Finance Committee Meeting - August 27, 2026

Um, I'd like to call the finance committee meeting to order for August 27th.

Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance 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.

And please note that this meeting is in person and is being recorded.

Gary, I'd like to introduce our new member, Ryan. Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us about yourself?

Um, hello everyone. I'm Ryan. Um, Turbine. I just, um, decided to come aboard and just be part of a wonderful process. Um I'm about uh 10 years in being a resident here.

Right.

And um it's a great opportunity. Thanks for having me and I look forward to you know working with you guys.

Great.

Thank you for joining us. It's nice to have a full house again.

We'll see how that goes during the next cycle for Tel Media. What Ryan didn't tell you is he's here because Gary did such a good job with the citizens academy presentation which Ryan was a part of that it attracted I heard he was a graduate.

Yes. Can't forget that important detail.

Wonderful learning experience system.

I hope you have a lot of friends around your same age who might be interested in doing committee work and we'll see.

You're the future. You guys are the future.

That's right.

Got you drinking the Kool-Aid.

Speak for yourself, Bill. I will. I always do.

Anyway, Gary.

Yes. Um, so I appreciate the members of the committee coming to um, meet today.

Uh, just a couple things on the agenda that we wanted to go through. Uh, and I appreciate Ryan uh, as a new member.

Hopefully, we can get a lot accomplished this fiscal year once we get into the uh, uh, fall town meeting and then again into the budget. So, uh, the first is a reserve fund transfer which I forwarded on to the um, committee. And as you know um and Cody can probably talk talk a little bit more about this as the um settlement for Bliss Corner. So we reached uh an agreement with EPA and um

this kind of uh will allow us to send the funds to them and pretty much close this this uh case. Uh everything has been resolved and may may want to add a little bit more to that if you can.

Yeah, guys.

So closed as in no more money will exchange hands. Well, um that's the goal, right? So, this settlement um is essentially a settlement for all the work that's been done to this point and then the um the work that's in the process. So, there's like there's the um there's action memos that each of the work has been authorized under. So, we're under the maybe the fourth action memo. Don't hold me to that, but the

action memo that they're working under right now is we'll buy the settlement through that action memo. So, it's approximately $28 million that they've expended um at the site through the cost of this action memo. We've been working um diligently through council to to reach a settlement with uh the EPA. Um we were um this is a very very very uh fair settlement for the town of Dartmouth.

Good. That's good news, I guess.

Good.

They're still using the um grounds behind the old police station.

Yes. So part of the settlement is um inind um cost essentially which we got credit for them utilizing the old police station um and and kind of the our cooperation with them has gone a long way and so that's that's why we were able to settle this for $50,000. I mean there's no they have expended 28 million um so it's a substantial sum. I know before you got here we were very concerned

because um New Bedford took zero responsibility at the beginning of the process. Um but I think the people who work here did a great job of pulling information together and and getting them what they needed.

Absolutely. Know it was a team effort.

Um Chris Misho in uh director of public health was excellent in this process. Um and we work cooperatively with the city of New Bedford. All of our conversations were um triparty, the town, New Bedford, and EPA. Um and and really it's we have different amounts that we're paying, but it's a settlement agreement amongst all of us. So there there's not going to be a case where Dartmouth would go after

New Bedford, New Bedford comes after Dartmouth. It's um it's a triparty agreement.

I also noticed that it's coming out of the reserve fund. Obviously, that's why we're here. So there was no money in the legal budget.

No. So, we didn't budget additional funds for this because um we didn't know what we were looking at early on. We were looking at a lot more um and then some things fell into place where we were able to negotiate down to 50,000.

Uh we also didn't want to prematurely approve an amount and have um have EPA see that we approved an amount and then they say, "Well, you've approved that amount. Now you can pay that amount."

Right? So with the way it lined up with town meeting if it had lined up a little bit um differently then we would have you know put it in the budget and gone to town meeting but we weren't we weren't at a point um to do that in June. The p the uh public comment period expires um Monday and we have 30 days to issue payment which is why we're here

today because we have to get that payment out the door. If we don't get it out the door in 30 days there's some implications. Uh so that's where we stand and just so um Ryan knows as a new member at the beginning of each fiscal year we we uh we develop the budget and the finance committee has what's called the reserve fund um which is 500 around $500,000. So that allows the committee

for any unforeseen expenses. Sometimes you'll see us uh like we did we did some work for the schools. We did some HVAC repair, elevator repair in the building, things that will break or not necessarily that we know of at the beginning of the fiscal year. So this fits in that category because we knew that there would be a settlement. We just didn't know how much that settlement would be. You know, obviously

if it was into the millions, we wouldn't be going to the reserve fund. We'd probably be having to do like some kind of borrowing. But we're lucky enough that we've got this amount and only this amount to pay at this, you know, at this juncture. So we have the ability to pay out of the reserve fund.

Yes. Um, so do we know what the total expense of this occurrence was over the last few years on legal fees and any other fines of Oh, from the town's perspective, I do I don't have it in front of me, but I can get it to you. Yeah, it's primarily the cost of legal. We had to bring in special counsel. Um, and it's a much much higher rate. Um,

so yeah, I don't have it in front of me, but we have calculated it.

Yeah, if you don't mind. I mean, just I mean, if we're going to and I hope it's going to be closed out. If we're going to close it out, it' be nice to get a report saying, you know, it spanned over 5 years. This was the total cost to the town. This is where it went. Um, so am I being led to believe that this settlement we will not occur any other legal

expenses going forward or is the potential for more legal? There may be some here and there. Um particularly maybe some small expenses with um because they're still utilizing the old police station. So we did have we have a new access agreement with them for that.

So if that if if that were something that for some reason they needed to extend it, that's something we would have special counsel, you know, just be involved in. But it you and we actually haven't had a ton recently anyways. So it would significantly drop off. I wouldn't intend there to be a reoccurring for um for special counsel unless something came up that we weren't expecting. But generally, this is this

is what we've been leading up to. This is what all the legal costs have been the negotiations with EPA. So, yeah, it's it's primarily dropped off and it will really drop off.

Yeah. Yeah. At least we have it. So, we can get that to you.

Does anybody else have questions?

Does somebody want to make a motion?

I'll make the motion.

I'll second it.

We're ready to vote.

All in favor?

I.

Any opposed?

No.

Motion passes.

Okay. We'll have you sign that.

So, um, Madam Chair, next on the agenda is just I wanted to brief the committee.

Uh, as we're getting closer to, um, you know, fall town meeting in October, uh, this is the time we start meeting with capital. So, we're starting to meet with the departments. Um, uh, on the 9th of September, uh, we've scheduled uh, DPW, schools, park and recreck, and police.

I've got two more that I'll be scheduling the following week, which will be um, EMA and MIS. So those MIS requests came in today. I met with the director. Uh the um so we're going to be in that process between now and then.

We'll also be certifying free cash which is going to allow us to to spend the money on these items. Uh we've also talked about um not spending down all the free cash which we didn't do last year. We've kept some in reserve uh just for unknowns, you know, uh into the new fiscal years. Also, uh we're looking to put some funds into the stabilization account as we normally do at this at the

fall tower meeting. uh you know, long-term capital, employee stabilization, regular stabilization, uh so on and so forth. So, I just wanted to let the committee know those members that are on the on the committee. We have two new members, which is nice, on that committee. Uh we'll be meeting shortly.

I'm sorry, what committee is it? This capital improvement.

Capital.

Wonderful.

Um, what's the next meeting on that? Uh, Gary, for for capital 99 at 8:00. We'll start with the first.

We'll start with DPW.

So, I'm still getting the request.

Tomorrow's the last day to submit the request. So, they'll probably send it between now.

The budget committees ahead of that, right?

Budget advisory.

Advisory Committee is ahead of that meeting correct?

Nope. Uh, September 9th as well.

Yeah, January 9th. Right.

What time?

Uh, we'll be sending that out. Uh, what do we say? 5:00 6:00 I think it said 5:00 and the other one follows it. Okay.

CIPC's in the morning.

Yeah.

Oh, budget advisor group is 5:00. Bud uh capital is uh 8 a.m.

Y.

Okay.

That's all for that. Just wanted to let the committee know that's where we are.

Okay.

Town administrators update.

Um but we have a lot going on. However, I will say a few things as we the team closes out the prior fiscal year. Um Gary and I are are cognizantly aware. U local receipts were down a million dollars from fiscal 25 to 26. So not just growth, actually down actual about a million dollars primarily driven by investment income. Um you know we we have a lot of cash on hand and we invest

it primarily in CDs and rates were down in 26 compared to 25. So that attributed to probably 600,000.

um we have a lot of solar agreements in place and um we're getting towards the latter part of those agreements and the solar just doesn't produce as much as it did. So we saw some degradation there and we're having some issues with one of the solar providers as well that we're working through. Um so working through but we are cognizantly aware that's that's something that we're concerned about. Yeah.

Um uh personal uh property tax is that up down or what?

Personal property too early, right?

Yeah, we had growth. We had growth in personal property because we were worried about that.

Yeah. Personal property there was this growth. Um yeah, keep in mind with the personal property we also tax the utilities. So when every time they're doing any kind of new you see them putting new lines and new gas lines and that increases their uh value on that because that's that's considered personal property. So So the major culprit was investment income.

Investment income and some of the solar arrays that we have.

Yeah.

And so that's all bonds I presume. No investment income is no basically uh the cash on hand that we have what aboutund and someund2 million $103 million we invest that money but if you know the rates have been trickling down bonds right no no just banks primarily so so because we're not allowed to do we have to follow mass legalist only we can we can't go into credit unions and things like that so uh

we we've seen that ratchet down a little bit uh where the four four and a half% the 5%s are now three half three three and a half to like 3.8%. So that I mean can you imagine $100 million it's that's a that's a big change in investment income. So we're watching that and going into fiscal 28 and in fiscal 27 making sure that we may have to adjust those revenue assumptions. Mhm.

I wanted to ask about that um committee, the advisory group at the LA one of the last meetings. I don't remember which one, but I had asked about running um the the budget, you know, today. If we had to run the budget today, what would that look like? And and could we get that information out to people? I'm concerned about I'm kind of talking about this roughly. So I trust you to

say to be more diplomatic about it, but I'm I'm concerned about getting information out as soon as we can about how bad it's going to be because in light of what you just said, it sounds like it's going to be pretty bad. And so then what are what are our strategies to get out there? I haven't seen anything in writing come from the budget advisory group, right? Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's accurate. Um, you know, didn't we? Oh, sorry. whatever we we've talked about this and it came up at a select board meeting as well as far as trying to, you know, determine what that will look like and we can we can do that. It's always going to be incredibly conservative because I'm never going to say, "Yeah, it looks like we can afford 4% and then things change, right? We're

always going to want to go on the conservative side and then if we can we say 2% budget increase and then things start to look more optimistic in the year, then okay, maybe we can afford three and a half." um you know the big one of the big things there's just there's so many big pieces of the budget that we don't know health healthcare is a huge piece of that we made some

changes we saved some money that's part of the update I was going to share um with the changes we were anticipating new membership new enrollment and we budgeted for that we had 70 plan changes um about 25 employees joined whether that be family or single which is a pretty good amount and then about 50 or 45 made changes in their plans. The good news is even with all those changes,

we're still trending down in our monthly bills. We're only we've only gotten two monthly bills, but we're still trending down in those, which is a good thing.

But if for some reason, you know, we get a 15% increase in healthcare, right?

That throws everything else off of where we of where we can put the money. So, um, we locked in, uh, last year. We worked with our insurance brokerage to, to lock in a flat rate, um, for this for last year, which which was great.

And part of it we have, uh, locked in for this year, but part of it we're looking at, uh, workers comp is a big is a big thing discussion right now. There may be some large increases there. It's just so we can put a number together.

It's just really hard when so much of our budget is those fixed costs that we don't that are just like like I said, healthcare, insurance, those things are so hard to predict. And and I want to be really clear. I'm not asking for what we do about it. I'm I'm asking for what uh you know, how what is the inventory as it lays right now and um how because so many people just don't

believe it. They just so many people just think I signed up for that um the outside of the box start helping Dartmouth group and I have to stop because it's so negative people just are they just Yeah. So what is what is that you're talking about? So there's two groups on Facebook. One is Dartmouth helping Dartmouth that's kind of monitored by somebody and then there's another one um uncensored I

think they call it and I and I did that because I wanted to see what people were thinking. I had heard a couple of kind of wild things and unfortunately it's it is it seems to me to be very um uh it's just negative negative in relation to actual numbers.

No, they they don't know. They're uninformed for the most part. They're uninformed. There's no other way to say that because I'm interested in what people are thinking and what you know what information can we get to them that's easy to digest that's not you know sitting at a I don't I don't think there's a lot of pe people that will come and join a committee and sit there for a couple of hours you know every

other week to get this information. And so I'm trying to think about how can we get this information out to people um that's a little bit easier to digest.

The town and Jessica does a fabulous job about countering or answering in a very professional manner when something gets a little off.

Where did that happen?

In these groups.

Oh, like employees respond.

Our communications manager Jessica the just with factual information, not you know there's no we don't do a back and forth. No, just a straight fact or whatever.

Oh, that's great.

No, she does an excellent job. Anyway, Brian, so I'd like to go back to that million dollars shortfall.

Uh, last time we met, a million dollars was serious uh and might trigger I think last time we were talking about as an override.

I'm just Yeah. Well, so we're talking actual millionucks. So, a million in actuals is what we were down.

Yeah. But we but we're not quite sure where it's going to wind up ultimately.

But no, that's an actual No, I know where that's I know where that we that's fiscal 26. We don't we don't have free cash or anything yet, but we know where revenue is, where it ended. Um so we were down a little over a million actually. Um that's we expect some of that to recover because a lot of some not a lot, but some of it is the solar uh which we're

working with them on, but some of it is the degradation of the solar which is only going to get worse.

Um and then the investment income I don't foresee necessarily a big shift the other way. Uh this But I mean, we can almost say for sure that things like medical are going to go up.

Yeah, for sure.

Oh, yeah. Of course. It's just a matter of how much, right?

We we when one of the benefits that we saw with going with our new health insurance plan was there was stability in the rate increases over the past, you know, five, six years, which we're looking for. We want stability rather than spikes. So, Maya, we were seeing 15%. Um, that's not reasonable, but there's no, the healthcare market is just so volatile. Yeah. So, I I guess the reason I'm even bringing this up is

I I would like if if it looks like we're going to be short a million bucks or somewhere around there, give or take 10% either way, I think we should be taking charge of that.

Uh now, the ch the ch I agree. I hear what you're saying.

No, no, no. The ch the challenge is right if if we said we can afford a three and a half% budget increase timeline right?

Which is fine.

If 60 million of that in the school department, I'm not picking on them, but they're the largest budget. If 60 million of that comes in at a 7% increase, we can no longer afford a three and a half that we're no longer a three and a half percent increase in the budget.

So, so I can tell you right now, we would be able to afford at least a 3% increase across the board in the budget.

If you took current year, next year we can afford 3%.

Even though we don't, it's still moving marbles around.

No, because if if we look at you know, you're looking at prop you're looking at Prop 2 and a half. So, you're looking at two and a half% which is a majority of our revenue. um local receipts. Even with the million that we lost, we're still you're still seeing growth in some of the other places. And then new growth, you know, we've averaged about $600 to $800,000 a year. We're also

going through a reval year, which means we'll probably capture a little bit more new growth this year. So 3% I feel comfortable saying. I don't I don't think it'll be much more than 3%. But if, like I said, if if everyone comes in at three, which I think is a pretty realistic number, and then $60 million of our budget comes in at seven, well, now that three is now a four and a half

or five townwide, right? And that probably isn't affordable, but historically that hasn't happened.

do in these budgets is because we become we we're conservative enough that we we're not spending every penny that we that we make and and that's important because we don't want to say to to any department that you know we're going to have layoffs you look at I mean we keep talking about. Look at other communities, I mean, that surround us.

They're in that they're in that boat because they've spent some of them have spent more money than they way more money than they brought in. So, we hold the line when it comes and it's it's tough to say that to to a lot of departments. You know, you can't do something or you can't do a new initiative. But, you know, it's that's a real tough uh proposition to put through on on departments that want to keep

moving forward when the funds are not there to do that.

Which is why we were able to absorb a million dollar decrease in local receipts. Right? If we budgeted to the max with no kind of conservative approach mid year because we look at local receipts every month how they're trending. We knew they were trending down. We would have said, "Okay, spending spending freezes, hiring freezes, and potentially, right, you get to April and you're still not making up

for it. Well, maybe we need to do layoffs, but but we have a we've had a conservative approach." You've heard us say though, we lost a lot of that conservative approach in fiscal 27 budget this year.

Oh, yeah.

We do still have some, but we don't have the same conservative approach that we did.

Flexibility is starting to get right unflexible.

And and I'm going to add I I don't think the I think the school district is underfunded.

And I think that I've looked at it for long enough to be able to say that with credibility that they're underfunded. So I don't think they're asking for something that's unreasonable. But I've also learned a lot about um overrides and the effect on the towns. I've been listening to a a podcast called the 351 and they do a very good job of finding people in different towns who asked for

an override and got it and asked for an override and didn't get it. And why did how did they handle both things? How did they educate the public? How did they maintain credibility? You know, cuz that's it's very popular to say the town is just wasting money over there. They just, you know, their drawers full of cash and they're just giving it out to people. Another other thing comes

through. So, we've talked about this numerous times about the credibility, the viability of Proposition 2 and a half still staying in place. And yeah, I frankly don't see it. I just see because more towns are asking for overrides and nobody's going to do anything with that and keep their job. But I wondered too, the other question that I had was um on the uh commercial properties that are coming up.

So, they're taxed as residences, right? that I I had asked or somebody had asked a question the um multif family yeah developments the three developments that are coming up that the taxes at the resial rate not at the commercial rate correct so that to me is something that might be more feasible for us to investigate to see if um something could be done about that and it's not a ton of money but it just doesn't seem

well we brought it up to our legislators they're aware um and some of our legislators have no interest in changing that right because they feel like the housing crisis in the state overrides the need for that. And if it's taxed at a higher rate then yeah, that may not um you know, that may not push people to create these um and then at what level do you say it's a multif family? Like is it a three

tenement? Is a is it 30 apartments? Is it? So that's all kind of it's all I mean things that could be worked out, but if there's no appetite at the state level to do that, then yeah. Do we have any projections for uh what's going be going on on Tucker Road with uh that development as far as what taxes may be? You know, there's some different things going on with that project. So,

I'm sure there are that one. Yeah, I don't know if you had any crystal ball up there that might suggest we may be getting or not. Probably not this early stage the game, but yeah, I mean that one that that project is a little more difficult to project because it's single family homes. So the um you know the multif family family complexes are a little bit easier for us to assign a projected valuation on them

because we can look at what other properties are in town and say okay it may be similar to this and then but that it's just we don't know the level of single family homes that they're going to build um you know what what they're going to go for on the market what the value is going to be. We have an idea but it's just so hard and that's going to be a phased out approach

if they go forward with the with the project. Um, but there's some Yeah.

All right. Because you got something on Dartmouth Street. You got the one that Conniey's putting up.

Yeah, that's that like that's an easy one to for us to to get an eye of because you have Amelia right next door which is a similar. So yeah, we have some ideas of that. Um, it all just depends. It's as of We're a June 30th community, so it's as of what was there June 30th, right?

It's basically a whatever was there June 30th is what we can tax. So if they get their occupancy further on then we'll get it till next year, right?

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah. I mean, as these projects get built, we we'll assume new additional growth. Oh, yeah.

But, you know, again, as as those projects fall off, that new growth kind of goes back down to to what we're budgeting, you know, typically what we're budgeting. But it does bring on some new growth when they do get on. But with some of these projects are five years, probably three to five years out in the horizon. So, you're not going to get them next you're not going to get that new growth next

year. So, um, probably fiscal 29 before you really see anything from from those would be.

And how's the business development, uh, going? I know we're supposed to be putting together a committee on that.

Has there been any traction made on that?

Nope. So, we approved the committee charge. Um, and we've just been waiting to fully staff to to start meeting that.

Okay.

Yeah. Good. So, hopefully sometimes this fall we'll we'll start advertising and meeting.

Excellent. Do you have any candidates for this?

Uh, we are likely approving a contract on Monday. Oh, awesome. Must be happy about that.

Yes, it'll be good.

Great.

Gary, why are you showing us this?

Yeah. So, we we um did a soft launch of the uh budget portal this week.

Um we're going to do a press release tomorrow about it. And so, everything's built out in there. It's on the website now right?

Right on the homepage there. And it's right there where it says budget overview. And so um 26 fiscal so 24 25 26 are completely in there um budgeted and actuals for all of the general fund um we are in the process of uploading budgeted 27 that'll be up there probably in the next week or two but yeah this so it's all built out um you can see are you in 26? Oh it's each year actually

there. So yeah um you're he's in 26 right now. So you can see what we budgeted, you can see what we collected in revenue. Uh you can break it down by each of the revenue pieces if you go back up to that pie chart, right? So that that shows you where our revenue came from um in the different in the different categories there.

There's also a spot to put in like um let's say your tax bill was go to expenditures. It'll pop that up.

Yep. You go to So it distributes your tax bill over that.

So let's say you had a six let's say a tax bill $6,000, right? Um it'll break it out.

Yeah. So Ed went to the schools employee benefits.

That's really good. No, I like this. Of course. Um what's included in the soft launch?

All the general fund.

Okay.

General fund 24 25 26.

But you're doing it as far as uh spreading the news around town. You're doing this as a press release. You're doing We're going to we're going to get that out tomorrow as a press release. Yep. On the website, on social. Look forward to the feedback.

Yeah. Yeah, we do too. Um, and then phase kind of two of this is we're going to get 27 uploaded and the enterprise funds uploaded, which I think there'll be a lot of interest in the enterprise funds.

Yeah, we're working on that this year.

So, we're working on that. Um, and then we're also going to be using this software this year to build the fiscal 28 budget. Um, we're going to put together a full budget book and our goal is to get a um an award this year. We're going for a GFO budget award. So, let us written We may. Yeah. So, um if you're you're interested in what that looks like, if you just go to clear gov,

you can look at any of the communities that have clear gov and it's probably 50/50 that build that use um use it to build their budget. But it's it's really an awesome document where um it goes it it's kind of like our annual report but more thorough and budget based and it goes into um FTEEs for every department. You know, all of the kind of information that I think the the

community will really enjoy to see. Uh so that's where we'd like to build the budget this year. We would like to have that available as a draft prior to town meeting so people can view it and then we would finalize it obviously after town meeting once the budget's adopted.

But um so Gary's actually looking at going to some uh classes on that in December to So this is the this is not this October's budget. It's Oh, it sure is this year. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Good.

Yeah. Our goal is to build it build.

Can't go wrong when you help educate the others.

Yeah.

very good court.

I wanted to ask while we're on the topic of the uh pre budget uh town meeting, could there be a section of that that talks about accomplishments, things that have been uh I'm not talking about bragging or you know, but just this is what we've done over the past two years.

Probably not really know everything that's happened here because I think in the past we've asked for a state of the town. Mhm.

as part of the presentation.

Even in the even in the memo that goes out from the finance committee.

Well, I think the letter that we sent out before town meeting did a reasonable summary of things that had been accomplished just as I think it was the first time that it was put in there.

Yeah.

But I think that having it as a um state of the town kind of meeting is helpful because what first of all it's televised. This it's an opportunity for people to ask questions. Well, what do you mean you did that? Um Address trash bags can always address.

No trash bags.

Please expensive.

Don't start.

And the light the light at state road.

They will be by the way. They might as well just get used to it. That price will go up.

It has I said but it will continue too.

Oh for sure.

Leaison reports are enough.

Okay. So liaison reports just a brief explanation for our new member. So all of us here, most members of the committee also are a liaison to another committee or two. So you don't necessarily have to go to those meetings, but you can, you know, watch them that all of them are recorded at this point in time. Um, as we get into our fall meeting schedule, I'll pull up the list again and, you know, maybe

we'll be switching some or you'll see something that interests you. Um but as I said most of us attend another meeting or watch another meeting and now is the time we say oh when I was at the whatever meeting I learned this that type of thing summer so it's a little less you know right yeah as as Janine said we'll we'll go through the list again once everybody has assignments but it changes it

changes all the time it changes with members it changes with interest it changes with people's schedules so that does anybody have a lesson on report um before I give My ladies, I had a couple of questions on Sure. on on Cody's uh Mhm.

the um bag group, the budget advisory group.

Um I I heard you mentioned a meeting September 9th or whatever it is. Is it me or I haven't been paying attention when it it seems as like we haven't heard from that group in quite some time. Is that because I'm just not getting reports or have there been meeting? What's what's No, there wasn't a ton of meetings over the summer. Um we had one scheduled and then um one of our employees passed away

and so we had to cancel that meeting and then um we've been working behind the scenes on um the there's discussions of um a group wanting to do some sort of I'm not going to efficiency study isn't the right word. um review of school operations, proper proper funding. In other words, how much how much to fund it, why that's the right number, and then why that number or what that number is and how it

affects the town's finances going forward and what can be done to mitigate if that number is large. U what can be done to mitigate it.

Um and then this So, it wasn't me. I I haven't No, it wasn't you.

I haven't missed something.

Okay. The um old police station committee, wasn't there a vote to establish a committee by the slug board on my Yes. Yeah. That the charge was approved.

Um and we're hopefully going to advertise that, you know, sometime in early September to start getting people on board.

And I thought I saw I can't remember what the makeup, but I thought you were looking to pull um from existing committees or am I or is it all going to be at large?

I don't think it's all at large. I think there's some membership. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll have to look. Um you know, for some I don't know what it is. It's certainly not a high priority for the town, but when I'm out and about, I get people because they know I'm about what's going on with the police station. I don't know why that rises to the top for a lot of people, you know. I don't because they drive by it whatever.

And I never have a good answer. I say, "Well, they're supposed to put a committee together, but I haven't seen it." So, and I just got that request this week, so something fresh on my mind.

Yeah. Our goal is to to start advertising um both that and the economic development committee probably like the second week of September and start getting those on board. Um so uh my layers on report the CPC I think they sent out invitations to the committees to go to the um hearing for the acquisition with Buzzes Bay Coalition for the uh lower apostle at Hawthon uh country club.

Um million dollar request. Uh so we'll be entertaining that I think next week or the week after. I can't remember the exact date, but I think invitations were uh and that's the only thing uh requests we've gotten for this round. Um you know what the pros and cons are of that?

I'm sorry.

Do you know what the pros and cons are of that?

No, we haven't we haven't entertained them at all. We've just got the notice.

We sent uh a bunch of questions to them that we want answered for the public hearing. Uh, you know, I'm sure we'll learn some more facts during the public hearing process.

It's a joint application um with Buzzers Bay Coalition in the town.

Okay.

We'll have them in um prior to once we do the articles or we'll have we'll have the committee into usually buddy make.

Mhm.

Right.

Good. That's it. No more liaison reports.

Well, I actually have a question for Kobe. I couldn't go to uh this morning's council on aging at a doctor's appointment, but Amy said that you had been talking to the um various uh trades people, you know, people that would be involved in building of the kitchen, they're finalizing contracts, dotting the eyes, c how's that going, Cody?

Um not well.

Not well.

Yeah. So, we've had some bid issues where the uh winning bidder was awarded the contract and then notified us that they would not be able to uphold their obligation. So, we are um going through legal right now and likely we'll have to pull their bid bond um and there's some legal implications there. It's never it's never happened here before. So, um that's great.

Yeah. So, we're we're in a a waiting period right now, so I can't go into too much detail, but by by mid next week, I'll have a clearer answer. But yeah, it should have been executed and the project should have been shovel in the ground by this point.

That's what I thought going forward up until today. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for the update.

Okay, we good. We up to minutes for approval, which I'm sorry, I was just looking it up because it's been so long.

July 9th.

It was July 9th. Um, July 9th. Make a motion to approve.

We have a second for the minutes of July 9th. John Souza. Um, any comments, discussions whatever?

All in favor?

I.

And Ryan abstained because he wasn't here. Right.

Right.

Not to put words in your mouth.

Okay. Uh, one question for you, Gary. Do we have any schedule for uh, no scheduled meetings right now for the finance committee, but once, as I mentioned, um, we'll be I'll be going through CIPC. They'll be meeting next, but I will forward the uh committee a schedule uh probably next week so we can get dates on the calendar up uh up through town meeting. So uh usually it's Thursday I mean meet Thursday nights at

5:00 5 to 7.

Uh but I will send that out. Uh I'm thinking we probably start meeting uh midepptember.

Beginning of September.

So definitely not next week.

No, no, no, not yet.

We're going to we're going to wrap up CIPC.

You probably want to do it the week after. Yeah. Week after.

Yeah. I would say your three big meetings are probably going to be um the 10th, 17th, 24th. Do we have a hand on how many articles we'll be looking at off?

Yeah. In the high teens, low 20s.

Yeah. Not a ton.

That seems high actually for filming.

Well, a lot of it's a lot of cleanup stuff. I mean, obviously, um we're looking at a few bylaw changes. We had the bylaw from the springtime meeting that we got feedback on that was indefinitely postponed that we're going to make those changes to with the um the um snow clearing and bring that back. Um we have some regulation things um like right now the board of public works um water department regulations were for

some reason approved through town meeting in the early 2000s. So, we can't change regulations for the water department unless it goes back to town meeting. Um, which just isn't a a really effective way to govern. So, we're going to look to clean things like that up.

Um, board of health has a few uh things to look at. Um, a septic system program, things like that. So, so it's not a lot of monetary. Is that what you're trying to say? It's mostly uh mostly capital.

Well, typically in the falls uh it's the stabilization, the capital and but the committee votes on makes recommendations on all the articles. Uh but as far as like yeah monetary it's only a couple of articles that okay okay that we' be looking at but the committee here has all the um yeah f probably five monetary articles if I had roughly right around there.

Okay.

So town meeting is not till the 20th and I say that for our new member more than everybody else probably knows that already. Um so we probably not meeting here till what was it September 16th? I just looked at the calendar.

So the select board needs to fully approve the warrant on September 28th.

Okay. because and then we have to get it out, you know, get it to the town clerk for them to prepare.

When there's the 3rd, the 10th. All right. So, we're probably looking at the 17th Gary.

Well, I would say pencil in for now.

10 17 24.

Oh, okay. So, all right. 10 17 24.

Yeah. I mean, um at at the 10th meeting, so on Monday night's slackboard meeting, we'll be doing a review of the items.

Not actual warrant, but just here are the items that going to be on town meeting. And then at the 14th they'll actually review a draft of the full warrant. And so like I said at the 10th we could start reviewing what those items are with you guys. Do a full review and probably start voting on them on the 17th and then finish up your voting on the 24th.

24th would probably be more the financial stuff because we have to wait to get free cash certified.

Have everything wrapped up.

But we should have everything wrapped up then.

Good. Sounds good.

Comes pretty quick.

Sure does.

Does you know how I am like when is it?

That's the schedule.

Yeah.

Am I I'll just send a remind to everybody so I don't have to panic quite yet.

No. No. Just check.

Yeah.

Um, anything else anybody needs to bring up? No. N.

Do I have a motion to adjurnn?

I made that motion.

Second.

Second. All in favor? I I adjourned.