Finance Committee Meeting - November 20, 2025

I'd like to call the finance committee meeting to order on Thursday, November 20th. We are meeting in person and the meeting is being recorded.

Please stand and 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.

Since Gary has taken control of the display, yes, I'll let him display the agenda.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, uh, tonight we're continuing kind of what we, uh, started last week on some of the items here. Uh, the handbook, leaison assignments. We didn't have a full committee. So, um, and then a couple things from, uh, Cody and then a couple of reserve fund transfers that I spoke about and then wrap up with a few items.

So, uh, the handbook we I got the last version that you had sent this afternoon.

Okay. So, my display does work, Gary.

Okay.

Cuz we don't want to watch Janine type on your laptop. This wasn't pretty.

Well, I like to I have this. So, I'm not sure what happened with the this connection.

It probably can only connect one thing at a time.

It worked before it.

Here we go.

Okay, good. Perfect.

So, I sent a copy out to everybody of the latest version of the handbook. I did some of the edits from our conversation last week. Added a couple things. They think I have it um to what we decided on last week. And of course, we're going to review it all again anyway because I know we have a group here that just loves to share their thoughts.

Yes. I was thinking of you

can

Good. Can everybody see that nicely?

Mhm.

Met everybody's eyesight uh requirements.

You want to maximize the screen, Janine?

Like at the top there? I don't know.

This There you go.

Even better. Excellent.

Better. Perfect. Thank you, Gary.

Beautiful.

So, I took into account the the changes that we asked for, but we should probably go through it again. We obviously have um Patrick with us this week, Brian with us this week, and I'm sure you didn't all read it from top to bottom this afternoon when I sent it out.

Maybe you did.

Oh, I did.

You did?

Yes.

Just looking forward to all your ideas.

Don't believe it.

Um, so one of the changes I made was in the introduction. You know, this handbook is intended as a guide. that that's the same. But while I did add the um following sentence, while it provides information specific to the town of Dartmouth, it is not intended to replace the finance committee handbook published by the Association of Town Finance Committees, ATFC, through the Massachusetts Municipal Association,

which offers broader guidance for for municipal Finance Committees across the Commonwealth.

That's right.

Nice.

Anybody? Excellent.

Good.

The second paragraph, I don't think I change I don't think I changed anything. I added the town moderator's email address with the new domain.

So that is the same bother to read it out loud to everybody on the YouTube.

Scroll up a little more. So if you want to we all agreed that finance committee members are expected to maintain at least 75% attendance consistent with other appointed committees. Um occasional ab absences are acceptable but members should notify the chairperson and the director of budget and finance as early as possible.

Meetings are held in person at the Dartmouth town hall. Members may participate remotely via Zoom for occasional absences due to illness, emergency or travel with 48 hours. A quorum of five members must be physically present to conduct business and take votes. So I added that.

And for those who weren't here last week, we had a discussion about Zoom or no Zoom.

I I moved this sentence, this next sentence that starts with finance committee meetings are generally held because and Terry, I'll defer to you because I know you had sort of an outline. I mean, we can move it again, but it just seemed to make sense at this point to say meetings are generally held weekly on Thursdays from 5 to 7 at the town hall.

So Janine, yeah, one thing to note under general participation expectations, yes, under the um the CO extension regarding remote meetings, which has just been extended again and again, you don't need a quorum physically present.

Okay, so that was the conversation we had last week. I thought there was a legal requirement.

No, that was um previous you needed a quorum physically present, but you can have it can be a mix. Um it can be hybrid as long as you have a quorum. Um, okay.

In combination and then you just have to do roll call votes if someone's remote um and not physically present, but you don't need a quorum physically present.

Let me just because I did want to make sure that people understood what quarum was. So this maybe the sentence needs to be moved.

Is that to say if you're having a hybrid you have to do a roll call vote? Yes, that's correct.

Yes. And when any for attendance as well as for the vote.

Yes.

Yeah. I forgot where I read it, Cody.

Honestly, that was a previous so when we implemented those CO error um guidance that allowed that um and it just continues to be extended and anticipated.

Okay.

We did come to a consensus that you know the preference is that we meet in person.

So that's why it kind of says that um since we're taking out the physically present um possibly maybe change to a quorum of five members is required to conduct business and take votes. Um that yeah no that makes sense.

Good.

Yes. Sorry, John.

Um, next statement is I think is a little bit misleading, especially someone who may be interested in the finance committee. The uh we meet weekly on Thursdays generally. Yeah, we we that's 52 times a week. We don't a year. We don't meet every week. So that's a bit misleading. Um how would you So we could say we generally meet on Thursdays.

You could just when business needs to be conducted, something like that.

Or you could just say when finance committee meetings are held, they are held Thursdays from 5 to 7 p.m.

used when finance committees meetings are held. want to try to put a budget season to the meetings. Is that what you were trying to kind of do?

Like during budget season twice a year we'll meet sometimes three.

I understand what you're saying both of you actually. But I you know want people to be aware that that is when we schedule our meetings and you know this summer which wasn't budget season we had meetings.

Yeah. Yeah.

But it was but it wasn't every week though.

Correct. Oh, sorry.

Um, just like when they're held.

So, adding what Deed just proposed would make sense during budget development or during budget season.

Yes, except for the fact that we added those summer meetings. That's the only reason I was questioning it.

Yeah, we're going to and we're going to get to um professional development, too.

So, we'll talk we'll have to talk about it there.

Who who was it that said when businesses forgot what the phrase during budget season when businesses?

No, you don't need budget season.

No, we do later. We do. We do explain that later.

We could say finance committee meetings when needed are typically held there.

On Thursday, I can do that too. Whatever.

Okay.

Finance committees meetings when needing are typically held on Thursday.

Typically goes back in.

Got that. Finance committee meetings when needed are typically held weekly.

are just typically just held on Thursday held on Thursdays from 5 to 7.

Yeah.

All right. Good.

Do we want to say dur during um in preparation of town meetings?

Well, we have that whole section. You were here last week, John. We have that whole section about the budget process.

No. What about that? There's an uptick in meetings because you kind of so people, oh, I get Thursdays free, but sometimes you meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and someone joining could say, "Oh, I can never meet on a Tuesday and Wednesday." I that that's Well, we have it here. If necessary, additional sessions may be scheduled commonly on Tuesdays depending on the workload.

Well, during budget season, additional sessions may be scheduled.

I wouldn't I wouldn't pin it down to that.

Okay.

Okay. There's a Well, we do have that whole You probably remember it from the whole section on the budget process that mentions the fall town meeting, spring town meeting.

You know, typically if necessary, I said there's some pieces of this that may end up being better in another location. I think it's hard to say. It was just me this morning typing and Well, you're gonna I just move stuff around.

You're going to send it out again when it's finalized.

Of course, I think it's going to be a document, a living document. Yeah, we mentioned that last.

I sense it changing, you know, for various reasons.

We mentioned that last last meeting is going to be living documents.

We'll have it on somewhere on here will be a last revision date or something like that.

Yeah.

It has to be reviewed by listener anyway.

Yes, of course. Yes. When we get down to a more final document, uh the chairperson says the agenda that's the same.

Everything here is the same. We changed a little bit under the the secretary paragraph that was just shortened.

Basically the liaison section. Uh okay.

The main thing that was added to the liaison section was that liaison should be prepared to provide oral reports at finance committee meetings.

The rest of it is ultimately the same.

Can we say brief oral reports?

You want me to go back to 10 pages single spaced?

Brief because I'm just thinking that may scare somebody too. It's like, oh my god, I got to give this over. But I mean just and there should be a lot of other reasons.

I think most of us want it brief, too.

Not that there's Okay, brief.

Not that typically we get a long-winded person, but you never know.

Well, I don't want Yeah, we got to know. We got a We got one new member. I don't know. So far so good.

Well, and Nate's fairly new as well.

There's two fair.

I'm getting a little nervous. So, let's put that in.

I don't dear doesn't strike me as easily scared off.

Okay. I put in to provide brief reports.

And I added what the liaison positions are. Not who's assigned because that could easily change, but just what they are so people understand what the options are.

Do we have one for the police? I don't think we right here.

Yeah, we do.

We had We had one for the police, but it was um for the building. We've never had one for the police. It was because there's no meeting because it was Bob and Bey. Bey was the But the police they don't have a a public meeting you can attend over No, but they they spoke to the police chief and yeah, I get it. They don't have a weekly meeting that somebody

attends. I do get that. But I think that each of them spoke with the chief and we do and I don't have the list in front of me. That'll be the next thing we look at as far as who sto who wanted what liaison roles.

I can tell you what I was thinking when I volunteered for that. But if it's not that I can address it then.

Nate.

Hello.

Hi, Nate.

Hello. How are you?

We're cozy tonight, Nate.

Full house, huh?

We are.

Yeah.

Full boat.

Full boat.

Oh, well. Or minus one, actually. So, Carrie.

Carrie just texted. She's on her way.

Okay, good. Okay, good. All right. Uh, okay. Working with select board and town departments.

Didn't change a lot here. The biggest conversation was about the second half of this no.

At joint meetings, the chairperson will introduce committee members and recognize speakers. Proper decorum is expected and members should offer only new or relevant points when recognized.

All discussion must remain focused on matters pertaining to the town of Dartmouth.

Thoughts?

No thoughts.

We can attribute proper decorum to dear's input.

There we go again. John, no sarcasm.

We took out sarcasm and put proper decorum.

Figured that that was self-explanatory.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay. No more comments, then we'll slide up to financial management and the budget process. So, some of this was just clarifying um some of the sentences. The finance committee meets twice annually with town meeting members. Once for the spring town meeting in June and again in October for the fall town meeting. The chairperson and director of budget and finance established the budget calendar

typically starting in September for the fall town meeting and in January for the spring town meeting. The spring town meeting addresses the operating budget parentheses schedule A as well as capital budgets recommended by the capital improvement committee and other warrant articles.

The fall town meeting primarily examines additional capital funding re recommendations from the capital improvement committee based on the certification of free cash.

I added the next paragraph because we know that um this is something else that we do non-budgetary warrant articles.

The finance committee also reviews, analyzes, and makes recommendations with respect to all nonbudgetary matters that are brought before town meeting, including bylaws, citizens petitions, and authorizations for transfers of unused funds from prior year's budget.

The Dartmouth Town Charter requires the finance committee to provide a recommendation to town meeting on every warrant article, regardless of whether a financial impact is involved. Sometimes we find ourselves saying why are they asking for our opinion on this but we have opinions on everything.

Y that's great though.

Um so anyway at that par goods everybody no excellent and then of course this is the other thing that can do transfers from the reserve fund. The reserve fund is a budget account administered by the finance committee to be used at their discretion to cover extraordinary or unforeseen expenditures that arise during the year. Refer to reserve fund policies and practices. That's a hot link document for more details.

Feel the need to describe the whole thing.

It's all in that document. It's posted right on our finance committee web page.

And the other thing that I added, this was a long conversation last week, was public statements and email. I added by the way, the purpose of these guidelines is not to ask finance committee members to leave their opinions or values at the door when they become members of the committee.

My own bad.

An individual committee member can speak publicly as a private citizen, but must not represent or act on behalf of the finance committee unless expressly authorized. When members identify themselves as committee members while speaking in a personal capacity, it can create the impression that they speak for the committee.

And I would add uh speaking and uh publishing or you know something about because the the issue of letters came up, right? Um, okay.

Excuse me. I I have to disagree with that. Um, that statement statement or whatever.

Yeah. Well, uh, I think as a member of the finance committee, you have standing to comment on something. You can say you don't rep these uh, opinions do not represent the finance.

You mentioned that last meeting.

Um, so I I have a problem with that.

We mentioned that last meeting.

I think No, we did. And I probably have some real recent examples of that u from their select meeting on Monday night. Um yes, I get it. And and I will say that the folks both clearly said they were not on the, you know, speaking on behalf of the finance committee.

I And this is just my personal opinion.

Of course, once you say that, everybody goes, "Oh, they're on the finance committee. I know there's no way I don't know what the way around that is." Well, I had the conversation I had a conversation with the moderator about the two letters that I wrote about the performance of um one of the select board uh meeting members. Uh and uh as long as she was concerned, as long as I disavowed this being a comment with

relates to the representing the finance committee, it was fine. You have standing. I mean, you're here. I was here five and a half.

No, no, I do. I I understand that. And this paragraph is is you know basically a public meeting but maybe there just needs to be another sentence that refers to documents as Terry said and that would address that as long as it's stated either way either uh at in a document or at a meeting that you are your opinion does not represent the uh feeling of the opinion of the total finance finance committee or

something that along those lines there.

In other words, in other words, it's your own opinion. It's your own document and it does not uh anywhere matter as a matter of fact represent how the rest of the finance committee feels.

Do we feel like so in that second sentence um where it says an individual committee member can speak can I say can speak or write publicly as a private citizen? Um maybe you could write when an individual committee member speaks publicly or writes right because here you're telling them when they can and cannot that's not that's not our our position. They must they must when they speak clear please

that they don't represent clear that that might be a more clear way of saying it again Terry when when an individual uh committee member speaks publicly or publishes a document there's probably an easy a better way to say that but let's put it in for now um members must make it clear that they do not represent the finance committee that's fine publishes a letter or publish or anything publishes a document

anything we'll come up with something okay publishes iie letter a document anything document that's covers

Whatever I just I'll fix the sentence, but we get Sure. Is that enough?

Yeah, I get the gist of it.

Okay. Um All right. The second part of that was about email. A finance committee member of course can email other members as long as the message is not sent to a quorum. The only exception is that members may email a quorum to schedule a meeting, share an agenda, or distribute reports or documents for an upcoming meeting providing no provided no opinions are included.

Members should avoid using reply all as doing so may violate the open meeting law. I think it would be good to put some kind of statement in there about social gatherings and I know the language was used by the select board at one time that that if people gather for s you have suggestions uh I can get you the language.

Okay. But just to say that because we were really worried that it was going to be you know Yeah. You got to open it up to the public. Yeah.

Yeah. Now when we worked at Moth's Vineyard 20 years ago in winter when you were at the they had an aiga at that time IGA and you were at the tomatoes you had a quorum. So so we all had to have a specific language about No, I understand. We we've all been in situations where different public bodies have been at a quorum level in a public setting.

Absolutely.

You're not talking about business.

No, right.

Sure.

You know, just because you all happen to be in the aisle of stop and shop doesn't mean business is being you're not taking, but yes, maybe a sentence of some kind.

I'll put that in there. Good idea.

Oh, um, let me see for you right here.

Careful. Careful.

Yeah. Watch out for my cord. Sorry, especially t.

So, that is the extent of my edits and input on this at this point in time.

Good job.

There's so much more to be done. Uh, I left some of it because Terry, you had several categories that you had listed at the end of this. Terry is the person who set up the structure of this and started it.

I put that up.

So, I didn't really want to, you know, I wasn't sure where you were going with some of these. And I don't know, you know, if we get an idea tonight, then maybe, you know, if you can work on it, I can work on it. Whatever. We had we had committee operations uh agenda and schedule leaison reports communication to town meeting professional development resources for training and in-house

training. We dear to just to explain why we're doing this this committee never really had a handbook about how we'll operate. There's always been a finance committee handbook obviously but um it was kind of loosey goosey. So we've decided in the past few years because we put some structures in that work that we want to commit it to paper so when we're dead and buried somebody in knows how to run things.

It's well done.

Right. So so a new one at you know as the beginning kind of states so a new member or someone who's considering being a member gets an idea of the structure of the finance committee and how we operate and sort of the guidelines of what goes on. Um, I realize a lot of that takes place when they're interviewed by the town moderator, but this way anybody can look at it and then maybe they'll look at it

and go, "That's awesome. I want to be a finance committee member." Or they'll look at it and go, "I don't think so."

Either way, it's a choice.

I think the light is going to prevail.

Um, I added just a couple things and I'm not sure I didn't want to write anything at this point when I talked about professional development or training whatever that people need to be aware of open meeting laws and maybe it's just hot links to them and Robert's rules of order because I think every committee in town operates on you could probably you could probably refer to you know if there's something

here that dictates I know it might I looked at and I said this last week so I looked at finance committee handbooks not talking about the large one that's put out by the state. Um, but I looked at finance committee handbooks from probably half a dozen towns. So, that's where I got some of this input from just to see how they were addressing different things.

Yeah, I will say not that I expect this to be, but I will say on average those handbooks were 20 pages long. Gez, I don't think we'll get that far because a lot of the information that we do need to know is in the state book and I don't want to replicate that.

No, you can refer to scare anybody off with a document that they must read before they even consider joining the finance comm.

You can just refer to it in some way rather than financial statements. Would we like to say something like letters to town meeting? Because financial statements are really what Gary brings to us, you know, right?

You wanted to put something in there to say letters to town meeting, how we put them together. Um because it gets back into if there's a a split if we don't have consensus on something then we decide to do a a pro and con in the letter minority report.

You're talking about the warrant recommendation letter to the letter to the town.

Oh the letter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wasn't that in the version of this? I vaguely remember that.

What was that? Wasn't this uh wasn't some of this stuff in a previous version of this that listed the type of things that we discussed doing?

It's way over here. Yeah, that's what I said. We should have a link to this document or another document.

That's different. That doesn't have anything about letters to town meeting in it. I'm sure I don't know. I have to look at it.

Well, I don't think anybody other comm any other committee writes a letter to town meeting aware of.

Let me find out for sure. It may have.

And if it doesn't, then it doesn't.

I go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I think that maybe this might that might be a little bit maybe too much detail um to put letters to town meeting. I think maybe at the top maybe a sentence with um you know what we what what the duties are or what's expected of the group there's a portion at the top I think that talks about responsibilities talks about so we reference it I think under the vice chair description

a little can we see the the letter to town meeting vice chair whatever and coordinates the writing of warrant recommendations letter to town meeting and other finance committee communications.

That's fine. Says it all really.

They don't have to represent.

I mean, I think if anybody is interested in the all the awesome detail of us putting together that letter to town meeting, they can watch these meetings and see exactly how that process works, which might be interesting to some.

I know it takes us a while. Um, but we usually come up with a really good letter at the end.

Yes, we do.

Yes, we do.

So, what was So, the reference to capital planning, Terry, what was that intended for?

To be honest, I just made a list of things that we deal with and Okay. And we can include it or not. I mean the capital improvement committee usually writes their own letter right and I think capital improvement committee would fall under the department that you you wrote about earlier that we mentioned it in the budget process it's mentioned they come and meet with us just like all

the other departments so we may not even even need to put capital planning in there.

Okay. Okay. So now I understand. So this was just thoughts of what else should be included in this. All right. I think though that we need to I do think we need to make some kind of statement that we write to the town meeting twice a year because up until the last say five years or so we didn't the finance committee didn't send anything to town meeting and we don't always uh right send for

each town meeting a letter.

So we I agree with you Gary that we don't need to go into the detail of what goes into it but that the finance committee puts together um maybe maybe add it at the top twice community twice a year until Yeah. finance committee.

Yep.

Submits added at the top under what section?

The vice chair maybe under vice chair under vice chair not fiscal management.

Um well everybody. Hi.

Hi.

Let yeah twice twice a year a letter a letter at the tower meeting.

Yeah enough detail.

I should be doing this what it is.

So, we don't need that.

That Do we have enough about the agenda and schedule?

I think so.

Now we have a full house and everyone is so quiet.

Oh, you okay? So, the agenda is is in schedule is fairly a normative committee function. So, I don't think it might not but it's it's mentioned in here already, right? You're right about that. It's true. Exactly. I try to look at this as you haven't been on a committee before.

Sometimes people who join these committees have never been on a committee before, right? And I'm thinking that Bill, you, Brian, and I would know if we disappeared, what would we want? What would we not want to see disappear from the finance committee? I think I feel I feel like this covers it.

Okay.

I think I'm comfortable with the document.

You don't want to be too wordy either. I think it's great.

No, no, I agree. So, financial statements.

We do we do need to clarify leaison reports, but we can probably do that as as conversation. We don't have to.

You mean as far as who?

Well, also what does liaison do? Because we we're not participating in their meetings.

Did did this description not cover it?

No, I think it covers it. Uh is did anybody see anything that was missing?

Cody, when you look at that list, is there anything that we should the list of who the who the liaison are at the paragraph.

No, just what they do.

It's I think it's fine that we've established member will serve as a liaison to one or more town boards or committees. Larger departments may have more than one liaison.

This role does not authorize members to speak on behalf of the finance committee. Right? Rather, liaison are responsible for identifying issues that may merit the committee's attention and advising the chairperson on whether they should be added to a future agenda.

Leaison are encouraged to attend the meetings of their assigned boards or committees. If attendance is not possible, they should review the meeting on the Dartmouth Community Media YouTube channel to stay informed and they should be prepared to provide brief oral reports at finance committee meetings or you can have the meetings uh many meeting minutes sent to you via email from these various uh committees.

True. And for the most part, everyone posts their minutes. We're probably the most prompt committee. Thank you, Gary, for posting our minutes on Right.

It's really more to give a heads up to the finance committee of things that might be happening that we're going to have have to have opinion on because all you're really doing is just bringing back information from these committees to be presented to the finance committee.

That's all you're doing.

Yep. Exactly.

You're not offering any opinion. Just say what you need to be brought back.

If you have a liazison, you would ask the chairperson to send you an agenda for that committee, whatever it is.

Yeah, that's true.

Um, you know, one of the things I just noticed, we have the health insurance um steering committee.

Good one.

There's a member of Oh, you know, that's a good point. We we put on the budget advisory, but we didn't do the health insurance and we do have two, frankly, I don't remember who they are.

We do have one person or two.

One of the finance.

Is there a pack? Is it me?

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I know, but it's not in the list. That's all.

Long-term capital.

Yeah. Long-term capital. We have long-term capital planning committee.

It's the last item.

Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

What we don't have is I'm going to add that. Okay.

Have you guys carried the hand?

Its official name Cody is health insurance steering committee. His right. Yeah. Health insurance steering committee. Health Insurance steering committee.

Is there um a date? Are there dates when they're meeting published somewhere?

We haven't met yet. It's a new committee.

Just make sure.

Probably want to put board of health instead of health.

Okay.

Carrie, it's up there with the budget advisory group. We're in waiting mode, right?

is the time to ask a question with respect to the list of liaison.

We're going to we're going to put that up next as far as the assignments.

Um or just the boards that are on this list. Um I either or but some have asterisks and some have just voting and some are just That is a good question and I took out all the asterisks because they had nothing that they referring to.

I volunteered for the question ones but I just thought it was a kind of a proby thing or something.

We will um we'll talk about that after that is a question though. I just took that off of this chart. Made no sense.

It wasn't referring to anything. Um, I want to add, so we need something about social gatherings. That's fine. I'll add something. And then something under professional development without being wordy.

Probably a lot of it will be links or something to like MMA or ATFC. So, people should join or get the emails and sign up as a new member. People should get that information.

Encouraged to.

What do you want to say about social gatherings?

That we're not a quorum and we all meet at stop and shop. They don't have to be posted.

Do we I mean that's in the state ethics rules. Do we And we reference I mean do we need to repeat all the stuff that you know committee members should be taking that course anyway and all that information is there about social gatherings? I mean we could go on forever with it already exists. Why reinvent the wheel? I'm not saying that's why I don't want to be 20 pages, right?

Is there a problem that had come up that made it made the list probably somebody saw something they didn't like?

Not amongst us.

Just saying help it nowadays.

Um I do think and I'll ask the two newest members because it's been a long time but I have been to many open meeting webinars. Uh did you have to take a open meeting course?

Yes.

I I didn't just because I um I took the oath and I took the online.

Okay.

I didn't take it. Is that the online thing? Okay.

A state ethics.

Yeah. State meeting law. Yeah.

But but not open meeting law. So you're required to do state ethics. You are not required.

Oh, that's right.

Oh, okay.

And I would advise people.

I remember something about open meeting.

I'm sure there was something in there about open. Well, they touch upon it, but there's a specified opinion law training.

Okay.

Oh, no, there is. Absolutely. I would only put it in the professional development thing as a link and I would tell you that the MMA, as I said, I have taken it.

They go they have webinars occasionally where you can review it that are very good and very detailed and I do recommend that you see it at least once in your lifetime. We could just suggest that new members refer to the state's open meeting law website and familiarize themselope with that.

No, as I said, I think that's under that last section. Those are just reference materials for anyone who's considering or is a member.

I think it's important to know that those organizations or uh rules exist.

Do you want to spell out the acronyms for the new person going with an MMA?

I will. Yes. I'm just not going to do it tonight.

Thank you very much. Sorry.

No, that's actually a really good point.

No, no, I will. Of course.

Yeah, I can't.

Is alphabet soup. Everything's alphabet soup. So, dear, didn't you notice in the very first paragraph that I put out Association of Town Finance Committees?

I know. I don't like to bury people under acronyms. I come from a technology background, so I'm very used to, you know, you can bury somebody under them.

Yeah.

It's not good. Um, so I think at this point, you know, we probably will discuss it again because we're just going to tweak a few things and send it out to everybody to take a look at. Is that fair?

Yep.

It is.

Thank you.

It's very helpful as a new member, you know, very very helpful to the I think it will be helpful to people as I said in case you're interested in joining the board or you are a board member. Of course, I just asked John simple questions about nine precincts or 10 precincts and nine members and are they representative of each other? And so just even that simple information in that conversation was very helpful.

Oh, town meeting.

What is precinct three when we have three people?

I know.

I think the charter thing.

The precinct doesn't have many meeting rooms, but it's all students.

All right. So, let's drum that up.

Hey, why don't you change? That helps.

Oh, yes.

That helps.

There you go.

All right. So, Gary, I'll ask the question now because I never saw what these asterisks mean on some of these capital improvements. Okay, I get it.

It's a voting position, but it has an asterisk. Why?

or based on because it doesn't refer to anything at the bottom.

It could have been some old information.

I mean, we don't Okay, I've eliminated.

Well, as I said, I did in the handbook because I couldn't find out what it was referring to.

All right. So, we don't know.

No being eliminated.

Okay.

And then the the the the That's fine. I'll do it.

Um anyway, okay. You're using You have the update.

Well, you're going to add uh the steering committee, correct?

I will.

to this

health insurance steering c committee.

Oops.

Now we need a volunteer.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay. All right. So, we agreed last week. John Suza volunteer for the AG Trust.

What's AG Trust?

That was 15 minutes last week.

Well, John, since you're the actually we actually found it out what it was.

Agricultural Commission.

Yeah. has in the past had uh funds in a trust that they have to have a committee to oversee. So Oh, okay. Um that's the ad commission right now is making that a hot topic to start and they haven't met I think in years but they don't meet on a regular basis but when I so I attended one believe it or not way back when I first joined the um finance committee they said they sent

something up to David Talib and said we need a from the finance committee to be at this meeting.

So I went to it and it was they don't meet on a regular basis they just meet when they need to meet. So, is there any money in the trust?

I don't know if there currently is, is there?

There is, but I don't think it's enough to purchase any.

You know, they there used to be at one time, but it's not enough in Dartmouth terms as opposed to Well, the idea was you you could have a farm, for instance, that was being sold or potentially going to be sold and you could use this these funds to essentially preserve it, you know, buy the farm. And then um this was done um what's the property there? And they tried doing the marijuana stuff there.

Oh, I can't tell you about there's a number of properties, but there's Yeah, a number of properties that this has been utilized for. So, I don't think there's enough currently in there to make a purchase, right? They're talking about getting replenished, but that fund hasn't been used in the funds to purchase that property and others was CPC and a few other agencies get involved in purchasing. Uh,

John, do you remember the soils board?

Because that's another one. It's kind of strange. So board is inactive right now because we got no active uh grab roll operations in town.

Okay, there you go.

So they have not been meeting.

Okay, so could I just ask a question about that just to follow up? I had followed up about who is responsible for town beach and it was park and wreck but I was thinking of not soils necessarily but erosion. We kind of chatted about waterways a little bit about that. So the environmental waterways we have a water we have a waterways commission that would be conservation though it deals with erosion and

soils soils is strictly strictly for gravel removal.

Okay any parcel in town that exceeds I forgot how many square yards.

Okay. So just to confirm obviously because Terry you weren't here last week so obviously you're staying on capital improvements. I would love to.

Yes. Fine. Uh John obviously is just reappointed to CPC.

Council on Aging has been Bill BS. Now Patrick, I added your name to the areas you were interested in.

Yep.

Um right now, so right now Bill has it.

I mean, you're welcome to be back up, I guess, at that.

Well, I was just going to suggest that because if sometime I can't make it, if Patrick wants to attend.

Yeah. And those ones are in the morning, too right?

Yeah. at 9:00 in the morning.

Yeah. So if I have things at work and I can't go to So we'll we'll it would be good to have two and they contain the meeting minutes.

They they often do that if I can't make it.

Sure.

Okay. Dancing on Friday.

Yeah.

So DPW I took my name off. I had far too many boards. Um Brian, you still on the DPW?

Yes.

And Deardra, this is the one you had interested. Okay, perfect.

Board of Health, I would like to not be on. As I said, I'm just trying to eliminate anybody interested in board of health.

I'll do board of health.

Carrie, are you sure?

Yeah.

Sure.

Is it really about that?

No, not at all. No, I'm just not thinking of people's schedules.

Well, when do they usually meet?

They just had a meeting yesterday. It's during the day and they are recorded.

Okay.

That makes it Oh, they are recorded. So, that would make it a lot of Zoom.

Oh, it's like 4:30, right?

During the day. Yeah, early in the afternoon.

Yeah, it's not evening. I know it's like late in the afternoon, but they're not normally in person, though.

I think yesterday's was Okay.

Hybrid. That's why the TV was in the room.

I've actually watched them on before.

Um, but yes, I've watched recordings and been to one live meeting.

What days do they usually run on or is it just random?

I think it's Wednesdays.

Yeah, Wednesdays.

It's once a month.

Yeah, you can do that.

As I said, the recording is available.

Yep.

Yeah, that could be the backup if you'd like.

Huh? Yeah, I could be your backup.

That would be awesome. That would be good to have somebody to like I'd be happy to flip. Yeah, clearly I'm not always good with my schedule.

Uh, as I said, they're recorded.

I'm working on it.

All righty. Library. Patrick, I put you a second. I just I can't forfeit the library. Sure. Like my library people.

Beautiful.

Parks Carrie, that's me. Yeah, they meet me like rarely. So, that's an easy one.

Okay.

It's like twice a year or something like that. Four times a year.

Planning board, which is also recorded.

Uh, but Nate, you said yes. And you can take me off of that if Nate wants to jump in there. Um, works.

And Nate, it is.

So police as we discussed is not like a monthly meeting or a weekly meeting.

It's infrequent contact by the two people that I knew.

That still interests you.

Well, I saw it blank and the work that I've done in my previous life for up north would be uh to work with the police on even designing buildings, schools. I'm sure Mr. Kylie and the superintendent are working concert with the police in regards to that kind of activity. But we also had a community group that was responsive to any hate crime or anything like that that was kind of responsive within the community

that had church leaders and police and school and you know folks like that. So when I saw it and saw it blank, I'm like, "Oh, I can jump in there if you'd like." But if that's not what it really is, the two Well, honestly, I haven't had exposure to it. The two people that had it, as I said, they met infrequently with the chief, but I would assume their capital needs in watching the fall town meeting.

That's not necessarily the role of this.

No, they they'll come on to capital.

Wouldn't come under there's no official role in with the police in in this liaison role. There's no there's no accountability for liaison in terms of making the the the purpose of the liaison role is just to listen and see if there's anything that's like we should have a heads up on.

It's not functional in terms of what they're doing. You're not weighing in.

They're not going to be asking you your opinion about anything. You're just going to be listening. But sometimes things come up like for example council on aging. there are some things that have a financial impact uh impact and so we come back but it's it should be very light duty it should not be like John does CPC because he's on the CPC and he knows what's going on there I do capital because I'm on the

capital committee it's it's not um it's a different role than the other one you say you're on the capital committee is that the liaison role no she's the actual committ she's actually on the committ She's actually on she's a member of some you know like CPC I'm actually on the committee so you can do both.

Oh absolutely.

Well Cherry is the finance committee person on the capital. Right.

So that's where the voting that's where the voting comes in.

That's where the voting thing comes. So, so for instance, DPW doesn't have a place on their board for the finance committee, but we attend to listen to what they're talking about to see if there's any potential financial imp.

So, if I go down this list, I see a voting, budget advisory voting, capital and voting, and soils in voting. And those can be dual roles.

Wait, you might want to separate those.

The voting ones.

Yeah. Because that you're not just a liaison. You're an active member of that board.

So you're you're representing the divided member and the others are actually just leaison. You're there you're there to listen.

Yeah. Listen because it does it extremely doesn't make sense to have somebody go to CPC if you had already you know right and that's the only reason why there's no reason to have a leazison there. I'm already there.

You're right advisory committee where you're actually involved.

Yeah. But you so you vote but so you vote you on some on some of it. Yes. That's why but I'm not representing the finance committee in my vote there.

You're voting on capital. So you're voting on the entire capital budget for the town of Dartmouth as No, I just really And we're voting and he's voting on soils but not the beach.

But I just I'm getting in my head and I'm so sorry.

No, some but finance committee members can also be voting members of committees with not asterisks but the word voting next to it. Why can't you have a Well, because you're appointed to those boards as well.

I think we have appointed to the Who appoints the board? Who We have to take Can I take a step back for you for a second? So, some of these boards request um to have representation from different other committees. So, they want somebody from this committee to sit on the board and somebody from I don't know, name another committee that to be involved in decision making. Like, so when I go to capital, I'm involved in

decision making. John's involved in decision making with the CPC. Okay.

If you're a liaison, you're not. You're just listening coming back to But it didn't make sense to have somebody be a liazison to the committee. If I'm already on it, I can just come back and talk.

So, what does the budget advisory committee do?

We don't even know what it's new. If there's two members from this group, which is myself and Brian, we it was chosen by the group. The school committee has two members chosen by the school committee. The select board has two members chosen by the select board.

And I think it's Cody, Gary, Jim, Kylie.

Did I miss anybody?

No, I think that's everyone.

So that's who it is. And that's a brand new group meant to give a deeper dive into the budget.

I would be glad to meet with you afterwards and go through some of this stuff because some of it's historical.

Some of it's a struggle.

I just want to for example the whoever the liaison for the police I would I would think all you need to do is call the police chief every once in a while.

Is there anything that the finance committee should be aware of that you're doing? That's it. You're not there to influence or form an opinion on community pleasing. That's not your role as a liaison. It's just to report back on matters that may relate to non.

That's right. It has an impact to finance.

Like what doesn't? Okay.

Budget. I get it. I get it. I get it.

I'm sorry. It's just really new to me.

That's what people used to say. You everything costs money.

You're talking about, you know, uh traffic violations. That No, no, no. I'm not I'm I'm just really It's just a matter of introducing yourself and saying we just want to keep in touch. They're, as I said, the two previous people who held that role simply touched base with them. There weren't big meetings.

Okay, I get it now.

Okay.

I think like a good example is like when they uh when they needed to replace all the firearms recently, like bringing something back and just making the committee aware of before they come and present so we're not Well, we got that from the capital committee.

Oh, we got from the Yeah, exactly.

So, getting back then to planning. So, plannings of voting. So, you're a member. It has a But that's the Oh, that's the asterisk. That doesn't vote.

Okay. Sorry.

An example asterisk are all gone.

They're all Exactly.

An example, Deodor might be like on DPW, they're they're planning to hire uh consultants.

Okay.

Study the efficiency of department. So that's the only role I'd have at DPW as opposed to taking a look at the capital requirements of the sewer plant. Like so I don't I don't have anything to have it.

I mean you could hear them talk about it but that's not the role is just for those listen the point that I was going to make about the efficiency study is they're picking a consulting company. So it might be good for us in here to know what the parameters of the study are going to be and then bring that back and then bring it back here or if it gets so complicated it might be

a recommendation to the chairperson to have somebody from the uh the board come here and make a presentation.

Your role here when you're a finance committee what they're presenting to us is the time to ask those questions that you may have had sitting listening to a meeting. It's not to interrupt and say, "Right, wait a minute.

That's your role here." Cuz that they will. It's just to give us a heads up what's going on. And when they're here, ask those questions.

Well, you can ask. I I attend. I ask questions.

We're not supposed to though. We're supposed to be silent.

But you're a member of the As.

So Gary and I were just had a little sidebar. Um I don't know if you need police on here. You don't have any other department, right? These are all boards and committees. That's the only one that doesn't have a board or committee.

I don't know if you need it, but you don't have board of assessors.

Well, I don't know how this list was created. It's just been this way for five years.

So, longer. Yeah.

So, I would recommend take police off and put board of assessors on board of assessors on.

That makes more sense.

It does.

All right. I have no problem with that.

Except that Brian say that is a department of the town of Dartmouth that belongs on a list of some sort. If a critical in I'm sorry and I'm if a critical incident happens in town and is there a group that kind of you know reports out the c so first of all we have a select board and the police department not us we have a lot of professional staff that

you know headed by myself and you know right so I don't think you want to get into departments here I think you the ideas board and go hey how's it doing you have anything that should bring back to the finance committee.

The board of assessors meet the board of assessors.

You would have to go to those meet like whoever's on the the liaison for the board of assessors would go to the meetings and sit and take notes and bring it back.

Except that except that the what are they the third biggest budget in town?

Fourth biggest budget.

You've got emergency management. Like who handles emergency management? That's a separate department. It doesn't police commission is that it doesn't come under our pyramid.

We are a professionalized government here.

Major money.

Okay. I'm sorry.

But we're professionalized here. So for the most part, we have professionals that run the day-to-day stuff and then the boards.

We have a town administrator.

I just didn't understand what the word the liaison role is and isn't. We had asterisk and we had voting and I had very I had interest in certain things and now I'm just learning that it's really take notes report out and so that's I just need to understand my role. That's awesome.

There you go. There's the word.

Thank you very much.

Communication is just listen and report.

That's what it is.

Perfect.

Beautiful. I didn't Yes.

Well, schools should be school committee.

Yes.

right now school committee. That's correct.

Waterways commission.

Uh that was a group that was uh called the Harbor Plan.

So that was the question that came up last week. John, I don't recall your opinion. Um but now Brian's here because you're on it. What's the Well, it hasn't met in a long time because the uh person that was leading it resigned and nobody took up the But you still have the waterways management, but you still have the waterways which report this thing reported to them, but it hasn't been reconstituted

and it's harbor only and not town beach and parks up there is parks under recreation.

Okay, question for Brian.

Yes, because it was next to your name. So what is that harbor in parental the harbor? There was a plan developed on how there was a master plan right that was done that's done that that well no it was to it was to develop the downtown uh area economically uh and that was part of it to talk about water quality down there that was part of it talk about moorings that was part

of it docks that was part of it no longer exist. Yeah, it's on it's on the on the books, but it hasn't met in over a year.

There's been discussion of does it make sense for just the waterways management commission to take that on because it's a dormant kind of committee, the harbor management implementation, but the idea was to there was also the blue economy. They were talking about how to Yeah. Yeah. We had the harbor the harbor management plan, right, was created and this group was t tasked with

implementing basically what was found in that plan and water quality was part of it in the harbor. But then there was also uh some talk at the last meeting of having um a group that having a person or a committee that oversaw water quality in the whole town. We just approved that charge at one of the most recent select board meetings.

Oh, okay.

So, there will be a committee.

Yeah. A committee. So, include the uh water and the water treatment plants, water quality across the whole including the harbor.

Exactly.

So, what about a something like a woods hole report that talks about the beach erosion going from Hayden Arum all the way out to We do um we're getting a little bit off track and I'm more than happy to talk.

we can meet, but we do we have like municipal vulnerabil vulnerability preparedness. So that's incorporated with a lot of our planning documents and we we we take on those projects um typically as an administration and they're they're kind of signed out to the applicable department, but we don't have a we don't have a a natural resources division for instance that would oversee something like that.

Okay. Thank you.

I think a meeting with Cody would would make sense because you get a sense of the organization. The finance committee in some ways is a little bit boring because it's it's just looking at decisions made by the town financially and offering an opinion about them and then also if there's things being neglected asking questions about that and why. So it's not a it's not like something that would ever deal with

erosion. And we've had little trouble in the past year with um with getting off track and getting involved in some things that other committees take care of.

I take exception to that because if you hold on if you read the charter, it says that this group can uh town charter can question anybody any uh any town official about expenditures made.

So if you wanted to get into that and you wanted to have a discussion with whoever's in charge of that particular area, you have the authority to talk about what why they're spending the money, what's the rationale, what's the goal, etc.

But through this body, not through the liaison.

H you could yeah you could talk about it.

No person you can with respect to their time and other responsibilities.

All respect to finances and that's all the that's all the charter says. So, if you can get a if you can get a number of people interested in your in what you what you're asking about and it has financial impact on the town and there's a plan uh to execute that spends money, you can talk about it or ask helpful to understand. Thank you very much. Can I suggest that we go back to

um assigning people for these jobs and some of it will be on on the job because I think we're wasting some time that we could use to talk about other things.

We've strayed Terry.

No, we never do that.

Waterways management commission.

Back on track. Thank you.

I only got that far in my typing when we were talking. And then the committee the committee Brian was on was the harbor management plan information committee which I think might have been dissolved or is it still active if I may hasn't officially been dissolved but they don't they haven't met we haven't met in over so the waterways manage comm management commission exists.

Yes.

And Brian do you wish to be the liaison because your name was there but that doesn't it's not a requirement. Uh, I could um, yeah, I can go.

Okay.

I know. I know.

To be frank, that one probably makes more sense because that's more that, you know, that's that's the harbor master's office and all of that work down there.

So, I didn't I didn't want to skip too far ahead here because we do have to actually go down this list. So, we left off with board of health, library, parks, carry planners, which we quietly changed next to dear's name.

I know.

Sorry.

Hey, that's what happened.

Is he going Are you taking boards? I'm at the key.

Sure. Just take notes and report back.

That's it. Thank you. Beautiful.

So, town charter is I don't know. Does it need to exist still?

It's No, it's um it's not happening right now. Thank you.

So, not happening right now or take it off the list.

Although it took so long by the It might be time to re reit started again.

Five years of meetings. It must be time.

Yeah. They they still don't have a bylaw committee. So you can hear that that these committees come and go when they're appointed and and we just want to keep communication going at the financial.

Do you want me to keep it on the list?

No, take it off. Please take it off.

Understood. I'll fix that after.

What happened? Oh, I added to the wrong one.

No, I just added a line.

School committee. We have Bill, Carrie, and Nate. Yep. That's one.

It's the park board and the library trustees. Isn't that that board?

So, it's not parks, it's park board.

Parks and recreation.

Parks and recreation parks and recreation. Y do we need three people at the schools?

Well, supposing somebody doesn't show up, you know, as a backup.

In terms of if somebody can't go, you could always ask somebody somebody else to fill in. But in terms of a regular responsibility, do we really need three people?

I mean, I usually go, granted, I did not go to the last like one or two meetings, but I usually last year was consistent every Monday that they had. Every other Monday, I would go. Nate usually went, even if she when he wasn't on the committee, he was always at every school committee meeting.

And that's a good point, too. You can go to any meeting that you want to go to.

Can I back up capital?

Capital's voting. Can I back up capital?

Can you back up for voting? No. That's why I think we should separate these. So if you're assigned a voting member, but you can go to it. You can go all these meetings are public meetings. Okay.

I just looked in the bylaws. So the capital improvements committee does not ask for somebody from the finance committee to be on their committee. They just Greg's practice before and Gary's practice now. It made sense to them to have somebody from the finance committee on the capital improvements committee.

and I volunteered cuz I wanted to learn about it. So that's it's not an official thing Deedra.

Okay. So the very last committee that says long-term capital planning committee, what's the difference between that and capital improvements that are voting?

Long-term capital is looking at 30, 40, 50 years in the future. The reason for that committee is that we haven't done much planning on things like schools um uh DPW and instead in the in the past say 20 years it's been more reactive to when there's a problem. So they're trying to put in process uh a way to and is that all fixed assets across the board vehicles? Is that all your Gazsby stuff that it's no

long range and more large larger project goals treatment plans capital improvements committee is the one that's more like 5 10 years I'm just going to say it's probably a fiveyear plan and then some. Yeah.

Yeah. So I I don't know the long-term capital uh committee is in place right now. I don't know if it'll be there forever. It might combine with the capital. I I don't really know. We'll have to see what happens with it.

Thank you.

Okay. Back to the list where we left off.

uh school committee the three people that are listed everyone wanted to keep that role that's why there's three select board Terry I know you always go yeah I mean if somebody else wants to go they're very entertaining I'm going it can be no questions asked um anyway soils John the soils conservation board

I'm dying to ask a question about an example of a vote, but I don't want to take any time.

The uh next one is the Veterans Advisory Commission board rather.

I don't know that we need that, do we?

I don't think we really need it. Every time Well, because the difference between a board and a committee. Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, let's point it out. Call it for what it is.

Veterans Advisory Board.

Yes, I agree.

So, Brian, are you saying you've never been?

No, I've been. Uh, it pretty much operates on its own and really doesn't require much from us because it's all matching funds from the state. So, so do we need to have somebody there?

Well, in theory, I could tell you the same thing about the library trustees.

Yeah, but you love, you know, they're not out there making money differences. But you love going to it anyway. The difference, right? I'm not complaining about it.

There you go. See, the difference would be it's it's it's really established federal programs and there's really not much impact we can have here on that.

Would each committee appreciate knowing that they're in our minds and we have a to them and they could call me if they have any questions.

Call I call the I call the guy who runs the uh what do they call the veterans veterans veterans agents agent. call him once a year and just remind him that we're interested and does is there any way we can be of assistance in what he's doing and he always says no.

So then I'm going to call the police chief and ask him the same thing.

An information thing.

They took the police off of there.

I know, but I'm going to call him anyway. He's the largest department in town. Why wouldn't you do the same exact thing?

So I I'll just you know that um Brian is an example and Brian's really good and you all you all kind of know Brian you know and and Brian Le the chief you mean the chief I'm sorry the chief always comes in this and gives um you know very good information and and is always available to our residents. However, I just want to remind everyone um even on the finance committee, just

be mindful of their time in in things that we're asking of them. And I'd ask that you not ask them to do things or prepare things unless it's a finance committee, right? Uh request and then it can go through us and we can make sure it's get done. But I I just don't want to hear back from a department head, oh, I'm preparing this report for Terry or you know, it should come from the

finance committee if it's something that I will say is our role. I'm looking at something like that is one of the more detailed budgets he does a great job that he presents to us.

Everybody's different. Everybody's style is different, but he is right on with what they're doing, why they're doing it.

That's not my point. That's like the school department.

I'm just talking too, but I'm I'm suggesting that every department deserves a liazison. And I'm just suggesting that I think I think there needs to be maybe a little bit more trust in in the administration to do that.

No, no, but we come back, you know, Gary, I'm at almost every meeting.

Gary's at every meeting and and we're regularly meeting with these departments. So, if anything comes up in the day-to-day operational stuff that is financial implications, that's our job to make sure you're aware of it. Um, and to be honest with you, Dearra, the the person that should have these boards and committees in their mind and hearts is the select board.

They're they're the group that should be have their eyes on things, you know, asking people to come in and meet with them. That's not really the role of the finance committee. it is being addressed but in and these positions are put in place for the purposes of communication because historically departments haven't really communicated very well with each other and we're we're improving in that area and this is

one of the the ways to it's come a long way certainly in my tenure here and and you've been here longer Terry but I think communication has increased dramatically with when we speak with departments or when they present their budgets to us with some of the, you know, things we've asked for in addition, and I know it was challenging to get folks to give us a little bit different information every year, but we

have to be respectful of their time in the three fire districts or precincts, and they have no jurisdiction whatsoever, no tax rate, no capital planning, no fire sust No, I I'm just I'm not used to a finance committee not looking at the largest departments and I'm just not look at them all.

We're looking at when they present their budget to us.

We look at them. We query them. Believe me, we scrutinize. We see every line item.

We scrutinize and question.

We've been criticized for asking too many questions.

A little more, hey, how are you? This is what I'm trying to do. I want to root for you. I want to do this.

You know, do you know what Rome we do as Romans do, right?

I'm just Can we move on?

Yes, overdosed on finance committee assignments. Um, I will update this as we have discussed and hopefully have all the correct names. Thank you, John. Um, I was just looking at the town's website and going down.

No, I know.

Yeah, you know what's happens. We've looked at this list every year. It's been the same. It's been one little abbreviated word and we move on.

Um, just one question about the Veterans Advisory Board. Patrick, once again, we added you because it was one of the boards you expressed interest in. I don't um there's not much.

As Brian said, I'm not sure it requires two.

I just looked at the the agenda center and the last agenda was January of 2024.

So, I don't think there's even really anything to Okay.

you know, besides maybe calling him. I I deal with him on chapter 115 issues, so I talk to him from time to time anyway.

So, oh, there you go.

But that's why you had interest in it because you know him.

Um, I do a lot of veterans things like disability stuff for people that I know and um, you know, claims through work.

So, I'm familiar with it.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm going to leave it this way.

Okay.

Comes under forever. Hold your peace.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

All righty.

Let me just save that.

So, what's next? Cody, all right, Cody.

Are you ready for to uh talk about grants and economic development for us?

Want to unplug and I can share the Of course.

pass down to John somebody pass it down.

Yeah, mine doesn't have that.

So, we do uh grants updates about every six months. we update and and my goal is to give this presentation to the select board every six months. So this is not hasn't been updated since July when it was given to the board and um it was actually a joint meeting with the finance committee and I don't think all members were present. So more I'll run through this um kind of quickly and if

there's any highle questions, but you can anticipate another update on this uh sometime in January, early February on our progress through the through the fiscal year.

Um so you know there's a number of items in here that we'll discuss. The first one is just on the grant activity um and some of the success. You can see it's sporadic at times. It depends on um a lot of it really depends on the uh state administration what we have for administration at the state level because that um can guide what the local um initiatives are. So we have seen um

in the past couple of years at least you know our lieutenant governor is a former mayor. Um there's been a little bit more of a commitment to some local programming, but we're also seeing some that we anticipate actually getting taken away um through community compact grants and um potentially loss of funding to the uh SE port economic council to to a degree. So it it varies.

Uh federal grants, you know, we we don't take on a ton of federal grants. It varies. We do have um one large federal grant right now where Dartmouth is the recipient. Um it's for a domestic violence. We provide domestic violence advocates actually throughout most of Bristol County and we um where the uh we receive that grant and administer it with the assistance of the New Bedford's Women's Center and um the district

attorney's office. But you can see, you know, average about $2 million a year.

If we get a large grant, um it it can throw off that average. So you can see in fiscal 25 we got in around $4 million. That's primarily that we got a $2.1 million Mass Works grant for some sewer infrastructure. So, if we get those large grants and if you were to go back into prior fiscal years, that would be thrown off even more when we get the the grant funding for the library

construction, right? So, it it varies, but right around $2 million is where we average um in in competitive grants.

Yeah. Um a few notable grant funded projects we have the um smallboat uh marina the halfway smallboat marina that was seapport economic council funded and the CPC also provided funds municipal vulnerability preparedness um as I mentioned to Dedra earlier um to design uh some different areas where we have vulnerability using resilient infrastructure that $2.1 million that I mentioned to our pump stations on um

Ellswick pump stations in Route 6 and then uh as you all know we're undergoing a compensation classification study. The community compact program um provided $50,000 towards towards that program.

Uh other programs that we actually run using grant um funds. So we have the Dartmouth Home Rehab program. So this is CPC funded. Uh what we do is it's used for uh income eligible recipients to address code violations essentially in their home. So, we have um particularly it's usually elderly individuals and what it is is if you're qualify under the guidelines um if you need new roof,

new windows, things like that, you get a 0% interest deferred payment loan. Um and it we essentially just put a a you know, a deed restriction on the home and it doesn't have to get paid until the home goes for sale. Um and then the town is is paid back. Um again, no interest, no fees or anything like that. the home buyer assistance program. We're currently in the process of beginning

that. Again, this is is great. Uh again, CPA funded uh through the affordable housing trust and it essentially provides a buy down of market rate homes for first-time home buyers that are income eligible um to buy a home in Dartmouth. So, take a $500,000 home. Uh we may give $200,000, right, to buy down the price of that home to make it affordable. the individual who who qualifies and is selected through a

lottery buys the home for $300,000. We put a permanent deed restriction on the home that allows it to be affordable in perpetuity so it can never be sold at market rate again. The value to that also being um that goes towards our subsidized housing inventory which we have a a goal of 10% set by the state.

If we don't have 10% that's what makes us susceptible to 40bs which we have a few of them in the pipeline right now.

If you reach that 10%, you can actually um deny 40bs without an appeal process.

Fuel assistance program is a grant funded through the attorney general's office. Um very unique. Dartmouth is one of only a handful of communities that's that's uh taken advantage of this. And um we are directly providing fuel assistance to our residents through this these funds. The if you do not use the AG funds, there's actually a law in place. As a municipality, you cannot directly administer um fuel assistance.

has to be through a third party. Uh so like Pace out of New Bedford does it.

But because we're using funds from the attorney general's um basically there was some lawsuits with some fuel companies, they are allowed to administer it to us and we subadminister that. But that's all grant funded through the AG's office.

Cody, can I just ask a quick question?

How are you notifying or sharing these programs with residents?

Yeah, sure. So the u we we the all of them are primarily through the council on aging. Um, we do updates to the select board to share that information.

When the fuel assistance opens, we let um, the Dartmouth week know and they'll post an ad about it. Um, as we get a new communication staff member on board, I think we'll start to see some of that, you know, improve and do some short videos and things like that. I think I've talked about before wanting to start doing a newsletter, right, that comes out of town hall. That's something

we would include in our newsletter as well.

So, you know, I think one of the misconceptions with grants that we have is it's not the ability to get them.

There's a lot of grants out there. Um, the challenge and even the staffing for us to put the applications in is not necessarily a challenge. The challenge comes in having having shovel ready projects, right? So, for instance, a DPW project needs to be shovel ready. We need to have design in a lot of cases completed. Um, and then you have a certain window of being able to go after that project.

You then usually have a if you're awarded have a certain time frame where you have to complete the project. Now, in several cases, if you do not um complete in that time frame, you you have to give the funds back. The funds have to be given back. And then what happens is is I'm not going to say you're blacklisted, but you fall to the bottom of the list because this

depending on who the agency is will see it as you you weren't able to take advantage of these funds in the past.

Why are we not going to prioritize you going forward?

So, do you want me to wait some questions? Why don't you finish and I'll I'll have some questions.

Yeah, I can continue. Um, so that's one of the challenges that we face, but it's really on the project management side of things where we where we see our challenges in um you you hear from departments, you know, through the budget season, human capital is certainly a challenge in in most of our departments. There's not a lot of fat, right? So taking on maybe projects that we're not ready for because there's a

grant opportunity can be challenging at times. Um and then there's sometimes a match portion. Now if we're planning in advance and it's a project we know about um you saw that this year with capital there was uh two two items in the capital plan that are actually matches to grants. So not a problem. What you find um in mid year could be you have a 30 to 60 day grant window an applica

something pops up. If we don't have the funds available, a lot of times, you know, we're not eligible for that. We did appropriate community development funds at this past town meeting as well, uh, to the tune of $100,000. We've used that pot of money, um, as one of our avenues, but without a dedicated grant match fund, it it can definitely be a challenge for us.

Uh so just some of the roles responsibilities again you know my office really works in conjunction with departments and department heads in the grant seeking you know figuring out what grants are out there. We share those regularly um with departments. Hey do you have anything that would fit this project or this grant um you know what projects are you looking to do so we can keep an eye out for these grants. And

then the grant administration is is primarily handled by my office in conjunction with the departments really gathering the information because they're the ones that are overseeing the projects. Um and then project management again that that really is where it falls onto the department level. You can have someone who works in grants but you know if you're working on a DPW project the

assistant town administrator doesn't know anything about laying you know new sewer upgrading pump stations. So um in some cases we have engineers, engineering firms that are working through these things. Uh in a lot of cases it falls directly on the department which is where that human capital side comes in.

So the just some uh different strategies for us to consider. Um you know we're always looking at the select board's goals capital improvement plan um and our other planning documents to to keep an eye on projects that we can potentially pursue for grant funds as new grants are available. um community preservation acts uh funds is a great tool for us. Uh we had previously again that that CDBG funds is what we just

appropriated at the fall which allows us to have some grant match available.

um SerpEd, which is the Southeastern Regional Planning Economic Development District. There's they uh leverage the district local techn technical assistance program, which then they're able to conduct um usually technical support for us through state, it's basically state grant funds. Um and then again, we we really sometimes rely on subject matter experts to bring them in.

So, I'll give you an example. We were preparing um a CZM coastal zone management grant for to address some of the erosion at Aponaganset and Das Landing. Um you needed rough engineering plans. We don't have anyone internally right that can do that. So, that's an example of we use those community development funds, hired an engineering firm to the tune of a couple thousand dollars, help us prepare those plans and

prepare a grant application um to send in.

That's I have a question.

Sure. So somewhere in the uh I think is in the challenges section. It was the last thing up there.

It says something staffing levels often limit our ability. I think you touched on this also to fully manage and implement. But most of these things are uh at least generating interest in the grant comes out of a particular department, right? Is that correct?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. So, how do you get around?

I mean, who makes the decision on what we can go after or can't go after? The departments or Oh, we're we um it's a it's a group effort. We're speaking with the departments to determine um if it's if it's an ongoing project, we're going after it, right? Because we know we've already accounted for that internal capacity to to manage that project.

If it's something we have, you know, maybe we've talked about it, we didn't plan on going after it now. It's a conversation with the department head.

Is this something if we if we are awarded this, do we have the internal capacity? And that it goes back to the last thing we want to do is go for the grant, get it, and then not be able to execute.

But you also mentioned uh lack of ability to manage the grant. But some grants or quite a few grants allow management to be outside of the organization that gets the grant.

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm just a little confused on how uh if how do you how does the town move ahead to decide what they have capacity to do or not do?

It's a case by case basis, you know. So, it depends on the department. It depends on what the project is. Um so, you know, right now we are pursuing um pump station upgrades for the Ellswick and Route 6.

DPW unfortunately at this time does not if if we were presented with a grand opportunity for a somewhat large project I would not have confidence that we could take that on at this point due to just the ongoing operations. So I would I would forego depending on what you know I would forego that um even if you can bring in outside consulting there's still a level of internal management that that needs to occur.

But so do you have a meeting in the beginning of each year to talk about?

I meet with department we talk monthly and if if there's grants that come up then it comes up in our monthly meeting with with the department. So who but I mean so you'll rely on the departments to service the grants or you service the grants with the departments or um no it's typically the assistant town administrator you know that oversees grants and and they'll work um directly with the department head and then if

opportunities become available you know they they make sure that I'm aware of those opportunities and then it's typically a conversation with the department head. The conversation only occurs if if I'm told no you know we're not going to take that on right now. If it's something the department has says, yeah, you know, this is a great project, then I I trust they know their operation

and they move forward. If I'm told, you know, hey, we don't have the bandwidth at this point, then it's a conversation I have. Well, you know, what's going on?

Why not? And so, am I envisioning like a just take DPW in the beginning of year, somebody says to them, okay, these are the grants that are available.

No, because they they are sporadic. So, so we Oh, as they come up as they come up, it's a conversation.

You know, we we'll pass them along. Do you have any projects that would fit into this?

Okay. So, anytime something typically comes up for DPW, even though you might sus whoever's in charge might suspect that we don't have bandwidth to do it, it still gets Oh, yeah. It's still it's still a conversation, right? because and and even with some of these there could be lower lower level lower um less requirement on our end that we want to make sure we're looking at you know is

there maybe we're not applying for that large project but is there a smaller opportunity that is less um less on our behalf or something that we're doing already right something from our capital plan that's one of the things we're always looking at the five-year capital plan when grants are coming up and is there a way to to pursue grants for those rather than go into you know the town's free capital

so I I have another question Um, I don't expect you to answer it here, but uh, how do do we keep any statistics on grants that we get and grants that we don't get and reasons why?

I was going to ask that question.

Yeah, I was going to ask that question.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So, um, if you go to page three that and this is what we get, but we we have a spreadsheet um, and we'll include it in the next report that we give that has basically our success level. Um, ones that we've applied for, ones that we haven't gotten. Um, do you have reasons why we have In some cases we do. In some cases that we'll get feedback of of why in some

cases the agencies won't won't provide feedback. Um, but I'd say it's probably 7030. We we usually get feedback on on what we can do.

A lot of it a lot of it comes down to competitiveness. So, we applied for additional um over a million dollars for sewer upgrades to the Ellswick in uh Route 6 pump station. Why we didn't get it? Well, they just gave us 2.1 million last year.

Oh, okay.

And and they said, "Look at all of our other requests."

Okay.

You're sorry. You know, there's other priorities. Um, but what we always are looking at that and then and if it's something we can adjust, we will go at it again the next the next cycle with that feedback in mind.

So, I one other question. Do you compare Dartmouth and your activities to pair uh peer p communities? In other words, I don't know what I know you you guys produce a list of peer communities like how many grants is Attelboroough one of them? I'll just say Attelboroough is I don't know if it is.

No, only because the information isn't really available. A lot a lot of communities don't provide that information. They don't track.

Doesn't the state have to produce like they don't they don't tell who they give grants to?

Only if they're state grants.

Well, but that's that's the majority.

But they're not centralized. So we would have to reach out to each individual state agency to find that information out. There's no central grants administration agency where we could find out that information.

I guess this would I be sorry. Go ahead.

No, no. So, so for instance, we get grants from uh EA uh energy, right?

That's one agency. We get grants from HLC, Housing and Livable Communities.

That's another agency. Uh we get grants from Mass Works OneTop. That's another agency. We get grants from the community onetop for growth. that's another agency. So there's no centralized database for this.

What I was what I was thinking about was uh something like liaison with other communities that are peer peer communities to say how did you do on grants last year? Um and compare that with what we do to see if we're missing out on anything.

The problem is they won't tell you.

No, they will. But it all depends on what what we have going on, right? If if I I could go out tomorrow, next year, and get us $10 million in grants.

No doubt.

Is it going to align with what we actually have going on in the community?

No. Right. We could apply for resiliency grants to do all these things. I mean, hey, we we got a couple hundred,000 to look at resiliency along Pon Uponagansit in Das Landing and we were shot down by the parks and wreck. They don't want any sort of dunes there for resiliency. So, so if we had moved forward with that, we would have likely got awarded a couple million dollars, right, to actually move

forward with the infrastructure aspects of it. It was a policy decision. The town didn't want to move forward with it. So, it's hard to compare something like that, right? Sandwich just got a ton of money um within the past couple years for some resiliency along some of their coastline.

Something that policy decision they wanted to move forward with. So, it's tough to compare because we're in all different points because if you look at that, you could say, "Oh, well, geez, Sandwich got $10 million last year and Dartmouth only got three. We're doing something wrong." Not necessarily. We just don't have the projects lined up.

We we got a library that the MBLC paid millions and millions of dollars for.

So, in our in that year, right, if someone were comparing to us, they'd go, "Wow, Dartmouth did great that year.

We're not doing great." Well, they built a library. We're not building a library, right? And or like MSBA grants, for instance. We just got accepted to the MSBA accelerated repair program. We anticipate they'll fund half of the high school roof. When that happens, right, that's likely four or five million in grants, but you have to be pursuing a a school project. So, it's hard to compare. I don't think you'd be

comparing apples to apples and that would be my concern.

I was just thinking along the again if some if we got I don't know. I can't read that, but whatever it says is that dollars.

Yeah. So, so in fiscal 25 we got around $4 million in.

So, what I was just thinking is we got four million. At least ask a question.

If somebody got 10 million or 15 million, what did you get? Where did you get it for?

I can tell you I can tell you. I know they did. Right. So, so I can No, I'm talking about for the peer communities.

Yeah. And there's several that did that that got did better than us. Um, but it's based on the projects that they're that they're pursuing. So you're saying so we don't we don't do a formal right polling or or this but we certainly keep an eye on who's who's getting these large awards. Energy is a good example.

We have an energy manager consultant Kathy Stanley and she is great like Stoen um I don't know if they were awarded but they applied for federal these federal energy grants to the tune of like $15 million right and so I know that that's something they're in the process with because Kathy is out surveying the community. However, they are eligible because they're an environmental justice community and they

meet all this federal criteria that Dartmouth doesn't meet in some of in some cases. So, that's it's really it's a difficult thing to compare because even our comparable communities when it comes to grants can be pursuing and have different um different criteria for these things. So what I mean so what I'm hearing is we really can't do any better than what we're currently we can always do better. No, I think we

can always do better.

Well, but how Terry I believe that you're looking out for grants. Um I think that it bothers me that a board can say no to state money.

And this goes back for me to a million-doll grant that we were approved for which was rejected by the same board. um sending out false information saying, you know, um I I won't get into that, but I'm interested in how we could work with that board to uh persuade them that this is important and that it's not going to hurt the town. I think they think that it's going to hurt the town some for some reason.

And uh I mean, couple hundred thousand is one thing, but a million, you know, that's I just don't get it. I still don't try to go back to voting. I wouldn't Yeah. How could you say no to a million dollars in resiliency at a board level on Well, you know, I think I think it it goes to um right or wrong, you know, that the in the particular one of a diet

Landing, right? That the idea was to create some almost sand dunes, right? Um and the policy of the of the parks and wreck at the time was they didn't want that. They didn't want to potentially block the view. Um it would have been, you know, three and a half, four foot sand dunes. And again, I'm not here to say right or wrong, but I'm just giving that would have led right. So we went

through design portion of that with CZM funds, a couple hundred,000. If we had fully designed that out and gotten buyin, right, from the the owners, right, of that, I can almost guarantee you we would have gotten funded because they don't they don't fund one portion and then not fund the rest. They want to see to the project that we that we in well the through a grant.

Yeah.

Through a grant. A couple hundred thousand was spent on some design specifications, recommendations for long-term capital planning, resiliency of waterways and it's really outside of our role, but I I think like I feel like there's a PR department or there's got to be some way to because how many people in Dot know that that happened? Well, we had we had public we had public workshops. We did

public meetings with them.

No, on the on the rejection of the 200,000.

Oh, that we didn't move forward. Well, it was it Yeah.

I guarantee you no one understands that happened at the board level. I guarantee you no one was a public board meeting where we had them in to the engineering firm to present this option. Um but you know, to pay attention, but it is it's one example. Um, but it it really is it's dependent upon what what we're working on and what we're doing, right?

And I think that's the biggest thing because there are grant funds out there.

We have the capacity to apply for them.

It's a matter of what's going on and then do we have the capacity for the project itself that you know that's I think ARPA is a good example of what you're talking about because Gary went back and looked at what was originally committed for APA and then pulled back what wasn't going to happen and reallocated that to other projects that were shovel ready and some things got done with that money otherwise it would

have been turned in and that would not have been good. It was all used up. He was able to use it all up. So that and that's what I mean that I think if you're watching it, you know, you're going to look for those opportunities. I think as a finance committee, we attended a few meetings with departments that said we'd like to get for grant we'd like to go for grants, but we don't

have anybody who can, you know, so you've answered a lot of those questions.

So I think you know what what we find with departments is they are looking for someone to oversee the full process that doesn't exist.

You have to take accountability, right?

If if it's your department, your project, um there's some accountability that you have to take on whether it's managing the project, um whether it's, you know, statistics, we have to some are quarterly reporting, right? We have to give progress updates where you are, what percentage, uh provide invoices, things like that. We can centrally administer all of that, put all that together, prepare the reporting, but you

know, our office isn't going to know what the actual status of a sewer uh upgrade is. That that's on the department, right, to do those things.

So, that's where, right? So, but what I'm hearing is that there's really no way to improve this um other than if you happen to by the luck of the drawer have something going on that the state is funding or the feds are funding at the particular time that it's going on.

Well, I think well and I think I think as we look for um efficiencies within our departmental operations, the idea would be we create capacity to to take on some of these projects. Nate the other way you create capacity is by bringing on more staff which costs money right if we talked about that as a finance committee you know talking about possibility of a grant person I don't I be honest I don't think

but it wouldn't do any good based on what you said you know I think we have capacity for the grant administration right pro part of it the the capacity what we have is the departmental project management inability to implement the project after you get the funding to the degree that the project requires.

Exactly.

So, for example, if if DPW if there's a lot of grants available for DPW, DPW could theoretically take on more grant opportunities if there was a new position created, call it a DPW project manager to go out and execute work, right?

Hypothetically, yes, hypothetically.

Well, but that's that's what I'm saying.

So, how do you we're saying the pinch point is not necessarily finding and applying and uh winning the grant. It's executing the work.

It's twofold. Then you have to have the right grant opportunities to align with with what whatever was available at that time.

So you you see from the state administration at least right now what we see is resiliency, right? Um climate resiliency is big, affordable housing is big. So if you have projects that correspond with some of those things, there's certainly more opportunity for that.

But just just one more question because we have a lot of other things to cover.

I'll skip it and we need to be out by seven. Go ahead.

All right. So, just to sum up on this, you can do some more work for us or not for us, but uh talk about the uh success rate.

Yeah, the next update that we do, we'll do a similar presentation and we can include the success rate in there.

Why we didn't get it if the if in cases where it exists. Yes.

Great. Thank you.

Economic development.

Yeah. So, I'll pass over here just this is high very high level um some of the things that we'll be working on. You know, I do want to preface by saying for those I'm sure most of you know um Chris Vitali, our assistant town administrator, is moving on to another community. He's been um appointed town administrator in the town of Westport.

Um which, you know, it's a great opportunity for him. However, the assistant town administrator primarily is the primary contact for economic development and grants. So, we're quickly going to get this position posted. Um, but keep that in mind as we get into the new year. It's something that will be delayed a bit because that that was the primary goal. But I I just jotted down a few things um current and

also what we're looking to do in the next, you know, year, few years. So, assistant town administrator is the primary economic development coordinator. Um, they dedicate about 20 to 30% of their time or they should be dedicating about 20 to 30% of their time to economic development. They serve as that single point of contact for business and developers. Um, and we're going to look to create an economic

development task force. Uh, we're currently drafting a charge. There'll be a number of members. That's why I have to be determined. Um, threeear terms.

The assistant town administrator will serve on it. We'll look to have one select board member, a planning board member, a finance committee members. And then these are some possibilities of members that would also serve on the committee. Um, and again, they meet monthly bimonthly.

As we look into the next five years, these are some things working with our team that we've identified. Um, and I think, you know, this aligns with what the finance committee is looking for is really measurable metrics and data. The economic development is tough because when things are good, things are good.

and and and you could have a goal of x amount of new commercial assessed value.

You may go way over. When things are bad, we have no control, right, over the global economy, which has a direct impact of the economic development in Dartmouth. But I think it's important that we assign some sort of value as as a goal, right? You know, you try you strive to get there. Um so how to bring in some new commercial value um secure a a number of tenants over that year and

this is really led in conjunction with the economic development task force u we really need to look at the route six corridor and and I'll give the example of if any of you g have gone to um like the nic mall you know that area along there they've done a really nice job of the infrastructure side of it you know so the things that the town has control over which is the infrastructure.

They've done a nice job of making it aesthetically pleasing. Doing a nice job. It's no secret Route 6 is not very aesthetically pleasing. It's a mess. It looks like a mess. So, that's one of the things that we can do as a municipality that will that that attracts business, right? Someone's you need to be geographically in a good spot. We we're fortunate we have that. We're in a good

geographic spot. We have a good tax rate. Compare our commercial tax rate to the city of New Bedford. We're like half of what their commercial rate is, right?

So, so that's beneficial as well, but we need to provide quality infrastructure and beyond the aesthetics that goes to sewer, right? Water, sewer. If you're a large development development looking to come in, I don't want to have to put a sewer treatment plant in. That's expensive. I'm going to look to go to a community where I don't have to do that.

So, we need to make sure that we're keeping up with our infrastructure. Um, and that's that's a key part of this.

There was a study done on that a few years ago.

We did. It was the local rapid recovery plan which was more um it was COVID based um how to kind of stimulate the local economy in that area and in in in that there's a lot of this recommended right because there's two big projects now on Route Six and when you think about people who live there crossing the street even you know it's not it's not going to be pretty.

No that's a very good point about the town doing what they can do on Route Six.

On Route six. Yeah.

Where are they? There's a new um housing development going in. Um well, Lincoln Park was the first one that went in where Lincoln Park was. And then a little further up the road, there's a new housing development in the preserve. It's a 40 still in Dartmouth.

288 units.

Thank you.

Rental units.

Um so, and that's I think one of the keys with economic development. That's one of the biggest things that we can do is the infrastructure side of it.

And and I'll be we don't do a good job of it right now.

you go up and down Route Six, it's not great. Um, and that goes with, you know, we just finalized our select board goals. We need a marketing strategy for Dartmouth. Again, we have the good geographic location. We have a good uh tax rate. What have we done to sell oursel? Nothing, right? We don't we don't have a marketing strategy. So, that's that's really one of the primary tasks for when we have a new

communications person is developing that marketing strategy. You've seen a lot of communities do this, a branding, marketing, right, logos, things like that. Those things go a long way. Um, so we that's again kind of goes in line with this here. We also, this is an idea I got from a couple other communities.

Um, this Dartmouth ready to go sites.

These are properties that are ready to go, right? And we want to help market those, work with the Chamber of Commerce, develop that list. You know, we've we've developed a vacant um commercial property list in the past, which has been valuable. It's helped us.

help the Chamber of Commerce market, but this goes a step further in ready to go properties.

So, that would be stuff that already had sewer hooked up to it that already Yeah. or or has that ability, right?

Doesn't doesn't need zoning variances.

Um just needs to go through the process or maybe already has a spec spec build approved, right? They've already gone through the process and the and the owner has approval to build that or is in the process of building that. Those are the things that can help um market.

Um, can I ask Gary, what's new growth each year about on average about 800,000 800,000 600 to 800,000 a year.

Thank you very much. And is it more residential than commercial or uh it's a mix um more in the it's been more residential in the past.

Thank you, Cody. The local Rotary, which is very small, has a guy on it who does branding for different companies.

And I wonder if they would take that on as a social Yeah.

project. I don't know. His name is Mark Medeiros.

Okay.

All right.

He does a good job.

Yeah.

Or even UMass at some point they have projects they can they can work on.

Yeah. I you know I think there's there's people there's opportunities out there.

You need someone to coordinate it, right? And so I think you know with with um in in looking at the job description for we're recruiting for both these positions actually the assistant town administrator and um communications where we've made actually a number of changes in these job descriptions to tailor it to economic development to marketing to branding to more community focused rather than just internal.

internal is certainly important and that's a priority but it goes it goes a step further and we've made those adjustments in the what we're looking for. Um and then we have priority two which is you know again we always want to create new jobs in the economy that's broad that's tough but again I think it's a good metric to to have and try to um succeed the the innovation district again is something I had found in

another community um but it's it's really it's a decision do we want to look at this create part of town where we really need to see redevelopment and you push we we've we haven't used tiff's tax incremental financing much in the Do we want to start, you know, using that as a marketing strategy? Um, I think the circumstances need to be right to bring in substantial new growth, substantial new jobs, but we really have

never had an official policy on tiffs.

So, we need to look at it. When do we offer those and and how well we offer those? So, that's that's something I'd like to do. Um, retention. Again, what has saved us essentially is our geographic location. Um, but you know, working to retain the businesses that we have. Um, and I think a lot of that is getting out there, creating that partnership, that relationship directly with the town. You're having an issue,

you know who to contact and and maybe there's a way we can help you, maybe there isn't, but but creating that relationship is is really important. And then permitting. Again, this is one of the other big pieces of economic development that we have direct control over. In addition to infrastructure, are we being businessfriendly, I'll call it, in our permitting process? I don't know.

You know, I hear mixed things. So, we need to do a full review of that and put out material. One of the things we hear is I don't know where to start. You know, I want to open up this business in town.

Where do I go? What process do I follow?

Do I go to planning first? Do I go to conservation first? Do I go to the zoning board first? So, we're going to look to create basically a a permitting guide, right? Um, we're going to do this for residential, too, but in commercial as it applies here. And what is the process for doing this? Where do I go first?

Cody, I've heard from a couple of small businesses like a coffee truck that they the fees were unaffordable and they wondered if there was some way to deal with that. I don't know if there is.

Yeah, it certainly can be part of the review. I think, you know, we um as far as timeline contacts and the in the permitting um fees, it's certainly something, you know, we'll look at. we need to look at a it's a holistic approach of of permitting as a whole.

Um, and that's something that needs to be looked at. And then I we get into and these are highlighted because these are are just numbers that were thrown out and and need to be really looked at. So don't don't consider these as serious figures. Um, but again I think it's good metrics to have goals to go after some dollar amounts here. So we talk about new commercial value, private investment

facilitated. Um, obviously they invest in the community. That's a that's significant amount of private investment that stimulates the local economy, right? The health care is a good example of this. We have a lot of health care uh with South Coast.

They are they're they're stimulating our economy, right? They're buying lunch here. They're going out to dinner after work. They're doing their shopping here.

Uh they buy property here, right? They buy property here, right?

UMass Dartman's another great example. I saw a recent statistic. It it was I think somewhere around 60% of their staff live in Dartmouth.

That's huge. That you know that is huge.

Th those are good paying jobs that they are then supporting our local economy.

So we want to look at you know new jobs um commercial permits again that that can be challenging but I think it's good. Um, and then the the business the visits of doing retention. As we get further into it, you know, we we look at does it make sense doing, you know, business highlights, spotlights, you know, video series with DCTV and our communications coordinator. They've I've seen them be successful in some

communities. I've seen them miserably fail, you know, in other communities.

So, Oh, sorry.

No, no, go ahead.

There were a number of attempts in the past.

uh I think when I gave my report in front of the select board to do mixed use along uh Route Six.

Yeah.

Is that in your plan someplace?

Uh well, I don't we didn't or examine it.

Yeah, it's certainly something that we we should look at. Um you know, we some of that has been identified in the master plan in in where you know the community would like to see um certain zoning, but it's something we can look at. Again, the planning board is currently um undergoing I can't remember the workshop. They just had a special meeting basically to look at housing opportunities. Um so that's one of the

things that we've asked them to look at.

We there's been some highlevel conversations with with the mall. We're very fortunate that our mall performs at the level that it performs at and and we're hearing that they're looking to invest even more in that mall, which is which is phenomenal. Um but if we ever came to a point where the mall wasn't um um succeeding at that level, we would look to is there a way to make that mixed juice?

Well, there as I mentioned, there were three studies that I came across. One back in 2007 and more uh recently that were done with UMass.

Yeah.

Uh and then there was two others that were done. I don't know with I don't remember.

Cody, to that point on mixed use, I I believe we shouldn't be behind the eight-ball when it comes to something as large as the mall. if something happened to them all then we should be good we should be talking with them all now would you invest if the zoning was changed to mixed use because if they're looking for those no we've had those discussions so that's my point and if they're

interested why not do that now why not change that zoning now to say hey invest in housing on your property there to keep you more profitable uh why wait till after we get the sad news like what's been going across the country that malls are just shuttering question as far as u empty storefronts. Do we have any statistics on that in Dartmouth to how many storefronts we do not know occupied? I

think it'd be nice to get a stat like that. We again it can it goes back to human capital, right? That the way that we're coming out the chamber might have it.

They don't that the chamber has been I'll say very useless in Dartmouth.

We've tried to get more support from them.

Do you have a Rotary?

Yeah, there's a Rotary.

Well, I don't know if they have that statistic. Yeah, the motor.

So again, it goes back to that is it's great data, right? And keeping up with it, but but you need you mean you physically need someone to go out and Well, I don't know if if you guys are informed from I would think from a tax basis, you know, these storefronts aren't here be and not therefore we're not having the tax brought into them. I would think no it only be during you know re

reassessment that you know the assessment may go down a bit um due to it not being due to it being vacant but you know even even I think of okay can we monitor through like business certificates right through the town the problem is places will close and they don't come in and say all right you know cancel all my business certificate we're closed down so it's a hard sure to to get somewhat of an accurate

um metric you're you're going out into the field and and actually looking at these because you know if we have this open storefronts if you will that are only uh suggest we have spots to get business to come into town because we have a storefront already that's open to you some extent like for instance when a travel agency went out of business on both corner you retired now there's two business I think moved in there

so it's just this issue and so this availability or this knowledge that we could uh convey to other businesses and saying hey we have a storefront you now it's empty.

Would you be considering, you know, something like that?

Yeah, I mean, we we tried to we do have one. I don't know the last time it's been updated.

We do have a vacant um commercial property report that that that's available. It's just um I don't think it's been updated in a number of years.

Okay. I just curious. Yeah.

I just like just one more comment from Brian and I hate I apologize because this is a conversation we could probably have for 30 more minutes.

We are at 7 o' now. I would just like to say thank you. Uh we've been pushing for this for a long time and I really appreciate the effort that's gone into it and I would also like to throw my hat into the ring to be rep on the finance committee.

Once we establish the charge, you know, we'll bring it back because they'll be a member on it. And like I said, I think once we get someone new in the role, one of their primary tasks is really getting our economic development back a float. Um, but you know, our office is going to be down two people. Uh, and so it's not going to be Janine. To that to that point, I would

just say I think it was Cody's first time at the finance committee and uh you said give give me a give me a little bit of time or something and I'll and I'll and we'll revisit this. So, and I'm sure he'll get the opportunity to revisit it again.

I hope so.

You know, we have lots of questions.

Very encouraging.

I hope so. We have two reserve fund transfers that we have to do.

A few other things that we should do here before we wrap up. Um, next on the agenda is two reserve fund transfers that I spoke about last week. One for the elevator, one for uh cleanup of the encampment on Route 6 and behind um the Moby Dick uh facility. So before you here is the first one for $12,000. This is for the elevator. It's in need of repair. Uh it's kind of acting a little

crazy once in a while. So, we don't want, you know, the only means of access to for the third floor for a lot of people that need to use the ele elevator day in and day out. So, uh the reserve reserve fund balance is $56,175.

So, there's plenty of capacity to motion to approve the uh requested amount of $12,000 elevated repair.

I'll second it.

Any discussion?

Could I ask a question?

Yes. Thank you.

Uh reserve fund balance was 506175.

Is that free cash to you when you say Oh, no. No. So, the reserve fund, the finance committee has its own reserve fund set in the budget.

Uh, and usually it's $510,000 every year.

By the budget, right? It's by town meeting through the budget process.

That's separate from free cash.

Has that been certified yet?

Has free cash been certified yet?

Yes.

And what was it certified as?

Uh 8 million 192,000 I believe off the top of my head. I Thank you. I can check.

Any other questions? I just have a couple questions. Um the on both reserve fund transfers it says the present balance of the account is 7220. Is that just coincidence or is that that's that that's the account that we'd be putting the money into.

So we transfer the money into the No, but they're but they're both. So for the for this one and the next one we're going to consider. They're both 7,2 let me quickly look at the um uh let me see what I can look at to get that balance.

Yeah. The software system. Is it might be down? Yeah, it's not going to sway my decision either way.

Yeah, the reason why we do the transfer, there isn't enough money in those accounts to to transfer out, but I'll I'll make the adjustment after the um we can send it to you. Our our financial system was down today, so I can't pull up and get the balance, but uh and then my my only other question is, is there a a maintenance contract under the elevator or is it associated elevator? Yeah, that's the be doing it.

So, they're doing the repairs, but do do they do regular?

Yeah, that's how the issue was identified.

All right.

Are we ready to vote?

All in favor?

Any opposed?

All in favor?

Beautiful.

Second is Okay. And the second one is for the encampment.

So, the town own Yeah, the town owns um it's actually where our Preselli wells are. Um it's behind the Moby Dick uh motel there. Uh we had a number of um homeless individuals residing on this property for some time. We did um they're no longer residing there, but in the process they made um quite the mess.

I have photos I can can show you. Um but it's um ha hazardous. So we can't just send DPW out there to do it unfortunately. Um there's a lot of human waste out there and so we need to get this cleaned up. um ASAP.

How do you find somebody to do that?

We solicited proposals from a few different firms. Uh there's firms that that do this like a surf pro.

Yeah, that was one of them.

Motion to approve the requested amount of 25,000.

Any questions?

Ready to vote?

Yes.

All in favor? I.

Any opposed?

Good meeting.

One last um a couple other things too before we leave. Uh Madam Chair, so uh on the um budget calendar uh as I for the members that weren't here last week, uh so uh I did send out the budget memo, the CIPC memo to department heads, they also have uh salary scales and the tables and also the um FY27 budget um worksheets for them to work on. So between the the now and December 26th,

that's they're instructed to return all that back to my office. So then we can key that into the system. And then um as we mentioned, January 5th to the 26th, uh excuse me, the 16th, we'll do the one-on- ones in my office as we did last time and invite members of the finance committee as they've done in the past.

So So when's our next meeting?

That's a good question.

Well, we probably wouldn't need a meeting now. lead me to the question until if there's if there's any other uh only if somebody has a something incredibly important topic that we need to discuss and really if we had to do an emergency reserve fund transfer something like that but I would suggest that um we stop in January once all the data is compiled cool and we can get everything uh into the

that works for me because I thought we were already there we'll also be putting in some meetings as I mentioned last week in the calendar for the budget advisory group once that data starts coming in to meet with them.

So I'll be sending out an email to those members that are involved in that and that's a different group than this group and that's the group that's the voting group.

Okay.

When that doesn't have the have any idea when that the budget advisor the bag group we're going to try to get a meeting in the early maybe early December just to start high level discussions. You know what are some things we want to look at?

I I would like that to because I'm going to be out of town after the 15th.

Yeah. Yep. We're going to send out some dates probably early next week.

Okay.

So, and then one other quick thing I want to share that's pretty exciting.

Um, we are going to be implementing a um budget transparency portal through on our website. You see a lot of communities doing this, but it's really really cool. Um, and we also are going to look to put together a budget book this year. Not just, you know, a schedule A, but all-encompassing budget.

I don't think we're going to go for a GFO award this year, but we're going to certainly shoot for one. um in fiscal 28.

But um so if you're interested, we can send out the links to what it would look like. But the idea is you'll be able to go on our website. You can actually type in what your tax bill is and it shows you okay break down of $3,000 goes towards the schools, you know, $300 go towards administration, 700 goes towards CP, you know, whatever you name it. And then average metric, um demographic, stuff like that. So we

that's a change that's going to make a difference.

Yeah, it is. We're trying to make those changes.

Really like that.

Yeah. So, um we just we Gary and I met with the vendor earlier this week actually and we're planning to sign and go forward. Um and we're going to implement that as part of the part of this year's budget cycle and January 1st. As I mentioned, there's members that weren't here last week. So, we're going to go to um One Drive.

Yep.

And put everything in there so that there's less paper and we can share we can share documents like that.

Nice.

I like that a lot.

Excellent.

Yep.

Good idea. That's all I have.

Yes.

Okay.

One more question. Can you share the budget memo with the with with our group?

Yes. Did I give you guys the schedule?

Oh, I thought you said the budget.

I might have sent it to Janine. I don't know if I sent it to Yeah, absolutely.

We'll make sure.

Sorry. I'll send it. You send it to me.

We'll send it to Thank you. Senator Janine, do you have it?

I'll have to look. I'm sorry.

Okay. I I can send it to everybody.

I'm certain I got it. I didn't realize it didn't go to everyone.

Yeah, I'll send it out to everybody.

I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.

Can I report?

First of all, do we have any liaison reports?

Oh, darn it.

No, I'll hold off because of the time.

And we don't have any minutes. You didn't send any minutes out.

I want to go home.

Okay, Carrie.

Oh, can I say one more thing before we go? So, sorry. Last week, I told you about my travels and finding all sorts of new spots in South Dartmouth. Well, this past Saturday, I found my favorite new spot, Round the Ben Farm.

Yeah, I found it.

Round the Ben Farms. Picked up my fresh potatoes and picked up my tomatoes and they said to me, "Would you like a Yaky bag?" And I said, "A Yakie Foundation bag? Of course I would like a Yaky Foundation bag. What's happening at Round the Ben Farm?" And the Yak Foundation trustees came in, they sat, and they dropped off a million dollar check. Oh, nice. This trustee when he retired each trustee gets a million

dollars and they can divvy it up how they want. This gentleman decided that round Ben Farm million dollars. So it's a quite an extraordinary uh as I travel around the community I'll give you my field trip update.

Oh great.

That was a cool update Carrie.

Very nice. I'm going to make a motion to adjurnn.

Second is it all in favor that motion.

I have set up my