Finance Committee Meeting April 16, 2026

I'd like to call the finance committee meeting to order on April 16th. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Uh please note that this meeting is in person and we are being recorded.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. So tonight we are going and continuing to do us looking reviewing some of the uh warrant articles that are on the uh um town meeting warrant for the spring. Uh we invited the planning board with Dan in uh Dan Go to uh go over uh the articles that will be be presented. So uh that's been circulated to the committee. You have those that all that information.

I'll put some of it up on the screen so the viewers at home can see it. Dan, good evening. Uh for the record, Daniel Giosa, planning director here in town.

Thank you for letting me present this.

Um, this is for a warrant article that is to be brought forth by the planning board. Um, it regards amendments to the article 24 bylaw, which is site plan review.

Um, just to give a a quick overview of where we've been at. So, this bylaw as it was originally written, we're coming on about 10 years now since it was written. So, one of the things we looked at seeing what needed updating, feedback from the public, um feedback from other departments. Um, so a couple things we identified right from the start. Um, filing procedures. We now use an online

Another thing we looked at was for storm water. Um this we have a new storm water bylaw in town. So, some of the stuff that was in the site plan review regs didn't match up with what was in the storm water bylaw. So, we're looking to codify that information. Um so, just a that was more from internal um study of this article. Then from that point we held workshops where we brought in other

departments, members of of the planning board kind of going through it, do a real more of a deep dive into those regulations. Um got a draft together for that. Presented it to town council for their review. Um, one of the things that you'll notice in the documents that you have here, one of the big items that came up, um, was the ability for the planning board to give waiverss on any

requirements. Um, that had been an ongoing issue over the past few years.

People, especially for redevelopment, one of the things we really try to do is to have redevelopment of existing properties, make it so people want to come to the town, redevelop existing, whether they're vacant properties or properties that haven't been in use. and the planning board doesn't have the ability to grant waiverss under the way it's currently written right now. Um, so

in reviewing with town council, how do we get to that point? We can do that. So if any little minor thing that couldn't be accommodated by an applicant, doesn't have to go to ZBA for everything. Takes more time, more length, bigger time frame for anybody to be able to get anything done. Um, especially for smaller jobs. Like I said, it becomes a financial burden. So, what what we came

up with um with the input from town council took some of the items that were in the site plan review and we're going to create rules and regulations that'll be adopted by the planning board. So, a lot of the things that is that are in there will still be in site plan review. There there's different documents. So, what I gave to the to the finance committee through Mr. Carrerero.

I gave what the draft is going to look like that's going to be the Warren article. I gave a full redline markup of site plan review as it is. And then I gave draft rules and regulations so you can see what we're putting into those rules and regulations. Um there'll still be stuff like I said that will still need to go for for variances if required. Like we don't want side setbacks from property lines. That's

more of a zoning thing. So, we don't we want that to stay in um a ZB variance process. Parking reductions, we still have under a special permit. We allow up to a 50% reduction in parking. That'll still stay in the bylaw. Um that'll still be something that they an applicant would still have to present to us certain criteria um for a reduction in parking.

For example, they still have to show on site that they could build the parking if it ever become became necessary. we don't want to just say, you know, you need 100 spaces, you're only building 50, and then all of a sudden they needed more and there's no place to put it. So, that's that's still in there. Um, and then, like I said, there's um a lot of things we took out. Um,

some examples of what reasons why we were looking to do that. Like I said, a lot of it's redevelopment. Um, something that's come up recently for a curb cut, we have a 30 foot wide curb cut maximum.

That's fine if you have a nice wide road. You have plenty of room to put the shoulders in. You have big trucks and you only have a narrow shoulder. The fillet kind of comes wider for the radi.

So sometime it's 30 ft for the main access, but sometimes you need that little play in coming off of of the road. um certain materials um questioned and it's you know things that have been used around town for many years just didn't really have the ability to grant those waiverss by the current bylaw. So we'll have we'll have availability to do that. Um so that's what we're looking um to do for the

article 24 updates.

That's just kind of a quick overview and then I can get in into any more specifics if anybody's got any specifics. Can I just have a question?

Was the treat was the treat uh commission uh weighing in on this?

No, they have a separate bylaw. Separate separate. So, they don't have you don't have to be worried about that.

I mean, we have we have a lot of landscape regulations in there with street trees. There certain areas of town that have more um stringent street tree rules depending on where they are.

Um, another example of why we're looking to have some flexibility for redevelopment. Sometimes planting of trees are over utilities or over drainage requirements. So, it's like we got to be a little more creative with tree locations. Again, the way the bylaw is written, they'd have to go to ZBA just to say we want one less tree. This gives us some flexibility to do that.

Property, I think it was on Elm Street that had the number of locust trees cut down. So, Yeah, that wouldn't be Yeah, that wouldn't come before us for site plan review. So, but any developer would have to go through that.

Yes. And that's in that's that's in the layout of the road. This is offsite parking and requirements offsite.

I have a question.

Sure.

Um there are certain projects that are coming in play now country club Dartmouth Street and so on and so forth.

They have come in front of the planning board. Are these regulations that we're looking at now going to impact any of that? Will they have to change any of their requirements?

Um, Thomas Street, you're talking about Delano Apartments.

Yeah, that's already approved under the what's on the books right now.

How about Hawthon?

Hawthon has nothing to do with planning board and site plan review. That's that goes through the ZBA comprehensive permit.

Okay. Thank you.

Are you going to provide all this information to town meeting? because that's usually a question that comes up.

As you know, the warrant article is so limited in what it actually tells you for details and and I know we've gone through this in the past. It's good when people see what the changes are.

Yeah. Um we're waiting for the actual warrant language from town council. He's already reviewed it as is. just a matter of getting like that final language. But um we've talked about at at planning um board meetings about giving a little summary so we can we can put um it's I don't know if we kind of just did a little breakdown of what was moving to article 24. I can pass them around if you guys want to

just get a little view.

It's just kind of like a little summary of what's coming out of article 24 to go into the potential regulations.

thinking about including it in the packet or are you thinking about having it available at town meeting? How is it going to be shared with people?

Uh we we can discuss that at the planning board meeting. We we can definitely include this as part of it.

Uh we can do a little quick summary.

Can you send this electronically? Sure.

To me and I can forward it to a question.

Yeah. Go ahead.

So um Dan, um regulations for a developer means money and cost. doesn't matter what town is imposing, you know, we all get different regulations, but that that's a cost to the developer every time they're going to um abide by your regulations.

Yep.

Uh I'm a developer.

I want to come in and build this as cheap as I can.

Y So now everything goes on the table from what I understand is for waiverss. Is there a limit on or the planning board will discuss a limit on how many waivers? I'm going to come in and say I want 75% of these regulations we waved or reduced. Um is is understanding that may be possible. Are is there a limit on how many regulations?

Um we we put in a definition for when um waiverss would be warranted. Um, is that based on based on on town council's um review? Let me see if I can find it quickly.

Is that in the regulations document?

Yeah, that'll be in the regulation. So, in so in the just just to go back to to the bylaw. So, at the end of the the bylaw where uh section 37524.6 six um in with the regular author regulatory authority to create the um site plan review um regulations. You see F is to establish procedures for obtaining waiverss for many design standards. Um and then in here we have

and I'm now I got to try to find it.

It's always the way, you know, when you want to find it, you can't. It's always the way.

Always.

So, this is going to be accepted as a whole package. This which Tom mean can't say, "Oh, I don't like the regulations."

Regulations don't go before Tom.

Regulations won't go before them.

Um, yeah, we got a very specific definition from town council. Um, I should have highlighted it before I came in.

Um,

while you look and I just want to say thank you for reviewing it because we noticed in the chatter commission that there is a lot of language that is dated, very dated. So, it's nice that you've reviewed that.

I'm not finding that off the top off the top. I um I can get that to you. We can I can try to get the the highlighted section. Um so is your opinion that there is some limitations there?

Yeah, I I I remember discussing the item. We kind of took it from um some stuff from from the state, you know, it has to have, you know, reasonable requests.

I don't think we want to set any precedents for like new construction.

It's more like I said more for for redevelopment conditions. But the way I'm understanding the bylaw, it allows it for even the new new construction which y which um you know you're going to be getting a lot of requests. You know just about I you know when I served under the plan we had waiverss for subdivision and just about every developer right always asked for waivers on subdivisions.

Uh I don't think there was ever a subdivision that somebody didn't ask for waiverss.

One of the things I think um really what Dan and the planning board are trying to do is kind of match current practice.

And so council has advised that technically the way that it's been done is not the right way to do it.

Technically everything in the bylaw and and if you think about it, it kind of makes sense, right? If it's in a bylaw, the only one that can change a bylaw bylaw.

But but uh if it's in a bylaw, the only one that can change a bylaw is town meeting, right? If you're going to vary from a bylaw, technically town meeting bylaw committee for a long time. Trouble finding volunteers for that. Huh.

So the regulations give that ability to the planning board to to actually make those changes.

And actually there are a substantial number of communities out there that do it this way.

They have the they have it separated and I was actually shocked to find out. I said where were we 10 years ago when we did this? I would have recommended this 10 years ago. Um, have you come before the finance committee before?

No, this is my first time.

I don't think so. I just wanted to tell you that the reason we need to know is that we're required by the charter because it comes up at town meeting every year. Who cares what you think about this? It has nothing to do with money. We're required to weigh in on everything. So before we say what we think, we have to know what we're saying.

Yeah. So like I said, that even that that waiver request section, that won't be part of what we're bringing forth to town meeting. That'll be in our in our regulations. Um, so that is still not adopted yet.

So when will you be adopting regulations?

If if it gets approved on was June 2nd, we'd be looking for our next our next meeting. So I think it's June.

So regulations will be adopted before the uh zoning.

Yeah, we Yeah, they'll they'll be they'll be conditioned based on the attorney general, right? I know the eternity, but but yeah, we want to do it concurrent so somebody can't right squeak something in without that.

Okay.

Nice to have a former planning board member on the committee here.

Yeah, agreed.

What was that? I'm sorry.

I said it's nice to have a former planning board member on the committee here.

Detailed questions.

Yeah, that I wouldn't know to ask.

I know I'm going to find this as soon as I leave, but you can email us. Email me, Dan, and I'll email it to the group. That's true. He doesn't I know there was very specific language, but I can I can probably tell you the gist of it from my previous notes, but um what we what we kind of looked at, I scanned it, you know, and I couldn't find anything.

Okay. Um yeah, it's kind of based on there was there was language where such action is in the public interest and not inconsistent with the intent and purpose of this section wave strict compliance with a performance standard. So it'll be somewhat that's very general. It doesn't say there's no limit. You can only ask for 50%, right, of the regulations, right? You have to be very You can ask for 100%. But

yeah, you have to you'd have to do a list of very specific reasons why. And then I would assume we'd want to have a a reason why you're asking. You want a narrative explaining why you're asking for those things. Like I said, for the example with the with the the road filllets because, you know, trying to get machines, people going to pay all that money for landscaping on the edge of the road because we're limited to

that 30foot requirement. We're going to be tearing up landscaping every time a truck pulls in here. So, things like that.

Um, and you know, the the planning board constantly changed. I know the years I served I was proud to say have a number of developers and engineers um stop me out in the street or in the restaurant or something say you know town of Dartmouth uh is a good place to do business you guys are tough you've got strong reg regulations but I know when I go in uh I'm going to be treated

fairly um this kind of thing allows for favoritism uh and I'm Not accusing the existing planning board of that, but that certainly sets up a future planning board for a lot of favoritism to a certain developer who feels I'm being treated fairly and my competition down the street is getting a million waivers.

So, I hope the planning board is very careful and you are very careful or how um these waivers are granted.

Well, what we're seeing right now is these people are going to the ZBA and they're getting these waivers. I I I so we you know the planning board wants I think I think they're more in tune to know what waiverss would be granted would be acceptable to keep in continuity with a specific neighborhood.

But again that's not part of what we're looking at for this bylaw recommendation.

Any more questions for Dan?

I think we've grilled them enough.

Have we got more? Poor thing.

Oh, come on.

Just went cuz it's really hot. I know we don't sweat this much.

Just How did the public hearing go?

We didn't have any comment.

No comment. Yeah.

All right. Thank you very much.

Appreciate all that information and I'll send it to the Thank you.

Go find a nice cool place to hang out.

Yeah.

kidding.

No, I'll go with you.

Have a good evening. Thank you.

Thank you.

Go find a closet with the switch in it, right? Turn it on. Don't tell Cody.

Break the window.

So, nice. They did the full mockup, you know, which is something.

No, I know. We always ask about that and a lot of times the details weren't there in the past. So, that was good. Anyway, Gary sorry.

Oh, no problem. So, uh, next on the agenda, we have a overview of the FY27 budget. As you know, the schools had met and uh approved their budget. Uh we had the we had the um joint meeting prior to that. They went back and and worked out their numbers. Uh we were happy to work in collaboration with them uh both uh the superintendent and the administration uh to u meet in the

middle, I guess you could say. Uh so we'll go down these obviously the these are contractual increases that are in here. As we mentioned in the past, most of the utilities are been level funded even though some instances we've seen rise in utility costs. So, we tried to keep this as as um you know uh in line with what the FY26 budget uh was presented for school for the school department. Uh they wanted six or

something like that. What did they settle for? Four, five, what was the percentage?

They requested 6.8 initially. That was like their dream budget. Um it included 14 or 13 and a half new positions and in fully funding. Um we were able to come up with essentially four and a half percent um on the town side and as far as raising and appropriating. Um we've been working diligently behind the scenes in in essentially what what we came up with was we have a collective

bargaining stabilization fund that we created a number of years ago. We have about a million dollars in that. Um we historically have only used that for general government side. I'm not quite sure why. Um it's for the whole town.

And so we we felt comfortable pulling $100,000 out of that to help um offset the collective bargaining costs of the school department. Um and they are going to request $178,000 from their kindergarten stabilization fund. Okay.

So between all of that, it's a 5% increase from last year.

They'll still have a balance on the kindergarten departments what 3 4% the other departments.

Yeah. I mean it it generally it varies across the board um because we have some departments where their total budget's $100,000, right? So if you have a $5,000 increase, but if you compare it to general government as a whole, um yeah, we're right around that 3% 3.5% increase for general government.

So you're at a balanced budget.

We have a bal we have a balanced budget.

We're presenting a balanced budget.

Overall increase what you'll see is um around 4% from last fiscal year.

However, um this is a draft version and I anticipate when you review this next week, we will be building in some additional funds for collective bargaining that has not yet been settled.

Okay.

So, will we still be able to present balanced budget?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

They have to by law.

Yeah. We have to present balanced budget. Yep. Yeah. And so, we we our our anticipation is um overall budget increase from fiscal 26 to 27 will be 4.5%.

which is is consistent with, you know, what what we're able to give the schools.

So, I'm going to beat a dead horse and I'm probably going to do this for a while. I hope you can deal with it. But I don't think this solves the problem.

first like I said in the last meeting and I think what I heard at the meeting Monday night is that the budget advisory group uh finance committee and select board are going to come to Jesus I guess at some point and see what they can come up with as a long-term plan because this this has to be solved not just for the schools it's for the whole town.

True.

Yeah.

Yeah. We I mean we've made it very clear um we we were sneaking by again this year.

However, there's no way next year we will be able to give the schools 4.5%.

You know, because we this year we gave up a lot of our conservancy in the in our revenues. We've always been conservative, which is a good thing.

That's why we've been able to get by for so many years without overrides. Um, this year we are digging into that conservative approach. Not to a point where we're going to be in trouble, but to a point where we don't have that flexibility after this year. And that's why I say the four and a half percent will not be a thing next year.

So their kindergarten fund may must be depleting also.

Yeah.

Aboutund I think it's like 150,000 left in there give or take. I know the exact but they used I think half of it and they need a twothirds vote right for that for that.

Yeah we need a two-thirds vote for both stabilization funds.

So the bud budgeting is going to be a little bit um tricky this year because we we we're technically using one-time funds.

Right. Right. the, you know, this the collective bargaining stabilization fund we feel comfortable with because while $100,000 is it's a lot of money, but when we're talking 130 $140 million budget, you know, it's relative. Um, and also we we've made it very clear that we feel like we should continuously be funding that account um to some extent.

And so pulling out 100,000 for the schools now, we're going to have to pull out more in the fall once the contracts are settled for our other um um unions, but we're but it's still onetime funds.

Yeah. For planning purposes, what we used to do is just basically fund that account when we were looking to negotiate. But for planning purposes, it's good to continually fund that account every single year so that when it's time for negotiations, that source of funds is available to use for the budget.

I for one really appreciate the leadership that you both have shown and the school committee and the school department people to do this amicably, to not have, you know, uh, problems with communication. And I feel like it's been a good process.

So far, I don't think there's any blood on the floor, is there?

I don't think so.

Talk to me on June 3rd, but so we can go down the list. I mean, when would we see when will we be voting on a budget?

Next week, you'll have the schedule A.

I would anticipate you need a So, select board needs to approve the warrant on May 11th. So, that your your Thursday before you would need to vote a final budget or full, you know, recommendation.

Okay. So that that gives you kind of an idea. So you have you have a you have three about and just out of car there were a number of new positions you under your uh uh purview you eliminated one. Uh are we eliminating all new positions in town at at this point?

We um we eliminated uh pretty much everything except for the DPW business manager which is 25% funded out of the general fund. So 20 we're we're estimating $100,000. So, you'll see $25,000 added to the general fund for that. Um, and then we are proposing $25,000 for um conservation admin support.

That's something. It's not a new position necessarily. We just need to get some administrative support in there. Um, we just hired a new conservation director and so I don't know if we will need that. our our goal is to basically let someone come in, assess it, but have it available if it's needed because we've been hearing from our previous um director for about the last 5 years that they they need

desperately need administrative support in there. Um so, but yeah, I mean, so no new full-time positions fully funded out of general fund.

We did have a facilities and they So, to my recollection, I may be wrong.

I thought those were the three there was and the uh the position under your facilities. Yeah, we we eliminated that.

Yeah, we eliminated facilities.

I think that was the only three when we looked at a preliminary budget. I saw we had proposed a data collector um in the assessor's budget was initially proposed. Um, there were other positions we because I'll be honest with you, Cody, when we saw what we were up against, um, I liked you stepped up and said, you know, I'm going to cut this position because too many times in the past, I've seen administrations say,

do as I say, not as I do. And really, and it's really refreshing to see someone say, you know, I'm asking for level of funding. I'm asking for and that includes me. Uh but we're funding other new positions. I just want to make sure. Is that the right thing in in the state we're in?

Yeah. I mean, if we were looking to fund even one new full-time position, I would I would be really wary. Um which is why we're being strategic about, right? I mean, I think the business manager is one of those things we desperately need.

I think you see you saw that. you see that um we even see that as we went through the budget process this year um in in the hit on the G hit on the general fund is 25% $25,000 and so I think it's kind of a no-brainer um and and then the administrative support in conservation it's 25,000 it's not even a new position per se and um and I my goal

is to not have to fill it but I was told by the previous director one of the reasons that he is not here anymore is because he felt like he didn't have for and I you know we can't effectively run right a department like that and so um hopefully I can come to you in 6 months and say yeah you know what we're going to take out of the budget next year we

really don't need it um or may we may be back in fiscal 28 and say we actually need a full-time position down there but the thought was is throw throw some money aside to get some just support now and that may be um we have some staff that are not full-time already and so they're picking up some additional hours down there things like that and and also conservation um a a little bit less than

half of their budget is funded through the wetlands fees.

Yeah. They get the So, it's not a true 100% hit on the general, you know, the general fund tax levy. Um Mass General Law, we're allowed to use those wetland fees for anything conservation related. So, we use it for the salaries for the conservation agent.

And the same with this position.

Who'd you get?

Uh we uh the woman's name is Jennifer Miller. She is the current director of conservation for the uh town of Westboro. Prior to that, she served as the uh director in Secon and Swansea.

Uh and yeah.

Was she hired with the expectation that she may or may not have administrative support?

She knew the makeup of the current department, which is one conservation agent.

Yeah.

Okay. Good.

But her experience is with two coastal towns, so that's help.

Yeah, she has coastal community experience. She worked um it's been she's been in the area for about 15 years. Prior to that, she served um in national parks and state parks on the west coast actually. Yeah, some really interesting um yeah, really good um great community.

We're excited.

Gary, we'll continue going over the budget. I got to step out for a few minutes and then if you have other questions, I should be back.

Yeah. So, we'll start at the top and then work our way down from as we usually do. Uh but you'll have the schedule a um potentially next week uh draft version of that.

Gary, can you zoom that a hair on that?

Uh I just see the screen flapping around because Cody walked by it.

So, I'll point out some I mean, we can go we would not look at every single line item, but okay.

Um, you know, most of these, as I mentioned, are all level funded except contractual increases to salaries uh that we know about. As mentioned, we'll be putting in some factor in the budget for next year so that we have something in there because you know we're in the middle of contract negotiations right now and you know whether or not we have that finished between now and town meeting uh we want

to have at least something in the budget which is not in here right now. So uh town meeting this is uh you know printing and and and things like that postage select board mainly salary um mainly uh contractual increases and when we get down to legal you'll see that it's pretty much level funded from prior years where uh as Cody had mentioned in a couple other meetings we're relying

less on the legal budget because we're taking a lot of that in house and trying to um address a lot of the items in house. Obviously some things we can't so our reliance on the legal budget right now isn't as much as it was in the past.

Um may I interrupt you for a second?

Yes.

Course I read and thankfully we're having getting a major reduction with health insurance. So the team was saving $2 million with that savings. Have you has anybody discussed you're marking in the savings towards anything else? So what we're doing with that savings is we're allowing now a 7525 split to the employees. We did a little bit of a complement with the retirees also that

hadn't been touched in decades. Uh and we're trying to invest some of that, not all of it, but some of it back into the employees. Uh so we'll really relieve some of that savings. You've heard it from the schools. You've heard it from other employees that, you know, it's just not the insurance wasn't affordable. So, the goal has always been to put a lot of that or most of that

back into uh the employees to try to retain and attract new employees to the town because most of the communities in our area are 7525, right?

Uh you know, it's taken a while to get get there. We're happy with the results.

We we just recently signed with South Coast Health Group and we're no longer now with Maya. So, July 1st that will take effect and and it's a it's a it's a substantial savings to the employees and to the town. They must be really happy.

Yep. We're hearing positive feedback from the employees.

Good. Good.

So, again, contractual increases. I'll go down to the um finance committee.

This is our reserve fund. Um we've had that amount in there in in there for a while. Town accountant.

Again, uh this is these are all so town.

She's a union union position part of the steel workers. Uh and and uh we're still waiting to to get that settled to increase that or whatever that that amount's going to be.

Uh let's see. Assesses, same thing. Um right now we have uh we have Jessica Pacho who is uh training to be an assessor. She's almost completed the classes to become certified. So the goal is when that position when when she becomes certified is to potentially offer that to her and and uh and move forward. We haven't had an assessor for quite some time. It's probably one of the hottest positions to fill in

municipal government is is assessing.

Yeah.

Um their clerical staff. Let me see if I can go down page down. It's probably going to be quicker than down.

Okay. Finance director. Um again contractual increases uh staff staffing which is mainly made up of the DEP um the uh Datown Employees Association which is not has has not been settled yet that that's another union that has not been settled. Uh we're in contract negotiations with them. Uh expenses um tax title. So, this has increased a little bit because right now what I'm what I'm going to be doing is uh sending

out notices to delinquent taxpayers that are potentially risk foreclosure. Uh it's something that we don't like to do, but we have to do uh for all the delinquencies. Uh and so there's that we we work with special uh special counsel that deals with just tax title properties. And uh we've I just met with them this week, the beginning of this week. So, we're going to start those rounds of letters that go out. the the

goal is to have people pay the bill or enter into some kind of payment agreement with the town. We don't want to own property. That's not what we want to do. We want to make sure that they're they're paying the taxes that that are due to the town. So, this generates a lot of um payment plans and and gets people's attention, you know, when they start getting notices from attorneys.

Do you do this every year?

Uh we don't do it every year. We do a taking every year. So every year what's delinquent we bring into the uh a special category and then at a certain point in time uh if you remember when Greg was I don't know if Greg had done a a foreclosure taking I think he he used that company Talage which if you've heard throughout the state there was some issues with uh we no longer use

that company I we do all this in house.

Uh so we work with our council to to try to mitigate a lot of these people's issues with payment with taxes but we're we're working with him now to to try to send out letters before the end of this fiscal year. Is that the company that was um not giving owners enough process?

Yes.

Okay.

So, that which spearheaded the change of tax title law in Massachusetts?

So, no longer can the communities collect the equity on the house has to be given back to the homeowner or back in the back prior to the law in November. If we were to take a property, the town or city municipality would collect the entire equity on the house.

Right.

So, what's the actual money? Uh that was the law.

What's the actual money we're talking about with delinquencies? lives around 800,000 might sound a lot but we have our commitment is 82 million so it's less than less than 1% we have a high collection rate of around over 99% which we're very lucky uh so you know it's just those and and and when you look at the accounts you start to see the same people almost every single year that are having

struggle struggling with that so we try to work with them just to enter into enter payment agreements that's where that's how you see a jump up there let's see so collector same thing she's part of Steel Workers Union and then our staff is part of the DTEA.

Uh legal you'll see uh as I mentioned uh legal counsel. So uh we're looking at you know we're we're decreasing the request from fiscal 26 and then label council special counsel for like uh uh where we are with um other projects in townless corner etc etc.

So what were the actuals? Can we reduce that and be safe? I'm trying to follow.

Uh the actual's right here so far for fiscal fiscal 26.

Uh right here for right here for the uh fiscal 20 um six as the actual for general counsel and we're four months in the year. I mean we're technically four months left.

I ran this a little while ago. Um there is a potential there is a potential to reduce that even further. um you can have that conversation. I guess you know we're not sure if the rates will go up next year as far as what general counsel is charging us.

So we want to have a little bit of room.

It's difficult to read. I'm having Oh, it's even worse to read the uh like this. It's getting smaller and smaller.

There you go. Bigger.

So the budget was 375 and you're proposing three 375. We're proposals came in at 165. So far, we're not finished yet for the fiscal year, obviously. And we're proposing 355.

Um, and where we have some real actuals, we don't have that history.

So, I would say that I would say, so look at fiscal 25. If you look at the actual for fiscal 25, 437,000.

So, I'm thinking that if we when we close out this year, we may be around 350. you know, if we add another, let's say, another 80 or 90 to that, maybe 250. Uh, so there's a potential that we reduce that even, we could reduce that.

Well, we can have the conversation. I'll talk to Cody about that if we if we feel that that's a little bit too conservative, you know, so what if the rate goes up, then obviously that number is going to climb for 26.

What caused that spike then from 400 something thousand?

It's just that as I mentioned, we're using council less because we're trying to address a lot of these issues that come come by. uh in house, you know, and not just constantly call because every time you call council, it's Yeah.

No, I understood. Yeah.

Every phone call is right. Is that an annual contract or a three-year contract? What's uh I think it's an annual I thought I thought it was an annual contract.

The rates can go up.

It's an annual retainer, isn't it? It's a retainer. It's not really a Well, he gets build per per But he bills. He's got a rate. There is a rate.

Oh, sure he does. Yeah. He's a private retainer. So we can we can revisit this if we feel that it's how do you cover any I don't know unexpected litigation.

Well we've been you mean if it goes above and beyond what's here correct?

Yeah we would have to we have to make lawsuits happen we would have to make a transfer at the end of the year from curious if you if you allow for something right that's a good example are you able to at this point looking at the billing break legal costs down by topic yet? We did ask uh town council to do that. I think he was working on that.

I don't know if he has any. He might have already had had that. I think the select board asked for that at one point in time. Okay.

So, um we can always ask him. I'll I'll talk to better cuz Brian won't forget it. He's been asking for that, right?

I know. He's asking.

Yeah, we can we can bring that up.

Maybe you can hear about it.

But as you see, we're utilizing council a lot less than we have in the past.

Right. No, it sounds like there's a good control on who uses it.

Yeah.

Let me see.

Okay.

Uh, human resources, she's contracted position. So, that's a that's that's a good number. The the clerical is um DTEA. So, that has not been settled yet.

Uh, let me see. So, MIS so MIS um you know the increases here are due mainly because you'll see some substantial increases here mainly because of uh software. uh you know we have annual contracts with a lot of these software vendors. We've seen increases to their software. Um you know mainly for like security uh we've we've seen a lot of increase for security um as far as like we we have multiffactor authentification

now on these phone on our computers. We have to log into the phones to get into the computers. So uh we did increase a little bit from last year. We felt with a lot of what's going on globally uh the threats have become even more.

Correct. Westville just had to close down and if you look at across the state, there's been a lot of communities that have been hit with ransomware and we don't want to be that community.

You know, we do not want to be that community where they're holding holding us ran, you know, we got to pay a million dollars or $2 million. What happened in New Bedford a few years ago, $2.5 million, whatever the number was to get back into their financial software system. So, you know, it's give it I hope they upped their security after Yeah, they did. They did because um they

do a uh they do the same carriers we use for as far as like um the computer sec cyber security and we updated we updated that we up that last year because it wasn't enough it wasn't enough with all the threats from these foreign company countries coming in.

It's it's a real risk now a real risk to them breaking into the systems.

Um so you know there there's an there's an increase there and it's not really any new initiatives. It's just that we're seeing additional costs increase.

uh town clerk again her salary is um uh you know at town meetings she she's she asked for that the salary this is what she's putting in uh her clerical staff there as DTEA again has not been settled you'll see that her I can't even see them there we go uh elections so she's responsible for elections I think in this round we'll have a we'll have a uh we'll have a state election

Yeah, we'll have the state election.

Oh, yeah.

Yep. Coming up September and November.

Yeah, that'll be in fiscal 27.

I can't believe it.

Uh registration. Let's see.

Let's go down to the next one. Uh conservation we just spoke about. Uh she's uh contracted uh and that's the salary amount. The clerical is uh part of DTEA. And then the $25,000 that Cody spoke about, we potentially may not need that uh as she comes in and analyzes the department.

Again, minimal increase to to the uh Okay, so let's see. Let's go down to planning board part of the steel workers union. His clerical staff is uh part of DTEA.

You'll you'll see it there.

Board of Appeals.

Uh she's also part of DTA.

Uh town hall and facilities as mentioned. We removed the extra uh most of the staff there is DTEA. Uh we removed that position that we initially were thinking about putting in the budget. So we we're not funding that for FY27,

vehicle maintenance.

We're seeing I mean obviously when you look at these budgets especially like DPW you see a lot of increase for vehicle maintenance because just the pots alone for a lot of these vehicles have gone up oil changes have gone up you know everything else police vehicle maintenance communications police uh solar that's mobile funded that's where we have to spend the money in order to make the money for the

police department. So, um, again, professional, that's, uh, those are contractor positions. Uh, police, there's, um, the chief, uh, is built in.

You know, again, we don't because of the study. We're not we're not that none of that's been upped yet in the in the budget. We need to we need to put some some factor in there until we get uh the contract settled with the Brotherhood, and that's ongoing right now.

So the chief does a pretty good job, you know, when he was here with his uh review. Yeah, he does. He does trying to level fund the budget as close as he can to what prior years were, especially for Did he fall within the 4% or 3%?

If you look at the if you look at the the increase.

Yeah.

Let's look projection.

So 9.8 8.

I mean, just right now it's only it's a $200,000 increase on a $10 million budget, you know, with nothing else being put in there. So, if we were to put in a factor of X, it would be it would increase that exponentially. But if you look at the difference between here, what was what was approved in FY26 to what we're requesting in FY27, you can see it's very minimal increase. So

that means that all of his line items here as far as the expenses have been concerned are pretty much level funded.

Yeah.

Right.

And he did mention that when he came in spoke to us that most of his line items were level funded.

Mhm. Yeah. Did he did uh building again uh building uh our building commissioner is part of uh the um steel records union and a staff is part of the DTA. So car Gary, how many uh unions are we still negotiating with because you just mentioned about all of them?

Sounds like so essentially we really we have an idea but we really don't know there may be some more risk money have to be applied not just to the police but to other departments. Correct.

Yeah.

It's every it's everyone right there.

There's nothing. The only thing baked into what you see now is any contractual steps, but that's all going to change anyways because we're implementing a whole new system as part of the bargaining session. So the in and like I said, the budget you see next week, we'll have more of a buffer built in.

And then anything beyond that required at at the fall town meeting will come out of that collective bargaining stabilization.

Yeah, we only have we only have a certain amount in here as far as contractions, the rest of it's got to be all right. So good. You're implementing a buffer. Okay, great.

Yep. So seal on weights and measures it's a small very small budget uh EMA again it's a small budget with the staff you do see some increases there um we we have not done the best job with our emergency management and emergency preparedness and so you know that it's it's this is one of those departments it's a small dollar value but it percentage-wise it looks kind of large on you know on paper

person in there right Yeah, Tim Sheen's good. Um, a retired police captain from UMass Dartmouth. And so, you know, with that, we're looking to make some more investments, update our plans. Um, they were instrumental during the blizzard actually. Um, and we're we're trying to utilize them a little bit more when things um, if there's a tree down, you know, we can either pay an EMA person to

sit in an EMA vehicle with the lights flashing 15 or $20 an hour or we can pay a police officer um, potentially a detail rate or an overtime rate. And so doesn't always work out, but there there have been several times where um strategically we're able to make that decision. And so you see a little investment here, but it actually saves us long term.

Good animal control.

Again DTA minimal mean increases level funded natural resources pretty small funded that you'll see a change um natural resources the shellfish um constable um that's part of the har masters function.

His contract is up on June 30th. We're we're currently negotiating that and so you'll see a there'll be a change there.

Yeah, it's uh yeah it's contracted. Yep.

contract.

Yeah, he has a individual contract public schools. So, uh these are the numbers we we've received from the the the schools. We've reconcile those back.

Cody talked a little bit about how we're going to need those warrant articles to to make that a little bit uh to true that up. So, um, if for some reason those articles do not pass, we will need someone to make an amendment to reduce the budget because this technically this is not a balanced budget we're going to be presenting. It's only balanced with those appropriations from the stabilization.

If they approve the transfer of money from the stabilization, if those transfers are not approved, we have to find 275,000 someplace, right? We have Yeah, we have to find a funding source. So, those right now those are the potential funding sources.

So, what's the backup plan? What's plan B?

We we will need to we we'll essentially probably advise someone on the select board in the moderator that if if the one or neither of those articles pass, there'll be a there'll be an amendment to the budget.

Are we going to be prepared to say we're I mean the our the way we've presented this all along is it's out of the school department budget. I mean we gave them four and a half% that's that's what the town has been able to offer and that additional funding is specifically for the schools. Um, we couldn't use the pre-K stabilization fund for anything but the schools.

I don't see that happening. No, me neither. We still need a plan B.

Yeah, we I mean that that is that is our plan that's specifically for the school department. And so if if we if it is does not pass, that money comes from the school department because that money can only go to the school department.

I was curious about that because obviously it doesn't seem like they're dissolving the stabilization fund.

They're simply withdrawing from the stabilization fund is the way I followed it in the meeting. Yeah.

So obviously that's okay. So it has nothing to do I mean I get it that it's for the schools but it doesn't have to do with the original purpose of that fund.

It does. Yeah. I know we have to make sure Yeah. We we because right we're not dissolving we're withdrawing. Right. And so the the cost of kindergarten is beyond so is beyond that $178,000 is specific to kindergarten needs. Is that how it be presented?

Yeah. Yeah. Technically, it's funding that portion. I mean, it all goes into one pot at the end of the day for the schools, right? No, I was just trying to understand because the, you know, it was a very specific need that stabilization fund many years ago when it was first.

Yeah. And and we've heard at town meeting in the past about this account.

You know, people have had questions at town meeting about um you know, us the utilization of that account.

I think I think it'll be positive. The the vote will be positive.

I don't think that that will be an issue. I mean, I look at it this way, and I know it's a terrible thing to say, but they still have $2 million in school choice funds.

So, that's also school funds. So, I I doubt there'll be a problem with passing the other though.

Yeah, I don't think there will be a problem with it.

Yeah. And same with the collective bargaining stabilization. That has to be used toward collective bargaining. Hence why, you know, the the schools um we saw an increased cost in the collective bargaining this year. They you know their contracts generally um for teachers are three and a half% colas and and other um support staff are 5%. So you can directly attribute the 100,000 to the plant bar.

Uh this is Voke and um Crystal Lag. As we mentioned, uh we were pleased to see that the assessment went down. Um and that was a positive uh technically I had budgeted 6 originally started, you know, we had 6.4 million um excuse me, $6.3 million last year and we've reduced it to 6.1 million. So the We have less students, right, from Yeah. And and having spoke to the administration there, uh it's it's it's

a lot to do with the lottery system that they have now.

So they're they're accepting maybe less less kids and then maybe the enrollment you know so it's a combination of a few things but the assessment did go down and I think when they were in they explained a lot of I mean they talked about the capital needs going forward and um and what they see on the horizon so DPW again um the administrator uh DPW um is uh is contract position and then

there's a combination of laborers uh uh union that's in here which again has not been uh settled yet. So uh and uh he's Dib's done a pretty good job of level funding his budget here. When he came in he spoke about that um and his capital needs engineering. Same thing. You'll see this all the way down the uh with his divisions.

You see a decrease in engineering because we've hired a whole slew of new engineers. And so we had engineers that were maxed out and now we have engineers that are not highway.

snow and ice.

Obviously, this is a lot larger because we had a major snow. We had, you know, a few storms.

You won't have any more snow for 10 years now, so we're good. Hopefully not.

Could be next week.

No.

Uh, construction division.

Again, pretty pretty much overunded.

Fleet maintenance.

Street lights traffic lights.

Uh board of health again. Um the board of health director is uh steel workers union and uh some supportive staff that are in the DTA

council on aging against steel workers and supportive staff is the DTA in non-union we Oh yeah, non there's a um the outreach um coordinator and programs coordinator and non-unth commission uh steel workers and minimal um expense veterans contracted position

a library also So part of um uh steel workers and uh supportive staff is DTAX

department again steel workers and a combination of uh steel Hershey's she steel worker and then uh DTA staff that's why you see the decrease there obviously we have a new director so we had a director last year technically they we had budgeted the full amount because we didn't know who was going to be hired when the budget was prepared and so the director came in at a lower amount.

Stall commission want to spend a lot of time on this on this one.

Those poor folks get no attention. And then this is so the next as you aware I mean we go through this but the next few slides are um our debt uh debt principle and uh interest payments that we make and we're required to make um you'll see that they they drop off as as time goes on.

So principal, interest on the ban accounts, pensions of retirement. So this is um these are the act this is the actual you know this is we this is an assessment we have to pay. We talked about uh indirect I mean we talked about fixed costs in the budget. This is one of them. uh we get build. Uh the good thing about this is when we pay this assessment, we pay

it because we have the cash flow and we have good financials. We pay this all at once. So when we get that bill in July, we pay that. This is this is a substantial savings for us doing that for the town doing that. Um I think it's over 150,000 or 200. It might even be more than that.

So some communities split that up, but they pay that premium because they're not they don't have the cash flow to do it, but we do.

So we pay that entire amount come July 1st. That's one of those things we have no control over and it's a 6% increase this year. So that these are things I mean it could be worse but you know when you're talking 6% on 6.9 million.

Do we know the history on that?

Has it been 6% for the last 10 years or was it two three four five six it varies. Um it's been consistently around that 6% like six to eight uh the past few years. It all depends because they get an an actuarial reviews it and provides a report every every two years.

And so, you know, actuaries use different discount rates and depending on the market conditions. Um, so they're going to be undergoing a new analysis this year for the next two years. So, we'll see where it's going to be. They also have several times have pushed out the fully uh the fully funded year. So, probably 1015 years ago, it was actually supposed to have been fully funded in

2020, 2025. Now, it's 2031, I believe, is the fully fun.

When I started, it was supposed when I started back in 1999. this was going to be fully funded by 2024 and here we are now and they push I mean I think now it's like 2039 I think it's early 2030s right so so that that'll get pushed out probably again they do asset smoothing with their accounts and everything so to try to get blended rates that you know the typical benchmark was like 7% way

back when they were only getting like 3 4% so that's the reason why they had to push these funding schedules way out into the future till they become fully funded but imagine when we do become fully funded what that'll free up you know so if we get there yeah Yeah, it's a lot.

What a burden on the town.

Yep.

Crazy stupid system we got ourselves in.

Workers comp. This has been pretty pretty level.

Unemployment compensation. Again, these are all the the uh fixed costs that we talked about in the presentation we gave. So, health insurance, uh, life insurance. We did speak about, uh, while you were out, Cody, we we spoke about, um, you know, the savings and what those savings will be, uh, as far as like where we're going to put those. So, the compliment was we're going to put those back into the

back into the employee, back to the employees. Some of it will be a savings to the town in the hopes that we would, you know, be able to keep retaining and attracting new employees at a different split now, a higher split.

uh payroll Medicare payroll tax. We can avoid that. That's medical disability IOD on duty and then some of the benefits that we offer. tuition compensation buyouts retire uh property liability insurance this includes both the schools and the town also uh vehicle insurance and I believe that's it. Let's see why can't I get the last page? Okay. Yeah, here's the last page right there. So

right now, preliminarily speaking, obviously we talked about building in a buffer a little bit. Uh we're looking at um the 113 million here for the for the uh for the budget. That is including of the uh two um the war the you know the warnings that we just spoke about. So what was it last year?

1085 032 108

So, uh, yeah, the next round we'll have a little bit we'll have you you'll see the schedule as you you usually see it.

Uh, we'll probably have built in a buffer between now and then. Cody and I'll talk about that. And then um what I suggest for the next meeting too is that we look at starting the the letter uh starting to get some I know we talked about that a couple weeks ago but starting to like develop that so that when it comes time for we'll have the war we'll have some of the war warrant articles

you'll have a full draft warrant at your next meeting.

Yeah to good so um but ready for voting or no no just for review.

Yeah. So uh when was that? Uh I I mean I have the warrant done. Um council is going to be reviewing it later this week. So you can start looking at it. Wouldn't have to vote on anything.

Yeah, it may be.

No, no, it's good for us to start to get our outline for What I would suggest is because it does take me a while to do the uh the um enterprise fund articles.

And then we're also meeting again with CIPC next week because there's a couple things that we need to we need to look at.

You have a date on that?

I'm I'm going to send it out tonight before I leave. Um, but I'll ask you because you're one of the I'll ask you which what's your availability before we leave tonight. Uh, but I'll we'll schedule that because there's some things that we want to move around a little bit maybe.

Um, but I would suggest that next week we go over maybe all the articles that maybe not financially related and then the following week we still have time do all the finance articles and then work on the the letter get that finalized.

So just so you think there's are things happening in the background. I did start an outline of the letter of topics more than anything.

Um, that's why you're the chairperson, Janine.

Well, you know, I panic like everybody else. So, maybe maybe everybody else doesn't panic, but we need to have a a basis.

Um, so I started to put things together and then I I for next So, we going to have it on the agenda for next week?

Yeah, we can put on the agenda for next week.

Yeah. because I'm also going to put together like a list of what we had for um the charts and the graphs because we may or may not include them. And then, you know, I was looking at some of the wonderful presentations that Cody has done um and saw some of those charts and graphs and I thought, you know, maybe some of those would be good. I mean, I don't want to bury the

thing under five pages of charts and graphs, but we may switch some of them up. So, I figured I'd make a list of everything and the ones I thought were appealing and see what everybody thinks about what to include. We don't have to necessarily include everything that we included before. Yeah. Are they still relevant?

Right. I think it's a good idea to to change the graphs around and change some of the topics around because if they wanted to go back and look at if Tom's members or anyone want to go back and look at those that's available. So, the more we can compile additional data kind of tells the entire story as years go on, you know, down the road.

Um, so it's a good idea. When Nathan left us, he asked us if um we considered doing bullets something that was easier to absorb.

Well, as a as a cover page, like almost like as a this is a cover page. Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

To get to get to get everyone's attention, I guess, right off the Yeah. I was thinking so I know we're talking about the letter now. Maybe we shouldn't be but uh you know, we were talking about some of the initiatives that had taken place, you know, on a positive note because yeah, I I like positive. I don't like to start with depressing opening lines.

Um, and if we look at some of the things we did, those could be bulleted with maybe a sentence explanation and that maybe maybe that's a good opening.

Yeah, it's okay to change the style every once in a while. We don't have to just a thought and once again I have stuff to show next.

So you've put like a baseline highle um just topics or Yeah.

Okay. topics and then you know kind of separate some of the things and obviously people will have ideas that they will contribute.

Okay. So we'll include that on the next meeting will also include a draft of the war articles um and then um the the week of let's see so that'll bring us to be the last week of May the 30th April sorry uh that'll bring us here then the last Yeah. the last this is the 30th. So then we'll have uh we'll have the financials wrapped up there with the enterprise funds. So we'll have a good

two week two weeks when when is it due by to the town I think May 11th by May 11th or 12th 11th is when the select board will be voting on everything. Final warrants due to the town clerk on the 12th.

So we'll have two weeks to to write the letter. a week to write the letter and our recommendations have to be done in two weeks or three weeks, four weeks.

Sorry.

Whenever it gets mailed, she doesn't need it until we get Oh, I mean the recommendations. Does she need that by the 11th? Our recommendation sheet everything she needs everything by the 12th, right?

Yeah.

Not our letter is separate.

We Okay.

So, um Yeah.

All right. So, that's three weeks. Three weeks.

Yeah. Three more. three month.

Okay, time flies.

That's actually I seem to recall Gary telling us that we had all this time.

Well, I mean, if we've done it before, if we had to meet on a Tuesday, we you know, if in case we did, we we'd always have an extra day to do it, but I mean, I don't think we feel rushed this year. Pretty much yet.

I think you're in good shape.

Realism. Sorry.

Yeah, we're in pretty good shape.

We still have PTSD from the past, though.

Thank you. Yes, it's true.

So, um Okay, so that is it for the uh draft budget at this moment.

Okay, town administrators update.

Uh few things. So, um I know the the finance committee was particularly concerned in the past about legal costs.

Uh we did an analysis recently uh and we're spending about $15,000 a month less uh legal costs this year. So that's good.

General counsel we're averaging about 20 $22,000 a month. Last year last two fiscal years we were in the mid30s a month. Um so we're knock on wood um we should come in actually under budget for um for this fiscal year which it's been a long time since we've come in under or at budget legal cost. So, I'm keeping you updated on that. Next week, um we'll give you guys a sneak peek on the uh budget um

transparency portal where we have everything loaded in there. Um and just show you kind of what that looks like. Uh we're hoping to launch it uh early May. It'll be launched before town meeting. Um but we'll give you guys a little sneak peek of some of the things.

Are you planning to present it at town meeting in any way?

Uh I don't think so. I think I think we'll we'll probably present um a budget book at the at next year. Um so for the fiscal 28 budget, but we'll just um kind of like a soft launch this year as a tool that people can start to look and and utilize, but it's it's not fully built out to have a budget book in it for this year because we're kind of doing it simultaneously. And then the

goal is for fiscal 28, we'll actually use it to build the budget.

Yeah. So we'll have a robust budget document in that. Uh and then previously there was a question if uh members of the finance committee could attend uh citizens academy to observe. What I'll say is if there's any member who is interested in attending one night just to see uh let me know. We we can accommodate like you know one person per per session if someone's interested.

How many sessions are left?

Uh we still have five more sessions.

Okay.

Yeah. We we go right through um May let's see May 20th is our last session.

Uh and then the 27th will be our pre-town meeting uh Wednesday evening and then the 2nd is um town meeting.

Great. Thank you.

It's a great idea to have, you know, more people who ask silly questions about the budget process and all of that to learn, you know, where the money actually goes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Somebody asked recently, why did why is there a budget a business manager needed a DPW? There was a response that for that type of uh budget, you probably want to have somebody watching money a little more closely.

Yeah.

You think they would have possibly gotten that idea when they saw the uh major increase in their water bills and wondered why did everyone wait so long?

And I don't know. That answers the question.

Where it goes to, you know, I think that's part of the issue. So, yeah, that's kind of what drove the whole Right. Understood.

Yeah.

Right. No, makes sense to me for sure.

Um, you had mentioned at the select board meeting about the uh economic development committee.

So, you see that happening relatively soon this year sometime?

Yeah, I hope so. Um, in all honesty, I just don't have the bandwidth to take on another committee. So, I need the assistant town administrator to start.

Um, so as soon as we get someone on board, that's going to be one of their first tasks is to to get that committee up and going. So, the select board did approve the charge.

Um, so technically it's created. We're just holding off on posting the openings until we kind of have a clear path of when we can start meeting. And um, yeah.

What was the makeup that got approved to the committee?

Uh, it's it's uh various members of the public. I believe a member of the finance committee or member of the select board. Um I can send you guys the charge. We can definitely send that out.

And can you give us a status on a uh administrative assistant the town administrator assistant town administrator? Uh we have done three round I'm sorry we have done two separate rounds of interviews with no um viable candidates at this point.

So we are um we opened it up for a third time and we have um interview preliminary interviews scheduled later this month.

Good. Thank you.

What's changed? Just timing or uh market uh is is really difficult particularly in this area of the state.

Um no. Why do you think the third round might be better? You widen the range or you think it's just timing?

Uh I mean we're just being hopeful. I don't know much has changed at all. I mean things change.

Yeah. I mean people you know people's interest in positions changes. Um, you know, particularly you're seeing around the state, uh, a lot of obviously overrides and overrides don't pass. They eliminate positions. Some people may be looking for new jobs. Um, you know, we we did we the second time we posted around the range is higher based on the the reclass and so we may get a little

more interest. Um, yeah, not not a whole ton has changed really though. You know, maybe going into the spring more people are looking for jobs. Maybe I'm just being hopeful.

That'll be it. Yeah, true.

Okay.

All right. What are we back to? Lazison.

Reports. Anybody have a liaison report?

It's not an official liaison report, but I did say I would bring it up. I don't know. I don't think it got on the agenda, but um No, you did. So, yeah, please. So, so somebody at uh on the election day, former finance committee member asked about, and this has been brought up before, the idea of funding for capital um concerns that he had about relying on um overcommitment of and he he

understands why it's done, but the fact that it's relying on turnbacks from the departments and did it make sense. I said that I would bring it up and that maybe at some future time when we have nothing else to do, we can put it on the agenda and see what people here think and then make recommendations to that.

So, what that would involve is setting up a capital reserve fund, which would be a big process.

Yeah. Uh well, you can maybe give you a little bit of uh comment on that. The there are some communities, I think I've mentioned this before, that strictly borrow for their capital needs. So they have a they have a they it's almost like a mini override. Every year they put something on the warrant that funds, you know, x amount of dollars, increases the tax levy um and doesn't use um free cash

to do that. So there are a couple of things. You know, we we're lucky in Dartmouth that to be able to certify to the level of free cash that we have to fund those smaller projects. And when I say smaller, it's up to a million dollars now. It's not no longer smaller projects and put that money back into to to um infrastructure. Some communities don't do that. So, you're relying on an

override to go to town meeting to get voted on by the by the by the voters.

But what if that doesn't happen?

Now, you have an infrastructure that could be not funded for two, three, four years or ever.

So, the you, as the committee knows for the members that have been on here, the the practice has been always to use those free cash amounts to fund future um in future projects uh projects, you know, one to five years down the road.

Now, we, you know, we w we we do have in essence a long-term capital stabilization fund that addresses the the the larger issues uh that we're trying to save up on, you know, you know, the bigger the bigger projects, the 5 to 10 year projects. So, I feel like it's more of a conceptual problem for people than it is a practical problem because I think the practic practice works. It's worked for

a long time. But I think it's hard for people to understand and I know for me it was originally to to learn that what do you rely on what if you know they don't spend it or what if they do spend it and then what happens and it's just never happened like that.

And the beauty of of if we don't spend the free cash it just continues on for the next next cycle. So, um, and you know, Capital has talked about that, you know, CIPC's talked about that over the I think, you know, the short shorter term since I've been on the on the committee about, you know, using a combination of that and borrowing, you know, especially for the smaller projects and we can you can see that

because now we're we're looking to put through a couple of um items for for borrowing. and the school department doesn't turn back money, but that's because they're underfunded and they're paying for they use it to pay for bills that they're going to face, you know, in the next year. So, special ed is a big area that they prepay tuitions if they have that. So, it would have to be looked at as a complete change in

practice.

Thanks.

Something we would have to look at, you've heard you've heard some of it um where people are saying, you know what, there's a thought that we're too conservative with our revenues, right?

you've heard that a little bit. Um and and to an extent, if we were to budget what we 100% think we're going to take in, we would then have to start budgeting for capital, right? Because because part of that conservative approach is we rely on that for capital because we use it for free cash. So if we're then going to start using 100% of all of our available revenue every year,

you then have to budget for capital. So it's six and one half dozen another. You either do that and then that you're still you still have to account for that money somewhere for capital. So it's and the baseline has been about $5.5 million. If you looked at the last 10 years, it's not like we're getting certified a million then all of a sudden it's 10 million. Then it's not like it's

all over the place. So this planning, you know, and and also the financial policies that the town's adopted include that we retain so much of free cash, we use that for capital expense.

So it works. I mean it, you know, the process it's only going to get better with the planning process that's underway right right now. I think with the different people looking at the budget, I think it will improve.

You, one thing I forgot to mention in my update is, um, Gary and I met with our financial adviserss recently, um, and we, over the summer, we'll be presenting to you updated financial policies. We need to make some updates to some of our financial policies. So, you can look forward to seeing that.

That makes sense.

Good.

Carrie, did you have anything?

No.

Could I just ask a question I forgot to ask Gary when he was here? I mean, not Dian. Um, remember a couple of years ago the the people who are building the veterans home in came to the select board and asked for a waiver of the building fee or something.

Yes.

Is that something that will get addressed with this change in the B?

Because to me that didn't seem very fair. It didn't seem it seemed like they were kind of going around the process by doing that. Um, but the select board was fine with it. So the select board adopted a um a fee waiver policy now. Uh and so it it lays out specific uh stipulations of who who would be eligible. Uh and then there's actually an application process now for someone because they know the building inspector

was not in favor of waving it, but um they did decide to do that. Okay. Thank you.

Um speaking of liaison reports, so since we're now down a member, um that left planning board open. Not suggesting we solve it tonight. Keep it in your mind.

We need to update that list because we have an opening now for a mate was the planning board.

Correct. Okay.

He was also schools, but we have a couple people, you know, it's not like there's no one on schools. So, but there's no one on planning board only because I've been interested in learning more about that. So, I'll think about it and let you know.

Okay. Yeah, we can in a future meeting.

It's not, you know, a rush by any means. I just wanted to bring that. So Janine, uh, speaking on that, is the process that you contact Melissa or does Melissa just reach out to us to or to you to for the for the open receipt on the finance committee?

She usually just moves forward because as you know, I mean, did you get copied on the I mean, she got the resignation letter. I was copied on it. So she she knows there's an opening and she would know there's an opening anyway after following the election. Um, but no, I don't normally wouldn't have a conversation.

Yeah. We'll we'll reach out to her and see if she wants us to like advertise, but she handles, you know, they she'll meet with whoever candidates and Yeah, I know in the past when we had when we were down a few, they did run some social media type posts and things.

Even at town meeting she had asked.

Correct. Because we were down a couple at one time.

We were.

Yeah. So, I don't know if she's got a backlog by any means. Who knows? I'm sure. Wait, what am I saying? Of course there's a backlog.

Yeah. I think she has a nice long list.

We're waiting.

She's going through it now. Yeah.

As that damn John Souza steps down, I'll scout get in that line.

Not happening yet, right? Um, okay. We have minutes.

Minutes for um I sent out the uh most recent. We have minutes for March 12th and March 19th.

I have to abstain. I was not here for either meeting.

Oh, I one of those meetings. I was not here for last.

Bill, you weren't here for either one of those.

March 12th? No, I was not. Oh, March 19th. That was not you.

That is correct.

Last meeting.

Um, who's ever taken the notes? Oh, what was he listed on there?

No, she put she Okay, it is correct.

No, no, she always lists the attendance.

When I opened it up, I saw my name and I said I wasn't at the last meeting, but then I realized No, this was a previous meeting. So, okay, they are being Okay, it's correct.

An extension counts towards quorum though still because we're at five people now. Is that correct?

That's yeah, you're voting member. You're voting to abstain. So, okay. So, we can still vote.

Majority is here.

Right.

Somebody want to make a motion to approve the minutes for March 12th.

So moved.

Second. Have a second. Okay. Thanks. Um, all in favor?

I.

And one abstension from Bill Bs.

Then March 19th.

I'll make a motion to approve.

Do we have a second?

Oh god.

Second.

No.

Um and I see also that Bill BS was not there. All in favor I I an abstension from Bill BS.

All righty. What we back to?

You did the 12th and the 19th, right?

Yeah.

12th and the 19th.

Right. We don't have those minutes yet.

Just to recap, uh we will include the letter.

Yes.

Discussion on the letter and the draft warrant article uh non- finance for the next meeting and we'll set at 4:30 to review and 4:30. Just 4:30, but not does that count as part of our meeting or start is that start time official or just a No, that's just for us to meet just to get you on though.

So, not official start time. Official start time is 5:00. a training.

Yep.

So, next no business discussion.

You may want to say non-budget for the because there's some financial articles like authorization to borrow.

Okay. Non the stabilization funds.

So, right. It'll be everything but schedule a uh and the uh everything else but uh yeah, we we'll send the whole we'll say non non budgetary articles. That's what I'll put on the warrant.

Let me just put town meeting over review.

Yeah. There were there FY27 draft war article overview.

Yeah.

Okay. That is all I have.

So we're good.

Yes.

Somebody want to make a motion to adjurnn?

I'll make the motion.

Second.

I'll second.

All in favor? Hi. Hi.