Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Special Meeting Budget Workshop
April 7, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
To the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands. Nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Okay, thank you everybody. As you know we have a pretty simple agenda tonight. We have public speak, we have our budget discussion and public speak and adjournment. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to move through this fairly quickly but it's going to take what it's going to take. So let's, let's see what, where we go. Fair amount of attendees here and a lot of you have already attended previous meetings, but of course, the public speak is open to everybody We'd like you to just try to keep it to three minutes or less if possible if necessary we'll come back to you. Don't have it's not a huge huge crowd so I'm sure we'll be able to manage it if you go over. That's kind of how we played it along. Amanda, do you want to go ahead and go around and see who, wants to add any public, discussion, public comment? Yes. Okay. First up we have Scott Persson. You're muted Scott.
Okay yeah yeah hi everyone. We had we had I had a couple meetings with Eric and the tree service that does all of our tree work this this week, and the trees are getting substantially worse by the minute. We've had a lot of trees coming down and the service is going to be interrupted a lot if we have more problems with this. We a quote this week of just one short section of road that has a huge amount of dead wood on it, but it was equal to the amount of, or close to the amount that we reduced in the budget this year already for our tree work. So you know, I'm gonna recommend at the next meeting that we bring the budget up another $50,000 from what it was, or we'll never get ahead of this. There's so many ash trees, so many oak trees that are dying, know the ash trees, they may have died last year or two years ago, but now you know they're falling down.
The bigger oak trees, know I see 10 inch limbs coming off them right now, that's gonna be nothing but trouble. So I just wanted to let you know
about that Mark. Okay, thank you Scott. I'll also make a note that Jeff Murray has sent an email to the Board of Finance members earlier. I don't know if you all had a chance to see that but he also expressed concern just from bicycling around town having seen it, you know, a more immediate sense than when you're driving and felt that probably for the Board of Selectmen to remove that $25,000 from the tree removal fund in their original recommendation. That lines up with what you're saying. Thanks. Okay.
All right. Up next we have Mike Palazzi and then Kathy Palazzi.
Just unmute yourself. Yeah. We're all we have not I have nothing. Mike, do you have anything? Yeah, we're all set for now. Thank you. Jerry Cremay. I'm all set. Thank you for asking.
Thank you, Valerie Bruno. Thanks. Thanks. Next up Shannon louden.
Well, I'm not going to be all set so, but I'll keep it very short. I just greatly appreciate all the time that the Board of Finance is putting into considering the budget. You know, I'm here to support the Board of Education budget. I know that there was probably some offense taken at our response to not providing scenarios for what happens if you cut our budget request. And I just wanted to respond quickly that to say, quite frankly, the reason that that was said is we can't have any budget cuts to what we've requested. $219,000 is what we need. And it is needs, it is not wants, it is not padded. It is not fluff. Valerie has done an extraordinary job in reviewing Sally doyens prior budgets in going through our budget painstakingly. The Board of Education did our job. We listened to our expert in Valerie, and prior to Sherry joining us in Laura, and we need $219,000 I don't know what that does for the town's budget, and I don't know what it does for other considerations, but I'm here as an advocate for the Board of Education, and I didn't want you to take offense at why we said we're not going to provide you with our scenarios of what happens if you cut our budget.
The other thing I want to say is twofold. Number one, if you have any questions about the Board of Education budget, please contact Valerie, me, Jerry. I see Chris Bernard on here. Now Sherry Holmes can probably talk with you about it. But Valerie has been wonderful in answering. I know she's already talked to Ker Dowling. I know she talked to Adrian Mandeville. So please, if you have any questions or concerns about our budget, talk to us. We can explain very fully, and I'm not going to take the time obviously to do so again here tonight, about why we are asking what we are asking for, and why the Board of Education approved the budget that we did. And finally, I just want to say, as far as all that has been discussed, as far as costs for especially, I know that pre K has come under a considerable amount of discussion. But with regard to our budget, I'll just tell you, I listen to my expert, and my expert is Valerie. So if Valerie says that based upon all of her tremendous educational and pedagogical knowledge, that this is how she believes we should allocate the budget, then that's how we're going to approve to do it. And I believe that what's happened and what we're experiencing, and I really do want the boards to try to get along. I've said that at the last three Board of Education meetings. What really has happened here is I think that there is a distrust that has occurred based upon prior budgets that you may have thought were padded, that all of a sudden we come up with money and you don't know how
we had that money to do what we did. If there's any question about prior budgets, current budgets, future budgets, ask us. And we should also be forthcoming, and I've talked with Valerie about doing this, that if at the end of the next budget year we have budget money left over, we will tell you why we had it left over. We want to be transparent, and we want to provide you that information, and we're asking you to have trust that we came up with a budget that was fully fleshed out and that meets our needs and the needs of our students, which is our priority. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Shannon. Shannon.
Next we have Chris Bernard.
Good evening, everyone. I'm just here in support of the AES budget and Valerie, and, I kind of second everything that Shannon said about working closely together. We did do our due diligence in going through the budget, I agree Valerie has done a phenomenal job. I didn't see any of the previous budget work for the most part, but she has my vote in full confidence. Thanks, Chris.
Thanks, Chris. Diane Greiner. I'm all set here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Joanne Hebert.
Thanks Amanda. I just wanted to say I second that there's a lot of work that needs to be done on the tree. Thank you for bringing that up Scott. I took a lot of work this past weekend with the family and there are so many dangerous things happening that I'm afraid a tree is going to fall on a car. Thank you for putting money back in the budget there no matter what the rate ends up being. I kind of said my speech last week where I thought we're going to talk about the education budget. I'll keep it brief. Clearly, we all want the best for the kids. There's no doubt there. What we're trying to do is make it reasonable for everyone in town so that some other things can happen, the community center. Everyone's fine with a huge tax increase every year. You're just going to keep families with young children away from town. You're going to be forced to go to school in a few years. That's my point. It's the big picture. I work in a school, I've been last night for our school that's coming back from hybrid.
I'm really
disappointed that we couldn't do a little bit, but hopefully the Board of Finance has taken everything into consideration and we'll see what happens. I was really looking forward to this hoping that there was going to be a plan but it doesn't look like it. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Carol. All set. Thanks, Amanda.
Thanks, Carol. Leanne Hutchinson? Leanne, if that is your phone number 798-3815 just press 6.
There you are. Hi can you hear me? Yes. Okay yes thank you. Yes I wanted to mention that I was somewhat dismayed at your last meeting to have the snow removal overtime amount cut and I was somewhat reassured by hearing that it can still come from the contingency fund or somewhere so that if we have harsher winter we can act accordingly for every storm event because the town does have a very good reputation for taking care of its roads. I once had someone tell me that if they didn't know where the town line was as soon as they come into Andover on their way to work, they can tell because the roads are are so well taken care of, when there's snow and ice. So I hope that there's not going to be any hesitation next year to spend as much money as is needed. On the same note, because different departments etcetera agencies have been asked to cut three or 5% or whatever the case has been. I think that that needs to be across the board. Other people upcoming should be asked to make cuts that are commensurate with that. Thank you.
Man does that look like it looks like that's it. All right. Me, thank you everybody appreciate the input. Excuse me clear the throat a little bit. So I'd like to just preface our discussion with a couple of comments about the process. This meeting is a special budget meeting for the Board of Finance to review the current state of the budget. Talk about specific line items as needed, and come up with a recommended budget. And probably most of you are aware of this but what happens next is once we have decided on a recommended budget coming from the Board of Finance, it then goes to the public hearing. Okay, and that's going to be held May, I'm sorry April 21.
So, two weeks from today. That does is that's truly the opportunity again the last best opportunity for the Board of Finance to hear about any final concerns that any of the residents have over the budget that we plan to recommend. And then at the conclusion of that we will have a final recommended budget. That budget will then be passed on to the Board of Selectment for the purposes of the town budget meeting, is scheduled for May 6. Okay, at the budget meeting in May 6, then the entire town gets to weigh in on this budget. All right, and there's a lot that can happen. Okay, this isn't in the purview of the Board of Finance to set the budget, not this year anyway, hopefully that doesn't occur again, was the case last year. It really is in the purview of the town to do that, so just a couple of comments and I'm certain that my Board of Finance members are also aware of this, but per the Charter
in the board of. I'm sorry in the budget town budget meeting, we can change the town's residents, the electors of the town at the meeting can move to change the line items specifically, but we cannot increase the budget overall. That is one of the hard stops of that meeting. That limits, I think, or I think we as a board need to take that into consideration As we put together a recommended budget, the town electors at the budget meeting can opt to lower the budget, they cannot opt to increase it. So, just point of comment that, you know, it's, we, you know, we might say it's up to the town to pass it and ultimately it is. Then they'll, you know, we will vote on the, on the, on the budget at that town budget meeting, if it passes that it goes to referendum. So there's a lot of steps to happen here. There's also a lot of opportunity for the Board of Finance to make changes, so what we decide here tonight isn't necessarily in
stone. There's a there's a lot that can happen, we may well change our minds we've got some input from the board of select men about concerns over the action that they took to reduce the tree removal fund tonight that was just one example. So just just want to point out kind of the process how this goes and make sure everybody understands that there's this is not a final done deal after tonight's budget. Do hope it's my hope is as the chair and as a board of finance Member that we will have pretty close to our final recommended budget, at least to present to the town at the budget hearing. Tonight, we did a lot of work on the town budget last week. And I think we got pretty close to where we want to be. So I think this week is primarily just talking, going to be mostly talking about the AES budget line item and where we want to go with that and make any recommendations for changes, if any. That's where I would see this going.
That being said, Eric did I leave anything out about the process or any of the other budget. Factors that should be added or any of my fellow board members add anything to that?
No, the things that I had on my list of things that were still kind of open ended questions is the board had discussed what their recommendation was going to be regarding the resident state trooper, but I don't believe you guys came to any kind of final conclusion on that. As you noted, several board of selectmen members, which I concur with, have indicated that we probably should increase the tree removal budget. As many of you remember, two years ago or three years ago, we requested $50,000 and got 10. And then on an emergency basis, we added another 10 because there were a bunch of things we had to take down for safety. The year after we asked for $100,000 which was last year, and we got $50,000 and then later we had to add $25,000 to it because we ran over budget and we still had a couple emergency ones to deal with. And this year we currently have the budget set for I initially asked for $75,000
and the Board of Selectmen cut that to $50,000 So that's where we are because I know several people have had questions about that. The other two things I just wanted to mention was and it's more in terms of presentation, you know, in prior years we have shown in the budget, we have shown the money that we are returning from unexpended fund balance and then we showed the money that was actually going into the, what do you call it, into the capital funds. And this year we, as it looks right now, we didn't do that. So I think the board should consider whether just for presentation you know, they should put in the amount of the use of fund balance so you can see the comparison with last year and then keep the actual money going into in from the fund balance to the capital funds.
And that's all I got unless you have questions for me. Eric, I have a quick question. Do we have any further update on the audit in terms of what we actually have in fund balance?
So we don't have a lot more than we had before. We are hoping by the end of this month, we'll have a completed audit. Yep.
So the last time we talked the guesstimate was that we might have a $100,000 above our 10% target. Is that correct?
No, we you know we can safely take about $250,000 as close as I understand it, we can take $250,000 in the unexpended fund balance and apply it towards that which is what's in the budget that Mark had sent around the Okay last fair enough. So $2.50 very good. Yeah you're not going to put another 100,000 on top of what you already put in there. No. Okay.
Eric I agree with you about the reconfiguring where those line items are, you know, when I originally just, I was just throwing them in there just to see the, see the net effect and After I sent it around I saw okay right, I think I even said that in my email that the bottom I saw where the fund balance sheets was I think we need to continue that it makes more sense for it makes clear what's going on, and it also allows a better apples to apples comparison so I'll definitely make that change before we submit it. Other questions for Eric. For the board. Kurt if you're talking you're muted.
Okay. Okay. I'm hearing none, I guess, I would start by saying, is there any you know, the for sake of expediency perhaps do any of the Board of Finance members want to bring into discussion, either the tree work amount that's been the tree removal fund that's been brought up tonight. Any or any other items on the town budget that we we agreed on or, you know, seem to have consensus on last week that you may have rethought or want to know more about or anything like that.
We any closer to that whole position, moving the building permit to the assistant position? Or is that still kind of up in the air? I just we didn't take that money, into the budget, that 42,000.
We did account for that savings. Yeah, we did. Okay. As it stands right now, understanding that we may need to change that if it looks like it may not happen. Yeah. All right. But we left that we left that open, but that isn't our current target budget.
I mean, at this point, the guidance I still have from the board of selectmen is that that cut will go into effect. So until the board of selectmen changes their position on that, we are combining that position. We're just doing it not quite with the concurrence of the union, but we have the authority to do it. It's not like they can tell us not to do it if we choose to do that, we have the right to do that. So I think you can keep that cut in there safely. Which
if we put the tree money back in will be neutral.
Yeah my gut take and you guys can disagree with me or agree with me, I don't know, my gut take is that we should come back to the tree budget issue after we talk about the AES budget, kind of put that at the end. I don't know. You could do either way. That's just my gut.
That's I don't have a problem with that. I have another line item that I'd like to discuss too, but I don't think it's going to be a big deal. So we can knock
that out. Do you want to do we need to make some motions just to amend question we call it. I'm sorry I'm having a brain block here
to amend the agenda to include those two items. We can amend it, we can't amend the agenda but the agenda is pretty wide open Rob it's it's because it's a special meeting we do not have the ability to adjust amend the agenda. But it basically the, the, you know, the agenda is budget workshop so we can anything related to the budget we can cover here. Okay,
so my take would be like let's talk about the book, the budget and then let's get to trees and whatever it is you want to bring up. Subsequent
does that make sense that's fine with me I didn't really have a problem that with that it may
it may make more sense to do it that way one question when does a school audit happen we're going through the town audit now Valerie it's a combined audit.
It's a combined audit. All come out at once. Okay. So I'm going to ask the big question. Is there any surplus in that that's showing up in that school budget? Cause we're kind of taking the town surplus and applying it. I just want to make sure if there's any, I want to know if there's any other funds
that are out there. From this year's budget, as far as I know, the Board of Finance or the Board of Education basically completely expended their budget. In terms of past years, there is Board of Eds are allowed to sock away a certain percentage of their budget on a yearly basis into a fund with the permission of the Board of Finance. And there is still money in a surplus budget. But honestly, can't tell you what exactly the rules are for spending it. Know the rules have been loosened up in the past few years, but I don't know what they are off the top of my head. Eric, I'm a little confused by that because last year,
I believe that this district basically prepaid expenses for this year understanding the pandemic was coming on and there really wasn't a surplus from last year. Or there was a request to put their surplus into the school. School Improvement Fund which is what the law, you know, allows in the Board of Finance declined to take action to do so so that should have rolled back to the town, and then previous years, any any approval should have rolled back you know it would be a. I don't know what happened previous to that it wasn't on the board finance so all of that action should have already taken place. No,
there should still be a board of ed fund. You give me about thirty seconds, I could probably find that balance, but you could probably
I bet either Sherry or Val would know that. I'm sure. I was I was just gonna ask ask why why don't we hear from the superintendent and the I'm pretty sure and
and Sherry might have looked at it already and she might be able to back me up. I'm pretty sure that the status of that fund, which in most towns is called a 2% non lapsing. We know RAM as a regional usually has that 1% in theirs. I'm pretty sure if Eric looks through, he'll see that, yes, there's a small amount in there, but it has not had any money added to it in a number of years. And, yes, there are stipulations on the use of that account. And once the money is put in there, it's supposed to be for capital improvement projects or for things like a last minute outplacement of a special education student. And so we do have to get permission to put money in. But then you're right. How we use it once it's in there, long as we're in the purview of everything that's legally allowed to be used, we can take that out when we need to. But I think Mark's right as well that they're you know, they did ask, I think, two years ago
to put money in it and they were denied. Last year there wasn't anything left for them to put in there because as Robert said, a lot of the things were prepaid due to the pandemic. So there's been a number of years since money's been put in there.
So I think the upshot is that that money is not available to roll back into the account funds.
Correct. Right. And there's not much in there. Eric could find the exact amount. There isn't much in there. And we have no other funds. We do not have a capital improvement fund. We do not have any other contingency funds. So that I can tell you, I know that there are on a town side on a municipal side, need be, there's a bunch of funds, but we do not have those funds on the Board of Ed side.
Okay. So the current balance of the school improvement fund is $165,257.62 as of today or as of last week. So that's what's actually in the fund.
Sherry, did you want to add anything or do you want to know I just agree with whatever Valerie said and in looking at the balance sheet and the funds, different funds that we have. That is correct. It's not a huge balance, but it is around what Eric had said. And the key here is what we can use it for. Limited by loss. It's really limited to capital or sort of an emergency sped expense then we're really it's a kind of a narrow focus and we can't just throw it at you know school supplies for next year or something. Yeah and that's something that's important to understand which is the same issue we're running into with the federal grant money that the town is getting this year and the next year. What can we actually use it for? So we need to nail that down. If that money was actually available to plug a hole, I'd love to use it, but if it's not, then we need to understand that and put it aside and move on.
I just want to make sure coming out of this audit we don't come up with that there is some kind of surplus you know if we did totally spend everything down if there's nothing in there. Mean we deliberately spent
every cent they could last year in preparation. I remember detailed that pretty closely. This is a thing I recall very specifically. They had some money left over in the 2019 budget and spent as much as they could prep for COVID. And now it's gone. I mean, that's fair. I remember that happening.
So originally we had a letter from Laura Valley. I believe you think the amount might have been about $4,043,000 dollars requesting to put that in the non lapsing into an into the not you know non lapsing school improvement fund. When we went back to discuss it, it was not an issue because they'd already spent the money. So I think that that's kind of a done deal. You know, and again, the audit could turn up there's something I think it's probably unlikely that'll be the case but it'll be a rounding error. It'll be close. Change.
Do have one question on a line item in the school budget, and it has to do with library and media services. I'm looking at the library salary line. And it's going up 36%. And I guess I need to understand why.
You have the number in front of you do you have the what it's going from into
it was the approved budget was 50,000 and it's proposed is 68 to 61.
Part of that is contractual for that particular person. The other part of that is the switch from the that librarian is a point six, and she will go from a point six to point eight. And she will go to a point eight out of that will wind up hopefully granted back in because she will be responsible for the distance learning. So to to pay the hours of the person that is going to be contractually obligated to complete our reports should a child need to be on remote learning, it will be her. And so But we're increasing the hours into that.
Yes. We are increasing a couple of hours, but the rest of that is in fact the contractual obligation.
The increase is 36. So what was the contractual? I thought it was like you're talking about again Diane I'm sorry salary library media library media service library salary.
So, okay, that one file that Valerie had applied it. I don't know what file you're looking at, it just says I'm looking at the little detail detail. I
see a 27% increase in the teacher cost line. It's a group 101 or whatever. She's looking very specifically at one employee. So I'm really looking at one function one department.
Got it. Okay. Why that is increasing that much. Like I said, once if that grant is approved, and I know Sherry's already gone through that grant with me on e grants. If that grant is approved, 10,000 of that 17 change will come back through through the grant. Because I know that we're gonna be required to have a person to complete the paperwork and the documentation on what we're doing for any students that are on remote or distance learning. So that would be the library media specialist.
But going from point six to point eight and plus the contractual makes up that 36% increase?
Well, you're looking at a percentage, and I'm saying it's 18,000. I I don't have a percentage in front of me. I apologize. But Yeah. It's 18,000. Yeah. Just under 18,000. And like I said, I know 10 of it anyways would come through the grant. Mhmm. I've already put in for the grant because I I knew we we we didn't have
the revenue side of this balance this this finance stuff. So hopefully, with the new system, I will see revenue coming in. Yeah. Hopefully. Honestly, Diane honestly, Diane, that that grant has not officially been approved yet.
And so I wouldn't be able to put it in there anyways until it's officially approved. But it's in the budget for right now. And when the grant's approved, that's where 10,000 will come from. No more questions for me.
So my apologies, Mark and all. I had a kind of a long day at work today and I meant to look at all the documents before this meeting. Really I only had a chance to look at them for about five minutes before the meeting started. Where are we overall? If the budget stands as it currently exists, putting aside any changes we make to the tree budget. What are we looking at from a rate increase at this point? Do we lose Mark? Mark, you're muted.
Or he's not. I'm here sorry. Okay. Yeah sorry dog was barking earlier so. Yeah I get it. You know, based on where we were after last meeting. With the changes to the town budget, the use of the fund balance, we ended up with a mill increase of. 3.6%.
Okay I had 3.4 in my head 3.6 okay so I was close very good so we're at 3.6 yeah
that's before any consideration for adding money back into the tree budget that's what the $2.19 for the school with no cut. How do we as a board feel about taking that number to the town? I guess that's at the end of the day that's what we have to figure out Is that a number? I didn't do it. I
think that should work. I think that was Leanne's phone is my guess. I didn't do it.
But no, is 3.6 a number that we think is palatable and reasonable and responsible given all that we're dealing with. And do we feel the balance is good between the town and the school and everything else? You know, we obviously have a capital budget that we slashed last year badly in order to get our numbers down last year because we were very uncomfortable with bringing to the town a significant tax increase when we were doing it kind of ourselves. We did that 1.75% increase last year and we cut a lot of the capital budget last year. As a result, ten year plan of infrastructure took a hit. This year I think is more on pace for what we wanted to do originally, but we're facing this Ash Borer thing, others have mentioned it. I don't bike around town, I do walk. I also see stuff in my backyard. There's trees downstairs everywhere, everywhere, trees, limbs, you name it. So I get it. And the question is, what's our balance? Do we feel comfortable with balance as it is? And do we feel comfortable that we can take a three and a half roughly percent increase to the town and get it passed? And let's go from there.
It won't be three and a half if you put the tree stuff back in. Correct, it'll be higher.
It's gonna be closer to four. Right. Correct. I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest a couple of things though. What we did originally was we suggested we would use the fund balance in an amount of $225,000 So Eric's got information from the auditors that they feel pretty confident that we could go to $2.50. So that would be another way to offset the cut we've made to the tree removal fund. So we could go back to, you know, adding, adding that 50,000 back in. So, so that might be one way to do it. Yeah, we need to continue to increase use of the fund balance. All right. Well
Scott's concern adding 50 back in because we want we took 25 out right. And they so. I've out so that's a
back in Jeff's email was you know a 75 swing. Jeff's email was not only shouldn't we have cut 25 we should add 50 others I don't think proposed quite such a dramatic change. I like the idea of that netting out Mark, we take a little extra from phone balance we throw that tree budget. I know I bang on about this, I know I do this every meeting, I remain really, really concerned about our reliance on fund balance. This is not going to last another year. We keep doing this and next year we truly will be out of fund balance. Yeah, I think this is it. That's the end of the show. This is the end of the world and next year when we can't do this anymore. Well, it's a problem. And we've been staring this down now for a few years. It was great when we were able to plug those gaps with fund balance, but we can't keep doing it. So I'm very worried about the next budget. Like I think we can get through this budget. I think we can get this budget down to where we needed to get it to and get it passed
and then we're to go to the taxpayers next year and we're gonna say yep we eat all that stuff and now we need another significant tax increase because well we're out of savings and
that worries me a great deal. Yeah, I don't know what the options are other than, you know, cutting further so I know you're right. There's there are there are other options. There's a couple of ways that I think I'm gonna I'd like to say just a couple of my perspective on what we're doing here, so I think Rob brought up a good point. I agree absolutely that we have to be very cautious about using fund balances we become reliant on it and frankly that's done that's done after this year. It just is not available to us so let's all face that fact right now and that's something that we should tell the voters when we go before them for for the hearing and for the budget meeting, make that very clear that well is dry. The other thing I'd like to say, and this is really just. How to look at the various expenditures and I appreciate what Rob is said, and he brought it up before it's like what do we think is palatable to the voters.
That's a reasonable way to approach this, and I think it ultimately that's what we have to we have to go in with. But at the same time, it doesn't mean we don't look at every budget line item. So we've looked a lot of the towns and I don't think that you know I think we still just need to have a healthy discussion about whether we and the Board of Finance agree with the current AES budget proposal from the Board of Ed. You know, it's not just well can we pass it, it's, is it reasonable. So, you know, that's, it's those are tough discussions, there's a tough, tough, tough comp you know things to have. Mean we've all said it, we, we have to we care deeply about the education of this town, I think it is a draw. To Andover so it's it's important but, but that is kind of a separate thing that do we think this will pass. I also want to say, though, that, as I mentioned earlier, and I said this specifically you know for a reason that we, we should I think tread lightly. In presenting a budget that is is cut a lot deeper than, than many residents would like in certain areas including the school budget because when we go to budget meeting that can't be added back in. That's right. Yep, can be removed.
So that the electors of the town have that option to change this budget. This is not our final budget.
Well, they can always cut and I think they can move if it's neutral but they cannot increase. Can increase, right.
What has happened in past years and it has happened a couple of times in the budget meetings I've gone to is when people were really unhappy with a budget cut that the Board of Finance made. What they simply do is they vote down the budget meeting and refuse to send it to referendum until such time as the Board of Finance presents something that they agree with. And that's happened a couple of times not very often but a couple of times, you know, since I've on the budget meeting. Yeah, it's a good point Eric yeah that's not
the be all end all it, it definitely can. You know that very much can happen. I
want to just echo what Mark said, even though it seems across purposes to me but I do agree with it. I don't want to make it out that I'm hyper focused on passability. You're right. The budget has to be the right thing. It has to be responsible. And we have to take a stand as to what we think is the right answer. And if we are judged to be wrong by the town, so be it. I agree with that. I just wanna keep us within kind of reasonable bounds, whatever those are and that's subjective. Absolutely.
We all know 6% wasn't gonna apply, right? So yeah,
have some We're at three and a half now. So that's a different conversation. Totally agreed. And what is the balance between our needs? Town of interest
our education budget is I was saying three and a half, but I guess we're not at three and a half because we're gonna do something with the trees, right? So how do get that money? That's
up in the air. 3.6 pending is where we're at now. Which is not insignificant we did what 1.75 last year. Yeah, 3.86% increase if we add back in the 25,000.
Thank you, And they're looking for 50 for the trees right? Well some people are it's okay. That
was I think Jeff's personal take. I don't think that's just positive. He wrote around town and he had a strong feeling about it. But I think if you said to Eric, you can have an extra 25 from what we're budgeting, he could find some good things to do with that month. It's 4.12% if we were to add another 50,000 back in from where we are now. So we're somewhere between 3 and a half and 4, I guess is the way to think of it. Have a problem being at four. And
then it's also the question of the balance. Right. Right. So I personally, I've heard Valerie's presentation. I have heard from friends on the board of Ed who helped with that budget. I understand their desire, what they're trying to do. I get it. I have two kids in that school and I understand what they're trying to do and why they're trying to do it. And I personally have always been okay with the idea of investing money to head off a future problem, which is part of what they're trying to do on the kindergarten level next year. You know, in trying to cut off a potential for a lot of special needs issues. So in isolation, I find the AS budget totally understandable. And this is why I keep coming back to passability not because I disagree with the AS budget, but I keep looking at what it does to our bottom line and it's brutal. So I don't know, I honestly I start to throw up my hands. So does anybody here have a strong feeling
about the AAS budget and what they're doing and what should be done instead because I don't I'm willing to listen to expertise and I've listened to it and I understand what they're saying it makes sense but it does really unfortunate things to the bottom line of our budget. What do we do?
I do sense, but I would like to hear what everybody else thinks. I have a problem with the AES budget being over 5% increase. That's a significant increase from whatever I've been able to research for other town budgets and what they're doing for elementary schools and everything. I know it's not apples and apples comparison, but it seems with no increase in enrollment, it seems a little on the high side. So, you know, that's what I'm struggling with because we really kind of, we have like torn this town budget to the bare bones. And I am so afraid that next year there won't be any room to absorb anything if we have any changes on the town side. I mean, you know, the fund balances are going to go away. We're just totally, I don't want lean out the town so much this year that next year is gonna be a huge tax increase. I just can't see that that is the way to go. So that's my 2¢, but I'd love to hear what everybody else thinks. Go ahead, Linda. Hi, I
just wanna say that I've had people approach me and despite whether the reasoning behind it is good or not, the education budget, People are just not happy with it. Percentage of increase. I don't know what to do about it. But if the budget doesn't pass. I think it's going to be because of the elementary school budget and the percentage they go up. And that's what people are going to see and that's why it's going to get voted down. That's it.
Okay. Can I ask you a quick question to Valerie? Sure, go ahead. Valerie,
with respect to some of the increases I understand it has to do with that incoming kindergarten class and the desire for to kind of get ahead of things with those kids because a certain number of them either have special needs identified already or they are coming in from no preschool as far as we understand it and so we're concerned with the possibility of them going forward, you know, needing more and more resources. Is it reasonable for us as a board to say if we do this next year will be different?
I think Valerie said that right Valerie. Yeah, I did. So Robert actually it's and thank you for asking me that question because there's been a lot of focus on that kindergarten size and I think there are people in the public that are under the assumption that I've hired a teacher to have three kindergarten classes. That is not true. We had 14 classes this year and last year, and we will have 14 classes again next year. It is not an increase with a teacher. So that is not a true assumption that I've added staff. And I'm not saying you made that assumption, Robert, but I have not added staff. Rather than opting to get rid of a staff member, I opted to keep them on one one more year. And I think next year, think we're gonna have another retirement. So that's why I said next year, hopefully, you know, it'll even itself out. But sorry. You can hear my dog drinking. But that, Robert, is why I opted not to go for an increase of class size and eliminate a staff member. What I did instead was I pair of professional position and eliminated that one because that moved that teacher over. So we did still lose a staff position. It just wasn't a teaching position.
And the reason being was absolutely was to head off the potential needs. I can tell you, by the way, as of today, we actually have 35 students that will be enrolled. And granted, it's still, what, ten, eleven, and 11 or 12, but we have 35 kids now, and that could keep rising for that kindergarten group, that cohort. So, yeah, I didn't I definitely did not add any staff members. I'm not making the cut this year. I'm prolonging it one more year because of what's going on. And that's why, Mark, when you said Val already said it will get better, I'm not opposed if we have a retirement next year and the same number of kids. I'm not opposed to us looking at that. This just was not the year for that to happen. So I would like the general public and you guys, if you had any misunderstanding that we are not increasing staff because of that kindergarten situation.
We are simply saying that we need to take our existing resources and reallocate them to address that need. And I know that Diane had just said, I know it's not public speak, but I just wanted to address this one thing. Diane had just said she has a tough time because it's the 5.6 and it's not under five. I can tell you because I meet with superintendents on a daily basis in the different groups that I'm in. And before all of the relief funding was announced, there were a lot of districts that would have been at that 4.9 to 6.5. I know there's another district our size meeting tomorrow night, and theirs is at 6.3. But here's why. Because once the relief funding was put in place in a lot of the districts, Diane, they were able to then reduce a lot of expenditures using that money. Like I know Robert had said, is there a way we could use the $3.19 for the town? A lot of the board of eds now have relief coming in. And so what you'll see is four of us anyways that didn't get it, ours are between $4.09 and $6.03 for this year. And so, to answer Mark's question, it will get better next year. And I'm honestly hoping that this 2.19 winds up a two year amount for us and that next year is nothing. That's really what I'm hoping.
Anybody else on the board? We have specific questions for Valerie or comments?
Mark, I do. Valerie has explained to me numerous times about the budget and things like that. I still can't grasp the class size for kindergarten. Having my grandson going into kindergarten, three classes of 10, or now it's maybe more because we have new students, I just heard you coming in. Just this past weekend, checked with my ex wife who used to work at Andover School. She now works in a Cromwell school system. I asked her specifically what Cromwell does regarding their kindergarten class because her grandson's going into one here in Andover also. And basically what she informed me was that they have, now this is the Crownville, a much larger town, bigger school system, but they have eight kindergarten teachers. They have a total of 155 students and their average per class is 19 to 20 per class. That's in Cromwell, which is rated from what I gather rather high in the, you know, with their scores and things like that as an overall school. And number two, having my grandson just going through a second year of preschool, having certified teachers teaching either two or three, preschool classes. When from what I hear, a certified para can handle it or things like that based on a tuition basis plus grants
plus what they get from the regular budget. So I personally am still having a problem with that. You know, that's about it.
Kurt, that's not accurate in terms of the teachers not having to have a certification. In some preschool programs, that's true. In our type of preschool program with the accreditation, that's not true. So they do have to be a certified teacher. They are in the teachers contract union and they have to be a certified teacher. So that's not accurate. You're absolutely right that Cromwell and some other towns have larger classes. I know that Mr. Murray from the board of Selectmen did call Hebron. And he asked one question. He asked about the same thing about kindergarten class size. So I'm not surprised that you'd be told in most towns that the kindergarten class size was 15 or 18. But the caveat, the follow-up question would be what other services are provided to those children? Because I did speak with the superintendent after mister Murray made that call. He did let me know that mister Murray called to ask about that. And what was not spoken about because the question wasn't asked was what other adults certified or non work with the kids. And what Hebron has done for next year to work with some of the kids is hire with some of their money, behavioral interventionists. They've hired paraprofessionals
with certain training that could, if need be, provide FBAs as well for to to figure out behavioral concerns for students. So they do have other staff in those towns that are able to work with the kids. If Andover Elementary School did have and it would be too much for us to cost wise. If we had those extra trained paraprofessionals, if we had those extra social workers, behavioral interventionists, a lot of the staff that people are hiring or have already in service, I would absolutely agree with you that 18 wouldn't be a problem if there were lots of specialists working with the kids. We're just too small to do that. It wouldn't be money well spent for us to hire those people for the number of kids that are there.
I was under the impression too though that in the Hebron schools that a lot of their things that are coming into kindergarten is they have a large enrollment increase in kindergarten. They had 48 new
They did have a 7% increase in kids and so Certainly they would have to hire other people.
Well, Diane, I have to tell you that it's it's actually kind of infuriating because when I'm on the phone with the superintendents that are very lucky enough to be getting quite a bit of funding, and we talk a lot about how they're gonna do that, they keep talking about the cliff. There are a lot of towns that are not hiring extra classroom teachers because when that money is gone in two years, they're stuck with teachers they can't pay. And so they're going with the auxiliary staff, the extra staff, hiring specialists, contracting with specialists. Because then in two years, when that beautiful money that they received from the American Rescue Relief is gone, they don't fall off a cliff and they're not stuck with 10 employees. So yes, Diane, I did speak with Doctor. Beard and they are hiring the teachers necessary to cover those classes. But they is just like other towns, they're hiring a lot of service people that would be able to come in and and absolutely service the needs of the kids, especially with the increase, the 7% increase. But that in two years when that money's gone, they won't find themselves in a difficult situation.
That money was designed really for towns to serve the underserved students, right? It's really targeted more for the demographics.
No. No. Actually, that's the the ironic part. The the new money, the American Rescue Relief money, there's two kinds of money. When we went through Corona and ESSER one and ESSER two Yeah. There's monies that they give to the town as well as to the board of ed. And usually, there are guidelines that say this is to supplement your budget. So the $20,000,000 that New Britain got, let's say, they would say, listen, you can't pay your budget off this year with the 20,000,000 we gave you for the town or for the board of ed. This is to supplement it. The caveat of this new American Rescue Relief money to towns as well as and I'm sorry, Eric, you didn't get a million dollars like the other towns did, but this money can be used to supplement or supplant. And it can be used for a variety of things like infrastructure. So what they are expecting, Diane, in the end, and there's going to be a lot of documentation, the districts and towns are going to have to provide for the millions that they got, their little piece of the 10,000,000,000 that Connecticut got. They're going to have to show how it does service long term needs. And so if a school district, let's say says, and I know that Joanna Hebert just mentioned the school district that she's employed in just went back from hybrid.
Let's say they said, when we were on hybrid as a town, we found out that Internet service in the whole town was just horrible. It had nothing to do with the school. It has to do with the whole community. The community could either spend their money to redo that infrastructure within the town itself or the board of ed because that would be something long term sustainable for the community. And so there are guidelines this time, but they are broader and they're not just meant for underprivileged kids. That's the goal of some of the other grants, but this newest one is able to supplant or supplement.
But the reason we don't have the funding on the school side has nothing to do with that American relief funds, because it was the qualification of the school, you didn't have money.
Don't want to cut things off. I do want to keep this focus on where we're trying to go because we're going to go through a lot of minutiae about how these grants are supposed to yours and they don't even apply to us this year. I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off Diane but you know I absolutely do not want to cut off discussion but I'm concerned that we're going to get into a lot of minutiae and. I think Diane has asked some pertinent questions you know about about you know we're not getting this funding right so we're not we know we're not so I think we need we need to stay stay focused on what we know. The school district is asking for whether we think it's reasonable, and you know if there's you know Diana some very pointed questions about specific line items so you know I it's not our purview to determine how it's spent, but I do think we absolutely have to ask those those things. My apologies for interrupting I just didn't I just think we need to focus on the things we can control here if we can.
I would like to hear from everybody on the board about what they think of the as budget though.
Louise and David you want to weigh in anything to offer or question here?
Yeah, actually, I've been thinking about the kindergarten class as well. And I know it's important to be proactive to identify that there might be some potential going on because of the pandemic as far as behavior issues. And I fully support that type of learning because I have children who actually deal on that type of thing for their careers. But in any other type of year, I think it's even more pertinent. But for this year, because we are looking to reduce, I feel that that could be a place where we could reduce. And if there was potential for issues for next year, I know the funding right now doesn't apply for it, but I'm hoping that things will come about where these they'll identify certain issues like this coming on board because of cuts. And maybe there'll be other grants that would be helpful. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I mean, do you have any sense about whether you're in favor of where we are now or not? Are we still No,
I'm still on the fence with that because I still feel that there might be a little more reduction that could be done. More so in the kindergartner class than everywhere else for that type of reasoning. David, do you have any input or questions?
Yeah, just the problem is the size of the education budget in relation to our total town budget is so huge that a percentage increase even 5% like is proposed is, it's just a significant portion of our budget so it's hard to hard to absorb that. I definitely have some concerns with it.
All right, you know I'd like to ask a question and Valerie can probably clarify but you know we've heard not just in this meeting but several meetings people talk about the size of the kindergarten classes. Isn't it also true the third grade classes that we've got two third grade classes with 10 people each? Yes, that is true. So you know
in my mind that raises as much or more questions as the kindergarten classes and I, I think that there's some very specific reasons that Valerie's opting to fund it at this or feels like this is an important side but in my mind I think that's as much if not more of a concern than the kindergarten class.
The third grade mark also starts with the state testing and the benchmark assessments, and we didn't have them last year. So those students didn't get any preparation for those tests that are coming up. Those third graders are expected to be able to read proficiently and fluently in the third grade. We have been lucky that we've been open since the beginning of the year and we could ward off some learning loss. But there is a concern for that too to have 20 or with one new one, twenty one new, I mean, twenty one third graders in one class when that's that other intercool year. You know, that's That was a difficult one as well.
I feel third grade is a little bit more important than kindergarteners because they're at they're at a a stage where there's a lot more development going on. And I know it starts early in kindergarten, but there's a little time to catch up. So, I'm feeling that third grade, maybe the classes should be smaller, keep it the way it is. But kindergarten I'm feeling that it's more that could be increased a bit.
I just want to say one thing before we go too far down this road and that is just to remind you that as a board of finance you can adjust the bottom line of the education budget but it really is the purview of the Board of Education to determine how they spend that. And I know you all have suggestions, you know, for what is cuttable and what isn't, but that's really Val's responsibility and the responsibility of BOE. You know, really all you can do is tell them what you're going to give them for funds.
Good point, Eric. I think I made that statement though, possibly not as clearly. Is absolutely the true it's it's in the Charter. However, I think it is the purview of the Board of Finance to understand where that is being generated. If you and we also have to understand where we are apples to apples to other towns as best we can we know there's not a direct comparison. You know there's also this is a $219,000 increase, and I went through line by line on this, and I just have to say. I categorized everything as either what I thought was instructional or what was operational and as much or more of that increase seem to be related to operational things And I don't know you know if I'm really categorizing the care properly probably I'm not in most some cases. A lot of it's obviously instructional you know related to salaries and school supplies and benefits and everything else. But, you know, I think it's incumbent upon us to understand if we're asking for a significant increase with the declining population over the last couple years we need to understand why.
And I think Valerie's done a pretty good job of explaining why and I do not think it's it's outside of our purview to ask about specific line items but Eric does make a good point that ultimately it's going to be the top number and whether we think it is reasonable. And we'll pass that on to the town and then they're going to make the decision whether they think it's reasonable So that's
what I was going to say too. Think it's the ultimate I think it's the town, as long as they're clearly identified as far as what each issue is and how much and where everyone's coming from, I think it's going to be up to them, up to us in the town to decide whether we feel that kindergarten class should be less or whatever at this point. So yeah,
I agree with that. Whether it's overall just in line with what we would expect with the people of that size and the needs that have been outlined by Right.
But they really also have to know they have to it's got to be really clear to them as to where all this is coming from because they're going to have the same questions as we are. Right. So I understand.
Anybody on the board have additional questions for Valerie or the. Any other input. Are you in the board like to make a motion about what we want to recommend a number to be we've got a couple of concerns people have expressed concern over the overall increase, you know, I share that concern but, you know, ultimately again it's going to be up to the, to the electors of the town to, to decide what goes to referendum or not. So that there is an opportunity for the for the participants in the town budget meeting to to make reductions. Does anybody want to make a motion that we let this budget stand where it is in our recommended budget.
Want to make a motion for a reduction. I'm just doing some numbers here trying to figure out what it should be. So I would like to make a motion to reduce this overall school budget to come in at a four and a half percent increase. For just that line item,
or that the AES budget cap it at a four and a half percent increase instead of five I think it's at 5.6 or so now. And a half percent.
Yeah, so that would be going to increase down to one hundred seventy five six zero eight. Check my math could be bad.
So you said, four and a half percent from the current, budget? From the $4,078,008
No, was looking at the last budget, which is the $3.09,
right? $3.92, 400. You multiply that by 1.045 and it comes to $4,078,008 Lisa that's what I have here. I just calculated increase up
four and a half percent so hold on 01/1975. Hold on.
Mark, I concur when I do the math per that it would be $4,078,008.
Does that makes it an increase of 175,000 over the previous year's budget around $75,608 Yeah, that's what I'm. That's what I would put.
So you're proposing a line item for the education EES budget at $4,078,000 just round it to that. Yep. So this just to give the numbers that doesn't mean an increase of $175,600 the compared to the last approved budget.
Delta between the ask is they were at $2.19 versus I'm sorry, what was the proposed new increase?
175,608. So the delta there is basically reducing the overall budget by $44,000 $44,000 Just so we're clear.
Yeah. So I'm going to restate that motion. Just Diane, check me on this. So Diane is moving that we make a line item budget recommendation for the AES education budget at $4,078,000 which is a reduction of 44,000 from the current requested budget from the Board of Education. Does anybody want to second that? Is that correct, Diane? Does that sound correct? Correct. Do we have a second? I'll second.
Okay, Kurt seconds the motion. Okay, let's have some discussion, folks. It's a little bit of a reduction it's going to make an impact I'm sure somewhere.
I would just like to point out that when we asked. For scenarios for what cuts would do, this was the purpose. We now are flying blind. We do not know really what a $44,000 cut will do. It's in the course the purview of the Board of Ed and our new superintendent to sort that out. But I will just say as a member of the Board of Finance, the reason I was frustrated and I talked to Shannon about this, she's well aware is that we ask these things so that when we make a cut recommendation, we understand the ramifications of it. What that would do if we ask you for a $44,000 cut. What would that harm? So we can balance the harm. When we talk to Eric about the town budget and he walked us through the various cuts that he had on the table, he could tell us the downside to each one of them. So if we do ask you Valerie for and the board event for this cut. I don't know if it's gonna pass or not. I'm not saying it. If we do, we really don't have a sense for what that would impact.
So what I'm going to say if it comes across as sounding confrontational, I don't mean it to. I mean it to sound sincere. I live by the beach. When you guys talk about 25,000, 50, or $75,000 for tree removal and reduction, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Honestly, I think to myself, how many trees can you cut down for $25,000? I don't know. So when you guys are talking about a reduction to the town budget of $25,000 for tree removal or in addition of $50,000 for tree removal, I don't know what that means. That's not my area of expertise. I have to listen and say they must know what they're talking about. I don't. That is not my area of expertise. So I think I'm not trying to be difficult when I say
for us to have a conversation about the impact, it's irrelevant. But there are a number of you that have said, I am the expert as the other people in the building are. And so we I'm not sure that people are equipped to understand what that harm would be. I hear a lot of people in disagreement about the kindergarten. I hear a lot of people in disagreement about the harm or the ramifications that would come to these children if the class size was increased. As an educator, I say this is what the harm is and someone says it's not harmful enough. You need to make sure that you reduce that to two classes. So I think that that is my difficulty, Robert. And it's not that I don't wanna answer the question. It's that I feel like when you say where would the $44,000 come from? I don't know right now. The board of it and myself would have to sit and look and find out where we're going to get this from. But it's not because I don't want to give you some kind of harmful scenario for the kids if this $44,000 was gone. It's I don't know how to express to you how you measure that harm.
If My that only rejoinder to that is that most of the people on this board, many of the people on this board are not experts in any particular field either, and we listen to our experts whoever they may be. When we ask Eric if we cut $50,000 of the capital budget for your tree removal or your road work, what will that do? And he tells us and we work on that. So it's really no different. I understand. I fully accept that I am not a teacher and that I don't know the latest greatest pedagogical research on you know how best to educate young children you know and again I have two kids in that school so I really hope you all know what you're doing and I know That said, what I'm what I'm trying to explain and I tried to explain this to Shannon a few nights ago was when we asked you
for the impact potential impact of cuts, we were asking you to prep for that exact issue and I understand you didn't want to give us a roadmap but on the flip side if we feel compelled to make the cut now we're flying blind, now we're just making up a number and we don't know what it does and that's bad. And one of the things that when this board functions well, when this board functions well with other boards, we have cooperation, we have that give and take and we understand what we're dealing with. We have had many times in this when I've been on this board where we have talked about a cut and said, that downside, no, that's that's oh, we can't do that. That's a bad idea.
And I get that. But but Robert, my point to you guys is if I thought that something else could have been cut, I would have cut it before I I gave you this number. The only thing that I can promise you is and and if that's your number that winds up your number, there's not a darn thing I can do about it. But I can tell you, it wouldn't affect safety. I would never do that to children. But I know there are a large number of people that would say, I would want you guys to cut staff and I won't do that either. We don't have enough staff to cut. So I wish I could give you an answer and tell you where it would come from, but it's going to take a little time for me to figure out where else it would come from. I mean, I'm a professional, and I care about all of your children, and they would not be put in harm's way. They would not have safety features taken away. That's just common sense. I don't know how else to answer that because I really will have to sit down with Sherry,
with the board and figure out where that 44 would come from. That is the best answer I could give you. I don't know where it would come from right now. I just don't. I hear you and that's why we asked in advance
for some air. It's fair enough that you're not going to know right off the bat, but I think Rob made a That's good why we asked. Yeah.
That's all I got to say. It kind of is where it is. Right. I think that that what we all should understand is that the cut can can come deeper from the townspeople. At look at every board and commission in this town this past year has taken a hit. We just went over. We went over it last week, went over the week before that and things like that. So this this was a we we can't we all understand that we cannot tell the board of education how they're gonna spend their money. Okay? That that's that's been a given. That's been been that way in this town forever.
So, I mean, I understand that. I mean, listen to Eric explain that. I mean, we all know that. But, there isn't a board of commission that hasn't taken a hit, this this past year. I mean, firehouse. You know? I always speak about the firehouse, but you we're just asked to take a 4.3% on a zero increased budget, you know, and and everybody agreed to my my explanation. We still have to talk about the resident trooper. You know, that's something else we have to talk about tonight. We have to talk about giving the town, you know, the the money to to cut some very dangerous trees down. And and and the bottom line is. Who's been sitting back waiting for the last forty plus years to get something going? And right now, all I have is some stakes and some yellow tape in the ground, and that's our seniors for our community center and the senior center. Okay. It's a glowing light to look over there and see those stakes in the ground. I'm telling you right now. So I think everybody needs to share in the, the the times we're in and and what we have to do with our budget. And and this is only this is only the beginning as far as I'm concerned. This is only the beginning of what we have to do to do something to make this town click. I'll stop there.
All right. Thanks, Kurt. Any more input from the board? Linda, were you?
No, I was just a little surprised tonight. I really considering the town, the position the towns in and the year we've gone through that I really expected tonight that the Board of Ed would have had something to offer. In terms of reduction.
Yeah, and there was nothing. I was really kind of astounded considering the position everybody's in.
Louise or David any any discussion any input me remembering folks we have emotion on the table.
I really don't have any further comment than what I said before. I'm concerned about the increase to the size of the budget.
And nothing more for me. I'm just waiting for the vote to go through when we do the voting on it. Okay.
All right. Anything else from Diane or Kurt? You're done, right? Rob?
And I'll just say that number was like my best guesstimate. Okay, because like Rob said, it's like hard to make, figure out what you should do absent of information. So All
right, very good. I'll just, I guess I'll just recap a little bit. So the motion be to set the recommended line item for the budget at $4,078,000 that's an increase over the prior year budget of $175,600 Although it's a decrease of 44,000 from what the Board of Education had requested, then of course they'd have an even higher number starting in. Just to put a little context on there, the impact on the overall budget is that that would take us to a 3.15% increase in the mill rate, the effective tax rate I'll just remind everybody that the effective tax rate is actually a little higher because the grand list went up. So that that is just make that very clear that this doesn't mean everyone's taxes are only going to go up 3.15%.
Because the grand listing that actually is an additional amount. But that is something we have to be aware of the grand list. We don't we don't really control the values, the values are where they are so. So just saying that if nobody has any other comments give you a last opportunity. Okay let's go ahead and put this for a vote with the motion to vote. All those in favor raise your hand say aye. Aye. Okay, I've got Kurt, Linda, Diane, David, and Louise. Yes.
Okay, All those opposed. Okay, I'm abstaining from this vote. This time, just due to proceed conflicts. Okay, the motion passes. All right, we will amend our current. Recommended budget to change the as line item to $4,078,000 Okay. Any other discussion on the AES budget. Okay, hearing none. All right, thank you everybody this is not easy and this is not the last word there's still plenty of opportunity to change this up or down. So I just want to make that clear. The hearing next week is or not next week but the week after is an important opportunity to do so. So I hope we'll have good participation and by the electors of the town and then subsequently by the electors at the town budget meeting. Okay, so we have a couple of other items I think we want to talk about we brought up the tree fund. We want to go ahead and somebody want to make a motion there we want to have a little more discussion. We had two suggested changes from from people outside the Board of Finance one was to reinstate the $25,000 that the Board of Selectmen originally took out of Eric's budget request. But we also had a suggestion that maybe we ought to increase that by even another 25,000. Anybody have any any comments on that?
Mark, I had a question. It's in Scott's on and I see Jeff Murray's on. What's the feelings of the rest of the Board of Selectmen, the other three members, regards to reinstating some funding for the tree removal?
Jeff or Scott, do you have any insight into what the other Jeff and Paula and Eric may feel?
We haven't discussed it together, but I know that Adrian is probably on board with it also. I haven't spoken with Paula about it but you know I wasn't insinuating I wanted to increase it $25,000 I wanted to increase it 50 from what originally was planned.
You mean 50 from what the Board of Selectmen. Yes, had to be recommended which was a so basically reinstating the 25,000 that Eric requested originally. His original request by the way was $100,000 the Board of Selectmen cut that to $75,000 I believe. Yep. And then, so you're actually requesting suggesting that we increase it to an increase. Exactly.
So Mark actually just as a point of clarification I originally asked for 75,000 this year because they reduced it down below that last year. Okay, I'm sorry before I asked for 100,000 and was given 50 originally.
For clarifying Eric I was looking at the wrong line on the spreadsheet. So yes, Eric originally credited was 75,000 which is a $25,000 yeah increase okay got it. Is there a board meeting next week before meeting on Wednesday.
That'd Yes, there is. Yes, but I asked to have this put on the agenda, so we could discuss it. Okay, no procedure wise should it go there first then come back to us or. We
can do either because we still have the opportunity to change. Right. It sounds like there's at least the. The sentiment on the board of selectmen to the that maybe that $25,000 cut was too aggressive. I mean we could we could kind of split the middle and reinstate that 25,000 and then and then maybe maybe Scott will will. You know, give the other board members to agree that that should be increased further. So that that's one way to do it. It's kind of what I would recommend actually that.
Yeah, that seems like a moderate position, I sort of have a problem with increasing it dramatically when we've just slashed as his budget. The whole idea here is to spread the pain and we just cut education in part because we're saying we can't do all these things at the same time. So I struggle with the idea of increasing that budget too much reinstating the cut. That's one thing increasing it beyond that.
I don't know, I think I have an issue with that. Yeah, I would agree with Rob on that one. My Mark, could I chime in for a minute? Yeah, go ahead, Jeff. I hate to kidnap your meeting, but
yeah, this, I mean, I really took a good look around and drove around and with everybody working from home and the last big storm we had with the power outages, that will probably be nothing to what's going to happen if we don't take care of this problem. The number of people working from home. And Valerie kind of brought up a go, she's not a tree expert, but it will actually impact the school too because if we start dealing with road closures and having to clean things up, I mean, either we're going to have to do it now or we're going to end up paying for it later. So it's just a matter of, do we want to pay for it now and keep everybody's power on and keep everybody happy? Or do we want to risk knocking out half the three quarters of the town, which is a definite possibility if we don't take care of it. So people need to understand that when we do the budget presentation. It's not something that we'd like to do. It's something that we have to do. If we don't do it, there's severe risk that people could lose their power for days, maybe even a week or so. So it just needs to be communicated that way that that's a possibility. And that's what I really want to make sure that we bring that across to the voters.
I think that thanks Jeff, I appreciate that it's it's not you're not hijacking this is the topic at hand so you and Scott and others have discussed this previously so it's good to get that input and you've obviously done the personal. Personal tour and observation, but I think I do think that it's what we need to do now is we asked Valerie for some concrete. Impact statement, and you know I think we asked Eric the same thing it's she said what is $25,000 really mean Eric I think you may have given us numbers before and what it costs to remove you know half a mile of. Know trees, on average, you know what's.
So last year, what we focused on primarily was the areas that we could have the biggest bang for the buck. And frankly, we left some of the areas where we know we had really massive trees. And even doing just the areas that we had the biggest bang for the buck, took out last year, we took out somewhere around five fifty trees, you know, but we did it because we went after the stuff we could get fast and the roads where we could just, know, like Townsend Road, we took 65 trees out of Townsend Road, something like that. We have a couple of areas that we were stuck with focusing on this year. One of them is Jurbody Road. We're actually maybe going to address that in the next two to three weeks. That's around $23,000 to do. That's going to be we're looking at 25, 26 large trees of which five are really massive. And we're going after that one because one of the trees came down last year and smashed somebody's playscape and shed there and the homeowners quite pissed at us.
And, you know, we know we have a significant safety issue there just because we have a bunch of really massive, really dead trees
really close to the road. This is on town responsible property. Is that what we're saying? Yeah, we're we're, we're responsible
for it. No question. And that repeats itself. I can tell you that this summer, last summer when we had the power outage, the street I work or I live on which is Wheeling, the power line was broken in five spots in about three quarters of a mile. That is one of those roads we were not able to address last year because of budgetary concerns. There's a bunch more like that. The big problem with ash is from the time ash dies to the time ash comes down is pretty short. It's a couple of years. Whereas like oak trees, you know, they kind of first shed the little branches,
then a year or so later they shed the big branches and then four or five years later they come down. So you have a little more time to deal with it. We're gonna have a lot of trees down in the roadway. Honestly, if you gave me $150,000 I could easily spend that addressing tree work. We had gotten ourselves really in the hole because we haven't spent money on it up to last year. We haven't significantly spent money on tree work in many years. We haven't addressed the canopy over the roads. We're not even touching that at that point. We're just going after dead stuff. And there's, I don't want to give you an exact number, but it's way over 500 dead trees we still have to address. Just in the bulk trees, it's probably closer to a thousand. And then realistically, we got to go back and we got to start knocking off some of the really expensive ones we ignored before, the really big dead white oak. We lost power last you know, so far since the big storm in August, you know, we've had road closures and power outage due to tree damage,
I think on eight separate occasions. However, this has been a really atypically windy year. So I'm not saying we would get that last year, but we're extremely vulnerable to a big storm. That's for sure right now.
We think we've had big storms this year but yeah.
Yeah we have. Bad wind storms. We've had some fairly significant wind storms. I mean not crazy but it's an issue. But the reality is, we have that same issue with bridges and culverts. We're really vulnerable right now to a big rain event because we know we've got a bunch of culverts that are compromised that we need to get to. I mean, there's just a kind of a massive amount of money that really needs to get spent on infrastructure. But I also recognize that people are only going to take so much in terms of a tax increase. And regardless of whether I would like it or whether I feel I need the money, it kind of is what it is. Mark, I got a comment and maybe a recommendation. Yeah. Go ahead, Kurt.
First off, if you look a year and a half to two years ago, there were two fatalities close by. I was involved in one of them. There was a fatality in Hebron of a woman where a tree came, came down and crushed her car and, and she passed away. The other one was on Route 6. There was a basically a PA, a physician's assistant coming home from work, with two young kids because there was two car seats in the back of his pickup truck. He's traveling down Route 6 coming from Wyndham Hospital going home to the Manchester area, and a tree fell down on Route 6 and crushed him in his cab. I was involved in that extrication the deceased patient. That's my comment. If the Board of Selectmen can see their way
we approve the extra money for these trees, I would recommend that the Board of Selectmen waive the bid process and give all the work to Distinctive Tree because Eric can attest of just how much work they do with the machines that they have. They work for the state DOT, they work for many other towns, and I'm sure they're going to get very busy this upcoming year with other the state and other towns. The sooner the better that we get them to come do the town of Andover, the better off we'll be. So I highly recommend that we put back the money because it's an issue. It's a major issue that we're going to have and just thank God that we haven't had a fatality yet. A tree coming down on child, a tree coming down on a town resident, or somebody just passing through like these people were. So it's a very important issue that we need to address.
Talking about a the 10 or 12 inch limb off of a big red oak tree, it's 50 or 60 feet long, probably weighs a thousand pounds. A lady died last year on '89 in Mansfield right through the window. So we have a lot of those trees in town, it's a huge safety issue right now. I went through the town two years ago and marked every tree that should have been cut, there was almost 600 I believe, I think that is probably quite, can't express to you how much, how big of a deal this is, this three thing.
Okay, all right. Is anybody on the board would like to make a motion to restore the funds and how much?
Can I go ahead and move that we restore the 25 ks that was cut by the board board of select? You have a second. I'll second then. Oh, go ahead, Louise.
Okay Louise seconds. I call that one a tie. We'll give it to Louise. Thank you, Diane. Okay, let's have some discussion. Eric, you were going to make a comment?
Yeah, so remember at the last budget you guys had further cut out of this budget $25,000 assuming that we were going to backfill from the current budget from the money allocated towards software for the finance software transition. So one of the issues we ran into, I had planned on having a motion prepared for you so you could actually, you know, a motion you could act on regarding that. Barbara never actually, it's in the budget, so it's a budgeted amount, but she never actually allocated or transferred the money into Phoenix. And we didn't actually, we had left what the line item number out would be. So we don't have the ability to make a motion to that effect right now in terms of that.
I suspect we will be able to but we can't do it right now. Eric it's irrelevant because I don't think we it's not in our agenda we can't act on it anyway in a special meeting so we'd have to wait till the next actual Board of Finance meeting. Yep. Okay, but Eric's there does make a good point I mean that is one thing we did we reduce the amount in there in the line in the budget for next year, anticipating that we would allocate that software, the excess software money to it into the fund this year that the board would take that action. But it still stands that we reduce the board of selectmen recommendation of $50,000 to $25,000 with that understanding. So the question is still I guess before the Board of Finance that we would reinstate that funding in a net net sense to the $50,000
anticipated by the Board of selectman, I'm sorry originally requested by Eric. So it would be net net would be $75,000 that Eric originally originally requested.
Let's reword that. It's net net because of the we were going to fund that expense from the reserve funds there, right? 25,000.
Were to pre fund, right free removal fund with $25,000 from the software budgeted line item for this year, we're still going to do that. We're still going to do that. Change there. I mean we have to vote on in our next meeting. And
then we also that would leave that currently leaves $25,000 as the amount to go into the tree fund, which nets $25,000 less than Eric originally requested, but that is the Board of Finance we didn't change with the Board of Finance approved, I'm sorry but the Board of Selectmen approved, you know, from a net net sense. That the board of selectman took out. The
motion that Rob is made effectively puts that $25,000 back into the tree removal fund that the board of selectman every question be removed. Okay. Got it. It's actually the same line item, but because we're going to take action this year, the net effect is to give Eric what he asked for originally, which is a lot less than he probably like.
That goes for every infrastructure runs on behalf. Yeah. Yeah. If memory serves, we had a ten year plan and we've cut it every year. A twenty year plan. Sure. Twenty. But we've cut it every year. We
have any further discussion or any clarification needed on the motion. Okay hearing none I'm going to call for a vote. All those in favor of Rob's motion say Aye. Aye.
Aye. Any opposed. Anyone abstain. Okay motion passes, we will increase that line item amount to $50,000 with the understanding that the Board of Finance is going to almost gave you a bonus there I could take $500,000 so. We'll fix that right now. Let's do it.
With the understanding the Board of Finance is going to allocate $25,000 out of this year's budget into the fund to make eric's original request basically even. Okay, thank you, do we have any other discussion on budget line items. I'd like to introduce one if I could. I did some thinking about the Board of Finance legal fund. And I thought a little more about what Adrian had said about the value of having that fund there so that the Board of Finance has an opportunity to be independent and to provide for some legal services. I think that the net effect on the town is likely to be zero. If we reinstate that fund in our recommendation, I think it's highly unlikely we'll use it. But I think it has not only symbolic but potentially real value for the Board of Finance to have this independence, so I I personally have. Reconsidered my position there, and if I remember, we had kind of a split vote last time. So I'm just going to go ahead and make a motion that we reinstate the $2,500 of the Board of Finance legal fund that we opted to remove from our budget recommendation in our last meeting. I personally think it's important. Don't think it's going to have a material impact on town's budget or its expenditures likely, but I do think that it's important to have that safety valve there more I thought about it and just for the record I voted against it last year I voted to remove it last time.
So that's where I am on it would anybody like to second that motion. I have a question on that.
It now, I think we. Oh yeah we can all put it down if you have a question. For procedure. Yeah I'll second for discussion.
Okay, thank you, Kurt. Hey Louise, you had a question.
Yeah, how would that not have an impact, I'm trying to get my head around that the
money would be allocated. But if we did not use it, then it would be left to the town at the end of the year. So at the end of it, we would, we would, we would still need to. Add a tax base yeah so there it still would be taxes so it's a good point good point of clarification, it would still be part of the taxable you know the taxes that we needed to raise. But I would anticipate that that would roll back into town at the end of the year, so that the net effect would be you know that we would just roll that forward into the next year, for example. Okay, you're anticipating not using it. Correct. Okay. But we would need it in the Just in case. Yeah.
Okay, I get it. It's a good question. I'm sorry. Any other questions on that? Any discussion. A fair amount last time. You're probably all wondering over here again really deja vu. What are we talking about trooper again. Thanks Rob yeah. That's my next point. Come on. Okay.
All right, I'm going to go ahead and call that for a vote so just to clarify the motion is that all in this is to replace the $2,500 and legal fund. For the Board of Finance in the budget line item that we opted to remove last last All in favor say Aye. Aye. Aye. The opposed. And I'll abstain.
Okay, Rob's abstaining. Okay, so no, no opposed and no one abstention. Thank you. Motion passes will pop that back in. Okay, other budget discussion. We have Rob mentioned something about the third rail.
That's just that third rail. Here we are talking about all these cuts, these difficult decisions and they are in fact difficult decisions. So I think the trooper has to be on the table again. I made a run this years ago along with the entire rest of the board of finance it was seven to zero vote in the end and we lost horribly so don't get me wrong I understand that this is questionable but I raise it because every year when we're under this significant budget pressure and when you have a budget line item of one thing that's 150, 175,000 whatever exactly it is it's significant. You know we're banding about cuts and increases of 25 and $44,000 and we have the trooper that cost us 150 easy so I think it has to be discussed. So in furtherance of that I will just I'll lay it out there I will motion, I will move that we cut the trooper from the budget and then we should you know if we can get a second we'll discuss it. I'll second. Okay thanks Linda. Thank you.
Yeah just for the record the line item for the residency trooper and the current budget is $176,450 So it is a significant line item for sure. Okay, I. I tend to think that you know Robin certainly has a good point we've we as a town have to look at this. I'm a little hesitant to vote in favor of removing it because I think what that's going to end up doing potentially would be meaning that the budget wouldn't pass. If we put a recommended budget in front of the town budget meeting without the residents, the trooper one or two things is going to happen, you know either. Will you know everyone will be surprised or but annoyed at us and they'll pass the budget and they'll
will go on without the state trooper or at least take it to referendum. Or they're just going to knock it down and stay at the at the town budget meeting, in which case we would go to the next week and present a different or similar budget. So it's that's really kind of the kind of the
upside downside I think of that. I mean, agree with the practical consideration. Would just say that this is exactly like the debate we were having before with the number and what's possible. What's responsible, what's the right call for the town in terms of bang for our buck. And I don't disagree with you. I've tilted to this windmill before we got killed last time we tried to do this.
Didn't we just put a question in front of the town we didn't actually put it as part of the recommended budget. I'm trying to remember how that was.
I don't recall but I do recall what happened when I tried to cut it. Yeah,
Yeah. One of the things I'm having a hard time with is I have no facts or information about this. I don't know exactly what we have for services, what it brings to the town. Know, there's nothing for me to weigh. Diane,
I apologize I don't know if I still have any of it saved in my drive but Dan Warren and I years and years ago when Dan Warren was the chair of the board of finance and I was on the board and many of the now select people were on the board of finance, Linda was still here, we put together a presentation with data and that data included a number of things. Number one, it addressed what similarly situated towns do versus with public safety and what their crime rates look like and what our crime rate looks like basically no different. It didn't, there was no difference between us and this town over here that has a full police department and this town over here that has nothing but constables. And then we also did a whole analysis of you know people wanted to know what revenue the trooper brought in in terms of parking tickets, not parking days but tickets, it was minimal. And what was the other thing we did? Had so we had crime rate statistics, we had the cost of the trooper, we had revenue and we had similarly situated towns and anyway we had a whole presentation and I don't know what happened to that presentation it's probably you know Dan moved to Rhode Island, I don't know what he did with that, I didn't have it, it was his baby so I can't reproduce it. I can only tell you what I recall of it. I'd have to redo it from scratch. What I can tell you is that my recollection was that that data when we presented it had absolutely no impact whatsoever.
Well, know, and there's a threat out there on the Facebook page, you know, Andover support our crime and safety Facebook page. There's a lot, it's like 200 posts out there back and forth. People are all over the place on this kind of issue and it's very contentious. Do you know what I mean?
It's extremely contentious. We had that at the town meeting when we proposed it. And I will say one of the reasons we backed off was not just that we got voted down one of the reasons we backed off so we went yeah before we got voted down we were already like uh-oh we went to town meeting and there was a, we were in the community center, this is one of the last times I remember being in a packed house in the community room in the town hall and multiple people spoke in support of the trooper program and I will say that if it was coordinated, they did a great job, I don't think it was.
It was everybody from senior citizens to high school students who spoke in favor of the trooper. The trooper himself of course spoke, of course he turned out to be a scumbag but we'll just let that go. But no really everybody that was involved, mean like they felt very passionately about it and those of us who were trying to cut the trooper, this is a never ending problem, those of us who are trying to cut the trooper are looking at it kind of dispassionately, the people who are, who want the trooper want it badly it's a peace of mind kind of thing and it's not something you counter with data necessarily. Would just, I'm gonna I have used the trooper for too long, that was my experience. Tragic thing in my life and
thank God for that trooper at that point in time. I don't know what price you put on that So And that's kind of what we ran into. So I think that's it's the fear factor. Do know what I mean? But I'm trying to look at it logically because A lot of people brought up the murder at the lake. You know? As an example. A
guy who is literally my age with two kids my kids ages. I remember that happened. Yeah, that murder was horrifying, right? And the trooper was involved in solving that crime. Fair point, people made that point. Right. Well that becomes important as
an example of what you'll run into and so I raised this issue as a budgetary issue but on a political level I just want to be clear with everybody I've been down this road and I know how it goes, I'm willing to go down with you again, I will back you up, I believe and I will do the research and I will come up with graphs and whatever and I'll help Mark with it if he wants but just FYI this is the way it went the last time, The last time we proposed this essentially we were releasing Genghis Khan on the town.
Oh, other side of the coin is, should we go out with the budget the way it is, the way we've kind of gotten it so far. And then if we need, after these meetings, we need more cuts, that's something we can come back with as an option.
I agree with you. I like that tactic because I was there with Rob. Rob, I think I'm still bleeding a little bit from that meeting.
I remember that one it's first time I met you guy didn't really meet you but I remember you speaking so go ahead. Rob
nailed it you can't hit people with facts on this. We purely were looking at this from a financial point of view because that's our role in the board of finance. This is a very emotional decision for people. Most people don't care that, you know, under state law, the state police have to protect this town anyways, but they didn't wanna hear that. I think the result would be the same if we did it that way. I almost think a better tech might be go to the town, see what they do with this budget because in my opinion that's not going to pass. And there's only two options to cut. It's the board of Ed. Well, just different. Right. You you can nickel and dime these other light items, but we've cut them pretty low. So that's the way I see it. I think that's more of a political calculation. See what the town wants to do, put it in their lap if they shoot the budget down and then we can say, well, here's the two areas we can cut, what do you wanna do?
I tend to agree with this one I think I think Rob has done a service and, you know, put on his armor and actually offer up this motion and lend it to the second but I think that he's probably right. This is, is maybe better left in the town in the hands of the town, the town budget meeting and then subsequent referendum. You know it's, it is one of the few places that stands out as a glaring opportunity to cut and it will be, you know, will be felt very strongly about my people. Eric, Eric, do you have anything to add in terms of the services that I noticed, I just know we've had a brief discussion on this in previous meeting and you mentioned some things but you seem to feel like it had some value that maybe some of us hadn't thought about
or I mean so the one thing I would say is you know you're not going to get 20 fourseven coverage with one resident state trooper. A resident state trooper today typically works five shifts per week and there are 21 shifts per week. With Darryl Tetra what we did is we did a rotating schedule so we worked some days, some nights, some weekends so there was no consistency to his schedule so he worked first shift second shift third shift and we rotated it around so you could never know when well I knew when the resident state trooper was on but other than me you know unless you actually saw him you wouldn't know. And we did that specifically so we you know had a resident state trooper at random hours because like a lot of people want coverage at night when we have the most thefts.
But there's a you also need to access the resident state trooper and you need to interact with the resident state trooper which means he's got to work some days too because not everybody's gonna you know want to be meeting with the resident state trooper at 10PM. So the Resident State Trooper runs and works the DARE program at the elementary school. He has some involvement in developing the school safety plan and he's part of the safety response for the school. They do participate in drills, I think with both AES and RAM because all the Resident State Troopers as part of the area do drills at RAM. He serves as an ex officio member of the senior transportation committee. He's helped out in the past with storm response, identifying road closures, that kind of stuff, know, and you know helping out with that. They do end up doing an awful lot with the Andover seniors, both attending luncheons, talking to the seniors, talking to them about safety. The last resident state trooper ran a driver training program for senior transportation, which was quite valuable, and I thought that was good and the other thing is you have one guy in town
that you can you know you can kind of get involved with and know as opposed to relying on a troop K trooper who are generally very good officers but they all rotate through here so you're there's not going to be like one guy you can call and say, hey, I need this. And the great thing about having a Resident State Trooper is I got one guy I can call 20 and even if he's not on duty, he'll find somebody to get there and do what I need done. I've used him a lot for wellness checks for seniors and yes, when he's not on duty, you can get Troop K to do that. But it's nicer having Daryl because most people know him or it did when we had Daryl. You know, and the other thing is that he's able to help out in investigations. I mean, really bad stuff is going to the major crime squad, but you have one guy that can kind of focus on some of these things that are important to the town, but aren't necessarily like giant major crimes, like the vandalism at the library. I mean, they caught that guy in like two days, basically because Darryl called around, they had a rough description of the vehicle and camera footage and he called around the other resident state troopers and said, okay, who's got a delinquent in your town that drives a silver sedan that looks about like this. Did he also babble in prison or something? He was? Anyway. No, that was the murderer. Oh, sorry. Yeah.
I've confused my crimes, my fault. Right, right. That one is why you're not our state trooper Rob, just saying. Exactly, exactly. Go ahead Eric, sorry. What
I'm saying is you get some level of personalized service from the resident state trooper. And one of the things that's an advantage to a small town is small town resident state trooper gigs are really, really highly sought after. And because of that, you tend to get pretty experienced officers, generally speaking. Like I wanna say there were either 10 or 11 applicants for because we have a vacancy right now and a lot of troopers put in for that because it's a highly valuable thing. And they end up getting really good troopers assigned to the Residence Day Trooper Program in general.
But you know, he's not there, you know, most of the time. Typically they work five shifts a week and all the troopers are doing mandatory overtime and most resident state troopers have enough seniority that they can opt to do their overtime in the same town they're a resident state trooper in. So even though we paid for Daryl to be here, you know, five shifts a week, most weeks he was here probably seven because typically he had to run two or three overtime shifts per week. So that's what you got. On the other hand, it is $175,000 a year. It's a pretty expensive thing. Troopers are well paid, and there's a fair bit of equipment and overhead associated with a trooper. So that's kind of it, the pluses and minuses. Can we get along without a resident state trooper? Sure. Would I advocate for constables? No. I mean, I grew up in the era where Andover had constables. I would not want to return to that in any way shape or form. I second that motion. Mean, I think if you're gonna say go
back to, you know, not having a resident state trooper, you know, if that's the option you choose. And what I would say is most towns today who have constables, generally speaking, have one what's called the supervisory resident state trooper that manages those constables. So you're pretty much always having one resident state trooper plus constables, not just town constables, unless you have a full blown police force like Coventry or Willamantic or something like that. So that's it pluses and minuses
expensive but you know has some value. Yeah and and by the way a lot of those points were hit when we made our last run at this, when we did the public meeting, know the DARE program came up for instance, you mentioned that that came up absolutely. People's ability to reach out and contact somebody they knew that has value.
Mark, I may. Absolutely Kurt. I Rob Rob baby to my to my motion. My my motion was gonna be to to keep the resident trooper just to have some discussion on it. But as you see, we've had plenty of discussion on it. As a father of a, state trooper who wants no part of being a resident, so I, I think that kind of waves my, my conflict of interest, but, I do have, some insight into the Resident Trooper Program, both as a fire chief and, and, and being a dad of, of a, of a, of a state trooper. They have, they have been cut to the, I mean, totally. And one thing that wasn't mentioned in in in even Eric's discussion is the Andover resident trooper is also a vital part and and, Mrs. Fish can can attest to this of the, juvenile review board at Ahm. Every resident trooper in the three towns of Andover, Heaton, Marlborough, sit on that juvenile review board, which, when you have a a juvenile, which we all all three towns have juveniles that do do, cause some and create some havoc in in the in the respective towns. Instead of, of going to the, the juvenile court, they go to the review board at and they, they usually, get to, you know, take care of the issue that those kids have. That that's been used, for a long time. And I think I think Linda Linda can attest to that. But the the resident trooper had is and right now, with the cuts at the state level,
backup for any trooper right now for any type of call is over one half hour. They, they lost their defined immunity, which protected them from, lawsuits from individuals that they may be arresting or, you know, taken into, into custody and things like that. You know, if that, if that, if that bad guy says, well, you use excessive force on me, the, the, the trooper himself is, is on his own. Whereas before the state used to back up their troopers, They don't do that anymore since since the governor, you know, our illustrious governor has, has has, has chopped that. Curt, what does that have to do with the cost of the trooper? Well, no, I'm I'm just telling you what what they what how important they are to the town. The biggest part I have with a resident trooper is peace of mind, especially for the elderly. Peace of mind that there's somebody patrolling this town and and Eric as town administrator can set the troopers hours if he wants. And and they they will usually abide by that, whether it be a first shift, a second shift, or a third shift.
We're lucky with Darryl. Darryl was a fantastic guy, but he took a job, you know, just up the street in Hebron that was better suited for him because of the, Hebron police force that he supervises right now and everything else. And that's a that's a that's a way better job in Andover, and he did a fantastic job here. And as Eric said, there's there's numerous applicants for our jobs. So, but how how do you put a price on, peace of mind? That's always I been think caveat regarding the state trooper. Yeah. Yeah. So have a question. Go ahead, Luis.
Okay. Is there any way to reduce his responsibility thus reducing his cost?
I understand it is use it or lose it. It's one
cost that we pay the state or we don't have trooper. Also understand that the troopers belong to a union. They're, they're a union, it's a union job and they have, they have a contract that they abide by and the state has to abide by their, their negotiating contract, which also, you know, ends up also in a town's lap and that, that, that comes, that's where Eric comes in as far as, you know, responsibility goes. But they, they, the DARE program, you know, whatever. I mean, there's a lot of good things that you get. They having a resident trooper, the other troopers that worked in North Patrol, which Andrew was part of what they call the North Patrol. My son works the North Patrol a lot. He was born and raised here in Andover and North Patrol is Bolt in Andover in Columbia. And that is covered in the hours that the resident isn't here. It's actually covered when the resident is working. So you actually have two troopers
on duty during the day, and then one on the second shift and one on the third shift that is just in the North Patrol, which encompasses Andover, Columbia, and Bolton. So that they're always at the fire station. They have a combination to get into our fire station, to use the facilities, to use our fax machines, to use our computer, to just rest and relax or heat up their dinner. Same thing with town hall. That all comes along with the resident trooper because the resident trooper shares his codes to get into the different buildings in town, with the the other patrol officers that are on duty. So we the town is really getting twenty four seven coverage. It might not be in Andover at the time, but he he's as close as, you know, Columbia or Bolton away. So
Sure. Can can I just clarify something? What you're describing is that that Barracks coverage though, like on top of our trooper? I I like the thing that we would have if we had no trooper.
Well, you you still have the coverage, but you don't have the the personal coverage. I agree with that. You said earlier
that we have the trooper plus we have this other thing. That other thing is there no matter what, right?
Well, yes, unless he's taken away to back up somebody in Marlborough.
No, no, I get that. I understand that a trooper comes They are They could be stressed. I get Everybody's leaving. Everybody's
leaving. My my son at eight at eight years going on nine years in in the in the state police is thinking about leaving because of what the state has come down, you know, on them, you know, within their contract and everything else. So it's it's it's not a pretty picture. Okay. If we my my recommendation is to keep the trooper, mainly for peace of mind for the residents. We don't offer much here in Andover. There is not much to offer in Andover other than that, you know, and and the the sports department and the school and the firehouse and that's about it. They don't have garbage collection per se unless you want to pay for yourself and and go right right right across the board. So, yeah, do I do I promote the the the keeping of the resident trooper? I sure do. And I was gonna I was gonna, you know, make a motion to keep the resident trooper. Well,
it's it's in there, so we don't really need a motion motion to keep it. It would only be, you know, to take action to to make a change to understand, I'll shut up and
take a backseat. But we still have the one we have still have the one motion and Rob's motion. Yeah, any other input from the other board members.
Hi, I just want to say that I was approached by a retired person within the last two or three weeks, basically saying we should cut the trooper. There's no use having since having them and the cost would be a big help to the town. On the other hand, if we do cut them. Believe the it won't pass the budget. It's it's kind of a
damned if you do and damned if you don't. Well, ultimately, this is all up to the town. Right. You know, I'll echo what they already said, I agree with them, but kind of what David put out there, which is that the. Ray You know we put it in front of the town and we make it very clear that if if it's if this budget is, is a problematic budget for the for the electors and the residents of the town, then the options, the best options and reasonable options to look at or the big line items that are however you want to put it would be the resident say trooper and the school budget if they wanted to cut it further. So, you know, I,
you know, just to add to that with one thing Mark really quick. The last time we did this one of the things I distinctly remember from the public hearing was that a resident asked quite understandably, okay you're proposing this cut what is the mill rate difference? And we had to do the math on the spot, I remember that very clearly because we had to frantically like you know come up with the number and it was some small fraction of 1%, right, it was like 0.2 or something like that on the mill rate and that actually was a big factor I think in the discussion.
It was it became very clear like what the dollar amount was you know
so to the average here it's pretty significant the average resident is going to pay $150 for that a year and people thought about it and went yep that's worth it, I'll pay that. Exactly how that went down. And my recollection you know my take on that is as a member of the board of finance or a member of the town is this, if the taxpayers of the town as a group say to themselves that's worth my money and I'm willing to pay that, so be it. Whether I think it's right or not, great. Well then the town's made the decision and that's what happened last time. Exactly, that's what happened last time. So we put it before them again and we let the chips fall where they may, is kind of where I'm at.
The strategy of keeping it in the budget, bringing it to them, and then when everybody box at the budget, that's the options for the cuts. Yeah, exactly. If budget
as it stands is unacceptable to the town, we can explain to them that these are the pressure points. These are the places where we can attack that budget realistically and that's on the table and then they have to decide what they value and what they are willing to pay for correct but anyway I put this up for discussion I'm not actually saying I want to tilt at this windmill if you're all with me, fine, I'll try. I'm just, you know, it's there. It's the one of the largest line items in our budget. It's something we have to look at. Any further discussion?
Just as a point the resident state trooper represents 0.645 mills.
I had a little bit different number. Yeah, I guess. A little over half a mill. Yeah, it's 0.65 mills basically something like that.
Yeah, almost two thirds of a mill. Yep. There you go. It's a perfect
way of encapsulating it. Does anybody have anything else to add to this discussion on this motion? Hearing none I'd like to call for a vote, all those in favor of removing the residency trooper from the existing recommended budget say Aye. Aye.
Thanks all. Okay, have two eyes, Rob and Linda, all those opposed, nay. Nay. We have four opposed and then any abstentions.
All of sense out. That would be me. Staying abstain. Yeah.
Okay, so that's, that's right. Okay, so we have some. Okay, the motion fails to carry. Thank you. Thank you rob. Hey. The courage there, it is, it is an important discussion I think it's absolutely important that we have and we'll have it next year if you know, regardless probably what happened so. Other. Other discussion of other line items. Hearing none. Okay, I would like to maybe just to recap. Because I'd like to just restate where we are, I know you don't have a copy of this, but the changes that we've made or to leave the resident say trooper in there and it's actually a vote that we made we didn't actually make a change.
Opted to add $25,000 back into the tree removal fund, which actually took us back to where Eric was with his original request when you factor in moving $25,000 from this year's budget into the tree removal fund that nets him out of where he originally wanted to be. We also opted to reduce the AES recommended budget line item by about $44,000 to $4,070,000 believe those are the only changes we made today. Would like to just call for a general vote from among the board that we're in agreement that that's going to be our recommended budget going into the public hearing. So I'll make that motion that we accept that as a recommended budget going into the public hearing.
By the second that Rob seconds it. Any discussion. If I could have All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, any abstentions? Okay, the motion passes. So thank you folks. I think we have our recommended budget to go to the hearing. Doesn't mean we cannot change it. We have a meeting next week, Mark.
We, I believe have one on the schedule. However, I would propose that we can probably cancel that meeting. I personally.
My I guess my take would be let's see if is there any meeting between now and then other boards that would impact this.
Like. Have a meeting on Monday, but that you know it's not really necessarily germane I mean they could they could make a request, but if we have right now we have our we have our I would hesitate to make any more changes before we go to the public hearing. We can always make a change afterwards. Okay, fair.
Throwing out there. We have a regular meeting scheduled the week after the hearing that would be okay. So we can have the meet the hearing and then see how that goes and you know it goes we'll have our regular meeting the following week on the twenty eighth and then we send it to tell me it'll go to the town meeting town budget. Okay. That works for me. My COVID shot is still killing me. Your what? My COVID shot is still killing me.
One did you get Diane? Thank you for hanging in. Moderna?
Yeah I've heard Moderna's a little rougher like I have a number of people I know who have gotten the other shot the other two shot Pfizer and they've been fine. We
started our meeting with this it's running late I'd like to keep it. If there's no other discussion on the budget I'm going to call for agenda item number four which is public speak Amanda would you call go around the group again.
Okay, let's see who is still with us. First up Mike Palazzi and Kathy Palazzi.
No thank you we are all set at the moment and thank you for not getting rid of the trooper. And I'm just oh yes I do have something to say I'm very sorry about the AES because I really care a great deal about the children being a grandparent but I understand where you're coming from and I know that there's nothing we can do. But I do believe that in a way it is nice to have the kids together so that they learn how to interact. I understand but I know what Valerie is saying because it's important for the children to have an early beginning. I understand Valerie and I am truly sorry about that. I am also very happy again about the trooper. The trees, I really hope we do something about the trees very soon. I am concerned when I go down Long Hill that that big tree is gonna fall on me, that big limb. So I do thank you for doing that. You're doing a great job. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Kathy. Thanks, Kathy. Scott Prussan. I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Val. I'm all set, Amanda. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for being here.
Diane Grenier. All set from my corner of the world. Thanks Diane. Joanne Hubbard.
And yeah I'd love to hear like in a future meeting or I guess it's it's mooting it but we're having a hard time hearing you Joanne I'm gonna try this did that work better okay
I just want to say the percentage of the dollar amount. You guys are usually going with the mill rate, but it's probably not going to matter now. It's just disappointing. I'm never going to believe in my convictions. I'm never going to back off from them. I'm always going to have an agenda or an opinion and not change. You know, it's just disappointing that the Board of Ed was asked to present something so we could just see it, hear it. I get it. Like if they didn't want to go with the kids or the teachers, that's fine. I'm for sticking by her whatever she believes in. She's shown that. Gotta be some room there. But again, their strategy worked tonight because they did not come with any amount. So they were asked to reduce a tiny amount. A couple of things, so thank you. Thanks, Joanne. Carol Lee? All set, Amanda. Thank you. Thanks. Leanne Hutchinson.
Hi, yes. Again, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, good. I just had a comment and a question for Eric and then one short additional comment. Eric, I hope I believe I was muted before so I hope that that interference earlier wasn't mine. And also Eric, has there been any change in the governor's orders as far as whether or not the public hearing and the town meeting are going to be in person or not?
So the public hearing will be via zoom. The budget meeting will be in person, but we are figuring out how to make accommodations for anybody that doesn't want to come, but then they would have or they doesn't want to come in the building, but they would have to still register to cast a vote. So we are working on accommodating that but it's not it's not easy given the current set of governors executive orders.
Okay, so you're working on a message for people to vote to cast a vote at the town meeting, if they don't want to come into the building assuming that it's still held in person as of right now. Correct.
Correct. Okay thanks and then my other quick comment is that some of these issues are safety issues and everyone absolutely everyone uses the roads and no one ever knows when they're going to need the fire department. So I just hope, you know, I know you you finalized the budget tonight, but I hope that everyone kind of, keeps that in mind. Thank you.
Thanks Leanne. Last up we have phone number (860) 680-4212. If you'd like to participate, can press 6. We also have Jeff Murray, Amanda, looks like.
That's me, Amanda. This is Shannon. Hi, Shannon. Thank you very much. Hi. I had to leave and go to a soccer thing, so I joined by phone. So I want to say three things. Number one, thank you for your very considered discussion this evening. I listened to everything. Well, we did have a cut. We will deal with it, I guess, if we need to. Number two, I am in support of cutting the resident state trooper, and I will come with facts and get them from Dan Warren or whatever we need to. It does not sound like it's going to pass again, but I think that is certainly as we are dealing with an increase in the mill rate. We've been scrutinized within an inch of our life. I think we need to do the same thing. I said three things. I'm gonna make it four. I encourage everybody here to attend the RAM Board of Ed meeting. It is their budget meeting that was postponed from this past Monday due to the tragedy in Hebron.
That will be occurring. I spoke with Stephanie Bancroft this afternoon. That's occurring next Monday. I know it conflicts with Andover's Board of Selectmen meeting, but I will be attending try to attend both. That is their Board of Education budget meeting for the RAM budget. And I really don't wanna get into a pissing contest with another citizen, but miss Hebert, we did not come in with a strategy. We came in, and I said exactly what I said at the beginning of the meeting, and I don't think you were there. And that is, we did not want to come to the Board of Finance and basically convey what then might be deemed acceptable to cut. I understand what everybody said tonight. I stick by our budget. I stick by what we said we needed and what was required for our school, and it was no strategy. We needed 219,000, and we will somehow try to make do on a $175,000
increase. And if you had any questions or any questions between now and the budget meeting, please do that. Please contact Val, contact me, and let's deal with it. Finally, that was I think I I don't think I acknowledged this before. The squawk was me because I joined by phone. Leanne was absolutely right. She was on mute. For whatever reason, joining a meeting by phone caused the squawk, and I apologize for that. I think I interrupted Robert's comments with my squawk and it wasn't time for me to speak and I was on mute. So, I apologize for for that squawk and interruption. Thank you very much for the finance for your very considered discussion tonight. Thank you Shannon.
Thanks Shannon. I think last but not least is Jeff Murray. The best for last. No just kidding. It's
really the least Jeff, but we just wanna be nice to you. Thanks Rob. Thanks, yeah. Love you, Thanks
very much for paying, giving the due consideration for the tree work. I think it's very important and I'm glad we're all working as a group towards that goal. I'm just a little disappointed with the amount and the lack of scenarios that was presented by the board of education. I was hoping that we would get a scenario. We weren't asking, I don't think anybody was really asking for cuts. We were just looking for what ifs. And I think that would have given the board of finance and the board of selectmen better idea of what the impact would have been if we would have cut. Just some advice going forward is, and I've said this from day one is the board of education and over board education especially needs to be more transparent with their budget. What we've been given over the last five or six years that I've been on the board of finance and the board of selectmen, it's very vague. I mean, basically what we're getting is a PowerPoint presentation and what it can get in other towns
is a much more detailed budget presentation. And if if there was some more transparency there, don't think we'd be having the questions that we're having. So we really need to work Fucking asshole. Alright. Come on, guys. It's alright. Jeff, you done?
I was just making some comments. I guess somebody wanted to I hope that wasn't directed at me. Let's just keep going, please. Okay.
I mean, it's just a question we just need to be more transparent going forward and that was my only comment, because other towns are doing it and we should be following suit. Thank you.
Okay, thank you Jeff. Okay, just a couple things. Think that's the end of our public speak before we adjourn. I just want to echo Shannon's comments about the rescheduled ram public hearing and their budget, I had fully intended to participate in that, but I am going to be out of the country starting. Friday actually for two weeks so I'm not going to be able to do that it's just kind of outside that purview of where I am going to be able to spend any time, but I do encourage everybody residents and board of finance for selectman members to. Participate in that if you can I'm going to probably you know we'll just reserve this until we get there, but I think I'm probably will cancel next Wednesday's meeting unless we feel like we need it. Again I'm going to be out of the country in about six hours ahead of you guys so it's pretty late for me and some like to just personal you know reasons unless we really need to have that meeting I don't think we really do at this point, but certainly can. Whether I am going to be here or not it doesn't doesn't require me necessarily but just as a heads up. For the twenty first for the. Budget hearing that will we will take place, so I will participate in that remotely
at that time, so that really won't have any impact, but we have some steps up to put together for that I think that's really about it any anything else from the board before we adjourn. Okay, do I have a motion for adjournment. So move. Okay, I second.
Rob move to adjourn Louis seconded any discussion. Okay, all those in favor say Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay, any abstentions. Okay, I thank everybody for your participation, this is a tough process, we all know I just want to make the last comment. We had a couple, couple comments from from folks today during public discussion that you know it is what it is, is we finalize the budget but it's not at all final. This is just our preliminary recommendation to the town we have a budget hearing that will take place. Following that's the budget meeting when the actual budget will be finalized and then if it if it passes and only if it passes at that meeting will it go to referendum and then the townspeople elect collectors the voters of towns will decide. So this isn't over, but it is just part of process. You everybody, I appreciate your patience. A good night and stay well we'll we'll be in touch soon. Thanks Mark. Thank you. Take care. Bye.