you just have to be a little creative, I would think. So There's a the two of us. Sherry, they all had in there also, Mark, the the goal is, obviously, it's given to the town. So not that you can't use it for the school, and I'm not asking you to. But the goal is to spend it on things that benefit the town. So I know that there's a a rider that's gonna be in there that's with a lot of them where you can use it. Anything that's going to increase or get you back to your levels of tourism, which includes signage, which includes Right. Increase to the bridge because that's right there by, you know, the walk that everyone uses, to the museum, to the library, public places, things that benefit the community. So Eric's right that they haven't given us, you know, that final document yet as to, you know, what's there, absolutely. But I know Sherry and I have done this a number of times with other grants, and I've never had to send money back, And I've always gotten them approved and has Sherry has as well. So I am confident that that we'd be able to use it. Oh, oftentimes too, social services and anything that deals with community health and wellness, which would cover costs. Mhmm. So, you know, there is always something, Mark, that you can get through there. So once that, once that guidance comes out, you know, if, if it comes out and, and Eric's stumped it all, there's Sherry. And then if they were looking for another mind, I'd be willing to help figure it out. But, you know, I'm sure What's mechanism
for this grant funding?
What do you mean mechanism? I don't know for the town. Ours goes through e grants. So I'm not sure. My point is you have to apply for it and then you're awarded it or do you They have to give you they give you an award amount and they say this is what you're entitled to. Now fill out the grant application and give us your narrative. And in the narrative, you give a budget summary, budget by object. You tell them what it is you need it for. If it's one big project, you write a smart goal.
And every grant is a little bit different. And they do give you an opportunity, Mark, if you do submit something to say, yep, nope, that's not going to fly, and then they tell you why, and it gets sent back to you. So, but it's application process you've got a limit cap, Eric that's kind of your understanding.
You've got an award cap and then you have to basically
put in an application to this right now I think so actually I think from my reading they're going to give us the money with the value by our expenditures so they're gonna put that money in our account but then you know we have to document
document the end of the day. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's kind of what I was getting at either either way there's documentation either before they actually cut the check or after they cut the check.
You know what if that money's in your account, I would think it's a little bit, you know, it's a little less risky than if somebody's got to actually approve a wire transfer somewhere right?
Yeah I mean I don't think there's any reason I it's not that we're not going to get it it's just the the details of what exactly we can spend it on. I mean it's not like we don't have an enormous amount of needs you know that are outside what we can effectively budget for. You know the town has plenty of things it needs to spend money on. I mean I would happily spend that entire $160,000 if they'd let me working on town culverts you know because I got at least a million dollar
unmet need for funding for that and I don't have the money to address it. Well you know if our culverts on operation it's going to be hard to bring in those tourists I'm just saying.
I agree, I agree, You know, and if we have to put signs in the culverts even better. So, I mean, is really frustrating not being farther down, not having more clarity in what's budgetable. That's just me.
Is there a breakdown of the ECS grant cut that we're looking at between the regional and the elementary?
No see ECS is funded is given to a town so there's no breakdown it's by town. So we get a total of $2,000,000 and whether how we choose to spend that is our own business. So it's divorced from the revenue side and the expense side are pretty divorced in that case.
We received this grant we're talking about in previous years or is this really the first year that this is on there? Just wondering if there's a line item in the revenue for it.
No, there's not. This is something that's completely in the end last year we got I think a total of $31,000 on the town level in coronavirus relief funding of which we haven't spent much of that. But you you and the board of selectmen have already decided to spend that on you know the monument upgrade projects.
So just wondering about from a from a mechanic standpoint of the budget. I was trying to see whether land.
And in the other thing you have to decide is you, you, we typically don't in the town budget list the completely separate funds. Like we normally don't in the town budget account for Town Aid Road, even though that's money that comes in and money that's spent in the town side. But we don't necessarily account for all, at least in the town's presentation, we don't normally deal with the grants and the other revenue by the elementary school. So just we've never really done that. Maybe we should going forward and we could if we so chose, but we haven't typically.
My inclination is that you show all of your inflows and outflows. You're saying Tom and A growth really doesn't appear on there and you know it's something we pull in and it's something we spend right?
That is true. That is true. And I've always wondered that. That's always been accounted for. That's always been essentially
Consider why not been accounted for in that manner doesn't mean you don't account for it. Okay. Out to something for future thought I'm not sure that we want to muddy muddy the waters and that with this year's budget. So, others proposed to the board that it sounds like there is an option, depending on our appetite for risk that this wouldn't be approved, that we could in add a line item to the revenue side for this grant. In some amount up to and including what is it 139,159 I think was it $3.19
cut in half. Yeah, it's $3.19 divided by two. Yeah, so $159.05. Right.
But if you show it on our current budget, what expense would be a legitimate expense that we would be offsetting? Or is it going to be future stuff that's not even Well, in
that that's the that's the question mark. And obviously, you know, trying to think about how we we're all talking about being creative maybe there's some creative budgeting that we need to do. Some I hate to do the budget this way but some sort of unspecified category we throw it into
you know, it doesn't it doesn't benefit us to add another expense category I think we would know revenue side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, think we just put it in as a grant, whatever the name of the grants visual name of the grant is, We had a revenue line item, it's kind of done that. What is the name of the grant here, Eric?
I think it's American Recoveries Act grant. American Rescue Relief Funding. That's probably closer to the exact name. I'm gonna call it ARF, a r r. They
actually use ARP, but I always think of like the the elder agency of ARP, but that's what they actually use on a federal level is ARP. We might as well mimic that. Alright, so I'm just gonna throw this up there.
Now if we put it in in the revenue, but it's not, you know, specifically earmarked for a particular usage on the spending side. Do we once the once we get more clarity on where we can use it and the grants start getting written the proposals get written or whatever it is. We need to kind of go back as a board and approve allocating it out?
I mean, are you just assuming you're going to use that money to offset taxation? Is that what you're
To me that's a that's just a non sequitur argument I don't really, I mean I understand. I understand probably why the language is inserted and I'm certainly not a lawyer legislator but, you know, they're probably doing that just to prevent towns from just, they're probably probably some kind of effort just to prevent house from like increasing their spending, just because they got this money. So, you know, but I mean, the reality is, you have these extra expenses, you know, you're generally going to account for them in the budget. You know, maybe that's something like a tourism enhancement project or something like that, maybe that would be extra and maybe that's what their intent
is. But it seems odd to me that you're going to have a lot of municipalities just coming up with these different projects to promote infrastructure. Maybe it just really is a stimulus package in that sense. Don't know.
I mean when you put it in the budget here on the revenue line and then all the numbers come out, we are using it to offset taxes so we'll set the mill rate at a low rate.
Is how money works though. Is how money works yeah
the end the end number is zero. Right, so you you take in your stuff and you you know well unless it goes into a fund right you're you're spending, but you know ultimately you're still going to have an offset in taxes, it just depends on what you do with your expense side. You know, if you rate if what we're not doing here is we're not increasing our expenditures, strictly because we have this extra money. And maybe that's kind of what the legislators intent was there. But it's not clear to me. I think that that's kind of a semantics thing almost maybe I'm all wet on that one. But you know to me ultimately you are offsetting taxes or you know that you would have to add in to if you were to increase your expenditures the amount that this grant.
I mean, honestly, I look at it a way to accomplish some things that
we can't afford to budget for. That you wouldn't normally do in this budget year. Yeah. Right. Yep. But that's just me. You are the board.
Well, you know, I think that being given any more guidance, unless the guidance is pretty clear and we're just taking liberal approach to it interpretation of it.
In essence, by adding this in here, whatever we spend above and beyond this budget for a special project next year will be offset by this money because it's not going to be raised by taxes because the mill rate is going to be reduced.
So if you just put this into the budget with the intention of reducing the mill rate, then you know you're making two assumptions. You're making the assumption that you can apply, you can find some project that's actually funded that you could pay for with this instead of what we were budgeting for. And you're saying we're not going to do anything outside what's in our current budget, Which you know may be the way you want to go. I mean I'm not telling you that's a bad thing I'm just telling you that that is the repercussion.
I mean imagine a world in which we had clear guidance and we knew that we could use 159 ks to throw at culverts. What might we do Eric is we might cut our culvert budget and then reinsert the money we were getting but we can't do that right now because we don't know exactly where it's gonna go.
We have we just offset that 67 ks we lost through educational cost sharing which you know you could argue that are clearly argue that our educational costs are higher than they would be because of COVID. And I know that's not the purpose of this grant or at least that sounds what it's not like and you could just increase the bridging culvert spending for the by the additional amount, you know $90,000 there. Or maybe we take some middle road, I don't know.
I think if we're gonna take the risk, we just plug the number in here and let the numbers fall where they are and we'll figure it out next year.
I mean, that's where I'm starting to go with it. That's why I asked the technical question of if we just throw it into the revenue and then we get the guidance and we get the grants written and whatever when it comes time to spend it. Do if we need to take any further action as a board. Let's assume the budget passes we get through that. And then we get clarity on where we can spend this money. Do we need to come back and say, okay, we're now gonna formally allocate that stuff to this, that, the other thing.
But remember, if you're wrong, there's $160,000 Shortfall. You know, shortfall in an already really tight budget. Yep. That's gonna hurt. We
can always find other ways to spend it, to take it out of where we put it and reallocate it. That
happens all the time. We can probably find an acceptable use but Eric's point still stands if we take it out of another line item we still got to make up that amount. Well,
my thought processes that we need to find out what it is that we need to spend this money on or can spend this money on. So I'm willing to do some research and call around and talk to people who are in authority, just like we have on the school side, people are program managers of certain grants. They know and they can tell us. And then I could have something emailed to me with a variety of ways to spend it rather than just sitting here guessing what would be good and what not to be good. I think that would be a worthwhile
conversation to have. I think it would be most useful if the people you talk to are in similarly situated towns, rural towns that don't have city sewer and whatnot that are similarly situated that have the same sorts of that at least when you look at this thing on its face are looking at the same hurdles.
Sure. But I agree that's a worthwhile exercise but I want to point out from a practical standpoint, we have a week, we have to have a budget tonight unless we're all I understand that.
I'm just saying, I'm just saying if we want to just go and put this where we want it, and then reallocate or adjust it later, there's time to do that.
Do we have anything further on the audit? Has there been any finalization there? We're closer, there's no change. Pretty close, but I haven't heard anything.
But the number we have to work with isn't changing. It's not getting better. Let's put it that way.
No, it's not what it was really getting at. I was thinking about it from the standpoint of, this drags out or it's a disaster scenario where we're wrong or something that we still have some fund balance that I love to use except in case of disaster. But I was just trying to think of where we're at. We're using a little fund balance this year, kind of the last time around to plug holes in our capital budget. And that's gonna leave us with what 11% right after we do this in terms of our savings. Yeah, not a lot. If we're still above the 10% target, we may have some play is kind of what I'm saying. If in the any absolute worst case scenario, which again, I of have to think that ultimately Sherry and Valor, right, we're gonna figure this out. I just, I'm struggling with it too from the standpoint of budgeting when you have this question mark.
Well, one thing we could do is take a middle row, we don't need to allocate, we don't need to assume that we're going to be able to apply all $159,000 against the projects we're planning, know, maybe we could also just say maybe it's 50,000, you know, maybe it's 25 maybe it's 100. So there might be a middle road and then if it turns out we have an opportunity we get the 159 ks we figured out that there's more ways to spend it we come up with some creative stuff. You know we, we, we put in a, you know, lavish water fountain at the Veterans Memorial Park or something you know that you know that that's all that that's all positive right that's all in that.
Okay talking about showing this grant as a revenue item. Okay just losing any expenses.
Just so you have it. Is what came from office of fiscal analysis at the state and this the, you know, kind of use of funds. Workers who perform essential work or provide grants to employers with employees that provide essential work. You know, government services to the extent of lost revenue from the public health emergency, which is not applicable to this down because we haven't really lost any revenue per se. You know, and investments in water sewer and broadband infrastructure. Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty freaking vague, you know, and I'm sure there will be a lot more detail but we just don't have it yet.
Also point out the language in the next section that says following restrictions. So it's clearly states not just reduce tracks is directly but also indirectly.
Right, that's what I'm saying. Mean, I think to think that you can just apply this to the budget legitimately is to me does not seem correct. And I'm not sure there's not some kind of budgetary gimmick we can do to make that happen. There may very well be but you know I'll make sure you sign that one not me. No problem. I mean the word indirectly
is problematic. Yeah, I mean, character of it. Makes me less comfortable than I was before. Yeah, that's not great.
Between March 3 till the last day of the fiscal year in which the funds have been received, spent or returned. So June thirtieth next year.
Just move the next budget year. Between now and the next budget year. Yeah.
I mean, it's a little frustrating. And this is where you get into semantics. It's like our taxes are going up regardless. But, yeah, it's an offset. I know the indirect that's that's concerning to me. And I almost wonder what town attorney would make of that or.
I mean the town attorney would say wait for guidance. Yeah, I know. Too big.
I know, I know. I work with attorneys. I'm very familiar.
Right. I mean, you may very well be right and there may be, we may be able to just plug this directly in. We very well may be able to. It's just a question of what, you know.
I guess the other option which I don't love either. I'm just sort of brainstorming here in order to deal with that language is if we were to cut the capital budget by a certain amount and then say whatever we get from this grant will try to throw it capital to make that up later. I don't know. Don't like it either. Concern
with initial feedback we've got on the budget is there was a lot of talk about the capital and kicking the can and the roads and, you know, the trees, And I don't know if we cut capital that people are gonna vote this to go to referendum. Yeah, I know.
I was surprised by that those comments in the last meeting.
Mean, get that. I mean, it's reality. We have done that. So we have capital needs. Eric talks about all the time. We have this backlog.
The community center. Well, that's for community center. That's for the benefit of the community, making I it
would hope that all that we're doing is for the benefit of the community, but I I know. But I mean, in particular What
are we loading into that capital fund this year? We're adding $50,000
but we're already spending 50,000 this year, you know, in this budget cycle. We're just looking at status quo. Going forward and we're probably not gonna be breaking ground on that next year by the way things move, but there will probably be things with the community center that we can use these grant funds for like the relocation of the septic, if it's broad enough. Solar, we're gonna put, I don't know if solar would even kind of qualify in that infrastructure.
It's odd to me that they didn't include power infrastructure. Right. Because that's clearly- I have to. Mean. Yeah the water thing just seems so antiquated oddly narrow.
Is oddly narrow. Water and sewer yeah. You know and that's been a huge topic of discussion among the town administrators Cause they put in one word, water infrastructure. Can we spend that on culverts? Is that only water supply? Can we pay for that to drill wells? You know, probably maybe all of the above you know what I don't know maybe we could give it to Alcoa I don't know yeah you know I don't it is frustrating to be at the point this far along in the budget process know you're getting money and not know what you can use it for.
Wouldn't be talking about this if they didn't cut our educational cost sharing.
Well, Right. Maybe we should have been anyway. That cut anyway but. Yeah. That's, yeah. We
know we've gotten the town aid roads, can we use that to offset something instead of this ambiguous grant? Mean We're spending out on the roads right?
Spend 100% of town aid road money on roads. I know I'm just trying. Yeah, yeah. I guess
I'll say that given the language that I just read I'm uncomfortable personally budgeting, adding this as a revenue line item to the budget. This late in the game without the ability to further explore and I think there's a probably a very good opportunity for us here to do something that we wouldn't have done otherwise, but I'm not sure given the language that I'd be comfortable adding that line item, which is obviously different than I thought a few minutes ago.
Mark, I agree with you on that. I'm thinking more that it's going to cause more confusion because it's going to be a lot of questions. Maybe if the hearing is, know, what can we use it for and all that. And quite frankly, as far as submitting this to the town, the budget the way it is right now, we've kind of gone around and around quite a bit, and we've kind of gone bare bones. My thoughts are to present it the way it is without that extra money in there and see what the town says. If we can reduce, hopefully we'll get some feedback from them and us, because we're them, to determine where that reduction will come from.
That's my thought on that. Yeah, I tend to agree with you, Luis.
I do think we can mention when we present it to the town that look, is not in the budget, somebody may ask, look, this you may have heard we are gonna get some grant money from the feds. It's not in the budget and here's why. And right now we just don't feel comfortable bringing you a budget that includes this because of the ambiguity and then move on without trying Yeah to
and say later that if we get it it's a plus.
Right yes and anything we can do to defray, I'll try not to say offset, you know to benefit our town you know. Defray, offset yeah. It's frustrating because I just think of like money is fungible it's so dumb. I know right.
Well but because I mean honestly every town would do the same thing you guys were just contemplating just plug it into the budget and reduce taxes which is exactly the opposite of what this is designed.
It's designed to be a stimulus package Yeah. Just to reduce taxes. And again, and that's fair if you were talking about towns doing that to literally reduce taxes. We are trying to defray a tax increase. We've already got coming. You know it's a little of a lot to me that's. Sure you're not a lawyer there, Robin. I worked with them for twenty years they rub off on me what can I tell you? I think the language is all right. Know your honor I see a distinction here okay this is distinguishable but no I kind of agree I mean on the other hand I flip flop a little bit on this you know it's our job as a board to try and do what we can and bring them a budget that is workable. Not bringing the budget from the CCS curveball.
It's really late in the game. Think we had something I think we were more or less comfortable to go to the town with and now we're looking at this $62,000
problem. I have a question. What does it cost us to do a referendum to do a vote? Because I'm fully expecting it to fail the first time.
Well I think probably if I were to guess Diane what's going to happen is it will fail at the budget meeting and it won't even go to referendum and it will come back to you in a couple of weeks to try again. But I mean, could be wrong, you know, I,
you know, my It's funny because I feel like we had this conversation before the meeting started that people seem agitated, the whole COVID thing, everybody's on edge and people are picking on things and there's just a lot of, I hear a lot of disgruntled people out there.
To try to answer the original question. I thought didn't the referendum cost us about $2,000?
Yeah I think 2 to 3,000 is probably a realistic number because remember we still have to send out an official notice so we got a mailing cost and then we got a cost for all the poll workers you know and we got to get our memory cards updated and there's a bunch of there's a fair number of expenses you wouldn't think as part I of
remember it costing and my number is probably out of date it's probably like you say it's probably higher now. I remember it being about 2 ks but that was years ago. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was 2 and a half 3,000 to run a referendum. So it's not nothing but it's also not eye popping. We obviously want to try to avoid taking something to a referendum that we think is gonna fail. But I think it's a good point to point out that a lot of the times if it's really a tough budget, comfort controversial budget, it doesn't make it out of the meeting. Right, and then we'll know, right? I mean, we'll have some guidance that
obviously that can change one meeting to the next but then that does give us some guidance about where the real, you know, feeling is, I mean, I think we, we know where some of the some of the angst is in this budget, clearly, on what the appetite of the other residences for this, you know, it's. Yep,
it's a hard call. Yeah. Linda, do you have any thoughts, Dave, about the idea of passing it on as is?
I don't think it'll pass, but I don't know what to do at this late date. So I think it's as is. We could reduce our expenditures.
Mean, have a problem. I'm uncomfortable cutting more, well really anywhere but cutting more from the AAS budget where he took a whack at it and we don't really know specifically what it would do. Think we cut like 40 some odd so that now if you threw it all on AAS now you're up to 100. If we go to cut it out of town budget I'm not sure where we find it. To take it from capital budget
which we, which we've been we shorted the capital budget last year, and we've heard this, I think it was Diane pointing out surprising how much or maybe it was Lee's how much people felt commented on that unless there but public hearing other meetings. Sorry, Dave, did you want to
add my yeah my comments. Same as Louise just kind of I think go as is, and town shoots it down. Then I have no problem looking at some line items. Yeah. The cut kind of off topic. Just wanted to make a comment on that money due to the COVID relief. Not really similar, but in my business, we had a chunk of PPP money and in the beginning we didn't really know what to do with it so I just kind of let it sit there in a fund. So we've, you know, got some guidance from SBA it was ridiculous trying to get rules and regular. So, as a town, we should probably same thing with that money.
Don't spend it before you know you got it basically right.
Yeah, just let it sit there until we get some clear clarification of rules.
Alright, so it sounds like there's some appetite to. Take the budget as is with the changes that reflect the reality of the likely educational cost sharing reduction plus the. More clear number on the combined position savings. And maybe just roll that into the recommended budget. Any further discussion on that?
I just want to piggyback on that and just say that you know you use the word well likely reduction of ECS you know given that that's not final we're budgeting intelligently I think you do budget for that bad scenario but it's not a guarantee either. Do we have any sense for the legislative time frame on this Eric from the state on when they may actually enact that? Mean they guide this way out. You know I'm not now. Yeah, the only thing
you have going for you is you have a democratic governor and a democratic legislature. I mean, of the question is, you know, the governor wasn't really too excited that the legislature added a ton of money to the ECS. So that you know the total appropriation for educational costs savings went up $180,000,000 So they added a lot of money to it but then they changed the formula enough that it negatively affected us so they're actually putting a lot more money into it we're just not
getting to take advantage. Yeah they're refocusing where it's going but or at least that's the proposal. The sausage gets made in the when it comes down to assemble the votes to pass it. And I know in the past and this is a bit of a third rail and there was a year where this dragged out so long. We had finalized our budget and months later the legislature finally got around to doing what they were gonna do and we actually got lucky that year. I don't think we can count on any such thing but just sort of in the back of our heads remember that's not a done deal.
Right so and just so that we're all clear you know we're talking about basically a 1.36 increase if we go as is right now with the spending we've outlined. Am I correct Mark?
Let me get to the right page. What did you say Eric? 1.36? Yeah 1.36 mil. Went from 35.61 to 36.97.
Yeah once I take this grant out of there that I just popped in here. I have 3.83% increase to 36.97 mil, right?
Correct, correct. Yep, okay. I just wanted to make sure 're both working off the same sheet. And that represents basically a 0.9% increase in the actual budget, a total of a 0.9% increase.
Which by the way was a question I got hit with today that I didn't have at my fingertips. Reporter for the river east called me and was trying to get that particular number. She had the raise by taxation number but not that. I said off the top of my head I don't remember. But I knew it was low. I didn't know it was that low. She called me too. I wondered. I was in a meeting. Told her and I told her I was like Mark just got back from Germany. Could have given it to him. I can look it him. Can get back from you she's like well my story is doing forty three minutes I said well okay
I'm at work. Yeah, was the same for me. Okay. All right. So that's the answer. Yeah, I think we do, we think we do have the, we're on the same page Eric. This is, you know, this is what I have based on that taken out the grant that I popped in there to do a little what if. But it does provide an estimated mill rate of 36.97, which is a 3.83% increase over the current mill rate. So that is where we are by adjusting the educational cost sharing to the likely level, and then clarifying the cleaning or more accurately depicting the savings from the combined position. Yeah. Okay.
So that being said, we can discuss further or somebody can introduce emotion related to this budget.
I move we take this budget as is to tell me. Okay,
to, I second that to clarify yours, your, you are motion, the motion on the table is to recommend the town budget that was presented at the last meeting with the clip with the addition with the correction of the combined budget plus the reflection of the 67,000 roughly decrease in the educational cost sharing numbers right consider that a friendly amendment. Yes. Yeah. Stating that probably. Yeah, I think you're clear which budget we're talking about. Yes, absolutely. The modified budget, those two changes made. Okay, that's exactly how we should say that that's better Thank you. And then Louise you seconded. Yes, I do. Okay, do we have any further discussion. Okay, hearing none I'd like to call for a vote all those in the board of finance in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. We have any abstentions. Okay, motion passes Thank you everybody. That will be our recommended budget to be presented to the town meeting next Thursday. Okay, let's move on to our next agenda item, which is item five, which is the town administrator's report. Eric, the floor is yours.
So I'm not going to give an administrator's report for this one just because I think it's going to be a long meeting by the time we get through everything we need to get through. So I think we can hold off and I'll give you another one next month unless there's specific questions. Yeah, anybody have any specific questions for Eric?
Okay, I guess that's, that's good then. Thank you, Eric. Okay, that takes us to item six on the agenda, which is finance department report. Number one is the town budget summary six a.
Okay, so before we start, does anybody have any questions on the budget summary for either myself or Sherry Holmes or Sherry? Are you gonna share Eric or?
I was well, what I was gonna share, if people didn't have specific questions is just, I went through the town budget and I identified all those areas, you know, based on what we've expended so far where I think we're going to be over in those areas that I think we're going to be under. So going down the overages, there's some fairly significant ones we can talk all of them about them in general but the bottom line is if you add up everything that's an overage you know you come to a total of somewhere around $150,000 and if you add up all the things in our budget and that $150,000 includes the Board of Selectmen's desire to transfer money to spend on the Veterans Monument from the COVID relief funds
in an amount of $20,000 And it also includes what they had and you and we had talked about, which is a transfer of money from this year's budget into the tree work permanent fund to offset because we decided not to put that money, the increase back in next year's budget. So with those two items in that comes our total number of things we're over on is about $149,000 And on the other hand if you look at the areas where we're under spending the bunnies sorry that should be underages not overages.
I was gonna say. You Brad I was confused. Yeah. I just had a heart attack. You.
So the total amount of money that we're talking about where we've under spent is as close as I can tell somewhere around 180 or $182,000 Now there's going to be other small things this is going to go up and down a little bit but you know but this is the broad categories of the big things you know we haven't spent on. So the good news is and this does include contingency so if you look at the difference between the overages and the underages at this point that means we're spending roughly 10,000 of the contingency money just to even up the budgets if we take those two, if we do do those two things we're talking about the you know spend the money on Veterans Monument Park
and the transfer to the tree fund.
Wait so hey our king hi hang on a second so the net between these two it is roughly $32,000 and then you're saying that but that $32,000 includes pulling 10 from contingency?
Well actually it includes 18,000 from contingency if you think about it because I'm putting all of contingency in in here in the under expended because we haven't spent anything from contingency. So we're basically at this point looks like we're going to be spending around 18,000 out of contingency If we do those two things that both you and the board of selectmen have asked to do, know that means we're our margin of error is down to about 32,000
something in that range. Okay but that's helpful and we you know give or take that amount if nothing else changes terribly much that's sort of what we're looking at for kind of our end of year result.
Yeah, somewhere in there. I mean, that could change. That's me spending five or six hours going over the budget. So I'd certainly welcome Sherry checking my math on that.
Marina and I had talked about this today and we're going to sit down next week and go through the rest of the expenditures including the Board of Ed expenditures, making sure everything is recorded on both sides and reconciled. And then we'll be able to give you a truer number at the next meeting in May. We had talked about having a firm number as far as where we feel that we're going to land.
Yeah, that's the one thing that could screw my calculations is if there's something big that hasn't been actually inputted into. But I think,
yeah, I think you've pretty much put everything into it. I think so, but there's a couple things we had talked about today that I want to make sure get in there and accounted for.
So consider this very preliminary, but you know why I'm trying to zero in on this is that if we actually end up having $30,000 lying around in contingency, I can't remember last year if we had much left in contingency and what we did with it but that's also potentially found money.
So last year at the end of the year we transferred the majority of our remaining money into the permanent funds. So we could essentially roll it over and not have it hit unexpended fund balance. But
I think we probably could safely do the transfer to tree work and I know you've talked about that and the Board of Selectmen has talked about that so whether you do it now or you choose to wait a month or two, the advantage of doing it now is we do a little better with the tree service because right now most towns in the state are waiting on the next fiscal year. Most people have blown through their tree budget so right now they have time and availability. So there's some advantage to having the money now but it's not a you know, it carries some risk.
I mean, personally, given the amount of play we have there, I'm comfortable with it. I don't think we're gonna suddenly find that there's $30,000 in expenditure we didn't see coming.
Well, we just broke a public works truck that was, you know, 50 something thousand dollars. Oh, thanks Eric. There's
an awful lot of things that could break, that could come up with a big bill. Yeah, okay. Just don't break anything else. That's my intention.
I'm glad to hear that. So it sounds like Erica what you're proposing is that we would need to make that motion to. To transfer some funds to the tree work. Fund.
So you at the meeting about the last regularly scheduled meeting about a month ago wanted a we're considering a motion to do that. Yeah. And honestly, I didn't have my act together to give you exact line items, you know, where it's coming from and where it's going to. So you have that information now if you choose to do it, you can make that motion now or you can wait.
That's kind of your fault you were proposing moving it from the computer services fund 01/9735 to the tree work fund correct correct I thought we were taking it from COVID funds.
Not that. Not that, okay. No, because we've pretty much accounted for all the COVID funds dealing with the Veterans Monument. So we're taking it from the software implementation? Correct. Okay. Correct. So, well,
So in essence, we have less money. Yeah. What about the fact that we talked about
that the school paid for the software we were going to reimburse for 50%. We're still not doing that? I'm just wondering. Because we Oh, we've been liquidated.
34,000 is what they pay. And they were expecting to get back half of that.
That hasn't really actually been part of the conversation. That might have been the original plan. I haven't heard that. It was just kind of they wanted us to recognize that the school had borne the burden of the entire software cost.
See I wasn't here or part of the conversation so I'm just, you know, researching and talking to people and, you know, I don't know. I'm just trying to get a handle on what it should be or shouldn't be. That's all.
Think with that educational cost sharing stuff coming in higher and sticking it in the budget, we have to leave it the way it is. Don't have any extra money.
It's a different budget year but what are you are you suggesting that we don't touch the contingency fund Diane? Because that's really kind of what we're talking about in a way. I mean, I'm saying I don't think we have money to reimburse the school 50%
for the software. They were, I thought they took that money out of excess money from COVID savings. I can't remember, correct me if I'm wrong on that. Thought that was coming out of last budget year we were talking about spending money ahead of time. And that was one of the items.
We we can keep that out right now. Sherry's right that that was the conversation. But Diane, yeah, you're you're you're you're okay with that. I don't want to interrupt you guys, but go ahead with the conversation and
Well, I was gonna ask you kind of what your take was on it anyway.
Right. No. She was right to ask because she's right. In our notes, it said that we were waiting for that as well as $4,000 reimbursement for computers and stuff
for the cost of the merger. She's absolutely right. That was in the notes. So the reason why it didn't get done was because there was no account number in the budget. And so we made sure that we set up an account number now for that $30,000 and made sure it was identified because that was the missing link. Sorry, that's my dog. You had made the decision and the motion and everything to transfer that money, 30,000, into the budget and to be earmarked for the software system or whatever you want to call it. But it didn't get done by the previous employee because there was no account number that she could identify to bring it into the budget that way. So now we have set up an account number and brought it in to where it should be in the budget.
Sherry Now the town still owes you the $4,000 that we've agreed to. Yeah. Maureen had told me the other day she never sent it,
I but was assuming that the town had paid that I doubt. A while ago. So so so let's put that let's put that part on hold because, you know, Eric, give me and I'll be in Friday. Give me and Sherry a chance to look through because if we can do without it and and just gift that 34 to the town, we will. So Sherry's right. That's what it says in there that that money's supposed to come to us. But we haven't quite gotten to where you are, Eric, with this list yet. Sherry and I are still working on overages and underages. Underages, if that's even a word, underages. But if we don't need that, give us a week so that we don't do it. But but if we don't need that to survive between now and the end, then we will gift that to the town as part of something already paid and not ask for that back.
So give us a chance to look at that. But Sherry is absolutely right that Laura had left that written in there that that's what we were waiting for. And
the other thing at some point we're gonna have to come to terms with is that the town has budgeted for the whole cost of paying the auditor. And you know for whatever reason two years in a row the school has reimbursed us half the cost of the audit but I don't have any documentation as to why you've done that. Mean you have done that.
It was the budget to be nice. But but I don't think we planned to do that, Eric. But I do know that we planned to also pay all of Sherry's salary in our budget even though that was supposed to be split for next year. So, you know, we haven't asked for that yet either. I I have that in our budget as well. So her whole salary. So, you know, between Sherry's half of the salary, the 30,000 for or half of the 30,000 for the software and the 4,000 for setting up the two offices, we have covered that. And I will sit with Sherry and really try to make sure that we don't have to ask for that back. Is that fair? So as long as Sherry can sit there with the books and make it happen for us, and we're not in the negative, then then we won't ask for that back.
So so to summarize, I think that the the potential proposal in front of us is to move the 30,000 from the software fund to the tree work fund, which is something we contemplated in a previous meeting, agreed that it probably was a good thing. But it this has a couple of risks associated with it. One is that we basically are tapping the contingency fund, leaving only about 32,000 in there remaining. And the other thing is that if the school district was to come upon some kind of shortage they might need some help covering that shortage. If I mischaracterized any of that. Nope. Okay. So then, in order to take any action we would need to have a a motion to make that transfer of the money from the computer fund to the tree work fund. Anybody in the board have any more comments or would anybody like to make a motion to that effect? I'll tell you what, I'm just normally sent the chairs chairs, activity to make the motion. I'm going go ahead and do it. So I think it's, it's probably appropriate. And I think it's relatively safe to slate in the game, but I'm going to motion that we transfer $25,000 or we have $30,000 Your motion Elliot took $25,000 in there, but we'll say $30,000 from account 135, which is computer services to the Treework Fund, which is 1 hundred-zero-three thousand 749 for this year's fiscal budget. And I'll second that motion. Okay, Rob seconds. Any further discussion on that? Okay, I'll call for a vote for the board of finance members. All in favor say aye.
Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, motion passes. Thank you, board. Okay, we will continue our agenda items there. Eric, do you have more? No, not until we get down to
Let's see. I mean, we're basically a town budget summary. We took some action on the town budget now. I don't know that we want to We need to review the revenue or tire spending over expenditure report. Any over expenditures we need to discuss?
No, I mean, I gave you a list of all the things that we're gonna be over expended. You know, there's quite a few. No specific authorization that you're saying. Right, but honestly, I don't have my act together to say exactly where I want to take each one of these from. And we're in the last quarter so when we do it we'll just make all the transfers basically in one big final motion. Okay. That's how I would assume we'll deal with it. Right. Any other questions? I can send you this if you would like it.
That spreadsheet you mean? Yeah. Yeah, I'll leave that to the other board members I'm okay without it. Sherry, go ahead. You have the floor. I just want to point out on the revenue summary
is where my focus is going to be right now to make sure that all the revenue has been properly recorded. So that report is going to look a lot better. With that Better how? Being said, well, when I reconcile the bank statements, The bank statements only reconciled through December. And I talked to Laura today, so we've got to reconcile January, February, March. And reconciling those, you do discover what is recorded and what isn't recorded in revenue. I believe there are some things that haven't been recorded yet properly.
So the numbers actually may change. Yes, yes. Not just the other good already. And
actually what the auditor is requesting me to take a look at and to do update the revenues. So we'll have that all sewed up hopefully by the next time you see this report. Okay,
good. Thank you. I just want to point out too just for people who don't necessarily have it in front of them that all of the budget detail, the revenue summary we're talking about, etc. It's all in the Board of Finance packet is on the town's website. You know, we're referring to it as we go through here. Okay. Any other questions for Eric and Sherry? Okay, we don't have any agenda item seven would be budget transfers, supplemental appropriations, over expenditure reports, we have none.
None that I'm prepared to give you. In truth, I should have them for you but I do not and I will readily admit that.
Okay let's hope you're over over and under analysis was fairly accurate there then. Me too.
Okay any further questions for Eric and Sherry on the on the budget budget transfers. Okay hearing none let's move on to item eight which is old business eight days of software transition, what do we have to report there.
We were on a call the other day with the program manager from Edmonds gov tech, And he wanted to get a feel for our chart of accounts, our reports that we would be required to produce from the software. We sent them reports for both sides, town and Board of Ed. And he has emailed me as of today with a list of other items he would like us to send them. So I'll be working on that list as well. I think overall this transition will go smoothly once we get started. The actual software is on our server. There's a little bit of tweaking that they need to do so that we can have it go live as far as the training base is concerned, so that we can start the training on both sides. We're pretty anxious to get going on that. They will do the conversion of our data on both sides, town and board. And they also are requiring a list from us as far as the account numbers. So what account numbers we don't want to transfer over,
which I have a report that I will be sharing with them, all the account numbers that won't go over because they have zero balances and we haven't used them and I don't know The other piece on the town side will be a reclassification of certain account numbers, getting rid of the very detailed account numbers like brooms or stuff like that. And this is to go along with the uniform chart of accounts on the municipal side and create accounts that they recognize and everyone else recognizes to be supplies like, you know, six, ten and those kind of things. Okay? So we're going to do some reclassifying that and changing that. I will also build a crosswalk when I'm finished doing that with them so that it's an easy transition going from point A to point B. And the reporting should be actually a lot easier to follow, in my opinion. It's just it'll be so much better. And so that's what we're trying to work with the programmer with. I have to have a conversation about the database, you know, and how that's all going to work with them and just verify what their direction is going to be in that respect
so that we get exactly what we should be getting from them. So if there's any questions, I'd be willing to answer them. But I think that's it for now. We will be on many calls over this next several months until we get to the point of the training and then go live on July 1 is our goal. That's my goal. And we're certainly going to work towards that. Good.
Sounds like some good progress. I know having been through this a couple of different times in different points in my career, I know it's a big, big job.
And Eric was on the call and Valerie was on the call. We were all there having the conversation with Eric Leonard, his name is, and he's going to be the program director of this. Right.
And one of the things I think we still need to work out is at least the first selectman and the board of selectman was very adamant that we end up with a single database that encompassed both. And the problem we're running into is the town and the school both have different tax ID numbers. And they're not really set up to handle a single database with multiple tax ID numbers. And so that's going to have to, we're going to have to figure out a solution. Either we're going to have to compromise, and go with multiple databases or they're going to have to figure out how to make it work. I don't know what the Board of Finance's feelings are
on that. What's the practical result when you say multiple databases Does that mean you just cannot combine the numbers and for reporting purposes?
Right. Basically two separate accounts and the Right. The IRS recognizes the town with one ID number and the school with another ID number. That's how we do the reporting for the w twos. Yeah, and for 1099.
Yeah, for the practical purposes though for what the selectmen are looking for you really just can't have combined report now, you're going to have to produce separate reports and consolidate them in Excel or something like that. Well, what has been customary in my
experience is that you have two databases, one for the town and one for the school. Neither one of you can look at each other's data. But what you've done is different this time around, is that you've hired a finance director who has access and is linked to both. So my point is, if you want to bring transparency, what it's going to have to be is that if you request a report of the Board of Education, it's up to the Board of Education to approve that report moving forward. I can work with both town and board to make that happen. So it's a smoother transition and it's a smoother working relationship between the two. So that's my hope. I will have the conversation with the selectmen and I will explain the situation and how the software company is proposing, like any other software company that you would go with, would propose exactly the same thing. And when I first came here and I heard one database, I knew that wasn't going to be possible.
Just by virtue of the fact that you have two different ID numbers, tax ID numbers, okay? And I realized that was, I think that was the conversation early on and I was not privy to that, but it's just something that we have to deal with and come to terms with, and I need to have that conversation with them on this. Yep.
Okay. So that's where I'm at with that. Okay. I will get back to you on where we're at on that particular subject and databases when I finish having that conversation.
All right, very good. Thank you. You're welcome. Any more questions for Sherry on the software transition? Okay, let's move on to the audit status. I think Rob already asked this question in our budget discussion. Anything to add or?
We were supposed to have an audit April 30, because that was the extension was to April 30. He was going to take this last extension and then have something to us by then.
Have not received Is there a fight coming after that?
No, I haven't received anything either way. It's got to be anticipate that he will be sending us draft soon. Would hope I certainly can touch base with him tomorrow and send him an email. Ask him. Where is he at? How's he doing? Does he need anything from us? Because he hasn't reached out and said that he did. And then find out from there where we stand.
Okay. Any questions for Sherry or Eric on the audit? Okay, let's the item eight. It see is the motion to transfer the funds from the treasurer's office software to tree work fund. I kind of preempted that with the motion earlier. So I think we move on to a d community senior centers community slash senior center building committee. We have an update there.
Not for me. Diane, you look like you're updates the way we kind of left it. We approve the funds to go out to for the site survey conceptual drawings. It's kind of in Eric's court to get the bids and do that. I know we're all wrapped up with budget and getting all that stuff done. So I don't think we're going to see anything until this budget is put to bed and voted on it fast.
You might there I might get the I'd like to get the RFP out for the survey portion, you know, sooner rather than later because I don't want to hold that up and that's not very expensive but you know I do have a few other things on my plate.
Okay. All right. Thanks, Diane. Thanks, Eric. Nothing more on that. 8E is the Veterans Monument Park updates. Any update on that?
So we were able to bring in a well driller, take the existing well, the upper well at the monument, change out the pump in it to a higher capacity pump and eventually pump through the major sediment issue that that well had. It just basically required pumping the heck out of it for a long time. So we're out a total of about $2,900 to rehabilitate that well, but it's a lot cheaper than drilling a new well. And there's already an existing vault. So now that we know that what we the next thing we need to do is we need to figure out you know how we trench down to the field but that's progressing and we weren't planning on doing that till August. So we've got you know or July or August so we're in good shape right now I think in terms of that project. Jerry is raising a lot of money for through the Buy a BIC program. So I think there's he's probably raised 16 or $17,000, you know, at this point, which is great.
And we're, you know, we're trucking along. That's it.
Okay thanks Eric. Last diamond under old business is 8F the building and land use department online permitting system.
So we've discussed this a few times before. So what we're doing is we are switching the building department over to an online permitting system and we're doing it by just straight passing the cost off to the people pulling permits by adding in a essentially an additional permit fee for each permit and the software company will bill us monthly by the number of permits that the system has has dealt with so it's essentially cost neutral to the town. Hopefully we've gone back and forth on contract revisions a few times I should have I'm hoping next week I'll have a contract to sign and we should be up and running the goal is to be up and running with that about June 1 and transition to online software for that.
Okay, anybody have any questions for Eric on that? Sounds like good progress. Okay, let's move on. Our next agenda item is new business. The first item under new business is 9A, CIP recommendation for the building alarm system. There's a lot of text here, Eric, you want to, I don't know, are you in a position to kind of give us a summary
of this? Yeah, so basically we looked at a total of four vendors of which we got good proposals out of three vendors and the board of selectmen asked send it to CIP and asked CIP to rank the vendors based on you know their preferences. CIP reviewed all the proposals and felt that FPT or fire protection team you know was the best overall contractor for it. Know maybe a little bit more expensive upfront but better long term costs. The other real advantages to that is that the elementary school already uses FTP for their inspection services. So eventually, whether we eventually go to a combined bid that includes the testing for the school system because that's the one thing that's not included in any of our quotes is the testing portion. This will accomplish what the town needs to do, which is to transition away from TN, the Tollen Dispatch Center, which will no longer be willing to do monitoring and change over to cellular monitoring. You know, the total upfront costs is going to be somewhere you know north of $20,000 and it depends on whether we include the Andover Museum or not. There's pros and cons the CIP was not convinced that the service quote for that building was reasonable so they approved it with for everything other than that and then asked me to go back to the vendor and if it gets through you guys and you actually agree to spend the money it will go to the board of selectmen
and if they approve it then it will get done.
So for the museum you're talking about the burglar alarm or fire alarm or both you're talking about? Both,
both. You know right now there's a really half baked homeowner special system that has like a single fire detector and a motion sensor I guess but it doesn't really there's never really any call to the authorities like I've gotten random text messages from the company saying that the burglar alarm has gone off in the building but
you know right so no I understand but you're talking about omitting from their quote which part of that for the museum. Whole
thing, Mark, I think that what it was is it was a combined bid for that building and Adrian in particular really thought that was a really incongruous part of their quote, Like that their quote for everything else made a lot of sense and the quote for that building was did It's like $13 for the museum. He wanted to push back and have Eric go back to them and say, come on, work with us here and see what I they
mean so the big question for the board of finance is do you want to approve spending because that will you know currently we have somewhere north of $40,000 left in the building fund and this is going to tap you know somewhere between 20 and 25,000 of that to accomplish that. And what I would suggest since nobody's budgeting for annual testing or the monitoring that probably what's going to have to happen is we're going to spend out of the $25,000 the town will pay for all the upgrades and we'll pay for the monitoring essentially the monitoring for a year for all the buildings And then next year when we budget, because then we'll have actual numbers for each, we'll put it back on the library to pay for theirs and the school to pay for their monitoring. But for now, I'm saying that we just absorb it right out of that fund and be done with it. Okay. The monitoring is not really capital but
no it's not and you know and you could try to push the monitoring out on something else. And you know it's going to work out differently for each organization. Like for the town hall, our costs are actually gonna decrease for monitoring because right now we're paying for two dedicated phone lines. And by the time we get rid of the $70 a month for two dedicated phone lines and go to one cell receiver, you know, we're going to be paying less. We're going to be able to realize some savings but like several, some of our facilities just use kind of like a pass through phone line so their alarm shares the same phone line like for instance as the library so the library is not going to get rid of a phone line so their costs are going to go up.
So it's we really got to parse it out building by building. But we're not unfortunately we had to come up with a budget long before we had any kind of reasonable numbers for this to Okay. Assign
So you have a suggested motion here, which is to approve signing contracts with the fire protection team for up to $30,000 for the services. I think I thought I said 25,000. That's not what your packet says. Oops.
No, I think they got flip flops mark remember earlier, there was one that was 25 that needed to be 30 and. Unless I sent you a wrong.
I'm looking at page 33 of the packet. The motion to approve as a number of 30,000.
Okay, I sent, I sent to all the board members a.
Oh, yeah, I see you have 25,000 and the more detailed motion and in the email that you had sent. Okay, I see. Yeah. Yeah. All right, you got a little discrepancy there. Yeah, the confusion. I just want to say for the record that in this kind of situation where you're running comparative costs, especially with it is different. Upfront versus you know ongoing running costs, it would have been really nice to have that in a matrix where you have each, each vendor and then what's the upfront costs what's the annual costs, rather than having to tease it out of the text. And I don't know that that's you or the tip but just going forward it's just much easier to, you know, trying to sit here and figure it out on the fly.
Yeah, Fair point. Anybody from the board have questions on this.
Hi, I'm just concerned. So if if the if the old town hall isn't included, are we happy with what's there. No
God no I mean what's there doesn't work. It sounds like what Eric saying is that they're going to go back and rebid that piece or push push back on that on that part of the quote. Okay, now you're not implying that you're not going to have do something there that's in line with what you're doing for the rest of the town. I mean, I would certainly to me,
given what's stored in the Andover Historical Society at the museum, I would feel more comfortable certainly if it had a working fire alarm system. But it doesn't now. But you know honestly a lot of our buildings don't really have functional systems right now so you know
the insurance guy in me is going la la la la la I can't hear you so but no the intention yes is to go and try to juke that bit a bit, try to get them to come back counter counter offer it a little bit and then hopefully we do get that included right. Yep, that's my goal. Yep.
Other questions. Okay, would anybody care to make a motion on this, we do have a proposed motion language and then email from Eric there is a not quite as detailed motion and then in the meeting packet with a $30,000 figure, but
Sorry Eric, how much do we need now? Is it 25? I think we can get away with 25,000. Okay.
I mean we could definitely get away with 30,000 but I think it's doable at 25,000.
Including the museum. Possibly once you get a revised quote.
Yeah. So I guess, so as written, I moved, let me just look at this for a second. Do we want to have anything in this motion that says pending further discussion with FTP about the museum? Or do we leave that out?
My thinking is we put some money in the waters I mean the first slackman is going to take a crack at this Eric's gonna you know I think I trust Eric to negotiate a reasonable contract I think we need to get this done. Okay. But that that's my opinion.
Yeah, I hear you, and I'm okay with that. So, I'll move to authorize the town administrator with currents the board select man to expend up to $25,000 from line item one hundred-three thousand seven hundred-fifty two building maintenance fund to hire fire protection team for fire alarm, cellular monitoring, installation, repair monitoring and annual inspection services at the Andover Town Hall, AES library fire department and public works.
And you want to add the old town hall Andover Museum, if can be handled under that budget number.
Oh, okay so that's what I was kind of asking before. I'm sure if it can be done in that number yes absolutely we should add that correct. So maybe and or the old town hall slash Andover Museum. Correct. Yeah, it sounds. Anybody want to second that motion. I'll second
Linda seconds. Thank you. Any further discussion. Okay hearing none let's vote all those in favor say Aye. Aye. Any opposed. We have any abstentions Okay, motion passes. Thank you. Okay, let's move on to our next agenda item that is item 9B request for funding for the planning and zoning commission to hire a consultant to develop an affordable housing plan in accordance with the new state law. So Eric, you've got a fairly complex, or maybe not you with Planning and Zoning Commission, or maybe this, I guess it's out of Andover. So you have a contract for preparation of the affordable housing plan.
Right, so let me talk you through this and I'll tell you, you as a board may or may not be comfortable pushing this forward right now without it going to RFP. Your guidelines will say this should go to RFP first. But the Planning and Zoning Commission is essentially asking whether you would be willing to sole source it for kind of two reasons. One, the town has a really good history with Bill Warner. In fact, Bill Warner and I wrote a grant that produced most of the data that's going to go into the affordable housing plan about six years ago that we funded and then paid Bill to do the actual work for. The reason why I think it's worth going with Bill on this one is because he wrote our last plan of development, our last two plans of development and he did an affordable housing study on the town. So he's probably in the best position to put together now our state mandated plan. And so on that basis, planning and zoning commission asked me whether I would ask you whether you would consider sole sourcing it or whether you want this to go to F, you know, an RFP.
Just the point of terminology sole source basically means you're only to have one vendor do it which is going to be the effective thing here but you're basically asking us to skip the bid process. Correct. Yeah. So, looking at the budget for this, the total budget is $6,900 And you're saying that in your opinion, and probably in the, I guess, in the opinion of the Planning and Zoning Commission that they're, They don't expect it going out to bid result in a lower cost for this because the efficiencies that bill Warner would have having been familiar with the town and the data previously.
I mean, I don't think you're gonna get a good plan cheaper than that. I'm sure we can find somebody that will make us meet the minimum statutory guideline for having a plan for them not reducing town funding for less than that. But in terms of doing an actual affordable housing plan that makes sense for the town of Andover, I think he's gonna, that's gonna be a fairly competitive number. But without going to RFP, I can't tell you 100% sure that that's the case, just that that's my gut feeling.
To be clear our guideline is five ks right? That we bid out if it's more than 5?
No for services in this category you have no minimum for your guideline So if we were paying them a buck, technically we would still be supposed to be sending this out to RFP. And I think at some point we, the Board of Finance, once we're through with this year's budget, really ought to take a look at your policies and start thinking about whether they make sense to you and what changes you would like. Because I think that a lot of those policies were put in, you know, under a very different regime that had some serious concerns about you know what a select board an administration was spending money on. That's correct.
Right and maybe you have more confidence in me or maybe you have less confidence in me but anyway it's really your choice whether you want to because policy it's not a charter issue and it's not an ordinance so it's your policy and you can decide to override it if you so choose but I don't want to arbitrarily override it you know that's that decision is solely yours. Right. Kind of looking for a waiver here.
If we're going to waive this, shouldn't we have this request in writing from the planning zoning and their logic set out of why they're recommending this to us? I know Eric gave us a summary, but we still don't have anything written or a written request or something. Not that I don't want to be bureaucratic, but.
I think you make a very good point, Diane. It would be helpful for the purposes of record as much as anything else is to provide some kind of summary that says, look, we've looked at it. There's a reason why I mean, I think Eric summarized it well, and I'm not averse to doing this but I do think Diane has a good point about future requests especially to deviate from policy. If we have some type of summary, know, doesn't have to be as extensive as what we had for the alarm proposals for example which is you know well done and detailed but in some kind of summary about it would help.
Yeah and let me tell you that I personally don't have any heartburn with sending it out to RFP. This was a request made to me and I said I would pass it on and maybe you guys would agree to it maybe you wouldn't you know so I certainly haven't promised them that this is going to fly that's for sure.
I don't know if our chart allows us to go and just decide to go out of RFP. So we need to be careful here.
Yeah, there's some charter language around that right. Well, was just looking at that. Not long ago. Think yeah, we need some more guidance here.
Okay. I mean, if you want, we'll just send it to RFP. That's fine too.
The problem is I don't even know if we can do this. I have to look at the charter first before I make a decision on it.
About going to RFP. Skipping it. Yeah, skipping skipping the RFP. Yeah, I think, I actually think David might be right here. Jason we should know that. So that may be more of a charter based question. So you reviewed that recently I was a little surprised by some of that but. Alright. Well, I think that, you know, my personal recommendations like until we have that clarification, you know, we probably would not authorize it I wouldn't be comfortable with that. Okay, which means Eric can just go to RFP and you can, you know, we can make a decision based on that by the time the next meeting rolls around, or we can wait for clarification and it looks like it might be possible then we could make that decision but by the time we get to that point and may, it may well be faster to submit an RP wrapped up in a couple of weeks. Okay, and of course going to RP does not necessarily mean you have to choose the lowest bidder you can choose the better that's in the best interest of the town, which still allows you if somebody came in a few $100 less but something was compliant but we didn't feel that it was in the town's best interest to have data that might be questionable and analysis that's not as thorough, then we obviously choose the proposal that's in the best interest of the town.
Not a problem.
Any further discussion on this. All right, did anybody want to make a motion. I'll just note that if we want to hold off on this or let Eric do the normal RFP process, then we would probably not make any emotion We don't want to make a negative motion. We only want to make a positive motion to do something different. I think we just table it for now.
Okay, and Eric, of course, go out therapy and we can also follow-up on that afterwards.
Okay, I'll touch base with the chairman of the commission.
Okay. All right, I believe that takes us to roll back up to see it. New business item nine C motion to appoint Sherry Holmes town treasurer in accordance with the town charter.
Eric, do want to comment on this. Yeah, so, so I'm a little screwed up on this, I had it in my notes that the Board of Finance had to officially appoint the town treasurer. It's actually technically the Board of Selectmen has So what I would say is motion to recommend that the Board of Selectmen avoid Sherri Holmes as town treasurer to conform with Charter Section 702I.
Administrative positions Yeah, being said, of Selectmen shall appoint the treasurer shall have all the powers and duties imposed by Connecticut general statutes blah, blah, blah. Okay, competitive blah, blah, blah.
All right. Okay. Well, I'm is they technically haven't so you can ignore this too and just leave it in there but or you can recommend that they do that.
I'll leave that to the board, you know, there's nothing requiring our recommendation or approval on this in the charter. So we really it's a moot point, other than we put our seal of imprimatur on there approving this. So it's really, really up to the board. I don't think it's a bad thing to necessarily have done that but we don't need to. Okay. Anyone on the board want to make a motion one way or the other. I usually wouldn't do the other unless you want to not recommend.
Sure, I'll move that we recommend that we appoint Sherry
treasurer. Okay, so Rob moves that we recommended the Board of Selectmen appoint Sherry Treasurer for the requirements of the Charter. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Okay, Louise seconds. Any further discussion? Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? All right. Looks like you're in our good graces so far, Sherry. Thank you. Motion passes.
I know. Thank you very much. I appreciate this. I'm counting on you for the grant money, Sherry. That's working on it right now. I'm serious I'm working on it right now.
Okay. This takes us item 90 which is a school and state funding project. This is really relevant to the educational cost sharing we just talked about right Eric.
Yeah, I'm actually not clear what that is. I don't think I put it in the on the agenda. I'm not sure what that's relative to, to be perfectly honest with you.
Well, it's kind of a summary, I think of the proposed budget from the appropriations committee and it talks about the educational cost sharing formula changes. I think it's just a review of that. Right, you know it's the stuff that you just you displayed up there is earlier about the town by town differential from the governor's budget. And we have pretty much already gone through this. And if anybody's curious about that, I think somebody asked about the things may have been Louise about how it was calculated. I think there is at least an overview in there about the weighting factors, factors how they changed. That's in the packet. Right. Somebody have any more questions on that I think we talked through it, and certainly the information is in there in the in the packet. Okay, hearing no more questions or discussion. That takes us actually to agenda item number 10, which is the approval of meeting minutes. We have four different meeting minutes that are up for approval. 10A is Wednesday, 03/24/2021 regular meeting minutes. Anybody like to motion to approve those? Anyone? Separate motions? Yeah, probably. We could probably do them all the other the other three are Wednesday, March 31, special budget workshop minutes, the Wednesday, 04/07/2021, special meeting budget workshop minutes, and Wednesday, 04/21/2021 town budget public hearing minutes.
I'll make a motion. To approve all those minutes? To approve all four of them. Okay. Anybody want to second that? I'll second it.
Okay, Dave seconds. Thank you. Any further discussion? Okay, hearing none, let's go ahead and vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Any abstentions. Okay, hearing none motion passes somewhere between one and two in the morning and that last budget hearing so I'm not sure that fully there I contemplated abstaining but I think I'm probably okay. All right agenda item number 11 is the liaison reports. Do we have any reports from our liaison members?
Well we already kind of talked about what happened in CIP. Yeah, I don't have a lot to add. I mostly just listened to others give their expertise and it was really mostly about that alarm project. Yeah, I don't really have much to add there. That's good. Okay.
Diane, you kind of talked a little bit about the community senior center already. Anything to add there? Are we good? I'm just saying no. Okay. All right. I think that is the summary of our some of our liaison opportunities there. Okay, let's move on to agenda item number 12, which is board open discussions. Do any of the board members have anything they'd like to bring between the board? We haven't talked about already. Okay, hearing nothing, I guess we move on to item 13, which is our public speak opportunity. Amanda, do want to go ahead and pull the participants and see who would like to add any comments?
Sure. Okay, we have a couple of people on here. Joanne Hebert.
Okay. September 1. I just have one Ultimately, I appreciated all the discussion on that grant and whether or not to add it. And I believe you made the right decision. I just wanted to bring forth an idea that I didn't hear just in case you guys have to, you know, budget as
presented by all of you that could think about that grant. And if, you know, once once Sherry and Eric do their
Oh, we're losing you here. Joanne, we're having a little hard time hearing you. We're we're it's really breaking up.
Let me try that. Any better? Much better. Oh yay. I found the connection. I'll be quick really. Again I was just saying I appreciated all the discussion on that. Let's can try. We're losing you again, Joanne. Sorry. It's not working. No comment. I'll send it in. Thank you. Thanks Joanne. Good idea. Okay next up we have Kathy Plassey and Mike Plassey.
I just want to say thank you very very much to the Board of Finance. I think they did a great job. I know you did the best you could. And I thank you very much for your dedication. Well, you, Kathy.
Thank you. Val Bruno. I am all set. Thank you. All right, thank you. And I believe we're all set.
Okay, great. All right, next agenda item would be adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion.
Okay, Diane motions to adjourn the meeting. Do I have a second? I'll second. Rob seconds. Thank you. Any discussion? Bueller? No. Okay, hearing none, let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor of adjourning, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Sounds like none, motion passes. I want to thank everybody. Work's not done, but we move the ball forward a little bit more. So thank you everybody stay well and we'll see you next Thursday. Reminder that meeting is in person. Yes. Right. So I don't think there's any provision for remote participation Is that correct, Eric. That is correct. Wow.
Yeah, so 7PM. Are we in the, are we in the gym or we in the town community. Yeah, gym. The gym at the AES.
Okay. Yeah. Will people be able to view it without participating? Like a follow-up? Yeah, follow it. No? Don't know the answer to that one. We're not planning on recording it at this point. Okay.
Are you planning Eric on doing it live where you would need the ViewSonic for people to view it live on Zoom?
We're not because there's no practical way for them to vote anyway so it doesn't really matter.
I just don't know if we needed to set it up. That's all. Yeah. No.
If someone would want to view it later, will there be like there'll be any
notes, any minutes? Unless the CVC is there to record it, which I'm not sure about the plan there. Mean, it's really We
could record. We have the recorders. We could certainly record the thing and upload it. It's certainly within our power. The question is what purpose are we serving since
know. I mean it's really a documenting what happened I guess is that the town clerk's office is doing the minutes.
So the minute the minutes will be there that's really the way that traditionally the results of meetings have been recorded and legally posted so. Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody.