Budget Advisory Group Meeting - January 27, 2026

All right.

Let's start the Tuesday, January 27th budget advisory group meeting being held at town hall today. This is being recorded, so we'll be able to play it back on DCTV.

Um I am Chris O'Neill, the chair of this committee.

Uh Brian O'Hare, vice chair, is going to be out today.

Uh Chris Oliver will be joining us uh from the school committee.

And I don't think anybody else is missing. Are they?

I think we're good. All right, so we'll start um we are in person, um obviously.

We're going to start with a review of the fixed costs. If Gary and Cody can go through that. As a reminder, this this meeting, in my opinion, is is to get us to a point where we're not going to write a thesis on school department budgets or town budgets. We're going to discuss them.

We're going to bring some uh uh some common sense discussion to some of these things to try and make it a little bit more palatable for the general public. Uh I as I'm sure among a few of our citizens have a hard time with Wordle in the morning, never mind uh getting through the school budget. So um bring it to a level that makes sense for everybody, that would be terrific.

Gentlemen.

Want to start?

You want to start?

Yeah, you can start.

[clears throat] Thank you, uh Chris. So, uh at the last meeting we talked about having a list of at least on the town side uh our fixed costs.

And so, uh Cody and I went through that.

And um we can go through some of the numbers. The debt service totals about $2.1 million.

Obviously, this is um inclusive of like uh the library and uh things that are still on our books for for debt service. Includes interest, also. So, principal and interest. Uh pension and retirement assessment, as you know, we're part of the Bristol County uh retirement system. So, that's um something that we pay each and every year. That we've seen that steadily increase uh every year. Uh this

year, I believe it's a $300,000 increase over last year's assessment.

And that's with the early pay discount.

So, we get a discount because we pay it all at once.

If we didn't, it would be almost um 7 million.

7.2 million. So, we pay the whole thing in July.

All right. So, whatever your liability is for the year, you pay it.

So, it's a pay in full type Yeah.

Or we can have a split, but we do it because we save money.

is how much?

A couple hundred thousand.

Okay.

Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think it's it's like 7.1 million if we pay it if we split it.

Okay. All right. So, we're saving two couple hundred thousand dollars a year by paying it up front.

and the reason why sometimes donors they don't have the ability to because of cash flow issues.

That's a prime example in my opinion. We I didn't know that. You know, there is a lot of these things I I'm not aware of and the general public is not aware of that you're doing already to save us some money.

Yeah. So, workers comp we budget 355,000.

Uh health and life insurance, we talked a little bit about this, almost 9.5 million.

Uh an increase over last year's uh assess charges of about 15% right now. That's what we're budgeting.

And just just as a note, these are all the current year costs. They're not They're not 2027. These are the current year.

Yes. Fiscal 26. So, uh Medicare payroll tax, uh we cannot get away from that.

That's a charge of 850,000. Uh property and liability insurance, 1.3 million.

That's averaging about a 3% increase every year. Uh that we're budgeting.

Um sick and vacation buyouts, this is somebody uh you know, retires or they have um time on the books, so we pay that out of this this account. Uh Voc-Tech, 6.3 million dollar assessment.

We've seen that increase over the over the last few years. Uh not so much in fiscal 24 to 25, but uh, even more of an increase in uh, 26.

Obviously, it's on the head count of students that we that that attend the school. Uh, Bristol Aggie, 210,000.

Membership and dues, uh, this is across every single department of about $20,000.

Uh, IT costs, we're seeing about a 7% increase in our um, main uh, driver, which is Munis, a financial financial software package. And among among other things that we've uh, implemented. Um, And [clears throat] that is just our um, expense. So, that doesn't include salaries for IT. That's that's just contractual IT. So, a lot of IT services.

services are um, financial system, permitting system, the the contractual uh, expenses. No no staffing.

And the veterans, we said 500,000.

Yeah, that sounds all right.

Yeah, about about $600,000 for veterans benefits. As you know, we get some of that reimbursed back from the state.

Um, and then finally, uh, you know, utility costs, we've seen that across every single budget, electric and natural gas of almost a a million dollars.

So, these are just these are right off the top when we when we go to do the budget every single year. Obviously, these these assessments increase.

Mhm.

Uh, these these amounts increase with inflation.

Um, so, this is what [clears throat] we're looking at for FY26.

And this is just general fund. This is not the is just general fund.

Right, just general fund. All right, so, on this slide, any any questions, any comments, uh, anything that we need to kind of break apart in your opinion? Jim, anything there?

Well, really, I mean, [clears throat] you could add to it, too, your contractual obligations. I mean, there's no staffing that's Mhm.

going down, [clears throat] you know, in terms of expense. So, really, I mean, that's a cost that [clears throat] you're obligated to unless you reduce service.

Mhm.

So, from a level service perspective, it's pretty much a fixed [clears throat] fixed cost at the base level and then whatever increases you negotiate, but [clears throat] you know, for I mean, from a school perspective, we have similar similar [snorts] costs. Um Legal [clears throat] Legal is Yeah.

Yeah, we Yeah, legal What are we saying?

Legal Legal um What do we say? Something 350,000 600,000 Is legal a fixed cost?

Well, we can't anticipate You can't control our litigation. When we get sued, we have to defend ourself.

No, no, I understand. I just Yeah.

Well, it's a debate.

not fixed, but you know what it is.

of out of our control, right? Right?

[clears throat] Yeah.

Guaranteed, just not the level, right?

it's a budget item, but I didn't think of it as fixed for a second.

and I can put this a similar list together for the schools, but, you know, federally mandated special education costs being, you know, [snorts] a large portion of what we what we're doing now with our increase in special ed population is probably the biggest thing that's out of our control.

Um But uh things like transportation, we have maybe a little bit of control, but a little bit of control doesn't go very far. I mean, we've cut three bus routes in the last 3 years. Um but we can't cut anymore. So, now that's pretty much out of our control. Um And obviously our staffing is what it has to be. I mean, where we've made all the cuts we can in terms of um staffing of classroom teachers

uh to try and to try and stabilize level class size in the 20s.

Um [snorts] but anything more we're going to we're going to have significant problems. So, All right, so we're 80% staff.

So, Gary, let let's uh uh I want to run down this list one more time briefly just to to get a couple of things on the table.

The debt service 2.1 you said included principal and interest.

Yes.

Right? So, that is not a principal balance. That's what our payments are for the year annually. What what's our What is our total liability right now?

As far as outstanding about debt.

Outstanding debt I don't um Any idea?

I don't have that in front of me.

Not a lot.

No.

[snorts] No, I don't have it in front of me but I can get that for the group.

All right.

I I think that's you do, then what is it that of? So, you said the the library There's a couple of small things on there like the senior center.

No.

Uh police department. There's a couple small things on there like that they took out like CPA yeah CPA stuff and Okay.

Um that does not include um this is only general fund so that does not include uh No.

But They're all at very favorable interest rates right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, really good interest rates.

Yeah, my my interest is totals on the debt and then what the what the sunset looks like going forward. You know, we you know, how long we have Are we out 5, 10, 15, 20 years?

got that on the debt on the amortization schedule so I don't have that in front of me. I can look it up All right. So, pension retirement hit on a pretty important point there. We're saving quite a bit if we pay that that payment once a year versus breaking it out. How else would you break it out?

What do they do quarterly or I don't know. Semi-annual or or annual.

Okay, semi-annual or annual. So, that's a decent amount of dough for Yeah, and that's a policy of the town to always have to pay it.

Yeah, and what what's the trajectory of those of that number? What do you What do you anticipate going forward?

Well, we've seen as I mentioned last year I believe the amount was about 6.5 million. So, it's it's hard to determine. It's not something that we can really schedule out.

Yeah.

You know, we we budget what we feel that that's that's appropriate. We get that we get that so that's the actual assessment. I mean we that's a bill that we get from the from the county. So it's hard to determine when that comes in.

There's really no lead time. We budget a certain percentage in the budget every year.

Yeah, what what what I'm always concerned with is when you try and set up budgets, are you are you are you budgeting kind of blindly?

Do you do you budget at a number that makes sense today because you can budget for it or you're being really realistic about what your income is and how much you have available for that particular line item. You know, I'm I'm I'm debt averse personally. So I try and pay down no matter what it is, fast and furious.

So I I don't know what the the general sense of the advisory committee is about debt and and whether you're adverse to it whether you're not. But I mean personally I budget a little bit stronger when it comes to items like that and and you know, the debt service.

So a couple of things. We're allowed to do principal pay downs in addition to what is on the amortization schedules for the debt. We don't we we use the amortization schedules to pay that off.

Mhm.

And the other the other point on the some of these numbers you see up here. So we it's it's depending on the the schedule for like the county, retirement Bristol Aggie, Volk, when we get those numbers in. So we budget up to a certain point like right now I'll have preliminary numbers in there for Aggie because we don't the commission has haven't met. So there's a lot of timing that goes on with this.

Okay.

But most but most of these when it hits the budget you will see those are the actual numbers.

Okay.

When it gets voted at town meeting because the time is just elapsed. But at some certain point in time on some of these numbers we have because we don't have that information before town meeting, we have to do our best estimate for for budget.

I'm we're joined by Chris Oliver from the school committee also. Hi Chris.

All right, thanks for coming in.

Absolutely.

My apologies to My apologies for We appreciate So the Bristol County retirement is based off of an actuarial report they do every 2 years. So they most recent one was January 1, 24 that gave us FY26 and 27 numbers.

We anticipate we'll get one later this year which will be as of January 1, 26 that'll give us FY28 and FY29 actual and and once that number whatever that number is in the report that's what we're on the hook for.

All right, so any do you anticipate any surprises?

No, I think it'll continue to rise at this level.

Bristol County retirement the goal is to be funded by 2031.

Yes.

It's 2031. So if if they don't extend that out come 2031 we'll see a significant or 2032 we'll see a significant drop off.

Okay.

there and if they don't extend it out.

They've extended it out multiple times all the pension is Yeah, they keep going to say don't they keep extending They just keep pushing Cuz it just becomes too expensive I mean at one point in time it was 2027 it was going to be fully funded.

Oh.

Wow.

Oops.

[snorts] Uh let me see. So Chris basically I'm going down this list anything that pops into your head that you you think the public needs to know about any concerns that you have individually or from your perspective from the school department please jump in anytime.

Perfect. Thank you for this opportunity.

The workers comp the work that's been pretty static I think that you know as far as the premium goes.

[clears throat] What about the exposure to the town for for comp?

Do we have um do we have any outlying exposure that we that we should be concerned with? Um as far as you know our own our own liability on losses for for any of the unions, for any of the employees that we have.

Or is it all covered under commercial insurance for comp?

Yeah, I can't I mean I can't think of anything that would be if there were some potential exposure that's something we would probably address in like the litigation report with the select board.

I can't think of any anything that that wouldn't be covered.

How is that how is that loss ratio been over the last few years? No surprises there on claims.

No, we're actually pretty good.

Have we been with the same carrier for quite a while on the comp? Or Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Do we go out to bid on that number?

Or have we been out to bid?

We look we look we search around.

What does that mean?

We look we I believe we annually jump Yeah, we Yeah, we're actually doing it we're actually doing it now.

All right, so we've got one broker that that actually looks at the comp every year, checks markets and things like that. All right, the only thing that I'll bring to that is that it's fine to have one broker look at the carriers that they have. Sometimes it's it's you know, every not not every year, but every three or four or five years it's always good to go outside and get a full review from

even outside brokers. I'd like to keep the premium close. I'm not sure who we have it with.

If we can get a broker that is unrelated to all of us and can keep that keep that commission that they make on those policies local, then that's that's important to me. You know, the the more money that we can keep local the better.

But it should it should be reviewed outside the single broker every every couple two or three three or four years I'd say something like that.

Health and life.

What does what does that number look like? How you know, obviously it's been it's been going north.

And this [clears throat] And this covers every employee. It's not broken down schools. This is every employee.

And this is just our share.

Right.

We obviously the We don't budget for the employee's share.

Right.

And and that is based So that's a culmination of uh the split, the high deductible plans, everything. That's what the town is paying right now for our side of the health insurance. $9.5 million.

Holy cow.

Primarily the health insurance. There's a little bit in there for the life insurance.

Life is pretty It's It's minimal.

Yeah.

Yep.

So when I when I budget this, I look at the trend and where it's been.

[snorts] I I look at what like the carriers proposing. We meet with them. We meet with [snorts] our consultant. So we try to get the best the best estimate in that in that budget line item.

Obviously, we don't want to be short because we have to pay those We have to pay that bill every month. So um you know, I'm not going to say it's been to the penny, but we've been pretty lucky that we haven't overdrawn in this account through the fiscal year.

A couple of things there. So same thing applies health insurance is is the same deal with the as the comp and everything else. You know, we're Are Are we looking outside? Have we had the same broker on those policies Well, yes. We are.

Yeah, so we're part of MYA.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Yeah, that's what our health part of MYA for since 2000 and Oh boy, six 16, I believe. Yeah, 2016.

And MYA covers [clears throat] about 200 communities, 100 and some communities right now. As you know, we have the health insurance steering steering committee. We're looking at other alternatives. Um I can't speak a little on you know, what's going on with that at the moment, but um you know, we have some favorable discussions with some other groups.

MYA's announced their rate at the um MMA conference MMA conference recently. So, um you know, with that's still in flux. So, Was it as bad as they thought?

Uh up to 14.4%. So, you know, it could be any could be lower, um but the high end is 14.4%.

Worst case scenario. So, we're looking to We don't know our exact rate yet.

We'll get that. Um Hopefully next And and how are how are [clears throat] our losses in that in that group?

[snorts] How have they been traditionally?

Any any idea? I mean, we'll get into it with the insurance committee, but Well, we have we have a we have stop-loss loss insurance so that if it ever reaches a point where that we have a huge claim, Yeah.

uh for instance, in one of the groups I was in, we had a we had an individual had a heart transplant.

Yeah.

That was a huge claim, but stop stop-loss insurance came in and bridged that gap. So, we do we have that built in here uh in case of those large claims that come in. So, there's some protection even on the larger even on the the regular insurance.

Mhm.

Um but we haven't seen any larger um claims. You've probably have heard of all the uh the GLP-1 drugs that's coming in.

That's the majority of the increase that we're seeing every single year in this.

Interesting.

Uh so, when Blue Cross has made some announcements along with MI that, you know, that may no longer be covered.

It will not be as of July 1.

anymore.

Our our insurance offerings will no longer cover the GLP-1s. That And that's the only reason they were able to actually keep it at the 14.4. It It would have been well over 20.

Really? No kidding.

It's the biggest piece of their business right now.

So, so federally they're talking about trying to get some mandates on those and driving [clears throat] costs down, right? So, I I would assume that's going to move around quite a bit and uh hopefully we'll get some access to our own plans for those drugs.

Um okay.

So, so more to come there. We'll We'll see what the market looks like when we we get all the data back from the other brokers and all the other groups.

Uh the buy-ins are still high, I would assume on on the health insurance [clears throat] We'll We'll get into that.

Potentially, yeah. And that's why municipalities don't shop around that much for health insurance cuz you go through different JPAs there's typically a buy-in. You need potentially depending on what the buy-in is it can take five or more years to to make back that buy-in and then that's that's why you're not changing you don't see a lot of change.

So so a great point for the public to know that you know while the insurance is high you know yeah we know it's high but you know what do you do about it? What's the answer to that? And you know part of that part of that answer is that yes we look at all the cost to transfer to different carriers and different groups. However, those changes you incur certain costs and you have to make an educated

decision on whether it makes sense for you to move depending on your loss ratios you know the plan design what your enrollments look like going forward all of that data has to be brought together to make an educated decision on the plan. So you know I think the public can rest assured that we're doing that. Uh the life insurance yes yep.

Can you give an example of what a buy-in might cost? I what's the Uh three to five million dollars potentially.

What I think what triggered it for Dartmouth was that we saw the slow and steady increase to health insurance and for us not to be prudent to at least look at other alternatives we should be we should be doing that I think just on the cost of every two three years looking at different alternatives on what what's out there and we can't just accept the increase and not not look at it.

Yeah.

[snorts] Yeah I I think that's what the general public you know would would like us to do. Make sure that we're you know at least staying on you know there's not much you can do about it but you look at the alternatives. The health the life insurance yes.

Um so [snorts] at the last town meeting there was a group who wanted to have a warrant that the warrant wasn't valid on talking about health care and it was health care for all of the whole state for when for it.

Um and whether the town would back that.

And my understanding was the select board was going to maybe incorporate what they were looking at or looking into it.

Medicare for all.

Yeah, Medicare for all. And what they were looking for was um at least the town backing the idea to state government.

Not that we're going to get there, but did we ever look into what the savings would be and whether it would be worthwhile to Well, we So we gave them all the data.

They have all the data. They've gotten all the reports from um you know, from us in Yeah, the issue and and I don't know I don't I don't call it really an issue, but that needs a lot of state and federal um traction. And right now they haven't got that. There's been bills that have been sitting in in the state in the legislature for years and there's been no traction on it. Uh I guess maybe

because there's going to be a cost to that, right? There'll be a cost of providing that to every [clears throat] single person. So, you know, it it needs that kind of push in order for it to to even get momentum.

Uh they've done the research. They've gotten the information from the from the town on our end. Um where where it's gone from there, I don't know if they're still pursuing it or if Okay, so my understanding and I'm don't know the details, but that they thought it would eventually save the town money. And what they were looking for was how our town not I mean, we obviously can't change

the way the state does health insurance, but the problem is that it doesn't have broad backing and if town by town people could look at it and say it it would be helpful or if it wouldn't.

So, I just want to know, have they gotten back to you and did they say that there were any savings and if there were We haven't We haven't seen We haven't seen any of the data.

I don't know that they can project the savings because um Right, would there be a cost?

letting the the there's no health care for all. There isn't any information on there like how to how to figure out what your See, there's so many variables because we wouldn't know what the cost per person would be. We wouldn't know what the cost per town would be. We wouldn't know what those plans look like. I mean, are they plans that are like in kind to what the town offers now? Are they

substantially reduced plans? There's so many different variables that um I think that's probably why the legislation needed time to look at all this and they just haven't gotten around to it, but they do have the information. We can always follow up with them to see where they are with the with the study.

And I had suggested that they go and speak to Maya.

Mhm.

So, Maya covers over 200 of the 351 municipalities. So, if they talk to Maya and Maya thought that this would be a good idea, they'd get Maya's group, which would be all those towns in support rather than you know, each town.

Okay. It just seemed like, you know, an out-of-the-box idea.

The insurance route we're going seems to be what we've always done. And yes, checks and balances are good to make sure we're getting the best price, but their idea seemed out-of-the-box [cough] and at least worth Yeah, I I think I recall our request uh our request made of us was to get as much data as as we could get them at the time, which is fluctuating, you know, monthly. So, um with without federal and state

leadership on that one issue, it's it's so difficult to commit. I mean, I personally, I I wouldn't be able to commit to it unless I knew exactly what the plans look like, um who who is backing it, whether it had federal backing. Um so, it really it's a question of bottom-up or top-down. And the way that it looks right now is they're trying to get the groundswell from the bottom up to to make that

change and it's just a hell of a lot harder to get that done versus somebody getting out of the way, making the decision and then passing it down through through the states. So, I mean we'll we'll we'll definitely keep an eye on it because if, you know, those numbers are even close to it what the savings would be, then I think we'd all be on board at some point. Um

just to move on to the life insurance uh the group life insurance, this came up a couple of times with hiring, I think. Uh does everybody have access to at least the minimum life insurance?

All Washington employees.

All the all town employees?

Yeah.

All right. Um Okay. All They can opt to buy a little bit more if they if they decide to do that.

All right. So, there is a group policy in place for everybody.

Yes.

All right.

Right at the hiring.

Yes.

Uh And then in that 9.5 number, 700,000 [clears throat] of that is OPEB. We put into other post-employment benefits.

It's primarily health insurance for retirees.

Yeah.

[clears throat] So, we're funded at 4%, 3% of our liability.

We made a change to that recently, I think, right? With the company Did we change companies?

Uh no, that I don't think so. The The money just goes into trust, essentially.

We We set up a trust for our our unfunded liability, which is [snorts] I think north of $60 million.

Yeah.

And we continue to look at that because as the actuaries come in Yeah.

from every 2 years, we may need to adjust that amount.

Yeah. The uh property and liability insurance is the same thing in my opinion. Um you know, we we have current brokerage uh look at it, uh go back out to market, especially if the losses are good. We're on the coast, so the town has the same issues that every homeowner has in this town where you know, it's not about the water. They don't care about the water coming up the street. They care about the wind blowing

up the street. Um and most of the claims from the storms are not going to be from the water because they [cough and laughter] cover [clears throat] those anyway. They want to They want to the wind and they do cover the wind. So, um So, we asked or I, you know, I'm sure that we're looking at current brokerage for uh uh for some comps on that and then go outside probably every 3rd or 4th year,

uh you know, and and get a a better holistic snapshot of exactly what we're paying. Um that number I think has been pretty static, pretty close.

It's about 3% increase every single year.

So, so not too too bad, but again, we're we're at three points a year on a million three. So, it's a a decent chunk. So, And that one there covers all town buildings.

Um and also um vehicles.

Vehicles.

Correct.

Okay.

Cyber. That was a big one we Cyber also got increased that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh That was like another 20,000 into the into the uh cost.

So, you can kiss your ass. I mean, I'm just going down this list as you are. Uh if you have anything, jump in, but uh the assessments for vocational is There's really not much we can do about that, right? It's pretty That's That's Yeah, I know. That's a state formula.

So, it's a state formula. We we get the bill. We have to pay the bill. There's no negotiating that number. Um what is that number done to the cost of education in the town over the last three to four years?

Uh has it increased quite a bit? Has it has it uh stayed static?

25, it was 6.1 1 million.

So, 23 was 5.85, 24 was 6 million, 25 was 6.1, and 6.3 in 26.

All right. So, So, it's steadily depending on head count obviously.

So, a steady a steady increase in that cost.

Uh you know, if you you know, you put that together under education, then it um it increases that number.

Uh Bristol County Ag Mr. I'll stop you right there.

Yeah, go ahead.

Just out of curiosity, Voc has a new admissions policy this past year. Have we received our bill yet? I don't know how they built the town um for for the FY25-26 school year. I was just wondering how the um how the the new acceptance policy, if in fact I know it's going to factor in one way or the other to for Dartmouth students. So, I was just curious if our freshman class dipped or if it increased.

Yeah, I don't think we have No, we don't have I don't think they found it, but Are you thinking it may the the new the new um the new format will might might Yeah, so essentially in cooperation with Department of Education, that it sounds like there's um there's a lot less barriers for students to um apply and be accepted to vote, which in my opinion, and I could be wrong, would actually decrease our

enrollment for Dartmouth students.

Right, they can no longer count attendance as they used to.

Correct.

Attendance We can we can look into that.

I was just curious.

Yeah.

I was just curious.

don't know if Jim Jim, does the bill come through you?

No, it'll go straight to the town.

Is this the first year, Chris, that it's been This is the I believe I believe this was the first year, this past year.

Okay.

It did um if I recall the um enrollment um with the meeting, it remained quite it was steady comparatively this year to the previous years when we were there for that uh the Dartmouth day.

Okay.

It wasn't. So, I I wouldn't expect any drastic increases or decreases.

Decreases, yeah.

Okay.

It's remained steady.

So, so that begs the question. What what is the capacity look like at vote? I mean, you know, they have a building project going on, don't they?

Not yet.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Something they're trying to work on expansion?

I believe in the next 5 years.

Next 5 next 4 years.

Expansion [clears throat] expansion of offerings.

Okay.

Um Yeah.

Oh, they're so they're looking to do a capital outlay?

For [snorts] the school?

For expansion or remodel?

Expansion, I thought. I wasn't at that day.

No, it was expansion.

I'm not sure. I I For me, that would be it cuz it's so far in the future, but I said that we can't downplay it cuz that falls into long-term capital planning. It's part of us saying we'll be getting an assessment. If we're not getting assessment, they can do whatever.

They used to come in uh in in previous years. I had I used to have vote come in just to discuss what their plan future plans are. And I think we probably should get back to that having them come in at least to the select board and to the finance committee.

And you know, if they have these projects that are that are out there, that that they have a better idea than anyone that, you know, potential costs, what the time frame looks like. I think that that they should be invited back.

I know they invite us, uh but we should probably have them down uh because, like you said, it's, you know, for for a a taxpayer, it it's not that far off, you know, um Well, it's also for budget.

for budget for budget. We We don't want to We don't want to have a surprise like next year, oh, by the way, you know, this is the first part of a 25-year capital project.

Right. Yeah, interesting. And that, you know, this comes back to the whole question of uh Dartmouth One competition, investment. You got You got something?

Let me see.

Investment in education.

Mhm.

You know, what uh what are we expecting out of that expansion up there if they if they do something? How is that going to affect our enrollment, which is a a big concern for me?

Um so, that that'll [snorts] be interesting. We're going to get eyes on that.

Yeah, so this year they had 319 Dartmouth kids there.

And the FY 2026 assessment they have here is 6.4.

Yeah, we knew we were going to be off a little.

Yeah, we were 6.4 and 1.337.

Um You said how many students, Heidi?

319 No, Heidi, this was the this was the tour.

This was the tour.

Yeah.

Just happened to have it in my bag.

Uh so um Yeah, so they put down grade nine this year they had 61 students, which is less cuz grade 10 they have 83 grade 11 78 and grade 12 61.

Mhm.

So, I guess a blip of sophomores, but otherwise pretty pretty consistent.

Yeah, we usually get the bill around March, April time frame from them after the after the board meets.

After their board meets.

All right, so we're not we're not aware We get an actual bill.

So, we're not aware of any uh surprises there.

Well, it was a little bit higher than we anticipated.

a little bit. 100 and 120,000 higher, so okay.

From a [clears throat] from a capital perspective and a competitive competitiveness perspective, I mean, you think about what Voc has done is they do a great job and and they have a nice program for kids.

Um but if you think about Dartmouth High School, which for those of us who were on the building tour on the 15th you know, we took a look at that building.

Voc has done multiple projects in the time since we built that building.

Mhm.

[snorts] Never mind the middle school, which is you know Yeah, and one of the things that Voc talked about that day is they do a lot of stuff [clears throat] in-house because they have everybody that's learning how to be welders and Sure.

plumbers and stuff, they can get a lot done. Um Yeah.

Yeah, so there's no capital outlay.

They're not they're doing everything within their budget.

Yeah, from the districts.

But the town Yeah, so the town has invested more in New Bedford Voc than it than it has in, you know, Dartmouth Public Schools in recent times in terms of improving the facilities.

Dartmouth is about 14.7% of their full student body.

Mhm.

Fairhaven 7.7 and New Bedford is 77.6.

And what was New Bedford's assessment?

Are you ready for that?

New Bedford's assessment assessment is 6,419,230.

Our assessment is that is 400. So we pay 18 $1,000 less than New Bedford and we we send yeah. They send four times or more five times.

This is just a state formula.

It's it's been asked of the legislature multiple times not only for not only for folk but for all the regional schools to rejigger that formula.

It's been asked multiple times believe me and there's been no traction to try to get it rejiggered.

Yeah, it's incredible the ability to pay.

Yeah, it's good. It's a great program but it is incredibly I mean you see what it costs us for 319 kids.

And and based on the state formula.

And they get significant state aid too.

You know that's just the money that is coming from the municipalities.

And the formula hasn't been changed since 1980.

Right.

Wow.

Yeah, I I wasn't I I was aware of this number and close to it but I was not aware of the New Bedford participation in that in that budget.

And they have 1,678 students.

The same thing if you took Diamond Westport for every Westport pays more of an assessment than Fall River does. Fall River sends four times the the students but because the ability to pay in Westport is higher you you you're charged more.

As you can you That's that's the formula throughout the state.

Wow. Okay. Uh let's go Bristol Aggie 210.

It's been pretty steady yeah.

Uh let me shift to information tech is information tech. I mean things are changing quite a bit with AI. You know, as long as we're keeping an eye on on what the software is doing, um you know, making upgrades when we can.

You know, I I had an experience with a with a board that had a one-time uh a one-time grant that wanted to use it for payroll.

And I was like, you know, professional people on this board and they didn't understand the concept that it was a one-time payment. Um my suggestion was to use it for information technology, change the PCs out, get another 8 to 10 years out of those machines uh versus um uh you know, a bill that just never goes away. So, um you know, those investments have to be made. 577, what does that look like? Is

that a big number for you guys? Is that uh pretty pretty static?

I mean, we're increasing about 5% annually with most of our contracts, IT contracts. I mean, we we shop around when we can, but we're limited, you know, with like Munis as our financial software.

Yeah, we're heavily heavily invested software. Yeah.

been a we've been a customer since 1980 with Munis. So, it's we're heavily invested in them. They you know, to the AI point, I at the MMA conference, they're starting to I talked to our our rep, they're starting to use a lot of AI into this to try to cut down costs. Um but every time we put a put a platform in the software, it does, you know, it costs money it costs money. We you know,

we we we have the dual authentication on our systems.

Mhm.

Um a lot of a lot of it's security now.

We need to. We need a lot of that security.

because if there ever is if it ever goes the other way, the risk is it'll be millions.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you look at the city of New Bedford, the ransomware attack that they had. You know, that cost them that cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah.

Wow. Interesting. Um okay.

Uh veterans benefits, there was a tick up on the on the veterans benefits in the last couple of years, right? We we made some changes to that, I think.

Uh some of this is reimbursed by the state. It all depends on how many veterans that he's servicing. As you mentioned, we did change things at town meeting. We uh the double whatever the state had. We piggybacked off the state for the exemption. Um So that [clears throat] here. The exemption.

Right?

Oh, that's on the overlay.

That's That'd be on the overlay.

Um on the overlay.

This is These are just the chapter benefits that Matt pays out.

The exemption, I think, will come out of the overlay.

Oh, right. Yeah, the exemption exemption does come out of the overlay. You're correct, Cody. This is This is the piece that the town's The town's responsible for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there's no reimbursement coming he found he found veterans that had an I don't know what the head count of the veterans are now in the town.

No, he Yeah. It fluctuates. Um And it it it And then there was spousal veteran benefits that also went up.

But it it varies. Um in 23, it was 453,000.

24 actual was 373.

We've remained constant at 585 um for 25 and 26.

Uh and utility costs, I mean, what can you What can you say about the utility costs?

We do shop around. I mean, we have we have contracts and we we get it substantially cheaper than a lot of people because we buy so much electricity and natural gas. You saw probably 2 years ago our gas contracts were up. Coming to Kathy, yeah.

We had one of the lowest natural gas rates in the state and we locked in just the right time with um Greg Barnes did an excellent job with that.

Um and so we saw a huge uptick about 2 years ago because the natural gas market just, as we know, exploded. Um we had to redo all of our contracts. They were up.

Um and same with electricity. I mean, our electricity rate is lower than um like the Eversource market rate, but, [snorts] you know, it's still it's still significant.

What about uh what about solar? How does that How do the solar net metering farms that we've permitted and allowed in the town come back to help that number?

Uh well, generally, they don't. Um if we we have net metering agreements with several of um several companies, and we're at about 90 We're at about 90% of all of our electricity usage. The last thing you want to do is oversubscribe. So, Westport, for instance, oversubscribed.

They They No offense. Um they they purchased two They went into too many agreements with these solar companies, and they actually are getting more credits than they use in electricity.

And And you they don't get any money for them. So, now their accounts just have credits, credits, credits, credits. And they have to pay for them. You have a contract where they have to buy these credits, but they're not using that much electricity. So, we have a policy where we don't want to go above 90% of our usage cuz you you know, efficiency, you may decrease electricity. The last thing we want is to have more

more net usage.

So, we actually get a check.

So, we get we get a check, and that's why you'll see in the budget net metering credits, where it's actually we you know, we're buying the credits, but the benefit to us is substantially more.

So, we buy we buy them for like 80 cents on the dollar.

Yeah, that that that is I mean, from from my perspective, the first time I had seen that, it's pretty confusing how that whole Yeah, you budget the expense, and then you get the credit.

and then it comes back on the back side.

And only some some departments have it, and some departments don't. You know, when you're going through town meeting, that becomes Why did they get it and not this one?

Yeah, and I think through um our energy manager, Kathy Stanley, that we've all these buildings have been retrofitted with as much high efficiency fixtures and and and everything else that we can at this point. I mean, I'm I guess we are on behalf of the schools, but I know that.

Yeah, I mean, Kathy's Kathy's done a ton with us. Kathy's fantastic, by the way.

Um but uh but we still have a lot, you know, we still have a lot to do. Like when we were over at the high school on the 15th, I don't know if you noticed, but like all the lighting fixtures in the hallways at the high school have been replaced with high efficiency lighting, but none of the classrooms have. So.

There's There's still a lot to do, but the rebates on on lighting, the utility rebates and funding are going away. So.

[snorts] All right. So, I don't want to take up the too much more of the time, Jim.

I wanted to get to the second bullet point here, the review of the 27 school requests, also. If If you're able to run down those for us.

Well, actually, so, you know, in talking to our school committee folks on the on this committee. So, we have yet to present our draft budget request to the school committee.

So.

Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. [snorts] Um, you know.

We the the school committee is responsible for, you know, for the operating budget of the school department. And so, I think it's important that we have that discussion with the school committee because at this point, all we have is some recommendations of the superintendent and I. And through our process, you know, collaborating with the schools and and the stakeholders, we we do have

some draft proposals, but I think it's a little a little premature to dig deep into that without having the school committee have a had an opportunity to at least see those recommendations and then review them and have some discussion on them.

So.

Okay.

To Jim's point, the budget subcommittee has had has had an opportunity to review those, but it has not gone No one the full school committee has not seen these.

Hasn't Hasn't seen it yet.

Okay. All right, that's fine.

Um when do you anticipate that happening?

February 9th.

Gary, do you have that uh the budget uh calendar that you Yeah, I'm going to I don't know if you can throw it up there or just so that just so the general public knows exactly what the timelines look like because we kind of covered it last time, but it was quick.

So, um I can just [clears throat] review where we're at the uh we're all intensive purposes we're now going to be in February pretty soon. So, um the CIP C have scheduled the meetings for police uh schools, DPW. So, those will happen um in February and then uh in March the be just at the beginning of March we'll be talking to all the smaller departments that have requested capital. That'll all those will all be

done in one meeting.

[cough] And then uh [snorts] finance committee will meet also in February on the Thursdays at 5:00 to go over uh DPW's budget uh police and then schools when when that's available from Jim. So, we're we're on track with the um with the timeline as I mentioned before we're we're almost a month we did all this a month later this year, but I think it it helps out with this group to have as much information quicker than

than um in the past. So, uh and then we'll go uh through the warrant articles that do uh we'll have those uh at the finance committee.

And um as you can see, those budgets weren't seen weren't I have them here for March, but we'll probably get some of those done as I mentioned in February.

And so, um which gives us time to put finance committee's letter together and so on and so forth. So, we're on track with the schedule.

All right, and the and the capital improvement uh in the past was not videotaped. It's It's to be videotaped.

Yes. This time so people will where the priorities are coming in from from each board and and committee.

Okay.

And Gary, as part of the process, you'll be tracking with each department personnel needs.

We've done that with the with the one-on-ones that I had with the departments. Uh typically you'll see that um if they come in, obviously if the police DPW are only and schools are only three of those departments. Uh we've seen where you know, we talked about a business manager in in DPW.

We've talked that's about some of departments here.

And the assessor was mentioning something last night and her person I would say overall we haven't seen a a lot of need for additional personnel.

Uh if you remember last year we made some adjustments to that.

Yeah.

Uh with with highway with I excuse me, DPW uh doing some things with their HMEs, SMEs, laborers giving them a little bit more money so we could do the hiring. So I think in combination with Sue um our uh HR director, we we were able to do some of that. So I wouldn't say that there's a significant need for staff for the FY 27 budget, but we are Cody and I are are monitoring that.

Okay.

And so so who do we want to have in? I mean, we could have anybody in uh to talk about uh what I'd like to see is any of the committees that come before you for their their capital requests. Um you know, that will be I I don't want to duplicate a lot of things either. I don't need a meeting just for a meeting, you know.

No, we should be able to watch it or attend it. But one department I thought it was really helpful to go to this the school department and see those the physical plant issues at both of those buildings. I think our group needs a tour of DPW.

Having been on a tour myself, um you know, when we're talking about capital needs um it's to go on a tour of DPW.

Yeah, yeah, we can schedule something.

I know right now, like today would not be a good day because they're still out there doing stuff and then sadly I heard last night we got another storm coming.

I mean, I'm done. I'm ready for spring.

So, I don't know why this is necessary.

Um, so but I think that would be helpful. I know when I toured the, you know, it gave me a whole new um fear.

Yeah.

I mean, the only thing I make is a suggestion that maybe we skip next meeting and we we we regroup maybe the week after that. And the only reason I'm saying is that because we'll have more data from CIP C, well we would already have met with CIP C and some of those groups. And so that we can report back on on some of their capital needs.

You're right. I mean, I don't think we like we wouldn't want to have all the departments back in in cuz we have them in finance and have everything, yeah.

So, I think that'll give us a little bit more time to get more data. Maybe Jim will also [clears throat] have a little bit more for the schools.

Mhm.

So, I I mean, that's only my suggestion that we maybe skip this one.

I don't have a problem with that because What What I'm going to say then instead of skipping it cuz that's February 10th, could we make that the day? Could we I mean, we have no idea what the weather will hold but could we make that the day that is just a tour day. We tour DPW that day.

Um, we'll check with DPW.

Check with DPW.

You also remember too that um, those those sites are not all in one building. So, you're going to multiple buildings have you probably on the tour.

Yeah.

I mean, you're in you're in uh, treatment. You're in some of it would be outside.

I'm going to tell you once we go to treatment, we're not going to want to go anywhere else.

Mhm.

Treatment, I mean, I independently have gone to the others but treatment is the one that is is where we're you know, Yeah.

Yeah, it stands out. Yeah.

It stands I mean, the other thing is I mean, that would be I think when we're talking about where is our money going and what has to do is is seeing the well projects. That's not I mean, that is so far out of my my realm of understanding. It's really walking that DPW building and seeing um the condition of the equipment. The building was and it was equipped [snorts] in 1973.

And the band-aids that The noise uh yeah, and the um the band-aids that they've put on the facility to keep it going.

Um Yeah, a lot of the equipment I've been on the tour a couple times. A lot of the equipment that they speak about is no longer being produced. So, you know, at what point do they not make that type of generator anymore or that type of pump anymore? So, it's Right. And some are a single vendor source, which means there's no competition.

Yeah, that's it.

And you're fighting with everybody else who has a sewer treatment plant from the '70s for those lights.

Yeah. And I I had a chance to talk with Congressman Keating about you know, well, he he actually approached me and said, "What do you need?"

I said, "Well, we need infrastructure.

We need some money."

Yeah.

Join the club. Everybody needs, you know, public infrastructure. Everybody's looking for you know, upgrades to the sewer and and water treatment plants and um you know, I said, "Well, show me where the line is and we'll get in line because at some point it's going to be uh it's going to be too late. We we've got to get on it. We've got a a new communications director that unfortunately

we weren't able to get on our school tour. I think that would have been I think that would have been great. Um I don't know if it it I don't know how the how this committee feels about maybe sending somebody out to hit the highlights of that [clears throat] meeting even without us there. Um just in order to to maybe put something together about what the town is up to when it comes to capital

improvements. You know, it's it's it's one thing to listen to a meeting and hear, well, this is you know, we need when when Tim does his thing on the plant and um uh the water treatment center up on uh Old Westport Road.

Picture says a thousand words is believing.

Yeah. Right. So, I do think that as we go forth and and with long-term capital, I think it would be wise for them to have some pictures or video footage to show what I'm I actually talking about.

Yeah.

You know, when I say something needs to be what is it?

You know what? And maybe it's not maybe it's not on this committee, which I'm I'm fine with, but you know, maybe it's maybe it's long-term uh capital that that they get together with communications to try and uh maybe follow us around if we do the you know, the the plant um tour, you know, take an hour or so and and uh and take some video and people, you know, they they

need to understand um what we're looking at uh and what the costs are going forward. So, to be able to kind of fall back on some uh some more education would be important, I think. It makes It makes our lift a little bit easier when we ask people for uh for some help when it comes to the budgets and capital improvements.

Um Okay.

Yeah, so they I mean, we're meeting here on uh We're meeting here on the 10th.

All right, so you're saying you're saying use that as the uh you know, if we could put together a a tour on the 10th as opposed?

Yeah, I want everyone to know I've reached out to Tim Barber.

Okay.

Okay.

see if if that would work.

All right. Yeah.

And then our next scheduled meeting would be the 24th.

then the 24th, but if we can at least take some time. I mean, I've been down to the highway I mean, the highway department, that's the one on Allen Street. I don't think there's anything other than the facility is I went down to Allen Street. That's water and sewer.

Yeah, you have water and sewer and then you have parks and rec.

Yeah, highway's further down on um Allen Street, across from the cemetery.

That's highway. Um no, excuse me, that's water and sewer.

Water and sewer.

Water.

But it's just the I mean, it's just a building. It's It's nothing exciting to see there. I mean, I I've been.

Um what about DPW? I mean, over here near um all right, near the country club, near Allendale.

Yep, that's parks.

Parks.

I mean, it's just really Yeah, I mean, they're undergoing We have a major project there. Construction [clears throat] of that garage. Town meeting approved those funds. But I mean, I think that's independent DPW.

You have the highway facility on Russell's Mills Road. So, at the end of Chase Yeah, at the end of Chase Road.

Um I mean, that's a newer facility, at least the the back portion. I don't There's really nothing There's no large capital needs there.

The sewer treatment plant. I mean, that's [clears throat] [snorts] I think the I think the treatment plant, the admin building, and then maybe one of the well sites where like to where the four logs getting put in.

Um Westborough Road.

Yeah, I'd I'd like to see that myself.

Yeah. Yeah.

That should be online by the time we get there.

It should be.

I don't know. Knock on It better be.

Well.

Uh but that's a considerable considerable investment up there that we're making to get those wells back on that people just got their water bills increased because they are not working.

So, it's important for them to see exactly what needs to be done in order to keep those systems flowing.

So, if we can, that at least it won't be one more thing. We already have that date held on our calendars. Hopefully, he could. Um the other thing when up at MMA, um you know, we're talking about industry standards. So, industry standard right now is 200,000 to 300,000 per mile to do a road, to rebuild a road. So, when we're at capital improvement giving the town the DPW a million dollars every

year, that's 5 miles of road.

We have, I think it's 280 miles of road in Dartmouth.

Yeah, one of the largest I mean capital, we talked about what the total cost would be. It's It's well above 10 million.

We have to do 10 million a year Yeah.

to essentially keep up with our roads the way that, you know, like you should, it would be over 10 million dollars a year we would have to invest just our money.

Right. So, uh but I think that's important to share cuz as we're driving over these bumpy roads, which will only get worse after this winter, and they've had to be plowed, that's what it costs to re- to repair Now, I'm saying 200 and 300,000, as I said, industry standard.

That's [snorts] without many problems.

Mhm.

You know, if you hit something and there's a problem Or you have sidewalks, depending on the grade that you go with.

mean, it adds up, but I'm talking just I was in you know, 100 th- 200,000 to 300,000 dollars per mile.

Mhm.

And the cost of asphalt has increased over 100% Yeah, 200%.

Yeah.

So, but I think it's important to get when we're talking so people understand Mhm.

you know, and we think we're doing good by putting a million dollars aside.

Mhm.

You know, I mean, now that I think that we're uh broadcasting those uh t- uh meetings, Mhm.

they'll be a greater sense. Now, the public will will hear that.

And it'll be more accessible [snorts] now.

Yeah.

And And just uh last thing for me, anyway, is uh just an update on some revenue issues uh going forward. Last night's uh Select board meeting, we had the assessors in.

Uh they talked about um the reevaluation that's going to start uh next year.

And a full reevaluation for all property um in the town, uh personal personal property and commercial industrial. Um Well, one of the approaches that they have for uh assessing on the commercial side is uh called an INE or an income and expense sheet. It's basically a uh a one or two pager that goes out to a commercial property owner to uh record what their income and expenses are on

that particular building to try and help in the assessment of the the valuation for that property.

Um and I think we are getting out of 450 uh 450 being sent, I think we're we're not getting about a third of them back.

Mhm.

Which is not helpful to trying to formulate and [clears throat and laughter] and install a budget in a town the size of Dartmouth. So, um we had gone back uh to the assessing department and asked them uh what kind of teeth can you put into this process? And uh they checked with legal, they checked with Cody and and Gary and um there are penalties that can be a that can be assessed on those

commercial property owners that when though that information does not come back, uh we can do a reminder, but we can also send out a fine.

Um and I hate to fine. I I hate uh the fact that we need to fine. However, uh there's there's a question of fairness when it comes to other property owners on the commercial side that do re report and and do their best to be as fair as possible with their numbers. Um so, we we just want fair and balanced. We we need to make sure that uh as much of that data is coming back,

it's as accurate as it can be, and we're assessing the commercial properties uh uh as well as we can and as fairly as we can and we're going to we're going to adhere to some of these penalties and we're going to probably bring the names of those commercial accounts before the the select board at some point if we cannot get them on board with the reporting properly. It's a question of fairness

not only the commercial side but it's a question of fairness on the residential side too because everything's tied together. So we need to make sure everybody's kind of rowing in the same direction.

And then the assessment on the personal side there you know they're considering the use of drones to get these assessments done properly.

Next year was a full like I said assessment so hopefully those numbers are brought back and kind of leveled out throughout all the all the homeowners in town to make sure that everybody's paying their fair share.

You know being able to spread the tax over a larger a larger bandwidth is is always helpful because it has a lesser impact on each individual. So that's really the goal.

That's one of my goals is to try and make it fair.

Um and then I don't I don't know if you guys have anything on the revenue side any any new changes uh Are you looking for additional ideas on topics?

Absolutely yeah yeah.

I made a list.

Oh good.

Um and this some of these crossover to what the finance committee has asked for in the past but you know we have a much different group here.

I think we should be looking at shared services and efficiency opportunities.

And you know the finance committee has talked about this you know sort of cross department or regional services things that affect everybody. You know schools plus the town plus all the departments.

I mean there's got to be a way to bring that together and one of the examples that I'll use, which was great, is the human resource person.

You know, that was a good decision to sort of bring the schools into the mix and [snorts] not have it be separate people. So, The The challenge has been um we don't really have the human capital to you know, so so our HR director has been great in you know, if Jim or Dr. Sam Maguire have a question, can't reach you know, legal or need some assistance, they're there. But the reality is is

we've actually found we don't have the human capital So, maybe not a good example, but we may have other opportunities.

Well, you know, the good thing about it is now that we have we you know, have a new HR person and when we see what she is able to accomplish, we found out there was more on our side that needed to happen, wasn't happening. That she's been So, it's it's been good, but now we see But that's that's still is a very good one because we've talked internally about how can we still support them? Do

we need someone else or what do we need?

So, another one is looking at and this is just to preface it, look at housing apartments in the 40B development, but not from a land use or from a policy debate. We've all heard plenty of that in the meetings, but look at it from a fiscal impact planning, you know, infrastructure and service demands.

You know, what is Dartmouth's share or fiscal responsibility when it comes to those developments? How will that impact us as a town?

From a financial standpoint.

Um third is looking at public-facing budget communications.

You know, I was looking at what sort of our charter was for this group, so that's how I came up with some of these.

You know, we have to have simplified budget summaries for the average citizen out there.

Um you know, what drives your tax bill kind of explanations. I'll give an example cuz I watched the select board uh meeting last night and it was a good presentation on assessment, but probably not for the average citizen.

Yeah.

Just saying.

There was a lot of information that could have been if depending on who you wanted your audience to be and who you were educating, that's just an example of it needed to be a little bit simpler, I think. I mean, there was a couple of slides that definitely sort of drove the point home, but I think it was too much.

Um Janine, on that you know, what stops us from having Jessica um bring that down to less slides and and more uh you know you know, a more macro Yeah. And you had said last night, Chris, that um you know, to get this out to the general public and and then Cody had suggested that Jessica uh HR No, Jessica communications communications work with Jessica Right.

um with the assessors to get the to break it down a little bit more.

to break it down and get some clear slides. So, that would be helpful.

We we have a tendency in the finance committee when we write our letters, we've done it in the past with the letters just like, you know, uh well, the average citizen they just they're going to open the envelope and go you know.

Too many words.

Yeah, too many words. Exactly. So, we turn and this is not offensive to anyone, but we always say dumb it down.

Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.

Make it simpler. Make it so the a non-finance person or that somebody that's not their background Mhm.

that they can understand it. Um and the last one and we talked about this a little bit, but a little bit more on long-term liabilities, you know, cuz I think it's important for the town people to understand our debt affordability.

You know, so and you brought up some of the questions already, you know, what are we paying now?

What's the terms of them?

That sort of thing. So, people understand why we might look at those in the near future.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I I keep going back to every household. Every household goes through certain numbers of things.

Number one is debt. You know, some people will bring it on haphazardly, others are debt adverse, but usually everybody knows what the balance on their mortgage is, what it's costing them a month, and and when it's going to end, when the pain is going to stop. So, so I think, you know, for for the general public who's paying that mortgage bill for the town, for them to know the exact same thing about their

town is an important thing.

Thank you.

So, that's the end of my list.

Do you want to send that to Gary nice so we can make sure we include it in future agendas?

The list might grow, so warning.

Regionalization, Janine, I think is a really important thing. I remember driving by the city New Bedford town hall and I saw it was a office supply truck.

It was like from Brockton, I think it was. I was and I just drove by and we can't spend that money locally? I I knew at the at the time I think Pencils was still in business on on uh um Mount Pleasant Street. You know, two local guys, happen to be Dartmouth guys, I think one of them was anyway, that we could have probably spent that money on. They could have been competitive against the Brockton uh

company. I I know that we have, you know, state mandates on on how we bid things out, but you know, in the same same vein, we we need to try and find ways to take care of local business. Um and also, you know, drive some kind of regionalization and drive costs down. Everybody is talking about what it's going to cost how much more it's going to cost us next year and then next 2 years.

Uh we have to continue to try and keep as much pressure as we can on what we're paying right now and try and find at least some way to knock down some of these costs if at all possible because that's what they do in their, you know, in a residence, in what the taxpayers are doing at home.

You know, we need to at least let them know that we're doing the same thing here.

Um so, thank you for that.

That's about it for me.

The only thing I'll add is, Governor's budget came out and it is not great for Dartmouth. We had anticipated, you know, consensus revenue for '27 was a 2.9% increase. So, you you you you hope for around that, right, from the Governor's budget. Dartmouth, as she announced, the average was 4.4.

Dartmouth is 1.7.

And a couple of other meetings that we had attended, they attended also was the um meeting with the DOR, Division of Local Services.

So, unfortunately, the state's spending at like 4% and the revenues are coming in at 2.9.

So, they have a lot of time between now and the end of the fiscal year to try to rejigger those numbers and and a lot of that revenue starts to come in around the when you get motor vehicle excise tax, income tax reported. So, hopefully that trend straightens out, because if it doesn't by the end of June, then the the state will have a structural deficit. So, that's something that they have to

determine how they're going to address.

So, we're watching all this because obviously that filters down to the local level.

Yeah. I remember uh Gary and I sat in on a department meeting. I don't know if I said this last time or not, but I I think it was pretty funny.

Uh not funny haha. But to sit down and and I was waiting till the end and then Gary said, "Do you have have anything?" I said, "Well, yeah, what's the nuclear option?"

And some people turned around and said, "Who is this nutcase here? What's he talking about?"

And basically, when the Feds slash Mass and Mass slashes us, what do we do? You know, do we have the departments in the back of their minds saying, "If the worst-case scenario happens?" When I started to see the governor come down and say, "Okay, well, you know what?

We're going to let them change their excise tax. Let them charge more for hotel rooms. Let them charge a little more for meals." That was a red flag for me personally saying, "Okay, she might be losing control of this thing and trying to find ways for us to take care of ourselves." Um we need to make sure, in my opinion, we need to make sure that the department heads have a nuclear

option that they say, "Okay, we're slashed by 10 points. How am I going to get through the day? How am I going to continue services?" Because over time it creeps in, you know, and the budgets, you know, they move a little bit and they tick up and, you know, you spend a little here and you spend a little there. Um but you have to continually go back and look at, "Okay, in the

worst-case scenario, what happens if?"

And I think unfortunately, I think we're going to we're going to feel that. We're going to feel that coming forward. I don't think I think she's out of money.

Um and we'll see in June and July, but I don't think it's going to be great. So, I you know, kind of a not a warning to the department heads, but you know, additional pressure, I'd say yes.

Have [snorts] something in the back of your mind. How are we using the software properly? Are we able to go to uh you know, to contractors versus inside?

Um all those things really have to be on the table.

Yeah, I think to the to the point um a lot of those communities that are not as conservative as as probably Doral this are not going to be able to weather that storm because if they're budgeting every penny and spending every penny, then that's that's where that that's where that delta of the 1% that the state's going to now push back on the communities is really going to affect the impact those communities.

Yeah, yeah, you have to have a little bit of a cushion. Yeah, again, just like every resident in this town, they they have to have a little cushion in case uh something happens. So, um that's kind of sitting out there, too.

You have minutes, Brooke?

Um Minutes? That was the last Yeah, all right.

have Yeah, I think we do, right?

Last meeting So, we need we need an approval That came in a separate email.

uh minute meetings of What day was that, Gary?

113.

Of 113.

Washington 26.

We did have them emailed to us and we did have a chance to take a look.

to change that to 20 I just we just noticed it's cuz it's 26 on it. We'll have that changed.

Oops.

Motion to approve.

And a roll that book.

Motion to amend.

And motion to accept.

We can do the same thing, can't we?

Yeah.

All right.

Motion's made.

Second.

And seconded.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

You've got your minutes.

Um that's about it for me. Anybody else need to add anything?

If not, we'll move on. We're going to try and put that thing together for the 10th and then uh we'll have some more information. Uh gives Jim some time to get some uh additional information from the schools and uh we trudge on.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Motion to adjourn and second. All in favor.

Yes.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

No. Okay, good. Thanks.