Budget Advisory Group Meeting - April 28, 2026

April 28th meeting of the budget advisory group. Uh 4 PM meetings being recorded for DCTV.

Um wanted to get the uh the first item off the ground, a review of the draft budget advisory group report. Um, I'll start by saying this is uh obviously a draft and we're um we're trying to get the bones of what we'd like uh the report to be uh the initial report to be to the select board um from the findings that we have so far and you know what we'd like this group to actually do

going forward um to try and solve what we found to be uh a structural deficit in the town. Um after last night's um select board meeting um it seems like you know the budget this year is uh is balanced. Um we're in pretty good shape.

These guys have done a nice job at trying to patch the holes where we could. Um but that does not solve the long-term problem or the even the medium-term problem that we're we're going to have in this town. And I just appreciate the fact that we've got um representatives of finance, the schools, the select board and administration here. uh in order to um right over there, Chris. Uh in order to uh try and

get our wrap our arms around this thing sooner than later. Um so what I'll do is Brian, are you ready to go through?

Sure.

Yeah. All right. I'll have Brian introduce the uh the bones of what we've come up with. Um we need obviously we need your participation in this. We want your participation. We want your comments, concerns, and feedback. um so we can start to work on some type of report that makes sense to not only us because we get a lot of the things that are in this um but also um for the for

the general public. Uh so they get a a better idea of exactly how we're trying to approach a problem and and stem it right now versus, you know, again kicking the can down the road or or uh waiting too long and it becoming a crisis. Um I we we're having the meeting today at 4:00 so we could uh we could elicit some uh public comment if uh if

need be and uh we do have a couple of people here from uh the public. So um I think uh probably I'll take your your recommendation on it but I would assume we'll get closer to the end of the meeting after most of our comments are heard um and we'll we'll bring them in and see if they have any questions or concerns. also. Um, so Brian, um, let's start us off.

Okay. So, uh, it's about a five or six page report. Um, bring this up here.

Uh, you want to send the latest version?

I sent it out. The one I sent out on Friday. I can resend it to them on Friday.

Uh, you should have one that starts with draft next to fiscal sustainability, a plan, a plain language summary. Feel free to stop me as we go along to ask questions.

Uh so essentially it just starts out with a um a recap of what the select board wanted us to do and what our scope of activities might be. Uh you all have heard this. It's been surfacing um for the last six months or so talking about a structural deficit which basically says that we spend more than we bring in. um in taxes.

And uh this year, if we had followed uh without having a uh almost a half almost not a million dollars shuffled over from other parts of the budget, uh we would be running uh with a 08% gap.

So, can I Yes, please.

Comment there. Yep. Um, so it's a little misleading or not all of the information since we want um everyone to understand what's going on.

Yeah, 2 and a half% is the max growth allowed by law from real estate taxes, but we have other sources. So we really should have what our average or trending revenues are because I think the shortfall would be different. That would be my first comment.

Okay. Um so the point is that it's still we're spending more than we're taking in. Um and uh the largest driver of that are the schools. Um the current growth rate when you add everything together schools plus non-school services it's uh on average over the last 10 years been 3.3%.

Uh the schools have been going up by uh 3.7 to 3.8% a year faster than rest of town rest of town government. Uh if nothing changes, uh the schools could be as much as 60% of the budget by 2035, just leaving roughly 40 cents on the dollar uh to spend on non-school services in the town.

Uh let's see. So I just want to go in in talking about that and I understand to start with the schools is the largest driver but I think as I read the whole thing um there's we have and we get through it later on that there are things that we need in every department but I'm just wondering how we can capture that um on the front page. So it's a two-page

document. What do you mean by things?

Um, how can we capture the other um needs of other departments in the town?

So, we've identified like the school um what what they need. I mean, as far as you're saying, um, I'm just concerned that by only having I mean, we say non-school services quietly shrinking, they're not necessarily um shrinking. aren't able to meet those needs as well. Because when you get to the back page, you've got um shared services, consolidation possibilities.

Um but we haven't been able to offer any department additional personnel. We've been talking on our side about um having a facilities and vehicle maintenance department and we haven't been able to fund that. I mean that's something that I I feel every time we talk um at budget time when we're talking about what we need that's something we need. Um the HR position that the school department cut

right now we're not able to absorb that on our side.

I I think there's other I just don't want it to be that and you know when we're looking at this that it's focused on solely the needs of the school department I guess and maybe um so I also I agree other departments have needs and are quietly shrinking.

The schools are quietly shrinking. We keep trying to do a level budget but our class sizes are going up. So I think it's not fair to say non-school services are quietly shrinking and not um admit that the schools are also well I think I think that's part of the problem because I think whenever we sit around and talk about school budgets uh every year I've been doing this now for six years everyone brings different

facts to the table that is people that have kids in school people don't have kids in school and as a result there's no clear um what's the word I used there's no uh trusted uh or um things that uh various stakeholders in the total budget I think agreed agreed to I think we need to be extremely careful with the wording that you you just put out there that there's been no trust

trusted sources. I take offense to that statement that there's been no trusted sources. Can we let me let me talk please?

Looking at this, this is no more of what can we do to I see it go after the schools an independent school funding review. I don't ever remember having that conversation at this table. I think I missed one meeting unless it happened during that meeting. I don't ever remember this. So to me, this document certainly took me back a little bit as far as the trusted sources go. Year

after year, this is my 14th year on the school committee. 14th. Year after year under Mr. Kylie's guidance, he brings the facts to the table. I don't know what else we can say. It's Desi. It's through it's government facts located that anyone can find on publicly available website. Yes, I know what you're referring to. You're referring to Well, when I was a, you know, when I was a student 25 years ago, there was

orchestra at the elementary school and maybe we had late buses and now we don't have that. Make no mistake about it, we have a problem and it's not unique to Dartmouth. But to continue to say that there's been no real true facts, I you know, I didn't say that. I said there's been disputed facts. People come to the table talking about budgets with different ideas and schools since it's the biggest

part of the budget and the fastest part of the budget growing the fastest. Uh people who don't have children in school come to it with a different view of what the return on investment is for them investing in the schools. people that uh seniors uh who are on a limited income come with a different view on why they should invest in the schools and they all have and I could go on uh unions uh administrators

but the point is that they all have different points of view and none of them are reconciled but the point of view that should matter the most is the school committee through its administration through the budget subcommittee through the copious amounts of documents that this administration submits to the finance committee, submits to the select board. If you took the time to look at all of that

information on top of us being right down at the ground level in funding across the state and I don't even care about that. I just I have se I I don't like the way this came about. I'm sorry.

There's no other no other way to sugar coat that.

Let me let me go let me go a little bit higher up than just this document.

Right. So, this document, like I said before you got here, Chris, is basically uh a skeleton of what we need to present to the select board, right? Sure. That we've got to come up with some kind of report.

We all agree that there is a structural deficit.

Agreed. um when the the the dark and the schools obviously are a bigger part of this than than uh than most other departments. But we we we do have to concern ourselves with uh consolidation of of different expenses and sharing of different expenses, regionalization, all of the things that um are going to affect every department, not just the school department. My my vision for this

is we need to make an argument Mhm.

We need to make an argument for ultimately what I think is going to happen. Uh and we can we're probably going to agree on this.

Okay.

That we need to have some kind of mixed response to the issues that this town has going forward. So if we agree that this is the beginning of a of a document um that we can change content, we can change the placement of different items, uh we can include departments, we can exclude departments, um the the the word trust in in my opinion uh can bring the hammer up on the back of your neck. I

completely agree with you. However, the overarching argument that we're going to have to have collectively is, do the people trust the numbers that the school department comes out with? Do the people trust the numbers that these guys come out with? And there's a question about that. You know, the argument will always be, well, you know, the schools need more money. Well, okay, DPW needs more money. Well, wait a

minute. Why? right?

You know, my point in trying to uh and we we did talk about um the different types of actuarial studies that that that are done um the uh the audit, you know, that the town does um the the work that Desi does with the figures and Jim's figures, you know, I I think we agree that they my problem is I need to convince the public if we're going to if

we're going to go at this as some type of comb combined um uh effort in uh in in response to the problem. I need to make sure that the people that are actually going to vote on this thing have as much information as they have uh that that they need. make sure that I can bring their level of trust in the figures that all of us bring together um to a level where they're as satisfied as

we can get them. We're never going to satisfy everybody.

Of course, um I need to if if I come at the end of this, let's let's skip to the end. We'll talk about the content. If if we get to the end of this and we say, "Listen, we we we've had a company third party come in. They've looked at the DPW. this is what they found. We had the police department looked at by a third party, this is what they found. School

department, this is what they found. You know, all that data is probably there.

But from a third party to come in and look at all those departments and say, you know what, this is what we found.

Now, it's not these guys, it's not you guys, it's not us. It's a third party coming in to say, you know, this is traditionally what happens throughout different districts, through different towns. um this is what you might be able to do, this is what probably will work, won't work. Um I think that is the the level of information that we need to bring to the to the taxpayers. Correct

me if I'm wrong. Interrupt, but that's what we're going to need in order to get you guys what you need.

Well, it's not just us.

Yeah. No, I know. But I'm using him the school department as an example. If if we get to the end of this thing and they come back and they say, "Listen, you guys are underfunded by $1.2 million."

Okay, that's what the third party says.

We know we're underfunded in the school department. Now, we've got a third entity that's coming back out and saying we can deliver this information at a pre-T town meeting session and explain exactly what the third party had to say.

Now we've got something that we can ask for an override for that we all feel a little bit more comfortable with because now I can say to the people that come to me and say I don't have kids in the system. You know I I think we've got too many police officers. I you know this DPW is overburdened with payroll. Now I've got these third parties that say you're wrong. I'm not taking their word

for it. I'm not taking the schools or the police's word for it. I'm taking third-party um studies that have been done to tell us exactly uh what we can do and what we can't do. That that's my that that's my concept of of where we're going to end up.

Yeah. Okay. So, I can certainly see where you're coming from, Chris. Um my concern is that like I said, this is all new to me. Um see seeing a lot of this.

Um I wish we and I'm glad we're we're hashing it out now.

third party. You know, there's only a couple of people that I would trust and I haven't even had a conversation with the administration, but municipal mun municipal side versus educational side of government operates significantly different, right? Um the the mandates on the school side. I know there's some firms out there. Um NAS I believe is one of them. Um, so that's fine, but ultimately at the end of the

day, yeah, the town's going to need to make a decision as to whether or not they want to go for an override and fund fund the departments, fund the schools, fund the town departments or not. And they're they're we got to live within our means. I I certainly get that. Um however it's just let's continue this conversation around can can I also just say um I think uh the department of educ of elementary and

secondary education is a third party. I mean they review all the schools. The department of education does an audit of our school and every school. They are a third party. So those third parties are not going to audit the different town departments, but there must be someone that could. I don't know that it has to be the same person. My issue would be if we had all the money in the

world, sure, get a third party. I'm pretty sure they'll find what Desi found, what Department of Education found. Um, but I think it costs money and I think that the work's already been done and probably the auditor will use those statistics and the work that Desi and the Department of Ed.

Yeah. I will say that we we have set money aside. I think uh CIP has money aside for the police department.

uh DP DPW DPW has the efficiency study.

We're doing that in the summer. Police be on this warrant that that's not really efficiency. That's but it's a review of their how many officers they have their operations. So I think that would give us that information because what we want to know from a a third party is does our department do we have enough officers uh that fill various roles s you know from sergeants to patrolman but also

firearms and instruction and that's what that's going to be looking at so that when the chief comes to us like we know right now we're eight officers down we'll be 10 officers down in July But what we don't know is a town of this size, how many officers should we really have? So that's I believe that's the information we're going to be getting.

But that would be helpful information for this because if they come back and say uh community your size with X, Y, and Z going on on it.

So it doesn't have to be the same auditor.

Well, but it's not an audit. Well, an efficiency study.

Brian, I couldn't hear what you said.

It's not an audit.

It's not a audit. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Is it an efficiency study? Is it a what would you call it?

I would Well, I would I would I would call it a a uh way to establish common ground uh amongst all the stakeholders that finance uh the school department. So I would envision it covering stuff like

providing a verified sh factual foundation for community decision making about school spending.

uh analyzing whether Dartmouth education Dartmouth educational investment is producing a compet competitive outcomes.

We already have relative those two relative to uh assess the full impact of school spending on residents including those without children in schools and offer offer uh actionable data grounded recommendations for aligning resources with community goals and then bridging the community divi divide when it comes to school uh budgeting uh by uh providing uh data that's credable to all stakeholders.

Okay. So, you had two questions about the school, which we already have the data for. Then you have questions about um how much it's costing taxpayers, whether you're within the school system or not. That is something that our town administrator Cody can Gary can answer. And the third thing I would think we can also do, you don't you don't need a third party to do that.

Again, this is this is our attempt to try and figure out exactly how we're going to get um the data to the town meeting members uh in a fashion that gives the system the school system cover uh in case it is a um an overage that we need. Um, if they come back and they say, you know, we could do X, Y, and Z and it would save us it would save us

this much, great. I don't personally I don't think that's going to happen. You know, um I I see enough of the numbers, but essentially what we're trying to do is we're trying to get cover for everybody in this town to be able to walk into town meeting and say, "This is what it is." You know, they can choose.

They can pick and choose uh whether they want to do it or not. But I think our job is to try and bring as much uh uh qualified data to the table by parties that don't have a stake in the outcome.

Uh that's important for people that have kids in school, are less concerned about the number of officers in town, you know, could care a little bit less about how the roads look in this town.

Um and all just concerned about saving money.

And we have talked about the DPW. We do know that we have an issue when we might talk about what the um sewer treatment plant needs that we have people that say, "I have septic. I have a well. Those are not my problems." Um but I want to just go back to what Brian was reading. What you were reading sounded like a brochure offering of a what a company could do.

Do have you is that what you were looking at?

This is Brian O'Hare. uh just putting what I would put in something.

Oh. Oh, okay. So, I think just I bring up one one other point is to say that I think we agreed when we looked at the numbers that to finance us going forward is going to require a number of overrides.

Um well, first I'd want to know exactly what our revenue is um like solve that.

Well, can I just finish finish my point?

And so, uh, because the schools represent the largest part of the budget, every time we're going to do or have an override, somebody's going to be saying, "Well, 60% of it is the schools. How are they spending the money?"

Okay. We haven't had an override, but we're gonna look at the But you're talking multiple o overrides.

We haven't even had one.

We haven't even had one. I think you're well let's let's not get ahead you're getting ahead of let's get ahead of of how it's going to be done. Let let's get through this part of it and see if um we can kind of rearrange it include what we want to include exclude what we want to exclude.

Um Janine, sorry.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um I think one of the uh triggers that started this conversation is how this report started. I think we have to be more we have to have all the departments included. You know, if the conclusion at the end of that is something with the schools, fine. But I think we have to take into account all the other uh issues that we face in this town and not just go schools.

Completely agree.

And when you first open this, that's exactly where it starts. And you know, you look at a statement that says uh the result is a gradual real terms erosion of service capacity that is easy to miss.

I'd like an example.

Honestly, roads.

Well, upkeep of roads doesn't say that. That's my point.

Um people need to understand that.

Otherwise, you're wondering what's happening. There's not enough police.

What what's happening? That's what I'm saying. I think you have to have some hardcore data in here to catch people's attention from all departments.

May I Chris?

Yes. Go ahead.

You know I um so Chris and Brian have been working on this um and you know Gary and I provided some high level comments um before was sentto. I'll say what I said to Chris and Brian which was you know I think this is something that eventually may be a good report. Um, I think it's, you know, ideally per the charge from the select board, it's to give an update to the select board of

what's been done so far. I think that you guys have done a lot, but to be fair, I don't think you've done quite maybe as much as is trying to be encompassed in this report. And so, I think it would be good for the group today and over the next couple meetings to use this kind of framework um, and then work through a lot of these other things. But I wouldn't personally I

wouldn't get overly specific yet because I don't think you're there. I I I don't think you're there being overly specific because you really haven't investigated those specific categories yet. And so I I think for this level of a report which is essentially a first update to the select board since this group was established. Um it should be pretty high level, you know, high level. This is

what we've done and here are the things that we've talked about and here's what we need to dig into more and then and then go from there. Um, but I but I don't think this is meant to be, you know, the like a a document that we are sending out to the public in preparation for an override or to make kind of big financial decisions. I it's up to the group obviously. I just don't

think we're there yet. Um, I think it really should be a high level kind of report. Here's what's been done and and I think that's what Chris and Brian were aiming for.

Yeah. My my intent on trying to get this on the table right out of the gate is to get this feedback is to get us talking about exactly the issue that we're up against and try to put together some ideas on how we're going to get out of it. And it's shocking, but we've got a shocking problem. It is what it is. Uh I'd rather argue now than argue in front of town

meeting and and we all lose. So, um, well, as a member of I guess the concern was that and I I can see where Chris's confusion like where did I miss this?

Because I read it and thought four options being considered. We haven't even discussed this. No.

Like, so how is this? So, this was just the two of you spitballing.

This is this is us trying to get you guys.

So, this is open for discussion cuz I looked at it and thought um the there's a paragraph. I would assume it would be on page three. It says how the budget group operates, but to me it's very similar to what we started with. And I was like, I think that's that could go somewhere else, you know, um you know, looking at it very kind of specifically. But I think it would help if we went through

um and you know went sort of part by part um and I'd go with you know when we talk about the options like you have option two and option three um and I guess option one option four is all of the above, which really is not option one. So, it's option four is really option two and three.

Well, I think what we were trying to do is state what the problem was uh in terms of um a structural deficit that we're spending more than we're taking in.

uh and to look very cursively at uh where the spending is occurring and what the results are and to project down the road that it could be as much as a million dollars a year uh that we'd have to finance over the next 10 years uh to meet our budget obligations and provide services to the town. So that having said and then the fact that um many years uh other town departments other

than the school schools have to contribute to meet the school's uh budget numbers and as a result um budget numbers and then as a result uh the other services some other services in the town are not actually uh accomplished.

So if you agree that there's a structural deficit then the question becomes how do you mitigate that structural deficit and uh you can going forward you can do nothing uh you can uh think about how you might slow down the cost going forward. I'm now on the options thing. Uh option three, bring in more revenue or more likely uh have to do three of those things, three different options uh to to net net uh to

balance the budget and to also provide for school uh for school services as well as other services in the town.

And so what we then did is put in uh under each of those options things that might be considered uh to mitigate uh costs to increase revenue uh and look at things like uh new taxes uh payment uh in lie of payment in lie of taxes. Uh and part of that was to also say if you agree that there is a structural deficit uh it would be good uh that we looked at

what is driving that deficit and what the biggest driver is which is schools.

And therefore whenever we start talking about when and if we do overrides schools are going to always come up. Are we spending at the right level? Are we satisfying all the people in town who are a stakeholder in the schools uh budgeting process? And ideally what we should be doing is looking at something that gives common ground to all the stakeholders so that when and if uh overrides are needed and the majority of

that money raised is used in schools.

There's not arguments about it because everybody understands the budget process and everybody understands everybody understand why they why the schools need need the money that they're asking for, right?

Because everyone actually understands it.

All right. I'd start right here with what is our actual structural deficit right in front of you on page one.

Yeah. But it just says we have two 2.5 max growth with the real estate tax, but we have other revenues, right? So it's not it's not going to be enough to cover going forward.

I'm just saying what she's saying. This is not what the deficit actually is.

The detail is lacking because the original document that we did was about 25 pages.

But I I do think if you don't capture it best then you're right. Then people are saying, but if I know that there's also other another pool of money that they haven't cash, why aren't they talking about aren't they talking about it?

What would be what be I'm confused. What would be another pool of money?

Um I think you're talking about um growth of new growth local rece $800,000 a year and it's declining.

But you know that it's not here. I think I think these are good points. I I you know to Chris's point here, this is what I think gets us talking about uh how critical this will be in the next year.

Obviously, we've had conversations with with uh Jim and the superintendent that we we know we keep saying we're we're getting by. We're getting by, but I think this document is going to be an eye openener once it is complete and um will set us up if in fact we need to go for an override. This is another tool tool in the toolbox if you will.

Sure. And and when it gets to that point, you know, I always think about how what does the voter what does the voter see? You know, they're the ultimately the ones that going to be approving this at the ballot box. What do they what kind of information do they need? They want a clear and concise report that's going to show them, yes, what are our revenues? They've seen it in multiple parts. They see it at the

finance committee. They see presentations at the select board, but they don't see it in one document. And I think that if we have this solidified, we, you know, they send this out as a draft now. We come back to the the committee with ideas and and you know maybe some a lot of adjustments maybe a few adjustments and we come to some agreement that this is at least a draft

document that we can send to the board and have them review. Obviously yeah we have to include other other components in here uh you know revenues as far as what what are our true you know what do we get for you know maybe even what we get for grants those are only onetime revenues. Some people think that that's a sustainable piece of revenue and it's not. So we you know there are

I personally like to see somewhere in this document what is our certified free cash every year you know you know at the end of at the end of the year what are we certifying in free cash and what is that money being used for because that's a big misconception in this town too is that we're we're we're over budgeting it's free right we're all right right yeah definitely yeah we are look we we we're are talking

about what else could we call it that captures exactly what it is and that we budget as a town this way and other towns budget that right into your your budget and if you have a capital improvement you're funding it within your budget.

That's right.

That's not how we do it.

We want to make a document that's not, you know, 30 pages long where someone loses interest after the first two pages. We want that challenge.

And we want to make this as clear and concise as possible. And some of the information is is is great. some of it is maybe a little bit too much. Uh so I think that this is a skeleton as Chris said of what change I mean this is going to change and I think the other issue being sensitive to what I'm hearing from our friends on the school committee is

looking on I don't know say third page where it says the independent school funding review. I think right there we can just talk about an independent uh funding review and it's not really funding, it's a resource review and talk about all the groups that are doing it, not just pointing at the schools. I think that's getting their kind of backup. Um because they are looked at, but what we're saying is we want to look

at all that information or something. I don't know what Well, people don't necessarily know they're being looked at. So sometimes, as you know, you have to repeat the information. We think it's everywhere.

It would be better if we tell them it's happening.

You know that it's just happening in our three biggest departments. We've already done it at with town hall because we did it through our cost and uh compensation, wage reclassification.

Yeah. So, we did it. We found out where we have holes, uh, and how we compensate our employees.

Um, and it gave us information to look at job descriptions and who's doing what and where we have holes.

And basically, that's what we're looking at at the other department. So, I think we can talk about the information we garnered through and we're looking to do it at the police, DPW, and through the school department. And we have a lot of that information already. So it doesn't necessarily mean because it says this is not an audit. It's designed to cut the school bud and not designed to cut the

school budget. Its purpose is to give every resident a shared verified factual foundation. That statement is true for all of the groups that we're doing. And one of the things that the new portal that we're going to be unveiling, the financial piece is going to be able to give a resident that say, "I pay $100 in taxes. Where does my $100 go?" X number goes to the school department, Y goes to DPW.

So I think people are going to have a better sense of how much of my taxes go there, how much, you know, what's my fight in this.

It'll also help people who would frequently announce that they pay my salary.

Yeah.

When their taxes do not pay my salary.

These are all good points because again when when a voter goes to the ballot box and needs to vote on a debt exclusion, needs to vote on an override, they're going to want to make sure that they have the clearest information that they could they can they can obtain that that point in time. And if we're throwing acronyms around that only we know and we understand, they're going to vote no.

Right.

And that's what you see a lot of these failed overrides.

Ultimately, my my personal goal is to try and get us through that meeting. Um if we have all this data brought forward, we can massage this thing whichever way you want. Um but at the end of the day, I need to get the department's cover for the taxpayers. So when they go and they vote uh if we did say uh if we did an override vote for x amount of dollars

which we would gain through all the finances the studies that are done.

We go back out and we say you know this is the number um we can do the one vote and let me let me just throw out uh and as if um say it's you know we need $1.8 8 million uh in additional funding for the for the annual budget uh to get the schools where they need to be, the other departments where they need to be. That encompasses all of the other things that

we're looking at in this document.

Regionalization, trying to save where we can um taking the advice from the the studies that come back, implementing those plans and not just letting them sit on a shelf somewhere, but actually implementing. So now I can go back to the town and say, "Listen, we've done X, Y, and Z, take I guess the ultimate goal is to try and take as many of the arguments out of the vote

and trying to get the town to a point where we're not like for Haven. We're not like other let's do it for just Dartmouth. Let's not worry about um you know how how other municipalities do it.

Let's get to where we want the system to be." Um and if we did say one vote for 1.8 uh first year we start to implement all of the savings changes that that we agree upon and first year is a million out of that 1.8 8 and we add that uh and then these guys come back and they say you know what we got into the Springtown meeting uh the savings have come in the

revenue has gone up we don't need the other 800,000 bucks we only need 400,000 of it I don't even know if this is reality if we could actually pull this off but instead of the 800,000 we only draw down the 400,000 and that and that's the second part of a uh essentially two overrides with one vote.

I think it can happen. I I I've heard comment that it it's possible that we'll be able to do that. These guys are on top of the numbers pretty well. We'll be able to see exactly what the revenue numbers look like going forward with the finance committee. Um and then we're we're we're finally at a point where we've got pressure off of these departments. Instead of having to go zero zero zero, we can finally

breathe a little bit and get a better service delivered for the school, for the kids, for for the uh, you know, the families in town, but also the other departments. Make sure that the other departments are being covered. The taxpayer just wants to know, we're not blowing money, you know, we're not throwing good money after bad. Um, we're doing what we have to do. We've looked at all these other things. This is the

number. How do I get that confidence level up? So when they say yes or no, I get a yes. Um I is it gonna be 800 granny yet? I don't know. 2 million, 3 million. I don't know what I don't know what the number is, but I need a confident yes or no. Go ahead.

Unfortunately, I think this document as it stands right now suggests that it's only the school that needs money.

We can definitely incorporate the other department studies. I'm not suggesting that they don't need money by any means by that statement, but there's a lot of other issues in town and this doesn't even really touch upon them.

Thank you, Jenny. Yeah, and we and we can include that.

Yeah, for sure.

Or the other ways that we will likely be spending money in the very near future with debt exclusions. Very important that people understand that because that's already that's going to hit them in the wallet first.

I agree. I'm going to piggyback on Janine because my concern is I like to always plan with the end in mind. So when do we think we would actually be going forward to um to look for this sort of structural override based on what it looks like to create the budget this year, what we think it's going to look like to create next year's budget.

And so if we said we're going to be this isn't going to hit the fan until 2040, well now we know, but we're saying it's going to happen sooner than that. But to keep that on that timeline, thinking back to the long-term capital planning timeline when we have Okay, so we have this structural deficit that requires a different type of override than the school roof track and capital. Yeah.

You know, the capital with debt exclusion override.

So those are two different votes. Are we voting on them in the same year, a year apart? But people need to know.

Yeah, they're going to have to know that even if we're voting on one this year, that this one is coming next year.

I don't want them to be like, "What? We just gave you money." That was totally different.

Yeah.

And it also means that they may say, "I like the idea for the one override, but not the other." And both of them will have negative impacts on the way we do business.

Right. Can uh Cody, can you talk about time frame just so people have a kind of a backdrop of how this potentially could lay out uh if we're trying to stay proactive and get ahead of this crisis that's it's coming.

Yeah.

You know, what does it look like? Um well um you know I think it there's a lot of variables and I think you know Bess brought up a good point of the actual revenue. If you look at just appropriations we do not have a deficit, right? We because we have to bring a balanced budget to town meeting every year. We we it's it's a law. What that means though is is there's cuts that

happen as you guys know before it gets to town meeting or there's other funding sources that aren't long-term that aren't truly captured in that in that revenue number. Right? So if you look at revenue and expenses, our revenue is always going to be at our expenses a little bit more because we have free cash. Um but are we meeting the needs of the community? And that's where I think

that that first page can be misleading if we do it that way because you're going to say, "Yeah, we've been sustaining the last 10 years.

Operationally, you may not be sustaining, but you you are sustaining.

You're the budget that's going to town meeting has passed every year, and we've had the revenue to keep up with it every year. Doesn't mean there aren't cuts that are made beforehand." So, I think that's that's something that that we need to think about how that's getting portrayed. As far as timeline, um the timing isn't great because the reality is is these capital projects, we cannot

push them off any longer. The schools know we have the high school roof. Uh we've been accepted into the MSBA. We, you know, going through that process. We cannot afford to pay that without debt.

Um that's going to require a debt exclusion. We can't add that into the operating budget. So, we've talked about you looping in some of those other smaller projects um and doing one debt exclusion. That's going to be if not fiscal 27, early 28. I mean, we've talked about it with Mr. Kylie. Um you know, there's a potential depending on the timeline that we get it on a ballot in the November election. The the

timeline from the state is tight because we actually have to get it to the state by August. So, we're not quite sure that would line up. Um, but if not, then it's going to likely be on the ballot in April. Certainly would be on the ballot in April for the debt first debt exclusion, which, you know, we're predicting somewhere in that 13 to$15 million range to take care of uh the roof, the stadium, and the track

potentially. Um, so then you look at what the timeline is for an operational override. And I think depends who you ask, but you know, the town could have used an operational operational override this year, right? We we know the school department made some um reductions in their requests. I know Gary and I can attest to many other departments made reductions in their request. Uh so it

all depends on when when I think this group finds it to be um necessary for operations to continue to to present that. The reality is is can we scrape by? Yeah. I mean we we scrape by this year and that but what level of services does the community want? Right. That that's that's what it comes down to. Do you want to do you want to um continue with historically low taxes uh you know

minimal development and keep that rural rural charm of Dartmouth and good and high quality services that doesn't exist in any community in so here's one of my my concerns is that we've got you know the 40B's coming online. Um, yeah. Can we talk about economic development in this town? Because is it as a taxpayer, someone, you know, people that are not involved in town government, all they do is they they see

a lot of growth happening along the Route 6 corridor, even out, you know, Dartmouth Street. Well, it's it's you see the signs on the telephone polls now, stop overdevelopment in Dartmouth.

But then you hear that our new growth is going down. Which is it?

Yeah. So, so those we don't get any valuation until what's built, right? So, what's what's there June 30th is what we can actually tax on.

So, um take out the Dartmouth Street property because that that's one that's in process. But beyond that, uh what do we have? Seven new homes last year, Gary.

10 new homes last year, single family home.

So, we're talking All right. So, you're talking new single family.

When you talk new business or anything, if it's an existing building, that's not new growth. It's a new construction of of a new building. Decks and and roofs.

That's they add up, but it's minimal. Um, so one of the other challenges Dartmouth has is we do not have a lot of developable land in our commercial corridor left. We we recently did an analysis. We have we what we believe to be one parcel, sizable parcel in the Route 6 Forner Road corridor that can be developed. There's a lot of redevelopment opportunities out there.

Um, and we're we certainly want that. We don't want to see vacant businesses, but the reality is is that the growth comes from new construction, not the redevelopment. Um, and then the 40Bs, yeah, I mean, they'll certainly provide us with some new growth if and when they get built, right? And so, I use the example of the preserve on Route 6 was approved by the zoning board of appeals in 2019, right?

They just got their first round of building permits last July and they just started vertical construction a couple months ago. So, so all those years we got no additional growth from that. Uh, so but it's it's coming ultimately it's it's coming.

It could be. So, yeah, but but here's the problem, right?

With the growth comes the increase in services.

So, police, fire, emergency service costs go up, right? The we're gaining revenue. People think it's a boon, you know, we're going to gain all this revenue. We're actually, you know, not.

We're probably net something out. But my biggest fear and concern really for the school department budget is all of those Dartmouth Street excluded because Dartmouth Street is a 55 and older, all of these other units in the 40B section. um if those if that high need percentage continues to to travel the way that it's been going, there's no reason why we shouldn't believe that the

the new students coming into this aren't going to be at that higher need level.

So, we're going to we're adding and we're exacerbating the problem. That's right. when we bring in these separate and and there's certain there's absolutely a formula as well out there for if if these units are you know if there's 80 units that are threebedroom and 20 units that are two-bedroom there's a formula out there that these companies use to tell you about approximately how many of those families

will have school age children and let me let me tell you why my the biggest concern that I have with it if we get to the end of this and we have the development we have the numbers coming in from the number the students. um that income comes in, we're still not going to see how it's going to affect the school department budget, but we've already passed, say for conversation, say it's a a a two-tiered one-time

uh override to try and offset the costs and build into the school department specifically what we're going to need to fund it properly. that's that that high needs level with all the 40bs is going to come in and it's going to increase, but it's going to increase inside your numbers.

I'm not going to see what the need is because I don't have the payroll on yet to deal with those numbers.

Sure, that's going to be growing on the inside until boom, all of a sudden you guys are down seven teachers.

It scare the crap out of me and not even from the school department. That's what people don't think about when they're sitting at home watching this. They're just concerned about what's it going to be, 100 a year or 300 a year, right? You know um but those are the things that we try we we have to try and figure out now because you're going to be up against it.

How do I make sure you get the money?

Right. And my concern is when they come online is before the school department.

I'm concerned about DPW because none of them that are being built are going to have septic. They're all going to tie into our sewer and can we handle it? And the issue for the people sitting home think that we can just say no and stop them. Yeah.

And we cannot.

But the burden is going to be on the rateayers in this town.

Yes. Absolutely.

Not to mention the Route 6 corridor.

That's a whole other issue.

Yeah.

So, so again getting back to this this particular document, this obviously the issue is not going to go away. These are hard and fast.

So, what I'm thinking is the timeline to what Cody said, which is in uh November 2027 or April 2028 for a debt exclusion for um No, November. You're talking November 26.

26 26 fiscal 27 fiscal 27.

Yeah. this November or next April, which is April 27th, 2027.

And that's just that's just capital, right?

And that's just the very small I mean, it's still 13 to 15 million, but when we're talking hundreds of millions, it's that's the first very small piece of this that that's essentially to get the high school roof done and then potentially loop in some of those other smaller projects. Mhm. So now we're looking at in June of 2027 when we go for the FY28 budget, will we have enough money?

I can tell you confidently. Um, no. I'm just just being realistic because when we talked to Mr. Kylie, right, the the contracts are settled for the school department. Obviously, personnel is your your biggest cost. So we can somewhat project out what those are going to be.

So we would expect the um the request from the schools to be consistent with around what it was this year. And as we've said consistently 4 and a half was still not sufficient for the schools this year. We're using some one-time funds. Um we will not be able to fund at 4 and a half% next year because we we dug into our conservativeness of our revenues. So without even putting together um which

we have projections but without putting together really sophisticated projections from a common sense point of view you can say okay we're going to have even less new revenue available next year and we can expect increases to be at least at the same level we we have a problem. So that being said, we need to debt exclusions. What Heidi is speaking, those will be all debt exclusions.

Those are debt exclusions. But if we're thinking we need an oper an operational override to fund FY28 budget, we need that vote in April well of 2027 because at the June 2027 town meeting if we need to go in with a balanced budget.

So there's two ways to do um an operational override communities will do. You can either do the vote first. If you do the vote in it in in whatever that is, then you bring a budget forward that is balanced. If you do town meeting first, you essentially bring forward two budgets. Um, one is a whatif budget essentially. And so you say here's your here's your base budget. That's that's what what we can afford right now.

And then here are your additional expenditures that would be approved if the override passes. So okay. So my concern there in thinking of any department, but particularly the school department, if that vote's not going to happen until unless we're calling for a special election, which we've done before, if we're going with the November election and in my the school budget, they have asked for personnel.

Oh, no. It would have to be a special.

So if you if you did the election after, it would have to be a special.

You have to do that before we start the school year. The challenge is is I I cannot I mean don't want to speak for Jim. I don't know if I can confidently give you a budget by the first week of April. That that's a that's just a challenge of when our election our local election is. Certainly can give you a good idea. I mean we have a very good idea. Well, actually have to be before

the first week of April because the election warrant has to be done prior to the actual election.

So you would need to that's I mean you have a lot of you have a lot of things outstanding still. we'll have a good idea. Um but you do still a lot of things outstanding. That's one of the challenges of um and and every every community has nuances of when they have elections and town meeting. Our town meetings on the later side with June, our elections on the earlier side with April,

but I I mean with that I I don't I mean Gary, you can certainly apply.

We actually talked about this a couple years ago. Jim, if you remember, we had a couple scenarios that we were going to put through because we thought we had needed we're going to need an override.

So that was exactly what we did. We presented like two budgets. Uh what that looked at, what that looked like going to into town meeting when we would have to have the elections like the drop deadad date. Uh so we had built all that out. Um I forgot what fiscal year that was 24 maybe. Um so we'd gone through those those scenarios in the past. So we we can always regurgitate that if if if

we get to that point. But, you know, again, I don't think we can be waiting till two months before uh you know, we're ready to look for an override.

This is going to be something that has to be like we talked about a whole whole campaign effort, a whole not something that we can do, but um the groups that can get out there and push that. But I think that if we're going to if this group is out with a with a some kind of letter or some kind of document, that's the beginning of that process, then I

think the next conversation has to be we we need to start talking about what that looks like. So, and that's why I'm asking for a timeline because if what we're saying is to get this to have an operational override in in advance of creating our FY28 budget. It's too soon. We can't do it.

We can't fit it in. Then we know going in to FY28, we're going to be where we are today or worse.

But don't you think that we're going to have the same issue if we say, "Okay, then we're going to plan on doing it for FY209."

Yeah.

Yeah. We're going to have the same problem.

Have the same problem.

It's a scheduling. We We'll make it work if that's what the the tenor is of the community and the select board. We'll make it work. I'm just being I'm just sharing internally some of the challenges that we would deal with, but I'm not saying it would. We We'll make it work. Yeah, it may help that maybe Cody and I look at that the same scenario that we looked at and even uh

bring Jim on uh to look at the scenario that we looked at in I think it was fiscal 24 and have and have that timeline. It was actually but we know that we're going to we're we know that we've got a debt exclusion vote that we will need to vote on November of this year or April of next year.

So that has to be figured in. How much is a 13 to$15 million debt exclusion override going to impact each household?

$100 on the average household.

Yeah, we Okay. So, I look at that and think I can do that, but I also want to know what the a $2 million override would be awesome.

what would be the override, you know, and I want that to be sustainable because I don't want it to be $2 million for FY28.

Great point. We're never going to get the second bite.

We're not going to get the second bite at the apple.

That's my that that's a real big concern when we're trying to do this, right?

Yeah. is to make sure that we we get the numbers that we need with with all the confidence that we can get in them and and make the best decision so we don't have to come back uh and make a mistake the first time and have to come back because it's not going to happen. I can almost guarantee it. It's going to be hard enough the first time cuz I look I mean we can learn from

others but I look at the very small amount of money that Fair Haven's asking for and think is it a band-aid or is that going to get them what they need forever more?

And I don't want to do a band-aid. I want all these factors that we just spoke about that you know the increase in population that's all going to get built in.

Yeah. You know, right? I mean, if we're talking 800 more students, whatever that cost, we can't go for an override for a million and it's going to cost us 1.2 million with that additional cost and think we're going to go back out to the voters and ask for an additional $2 million. It's not going to happen.

Right.

I think you have to be in very careful when you speak because it seems like in this conversation we're putting override and debt debt exclusion, I can't even talk into the same like it's one phrase and it's not. Mhm.

It's a very different animal and people will react to each of those very differently. So be cautious what you're saying. If it's a debt exclusion, then that's what we say it is. We don't say it's a debt exclusion override because Oh, sorry.

Oh, yeah. No, it's obviously two separate.

They will not tolerate that. Trust me.

They the immediate reaction will be no.

Yeah. It's two separate items.

Okay. So, we've got a pretty good sense of what the problem is.

uh a little bit of a sense of of what the time frame will be between the uh the overrides and um uh and um the debt exclusions. Um let's get back to the options.

You know, I know you haven't had a ton of time to look at them, but again, this is first blush. This is trying to get everybody cover for this town to make sure that we're presenting the best numbers we can get. Um, and we're doing whatever we need to to um uh to stop the objections um by uh looking at consolidation. You know, what what areas uh can we consolidate uh

to try and save and it doesn't matter to me whether it's on the school side or or the town side or the police department or the DPW or whatever department it is.

How do we consolidate in those departments to try and save as much money as we can? Because at the end of the day, that's what the taxpayer is going to ask us. What have what have you done? How how did you try and say, "Well, now if we can at least agree on uh what areas we need to focus attention on, uh what options really do make sense that have worked and and may work. Then

we'll be able to come back and hopefully say we looked at X, Y, and Z. we saved uh this amount of money and we are definitely at um at the bottom. Um so we can basically ring it out for the taxpayer because that's what they're going to be looking for.

The um options are common sense. I mean they're reasonably well written, but they need to have some hard facts in there.

Mhm.

Like what?

Like okay, ensure uh meals tax, marijuana excise etc.

What does that mean in dollars and cents? Even if it's an estimate or a range?

Well, let's let let's start Janine.

Let's start with let's start with option two for us. Option one's pretty easy. We don't do anything. We kept we kick kicking the can and that's not going to work for anybody.

Uh option two, spend smarter, slow the growth of cost, consider consolidating town and school departments, IT, HR facilities, and other departments. We can add that in there. Mhm.

Um, evaluate sharing services with neighboring towns. I don't know whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent. Uh, control the fastest growing school costs, especially special education placements in employee health insurance.

Review staffing relative to declining enrollment. Um, more school centric, but we we've got answers uh to that. uh which we can take those out if we've answered them or do we leave some of those things in so people know that we've at least looked at them. You know the the optics. I'm concerned about the optics. If we don't include it then they're going to say we didn't look at

them. Well, I want us to go down each within this option two more details spending smarter what option two is because I don't want us to include anything in this list that in the end would not be padd palatable pal. Um, and personally I think the option to is fine adding a little bit more about to be more inclusive of other departments, but I would take out that very last line. Review staffing relative

to declining enrollment because we should be looking at staffing in every department across the town.

Just these were put in there as suggestions for review. Okay. Some of these have been done. Some of them um some of them already have been done.

Some maxed out like the excise tax, marijuana, the meal tax, whatever.

So the idea was to just put these in as talking points for this group and if there are certain ones that you don't think would be palatable to the uh folks in town, then we should have a discussion about it and strike it from the list.

Yeah. my my personal opinion is that there there isn't an expense in this town that people wouldn't want us to look at. So, but you know, for for the interest of time, we need to try and pair it down and but at the same token, this may not be all of it. Maybe you guys could come up with other stuff.

Exactly. Yeah. Um um so could I bring up a point here because it sounds like the way the committee is we're all talking about is that it sounds like every department is going to be looking we're going to be looking at every department not just the school department around you know efficiency whether we call it efficiency study or whatnot. I would be happy because it sounds like that this group uh wants to

see some kind of third-party um you know looked at uh third party look at our efficiency at the school department. There are a number of um groups uh consultants that do that. I am more than happy, you know, I I'm only speaking for myself. I will certainly bring that up to the school committee.

that's something that would be uh have to be approved through the entire school committee um to consider that. But um in in other districts that I've worked for that similar things have been done so it's not out of the question. Um but if you're saying that this is something that will ultimately help us. Um I know what the data is going to show it kind of it's it's pretty clear to me. But the

fact that some people may want to see a third party with no, you know, no interest uh in one way or the other, I'm happy to bring that forward to this full school committee. I'm just speaking for myself.

Great. Thank you. I I think that's important simply because it it desensitizes everything and and and there's common ground established so that people can look at and say that's factual or not factual. And it it could be that as a result of doing something like this, you guys are chronically unders underfunded.

And if if there's if there's data that comes out and says that, then when you go to a town meeting for an override, you can point to that and say we're chronically underfunded. I still don't understand why the the desi data that has been brought out since 24 at least you know why isn't independent. I don't I don't get this in my opinion I the answer to that is

that um it is viewed not by us but by the taxpayer and the people that are voting yes or no on an override whether they trust the data that's in front of them. And it's the only thing that I can think of that will eliminate uh some of the mistrust from the taxpayers out there to have a third party come in what no matter what department it is because

now we can all look back and say you know what they're saying it's underfunded by 1.8 8, right?

What say you, you know, um they found savings of 300, so it's it's 1.5, you know, um that that's where so that's where I think it helps.

I just don't understand the third party thing cuz I think this is a third party.

Well, they they're they're a um they're an interested party, but if you guys want to find another third party, I don't know. We're trying to help you.

I just I understand that but I'm just like we already have data that we did not create.

Somebody else is collecting the de data and we are using that data.

I I public schools did not create this as a school committee member. I certainly agree with you. I think that's a no-brainer. However, to the general public, I you know, if this at the end of the day for me, if this helps us get one step closer to an override and getting the money that we we need to fully operate, you know, I I will I will certainly bring it forward.

I But I agree. I I agree with you, Beth.

I just think it's silly, but yeah, you want to do it, fine. That's great.

I the thing that I like about it is simply that if this third party comes up and says you're chronically underdefunded and it goes to town meeting. What I mean what because this is a third party and that's what they say. You just want another third party to say I want somebody who probably doesn't have any stake in the game.

Who who Desi doesn't have any stake in the game? They they they look at all the communities and they say, you know, Weston has I don't know who has the best school district, but they say they spend the most money and well, they don't get the greatest grades, but they're close to it. And Dartmouth spend under spends and they do pretty well with all that money. They're not they're just looking at the data.

They're collecting data. That's all they're doing. One of the things um to you know what's being discussed is there's a lot of different data out there. One of the conversations I had with a resident recently was why do we need to invest more in the schools? We spend 13 million more than net school spending. Right? That that's a that's a statistic out there and right I mean that I I don't agree with it but that is

another set of data that people see out there that's from Desi. Um and so right that's why I think this is a different angle to look at it and not just present the data that DESIE puts out there and I think what everyone has said that is data that hopefully would be utilized um I think anyone who does it but hopefully it takes it one step further to help to justify what those things are but

there's a lot of data out there um and it depends who you ask with what they are what their personal mission is the you know the residents the taxpayers if they're going to vote for something they're going have reasons to vote for or for against it. Um, and they're going to use data, right? We see it all the time to support whatever they're they're they're doing, their position is. Yeah.

So, the idea is to is to create enough data from the third party that people can agree is the is something they can vote on.

Well, I guess it's I don't know that we'll get people to agree. We have to agree.

We have to be the ones that say it has been looked at in all from all directions and this is what we have discovered.

I think the goal that Chris already pointed out is that it's the residents of this town that have to understand it, not us. Um, so we have to figure out the best way to make it so it's palatable for the average person, whoever they are, old, young, kids, no kids, because I will tell you that the common theme would be throwing more money at something doesn't necessarily make it better. Now, don't come at me that, but

that's a common theme out there, right?

So, that's what you have to overcome.

And you and you have to uh make sure that the various stakeholders uh in the community feel that they're getting a decent return on on what they pay for taxes to include schools as well as other services.

Right.

The biggest challenge I think uh at least in my opinion that you're going to have is we can put together you know what we think is going to be needed for a staggered override. Right? You know 3 million this year, another 2 million this year. The reality is if our revenues are at 3.3% the minute our budget increases by more than 3.3% we're out of whack again. And and I do not see based on, you know,

where where contracts are settled with steps, colas, um, and and not just labor contracts, but you look at IT contracts go up on 5% a year. Um, you know, facilities, maintenance contracts, transportation contracts, they're a lot more than 3.3% um, which is about our average revenue. And so we're we're we need to come up with a at least a five-year plan for whatever override you we that comes up with to to live within

those means for at least 5 years. And even I think this year is probably uh one of the most uh leveling years that we're going to have as far as contracts go.

Um you know we've had the we've had the increases across the board about you know how many union? Seven seven unions.

Uh well, collectively there's 11 between schools and towns.

Um class and comp study is basically done.

We're trying to level those things off.

Um at some point, you know, listen, I've said it before, private sector, I'm I'm not guaranteed two and a half% every year. I'm not guaranteed 3% increase every year. You know, um is is it in bargaining? you know, do we do we jeopardize uh our standing with with some of the uh the unions? Yeah. Yeah, we do. But at the end of the day, we we you know, I think the goal should be to

try and get these positions to a point where again, we're not the highest and we're not the lowest. We're in a pretty good position. We're providing good benefits and we can start at some point to try and hold the line on, you know, three and a half, 5% increases. uh at some point it's just again you know we're at two and a half uh the you know we're at two and a half

once we're over that number without the growth we're out of whack we're out of whack. So hopefully this year we can get to a better standing with with the contracts that we have and and and try and put maximum pressure on the increases. Um but in order to to not do that and and have the bumps, we need to look at some of these other things.

We need to look at consolidation. How do you know the are these look at this list look at you know for number two is this you know possible is it not possible?

Um, you know, uh, can we can we, you know, have discussions with neighboring towns about certain aspects of service delivery that, uh, could make an impact and allow us a little bit more float so when we do have a contract increase, uh, we've got a little bit more money to to to handle it. That's where it's going to come from. It's not going to come from, you know, an override every year. It's

not going to happen. So, um, I'm looking for ideas. So when the when the C I was I say to the customer when the client uh when the uh taxpayer comes forward and says hey you know what have you done to try and offset some of these expenses I need a list we need a list and and we need to make sure that we're actually following up on them and it's not just a

bunch of BS on a piece of paper.

I think we should say what we already have done because we already have done a number of things. Um, and I think it should be control the fastest growing costs. I don't think you have to say school costs, although if you did say that, that's special education. We already have worked to decrease outsourcing those students. Um, so you either have to be very clear about what we've already done or just

say look at those costs. But I don't think you have I don't think everybody knows that.

I was just going to say what that what you've done to decrease costs.

Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that know that if you want to talk about it, you need to say these are this is what we've done. This is what we're still looking at. Um because not only the schools but the departments all over town have been spending smarter, more efficiently since I've been paying attention.

No, I think including in here examples of what each department has done to spend smarter would show people that they town cares.

Yeah, it's an important it's an important aspect.

the discussion that we're going to have to have at a town meeting. Um, and and you know what, the taxpayers are going to they're going to ask the question, what have you done for me lately? And we need to exactly be able to have that list together.

Um, and and again, there there are some things in here that may apply, may not apply. Uh Cody's made uh some comments in, you know, another meeting about uh about some of these, but we had to get something on a paper in uh I I could I could have meetings with you for the next 20 years, two hours of whack and talk about um you know, any one of

these, but I had to get them all in front of you and rattle your cage a little bit and uh hopefully we can come up with some ideas.

So I I think what we have to do uh is take this away and doctor it up the way you want it and come back and have another discussion.

I think what might be helpful is if we could get this on a Google doc where we could add our comments.

Can't do that.

You can't can't share it. Technically, that's a violation. You meet up because you're technically if you can see each other's comments and stuff. That's deliberation.

Technically, you could each do it independently and then send it in and you could review it collectively at a meeting, but you can't have like a shared ongoing document.

Okay. Could we receive it individually as a Google doc and make our comments or do you want a hard copy that we literally scratch on?

We would prefer no hard copy. It could be electronic on paper.

I'm We could have electronic document that get shared and we each write our own notes like your own notes.

It just can't be.

Heidi, I just converted it to a Google doc so I'm I'm able to edit it myself.

You can't share it with everybody.

Correct.

Um because I think that it would be helpful because I mean I'm looking at um under where was I now?

the consolidation of possible possibilities for evaluation shared services and I have questions about how these things would happen. Um well I think at this stage we have questions. So, the idea would be get a list, go through the list, figure out which ones would uh offer the biggest bang for the buck in terms of saving money, generating revenue, or whatever, and then put together uh action plans to execute,

but when I look at like controlling school cost drivers, um well, we know we know special ed and we know you guys have done a really good job uh trying to contain those costs.

But I guess the question is, is there more if you got funded differently uh if you whatever uh to increase um savings in that area or or is it some I don't really know.

I mean, I know they're collaboratives. I I don't know the difference between the collaboratives in how you've been able to keep those numbers down. Um, we've talked about it a little bit, but are there are there other opportunities that we should be looking at to try and help you with other towns around here that are doing something different? I guess why don't we start here because I'm

running out of time here. I got to leave at 5:30. Why doesn't the I I I see this as maybe the the budget subcommittee getting together to uh the school department school committee's budget subcommittee get together and let's talk about what we can contribute from the school department.

That'd be great, Chris. And we can do that with the other departments too in this document as to kind of spell out what what we've done, what we're what we could try to do to help. Um I don't have all the answers but this is something that maybe we can we can collaborate with in a budget subcommittee meeting um to for starters and then this way we have something that

we can bring back to to this group.

Good.

The other thing that I would like to have so that people understand is if we had the money what would we be bring back? What's what programs have we eliminated at at the school department?

what programs have we eliminated in other departments in town? Um, you know, so I'll just say like perhaps we want to have um activities at the north uh recreation center similar to what we have at Ponagans in the summer, but we can't currently do that because the level of staffing that we need and all of that. So, what are some things that we want to do? So, I mean, I'm gonna be

I still I'm very much missing as a grandparent of elementary school age children, elementary school instrumental music. I'm still like hung up on that.

So, I look at that as a loss.

Mhm.

I look at some other classes that we are no longer offering at the high school level or we just haven't been able to.

um you know, financial literacy, some other things that are being offered in other communities that we just don't have the the bandwidth for. I I want to know what what else we could have.

Agreed.

Um better lunch program based on the civics lessons that we saw, the civic uh the kids. Um when was the last time there were late buses for elementary school students, right? And that would help with the after-school programs or the ability for everyone to be able to participate because right now you can only participate if you're you have a someone in your family that can give you a ride. That's not equitable,

right? We're creating a culture of halves and have nots.

Have nots, right? And you know, some of the ways that we've been doing business here in town, I'll I'll say the beach stickers because we continue to get flack on that is, you know, moving to so that they're all online. Still seems to be a problem for some people. And maybe if we had all the money in the world, we'd have somebody that could that could be their job is to, you know, for a

couple months during the year sit here and write out beach stickers. I don't know. So, Cody, is it is it possible to get this to the department heads to uh um for for them to come back in a in a similar manner um for ideas on um consolidation um program savings? One of the things that that I wanted in here was uh to pull town employees as to money saving ideas. Sometimes the people that are

doing the work know a hell of a lot better uh on on how to save funds than the management. Um no offense but so it happens. Go ahead.

I have a question. So it's 528.

Yeah. Um I got two minutes.

Uh the idea of doing this the way we did it was to have this kind of conversation, right? and then then make a report to the select board on what we've been doing, what we looked at, and then what we plan to do going forward, which was the idea of looking at some of these things in terms of consolidation, cutting costs or whatever the thing is.

So, Cody, when when do we actually have to have something that we hand to the solid?

Yep. I'm I'm gonna bring you right in.

Deadline. Um I mean, I mean, it's a tough it's a tough time of year. Uh so I wouldn't say there's a ideally if next year I'd say you want to get it to the board before town meeting. Realistically I don't see that happening this year. Uh it's April 28th. Um we have one meeting in May.

So we want to get this as clean as we can. I mean my point is if we send people away to doctor this document and come back with different ideas. Are we working against uh a timeline?

I don't think so. I think if if you could plan to have something for midsummer, um that may be a good time to finalize this. Things are a little bit slower. Knock on wood. Uh you know, for and we have a town meeting in October.

Mhm.

And I don't look at that information coming to select board.

Yeah. This is um again the first report.

I I think really focus on what exact what you've actually done, right? We've reviewed fixed costs. Um we've talked about you know the budget process going forward and then you know as a next step it may be a good idea to develop two lists essentially one is here are the cost-saving measures that we've done right we've already done these things here are the items that um we want to investigate more of based on the

feedback from the team you know on the general government side on the school side you whatever it may be um and then once we've done that we can recommend how to move forward.

All right. So, go ahead.

Mhm.

And then talk about their work in the next meeting. Is that right?

Yes. That's I mean that's that's what I need.

Yeah. I think people should focus on those lists though. I mean because I I think if if Yeah. Everyone independently tries to edit this document. We're going to have a new document that the next meeting that is totally, you know, different.

What are you suggesting?

I think lists, you know, list of of what like under the various options.

Yeah. Under the various options here, consolidate blah blah.

Here are the things we've already done because I do think that that's crucial of of what you've already done to show not just the select board, but eventually the the the constituents of Yeah. We're not just sitting around. We are spending smarter.

All right. So, I think Gary might have Gary and Fincom I would think would have some information as far as when you've met with Well, we're actually building it into our letter.

The letter that Fin my FinCom letter that gets sent out, they're talking about um you know, some what the departments wanted.

Yeah. And we do that we do that through the cost of the one-on- ones early on in the budget process. But what we're talking about here is accomplishments that the town has made you've saved money on.

Oh, okay. So it starts out with all the key initiatives.

So you're suggesting then Cody that we take a look at under the various options adding to the list subtracting to the list.

I think so. Yeah. The reality is other than the things that have already been done this group has not investigated those other things but there but put on the list for an update. These are the things we want to look into. These are the things our departments have.

Exactly. Um because I I we don't want to to overstate what the group has done.

I'm not diminishing what you guys have done. I think you you've done a lot of good work. However, there's a lot of things in here that haven't been done.

Um and so deciding what realistically can we can we view going forward?

Yeah, like the schools to Heidi's point, you know, what we've seen on our side uh is um you know, personnel departments that wish they could have a you know, additional personnel, but in this budget, we just couldn't couldn't do it.

All right. All right. So, you've got the report in front of you. You can doctor it up. Uh try and keep uh try and keep the skeleton portion of it together. Um we can move things around, but um I did it at 4:00 so we could have some public comment. Um so, I' I'd like to ask if if we could have uh Thank you.

Hi, my name is uh Dear Farrell Welch. Uh I've been away for two weeks, so I apologize for missing fin meetings, but I did see TV and I've tried to keep up.

Um, I am on the finance committee. I was on the town administrative search committee and I am the liaison to DPW and uh DPW besides uh being my favorite department. I try to go to all of those meetings. I'm looking forward to the tour which we haven't had yet. Uh in my uh prior to retirement life, I was uh Mr. Jim Kylie um and did the same job as Mr. Kylie retiring in 2016.

Just three real o over structure uh umbrella kinds of comments. Structural deficits are problems with revenue.

Period. They're not problems with expenses.

Structural deficits are problems with revenue.

Dartmouth is a minimal aid community.

New growth isn't meeting.

Structural deficits are a revenue problem.

Two, second point I think is important to the budget advisory group.

Budgets, the largest part of your budget is personnel.

Anyway, any way you look at it, any day of the week, full-time FTE have health insurance and contracts. We have 11 bargaining units.

11. You have steel workers, mass teachers, asks me. You've got a boatload 11 bargaining units. Personnel drives your budget. Not the school department.

Personnel drives your budget.

You have three studies going on right now. You've got your compensation study that's going to be part of your FY28 budget 27, but it's going to be rolling into FY28. So, you're already over 2 and a half% once those contract file finishes for FY28. Not just the school department portion of the FY28 budget, the personnel to run the town of Dartmouth's portion of the FY28 budget is not going to be covered by two

and a half. Um, the three studies you have, the police department, I'm sorry, the police department staffing study, the terabytes of data that you have in your MIS department is the data that these studies for $60,000 are going to do. They're going to use your data, your statistics, and do a study for you based on that data. And that's going to give you your staffing study. You currently

have 10 positions approximately that are funded but not hired. So you've got about 700,000 odd left over in this year's budget because of that staffing.

So that's going to be very helpful in FY28 to nail down the staffing level for our police department. So that's going to be ready for FY28.

Your operational study for DPW, we talk about a lot at DPW. We're waiting for your business manager to be funded to put into the department to start talking about the operational studies and the needs of DPW. Your DPW guys are just the most awesome group of guys and I love Luna pieces. They work so very hard but that is a personnel part of our town budget.

Um and lastly the study that you're thinking about with respect to the school department staffing.

Um again the school department budget the biggest part of that budget is staffing the biggest part police department is staffing DPW staffing library staffing staffing the operational study done by anybody for the school department is going to use the data that exists at the dees and on our financial audits etc etc just like the police department study is going to be using the data exists here

this is $60,000. I don't know how much this is, but please take a look at the economics of doing a staffing study on a school department with the lowest per pupil in the area. So, please don't spend a lot of money on it is my point.

If we were Lexington, Andover, Welssley, Weston, oh, take their high school program of studies and mark it all up and then you'll get Dartmouth's program of studies cuz it's not that much. You don't have elementary instrumental music. You don't have elementary foreign language, but we don't have DPW stuff, too. And we need it all. So, those are the only kinds of things that I think

about and I thank you for your time.

Thank you, DJ. You're welcome, Terry.

I'm just going to take two minutes. I just I agree with what Deandra said. I was hoping that I would hear tonight more or today more about what the um downside is of not doing something to deal with the structural deficit because the conversation that I've heard is conversation that we've had for many years. Honestly, you know, um I agree 100% that when people come and do the avails that were discussed tonight,

they're coming from a it's like an insurance company that comes in and looks at an insurance company, they're looking at it from their peers and the in the context of insurance and we've got all this data. It I don't understand how people think that there's some vested interests of the Department of Education in Dartmouth public schools.

There is none. It's like, you know, any of the other um I don't know enough about town audits, but just think about the people who do them. They come in with a frame of reference, right? And they they kind of use your information to kind of regurgitate back to you what you already knew. And when I was calling on people to do this stuff, sometimes I would do it just because they wouldn't

listen to me. I would tell them this is what it is, but all right, you want me to pay somebody a lot of money to come in and tell you what I would tell you anyway. All right, I'll do that. In this case, I don't think it's going to get us anywhere. And my worry is that if we spend another year, think about the town meeting last year. We had on the floor

at an a request for an amendment that almost passed that would have then ended up having the town in an uproar going back and looking at what are we going to cut.

I think we need to start talking about what are we going to lose? If nothing changes with our revenues in the next year, what are we going to lose? What are we going to be cutting from this?

Because that's what we're going to be doing. And I've seen that happen in other towns. Um I think just spending more time on there may be little ways to save money here and there. And maybe people don't agree with me, but I've been on the finance committee for 10 years and believe me, they're looking at uh attorney's costs right now that you know that even that they can't really do

much about because of the different uh areas of expertise they they need them.

So, I think where we are is where we are. And I think an effort to try to find where we can save money is going to be feudal. And I think that we really need to start thinking and even to say if you had more money, what would you do? We'd all do awesome things, right?

If we all had more money, but what have we lost already? The schools, we've we've heard from people in the school district about what we've lost already.

We have people who grew up here and knew what they had and what they don't have anymore. We have a superintendent who's very concerned about after school programs for kids which can't be uh funded right now. And there's a lot of need for you know whether kids are in 40b or whether kids are kids. The there's only a third of these new uh apartments are 40b. The rest of them are

going to be still kids who need assistance. So, I just you can hear that I'm frustrated and may you know I know people have to go through a process and bring things together, but Jesus, you know, we've got to figure out what we're going to lose or we're going to be in a place where we're not we're still going to be talking about how we can save money somehow some magical way and not

not think really about what's going to happen. We're going to be in a crisis if we don't do something.

And that's just one woman's opinion who's not an accountant or anything like that. But thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And you bring up a good a valid point.

You know, maybe maybe we incorporate one section of this which would be uh the top three things that we lose if Yeah. If it doesn't I think where we were a few years ago, we were looking at the youth advocate budget because we didn't think we could afford it anymore.

Now look what she's done. Right. Part time. She's unbelievable. They're doing a great job. But would we be able to keep it?

Thank you.

Any other comments, concerns?

When's the next meeting?

The next meeting is May two weeks from today would be um May 14th.

Well, sorry, May 12th.

May 12th. And I think we had said the last meeting that this next meeting would also be a 400 p.m. meeting.

Next one's 4.

Yeah.

One more time, lady.

Um t Tuesday, May 12th.

Thank you.

4 to 5:30 in this room.

What are you looking for from the administrative team? I'm The next two weeks are really, really hard.

one more at least one more week. Um yeah, the warrant we have to finalize the warrant the the 11th. So if we could do another week that would be very helpful for us.

I agree.

We can move it to the 19th.

How does that work for everybody?

Yep.

And then the we're going to do all our uh markups on that.

Yes.

And any I mean any questions that pop up in the interim uh send them to me and and maybe you know we can get you some answers. Um we've got minutes.

Minutes.

Yes.

19th 19th March 19th.

Uh I've got minutes from uh the meeting of March 19th. If I can get a motion to approve.

Motion.

Motion made.

Second.

Seconded. All in favor?

Iain.

Uh, all right. That's right. I wasn't at that meeting. I abstain too.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you guys very much.

Need a motion. A motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjurnn is made. Second.

Second in favor. Thank you.