Budget Workshop # 3 - May 01, 2025

001Good evening. Like to call to order the budget budget workshop meeting for Thursday, May 1st. Start with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. Okay. Again, I'll be leading the meeting tonight. Our mayor is on via Zoom, though. Um, next is public comment. This portion of the meeting is specifically set aside for comments from the public who are asked to limit their comments to two minutes. Any person interested in providing public comment should email public meetings.gov of and will be provided link to attend the meeting and instructions on how to participate. Do we do we have anybody for anybody from the public wish to speak at the podium? Seeing

002none. Okay, we will move on to the budget review and first on first topic is board of education. of the primary concern. It's not just the physical assets that house the house our number one asset which is our children and prepare them for life but it's also made up of those physical assets that are shared with the residents that are shared with uh through social organizations through sporting organizations um and shared really by the whole community. Um it's imperative that these buildings be safe uh healthy environments most importantly for our children but also for all of the residents of the town who uh who do share in their use. Turning to the West Hill, um obviously there's been talk about the West Hill roof. Um it's been on the radar of the board uh for

003a while and you know priorities were somewhat uh um reorganized for really the whole world uh during the pandemic. Um and so uh you know with that a lot of priorities turned towards air quality or towards HVAC. Um, and our staff, uh, the facilities, uh, manager, uh, Ron has done a fantastic job of monitoring the roof and and maintaining the roof really throughout its, uh, the expiration of its useful life. And, um, and to this day, um, he's essentially though playing whack-a-ole with that roof. Um, you know, a leak pops up, he finds it, he deals with it. Um, always in that process of primary concern is the safety of our students, making sure it's a healthy environment. Um, so it's constantly tested. It's it's made sure to be safe for the students to be

004in there. Uh, however, it is uh beyond its useful use. Um, and at this point, it's uh it's got to be replaced. Um, to that end, we do have a design in the works. It's about 75% done. Um, and that turns to my next point. So, as as you all know, last year we changed insuranceances um within the district. Uh we went from a partially funded uh insurance plan to uh uh or a partially self-funded insurance plan uh to a fully insured plan. So, with a partially uh self-funded insurance plan, obviously the district had to uh keep I don't want to say a float, but had to keep a balance in that account to deal with any claims that were uh that were made because we had to partially uh self-und them. So, we closed

005that out last year. Um after about a year and once it's safe to close the account and all runoff claims are done, that account has been closed. And as you're all aware, we did uh send a letter indicating that that $1.6 million that was in that account will be coming back to the uh to the town uh who handles who handles the the money of the town um at the end of the year. Um, in that letter, we indicated it would be coming back to the town and we made uh a request that that money be put into the capital non-recurring account which goes towards um goes towards our capital improvements. Um, specifically with the suggestion that that be used for the roof. Um, I think that this is an appropriate use of that money.

006It is essentially found money at this time. Uh and it and and that roof is in disrepair beyond its useful use. And um although we understand as a board that the money is the town's money and ultimately the decision or the ultimate arbiter of where that money goes or what it's used for is left to the town council. Uh, but I do just want to reiterate uh the point that was made in that letter that that money um would be in our opinion best used for that roof. It's a real problem. Um it has to get done and uh so I ask that you consider that uh that request. Um turning towards our budget. Um obviously we presented our budget uh to to you all. Um we had our bud budget workshops. We went through

007um we went through them extensively. Uh unfortunately uh with the way circumstances are and due to circumstances that are really built into the operation of a school just like the operation of a town. I know you guys struggle with it uh as a reality in your budget workshops as well. Um you know we have increases um the primary drivers of of those increases as you've seen previously and as Dr. Dr. Zto will get into more in depth uh during his presentation are contractual increases, transportation increases, and special educ education increases. These are all increases that are monetizable or are real increases in the operational costs of the school. Um much of the pressures on the board are the same as the as the council and much of the pressures on the council are the same

008as the board. uh you know, we all have to comply with state law and whether it's a municipality or a board of education. Um, as those requirements or mandates, and some have heard the term unfunded mandates thrown out there, continue to acrue, um, so do the the logistics in implementing those mandates, in tracking compliance with those mandates, and continuing to stay up on the new mandates that continue to come. And I understand, you know, that that the board or that the town council is is dealing with some of those c those same uh concerns. Um and I'm receptive to all that. The board is receptive to all that. Um I understand that you all have a difficult task in trying to do what you have to do with less than you have to do it.

009Um, however, uh, I just want to, you know, wanted to speak to you guys, uh, to you all to to really just request that although the unfunded mandates are real. Thank you, Mr. Slatterie. U, I'm Mark Zto. I'm the superintendent of schools. Appreciate the opportunity to speak to the town council tonight. Um, Mayor Marada, glad uh that you're with us and uh happy to be here. I want to introduce uh some folks. I have our assistant superintendent here. Amy Stevenson, uh human resources, people personnel. Wendy Duran, curriculum instruction. Chuck Zedren uh is our assistant superintendent for finance. Chuck is retiring, so this is his uh his last uh budget meeting with the town council. Uh Scott Nosik will be stepping into the role next year. Uh currently principal at West Hill. We have a couple

010other administrators here, John Fod and Ron Lamontine handles our facilities. John's our high school principal. And I have a good turnout of board members here tonight. Miss Tucker, vice chair of the board. You heard from Mr. Slatterie, Miss Maria Manella, Mr. Costco, Miss Lefredo, Mr. Chabra. So appreciate the support this evening. So I have a similar presentation to um what I've discussed with you in in prior years. Uh it's school things haven't changed. We have five schools. Uh the numbers change, but uh we come in with our typical assumptions. We think we offer a very um high quality educational program um and extracurricular as well for our students. Uh is that is the uh system not on? No. Good. Um teaching and learning remains at the for uh forefront of our focus here. Um we

011always look at our staffing levels. We have board guidelines for classroom sizes that we adhere to and then we also focus on the things we need instructional supplies, clean facilities, educational technology and uh Steve earlier mentioned some of the mandates uh particularly uh in the area of special education is something important we need to focus on. Our budget um as we've always discussed it really hasn't changed in terms of uh where the bulk of the money is spent. Salaries and benefits typically accounts for anywhere from 80 to 85% of the overall costs and we have some other factors uh professional services, transportation, tuition. Look at our historical enrollment. We have been very very flat. You have this chart in front of you. Um what it basically demonstrates is that the enrollment uh has been stable

012over the past several years. If you look at October 1 of 2023, we had 2530 students. This past October, 2532. So, it's extremely stable. A net increase of two students. I looked at the enrollment today, May 1st, 2025, we were up to 2542. Again, a very modest uh increase of 10 kids from the October count. And I also took a look back at 2014 just to kind of highlight again and underscore the stability here. Look at that October 1, 2014 number 24.89. That's remarkable stability over that 10-year period. What has changed and the reason I wanted to highlight that is that within that number of approximately 2500 students we have seen a massive shift in terms of the number of kids identified with special needs and also students identified with English language acquisition needs. So

013the vernacular there is EL for English language learners, ML multilingual. These are kids whose primary language spoken at home is not English. And these kids are English uh they're they're not proficient English when they come to us. They rapidly become proficient but we have to give them additional services to get them to the point where they acquire proficiency in the English language. So when you look at these uh numbers here, first of all in the lefth hand column I have special ed numbers going back to October of 2012. You'll see there were 231 kids uh this last October that's 417 kids. Now, luckily the district overall enrollment didn't grow at this rate or we'd have 10 schools in town. So, but I want just want to underscore the point to the public that within that

014very stable overall population of 2500 kids. We've nearly doubled. It's about an 80.5% increase in special ed kids. And with the ELML label, those are kids new to the country, typically don't speak English, the uh the rates grown by 168%. So that does impact staffing because when one of those students goes into a third grade classroom, that student often requires additional supports beyond just the third grade teacher. So again, the the bottom line there is, you know, district-wide enrollment has remained extremely stable, but we've seen a sharp increase in these specialized areas with students that have significant needs, and there is a cost associated with that. Uh when we look at our enrollment projections next year, uh we use the New England um school development council, they they are very very good with the numbers.

015They look at birth cohorts. They look at uh uh cohort persistence rates, how many kids typically stay in the district and so forth. We're looking at next year, you know, they're calling for a differential of two kids. So again, it's it's uh the picture is stable. We do see a long-term trend here uh potentially going down, you know, over the next 10 years, maybe up to uh 400 kids. So over time if that happens there we may see changes but again we've been very stable and uh those you know once you get four or five years out it's kind of like a weather forecast what's going to be like in three weeks. It's it's tough to tell but those are the projections at this point but relative stability over the next two or three years

016when we look at where we are spending. This is a budget presentation. We talk about this every year. We just like to show you where we're ranked in our district reference group with the other towns in our economic uh category, if you will. The state has uh categories A through I. We're in the um in the group D, district reference group D. You'll recognize the towns on here. They're very similar to us. Uh Weathersfield, Cromwell, some of the surrounding towns. And you can see where we are in spending. We're 17th in spending in this group. And that's a per pupil. Um, so that's those are that's per child spending. So for Rocky Hill, most recent data point was $19,892. So within that uh group, we also look at where we do uh performance-wise. So the

017district performance index is the overall uh all the tests uh starting in third grade up through the SAT. And we are number one in the district reference group in mathematics, number one um in English language arts and fourth place in science. Again, those are aggregate scores starting in third grade all the way through uh the upper grade levels where they take these tests. So very competitive academically, doing extremely well. I know uh we've had council members in the past who've asked how we compare with wealthier towns in the area. So qu take a quick look at DR B. These are wealthier towns. Uh kind of, you know, right there competitive. If you look at the math against the the the wealthier districts in this area, uh right in the middle there for mathematics. Um 73.6%

018on the on the performance index. You can see there's a number of towns behind us. Uh same with English language arts. We're very competitive again in the mix there with DB B. And then in science, you know, right in the middle of the pack and just just uh what a little twist this year just to give you an idea of how these reference groups are organized, I looked at US census data from the federal government on the median household income. Glastonbury 150,000, South Windsor 143. That's kind of the profile of those towns. You see Rocky Hill at 100,000. So, uh, just G gives you a sense of, uh, why these groups are put together the way they are and how we vary, uh, in terms of family income versus some of these other communities. Uh,

019we just got this information today. I was pleased the timing was good. We're very happy. Uh, the SAT scores came in today. You can see um that both for the math and for the verbal which is the fancy term is the evidence-based reading and writing score. You could see that we had nice jumps uh from the prior year uh to the scores that that actually Wendy Duran's office received today. So really nice jumps. We're very proud of the work uh happening at the high school. So congratulations Mr. Fod to you and your high school staff. I'm very pleased with those big jumps in math and in uh in the verbal score. In terms of our special ed expenditures, uh we still stay very efficient. You can see uh we're fourth in terms of the overall

020percentage of the budget uh spent on special needs kids. We do a lot of in-house programming, which uh saves significant amounts of money for us. Our overall increase this year is uh an approved board budget of an increase of 4.87%. Uh I know the town manager is recommending a reduction of $350,000 to that number at this point. Uh but that's where the board adopted their budget back in March. That's a $2.6 million increase. And I'm going to explain why uh you know where those dollars lie specifically. So the salary line items in total are up about 1.6 million. That's about 3%. That's pretty much driven by negotiated contracts with our labor groups which are averaging 3%. Uh the benefits are up this year uh 1.21%. As you know, last year um we we switched over

021from the Sigma plan. The board chair mentioned that earlier, which was a hybrid, partially self-funded plan to a fully funded, fully insured plan with Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield. Uh that's the state partnership plan. So, it's a large group. Um we got we went down a million dollars last year, which was very good for the budget, but we knew that in going into year two there'd be a spike. Uh so, the spike is estimated by our insurance brokers at this point at uh 647,000. So, just dealing with the health insurance and the contractual wages, we are at about a 4.26 budget. And you could see there's some other increases. Uh tuition is up a little bit. Uh professional services, transportation, and there you are. It's it's a lean budget. This was the first time uh

022that I can recall that the board took my recommended budget and really didn't make any changes to it. It came in at 487 and they kept it there. um they went through it, you know, pretty hardcore, but I had done a lot of work going into it to get it as low as as we could in terms of feeling comfortable because we do want to come in at a manageable number for the taxpayers. We respect that process. So, uh in order to get to that 487, you could see where we were when we started our process. We were at 576 and that was uh you know, looking at just where we were if we kept things level. I felt that was too high. Um, I did, uh, go ahead and hire a full-time athletic trainer

023for our high school athletic and middle school athletic program. That's the actual the physical trainer who works with the kids with the stretching and the sprained ankles and the injuries on the field. What's happening um, in the market in public education is people are getting away from uh, purchasing vendor services and they're hiring their own in-house people. And we didn't want to be the last district without a person. So, we're very happy with the individual we have, but we brought her on on a full-time basis, which expands the hours our students get. And also, uh, we get her a little bit early in the year. She's she's on an 11-month contract. So, that was the one position I added. Um, and then in order to try to bring the number down, we um consolidated three

024teaching positions. We also, um, have a couple of retirements, which which help in terms of salary consolidation. We had two um behavior specialists we brought in um that were dealing with some situations uh with with kids hit some extreme behaviors and we've been able to resolve that, remove those positions from the budget. Um couple minor cuts with lunchroom supervision that will will uh cover those lunchrooms with other staff and then some minor tweaking with substitute teachers and uh summer program salaries. So very lean budget. Um the bigger biggest cuts were the were consolidating some of the teaching positions. Uh just looking at those numbers a little bit differently again that graphic just kind of displays what I had said earlier. It's around 82% of the overall cost is the salaries and benefits. So uh when

025we talk about where we are budget-wise I you know those of you on the council have heard me say this before we're very efficient. um you know the the mean uh in the state of Connecticut for the mo most recent data available about $3,000 more per child. So if you do the math, if we were just the average town in Connecticut, our budget would be about seven almost $7.5 million higher. Even within our district reference group, it's about a $1,500 difference. Um so even to come up to the mean within the DURD D group, we'd be asking for an additional 3.6 million. We're not doing that. I actually take a lot of pride I think our board does that despite Rocky Hills relative wealth which puts us right around the middle I think 46th uh

026percentile so number 77 out of 169 towns in the state that in spending we drop down to 119 and we still get great results so we're proud of that we're not I don't think we're coming in with a um a request that's unreasonable it's certainly very reasonable and still keeps us down towards the bottom in terms of spending and that uh that that really speaks to our efficiency as a school district. So, you know, I I'm very confident that the taxpayers do get a good quality product here. Um as Steve alluded to, one of the first things people look to when they move to a town is the quality of the the public schools. So, we're proud of the work we do and we think it's a reasonable budget request. Um again, this is just

027where we are with the per pupil spending. You can see that again. You know, we're down towards the bottom of our district reference group, 17th out of 24. Uh we're going to get into the capital improvement program just a little bit. Now, I know Mona uh wanted to make some comments. Um this shows you kind of the history here of where the council has set aside that separate appro appropriation for capital uh funding. And you can kind of see uh you know the board approved is the green uh uh chart there. And then when we go over to orange in those columns, you see what the council ultimately adopted. So um moving from right to left, you see that over the last few years, the council number has been been lower than requested. Um in

028fairness, the council's done a great job about taking past surplus dollars and allowing the board to use them on capital projects. So, I want to commend uh Mona McCam and Ray Carpentino and prior to Ray John Mir that the town has always had a very uh cooperative relationship with us in terms of funding the capital projects for Rocky Hill. So, that is certainly appreciated. Um, you know, we have major projects coming down the pike. The West Hill roof at this point is, I think, actually 31 years old. Uh, we estimate that's about a $1.6 million project. Uh we're we're partially through the upgrades with the HVAC system at Stevens. We still have other upgrades uh with the infrastructure, doors, windows, and so forth. Um other projects down the pike, the front canopy at GMS. Uh

029we have a project uh that we're looking at getting done. It we're doing the design right now for the teched and media center. So teched classrooms and media center at the middle school. And you know, we're happy to have this as a board project. the tennis courts that's estimated to be about a million dollars. We do use the tennis courts for physical education and also for the intercolastic boys and girls tennis programs. But I really do to me it's irrelevant what side of the ledger it's on. That's a town asset. So uh those tennis courts are at the point where uh we can't do a repatch. We did that seven or eight years ago and they said that you know this is kind of like the last time you can repatch those courts. It's going

030to be about a million dollars and at a cert certain point in time and that time is coming uh soon those courts are going to need to be completely um you know torn out and put in new courts with various names uh what are they called Ron post tension concrete post-tension concrete courts. So at some point uh that's going to have to get done and that's really a council decision. Uh the board would like it done. I understand there's but there's a lot of community use too. So it's something to think about. So, um, why is the CIP important? Well, indoor air quality is a big issue. Uh, we've done a lot of work to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy costs. We want to maintain uh safe spaces. Uh, the leaks, you know, Steve

031mentioned them earlier. I I wrote a letter to council has a copy of it. There was a lot of hyperbole in an online post that wasn't accurate, and I wanted to minimize that drama and get the facts out there. But there have been 11 roof leaks at West Hill in the last two years. The repairs have been about $8,000. Not extensive, but that was a 20-year roof entering year 31. So, at a certain point, when a 20-year roof is 10 years past its its lifespan, uh we really need to have a serious conversation about getting that roof project done. Um here was the approved CIP. I understand there was a conversation uh at the joint meeting that the mayor chairs a couple of weeks ago. I know Mr. Zedigran was there with Mr. Lamontine and

032there was a a fairly robust conversation about maybe delaying the the next phase of the HVAC equipment at Stevens to get the funding in place on July 1 for the roof and to understand what needs to happen. Just so I I think everybody in the council gets this, but anybody watching at home, we need to have the money in place on July 1 so that we can move forward with the resolutions at the council level and get state reimbursement on the project. The money has to be allocated and appropriated by the town. So if I, you know, speaking for the board, I think there's strong interest universally among the board members in getting that west steel roof done. So, I think it's certainly reasonable to have an informed conversation about taking that insurance surplus, moving

033it into the town's capital improvement budget for the school district, earmarking that 1.6 million for the roof so that we can then go ahead and and file the paperwork with the state. We're about 75% done with the design right now. And what that would mean is we'd be ready to go on July one of 2026 to get that roof done. So it'll be one more school year with the current roof. Ron working his magic with the vendors to patch the leaks and then the following year starting construction as soon as school lets out and and going for it. Obviously bidding and all that stuff would have to take place. So we've done this before. Uh it certainly can be done again. Uh but that was our approved budget um for next year at the board

034level for the CIP. And Moan, I know you wanted to speak before I went further in the presentation. Yes. I don't know if it'll interrupt if we drop yours and I bring a you know I can wrap it up after after you finish. I mean I think this is a very important topic to highlight and I just have some highlights I want to share about what the kids are doing. Okay, Raymond if you could. Thank you. It's coming. Yes. So, just wanted to point out as uh Dr. Zto had mentioned, we had our uh CIP meeting and the uh capital improvement list that he had uh listed. Uh we had looked at the the West Hill roof. I'm looking at this here where the cursor is to put the 1.6 million there and moving out

035the um the HVAC two years out. And what I really wanted to point out was this particular uh report shows the funding and how it it it flows into the five-year capital plan. So if you look up here, this is a the revenue we've proposed in the capital improvement for board of ed for this year temporarily dropping it from 600,000 to 250. Uh that's in recognition of the 1.6 6 million that's uh come through to non-reoccurring uh for uh the board of ed improvements. I've got an estimate in here. This would be any state grants reimbursement. Clearly, we don't get them the first year. It' probably occur in the future years, but trying to show you what the revenue is and what the projects are. So, clearly, if we got all of our money back

036from the state on the first year, there would be an excess. timing of course will play in. But the important part is to point out that we still have these this project coming up and as you can see over the future years that we would be looking to fund more uh capital improvement projects for the board of ed because it does go into the deficit situation again assuming we went back to the same reserve level of 600,000. So, I just wanted to point out that it it looks, you know, kind of good in the one-year isolation of a $1.6 million roof and a $1.6 million insurance uh coming forward into the fund, but they are the future projects. And I think you did a great job with that uh bar graph showing that the the

037requests coming in and the funding don't always go hand in hand. This is our opportunity to address and and actually not even to 100% uh future projects in the five-year plan. But the key again is the money has to be in place this July 1 to start the process for the state reimbursement to the town. Yes. Okay. Thank you. We'll let you go back and take your All right. Appreciate those comments, Mona. Thank you very much. So just want to go over a couple highlights while we wrap up here because at the end of the day it's about student success and Rocky Hill and it's really important to us. So we were recently informed that both West Hill School and Steven School were designated designated by the state department of education as schools of distinction.

038Uh that's based on high academic performance and high performance of the various subgroups that traditionally lag behind u the mainstream population. And so we're really really proud of West Hill and Stevens. Uh we have two high school kids uh who are on team Connecticut and they're going to be representing the state at the national math competition at uh Penn State. Those kids are extremely uh intelligent math students. They do an outstanding job and we're very very motivated. We have a great great math team at our high school. Marching band continues to do very well. Again uh first place in two regional competitions. We're really proud of the marching band. Also, chorus, it's not on the slides, but number of students are all state chorus singers, and we're proud of those kids. Uh, marching band also

039had an opportunity to go to New England this year and place sixth. And a great experience for the kids. They went to the national finals at Metife Stadium where the Giants and Jets play and they they came in 12th in the nation. So, great performance. The marching band is actually up to about 60 kids. It's the largest number I've seen in the in the 14 years. I'm going into year 14 here. And we're proud of those numbers. with a marching band. Uh math team again uh was third in the region and we were ranked as the number two small public high school at the uh at the Connecticut State competition this year. So great job by the math team. Last year we had 11 students uh qualify for the seal of biiteracy. So that's a

040high school diploma that's issued with proficiency in a second language. We don't have our results yet. The kids actually took the test uh recently. 34 kids took the test. results are pending. We hope to find out shortly, but we're optimistic we're going to exceed that number of 11 from last year. Uh Dream Cafe, I know there's been a lot of interest. Uh Councelor Thorough is a regular at the Dream Cafe. See the smile on her face over there. Uh this has been a hugely successful project. Uh you know, Brian Dylan had this idea years ago. He approached Amy Stevenson and me. Amy kind of took it and and ran with it. the entire board uh gets a lot of credit for supporting this uh this year. I mean, this is a this is a program

041uh where students with disabilities are largely running the operation. It's it's a it's a coffee shop basically, lunch, breakfast and lunch. We do some catering. Uh they do lunches in the schools and with part-time hours and kind of a small coffee shop, we've generated almost $42,000 in revenue this year. So, we were able to reduce the budget line in the board because we had budgeted $50,000 the prior year for consumables. So, obviously we're paying the staff that's part of the budget. But in terms of the food that we purchase, the beverages, uh, consumable supplies, napkins, you know, paper plates, and so forth, all that stuff that's going on there, uh, is is basically self-funded through the revenue coming in. So, we're very proud that that little little operation, which is really an educational center for

042those kids, is doing a great job in terms of um covering costs. So, it's it's real real highlight for us. And also along with um was the theme of special education. This year, our middle school was one of only um five schools in the state to get the national banners. Um it's a national banner school for Special Olympics. So, that's our unified program. Uh there's only five schools in Connecticut. Two are here in Rocky Hill. So again, kind of underscores uh how much this community embraces our kids with special needs and really makes them feel part of the program. And unified again is it's it's it's friendly competition, but it involves kids with in some cases very serious disabilities competing with typical peers and it's a great opportunity if you've never been to a unified

043event. It's a lot of fun to go and watch the kids and see how excited they get about competing and and again I think it just speaks volumes about the quality of the people in this town. Uh going right over to athletics at the high school. Some very uh strong seasons this past year. Um class M state champs in in cross country. Uh had one student Brian Smith. He is the individual state champion in boys cross country. U another guy uh outstanding. Both of these guys are great kids. Tyson Aidorian state champion golf as a 10th grader. Uh he's going to be going to nationals this summer. Our girls basketball team. uh heartbreaking loss in the class double end state semis, but a great season. I think they they won 17 or 18 games and

044made it to the state semis. And um last spring in girls tennis, they're in the midst of their season now. They were awarded the conference sportsmanship award. So that's always nice. We like to share that good news, too. Um we look at our graduation data for the most recent data available from the state. Our our cohort graduation rate is almost 95%. So that's the number of kids who graduate in that four-year period. Most of the remaining number that doesn't graduate are are frankly kids at the u the Dream Academy. So it's kids who extend beyond four years that have um IEP accommodations that provide education in some cases up to age 22. So virtually all of our kids graduate. Uh and you can see what the state average is about 88.4. And then I just

045picked out some of the colleges from this past year for acceptances. And you could see it's a a wide array of local schools and also some really interesting schools. We had a kid get into Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, University Toronto. So, you know, some international schools are in the mix here in Rocky Hill and um all across the country. So, we think from the standpoint of preparing kids to compete for admission to universities, we're we're doing extremely well uh systemwide and of course at the high school. Again, our overall budget uh request is a 4.87 87% increase. We know the town manager has made his recommendation on a $350,000 reduction to that number, which would by my calculations already that gets us to about a 4.22. Um so that's kind of where we are.

046The last couple points I wanted to make was we have been informed this year that um the educational cost sharing grant coming back to Rocky Hill has is going up about a million dollars. It's a complex formula, but I think the increase is partially at least attributable to the fact that we've had those change in our demographics. So recognize greater need. They tend to weight students a little more heavily in some areas. So, uh, we're looking at about a million dollars additional from state funding coming to Rocky Hill specific to that education cost sharing grant. And then, as I mentioned earlier, we're happy to uh turn back the 1.6 million. That was a very pleasant surprise. We didn't know about that number until we closed out all the claims of Sigma and the accountants closed

047out the books. So, uh, we're very pleased to return that. We think it's a good way for the town to think about funding that roof project. So, at the the end of the day, I think, uh, Rocky Hill continues to offer very high quality school district to the taxpayers and residents here. And, uh, we're providing kids an opportunity to be very successful in life with the educational programs here. and we think we do it at a at a cost that's very respectful to the needs and uh desires of the taxpayers here in Connecticut and here in Rocky Hill. So I thank you for your time and we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you Dr. Zto. Uh so that that million dollar or so increase in the state ECS money was that factored into your

048budget in terms of um your ask from the town? No, no, that that uh is an appropriation that goes to the town side, not to to us. So, the money go I don't believe the money is legally earmarked for education, but it is earmarked. I think that the intent of the of the legislature is that they understand towns bear a burden for education, so they provide some level of support to the town for its overall revenue stream. Okay. And my other question is with respect to the $1.6 $6 million to be reallocated from the insurance savings to the roof project at West Hill. Um is it is your hope and expectation that that may you depending upon the funding that you get for capital uh through this process, are you hoping to accelerate the timeline

049then for the work at at uh Stevens? The the HVAC work at Stevens, what we talked about was flipping it. So the HVAC work is targeted currently in the plan for this fiscal year. We would push it off one year and put the roof as the priority. Okay. Um Okay. So the but this this 1.6 million that wasn't foreseen that is now being transferred is being made available for the for the for the roof project that doesn't have any bearing on on that on the timing then. No, because my understand Well, no, because my understanding is the conversation with the the capital improvement committee has been that if that 1.6 comes in, pick a project, but the roof is the pressing project. Initially, the plan was the HVAC, but with that money coming in, but

050I don't think you're going to fund both. If you we'll we'll love it if you want to fund both projects. I don't think that's going to happen. So, Mona, if you want to add to that, that's fine. I know in the board's approved plan, we did have the HVAC work. Yes. And you had it split into two years. So it was 700,000 for Yeah. next year and then the year after. So with our if we continued at our $600,000 reserve plus anything they had already in non-reoccurring that would have covered the basically the first half of HVAC. The 1.6 allows the the HVAC 700 to move out and the full $1.6 million roof to to kick in as the priority. So it I guess in a sense it it allows you to let that be

051the priority rather than having us splitting it in half. Okay. Thank you. Yes sir. Just a a quick follow up on that. Um when when was the HVAC for Stevens first brought up? Because I thought this was brought up a while ago. So it's it's been Ron, do you want to talk about you've been handling the dayto-day? This has been going on I mean we've been working in phases on this HVAC project I want to say at least three years. Yeah. So, we're in the midst of phase two. Um because at the time the decision, I believe collectively was was not to go to referendum on this, but to try to fund it through a phased in approach through the capital improvement uh plan. Sorry, about three years. Okay. Oh, she has her hand up.

052Oh, Mayor Marada has some questions. Go ahead, Mayor. Hi, thank you. Um, you know, congratulations, Dr. Zto, and to and and to your board for the excellent job that you you continue to do and the vast achievements that you've shared with us this evening. Um, I I have a question about the ECS. So, is this $1 million the result of um what is anticipated coming now that the appropriations committee has approved fully funding ECS? And I understand that still needs to be negotiated between the legislators and the governor or is this different? No. Are so I want to make sure we're not talking about excess cost, we're talking about education. Yeah, I want to talk about excess cost. So, can you talk about excess cost? Okay. So, there's two there's two things. Excess cost is

053the money that comes back to cover um extreme special education expenses. So, essentially the formula is we take roughly four and a half times what the per pupil cost is. Once we exceed that level, I think this year we have it marked at like is it close to 70,000? Yeah. 70. Yeah. At least initially it's actually coming in lower than that. Yeah. But 70%. So basically once we exceed a threshold four and a half times the normal per pupil expenditure we typically receive 70% of those funds back. That's excess cost for special ed. ECS funding is a grant that goes straight to the town council to the town side, not back to the board. And that's essentially in theory to help the town pay for education with the state understands towns are largely responsible. So

054they provide um an ECS grant um educational cost sharing grant where the state is bearing a portion of the expenses for the overall education of the kids in Connecticut. So each town receives a grant. Our information at this point is where we typically receive about seven half million dollars. Rocky Hill uh town council gets that money coming in on the general revenue. Our our understanding this year is it's 8.5 million and we're pretty firm with that understanding. Yeah. But if it's fully funded, my question is more is if is that fully funded and if it's not fully funded, what is the amount? So that would make it fully funded at the state legislature. Correct. So that that's the number we've been given, Mayor Marada. We don't know. Okay. You know, where it's going to land.

055That's really something that happens at the legislative level with the governor and you mind I was and it is the same number that we're building in our budget now as a source of revenue. So that's the same. So you're building that 8.5 into your town revenue. It's already the we've had the 1 million be clear to the public that's not money coming to the board of ed that's money correct now it's on informed every year what what the projected ECS number is going to be right but it's for education. It's not like we're gonna Well, yes. Right. It's it's earmarked for education. Yeah. Um and then and then the other thing I want to point out um is, you know, I I've always been proud of our uh partnership and and working together. And I

056I just want to assure you and the folks at home um who are listening to these that um you know, we don't balance budgets on the back of our students. We've never done that. Um, and I think, you know, what we've shown over the past several years is we've been able to stretch our our dollars wisely, um, notwithstanding all of the different challenges that we've met, very unique challenges that we've met, um, for the past six, seven years. and um and we stretch those dollars um so that we can give the board of education as much as possible in terms of um each annual requested increase year-over-year. So, I I just want to I want to clarify that because um you know, it's a partnership and and I'm a little takenback by that statement that

057was made earlier. So, um I just want folks to know that that we work very hard to to fund, you know, everything possible that we can because the students certainly are important to us. Thank you. I do. Yeah. You have a question. I got a question. Um the town council is getting a lot of pressure here tonight from your board and from yourself for the 1.6 million to go to the roof project at West Hill. Why has there been a big shift from the HVAC all of a sudden now to the roof? And why hasn't the roof been brought to our attention prior to this to budget out over the next couple years? So, I think there's a little more focus on it now. I wrote a letter to the council. Um, I have a

058copy. If you haven't seen it, I'm happy to give you a copy of it, Mr. Whan. Uh, we had kind of a public uh outcry about the roof a couple of months ago. There was some social media posts. I wanted to set the record straight. So the roof has been in the capital improvement plan um for the last seven years. In fact, back in going back 15 years, uh it was in year 16 in 2010 and uh the town at the time, this is before I was working here, uh commissioned Frier Architecture to come in and give a report on the roof and they estimated you got about four years to go on it. So some, you know, it's been patched, it's been we it's held up, but uh the simple fact is now it's

059at year 31. So, in the last two years, there have been um significant issues with there's been 11 leaks. Uh we've done 11 repairs. Not nothing crazy. 8 or $9,000 total in repairs. But I think that's part of it that we're just at this point where it's getting more public attention. We're in year 31 on a 20-year roof. So, uh you know, the money's coming in. And the other trick to this is the funding has to be in place. So unlike you know some of these other projects where we're not applying for state reimbursement where if you give us a portion of of what we're asking for maybe like with the HVAC we're doing some work peace meal the roof is a oneshot deal basically and the funding has to be in place so that

060you understand the concept there. The 1.6 million has to be in place appropriated by the town before we can start the process applying for state grant funding. Does that make sense? It does. So just you see it all sped up here as it well yeah it's sped up but also with that money available in one chunk we look at that and go now now you've got money coming that nobody anticipated why not take it since you didn't anticipate it put it in as a placeholder get the approvals let us do the work on our side so that we can get the reimbursement and I think the reimbursement on that project is around 42% right of state dollars coming back on the net project to the town so at the end of the day you know

061the state typically covers for us anyway. It's different for each town about 40% of the cost. Do you think that 1.6 will be total price of the roof? Do you want to speak to that Ron? Ron has been working uh very closely with the architect Jacuni Associates and he's got all the detail on it for me here. Good evening. So that that would be a a net cost to to the town. Um the total cost, the estimate came in at um 2.297. So it's going to cost the town about 1.591 to out of the town's budget to to get the job done. So if we can have the the 1.6 in place, the state will accept that as the funding is the local share and then we can we can apply for the grants and

062go through the uh the process with the state. We don't have to pay that upfront then. What you're saying? No, not the Well, you have you have to pay the billing and and we we we apply for reimbursement as billing comes in. So, it the process works out. We've done two of our roofs that way. We've done a renovation project, the high school that way. We've done we built Moer School that way. It's just that's the process for state reimbursement. Okay. Thanks. So before I get to I had a few questions um just just yet. So that 1.6 million if we we do as we said because we won't be using that till I know we have to set aside now but won't actually be spending it till July of 26 at the correct. Yeah

063the the project would start July 26 but you can carry it over um because the the CIP is a separate town controlled fund designated for the schools. Right. So you could close the books on June 30th. Mona just carries it over to July 1 to fund the project. And as Ron clarified, that's the local share and then of the overall cost uh 2.3 million order of the rest comes back to the town and a state reimbursement. Right. So my question does that for next year help our fund balance because we have that 1.6 million? No, it's it's going to help the non-reoccurring fund and I'm going to kind of piggy back on. So with that project being the was it 2.3 million that as it's coming through and not being reimbursed that's basically that fund

064is funding the full 2.3 and waiting for the reimbursement on the spreadsheet I was showing if that money miraculously came in on this same year uh then you would have it then and then odds are it's usually goes through a portion of completion then a reimbursement. So we usually usually are cashwise floating the project before reimbursement. Okay. And it's and and CIP, right? They come back intermittently as you as you submit, you know, you've paid bills to the to the construction company and you submit those receipts, the money comes in periodically from the state. It does. Okay. I have a question. So Oh, sorry. No, I got a few more, but if you want I'll come back. Um I just curious if the council were to adopt the manager's budget, what programs or items would

065be impacted? Yeah. So if if I look at cutting um that's a great question because I've been thinking about that. So if we have to cut a good word $350,000, you know, I I've got to look um I mean to be to be candid with you, the first thing I look at is things away from teaching and learning. So we look at maybe extracurricular programming. uh probably not having our summer enrichment program. We are required to have our mandated special ed program, but we would look we spent about $40,000 historically for the celebration of learning program. I'd probably recommend to the board not to run that program. I might have to look at some staffing issues where maybe um I fill positions mid year, things like that. Take a hard look at extracurriculars. Um and

066again tried to, you know, there are there are certain programs we don't have to have. I have to have first grade teachers and I do everything I can to stay within the guidelines. So, um you know, sometimes we look we look at textbooks, we look at supplies, we look at things as far away from the classroom teacher as possible. Um so 350 is you've done things like that in the past. I'd prefer to see 4.87, but then my job uh is once you give us a number, I have to do the best I can to make it work. I think it's just important to know what No, I think it's Yeah, I mean I think this is a lean budget. I think it's it's very not a lot of wiggle room in here. Uh like

067I said, uh the board went through it pushed me pretty hard during the two sessions and uh consensus to the board was it's it's a lean budget. So maybe any other questions? Just are there any of our programming that rely on federal funding? Yeah, we we have not in this presentation. This is the request we we asked for the town, but we have uh some grants particularly in the area of special education. um idea grants that come in that the Stevenson manages. Uh that's the bulk of our federal money. I think around a million dollars total a year, more or less. Is that correct? It's in your budget book. I I don't have the figure right in front of me. Yeah. And then the other federal grants total up. Yeah. Yeah. So, we have a

068series of federal title grants. It's all It's all in your budget book. I don't have the figures right um you mentioned an athletic trainer. Yes. Yes. Did I understand you hired that person already? Yeah. Yeah, we did. Where did that money come from? Uh we're going to we're going to it's going to come out of the appropriation. You can't you can't go below the minimum requirement. So we uh we made that higher. It starts in August. That person comes in. Oh, you I hired budgeted for this upcoming budget. You haven't contractually starts in August. Okay. You don't presently have what's happening is that every school district is hiring athletic trainers. So the market is drying up. So we we used to use a a vendor model uh but those people that were working for those

069subcontractors are all taking positions in in school districts. So we wanted to make sure Rocky Hill was was covered. Yeah. Yeah. We offset the contract and and we hired a person. So that that figure in the presentation is the salary and the benefits. Are there any other uh new hires that you're anticipating for the upcoming budget that any new hires? Um well, we have some vacancies we're filling. Um athletic director position is open right now. We have a a retiring athletic director, retiring high school assistant principal. So yeah, we're those are just like back fills. Those are back fills. Correct. Yeah. That's um Do you have any new other than athletic trainer new positions that you're creating? Not at this point. No, that's that's that's right right all there in the presentation. One new position

070in the proposed budget. Okay. Thank you. I'm good. Thanks Dr. Ceda for coming in. This is my eighth year hearing a presentation. I enjoy it every year. So I appreciate you putting all the work into it. Um has that mayor has her hand up again. Did you have your hand up or is that from before? Yeah. No, I put it back up. Oh, sorry. Okay. No, no, no, that's fine. So, is there any update on uh state funding levels with respect to the HVAC because I believe there may have been some uncertainty about whether um those grants were still available and if in fact they were reimbursing communities. Chuck, you want to come up to the microphone? People can hear you at home if you talk in. We do have an HVAC project um that

071we applied for a grant and uh it's a smaller amount but um we will be doing that work this summer but in the outgoing years um I haven't heard any updates um as to whether they are going to have additional funding uh to cover the HVAC projects or not to be honest with you um they previously they did not cover HVAC projects for reimbursement state reimbursement But um they have over the last couple years uh had funds available. So I'm not I haven't heard whether that will continue in the future or not. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Um so just a couple quick questions on um the demographic changes when you talk about special education, English as second language. Yeah. Do any of those students cross into both categories or those all distinct students? So

072there are Yeah. Yeah. I almost put an and an and andor on there. There are some students who cross into both categories. Gotcha. Okay, great. Um, on the chart where you have the increases by broad category here, do you have the year-over-year increases for each of those or is that something we could probably have to get that for you for? Yeah, I we could we could send an email to the council. That might take me some time to pull together, but we can we can look at year-over-year by subgroup salaries, benefits, and so forth. Yeah, just a broad category. Yeah, we could we could do that for those categories. Great. Okay, we'll send an email to the town manager. So, that'd be great. Um I know in prior years there's there's been some money out

073of operations that's been returned to the town. Yeah. Is there doesn't sound like there is any this year? It's very lean this year. Some of those demographic changes you just alluded to, we we've had some unanticipated costs which happens. You know, going back to Mr. Wayan's question. Sometimes we do make hires after the school year starts uh particularly in those areas I touched upon. So we may it's not atypical to have a student move in with a onetoone para educator support person in the student's individual education plan. We are not in a position if that student comes in with that mandated educational plan which follows under federal and state law. We have to hire somebody to deal with that kid. So that's, you know, to to kind of get back to your question, the plan

074right now is go with the athletic director, but I I cannot anticipate needs that that arise during the year and we have to make it work. We we've never come back to you and asked for additional appropriations, but we do sometimes have to make make changes mid year. So yes, sometimes uh there's there's issues there. Just to piggyback on that one quick, where do you find the funding for that? We we have to work through it. We we may not uh make purchases of supplies in those cases. Um, we just we we really try to be as as efficient as possible and you know it's not atypical sometimes Sarah we might not be able to purchase some of the supplies we planned on buying because do you have a buffer in your uh salaries? Is

075there a is there an inflated portion in your salaries to help offset some of that? Um some sometimes we see gains during the year on maternities but it's an unpredictable number. So when if somebody goes out on maternity leave, we might start to acrew some savings there. Okay. Thanks. Sorry. No, no, that's that's fine. Um I think that's the extent of my question. Anybody else have I just have one last question. Dr. Zto, I'm really curious on DUR B. I know it's so socioeconomic factors. Yeah. But have you ever looked at some of the towns like Woodbridge or Madison? Do they offer programs that you wish Rocky Hill had that could play an impact on benefiting us? That's a great question. I mean, I I can tell you right now uh Mr. Rand is looking

076at some things going on in Glastonbury, particularly with uh mathematics and how they're doing intervention at the middle school level. So, we are kind of curious about what some of these other towns do. I'm not sure it would cost any more money, but we're always interested in uh practices in these high performing districts. I don't know if either one of you ladies want to speak to that. I know you've got some contacts in Glastonberry. We're kind of looking at that. Yeah, we've been looking at some things from Glastonberry also just finding out what other districts have for their students. South has a very similar It's a good place for us to look to see if we're in line. In terms of what you're saying, you you manage the budget efficiently. Are there some areas where

077you had to scale back like field field trips or extracurricular activities or anything like that? I don't really think so. I you know, I I think we're we're comfortable with with the budget we bring to you. We we we I personally take some pride in keeping it efficient and keeping the numbers what I consider to be reasonable. I'm a taxpayer as well. I understand the burden of being a taxpayer and I respect it. So I think we offer a good product at a at a good cost and overall I think we do a good job. I think we have looked I know Amy's done some studies. I think administratively we are a little light but we make it work. Meaning I think you'll find similar districts that might have more assistant principles in schools and

078things like that. We don't have that here, but we make it work with the existing resources. We have a great team uh leadership wise, I think, throughout the schools. So, uh that would be one area where I know we are a little bit light. Um but I think that's, you know, from a from a spending standpoint, that's probably a good thing if you're a taxpayer. Um Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate all your work. Okay. Any other questions? Well, thank you, Dr. ZTO and and to your your team for coming tonight. I appreciate your information. Yes, sir. Mayor, thank you. Okay. With that, we'll move on to item B. Uh, under general government, our assessor. Oh, hold on one second. Okay. We have a few updates first and adjustments before we get Give him

079a second. There we go. So, yes, my follow-up housekeeping tips. Uh, okay. I'll let him get rid of that. Um, so conversation on at the last session about the ambulance and I'm going to have to terribly apologize and I'm happy you brought that to our attention because that line item included the total contract for the ambulance for that year. it did not show the uh Rocky Hill portion. So that figure that was showing the $210,000 uh is actually 126. So we're actually identifying an $84,000 decrease in what our proposed was. So the our proposed included the total, not just the town portion. So they pay the 84 the ambulance. Yes. Yes. And um we had conversation I think at the meeting before uh about central fees uh that where we get the credit from our

080bank. So wanted to point out that following up with them that they are pretty sure based on our activity again those are if we do enough electronic payments and where we are today that we should anticipate that credit for next year as well. So, uh, we're willing to recommend that that central fee line is decreased by 25,000 for the next year. We received this year 28,000. The year prior 25. So, I'm going to say on the low side, we'll we'll say 25,000. And I think in the actual page that showed as a dollar amount expended in our upload or negatives which showed that there was a credit doesn't appear. So kind of I'm sorry Mona. What page is that? Let me see if I can uh where's my It's under central supplies. Thank you. I'm

081just trying to find my I'm old fashioned still looking at the book. I'll show you in a second. Thanks. and central central that did I'm passing I'm driving too fast. Okay. All right. Let me point out. So on this for fees this is actually a credit of 17,000 as of the timing of this book. I think our actual expenditures have exceeded that. We're probably at a positive, but just to point out that this was a credit in the prior year, which allowed us to have an incumbrance and do this uh new personnel piece for clear gov. But there right here in this current year, we received a $28,000 credit to apply to our fees. So, what I'm stating is that we would like to we can recommend that there could be a uh we could

082do the decrease and have, you know, if we want to put in I know $500 be kind of minimal, but there is a credit coming. So, so we're going to take 25 grand out of that. Would recommend that. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. So, what's the 2025 projection then? Right here it says 40,500. That's right. that's not reflecting that $28,000 right okay check that we've gotten if that helps you just found $110,000 so well that's the good news I haven't gotten to my third item bad news that we did get recent information from our assessor we're working on uh getting our finalized grand list uh as we build this budget and there have had uh a couple of settlements that will impact our revenue side by 80,000. So, unfortunately, we'll have to factor that in. I think

083these final numbers are due for June 1st, but we're coordinating that we have these things in place and kind of ironed out before we go to adoption. So there's a a uh decrease on your tax revenue side for 80,000. Which which line would that be in? That's going to be on the revenue side. So it's not going to be in departments, right? It's going to be over trying to see which I'm depending which screen I want to go to. Oops. Okay. So if you're in your Let's do a breakdown. Oh boy. So you've got the 90 million for tax revenue. So with this more recent change, that would be $80,000 less. And it doesn't look substantial on the that large dollar amount for revenue, but it it will affect what we uh send out for

084bills. Okay. Any others or That's it. That's it. Okay. Now we can move on to our assessor. Come on up, Stuart. We have officers all over this building now. You can't get away. Um just initially if we can breeze through your um just an analysis of your uh last year's goals um you know how you've met or not met or or managed those. Okay. All right. Um uh my goal number one is the annual reevaluation. um it it didn't get by this governing body. So, uh it was not met. Um uh my intent to get the designation and the um the certification of excellence in assessment administration. Um we I fell short um mostly because of uh time allocation. uh we I allocated more time to um goal number three which is wouldin you know

085goal number two doesn't financially impact the town but goal number three does um so I allocated my time to goal number three and the staff of inspecting the properties in town to make sure I stay on track with uh uh at least the 10% inspections of town Um but goal number two, uh part two, it's 15 chapters. It generally takes about a year to do. Um I have since started doing it again, but because I've taken a while to do it, I had to refresh the first three chapters and I'm on chapter four out of 15. Stuart and I discussed this in back in the spring. So, you know, he's he's making progress. So, it's it's time consuming, you know, like you said, your goal was to uh you know, do the values. Yes. So,

086but we're we achieved goal number three and we're on pace to exceed goal our inspections for this year. So, So, let's turn I don't have a page number. I don't have a page number for this. Um, but it's the uh expense sheet. So, the total increase uh for the assessor's department is 22,780. You know, 14,734 uh is consumed in full-time salaries. Uh there is a $10,800 increase in technology software which really um is for the uh the GIS the uh EZRI you know the the the the mapping systems that you find in the assessor's office that you can use online and what have you that's the software um 2800 there's the $2,800. Well, you know, I keep getting caught by the photocopier and the phones. Sorry about that. And the rest, um, office supplies, technical

087slides. There are no increases in any of those line items. Any questions? I have one. Um, well, I have a couple, but you do a satellite program taking pictures of everybody's house. How often do you do that? We take a picture of everybody's house when we visit the property for the inspection. That for reval? Uh, it's for the state requires us to have one um updated every 10 years. So, as we visit the property, we take a picture as opposed to hiring a company um to come and do all the pictures at once. Was this a satellite image? That's Oh, the our oblique imagery eagle view. Yes, we have that as well, which helps us do some of uh discovery on assessment. How often you do that? That's an annual flight and they actually just

088flew over a week or so ago. Do you know where's that in your budget or how much does it cost a year? Um, hold on a second. I'll tell you technology. I think it's technology technology software, right? You know how much portion of that is? Oh, hold on. Wait a minute. That' be like was that 13? Uh, it's 27,000. It's the pictometry support services. 25701. That's what it is. Is that something that's needed every year? I mean, are you looking at every photo of everybody's residence every year? Um, this technology gives us it indicates what properties have changed. Um, oh, the technology will tell you that. Yes. So, we look at every change through this software. it actually pays for itself and then every a lot of the other departments use it like zoning, wetlands,

089zoning enforcement officer. So it isn't just a it's in my budget but it's it's used by multiple offices. Community development uses it very frequently for for their engineering and it's a necessity every year because we do it every other year. Um in the past we did it every other year. Okay. Um but uh we have found that things um have things change and and they're um people do a lot of things um especially without permits and stuff for our office and um and we we're doing it every year now and it still pays for itself, you know, for all the things we discover. um the the the revenue side more than compensates for what the expense is. There was uh the auditing services. It seemed like we're not even using it, but we keep budgeting

09010,000 a year. What's the auditing for? Uh we audit uh business uh business personal property. And again, it um I don't have the revenue side, but generally we get approximately eight dollars for every dollar we spend. It's just on a revenue side. 2024, we didn't we didn't do it. I guess what's the zero? Do you see that? I believe yes. And and keep in mind that that when we print the the adopted for that, it's probably like around May. So he's usually doing it at year end. And I you'll see now it's still a zero and it's usually a May June activity that right we we currently have like 40 accounts out being audited right now and we're waiting on the results. All right. So then you charge then um we'll be paying them shortly

091but the revenue side will be coming in later. Okay. But to France's point, fiscal year 24 says zero, correct? Is that accurate? Did we budget something that year or we didn't even budget for it? Do you know? Did you do 2324? We did. Okay. Um, but I think we did it. We held it over to the next year. Okay. So, you paid the following fiscal. Yes. Okay. Uh, you support services. Do you have an actual number right now, Mona, for that? I mean, it's significantly different than what's budgeted. It is. Sorry, I I changed my page. I don't have it with me. I'm sorry that I had it. No, no, I don't have that page with me. You don't have the training then either then probably on that same line area it's significantly lower than

092what's budgeted just trying to see are we overbudgeting some of these areas um the um the majority of my budget is contractually obligated um so like the Eagle View we have a contract with them to fly I found it I'm sorry we got it okay thanks Okay. So, yes, we had on the uh support service. Uh again, that that is not expended yet. It's still that same dollar amount, the 2,850. That was your pictometry not invoiced yet. Yes. And your training is presently at 3,974. Technology software is at 64308. Whether we anticipate in spending all that money that's budgeted that you the 9500 unit for the software is actually overexpended. No for training and support services and yes training the training usually for assessors comes in the last quarter of the year. Okay. Yeah. Usually

093it's between next week and the second week of June. Okay. Typically. And I have uh two new staff members who will be attending training in the next uh four weeks. Are you required to have like C credits every Yes, we're required to and um my my newest employee is required to uh achieve a certification in a specific time period. So um he has to go to the training to get the classes required. Is that the AAO course? Um that's one of them. Yeah. Thank you. So did you did you say you anticipate support services to hit their number or that has not changed. That was the pictometry I was not either hasn't been invoiced yet. I haven't had Right. Do you I'm just saying between now and then June 3rd, do you anticipate hitting the

09425 plus grand number? Yes. Because they they don't invoice us until after the flight and it just happened a week ago, uh week and a half ago. Um so we'll be getting the the imagery shortly and then they'll invoice us. Oh, that's the Okay. I'm sorry. That's the uh Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You talked about that. I'm sorry. Um, gotcha. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thanks, sir. Thank you, Stuart. Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your evening. All right. We are on to item C, parks and facilities. We'll start with parks. Three subcategories there. Parks, grounds, parks, organized, and aquatic. parks. I'm changing my screen. Oops. Good evening. Tonight we have a recreation and parks director Craig Bowman, guest speaker. Hi everyone. Uh yes. So do you want to do we want to break it down

095by parks first then? We'll do we'll do Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Page by page. Great. So the the goals in the uh the last year's goals regarding the grounds. Uh yes. So uh we had three goals in the grounds. Um as you guys know, we we um did quite a bit of work over at Elmer Park this past year with um adding six pickle ball courts um that are heavily used. And uh we did a lot of work in house around those courts to restore the area. So goal number one is uh complete, but it's still um somewhat ongoing. In the next year, we'd like to to line the path from the back parking lot to the courts with some trees. We'd like to plant some new trees. That's one of our our goals for this

096year um is is planting some new trees around town and particular that area. So, that's one thing that's that's complete. Uh, our second goal was to proide to provide better access to Corey Park via Esther Road. Um, there was an entrance path there, but it was PE stone gravel. It really wasn't very accessible. So, we actually went in um with some stone process and rolled it and it's nice and flat. I was actually there earlier today um and it's working out really well. There's not any stone remnants in the driveway that that runs next to it. So, it's much more accessible than it was, which is great. And goal number three um which is an ongoing goal, but uh we have been doing a lot more work in center cemetery um with some overseating and

097slice seating. Um, in the past we had, you know, we we put a lot of time and effort and we always try and put time and effort into the cemetery, but you know, it it became one of those things where something needed to happen just like to a field that might brown up in certain areas. We had to take better care of it. So, in the last year, um, we do have a company that's coming in to assist with overseating the cemetery. Um, one thing that's a little bit difficult with the cemetery, just so everyone knows, is, uh, there's no irrigation there, obviously, because we have to dig plots. So, um, with that said, it it's in a a very good place right now. So those were our three goals last year in the parks

098side of things. Um you want to take this part over Ray or Yeah. Yeah. Just um going to the financial page and which is again the end which is page 150. Um you'll see the total expense increase is actually a a minus a 2% decrease of $25,413. Um um full-time salaries consisted of consists of 27 thou almost $28,000 with 3.6% increase. Um, going down page down to equipment and supplies, which is the third um, line item from the bottom of page 149. You'll see a $20,000 or 30% decrease in that line item. What was that from, Ray? That was the equipment and supplies. No, I mean what why the decrease? Was it anything particular? Um that was the uh we had um that was the uh zero um Yeah. So in 565 last year we

099purchased a new zeroturn Yeah. a mower because it was actually less than what was allowed in the capital equipment request because it's 25,000 or over. The zero term was 20. So, we had put it in our 5615 account last year and this year we didn't need that. So, um we pulled it back out of there. in vehicle parts. On page 150, there was a $10,000 decrease, and that had to do with the uh new dump body, which was last year. Also, that was pulled out and put into the CIP. And then a we have a 18% decrease in grounds improvements which accounts for a $10,000 decrease. I'm going to jump in and say this is where we're proud to say this is a use of one of the special revenues with your you were able

100to reduce that one with the field use money. So I know we're we're interested in when we're able to use it and this was one of those opportunities. Yes. So, one of the things we can do with that is uh like when we go and laser grade baseball diamonds, instead of taking it out of the general fund, it's usually an area we look to um in our field account, revenue account where we um bring in um off of private rentals of our fields and facilities. So, you know, they're using the fields, we're putting it back into the fields essentially with their user fees. And we were also able to pull back um some areas like we had we had a heavier dose for overseating for CE center cemetery last year but we've been able to

101somewhat make up ground there. So, we're allocating less towards the cemetery this year, if that makes sense. Questions? Yeah, I just got a question from Mona. Um on the special revenue funds it page 35 22 23 parks um had six oh 59,000 and then 2425 year to date it's over 400,000. What's what's the jump for? I think they've been consistently at that. And I'm sorry if I'm gonna open it and see where we're looking at 223 includes which DEC. All right. Which line are you looking at for um It's on page 35. If you go down on the revenue side, probably three4s of the way down, parks parks grants including DEC. Oh, that was actually just a uh that was Oh, help me with that one. Was that an additional grant? Yes, it was an

102actual grant. So, finalized and then we're into the uh that was the pickle ball grant. $42,000 pickle ball grant. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. And for 25 for the next fiscal year, you're anticipating like 50,000 in grants. That should be the remaining piece of that. I think you received 450. Okay. You only needed 400. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But it could be more based on Yeah. Depending on It could be any small like the pond or I'll look right. Uh any qu or other questions otherwise we can move on to uh parks organized. Just got a athletic court repair. We haven't been using that but we keep budgeting for it. What's that for? So we have So that's for um in the past we had had it for if we had any repairs that needed

103to be done at Maxwell or at a tennis court or at our Maxwell deck hockey court which we've now replaced. Um we also purchase net posts out of there or new nets so sometimes we don't use that. Um, and then this past year we um we didn't use it because what we needed to get done at the high school courts was greater than that. Um, and actually the board of ed did an emergency repair this past spring through our vendor. So that's why it didn't get used. So, I wasn't going to use it if it wasn't, you know, so I don't want to use it if it's not going to be used appropriately there. Thanks. Actually, Craig, that brings up an interesting question. In a situation like the high school field or the test courts,

104how's it determine if it's a board of education project versus a parks recreation project? to the town. I guess it's kind of the same, but yeah, it's kind of a complicated um it depends on the usage of it quite frankly and if it's on actual park property or if it's on school grounds. Um so with the tennis courts for example, the majority of the usage, yes, it might be from the public, but it's also from the um from the school programs. So your fizzed programs, tennis teams. Um, yeah, and your teams. So, you know, Ron and I have a really, really good working relationship where we, you know, work together on certain things. Um, you know, in the past, they had funded the softball field there, too. Um, but prior to me being here, we

105had done the turf because it's more shared space. So that's kind of the answer to that. Well, then like a softball field gets even more complicated because then you have the softball teams that aren't parts of wreck and aren't part of the high school. So it's but mostly the that field's used pretty much primarily by the high schools. Oh, it is. Okay. Yeah, there's a there was a time that it was used by others, but that's Yes. I'm dating myself, I guess. Been around a while, huh? Evidently. Um, great. Um, any other questions before we move on to the next subsection? Okay. Uh, parks organized. Organized activities, I guess, is the actual. All right. So, you had three goals there, too. Yep. Um, increase summerscape total attendance. Yep. So, goal number one, we did increase

106our total attendance at Summerscape last summer. um really with an emphasis on our teen camp enrollment. We had seen some declines over the years and uh we really pumped that out last year. We actually increase that attendance by 20%. Um throughout the summer so that that program was jamming every week for seven weeks and our overall attendance for summerscape was up 5%. Which is a is good. Um, excuse me. Goal number two, we um we wanted to put out a department needs assessment community survey just to kind of ask questions that we answered from the community and um we completed that back in November right before Thanksgiving. I do have some results I can pass out to you guys afterwards um about the the survey and the survey results and um really we tried to

107focus on a couple questions with the survey. Um the main one being what the community wants as the future of Elmer Pool and what they and we we tried to be, you know, we laid out a couple four or five different options with approximate costs, approximate funding sources and um so we were able to get some good feedback there. Um and then just any new program ideas that people might have. um we've really seen a down tick in um our volunteer coaching application over the past couple years. So, we were trying to get to the bottom of that and why people don't want to coach or why they can't coach. So, that was a question we asked. And then again, what I already touched on it, but new programming. So, we were able to complete

108that. And then um the third goal was to provide some new innovative programming opportunities to the public. Uh more of our specialty programming. So um we actually do have a couple pickle ball leagues. We have one league running right now as well as some beginner lessons for a couple different age groups. Um we've also added a couple morning yoga classes. We've added some art classes, circuit training class, stargazing class. Um in total right now specialty programming wise our department's offering uh about 77 different programs and in those programs there's there's 369 activities so we going um Logan and Nick great job of filling that center and uh offering a wide array of programs to you know the different um group within the public community doesn't include you know our program either camp program so we

109can't program have sports. Um, and it doesn't include our soccer program or our basketball program. So, pretty really pleased with those numbers. So, that's what we're going to I had a couple quick questions. Go to the looks like soccer dropped off numbers quite a bit. Was that a surprise? Well, no. One of the reasons why is we had a division because we didn't have coaches. Okay. So, we had to drop a third and fourth grade division um of coaches. That was one of the things I wanted to address was like why doing this? Um it's been a you know it's been a struggle. We we do our best to try coaches you know we we do offer them a credit to the department that they can use on anything. they can use it on a

110program we offer, you know, so we've thought about maybe increasing it. Um, you know, sometimes people just maybe don't have the knowledge or they're nervous to apply it because they don't they might not know it, but you know, we try and do our best to provide them with the resources necessary to to coach. And do any surrounding towns have surpluses that maybe somebody wants to come over here and No. No. You just you're seeing this a lot. Really? Yeah. Is it happening in other sports too besides soccer? You're saying um we had a little bit better success with basketball and I think you know I I I don't I don't soccer and the way the whole um culture is with soccer. Um, you know, we've tried to make it clear with us is, hey, we're

111a grassroots program. Like, we just want you to get in there and learn and have fun and, you know, learn a couple things and then, you know, naturally with the progression, you kind of move up, right? Then you, if you're good enough, you go to travel, but we still offer programs for those third and fourth graders that don't want to do it. Mhm. Um and it just kind of, you know, so we're more of an introductory program, so there's really not like much knowledge you need, you know. Yeah. So, Craig, as coaching shortage is concerned, do you ever consider maybe doing a coach like a clinic on, you know, how to be a soccer coach, what it entails, how to run a practice, you know, basic strategy, stuff like that? Yeah, we we offer all

112that stuff. You do? Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, we do that with basketball, too. We We offer clinics. We have We have a guy that comes in who's been doing this his whole life, and we pay him to come in and just give a couple drills and kind of key points and, um, you know, in other years we've done well. Um, it just seems to be soccer that we're having some issues with. Okay. The other question, and I'm going to admit this is somewhat selfish asking, so I'll just put it out there. There's talk of a golf simulator coming in. Is that still on the We've We've researched it. We've done a lot of research. Um it's something we'd like to pursue. Um we have some pretty hard costs on it of what it would cost.

113Um, but there's definitely some infrastructure things we need to do to the gym to make it work. Um, you know, as far as boxing the stage and, you know, making it accessible and that kind of thing. So, but we've definitely looked into it a lot. Um, I don't think any other recreation department in the state to my knowledge offers it. No, probably not. I just remember it came up. I don't know. It was last year before. I think you and Logan were maybe talking about it. So, yeah, it's not dead. Not dead, but just, you know, we had to prioritize things, you know. Yeah. No, just just for an update. That's fine. Punch the numbers out. Page 153. This is the kind of budget that we like to see on every page. Correct. There's an

114overall uh $885 or.3% decrease. Um most of this budget is composed comprised of full-time salaries at 8800 an increase of 8865. Um, and you'll notice down at the program activities, there was a 97 almost a $9,800 decrease or 18.5% in program activities. Um, I think you're you're deleting the summer kickoff party, Craig. Yeah. And also, um, deleting the community center startup program. And then you can talk to that if if there are questions, but um, you know, running down the page, they're all zero increases. Craig, in terms of I think you you had alluded to would sponsor sponsorships come under this section like for sports activities looking for sponsors? Yep. I've been seeing more advertising for that. Are you are you seeing a decrease in sponsorships? No, we have a pretty healthy healthy sponsorship um

115program. Uh we've kind of got it down to where it's a um actually we included that in our goal for next year was to increase the number of sponsors that that are helping out our department. Um, no. We've got a pretty healthy sponsorship program and we try and tailor it to the company's needs. So, you know, some will just come in and do a soccer sponsorship which is 250 bucks and it's great. Like that's something that's, you know, obviously valuable. And then there's someone who might give us $5,000 towards fireworks. So, you know, they're they're well ranged and they're, you know, we use them for our community events as well. So, our indoor events, our winter wonderland, we rely on sponsorship dollars to help offset costs. Our Hop Around the Hill event, same thing. And

116for sports like baseball, you still have the uniforms and all that. We don't we don't run a baseball program, so Little League has their own sponsorship program that they reach out. Yeah. So what becomes challenging at times is um you know there's a limited amount of businesses in town right so a lot of people are you know going to them for for money so um we're trying we try and be you know we try and establish the relationships that we we are able to establish right so the ones that we've always used um that have been generous enough to help us out we try and keep those relationships strong and then you you know, we have new companies that come in town, we try and touch base with them. I know Alandre has been really

117helpful um with Logan as far as tapping into some new businesses that are coming into town. So, um you know, we're always pursuing new avenues. Anything that we can do to help offset the cost to run a program or an event? Are are the fees competitive? like for people going to the pool for example or um some of the programs that they have to pay for. Are they competitive to area towns or Yeah. Okay. Yes. Mona, would that be an ordinance type of thing too or is that strictly under parks and wreck for the fees? If we made a change in fees, it would bring it through for uh finance. Okay. I think it was finance eventually the council, right? Yeah. Right. Okay. What are the sponsorship opportunities like like in baseball for example they

118put the names on the jerseys at park you know at at tomorrow they'll have the whole outfield line with billboards. Are there similar opportunities at a parks and wreck activity or there limitations that you can do because um it well it depends like we can have um you know one of the things we do is pool banners. We have companies that sponsor the pool. Yeah. And they put banners up at the pool during the summer idea. Yeah. And then, you know, for our summer concert series, we, you know, we have a sponsor board up at the amphitheater that that you, you know, it's right when you walk in, it says, "Welcome to thanks to our sponsors." And they're all listed or they're all they have like a hanging placard. Right. Right. Um, and then when

119we like market events, you know, so if we have a sponsor for Hop on the Hill, you know, I this past year, our our main sponsor actually was on the flyer. So, we put them on our flyer that we distribute to everyone. So, when it goes out in the email blast, it's there. Um, and then they get like a table at the event. So we try and give them as much exposure as we can you know depending on the level that they do sponsor. Um I did have one question on the numbers for printing. Are you seeing opportunities where we can bring that price down where everything is becoming paperless? Yeah. So we've done that. Um, I think for reference that that account used to be doubled when I started um, back in 2018 because

120we used to print four brochures and then we would send them out with the Rocky Hill life to every household in town. And you know as as this age has become more digital um we decided to ditch that and now we we actually have gone from four brochures to three and then we only print like 500 at a time. So we don't send any out in the mail. Um, now we've actually, this past brochure we're actually going down to 400. So, we're we're kind of dwindling that um, slowly. But there is a you know there still are people that like the the tangible version, but we've cut that number more than in half than what you know six years ago. How are those distributed? They're just in piles here at town town or so we'll

121put them in prominent locations. So like, so in the town manager's office, they have some. We'll put some down at our front desk. We put some at the library. Um, we'll put some at schools like in the front. Um, but yeah, and then just available on demand. Like someone might come and then we just, you know, here you go. Um, but we're keeping track of like how much we have. Like that's why we actually cut it from 500 to 400 this past goound. So we're trying to be mindful of that. Any other questions on this section? Great. Uh, move on to aquatic then. Aquatic. Again, you had three goals last year. Yep. The priority for the pool infrastructure. All right. So, yeah, goal number one, we were able to grout the pool last summer, um,

122as well as repair the main drain. We had a small leak in the main drain that we were able to fix, um, which was critical. Um, so goal number one was was completed um, at the by the end of last summer. Um, goal number two, which is increase pool attendance, that's still kind of ongoing. we're right on pace to to get close to that number down at the bottom, which is 30,500. Um, you know, obviously we still have a couple months left in the actual fiscal year. So, we're um we're tracking to be there um or close to that number. So, and just so everyone knows like the way we track the yearly attendance is not only do we track it with the actual paid passes or daily visits, but that also includes basically every

123splash into the pool, every jump into the pool. So, wherever whenever we have that pool monitored with our lifeguards, we're tracking who's going in and out of the pool. So, um that could include practices, that could include, um you know, swim team practices for our youth programs, swim team practices for the high school. Um and then we're hosting actually a pretty large um league meet this summer, which is going to be that'll be good for the numbers, too. So, we're tracking there. So, I I don't know if you want to say it's complete, but it's ongoing because we have to measure it up until June 30th. And then goal number three, um continuing to train more water safety instructors in house. So we actually trained um four in house and then we have a couple

124from out um from out of so we have some guards from other towns that they pay us to teach the the class. Um so in a way it's almost like a revenue generator for us. Um, we also certified a Hartford police officer recently. Um, but just to give you guys an idea of of how this works for us. So, last is it last year or maybe two years ago, we sent Nick to become a WSIT, which is a water safety instructor teacher. So, when you're a water safety instructor teacher, you're able to certify lifeguards in house to teach our swim lesson programs um that are, you know, um in conjunction with the Red Cross, American Red Cross. So, it might not seem like four is a lot, but it actually is when you have a

125staff, we have an indoor staff pretty much of like 18 to 20 during the wintertime. and we have um five of those. So like a quarter of the staff are WSIS, which is great. So they can teach swim lessons. Um and then in the summertime, we have between 18 to 20 of our 40 staff who are WSIS. And then one of the people that we just taught or that we just certified works in New Britain in the summer, but she's going to come and work for us in the fall to teach swim lessons. So, it's also kind of become a recruitment tool for our department. Um, so Nick, I thought I I think Nick's done a fantastic job with with that with that um program. And it's, you know, a lot of towns will call

126us and say, "Hey, are you running a WSI class?" Because I've got four people that we need to certify for the summertime. So, if we're running a class, we'll get him in the class and Nick will teach it and then hopefully they pass the certification to get certified. So, it works out really well. Works to our benefit. So, those are our three goals. All right. Page 156. Actually, K, I just had a question about that before we get to the numbers. Tried to slip that in. Good try. Um, the the stats you gave for the pool, that's both for the the indoor and the outdoor pool combined, I assume. So, um, just some stat I and I you probably don't have this at your fingertips. So, may if you want to email us later, Raone

127or whatever, but just curious about statistics about the outdoor pool, how much it's being used, how what percentage is being used for out of town versus in town people, you know, that sort of thing. I don't know if that's anything you have handy tonight because we didn't really sure prepare you for that. So happy to Oh, see because I've asked it in prior years. That's right. He's ready. Um, so last year for outdoor pool for our resident passes, we had 2,929 resident pass uses and we had 25 non-residents. So that's just that's just people who buy a pool pass. Um, the obviously the resident pass is much cheaper than the non-resident pass. So those are passes or pass times the pass was used. That's that's attendance. So that was 29 swipes with the resident p

1282900 swipes with a resident. Right. But that's probably but do you know how many people individuals make 29? Well well no but the same person's probably come more than once to the pool, right? Yeah. So last year we had 533 Gotcha. um resident summer pool passes. Great. Does that make sense? Yep. There's a lot of like variables. So, yeah. Yeah, that's um and then for resident just daily. So, that we had 837 paid just for the day. Yeah, just for the day. And we had 552 non-residents. I'm sorry, Craig. You said that's in the summer. That's at the outdoor pool. Mhm. Was it 2900 before? It was 2900. Yeah. And then 25 non-residents and that was for Elmidge. That was for Elmer. That was just the outdoor pool. Okay. With using the summer or some

129using their annual pass. Got it. Yep. Okay. Are those those might be family passes or are they could be or they could they're an individual on the pass. Yep. So even if you have a family pass, it's still each person has that pass. Do you know how do you know how much it is for a resident pass? Off the top of my head, I I have to send that to you. I don't know. No, that's okay. I was just curious. Next. Next. Okay. Page 156. Bottom line increase of $5,928. Um, we have, um, an increase of $3,128 in full-time salaries, just just over 3% and a $5,000 increase in part-time salaries. And you'll see that we have um proposing $165,000 in part-time. We have a $2,000 decrease in pool repairs and chemicals have increased thousand

130just based on cost of increases for for product. Running down to pool equipment, we're looking at a $1,200 decrease. Dues and subscriptions, no change. Um the uh part-time salary increase is is fairly significant um for many of those those are those salaries are close to minimum. Um so we need to kind of stay ahead of that as we go forward. So we need to make sure that we're we're budgeting appropriately for uh for that. So I had a question about that. It's probably maybe more for Mona than for Craig. So the part-time salaries well this pay for both you are those are are those lifeguards or is there anything else in lifeguards? So is there special revenue that we take in that offsets that or is this what the town has to pay on top

131of the special revenue to make it all work or how does it play out? Go ahead. So, um, so we use our special revenue account, um, to pay for the WSIS that are teaching our swim lesson programs. So, um, they cover all of our swim lessons and then we use this account to pay for our general pool um, hours essentially. Um, and what I can tell you guys is, and Nick's done a fantastic job since he came five years ago in restructuring the way that the pool is staffed, um, with our shifts and our coverage. Um, but I mean I can tell you right now like we are going to be right up against the wire with this year's part-time salaries budget and when the state keeps increasing minimum wage. Yeah, we keep, you know,

132we have to move up too. Yep. Just a slight level above it. Just a slight level above it. We're not, you know, and and we have a very structured um part-time salary, you know, with the way we pay our guards with a step one, step two, and then if they become a senior guard or they become a WSI, they become a pool manager. Like we have a rate table and what they get paid. And so whenever the state increases the minimum wage that rate table kind of just shifts slightly and it has a ripple effect. Yes. Very good. Yes. Thank you. So how many part- timerrs do you have for that? So, for the indoor pool, um, in total about 40 guards and I would say 30 of them are pretty active. And then we

133do have subs. We have a sub list. Um, but there's all different hours of coverage that they have to provide. I mean, we've got two that, you know, are opening up the high school pool every morning for early bird swim at 6:30 a.m. Um, and then we've got people that cover Rex swim at night throughout the year. Um, lap swim after school. Like it it there's a lot of different times. Um, but the beauty of the program is, you know, we're able to still employ like we have like a teacher on staff who will come in at night and get hours. So, it's not just limited to a certain age demographic that's covering the pool. It's it's spread out. Um, so it works. That's one of my question. I mean, that's a significant number of

134money we're paying. Can you evaluate certain hours? Do we have to be open at 6:30 in the morning? Nobody shows up. Oh, they show up. Do we have to be here at the next meeting? Do we have to be open at 7 8 at night? You know what I mean? Is there a time period that I mean, the next way if you don't want to if you don't want to increase part-time salaries, you cut hours. It's simple. There's no way. And we're providing the there's a certain number of people based on the size of the the pool that we have to have on deck at all times when the pool's open to the public. That was a question. Is there more than one lifeguard at times or is there just one? There's usually two on

135deck. Okay. Yep. Covering covering the indoor covering the indoor pool. Right. The outdoor pool is is different. What is that one then? There must be if there's not two or is there more? No, there's more. Oh, there's more. Yep. Is there a state minimum with that type of stuff or is that there's mandates based on the size of the deck area? Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Craig. Uh question on on the pool. Um I actually just lost my page. Um I know on the survey, you know, that most people just wanted the patches on Elmidge. How long do you think that could be sustained? I mean, it's a 60 year old pool. How long can patching it be sustained without something major coming up? I'm not an expert. I I really can't answer that. I mean, obviously,

136they built it pretty well because the thing's 60 years old and it's still kicking. But I also think a lot of that has to do with the level of care that that Walt and our crew puts into take and maintains. Yeah. Yeah. There's, you know, there's no mistake like part of the reason why is because of Walt and and what he's able to do and and we're very, you know, on schedule with repairs. We try and keep everything on schedule. Um, but to answer your question, there's no magic wand. It I mean, there's been no concerns addressed to you from like Walt or anybody in his crew that, you know, we probably have two or three more years of of this patching before something major needs to develop it. I just don't want to see

137something down the road on the pool for a whole season. To my knowledge, no. There's Okay. Yeah, that's all I was looking for. But it's, you know, it's I think it's 60 years old. Walt swam in it as a kid. Sorry, Walt. So, like 10 years ago. I just want to make a positive comment. I mean, throughout your budgets here, they've been very tight from year to year, and you know, that helps us a lot. Thanks for that. Appreciate it. Thanks, Greg. Yeah. Yeah. Can I have a m motion for a fiveminute recess? So moved. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay, we're coming back into session. Next is U under parks facilities uh C2 facilities building maintenance and facilities custodial. Come on up, Phil. Phil sir, director of facilities. So, as you've as you've seen,

138we uh just kind of go over briefly the uh progress on the goals from last year. So, maybe you can run through those. All righty. Uh goal one was uh having the uh trades mechanics team capture cost of material and hours and documenting them on work orders for future data. Um the um I have an an attachment on on for uh year 203 um it was at 84% of ours captured. Uh this year um 86% hours captured. Goal number two, um, purchase, uh, tablets for the trade mechanics, uh, for them to document material cost hours and to close out their work orders as soon as they complete them in the field. So instead of uh, having them come back to their their cube, their computer, close it out, the tabs allows them to to close

139it out right there and then go on to their next uh, next um, work order. Um again uh 20 2023 um we were at 71% completed. 24 uh we moved up a percentage of of 74%. Phil, let me just stop you. If if you go to page 158, Phil has a a really uh really nice uh chart that he's walking us through. So really really clarifies it. Or if you can or you can look at at the screen. I look at the book. I'm sorry. I just go by the book. Um so, um my goal three for last year was uh project managing the hourly uh Eversource lighting and mechanical equipment replacement. Um that's complete as of uh March 31st. Um and then during I my our GOP meeting, I went, "Yep." It was a

140lot of work, but uh the uh the contractor did really well and then uh this year so that that goal will go away. Um uh I introduced a new goal, goal four. Um so uh back in January I was approached by Eversource um to uh see if we were interested in a pilot program. And and a pilot program is an energy efficient city pilot program. Um it's run by a contractor named EDO um through Eversource. So what they'll do is they'll come in free of charge. They'll come in, audit all our automated buildings and um with that um they will uh they have made um um an a line item list and then uh what we'll do is um I put down well this for estimated 2425 which we're in now um we're going to

141get about 50% of the changes implemented. So, what the changes would do would um they would come in and and tweak um our set points and and hours and that sort of thing um to uh help make us, you know, our equipment more more energy efficient. Um the anticipated um goal for for next budget year would be 75% of the changes um implemented and then hopefully with that the following year um 26 27 track the efficiencies what we really um you know are saving. Um again it's free it's no cost to us. They sent an engineer, an engineer, uh, an energy efficiency engineer come uh, to come in and and and audited again all our buildings with the automation um, in in payment. Um, what they want to do is um, they want to in

142the summertime when the grid gets taxed um, as far as power, they want to be able to come in through our automation and tweak um, and and tweak the set points of um you know uh thermostat you know thermostat settings. So they go in and make the changes to reduce you know uh motor loads um to see if um it works so they can provide the program to other municipalities other uh you know private sector businesses. So I said it's you know it's for free yeah let's do it. So, and at the same time, they're going to show us basically how we can tweak things. Low hanging fruit stuff. Uh, right now, um, you'll see in the budget going forward. Um, my HVAC line, I increased it by 5,000. And the 5,000 will help pay

143for the automation company to come in and and and and take care of all the line item uh uh efficiencies that we can that we can uh do. I mean it's it it involves a lot of programming that which we can't do. They would need to do it. So that's my that's my goals. All right. Overall total increase is 1% for this particular budget or almost $13,000. Um about $14,500 uh are in full-time salaries. And moving down the technology software, which is the uh facility dude, you know, the work order system that uh that uh is used uh for maintenance. Um that's a uh thousand reduction because Phil um bundled the cost of facility due into a three-year contract. So the actual annual uh prices is reduced. We have a uh $4500 increase in service

144contracts. Um, and it might be easier if Phil, this is kind of specialized like fire and police. So maybe Phil if you want to if there are questions about each line item, Phil can jump in and kind of explain to you what each one is. You know, I have notes here, but he can give you much more depth. Is that fair, Phil? Yeah. All right. you see a $10,000 increase in the building repair um price hikes um and also historically for I don't know how many years Phil you know that's you have not ever changed that amount over the course of how many six years six years or so I think it's time that uh we need to kind of up that just to reflect current prices uh HVAC back repairs, an increase of $5,000.

145That's for the energy adjustments that were just uh that was Phil just went over. Now, moving down to the light and power almost $400,000 proposed cost um reflects a $29,44 $4440 increase and that's for all of the town buildings. uh including Ferry Park, you have a $30,000 reduction in uh heating fuel. Um that is um result of the efficiency gained through the RLE energy efficiency program. Yeah. Not not 100% also based on on the surplus history that we've had. So, um, in conversation with Mona, we looked at it and says, "I think we can we can, uh, we could swing that." And on page 161, um, we are reducing the building improvements by $15,000. I have a um a question on the the light and power and Mona. This will probably sound familiar with the

146Is there any is there any chance or has there been any study on the solar panels on on some of the roofs because the subsidies now are are pretty generous and the expenses for for light is not going to be decreasing. So, it's been steadily increasing for the cost. And can't we look into at least getting a study on how many buildings we could put panels on to subsidize that? We could. There has never been a well not that I'm aware of a an official study on um town buildings and you know what the cost savings may be and the cost to put them in and maintain them and and all that. Yeah, with the park with board of ed at one point for the schools, see if they could put it on. Well, even

147with like Bill just kind of mentioned, West Hill with getting a new roof, right? Why not look at it? But for the municipal side, yeah, I mean, aren't there any opportunities even on some of the, you know, the firehouses? We could look into that. Yeah. I mean, we have not done it. To answer your question, no, we haven't, but we will. Um, not to No, go ahead. to speak over. But is there is there issues because we already have the the solar farm that we can't we have to utilize all the energy that's produced at the solar farm that's 3 megawatts. We have to use them in our 15 accounts that we were allowed to designate which was many of our buildings. Um when we use solar that's going to reduce the amount of wattage

148that we'll be using. So, we need to find out if how that will impact our agreement with Tesla or the usage for that matter. They're still going to purchase what's generated and if it's not being used, I know I could go off on my tangent on solar, but yeah. Okay. But, but it does, like I said, we've got with our current bills where it creates credits um on the bill, but the charges are still coming in from the solar. So we don't want to kind of worsen that situation, but I think it's worth looking at. Absolutely. Okay. Well, so is this number on here net of credits or are the credits that offset this number? Actually, what do you're seeing on that? I'll just complicate it even better for you. But we've got for example

149RLE when we signed on with their agreement they are actually charging on the electric bill and then we have to through finance take the charges for that out at year end and apply it to the capital line item. So if it's looks like it's on the high side we're actually take that and we've got a reserve of about 250,000 for RLE and it'll be more than enough to cover it. So that projection for the year cost is accurate, the 368. So it it'll tend to creep up. In fact, it'll by June it'll go over. Then at year end, we take all of the RLE charges and apply it to that u other line item. And what about credits with um Eversource? Credits with you know, yeah, he's he's like, don't ask her anymore. Seriously, no.

150If the pro if the program worked correctly, it would be really common sense and but the issue is trying to apply the credits through the Eversourc's program which makes it almost impossible to utilize credits and we have we're capped also with the amount of credits with that. So um I would say from and again it it becomes an accounting issue but basically again at year end we look at all of those accounts that we couldn't gather the the refund back on the credits and we are allowed to identify it as a receivable. The the unfortunate thing is I know I'm g sound like an accountant but you cannot account for the full receivable if you're not gaining it back in the the 90 days after year end. So there's still that piece which I think

151I looked at about a 100,000 that was out there um last year that if we were not doing it in that that situation where we're doing a charge and waiting for a credit then we probably could have booked that um better. Um what we do get is the opportunity once once I thought you said shovel once a year to to change which buildings are getting the credit. So it's it works in the long run. We work with the board of ed to board of ed is a big large user during the during the winter. um they don't generate much they don't utilize much in the summer but you know it's like like you said it's accounting overall if you you know globally it kind of works but you know Tom's side versus board of ed

152and it's like may have said it's an accounting issue. Yes, board of ed will get a lot of the credits and and they are good enough to work with us. So they don't say, "Oh, look at us. We got all the the credit and you know, my bill is a dollar and you just paid 30 grand, which I usually, but they will at year end. We we have a formula and so this is how much of your credit that I had to pay for and they'll give us a check at the end of the year." I think they gave us 120,000 the end of last year to compensate for credits that they had and we couldn't receive money on. But if you look if you look forward a couple years and and we do start

153moving towards EVs and we have the chargers that's going to be drawing more electricity. So the police department building this building could certainly offset that with some panels. Um because I mean the way I look at it on a on a very high level I'd rather spend a dollar to get two or more dollars in reduced expenses. question about your service contracts. What do you have for service contracts in that line item? Um, so it service contracts um generator uh maintenance um has compliance inventory SS SDS sheet. So they come in and and audit our chemicals throughout all our buildings. Uh put it in uh electronic form, finder form, um fire alarm testing, um mechanical uh uh building maintenance um on some of our equipment, not all. uh fire systems, um pest control, um uh

154son control monitoring, they monitor um our our Berg systems, our fire systems and and so on through, you know, most of our buildings. Harford sprinkler sprinkler system testing um uh fire extinguishers and all our in all our buildings plus fleet um shreddit uh state of Connecticut elevator certificates, state boiler inspections, elevator inspections. I just ran the list that answered that. Thank you. Any other questions on this? With that, we'll move to uh facilities custodial. All right. So, goals. Um, so last year's goals were and and to find to to to try to get goals, you know, and the type of work that we do, especially the custodians, it's tough to do. Um, so, um, you know, I go back to my team and we try to figure out, you know, what what can be, you

155know, substantial and and and and real as far as, you know, our operations. But anyways, um listing um so I got the complete cleaning and line painting and equipment rooms. So we would all of my equipment rooms have electrical panels, disconnects, transformers. Um OSHA says, you know, we can't or and fire marshall says that we can't store in front of these things. Well, what I wanted to do is put a visual line. Okay. front of these panels. So, we painted yellow lines in front of all my electrical panels and again transformers, disconnects, um so we don't store, you know, in front of those um and stay compliant with fire marshal OSHA. So, they went in, they cleaned out all our equipment rooms, uh the floors, um and painted lines in front of these. So, um

156they completed it. um over over to Wednesday about December, January. So um that was the goal for last year. This year um what I wanted them to do is um develop work orders. So be more aware of their surroundings. If you see it, say something, right? Um so um what I asked them to do there's five uh custodians shift so I asked them with five work orders for the course of the year that's 25 uh could be anything you know ceiling time stain you know um broad bubbling you know that sort of thing just so they could be part of the operation just so they could be you know you know so they they can they can feel as though they're, you know, they're contributing. You know, what also this does is I feed basically

157my trades guys because they're the ones that are going to be receiving, you know, the other end of the the work orders and then um and then um you know complete them. So it'll help with you know the cosmetics as far as you know noticing things and and reporting it in a work order form. So a goal for next year Okay, nice job, Phil. You have to excuse me. I'm not elaborate as Mr. Bowman over there. [Laughter] Okay, we have a $34,600 increase overall in the custodial budget. Um 36,802 is um in salaries. Then we have a $2,000 telephone. Sorry thou $2,000 increase in janitorial supplies just uh based on costs going up. And again, this has been flat for years also. um and $2,000 decrease in in what's called other equipment. Pretty um simple

158budget here. It's been a 9% bump up in full-time salaries. Yes, that was one of the uh contracts mentioned in the earlier pages where they has it shows double year. So when they budgeted, they settled after adoption. Thank you. which is and they have a couple of two at least two new people. If I'm missing one, I didn't mean to, but new staff. Um the that gentorial supply line. Um like Ray mentioned, I inherited that 18,000 six years ago and we were able to deal with CO um the uh 15,000 square foot addition uh community center. Um and a lot of that was attributed to my u super my custoors and equipment and supplies and you know basically sometimes beating these guys up to you know to shame them into keeping their price as well.

159He's he does a good job. Um, but I'm going to be really close to to the the minus by the time uh year end uh budget year end. So, um had to look at increasing that. But again, we took away 2,000 from the other equipment which is new equipment that we would purchase. Any questions? Hey, Phil. Hey. Yippee. Phil. You have to hang around, though. You can't go home. Yeah. Next up is item D, community development. And there's three subsections: building, town planner, and inner. So, we'll see town planner. I'm coming. I'm almost there. You said top planner first. Yeah. Okay. He knows I've been here three nights in a row. So that's that was nice. Thank you. Kim Richie, town planner. Talking about You want to talk about goals? Yes, please. Correct. Okay. Uh

160planet conservation development. Um, we had money in the budget. We did not use a consultant for the document. We do have a working draft online. I do have a link to that document if you would like to receive it if you haven't done so already. I will certainly, you know, get that out to any and all of you. Uh, I would encourage the public to also do the same. Uh, we did have a community survey involved with that. uh POCD was a combination of uh ranking and rating items as well as open-ended questions. Um we received well over 500 responses which we were kind of impressed by seeing that it wasn't up for a while. Um so that will be going to public hearing in June. Uh one of the other goals was on zoning

161regulation updates once the plan of conservation development is finalized. That's when the regulations get updated in concert with the POC. Uh the the council just recently passed a resolution where they would u partner with MDA, Municipal Development Authority, um as far as looking at certain sections of town. Um, and we would certainly like to uh utilize that resource as well to assist us in in reviewing our regulations. That's part of the process uh for certain areas of town. So, they will be looking at um primarily the town center area, some of our commercial areas and along Saline Highway. So, that's one of the goals I had. Um affordable housing committee uh that has been established. was established by ordinance. We've had several meetings um uh thanks to your appointments. Uh we did set up bylaws.

162Uh last night we had an affordable h we had a housing forum. While it wasn't well attended, we did receive a lot of good information from several different agencies. um the housing authority, CHFA, uh human services on renters rebate, uh Washington trust with respect to mortgages and mortgage brokers and liberty bank. So we did have a lot of good information. It was recorded on YouTube. So we plan on playing that for some of our different boards and commissions. Um so that is up and running. Uh complete streets. Uh we do have a policy enacted thanks to you folks. Uh there have been some additional sidewalk projects that have been um completed and that's an ongoing thing with respect to sidewalks. Uh traffic traffic some traffic calming measures are being considered uh throughout the town in

163certain areas. Um but we do not have a complete streets plan in place yet. That's something that we will be working on and that's also included in our plan of conservation and development. So, uh, and I believe that's one of the goals for this budget year is a complete streets plan, um, as is the zoning regulation update. So, um, which will be done after the PC is enacted. There's any questions on the goals, please let me know. Just explain the timing on complete streets, Kim, because I believe our updated POC is due July this July 1st, right? Yeah, we're we're having a public hearing in June on that. The complete streets I thought you said was going to be part of that, but then you also said you'll be working on complete streets in the

164coming year. No, the uh complete streets plan is included as far as the need to do that. The need to I see. Okay. Enact a complete streets plan as an action item, not not the actual plan. Yes. Got it. Okay. Thank you. And just with respect to to planning and zoning, any particular priorities in your mind as we go in um you know, issues that that are foremost in your mind that that may need to be addressed or updated. Okay. Well, concerning our our POCD, no, the planning planning and zoning rigs, I think you said uh initiate some zoning regulation updates, which is one of the priorities. I know that part of would be driven by the POC itself. I understand that. But do you have any initial did anything come to mind from your

165standpoint on in general about zoning regs that you think might need to be updated? Well, we're talking about the the plan is very much into uh resiliency, sustainability. We're talking about low impact development. We're talking about preservation of open space, connectivity of open space, the riverfront. Um, we're also talking about housing, the need for more affordable housing. Uh, developers are are fine and willing to provide affordable units that are 80% of the, you know, u area median income, but they're not looking at the 60%, the 40%. So, we're going to try to work with developers and financing agencies to try to kind of make that connect for others for the young folks starting out or for the seniors that are downsizing. So, there's a few different things. Thank you. Actually, one quick question regarding that.

166with all the apartments um going up and applications and with respect to the affordable housing uh number where where are we as a percentage to that 10%. Okay, keep in mind it's not the constructed units. I mean, I'm sorry, it's not the proposed or approved units, it's the constructed units. So, we're I believe shy of 5%. and that fluctuates and typically it's the CHFA mortgages that that makes up the difference, but right now we're we're just shy of five. Okay, another glorious uh budget page. 20 almost a 25,000 de dollar decrease or almost well n a half% decrease. Um of note Kim mentioned um $30,000 reduction in the uh consultant um line item bringing that to zero um for the plan of conservation and development. Fantastic work. We're looking at um $100 decrease in uniforms

167for contracts and $850 decrease in member expenses. Um those are just miscellaneous for name plates and um also for mandated um I believe for state uh mandated state training. We have $1,200 last year. Yeah, we're finding we're finding some creative ways to to uh through Yukon uh land use uh academy or what have you. There are some free training sessions. Uh the Connecticut Bar Association puts on a bianual uh training that you can get all your training required by state statute in uh one day. Um, so that won't be coming up till next next year. It happened this past year. I have I have to um can I just jump back to the zone councilor Sullivan's question on zoning regulations? You didn't mention anything about maybe easing up some of the regulations on business development.

168I just had Mona told me not to mention anything but why couldn't help myself. Oh, you're talking about process. Yeah, process. Process because uh the current regulations um have everything is a special permit process. Most everything is a special permit process. Um and that was put in place by the commission a while back uh where they wanted to have more control. Um and if certain uses that are typically found in say a commercial zone or an industrial zone uh your more benign typical uses um should be handled with a site plan application and then you can write the regulations. So, your requirements may be more stringent, but under a site plan, you either meet the regulations or you don't. There's no public hearing process. Um, but I know that I I think that's where you're

169going with that. Yeah. Yeah. We've we've had discussions for, you know, 20 years. Okay. Thank you. Any such revisions to the plan and zoning rigs will be subject to a public hearing, right, Ray? Yes. Yes. Any questions on the budget? Uh, we'll go on to the next. Which section you want to do next, Trey? Building department. Building building building. Yes. Speaker Mike Violet, building official. Hello. All right. So, so just um you know Mike's goal is to enforce the building regulations so accordance to the code but you know maybe if if there's anything else around that maybe you can be sure. Yeah. Um I mean the main goal that we came up with was uh just to improve the department's functions and procedures. So, what we've been doing is uh just trying to educate the

170public and contractors um with the permit process and what department approvals are required and what you know type of plans you would need to submit to to uh pull certain permits. And um so we've been creating handouts and guidelines. Um, we finished a deck handout. Um, and we're currently working on a uh pool handout. Um the deck one is finished and it's posted on our website and um it it um it explains um you know gives guidelines on on all the code requirements for decks and the permit process and um what inspections are required and just kind of educates the contractors and and uh homeowners just so we're all on the same page. And it also um kind of gives them an idea of what we're looking for on the plans. It spells it out

171for them and then you know it's a quicker plan review for us and we don't have to contact them because they're missing something and it just kind of speeds up the whole process and they're able to get their permits faster. Um, another thing we've been working on is um, we have a new software. Um, and you know, as we use this new software, we're uh, learning um, what adjustments need to be made to the software to for our needs and also just to offer better services to the public. Um, we're trying to digitize everything. So, we've been we had a couple interns in and um they're scanning uh documents from our street files. We're trying to get everything online. So, um like residents, contractors, real estate agents, they can all go to our online program

172and type in an address and everything pops up for them. Open permits, uh you know, violations and just everything. So, like a one-stop shop. And um so that's that's what we've been working on towards the goal. Great. Great. Okay. Um budget page 10,797 total overall increase. Um full-time salaries account for 30.6% 6% increase or 13,82. Um overtime has been reduced um $1,500 to uh zero. Moving down to technical supplies, u code books, electronic equipment like for their iPads. Um code books I believe every two years you need to update those every three years. Okay. If they're on track. Yeah. So, we that has been reduced $2,000. Um and then the um dues and subscriptions um that has been increased 1995 $1,995. And that's a the building software open gov that was mentioned uh that Mike

173uh walked you through for uh permitting and coordination and process. Any questions on the budget numbers? Well, I just had a quick question on uniforms and cleaning. Um they spent 1164 prior fiscal year zero as of this. I don't know what they've spent in actuality through now. Which one? Uniforms and cleaning. Yes, that's completely uh contractual on that. So um let me see what we have this year. I'm just gonna say get it. And there you go. You got to bring them give them back Mike. You got Okay. But it is that's a just timing. Okay. Uh no there are no other questions then we'll move on to engineering. Thank you. Thank you Mike. So I think you you've got the process down. Do I? Yeah. Yeah. So well these are this year that you're

174showing. So gold squeaky chair that I was sitting in about that I'm sorry squeak before I didn't I said something about my eyes number one was sidewalks we wanted to bid and award different projects uh one of them Elm Street and back and forth through agencies onations how toain on the as have to different problem what we did uh hills phase one we'll be going out to mid uh weeks we'll have on this list but it uh just shifted is Washington sidewalk is out to bid that should be opened up I think next week or the week after the Centry Hills phase 2 and Glastonbury A are both with T waiting review so probably next year for those. Uh second goal was um the MS4 EPA our unfunded mandates of just uh for um you

175know clean water the clean water act goes back to 1972 I believe. Can you just uh brief council about what does NS4 Yeah. So it's it helps with the clean water. There's there's six components. um is educational component. There's some things that without a long lengthy uh description what it is, but it's about separating storm water out of out of uh the storm source and just dumping it directly into say a stream without somehow treating it first. It's simple as running over your grass to filter it as such. Um cleaning catch basin, sweeping streets, all that falls under there. And uh you know we have Dave Palmerg in our office and he's doing a terrific job with it. Uh part of it's the reporting. There's the report's online now. It's open for x amount of

176weeks for public review. When it when that time runs out, then we submit it. Um so there's a fee of course for that. There's that goes along that every year. There's a fee that that's gone up as has kept base and cleaning's gone up quite a bit. Um, so those are but we stay on them to to keep our uh, you know, keep that report going and keep hopefully keep our record clean. That was the two goals, Ray. All right. We have a 3.7% overall increase of uh $21,300. Um salary increases account for $16,000, just over 16,000 to 3.6%. Um part-time salaries have been reduced um of 19% or $6,000. Um fees and markings, payment markings. Um basically um that has been reduced uh almost 26% or $9,000 and storm water management which is basically

177the MS4 that Steve just talked about water sampling and and unfunded mandate dates by by the by the state again um that has almost 49 and a half% increase or 16,000 550 increase in that particular item. Prices have increased. Um we have a uh let's see moving down $750 increase for business expenses and a $275 decrease up in training. And then running it down to the bottom of of this particular page is uh conservation district dues. Um we deleted um that annual membership which would be almost $2,200. And then maps and subscriptions um increase of uh almost $11,000. Um that is uh including the uh the shared mapping with the assessor's office that uh Stuart talked about earlier the GIS uh the or EZRI which is a which is the uh brand name brand common

178brand name it's the it's a mapping system that shared between community development and assessor's I just had a question about part-time salaries. Uh do you have an up-to-date number for this fiscal year? Uh remained the same as a uh we had a part-timer and he actually retired right as we got into the construction season last year for you know personal reasons. Uh so we never backfilled that position last year so we didn't use it at all. So what's the plan going? Well the plan going forward rather I don't think we're going to be bringing anybody on but when we get into these construction projects we'll probably be able to use that line item as just to bring in a consultant for the limited scope of the project. So we've done that before. So, if we

179have a high uh say a sidewalk project is going out to bid right now, we need inspection on it, it's going to last a month, we'll get a consultant for a month to come in and pay out of that. That'll be the part-time type of thing, I would think, rather than bring on somebody year round like we had. Would that have to because it's not an employee, can it does that to go on a different line? You think just like me. I'm sorry. I mean, I'd love to have a part-time guy, but be allowed to charge that person to the part-time line. However, that would have funds there if he didn't have a line. So, yes, only part-time is for actually people with the payroll W2s. It's kind of an accounting. Yeah. How like would

180you is 5,000 you might spending on we going 375 for like how many years? Uh with now it's kind of a year round. Uh the last couple years was basically mornings, but come summer, he he'd be here all day, every day. Uh and we're right up against it every year. So I would think 25,000 for a summer would be more than enough. We hope. But again, bringing in a part-timer, you're going to pay him going right now probably somewhere around bucks an hour for a part-time. I know I don't think Weathersfield was 37 $8 an hour anyways for their guy to bring in somebody business consultant. They're double that but paying the insurance and and li you know all the that goes with it with the employee. So it'll be a high person but for

181a short duration. What would that person be doing? Construction inspection. We're going to have at least two maybe three sidewalk contracts out at once. That's not something that we do in house. something you can go out and inspect. We can do some, but we can't dedicate staff all day to it. It's just because we have so many projects right now. We have, I think, 13 grants we're working on that we're administering, doing design work for, you know, that goes along with that plus the regular CIP plus this. So, it's, you know, puts us behind. We do what we can. Again, it's a it's it's almost a placeholder, but if we need it, it's there. We you don't have to run up. It's like it's a salary. Yes, we're going to spend all 25,000. It's going

182to it it depends. What's the date the actual uh fees and markings? So, actually to do the whole when I first came to town, that's about the price to do the whole town including parking lots 25 years ago. Now we have a price of 62,500 just west side of town with parking lot. A lot of hand work, a lot of lines. That was to just the west side. We we have not done anything this year. We're holding off. So you anticipate doing any We'd like to just, you know, be probably something around June. Yeah. Yeah, for the uh we wanted to see how everything else was playing out this year before we went and did anything in case we need it. And what about the business expenses this year? They're very minimal. Yep. All of

183a sudden, we're projected to use it all. And that was your uh conference we just is that 55? Yeah, that's our conferences and things we attend. The invoices come in since then. So, okay. Yep. Thank you. Any other questions on the budget there? Just the mapping. You said you jointly use it with the assessor. What is the mapping? So, he was talking about the the GIS. Um, so I don't have a sample on me, but say Kim's has that uh the draft POCD. All those maps in there, the bulk of them were done on GIS. And we have two guys in our office that can do that versus sending out to a consultant. um you know we're constantly getting as act can you make a map that shows this that the other thing right now

184I do it you know we'll do it on AutoCAD which is very cumbersome so you know like I said we have this guy uh Ben in our office and before he came to us he was a JS manager so he's pretty well verssed but for him to be able to use it he has to have a seat a license so that's our share a license from the vendor yeah from the vendor So Stewart is for his people to use and then this will be for our people to use. Can't sh apparently you can't share the licenses. So thank other questions. Thanks for your time this evening. Thank you. And we go on to CIP I believe is the last item agenda. Yep. Capital improvements. I'm gonna drive on this one for a bit. We should

185have the guys. Oh, no. Sure. You want to come up? You'll get tagged in. You're going to be discussing here anyway, so may as well come up. We'll start with the probably high level at this point. So, presently in your capital improvement line item in this proposed budget is the 1,945 I'm going to get into more detail about these reserve lines, but we have 450 for uh infrastructure, 250 for the parks facilities, and we talked earlier about the education uh presently at 250. Um and looking at returning to the 600 in the next year. Uh the only new uh equipment item is a leaf unit. Uh the 38,000 is year one of three if we were to go that way. and finance it over a three-year uh purchase. The 957 that is includes any continuing

186leases for vehicles and equipment. Uh the majority of that is uh what I was mentioning earlier with the RLE for the 350,000 of that is the RLE. Again, it comes through the electric bill, but it will be charged here so we can keep track of it separately. and the town aid road which is about 380,000. So those two items are taking the majority. You still have um I think a backhoe and a mower and four vehicles that are still on ongoing leases from prior years. So want I'm going to take from this and go on to a couple of spreadsheets and talk about the um reserves. I'm gonna pick on the uh parks and facilities one first. I don't know if we can see this. Is that big enough? Oops. Oh my gosh, he made

187me go smaller. I'm not kids. Okay. So, similar to what I was pointing out earlier with the board of ed taking the same format, these are the the items that are uh presently in here, you wanted to to uh point out that we have the reserve identified for parks and facilities is the $250,000. That's what we had this current year and planning to continue at that. Uh the current uh predicament that we have is right now we've got listed items that are over 675,000 and hopefully we'll have discussion and uh make decisions on those. Um the first one is the uh Elmidge pool. We've uh committed to 250,000 per year for future years. Um, I'm going to actually dump jump out of order and go on to that pool infrastructure at the bottom shows 225,000.

188Uh, that those are actually two jobs. One is 125,000, the other is 100. I know Craig's going to go into more detail when we get them up here. With those consolidated, if we were to move that Elmbridge pool 250 out and stayed with this, we could probably lower that by uh saving money by doing both projects at the same time. Pop back up. Phil will talk about the uh modular department uh the highway department modular. Uh we've been talking about that I think at government ops and CIP and again that's about the uh the situation u at the highway garage what to do with their uh sleeping conditions and I'm going to let Phil go into details. I won't go into that one yet. And then Phil's got the uh firehouse key um project and

189I know it shows on there the elevator upgrade but we have had conversation that facilities is uh moving that out into the uh next couple of years is not the priority for this budget. The really long story short, if we were looking at um the keys, the key modular for the uh the firehouses, the pool infrastructure at the high school, and the modular at the highway department. So, do we want Phil? Phil. Um, so the modulars at the high at the at the highway garage um was directed by Ray to uh to look at um possible location for um a break lunch and resting quarters for the highway staff. Um resting quarters during the winter when they do their overnights uh plowing and sanding and such. Um so backing up um prior to uh CO

190they were using a uh it's a two-floor structure wooden structure kind of in the middle of the uh 65 bays. So 1965 eight bays were built. 1990 uh the Butler building the taller section to the right uh was built uh to add on. So, in the middle of the four bays, uh, eight bays, they made a a structure to, uh, house a break room, uh, lunchroom and, uh, sleeping quarters. Um, CO hit, um, it's too crammed of an area, so they had to spread out. So what they did was take over um two bays and then three bays and almost four of the eight bays as a break, lunch and sleeping quarters. Fire marshall went through and uh probably sometimes in February um and says, you know, we we you guys just can't do this.

191This is it's it's not a it's you it's just a dangerous situation only because harmful to to the workers because there's no according to fire marshals there's no two twohour fire rated walls surrounding them as they're sleeping. Um they're in garages which have diesel also can park in and out. Um, so you you have to worry about carbon carbon monoxide and such. So he gave them um up until June 1st to vacate. So when that happened um that's when you know Ry asked or directed me to to look at alternatives. So, we started looking within the shell that they're in using the the garages. Um, in order to um put a sleeping quarters, it have it have to be surrounded again by twohour walls um two out rated walls, fire rated walls. Um and then

192when doing so, you're changing the use of the building. And then because of that, now you need now codes kick in. you need bathrooms and showers and and the construction of of that area being 1965 where you'd have to blast, you know, the slab to get sewer and water and um you know, power and not that big of a deal, but it just didn't make sense. So looking at uh other ways we you know we talked about we met we talked about stick figure outside of the butler build um and and you know the logistics with that. Well that if we did it that way it would be a one it would be a big ticket item. So then I looked at uh modulars modulars we could spread the payments out for five years. So

193there'll be a construction cost. It's actually, you know, it'll end up being six years. Construction cost the first year and then um lease cost, you know, the next five and now would, you know, in five years the lease would be paid. They'd be ours and we own them. Um there's ideas and uh you know you want me to continue um about uh restructuring their processes um so um to see if we can utilize the structure in the middle and we had a meeting today. I'm not sure if we got any information from the fire. that I did and I said that um if we were to use one of the areas they could be as a break room or a lunchroom and have a table there and still be able to free up uh a

194couple of the bays would be using a half of a bay. We'd still have this situation with the uh snowstorm sleeping arrangement and I I'll put it to you town manager. Yeah. Well, um I think I had mentioned this before in other meetings, CIP meetings. Um it's we need to manage the uh overtime everywhere, but the highway included as far as um when uh we hold over plow uh uh personnel during the storm events or other during storm events. Um you know, for significant events. Um when we do have significant events, um they have the option right now then to utilize firehouse number three, the fully staffed kitchen. Everything they need would be there. That was offered by our fire chief. And I'm thinking if they're in other parts of the town and it's getting

195really bad, you know, we have two other firehouses that they might be able to be accommodated for. Um but right now we cannot let them sleep in the garage at this point, right? Um also there's a space problem. Um using utilizing these bays. I mean everything is outside. You know this will help with the equipment and the storage and the overall management of uh of the process there. Yeah. I mean, right now during the winter they store their diesel engines outside, right? You got block heaters, you got to plug them in. Um, you know, with freeing up those bays now, you could park four of those vehicles in a bay. You it uh it helps on usage electricity. I mean these the um um the block heaters which to my surprise they draw they draw

196like a 10 inch a piece and they're on all night you know so I mean there's there's quite a bit of draw so but you know the proper use of the facility is garages not you know break lunch and super quarters all I don't understand what you were just saying. We could use the firehouses. So why are we going this route if we could use the firehouses for I think you're presenting best case scenario versus worst case scenario. So just that the we explored the options. Yeah. Initially we said well we have to do something. So that this was the le least expensive option but it is again as mentioned by Mona it is like the best. It was it was to accumulate our options and look at we had to investigate other options I

197think and then we talked to the fire chief at a at a CIP meeting and he indicated well we can use they can use the firehouse. So then that kicked in. Oh okay. So we can distinguish the sleeping issue versus the break room lunchroom issue. Like they could be two different things instead of all one. Yeah they have to be. Yeah. Well, no, but well, if you built a modular, that would do all of it. But if we can use a firehouse for sleeping, now all you got to worry about is the break room, lunchroom. And according to fire marshal that at least one of those bases a and it wouldn't be the full bay, but a front half of it could be set up similar to you like a table chair arrangement that we

198could accommodate. So, do we do we have to go this route of these modules? No, you don't have to. No, you don't. But we're presenting it for consideration. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do they have a kitchen in that highway department garage area? Now they they do. So that's that two two floor structure wooden structure that doesn't have twohour rated fire rated walls. Um so yes top section is a what they used to use as their sleep quarters um lunchroom um break room. But um you have to be able to supply 50 foot square 50 square foot per person and add 15 people, you know, you're almost um you know, you're between eight and a thousand uh thousand square feet. So the area that they use up top is only 600 square feet and and and and

199smaller. So, and the access to that the staircases too. Yes. And then if we were to utilize that space and then and you know the fire marshall says, "Okay, we can you know put you in there." Well, then now we have to alter a staircase because building codes, the way the staircase is built is not per code. So, we'd have to do some structural, you know, repairs, added, you know, additions type thing to make it work. And and if you we from what I understand, if even if we use it as a break and munch, not a sleeping quarters, we would still have to alter those stairs. So is it better to build one downstairs? Is that an alternative? That's the better one. Yeah, that's the break room area was not intended to be upstairs.

200I think fire marshall is you're not going up the stairs. If a break lunchroom area, it would have to be in the half of one bay. Okay. And he's he's allowing that. Yes. So do would we have to budget for that though? It's not part of these modules. No. There would be a zero budget to do that tables, you know. Okay. Yeah. To construct, I guess. Okay. as far as itself as long as Have we talked to our guys there down there? Are they okay with the firehouses sleeping area and using kitchens or do they want something there? Do we know or Well, um I don't know. We've we've spoken to Joe. Um, but that's how we communicate through Joe. Um, I don't know if they have the option of having a kitchen. I mean,

201without the major construction. I mean, they may have maybe a microwave, but um, you know, according to the fire marshall, in order to have the kitchen and and in the break room, and they need to do some major renovation. So, would the staff prefer it perhaps? Prefer what? to have the the modular. Oh, they I don't know if they would prefer the modular. Um, but it's, you know, I don't know. I don't want to say it like, you know, they don't have a choice, but I don't think, you know, we need to make a choice one way or the other or maybe a combination. Maybe have one trailer for for a break room like you suggested. So, and then and then they can use fire. Not that trying to promote the perk here, but um

202I mean they they they don't have a um conference room, a facility where they could all sit and do their training. Um it would it would also be used as such, you know. Um, as far as operationally, um, you know, they're going to be they're going to be having, and I think there was mentioned the other the other night, they're going to be having a a work order system. So, in order to, you know, to to hand out work orders, per se, it's, you know, they can get together in a large area and then and so I mean, it can be it could be multi multi could be a multi-use type thing, but it's right. Yeah. you know. Yeah. Utilize one trailer maybe instead of two. Um yeah, well square footage would be about 500

203square feet. Again, it's it's code as far as how many people you can fit in there and that sort of thing. And I don't have those answers. Right. John, I think you mentioned at our government ops meeting the possibility. Do we have an existing modular from one of the schools to use? I was just thinking about that. Yes. Is that were were you able to reach out to I did. Okay. Yes. So, yes, they do had the Our school system does have modulars. They have uh two and I may get my school names flip-flopped without the note here, but I think it was Westill had two which is uh for the third grade completely full. They have four others at Stevens that are occupied as well. they have a uh OTP uh a couple of

204special ed classes and and another uh specialized program. So, they didn't have anything available for us. Um, I know Ron uh from their facilities area was uh writing out to all of the uh other towns, you know, in his uh his group email to reach out because he says that there could be uh this is a good time of year that other towns may be wanting to get rid of their portables. And as of today, he hasn't received anything back. There was a potential of West Hartford may have a couple to give back, but we don't know condition yet. So, we're reaching. I I really would have thought that with Moer School and and two grades coming out of the elementary schools that it would have freed up all of them. I know they got

205rid of the least ones, but I would have thought that I thought that was part of the idea of Yeah. that you wouldn't need them. Yeah, exactly. Well, at least you tried. So, I'm just still confused. Is the bottom line, do we need something or do we have facilities in our towns that we could use? We have the firehouses that were offered to to them to use. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think as long as the sleeping quarters is accommodated, I think the other part is easier to to maneuver. I would sounds like. Is that Well, do we need that or do they use No, no, I mean No, I mean just taking half a bay. No, not the not taking half a bay downstairs and using that as their their break room, right? Okay. Sleeping

206would have to be firehouse for their tailgate morning. So sessions basically at the beginning when we first found out we started scrambling thinking what we could do. So that's what that this is. It's still good to understand the the options. So that's basically what uh how many trainings do you have a year? I'm sorry. How many trainings do you have a year? Like well I couldn't answer that. That'd be a Joe Joe answer. Yeah, because I'm thinking I mean company 3 has ample space for that too. Yeah, good. We got rooms downstairs here. Each firehouse has it. Okay. Uh what other items do we need to go over for? Correct. We got Phil has his uh You want to talk about your lock item? So [Music] um the uh so this this pertaining to the

207firehouses um few years back I had an NCIP because I clumped the buildings to give um uh to to install FOB entry systems all the firehouses. um then went with the approach to do one building at a time so we wouldn't have to go through CIP. So this year um I clumped them together because uh we also have the um the issue with the key system itself being obsolete. We can't get the parts for the cylinders um latches and that sort of thing. So now that's that's a that we need that's a must. So um to incorporate that with the uh FOB system logistically as far as you know planning and handing out keys and such to the you know the vast um um staff that volunteer staff and the full-time staff. It' just be

208easier. So I clumped it together. So, so basically um we're going to be changing out um all the lock cylinders, all the buildings in the inside um on the outside provide um a fob system. So, um, electronically, um, they can they can program doors, program fobs. Uh, make it easier to chase, you know, instead of chasing keys, chase fobs, uh, when there's a turnover of people. Um, so you don't have to go chase the keys. You just deprogram. Um, just get on the computer and and deprogram. um the uh the fire marshal um years ago expressing his concern about the security of the buildings. This would help um as far as you know seeing who who's going in, going out, that sort of thing and keeping track. Um so that's why this year um combining

209everything all together. Um and I think it's uh 70,000. Yep. And I think the other advantage too, Phil, is if somebody was terminated, like one of the volunteers Yes. left, you can just turn off that fob. That's it. You don't have to go chase keys or if a key gets lost, you don't have or a key gets lost. It's it's and the fear of somebody else picking it up and you know, with a fob, you report it. We can do program it. I think you said the fobs were fairly inexpensive if you have to replace it. Yeah. the key, you know, it'll cost, you know, four or five dollars to replace while a fob is a dollar, you know,$150, you know, just from a town side. I know in public safety, we talked about this

210at some length few different times and um I thought maybe we could use a special revenue I 91 money that came up. I'm just curious why are we budgeting here now? Well, I would just say at this point we are unsure of kind of the how confident we are that the I91 money will continue. So I think if we were going to do that and waiting on revenue to turn around, they really don't have um I I think oh I was ready to run my financials today. I haven't looked at the balance, but they are probably not at a large enough balance to cover this project. Um, they are they reported 121,000 at our last public safety meeting collected. Colle not remaining. So they they've had their, you know, whatever purchases, right? Yes. So it's

211that collects and then there's expenditures as well. They're already using it for other fire related items, right? Yeah, I think they did was Air packs or something. Airpacks purchased. There was a large purchase. So they probably have probably about 10 15,000 remaining at this time. Oh, I thought that was their balance. No, no, no. Okay. No, that's what they collect and then expended. Okay. Thanks. And I think last we heard we don't as of right now they're not continuing that to reimburse with hope that maybe that changes. Is that the last correct? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to count on that money right now unfortunately. I thought it was there. That's why. Yeah. No, that's Yeah. Okay. Um and then is the elevator upgrade the next item? Uh we've agreed that's going to move out. Yeah,

212we're moving out to 2029. Okay. 2829. Still in really good shape. Next item. Pool. High school pool. Now Phil's done. All right, I'll try and be short- winded with this. Um the uh so we have a line item in there. There's actually two two components to this. Um and they were combined. Um one we have a a faltering boiler system for the indoor pool. So, our boiler essentially is what heats the pool and the air within the indoor pool facility. Um this past fall we had an issue um where it took us about a little over two months to get a part and the air temperature at the time was definitely colder than it should have been within the indoor pool area. Um we fielded quite a quite a number of complaints on that. So

213essentially what this would do is it's a it's a lead lag system. So there's really two boilers and um it's a more efficient system. They're working with each other. It's not going full throttle the entire time. Um when there's, you know, minimal activity in the pool like overnight, it slows down. Um, and that would be the same with the pump, which is also a redundant system that we're looking to to put in the pool um area. So, those are two separate items. The boiler is 120 approximately 125. We'd have to go out to bid for it, obviously. Um, and we'd have we'd probably do the same for the pump. Um, but the pump system is what regulates the chemicals that filter into the pool. So again, that would be a redundant pump system where they

214would work off one another. And the best part about this is for both of these items is if one goes down, the other one can pick up the slack and do the job of two. Um, so it's essentially a backup system as well within um the original system, I guess. So, so we did we did get that fixed in the fall, but then it faltered again and we had to get it fixed again. And one of the issues was the parts were coming from Europe and we were Yeah. So, that was a little bit of a uh headache on our end trying to trying to fix that. I I will say if this is something that we can get done, the long-term outlook within the indoor pool looks pretty good in terms of infrastructure. Uh

215we just last summer we did the um the grouting and um we've been able to switch over all of our feeders, our acid feeders and our and our chlorine feeders to a puck system um both at the indoor and outdoor pool. So they're both interchangeable there and you know we'd be in very good shape indoor pool-wise. um looking long term. So these boilers were a legacy system I guess that did not get replaced or upgraded when the school was rehabbed. Yes, one of them was. Yeah, the boiler system. Yep. I wouldn't expect that. I would thought that that's the sort of thing that would have been, you know, part of that plan. Yes, I would have thought so, too. Okay. So now we're stuck um you know kind of at the mercy of yes it's

216running right now but if it goes down it goes like it goes down like we're in trouble. Craig do I know do I get to ask questions? I we had talked about these were two individual items. One was 100,000 and one was the 125. You're thinking that consolidated it would we could come less than that with the two projects done simultaneously? Um potentially. We'd have to see. Um because we could because the pool would already be shut down too at the time. Um so they would have probably easier access. They could probably be able to to stage um at the same time. So there's a potential savings there. Um, I can't tell you how much. I don't know that off off the top of my head though. If I was looking at the 70,000 plus

217that I think we could almost get to the 250 any overage special. Yeah, definitely. Uh, any questions about that? Just to hit on one, not not that it's in there, but it seemed like you've been asking for a mini excavator last couple years. It's pulled, I guess, from the budget, correct? Not funded. What uh what's your need for that? You've been trying to get it. It's it's an older piece of equipment that needs replaced. I mean, it's it's um I took pictures and put it in the uh in our system in the software. Um but it's I think it's 20 22 years old. 2 I don't know it off the top of my head. It's over 20 years old. It's got a lot of manh hours on it. What would you do with it if

218you the one you had you were to get rid of it? So we could trade it in. Um, so a new unit costs anywhere, you know, close to 58 to 60,000. Uh, we could get a trade in value of like 17 for it right now. Knock it down to around 41,000. Okay. So that 41's including the trade, correct? Okay. Yep. Yep. So again, it's not a machine that we're in every single day, but we're in the machine quite a bit. I mean, we use it this week to put the dock system in at Ferry Park. Um, it's it's old. Is that the type of piece of machinery you could purchase with another town to co-own or I guess in theory In theory, it's a good idea, but when you really need it, you need it.

219You need it and it's not available probably. Well, if you get it gets you new one faster. I mean, I'm just trying to think outside the box a little bit. But then, you know, once you get into that, then you get into maintenance, right? Like, what's the maintenance agreement? If if a if a chain snaps or something snaps when you're using it, a belt snaps, who's in charge? Who's who's taking care of it? The driver at the time of that town or is it who like who's in charge of that, right? Like it's not the driver didn't do it. We're trying to help you get it. That's something you work out later. No, but that's the tough part. That's the tough part of coowning it with another Well, you deal with that once you do

220it. I get it. And you want to get me one, I'm good with it. It's just Yeah. Do we have other instances where we do that? Yes. Yeah. Are they Is there something in Newington we do or? Yeah, we have a shared roadside mower with Newington and it works out that we get it roughly 3 weeks, then they get it three weeks and it's just about enough time to go around the town once, then it goes over in Newington and they have we house it there. They do the maintenance. So, and then we pay them for for you know the maintenance and and and all that. And it's I mean, do they want it here year, you know, year round? Yeah. Um, do we need it year round? Probably not. Uh, it does become not

221an issue, but you know, we get a lot of calls about long grass and blight. You know, this time of year grass going to grow. Well, it might be in Newington for the next 3 weeks to a month. So, you might have to see that grass. All right. You know, that's that's one of the drawbacks. But, you know, that I think is working. Okay. Right. But, like Walt uh Walt Craig said, equipment that you use, I mean, it's almost on a daily basis. It's hard to share that kind of stuff. So yeah, I just I didn't I guess we need a better feel how often it it's need to be used. If it's a project by project basis, you could maybe plan it out if you know. Well, I could give you an example, right?

222Like so so this past week we put the docks in, right? It's hard to put a timeline on when we put the docks in because it's all contingent on the water levels. The water levels have to be exactly right. The current's got to be exactly right. Um, so we could say, "Hey, we're going to put it in the third week of May like we usually do." But we didn't because the timing was perfect to do it now. But then what if they had it signed out now for I don't know that that that's just the uh how long. I mean, I guess we could figure that out if if it was an option and we wanted to consider it. We could we could find a way to to figure that out, but just use just

223something to think about. Yeah, I agree. We don't use it for snow. Well, I think that the the good news was it could be ready for next year because all of those uh it's like the tobacco that's on a lease will drop off and then it'll be time to add something new. So, okay. Not that we didn't consider it, but it was really, you know, we watching them, so we don't have that many. And this is a purchase, not a lease. Are are we allocating any money towards the roads other than Oh, that's what's coming from the referendum. Is it Is it a million? Steve, that's the next slide. Are we ready? Well, no. It's relating to this. I mean, Steve, you want to walk out for a minute? I mean, instead of a million,

224could it be 950,000 and that other part help Craig? So, could we take the uh like your road referendum and get him an escalator? Yeah. Sorry, Steve. Well, I figured I was going to be last anyway. So, um are we going to go to that slide or we still I guess we're talking about this. So, ro we don't even have a million left. We're under a million right now. And we talked about this today where we're at. There's and this referendum is meant for roads. Um the first one was actually written a lot tighter than this one. So we couldn't even get some some things that we're doing now. Could we Mhm. I guess so. Is if you say it's going to be used as part of a road project because that's what it the

225way it's written. Uh we talked about finishing this. We've had $20 million over 10 years and we said we want to do every single road and every single parking lot. We've done every single road except three. Hayes, Crystal, and June. And every parking lot except for the highway garage, one of the parks, but that's going to be an overlay. Oh, and the uh the boat launch that the ferry park hasn't been done. So, we have enough to do uh the roads, but probably not the not the uh couple remaining park lots. So, we're going to be up against it. And you also need to allocate money down the road each year to maintain them. I think that's the next slide you said. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And and that's you know could be a discussion itself

226but we have other processes that we've done and you know some some of you might live on those roads. You know it's not always going to be a mill and pave. It's going to be a micro surface which has lasted us way longer than we ever told it was going to last. And then there's a thing called fog seal, which is um best description is it's sunscreen with moisturizer. It's it's kind of like the genite you see on driveways, but it's not as thick. It's clear, goes down, dries clear, so you don't have to araid the lines or repaint them in general. It'll show back through. So, it's just a moisturizer. It seeps in. It's a $161 a square yard. Plus, you probably have to get extra flaggers because it takes 30, 45 minutes for

227it to dry. So, it's kind of a nuisance when you're doing the road. But $161 square yard, it preserves it versus the mill and pave is up to roughly $19 a square yard. So thanks. I was going to say that's maybe if that's the segue or did you need to go back to Are we good with Craig? Yep. Yeah. Okay. So where is this in our book? Mon, it is not. Okay. That's why I can't find it. I jumped out of the book and went on here. I think the the book will show a good picture of what's going on for this year, but I like these particular spreadsheets which I think I'll put into the adopted book because it shows the five-year plan and I and this is something that I created which is

228putting that revenue source with the uh the projects you so I will insert these spreadsheets into the adopted book is the plan because at this point her software doesn't do this yet. So looking at the uh the infrastructure. So right now we've got the $450,000 reserve. Uh we have LOIP which is no longer in general fund. It's it's going in uh for CIP for $182,000 and can be used for roads about a million dollars. I think we're probably at more like 900 as of today for that uh road referendum going through this year's project. of you flow into the the year for the 2526 budget. Also pointing in we have the 360,000 for town aid road money ideally as long as that we don't have a bad winter. This particular fund has come in and

229has purchased salt or covered some overtime situations. But if you can look at the the chart, you can find that by doing this with the the LOIUP and the the 450 and the town a road that you know over time this is definitely going to accumulate. I know we had the concern about what do you do with no referendum. I think this is probably the ideal picture of what will happen um when you do a reserve and you start funding in advance. So, I mean, if this were the case, then obviously Steve could go in and, you know, with the $2 million, you know, together for next year, do all of these, you know, if you want to go into your projects, but the projects, like I said, first with the roads, we've done, we've

230touched just about every road. We've touched every road but three. Some of them were not milled and paved, and everybody likes that nice new shiny new car, nice new new surface. But, you go down Kobe Road, that's that's a pretty common road that all you go down. That was a micro pave and it's held up terrific. It looks great. Um, you know, and I don't see a need for anything there. And a nice thing about the micro is it only goes down maybe no more than quarter inch, 58, you know, quarter inch thick, maybe tad tad more. So, we can just go back and do another one over it if we need to without really affecting anything. Yeah, you might get a little more more bump over structures. Also, we go over the catch basins.

231Salt is the worst enemy of concrete and so now we don't have to replace those catch basin tops. They're being preserved with that material over it. Now on this list here we have uh Hayes Road that's um almost completely designed right now. And then we have Washington Street. As I said, Washington we moved up. It's out to bid right now and we're waiting to see what those prices come in at. Concrete went up I think it was 12 bucks a yard over the winter. So it's a substantial increase. And I also have a letter from Tilcon that we received because of what's going on worldwide in the economy and tariffs basically saying we're going to try to do our best to hold prices but if not you know the the we use something called vendor

232in place VIP pricing for our roads and it's bid by the state and they're going to try and hold those prices but there's no guarantee. So what we're proposing right now the prices that we got may not stand. So, the quicker we can get out and pave the better. But I I was saying, should you talk about your fog seal? Fog seal. Yeah. Before you do that, um, can Tilcon change their prices in the middle like during a project? I mean, is that what they're saying? Yes. Really? Yeah. Hold on. Yeah. They're putting it in contracts now. I think I brought that in the in the giant book here. I think I have that letter tariff. Yeah, it's a it's one of these pockets. I have it paving on the backside. Yes, they they are

233saying that they'll do their best, but because there's a escalation clause built into these things, so they're allowed to inflate prices if need be. That's not it. This is it. This came out a couple weeks back. Yeah, March 25th, excuse me. As you're aware, the United States government has imposed significant tariffs on products being imported into the United States from a number of other countries, blah blah blah blah blah. Um, Tilcon therefore is providing notice to customers that pricing in any existing contract or quotes may be equitably adjusted to account for any changes in the laws including the impact of increased tariffs. They're committed to working on mitigating the impacts. As these are fluid situation, we continue to monitor the effects of the tariffs and communicate the impact on our product. We appreciate your business.

234Look forward to a strong 2025. Like right now, we're planning on uh asphalt again. It's It's getting up there. Uh where's my price here? Asphalt price. $95 a ton. Last year it was I think in the 80s. Year before that was in the 70s. It's just going through the roof. So, and they have per this letter and they I guess that's their contract with the state. They have their right to change that. Can you talk about fog seal? So Fox, as I was saying, that's like that uh Weathersfield just did a whole boatload of roads last summer. Um one of them is what is it when you leave town, Old Main Street, you go in I guess that Middletown A. So if you go down, look at it. They fog seal it last year. It

235looks just like a road black lines. Um and you do it every, you know, four or five years. And it uh it just adds moisture back in. You know, it it helps it so it doesn't oxidize. Oxidation, the sun hits it, turns gray, all the all the oils go out of it. This helps preserve that. uh the company that um has a bid in with Crag called Indis in front of I didn't get a chance to go but people I know who went they in front of their business in uh Massachusetts they did a sample and they they um mil and paved the road in front of their business and on one half they did the fog seal on the other half they just let it sit. It's been 10 years. It's very different. And

236you can see cracking and you know other defects. Um it's called raveling when you start losing your aggregate. So you get those like pock marks. It's starting to open up. And then on the fog seal side it looks not brand new but you know it's not doesn't have those issues. So they're getting a lot longer life out of that by treating it a couple times where you have to come back and mill and pave as I said getting close to $19 a yard. Even if it's $2 a square yard every for three times in that same period of time, it's, you know, six bucks versus the 19 10 years down the road. So, so, but as I said, it's an inconvenience and all paving operations are inconvenience. This one is you spray it, done, but

237you have to let it dry. But with that, would you still need a million dollars a year? No. Well, that's what Mona is showing in the spreadsheet here, right? After after the referendum is done, you want to maintain the roads. Yes. Overall with a million dollars. But if you went this route, Yeah. It's like owning a car and doing nothing for 10 years or changing your oil and, you know, extending the life of it. Okay. Taking care of it. So, but what could it I mean, what could it go down to if you did the spray, you know, this this type of treatment? Well, I here I have an example here. I just had a sales the salesman. I wanted to take a look at some of the roads we're considering uh just to make

238sure that they're appropriate. And he's like, "Yep, all the ones that you selected, great." Because as you know, we have uh this company called Beta. They've done our pavement condition index surveys for the last two or three uh goarounds back to 2016. And they give us a list of all the roads and a rating on each one from zero to 100, 100 being the best. And this product needs to go down when it's somewhere between say 85 to to 95. And uh so those roads we picked and to go over let's see like say I go over and did Crestridge Berry Park. Wow. These are all kind of I don't have these sorted. I'm trying to find a neighborhood here. Anscourt, Lavender Lane, Heron, Heather Hill, Summer. That's a that's a good size neighborhood that

239we milled and paved a couple years back. That's probably somewhere in the $400,000 range, I'm guessing. This would be 32,000 33,000 to do all those roads. So, you know, in theory to do them all, I I think it was a little little over a million to do all our roads. The micro pave you can't do. You can't go over it. it won't accept the treatment because it's a different kind of thing has cement in it. So, it would be interesting to see something uh over the next 10 years like a a spreadsheet for the next 10 years with the roads saying that in two years I'll need 400,000 for the roads that are applicable for this spray and then year five I'll need you know 150,000 for these other roads that are applicable. Um yeah,

240we we kind of had that through um our program here with the backlog. Okay. Uh with the different kind of treatments. Now again, it's saying, you know, if you have a pavement condition index at a certain number, you should mill and pave. But some of them, like I said, Kobe Road, the the index is showing that's in a mill and pave. Go drive down it. It's great. There's no reason to mill and pave right now. That's a drastic change because from looking at a million dollars a year to maybe half that, you know, with this new new uh I can't get there's always going to be a road that's going to need that mill and pave, right? And the big thing with the mill and pave is quantity. So they bid it on different categories

241of five different thresholds, zero to, you know, and so forth and so on. So the more area you're you're milling, the cheaper it gets. It goes from uh what's the price this year?$138. That's for over a certain threshold. Um you drop down and all of a sudden it's going to go to two something. You drop down again, it's you know it's all of a sudden like 12 bucks a yard. So you have to have enough to make it worthwhile for them to come in. Same with paving. They want over I think it's forgot the tonnage. It's it's quite a bit. It's like 5,000 tons to get the good rate. Yeah. because they know, you know, we're these discussions we're always talking about. Yeah. The constraints on the budget and everything. Yeah. It's it's like painting

242a bridge. You start at one end and go to the other, you got to go back. It's just a never you don't win. It's always going to need something. Thanks. Do you mind if I just kind of talk about the the top part of that chart because we're saying if it was the million dollars, I think you're right. That's something that you'd want to look at because we're looking at that $360,000 of town aid road money that's coming. And right now it looks like if you were going to do the million dollars, you would need that money for roads. And if you had a snowstorm or you wanted to buy salt. So if with that process, you could be actually probably allocating that town a road money to maybe this is how you pay for

243your salt and you don't even budget it. And I think part of this also isn't just roads. It's all the infrastructure, sidewalks, drainage, everything is going to be part of this, I believe. So you'll buy a catch basin right now to to install one. It's, you know, about $3,000 per catch basin to put in a new one. To go 100 ft of sidewalk, it's probably it's getting up. It's over $100 a foot now. So frontage across average lot, it's going to be like $10,000 for sidewalk. Yeah. I know weather sends out a separate assessment when they do their roads. Each uh resident has to pay. Everybody's different. Weathersfield. Yeah. They make the homeowner pay half, I think. Or is it the whole thing? Some towns make the homeowner pay even though it's in the rightway.

244That's why we as far as you know, I've been here 25 years. It's always been the town does it because it's in our rightway. The homeowner has to shovel it. Weatherfield, they got to pay for the repairs. So, that could be costly. Y just getting over this. on your spreadsheet here. We're only You only want funding for three jobs. Is that what you're saying? That's what's uh identified for this year. So Steve will do for example, he had talked about for this Oops, let me do my little mouse here. This being the 25 26 year that he could do I think what did you have? Haze June and uh what was your uh third street? I have Haze June Crystal. That that's going to kill off the referendum on it more or less. So then

245you would have those streets and as you said if he starts going toward like a fog sale it could be like a third% of the town but we'd also have sidewalks and you have it drains repairs whatever we have to do but in our book you have all kinds of covert jobs and all that are not funding them this this budget year I have I think 21 items in the CIP but a lot of them are big tickets you know covert jobs like we're looking at the industrial park right now that's probably over a million project. Same with Beach Road. That's going to be probably a way over a million dollar project. Bel Street. Beldon Lane is what was when we looked at a couple years ago five 600,000. So they're big projects. Yeah. I'm

246just looking at our book. You have all these requests. I don't know which ones we're funding. Or is it just these right now spreadsheets? Just these. We're just asking for this budget. Yeah. And it shows these three projects. I think it's in there. Isn't there a chart in there by your request? So all kinds of requests for stuffy plan was this year and this is this year and the rest of them I thought were in there. We had it laid out. Yeah, maybe it is. I'm just not finding which ones are y requested for this budget. So and and I agree. I think there's there's this is great and you can see pictures, but I don't as a I just don't like this to show a five-year plan because it's not. So, you're going to

247see just things like these charts inserted. But if you went down to um oh heavens, they're alphabetical and then I'm going to go into engineering. So, you should be seeing in there for example, this one uh for the design u that is a not funded, but they will stand out if it says this. For example, Sentry Hill sidewalk is grant funded. Yeah. And I see an error right there. That's a beachroll cover replacement. That's designed. That's not 100. That's not 1.5 mill there. I think it's 150,000. I think you got maybe one too many zeros. Okay. I have to look at the grant. Or is it 250? Might be 250. We got Okay. It's just difficult to tell which have all these. Glastonbury Avenue is a grant. Centry Hills is a grant. And there are

248the ones that were didn't help me with that. The ones that we had that were unfunded. I think you only had the three. It was the two culverts, right? was a beach beach bel and I'll find that I thought beach got funded Steve didn't we get the design got yes the design is funded the construction is not so and we just got the okay to go to start going to bid on that one too old forge is just a design that was funded by a grant yeah old forge in Industrial Park 3 uh phase two that's a grant for design and that's in process right Now, I'm trying to find the actual chart there, Mona. I had the other ones. I don't think in this particular, like I said, I don't believe the book does

249it justice. Yeah, it doesn't show up on the chart there. I think I think we even entered it by year when I did it. I think it asked for the year. Yes, but what's what's happening is when it's just showing in a list and it doesn't um it doesn't present well. Yeah, I'll tell you. Let me see if I could find another place. Pardon me if I drive. As I said, we have I think there's 11 or 13 grants going right now, which a lot of them are going to be on this list. I'm online. I can see like the unfunded if I'm clicking on anything that's unfunded, but I don't know if it'll bring the projects. No, it's a beautiful system, but I don't 100% love all of its tools, and I think sometimes

250it just needs a little supplemental information. Do you have um the attachments, Mona? Um I see some on two page 271, the uh for like the road paving. There's a JPEG and a PDF. Is that what you were looking for? No, you know how like her spreadsheet and it has it's a fiveyear look ahead basically. Yeah. And we had everything kind of slotted in. We need my spreadsheet. I hate to say it. What do you But I'm looking at the CIP the my list that I had and let's see. You said what wasn't funded. Well, the the repair to building lane culvert, the repair to beach road, do the actual construction of a project, industrial park, the construction of a bridge or culvert or whatever in and then all the sidewalk projects that that everybody

251uh just jumped in the the construction of the old forge culvert. Yep. Was never part of the plan. We were just going to get a sign to incentivize developer to build it. Yes. So, and that's in process. So, community farm future road prepares road paving. That's it. Right. Yep. So, it would be the road paving, you know, the three roads. Yep. Yeah. The referendum stuff. Yep. And then also community farm, 50,000 road repairs. Yeah, that's just for for for you. Thank you. Any other questions on those projects? I think that does it for CIP. That's it. I'll take a motion to adjurnn. So move. Second. Anybody second? Second. All in favor? She hi. Thank you everyone.