Tolland Budget Meeting - March 20, 2025

001I'll call the meeting order at 7:01 p.m. for our second night of budget discussions. And I'll turn it over to our colleague for our first um section that we're going to go through. Great. Um thanks. I want to thank council uh for last night. Uh very efficient. We got through everything. Uh and I really uh appreciate that. Uh we're really going to look forward to tonight. Tonight we're going to cover one. First, we're going to do a reeval uh Jason Lawrence, our assessor, is going to do a complete u re-evaluation uh discussion and to bring you up to speed of everything that that has to do with the reevaluation uh that our town endured this year. Uh following that, we'll we'll do our finance department, our revenue, which our tax collector, our assessor, our town

002clerk, our public safety, uh our town manager's office, the registars, and probate. Sounds like a lot, but a lot of those are going to be um uh very quick as we move through them. Uh so u let me let me first say uh I know last night uh Joe you had asked about the engineering and how we were uh the actuals are really low. Last year the actuals were uh the the leftover surplus was used mainly to pay for the year before one or the other to pay for the bulky waste. Coincidentally we don't want to do business like that. So if we could lower we would. However, uh when we were planning it out, it was what I had thought and mentioned last night. Uh what we're trying to do now with Megan is

003apply for grants to get things for our town. However, with LOIF, with Loadiff grants, um with steep grants and others, we have to have shovel ready projects in order to obtain the grant. Uh for example, connecting the green sidewalks down to the our business area down there. We are not going to pay for that, but we want if if we do get a state grant to pay for it, we have to have the plans ready to go. Uh those plans are roughly 13,000 so far and it' be about 23 or so total just for the concept designs uh and some and and a town meeting as well included in there. We estimate about 5,000 more for the taling green. Most of the engineering's been done for that for the green sidewalks once the litigation is

004over. Uh and then we estimate about 20 grand at least for therandles building uh as well as uh the animal control building down the future. Now uh every everything I mentioned those projects all of them have some sort of grant attached to them. So it's it's the town we other than the Crannles building we're hoping to get bonding for. Uh right now we we believe that uh we hoping get bonding but if not we will have to pay for that but we have budgeted into our capital plan for years uh and are prepared for it. Uh so that there those totals there put us you know very close if not over where we are um on the engineering cost. So that's why we kept it where it was um moving forward to this year. So

005these are the types of things having shovel ready projects were the types of things that were not done here. Uh and now we're trying to have those things ready to go so that we can apply for grants and hopefully get them. Good. All right. Uh thank you. And so now I'm going to now we're going to move into our revaluation pro uh uh revaluation process. And Jason Lawrence is here. He has an entire presentation. I don't know if I mentioned it last night. The reevaluation is something that we did not want to do. We are required to do by the state of Connecticut. Uh we will be doing it again in five years as required by the law. And in five years, the one that we're doing will be a little bit different, more costly,

006um a little more uh a lot more involved to it. And we're going to we're going to go out to bid uh to hire for it. We're preparing for that cost in our budget process. Uh but with that, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you Jason Lawrence from our our tax assessor here. Go ahead, Jason. Thanks. Uh hello everybody. Um I'm Jason Lawrence, the assessor in town. I've been here for 12 years and um this was my third revaluation uh for the town. I'm a little feeling a little ill today. So uh I'll ask you to bear with my voice a little bit as I go through this. Um the previous council proved me to do the revaluation and some of you guys are left over from that. Um but the last two projects prior went

007pretty well. So uh in an effort to save more money for the town, we entered into a contract again to do uh this rebell. And I'll go into that a little bit in the u in the poweroint. Um first of all um as Brian said revaluation is uh mandatory by state statute. Um uh 12-62B says every once every 5 years you have to do a revaluation. Every on a second fiveyear cycle you have to do a uh measured list type of reval which is more intrusive or cost more costly. Um five years ago uh we did not do that. We were in the middle of COVID and uh the state changed some of the laws surrounding uh inspections at the time. So, we sent out data mailers and saved a lot of money that way.

008We're still able to do it in house um but didn't have the cost of, you know, about $30 per parcel to do that. This rebound was a stat a statistical update, which means we just look at the sales, um, run analysis on the sales, do a field review, look at all the properties anyway, but we're not going into them unless somebody requested it or we found a need to do an inspection uh, for what whichever reason. Um, let's see. So, some of the different methods of doing a room valuation would be to use an outside firm. Um, when I first started here in town, I did not anticipate doing one, but my experience was uh 15 years of rebal before I came here and due to the high cost of that rebal um Gner at

009the time asked if I would be able to do it and um he came up with a plan and did that. Um, another option is uh the assessor with the assistance of the staff. Uh, my staff helped me out in ways through this reval um more with day-to-day job duties. So, I could be out in the field and do a lot of work. It's very time consuming. Um, another option is the assessor um oversees the job while um you have a consultant over oversee them as as the project goes along um which is a hybrid approach. each each other of those approaches are a little bit more expensive as you go. Um, in 2014 and 19, those revals uh were able to save the town um $23,000 based off of the difference between what it

010cost and what the uh the bids were at the time for those um those jobs. Uh so an in-house type of rebound safety. The average cost of a statistical reval right now is $25 per parcel, which is 162,000 based on our 6,500 and change parcels. Um the contracted cost for this reval which um includes uh some court work support from outside uh people that reviewed my work was 92,000 which is a savings of about 70,000 which right now we're under that budget uh by $8,000 and um I do have a few expenses left to go on that but um that will come in under budget as well. All told, after this third rebound, um the town will have saved uh in the area of 273,000 and change um over those three rebounds. That savings has

011been tremendous because we've only had to budget up to this point minimal dollars. Uh when I first came to town, we had a probably about 250,000 in the budget waiting um to be spent on a rebell. and we've been able to just kind of pick away at that. And um the last five years, we um decided that 10,000 was going to be enough to help pay for this past rebal. Um and then um after this reval, it was so much work and knowing the next one is coming up is so difficult. I just decided um I wasn't going to be able to do that. And knowing that um measuring and listing aspect is just too time consuming. it wasn't going to happen. So, you'll see in my budget that we've added um a significant amount

012of money over the next five years to to help pay for that next re. Um so, as part of the reevaluation project, how it works is um we start out by looking at the sales that come in. We had um over 300 sales that initially we had to look at vet sent we sent letters to all those sales over a two-year period to just to see where things were happening, what type of transactions were happening. We have all kinds of questions that we asked, whether it was an arms length transaction or um if anything was included in the sale that could make it um a nonvalid sale. So, we went through all of that. Um, as part of that, we did inspections on any of those sale properties that came back with questions or anything

013that needed to be clarified. Uh, because the sales make up your data. So, if you don't have good sales information, the rest of your information will be added. Um, following that is a full field review um, and table updates. So, using those sales, I would update tables. I updated our out building and uh land tables as well through the sales analysis and um also consulted with local builders to see what the cost of new construction was. So there was a lot that goes into building the tables which is our appraisal software which values the whole town mass aspect. Um after that process is done the full field review happens. We go out and look at all of them. Does the sales make sense? does that would that house sell for that amount based on the

014adjusted values? Uh, and I was very surprised at what was happening in the market because the last two revals were pretty flat in town and we didn't see a lot of growth. Um, of course there was other issues going on. Um, but it was surprising to see what people were willing to pay for for homes. Um, the commercial industrial properties are reviewed as well. We send income and expense statements to them. Uh, they submit their data. By law they have to do that and we use that information to generate an income approach to value which is um the main standard of valuation for uh commercial industrial properties. Uh after that we sent final notices and met with property owners in formal hearings uh to review values and discuss anything that they think might be incorrect

015with the property. um kind of talked about the sales. Um our end result was one year's worth of sales with the state required to use uh at least 20 sales within your um your class which residential, commercial, whichever. Uh we had 143 sales over that period and we use those uh in our final analysis to meet the state standards. Um again the field review is done with updating tables. Um noticing neighborhood effects in the um the you know when your neighborhood influences. Um also uh functional issues, economic issues, busy intersections, things like that. Uh high high traffic areas which uh would cause street values to increase or decrease. [Music] Um, let's see. I talked about the commercial investor only review income and expense questionnaires. Again, there's 104 properties uh in town that require those. Most

016of our pro our commercial properties in town are owner occupied. So, the data that we get returned is um not valid information. Uh we use it for expense ratios and calculating vacancy things like that. Um but we don't really want to know what somebody rents their own space to themselves for. A lot of people who own a building and they occupy that space will say their rent is $30 a foot because that's what they write off in their in federal income taxes as a rent expense and that's not a market rent. So, we're only looking for market rents between two different parties with lease agreements, things like that. So, I analyze all that data and come up with rates that I then apply to all the commercial industrial properties based on the leasable square footage

017and arrive at value um using those rates as well as um standardized vacancy rates and expense ratios. And then I had a consultant actually review the values and I've done that the last uh three revals now just to make sure that I was not doing anything too crazy. Um the sales analysis determines uh the changes that need to be made to the tables. Um once we meet all the requirements that uh certified of rebal through OPM um I those values are then applied to the whole town and we start doing testing based on uh do we meet the state um thresholds and um does it does it pass the uh the eye test on a lot of properties as well. Um so you can see under state requirements on the next tab um our sales

018ratios need to be from 63% to 77% um with an assessment ratio or the appraised ratio from 90% to 110%. Um our end result was a 95% median ratio which is within their standards and on the low end of value. So if a property sells for $100,000, I value that property at $95,000. So I purposely was on the low side of that sale price in order to have a fair value. We don't know everything about what goes into the sales and hopefully um being on the low side gives a little wiggle room for some unknowns. Um some people get patio furniture, some people get um other personal property that might be included in the sale. There's a lot of other different factors that could go into those sales and being on the low side actually

019makes my job a little bit easier and it also um we're not pushing value but the state does allow you to be as high as 10% over the sale price as far as your statistics go. Uh our COD was 8.95. Uh the requirement is to be less than 15. COD is a measurement of your um central tendency or how far away your outliers are from your median. And um anything under 10 is considered good. So this just meant that our values were hitting all of the properties without not too many outliers out there to really skew the numbers. And then PRD is a measure of regressivity. Progressivity means are your higher propert are your higher value properties valued too high or your low value properties valued too low. And we came in right at one

020which is right in the middle. Perfect. Um and then the last but not least is our unsold property test. And um we're at 1.02. The range is 90.95 to 105. That's um did you apply the same values to your assessed to your sale properties as your own sold. Simple as that. and you just have to fall within that 10% range. Um the next slide shows you the actual analysis broke down by style which is what most people are concerned with. Where did I fall? Um what do these sales look like? So this is just the group the main group of uh all of those sales. And you can see the ratios uh median assessment to sale ratios at 95% for most of them. um we had one sale for commercial property, which means we don't

021need to meet the state standards for commercial properties. You have to have at least um 20 sales to even do the measurement. And uh we have one that was a valid sale. And you can see that it sold um for 700,000. I actually came in at 7:30 on it um based on the rest of the market. Um, but our overall ratio there is 955, which as I mentioned on the other page, COD at 895 and our PRDF. There's a whole listing of these sales in my office for everybody to see. We had poster boards out during hearing so everybody could see what those sales actually look like. Um, when you're looking at numbers on a piece of paper, it's kind of hard to envision what that house looks like at 3,000 square feet, 4,000, whatever

022the case is. when you look at the actual pictures of a house, um it gives you a better idea of what sold for for what. Um as part of the rebal, we updated PA490 farm forest and open space and that's something that gets updated every five years as part of the rebal regardless. It's a state um uh recommended number and we use that. The only number that came from the town was open space and that's we adopted open space years ago and we follow the farm forest um valuation list. So so that changed at the same rate as everything else. Uh at the end of the project we sent out uh notices to all all property owners on December 27th. Uh we had a monthlong worth of hearings that went all throughout January. um which

023is why I needed an extension on the grand list. Uh we had a total of 138 hearings which is only 2% of the properties and um for the most part hearings went really well. A lot of questions about what does this mean to me. Um data was fine, sales was fine. Okay, my house is worth that. Um but what is my tax bill going to be at that point? Obviously very hard for me to project what you guys are all trying to project as well. Um but with with that type of increase um people wanted to know what the mill was going to do. So residential properties were up 49% on average, commercial properties up 15% on average for an overall increase of 46%. Um we had several commercial hearings, probably only three or four

024though. Uh wasn't too too bad there. Um, so this last page just says our endless one up 36 and a half% based on uh the increases on real estate, decreases to motor vehicle, and a slight increase on personal property. Um, based on our old mill rate of 377, it would have to come down that 36 and a half% to to obviously make no change in the tax bill at all. Uh but what we have here is a shift of tax burden and [Music] um because commercial only increased a slight amount that burden is now shift to the residential property. So it increased significantly. Um that's it for the revaluation and what the end result was. Um I'm happy to answer any questions about that. So clarifying question uh to Brian Ya and Jason um if

025residents or sorry councilors have questions about um say tax different tax programs um or revenue more broadly. Uh I'm assuming they should save those questions to the revenue section rather than the assessment portion. just want to make sure that we're using our time efficiently and have the right people to those questions. Um, if you have questions like about tax programs, I'm just thinking about some of the questions you had, Joe, about veterans and senior program. I'm not ask. Oh, now. Okay. All right. Um, I guess this is good time to get those questions. So, that I'll I'll open it up to counselors for questions for Mr. Lawrence. I sent um I sent a bunch of questions via email and got a and got several answers, but I'll defer that until I get a chance to

026review this against my email and then pick it up probably at our next meeting. Okay. Thank you. Questions for you guys? Uh council me has his hand raised. Council Mar. Yeah, thank you. Uh, thanks for coming in, Jason. Really appreciate it. Um, I think I probably know the answer to this, but is there anything um like in the software or things that we're doing when we're doing the revals that tries to um or any way that can try to accommodate for like huge shift in tax burdens from commercial to residential? Is there is there any way to sort of like try to mitigate that or is it just purely, you know, based on the the markets for different markets, residential versus commercial, and sort of we're stuck with what we have? Um there's no real

027I mean you you have to meet those sta stat statistical standards by OPM. So uh if you were to try to mitigate that and not raise things as much as they should, you'd really have to manipulate your sales to, you know, maybe only use your lowest sales that are out there. Um it really is is just a function of uh the statistics and uh commercial properties did increase um actually um quite a bit more than they had in the last two rebounds. Uh but the residential market just totally outweighed that um and uh yeah I mean I mean the sales are are there and there's there's proof there that um it's just a shift of tax burden. I mean it it's not it's all it is. Yeah. And then just one other question. Um is

028this sort of what you're seeing in other towns like sort of a similar trend from what I've seen it sort of appears to be that way. But I'm just curious from your your expertise your perspective is that sort of consistent with what you're seeing in towns similar to Colin. Yeah. Um Willington had a a 43% overall increase and um Coventry was 44. They both did rebounds this year. Uh, Mansfield was similar, but I don't have the actual percentage. Um, they also uh rebound this year. Um, everybody's seeing the same the same type of data. Um, I assume Coventry is up a little bit higher because of their waterfront properties. Um, very very comparable town. A little bit smaller than us, but very comparable. Okay. Thank you. So, thank you for whoever got me the charts.

029Um, I just wanted to see the difference and how many percentage how many homes are really going up over a certain percent and definitely a lot more. Um, seems a lot just a few questions on top of that. with whoever is similar with you Jason or Brian and I did share that with shar also on that email as well. So I guess the question is commercials did go down a lot. So I'm just trying to understand better why they went down so much but the residential went way up. Yep. I think from the percentages that I um answered in that email was overall commercial is up and it was a 30 3030 split 30% down 30% kind of middle ground and then 30% um up. I mean a big pusher of that are the apartments

030um sector of commercial properties right now is high. It's hot. So that's why you see them being built all over the place. the rental income that comes off of those is there and it's kind of it's not uh completely uh proof from from properties that would fail. Um but it's doing a lot better than retail and office market. Um so they they those properties are trading on a uh nationwide scale. So when they become parts of uh REITs and and large portfolios, then they sell and they sell for for big bucks. So that's pushing that number um the 15% increase overall. Um but Big Y Plaza's had the same rents that they've had for the last 15 years. Um they're not getting another penny out of their their leases. Um their expenses have gone up

031as they've had to the propertyy's now getting older and older. They've got to replace a roof. They've replaced parts of the building. Um they've had vacancies uh that have been in existence now for at least five years, maybe even 10. Uh I know that the uh dry cleaner went out five years ago during COVID. Betting barn went out um probably seven, eight years ago. Um so, but he's maintaining like high rents because he wants to have a good quality tenant coming into the building. Um look at the old gym there that's been vacant for quite a while now. So that's reflective in their value. Um you're going to keep a vacancy for five years. A vacancy rate is part of the uh calculation in determining their value. So a plaza like that is um going

032to pretty flat in value. They're not going to have much of an increase at all. Four or 5%. Um I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but just thinking about those types of properties. Um we have a lot of small office buildings. Uh Neck's a big office building. they're 90% vacant. Like that's a problem. So without um you know being fair to them at the same time as I'm trying to be fair to everybody um you have to reflect those true uh parts of the market and and um overall that their increase um it was pretty significant compared to the last two revals. And then those last two revals uh residential properties went down in one of them and then the other one they went up very slightly 1%. So that that

033that burden has been more on their portion of uh the budget over that time period and now that here we are with a significant increase on the residential side. that piece of we talked about a pie that key that the your assessment is directly linked to the overall um budget. So, if you look at it as a piece of pie, I have um you made some pretty things here. Um and and last year 2023, our um overall grand list um 83% of the grand list was made up of real estate um residential and commercial. The breakdown of that was 73% RES, 9 and a half% commercial. After the rebal, we're we're now at um 88% of the grand list is real estate and 81% is real estate is residential. 7% is commercial. If you apply

034that directly to our proposed budget, that's $4 million difference that now the residential site is still have to pick up. So that's where you're seeing that shift in tax burden. the the piece of the pie or or is is bigger on the residential side. It's just a simple percentage calculation. Your assessment is directly related to the mill rate which is directly what you know feeds the $52 million um budget. Um thank you Jason for that explanation. I guess the other question I have is now that people's taxes some people against taxes went way up. Do you think that more people will apply for assistance through the town to help with their property tax or they'll stay still? You know, I think we do have an uptick in our elderly program. Um those applications aren't due

035until May 15th. So, as you'll see, and I think you guys are starting to talk about what those um estimates were for the cost of those programs. Um we don't know their estimates because we don't know. We've had more applications this year. Um it's an every other year application. Um and but it you know it doesn't close till May 15th. So they still have a time have time for more people to come in. And I I would say in the last few days we've had you know a couple each day and it does usually pick up towards the end as people finish their tax returns and um they get the the information that we need um for their applications. I guess I have one other question. So you do the hearings for the people that

036concerned about the property. Has anybody won their appeal on that or just said mostly it was informationational? Yeah. Um do you remember how much um the I I don't exactly recall the number of adjustments but yeah I mean probably 75% of the people that came in for appeals I made some type of adjustment on a lot of it was good information. Um this is a mass appraisal. It's not meant to be perfect, but some people will come in and let you know about um all kinds of things that you just don't know about by looking at a house from the outside. A lot of people's houses look great from the outside. You get inside and it's a different story where they've got finished basement that's been there since the 70s and really doesn't contribute value

037anymore. So, I'd go take do an inspection and make an adjustment for that. Um, so that's why I've always told everybody, come to an informal hearing because this is your chance for me to make an adjustment without without having to go through a board of appeals or go through the process of a lawsuit or some, you know, to to get your way. Um, so yeah, I made quite a few adjustments and that's part of the process, you know. Now, would that amount affect the budget though? That's already been figured out. That's already been figured out. that happens before we finalize the the gran. Um, any other questions from counselors? Just a quick question about your your comment about the $4 million shift from commercial to residential. Is that 4 million taxes or just valuation? Taxes.

038Taxes. Yeah. It's a seven seven and a half percent difference between the burden from last year to this year and that seven and a half percent of 52 million this year for Yeah, I was I was just going to ask you if you percent you know very very informal survey people are basically saying we're seeing an increase in taxes anywhere from 7 to 15%. um based on based on no rate. So uh this is a good number to understand why that why that's actually happening and your discussion about the commercial reason for the commercial valuations kind of really not moving very much makes a lot of sense uh when you consider the fact that you know they haven't increased their rent in several years there's still a lot of vacancies in town so concern I

039have one question. Um, so when it comes to programs like the senior tax relief program, I can't say exactly, but you know, more than 60 more than 60. Um, do you have an estimate as of the maximum number of properties that would be eligible for that and that program in Colorado at the very max how much um revenue we could potentially it's a half half a percent of the budget. So whatever you guys pass um I think that's it's like 300,000 in tax. Yeah. And then after that, if it exceeds that can still continue to take applications. If it exceeds that then we have to start rating everybody back to that number. So it can't exceed half of 1% of the budget. Okay. All right. So that's by statute cap. Okay. How much are we

040assuming is going to be used by that program now? Can't remember. I'm sorry. How much are we assuming is 200 and change? I believe 200,000 actual tax dollars. We back into it based on the the amount of uh actually no we used to back into it. We changed the program to a defined benefit. So folks who apply get $300 year one and $100 every year after that they qualify. So uh we mimicked the the old um frozen amount. It used to be called the freeze. um we mimic that old amount, kept the people that had been in the program for 20 years at the amount that they were getting and we're adding 100 $100 to all of those people that so so they're not losing anything. That was part of what we wanted to do

041is not have any of those folks um lose money as part of what we're trying to do. So as they um come out of the program, they have to they would start over at $300 year one, $100 every year after that they qualify. Um, okay. And I thought that doing it that way and Bob Rabbino helped out quite a bit that um we wouldn't even get close to the cap. Obviously, a big rebell like this, you might have more applications, more people coming in. Um, everybody's always surprised when they come in um that we even have the program. We publicize it like crazy. Yeah. So, I anticipate we'll have quite a few more as as more budget information comes out. That line changed from this current budget. Um, saying we're assuming about $200,000 this upcoming

042year. Do you know how much program is costing us for lack of a better? I can't hear you. Really? Sorry. But I just asking, so you're saying uh in this proposed budget, we're assuming it's going to cost about $200,000 for ordinance 60. Yep. Do you know how much we're budgeting the current year for ordinance 60? Well, I think we knew exactly what the number was because after three referendums, we got to the end of the application period and we gave an exact number. So, it probably was exact what the the program cost. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out if we're assuming that more people are going to take advantage of it. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's a bump from it's probably 160 180 last year and this is estimated to be 200 just Okay.

043You don't know. So that roughly 9 million gross number converts to So there's a 9 million gross reduction in valuations that converts to about 200,000 in taxes. Yeah. Yep. That's probably both of the programs includes the circuit breaker as well which is the state program. Any other questions counselors? So I did a I did just to go to uh commissioner's um question about like the four million and some other things. So, I did a um it's quick spreadsheet. Actually, it wasn't quick, but I did um the 10 highest [Music] um commercial properties listed in here plus another 10 random and then somewhere between 50 and 80 residential homes based on just random neighborhoods that I picked. So everything that you had talked about as far as residential values bore through when when just so that

044you know when I when I looked at this and I'm going to send it over because I want to make sure that um I did it for my own uh understanding. Sure. Um because what I was looking at was a median and a mean in excess of 10%. With a lot of values at 15 16 17% and that's tax increases. That's not property value because we know the property valuations went up. So, if I can send that in. And then there was a couple of questions that I said via email um where I used the word like tax reduction, which it sounded like tax break, which is not what I meant, but I'll send that over just for clarification and then you guys can decide whether to send it on to the rest of the

045commissioners. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. One of the question I what I brought up last night was this a veterans exemption which is new for this year. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about that and then how you got the calculation and it looks like it's working out. I mean if we're using the similar you know we have almost 9 million senior tax relief and this is 6.8 million. So assuming this is covering around 150,000 in tax benefit tax reduction more than that. Thank you. Um, so what this is is a newly enacted veterans exemption for permanently and total disabled veterans um that have to have a 100% disability rating um due to their connected to service through the VA. So this legislation went back and forth on this in the last year and

046we were in January not knowing what we were going to do with this. this is a last minute. What's the value going to be? The legislation was written up very poorly. Um it said had words in there like dwelling um when the intent was to exempt somebody's whole property. Dwelling to me means just the house. Um we started talking about what if somebody has two houses on the same property, do they get to exempt both of them? Uh things like that. So, a lot of lastm minute legislation that nobody vetted through the people that actually have to do this work. Um, so assessors were kind of up in arms about it. But what that is is um I think it's 39 veterans. That's the value of their homes exempted off of the grant. So 100%

047exemption. 100%. That's great. And I didn't couldn't get that number earlier because we weren't done with the rebal. I didn't know what that total was going to be. So, if they're if they don't own a home and they're a renter, then they we would exempt one of their vehicles. So, currently, you can get a car exempted if you're active duty um military. So, 100%. And dollar-wise, what does that work out to? Any grip idea? We have that number. I don't remember what it is, though. Um we can always come back. Okay. Yeah. I can get that. I like that answer. Just quick follow up to the councelor Shay's question. When's the deadline to apply for that program? When will you know how many people are going to take advantage of it? Yeah. So, here's an

048extra little terrible caveat. They can apply any time and it's retroactive back to 2024 grand list. So, somebody can come in a month from now and apply for that. Okay. So, it's ever changing. But they have to meet two criteria. They have to be a veteran and 100% disabled. 100% disabled. There there'll be legislative changes this year to potentially even exempt their land up to two acres. Um that's what they're talking about now. Um but yeah, no, it's it's retro. So if they come in in two years and they've already have their DD214 on record and they can provide the form, they can get it. Good. Thank you. Guess I'll open up to one last round of questions. Well, thank you Jason for coming and giving us a really good update, especially since Right. Thank

049you, Chair. Um uh so we're going to cover the U finance department and their uh budget for the year. And we're there's several aspects of the finance department. The major services obviously manage our town's finances, our maintain our financial stability, our AAA rating. They manage payroll, bill payments, long-term debt. Um they collaborate with me on on many decision- making uh issues that we have. They obviously generate quarterly and annual financial reports. The quarterly thing is something new this year. It seems to be working out okay. The overall number for the finance department is $49,021 uh the budget and that is an increase of $5,427 compared to fiscal year last year. Uh largely that is payroll. Of the five 5,400 4600 is payroll due to uh council approved raises negotiated salaries uh for union and non-union

050persons. The professional services budget line item went up to just over $2,000 due to contractual obligations associated with annual financial software maintenance agreements. Uh moving on, our independent public audit, our yearly audit, CLA is done by CLA. Uh it's a positive audit. A positive audit is benefit beneficial to our maintaining our AAA bond rating. Uh and we've obviously since I at least I've been here always had a positive uh uh audit and maintain our AAA bond rating. Uh you you the town council appoints a certified public accountant against CLA uh or a firm or independent of public accountants. They audit the books and the accounts of the town of Taland. They follow generally accepted accounting standards and adhere to the financial audit standards as outlined by the general auditing standards issued by the comproller general

051of the United States. The budget proposed for that is uh 37,500 no change from last year and as you can see that is a you know a flat charge. We get what we pay for basically um we build out what we pay the budget. Uh the budget is the 37,500 is 50% of the audit. The other half is paid for by the board of ed. They go through they're under the same audit standards uh that we are. Okay. Miscellaneous support services. They pro provide funding for services and equipment that enhance communication administration with the organizations. Uh provide funding for central office equipment and maintenance, copers, posters, machines, etc. Uh maintenance and fuel costs for our shared vehicles. Provide financial support for mailing needs. Uh general office supplies etc. to to ensure efficient workflow. I'm proposing

052$63,790. That is a $7,500 decrease. Uh the purpose again of administrative services is is a program to provide funding and services for equipment. Uh that number is coming down uh pretty a good amount this year. So uh we're we're happy about that. Uh information technologies, obviously we share it, we share our IT services um with the town of South Windsor. Uh everything everything we do uh we we have a an IT employee for 19 and a half hours a week. Uh we also have Norine here as well. Uh she gets a a stipen for IT uh to assist in the IT ICT side and together they all they are very very very helpful for us. Um if we had to hire an actual IT person 40 hours a week plus benefits um it would cost

053certainly a lot more than than we are paying at this point. Um and uh they Norine also maintains a lot of our IT security as well. Uh so we're very and works with South Windsor on all that. South Windsor has been working with Megan Masa our grants person on different technology needs when we try to apply for a grant successfully. We have in the past um and so proposing for it we are proposing 200 uh 200,000 2313 $3979. Uh that's up $30,000. So the reason for the up the major reason for the uh upgrade or the raise in budget is $26,000 uh for Office 365. Our current office Microsoft uh 2016 is expiring. Uh and if you have any questions uh in regards to that, we have both Yolita and uh Norine can help answer

054any questions. Uh with that also under the finance department um is revenue services. Uh Aaron Bartlett's here if you have any questions regarding that. That's our tax collector office. Statutory requirements. Uh we operate in accordance with Connecticut General Statutes are responsible billing, collecting, processing, depositing uh and accounting for all our property taxes. They're our central repository uh for revenue for all town departments. Uh they handle all our billing. They enforce payments and delinquent taxes uh and maintain it uh accurate collection records and controls. Uh Aaron Bartlett has done an an excellent job on picking up on some deficiencies uh from previous um staff and and really brought our the whole staff in there uh professionalized and up to speed in what we need what we're need as a from a tax collector office. I'm proposing

055$191 uh,327. That's a 29 uh $100 increase. all mostly related to um service contracts, assessment services. Uh again, we just had Jason, that's his office. Uh obviously they they do the revaluation, but they do all our assessor needs and uh maintain their objective is to evenly distribute the tax burden in a fair and equitable manner. Uh they do they uh value business properties, motor vehicles annually, process as we discussed the veterans and the uh ordinance 60 as well. uh for his office as Jason and two other employees. Uh I'm I'm proposing $346,000 roughly and that is up $32,000. 29 uh the $29,000 increase is in the refal cost that we discussed yesterday. So that's that is the main bulk uh of the increase there. Uh again uh required by law. Uh we went into much

056detail tonight. We're going to likely have to hire an outside firm to do that. Board of Assessment and Appeals. Uh we have it's a $600 uh budget for them for clerking the advertising and training. Uh we can answer any questions you have on that. So that that is our entire finance department. If you have any questions uh again we have several people here on staff to answer any questions. Uh Yolita and Jason as you know are here. Norine and Aaron Bartlett are here as well. And I think that's it from our finance side. Thank you Brian. Open up to the floor for Questions go first. Um, okay. So, first question I have uh is for Erin. So, the tax collection rate this year is assumed to be um 99%. Is that the same as it's

057been in previous years? Um, the fiscal year is not over yet. So the current um collection percentage is 97% at the moment. Um by the by June it's usually between 98 99 at that point because um we're getting ready to send everything to the state marshall. We're going to give him the authority to collect on our behalf. He brings in a lot of money for delinquent motor vehicle and personal property taxes. Mhm. So once that's all settled, the collection rate will be more towards 99%. At the moment, it's more 96 97. Okay. But do you know off hand what it was in past years? Because I think um you had come here a few months ago and it was I thought it was like over 99 over the past couple years. Yeah. Um yeah, this

058time last year it was roughly 95 96%. Okay. So, it's up at this point from where it was last year in March. Okay. So, but by the end of June, it'll be more towards the 98 99%. Okay. My my question was is if we're we're going if we're trending a little bit high, I mean, would it make sense to consider like a 99.5% collection rate, maybe based off of like the average you've had over the past three or four years if we're doing well? Um, I can look into that. Get back to me. Okay. Thank you. Um, the second question I had, um, I assume this is probably the best time to talk about investment income. Like, do we have another item that would make more sense to talk about it under? Yeah. Or when

059we go do the deliberations uh, down the road, you know, if you have questions, this this is more based on their budget as opposed to debt management. Yeah. Um, I think my I'm just going to go and ask. I think it's a fairly simple question. So, when we we bring in the investment income, is it going right up into the unassigned fund balance or does it go somewhere else? I can't remember where it goes. Well, it depends, right? It depends how the revenues comes and how the expenditures. Yeah. So, and then if it comes higher, it it's going to be looked at and it's going to go in assigned balance. So, it's all depends how the year goes. you can't predict. So sometimes to having higher revenues and some unexpected expenditures happening, you know, some

060higher costs coming, it helps us to offset those deficits. But um primarily what happened last year because of the higher investments that we received, they fall under an assigned fund balance. Okay. I hope that helps. Yeah. Yeah. You know I there's no such a you know like the investment income is going to go on assigned balance this going to go here there's no such a you know um assigned particular procedure of assigned life item you put it where it needs to go yes kind of idea okay those are my questions for now um just a real quick question Um I guess I'm a little confused why the why why the assessor's assessment services budget is going up next year when it I would have thought that the cost all the costs associated with revals would

061have been in this year's budget not next year's budget. Why is there such a we're it's going to go up um what's it 145,000 or so. So rather than in in five years saying, "Hey, let's increase the budget by 145. We've cut it up by five and add that increase in the next five years so that we go to do the reval." So it's less of an impact. Does that make sense? Well, not really because you're not you're not putting it into a savings account. You're showing this as a current year expenditure. So why would not just put it on the year that it's going to occur? Go ahead. So what we do we do budget it every year for 29 let's see 29,000 and in that year we transfer with the special pen fund

062that for revaluation so we kind of saving yes yes we do we do transfer it so if we so we don't get hit with the full expense in one fiscal year I think it makes more sense doing that but we'll take any yeah no that makes sense So, is that is that like in a fund? I mean, do we have like a fund that's listed somewhere in here where that money's actually going? Yes, we do. And I can if you would like I can send I can send the report. Yeah, just let me know what fund it is. Oh, it's fun 2301. Yes. That listed. That's the name of the fund. Is it 2301? There's in the budget book. We have a there's a spreadsheet that has all. So this was the 29,000 that was

063itemized in our packet. Yes. Last night, right? Correct. 29,000 a year for five years is what you're Okay. And that goes into the dedicated fund that commissioner say. Correct. Okay. That's what I understood. I just want to make sure I was understanding correctly. Transfer out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I see the trans. See it is in the category transfer out to to CN. Yes. Other questions council shar. Yeah. Thank you. Um so uh I agree. I had a similar thought to Jacob about considering uh whether it's prudent to consider 99 and a half or uh tax collection rate something more um not overly conservative right and so I think this is the year uh we shouldn't be unnecessarily conservative when we're projecting what revenue we're going to get because we're going to have already overburdened tax

064uh residents um and so you know as best as we can I want to not end up in a situation where we're you know putting um money into unassigned fund balance which is basically you know taxing residents higher than we need to be. Are we um with Yolita the what we're anticipating as far as revenue whether that's investment income and things like that. Is it a pretty realistic projection or are we sort of being overly or are we being conservative with it when in other years that might be a good idea but this year we I just think we need to be as practical as we can be. It's a good question. I wish I had a crystal ball, but I don't. So, right now, we do project we have 800,000 in the FY26 budget.

065Um, and I think this is probably the best guess we can have it as of today. The market, as you know, has their own backs and ups and downs. So, you know, we don't have Yeah, I appreciate that. And I know that, you know, it's obviously um, you know, it's using some expertise and also just sort of there's no guarantees, but just something to bear in mind as we go throughout the process. This is a tough year, going to be a tough year for residents. Um, sort of no matter what happens with the budget given the the shift in the burden from commercial to residential. So, um, just where we can be as, you know, realistic as we can with revenue, I think that will just, um, you know, that'll help a little bit. Anyway,

066thank you. You councelor Mariah. C you check your question. Yeah, I just realized I wrote a note here. So, we're expecting some new businesses to come on in a couple of years. Is there any, you know, a year or two out, but there do you have any production on how much we might make on those new businesses coming in for the future off your taxes like the Santini, Starbucks, and some other things that are coming on? You don't have that, right? D I think Dave Cork and our planner would would have a pretty good idea unless you do have that. Um I couldn't give you a number but every October I'm going to check and see what the status is of those projects. Um they could come on the list at at a percentage. So

067for instance Santini's gone as they've improved the land over there this past year as they added eight different foundations in there. They had an increase substantial increase in their value. um next October if they by then they're framing there'll be another increase there. Um he's waiting for prices to come down and and just the market to get better. Um if you're aware of their properties um they keep them. So every penny they spend is a penny that comes out of their pocket. They're not looking to sell the properties. They're they're invested in the town. They're invested in owning the property. So they're um they're going to be very frugal with when they decide to buy wood and when they decide to buy building supplies. Um so I don't I don't know what what the where

068they'll be. I've talked to Kevin a couple times about it, but I don't know. We're pretty confident, Colleen, that they're going to be our currently not a major taxpayer in towns or like other than he is over there every day counting bricks, but uh they we anticipate them being our number one taxpayer taking over Eversource uh here in town. We currently don't have that. So that that'll be there. Um and it'll be a good push for us. Uh I also we also look to the ripple effect of you already see Starbucks um coming in. Big Y is confident they're going to fill when that when that place is up and running in the next couple years. So um again, we anticipate them to be our number one taxpayer. So can I add a little context?

069So they're one of the well they're one of the properties that I actually um put on my spreadsheet. So they're already up over last year 37%. And that's in in taxable that's in actual tax paid by assess that's in the the dollar value of the taxes that will be due. So the effect of that construction is already being felt. Great. Thank you. Um any other questions counselors? I do one more on the miscellaneous services budget. Um I see that's decreasing. Um but I still also see the actuals are are quite a bit lower than what was budgeted um year over year like last full year is 48,000 and the budget was 64,000. Um, so I'm just curious why that line tends to be over by a decent amount. Happy to answer. Oh, go ahead. Yep.

070Uh, so if you look at the table that you're probably looking on that page, um, in this year we did budget it under other equipments 10,500. So I think that's that's the big huge difference uh when you compare to actuals for the prior year and we are planning to buy two printers one a bigger one which is up to $98,000 and one a smaller desk desk printer for library one from the five for five. So that's why you see this um it's those printers since you mentioned are they replacing existing units? Correct. We have all the ones that Thank you. Any other questions for counselors up for our revenue and finance sections tonight? Thank you. Okay, thanks. Uh we're going to move on to our town clerk. Uh we do have Kathy Bean, I believe,

071online if you do have any questions. uh our town clerk's office. I'm proposing 162,000. That's uh to include Kathy uh and Barry Fries and then any sort of uh temporary work uh should it should it pop up or should it be needed. Uh the proposed 162,000 is up $844. Uh and that is uh largely payroll. Um payroll I'm sorry, the payroll increased by $1,844 not44. Uh Kathy's here if you have any questions regarding their budget. Currently the clerk's office is under the the fiscal but next year as you know it'll be under the town manager. Any questions on the clerk's budget? Seems pretty line the revenue was down if you remember that on that. So just based on trends. Yep. questions. Thanks, Kathy. Thank you. All right, move on to uh public safety things. Yep.

072Public safety. Obviously, Chief Vital and staff are here. If we have any questions, as I believe the two biggest roles of public government, our public safety and education, uh this is going to cover our public safety as uh aspect of it. Uh this includes um our fire department, emergency management, uh animal control, all sorts of I'm sorry, the state police, uh all sorts of uh different different um departments, fire prevention, search team, uh so a lot at that uh on the plate here. Our fire department handled 261 calls in 2024. 12 employees, the director, fire marshal, one and a half admin staff, uh eight career firefighter, uh EMT combos, 44 volunteers and EMT 44 firefighter and EMT volunteers, uh eight fire police, uh volunteers, five auxiliary, 10 special members, um and six explorers. So there's

073uh yearly training requirements, statemandated and department mandated and certifications. Some of those have costs up front and then don't cost down the road. Uh but uh we have to maintain uh those training costs. As you you know, we have uh five facilities, four fire stations and the training center on Maro Road. I'm certain that uh I'm pretty sure we're going to look to um in the in the next decade move the u Maro Road Fire Department uh to a different central location here in town and open up that corridor for uh business development uh apparatus. As far as the fire department uh goes, we covered this extensively during the capital plan. We have two ambulances and a third spare three engine tanks. I would count uh the uh squad truck also has an engine tank,

074four engine tanks, uh one ladder truck, two tankers, and one light duty reserve. Uh and then two uh 4x4 off-road uh vehicles. We have two command vehicles. Those are the the Taho, dive operations trailer, a regular equipment trailer, the trailer for the UTVs, uh another all two all-terrain trailers, I'm sorry. And uh we also have our our message board out in the center of town there as well uh that we use for that we use as on the town side, not just for public safety stuff. Uh public safety officers uh they their daily daily um or what they do basically they obviously respond to emergencies. Uh they they uh make sure they do our equipment and station inspections, maintain their our apparatus, they do all the school fire drills, the lockdowns, fire prevention education, maintain

075all our town's fire extinguishers and AEDs. Uh they do a lot of trainings for the community around and they also they're very very very good at all of our community events. Uh the chief and his staff have been uh fantastic for us. Their budget includes a lot of things. uh water supply, aminance service, fire suppression, fire prevention, emergency preparedness, uh the CERT team, uh and animal control, and I'm going to cover those now. So, the water budget, I'm I'm proposing a water budget of uh $114,351. Uh we pay it yearly for our water and hydrants. We pay per linear foot. Uh there that amount has been reduced compared to fiscal year last year by $4,500. On the ambulance side of thing, I'm I'm proposing $580,321. Uh that includes uh some of our firefighters and EMTs

076and some admin staff as well. Uh that is a 17 just over $17,000 increase uh in payroll uh from last year. Uh and then the uh it went up I believe $5,600 in other equipment uh to to handle the some of the equipment needs that the chief may have. Fire suppression that is uh the firefighter side of things. Uh I am proposing 7 $759,087. Uh that is an increase of $34,000 compared to fiscal year. Uh that is multiple things. half of it, under half of it is payroll, uh, but machinery, equipment, repairs, uh, and then we added some money into our explorer post, but also the volunteer stipen. Um, we we are looking to increase as well. Fire prevention side, that's our fire marshall, uh, Rob Nika. I'm proposing $88,489. That is up $936, uh,

077as compared to last year. our emergency management budget. Uh 17 I'm proposing $17,120. That is a stipen paid to chiefel that does uh all of our emergency management. Um you see a lot of the emails and such when the storms are coming uh and our preparedness there. And he does an outstanding job and I can tell you from a previous career he's much respected uh for his role uh in emergency management by the state of Connecticut Department of Emergency Services uh and public protection. our SER team. Uh I'm proposing $2,600 for our SER team. Those are our volunteers that you see um that we use them for a lot of different community events. Uh with traffic safety, pedestrian safety uh and and other safety things around town. They are just uh we're very thankful to

078have them. They do a great job in our in our many of our events and helping out John in a crisis. Our animal control division, I'm proposing seven 70,27,282 Uh payroll expense is $46,000 and expenditures is just over $23,000. Uh that's repairs, equipments, uniform uh fuel, oil, electricity for the facility. I'm hoping to see savings uh in this down the road as we regionalize. There is a grant opportunity where the they'll the um CROG will will get a grant for us to pay for 75% of our um uh salary for animal control for the first year, 50 the next year and 25 uh% the the third year uh as an incentive to regionalize. So we're moving quickly towardsh trying to get that done and also build the facility at the same time. uh you know,

079our public safety folks maintain and keep our apparatus uh uh our fleet up to date. We work with the chief on that uh largely through capital planning. Uh he's done an outstanding job to work through buying used uh equipment and refurbishing our equipment and and getting more well beyond what the life expectancy of the vehicles are. Uh we've we've done a great job in really the chief has done a great job in in uh maintaining that uh practice and helping save us some money in our capital plan as you recall with the ladder truck. We had 2.1 million uh saved or put put aside in our capital budget for that new ladder truck which we had bought in 93 and then last year uh the chief found one for just over 600,000 I'd say. Is

080that accurate as opposed to Yeah. Yeah. And so I mean just that those kind of savings uh and in and refurbishing we we believe this uh budget is fiscally responsible and enough to maintain the needs. Uh we've invested in our in obviously in in our members uh to give them the required training and safety as you know there's safety equipment in the capital budget. Uh I believe every year I I I will not I will obviously fight for that but I haven't needed to fight for it. council has been great about uh making sure that they have all the safety gear they need. Uh and as talked about the refurbishing program has extended the the life of our uh vehicles. Uh Chief Litel um is here and assistant chief Chief Dojan is here if you

081have any questions. Thank you Brian. Um open up for counselors if they have any questions. This is this is uh all questions for Yeah. So, this is public safety for the services that Brian just covered. Um, police and the resident state troopers be on Monday. I was going any questions or I just have a general question. So, um, so this is very detailed. Thank you. Um, and this is, uh, Chief Leel, you consider this sufficient for your needs for the coming year? best what we can. We're obviously fighting with the bull with everybody. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? No, thank you. I actually do have a question. I don't know if you have it off the top of your head, Chief, but uh I think last year we had a break we had a breakdown

082of your calls for service. Um was there a significant increase in MBAs this year, specifically the Colin uh triangle, or do you guys notice an increase in MBAs in town or No. So generally the MVAs uh you know everybody obviously we're in the triangle and you know we try to target everyone brings up the I84 court. You also have to take in account that over the last four to five years there was a major push from this community with prior management and Brian was a part of it when he came here. Um there's been a lot of guard rails, a lot of other things that have been added signage wise and different things. there's major plans coming down the pike uh to add cameras as well as more message boards and other things coming down

083the pike. So that's, you know, obviously played a factor into it. Um and the weather obviously plays a huge factor um throughout because it's the fogs, it's the it's that from exit 67, exit 69, we know that that's the uh the problem areas. Um, I'd rather not get into details of it because every time I open up and say something, it's sure enough that we have a tractor trailer accident. Don't say. So, uh, we do. Um, so with that being said, it's just, uh, we're in that triangle. Um, and the motor vehicle accidents, uh, it it comes and goes. We've had a lot more around town with a lot of rollovers and cars in the poles and, you know, different aspects like that. Um, but we we track it. I can get you the the

084fall numbers for the last two to three months that we track. I can set. Yeah. I just was curious to see the the bump from last year. Yeah. And it trends. I mean, it's the same as, you know, the medical on the medical's on the rise. And if you ask me the different complexes around town, you can target three or four complexes and say, "Wow, this is busy this month and then the month after drops down. So, you know, we've we've tried to target different areas and sometimes we're in some certain neighborhoods 10 times a month and then we don't go back there for three months, four months. It's quiet and you wonder." But, um, it's it's all it's it's everywhere. We're the medical's up high. Um, our guys do a great job with fire

085prevention and different types of things. And, um, we try to make the best, but triangle's triangle. Yeah. So, the storms have been more devastating if you noticed the week before with, you know, 19 to 22 roads closed and, you know, different outages and, you know, closures and buses and stuff like that. So, we when we get hit, we get hit with that aspect. Sorry. There's a lot of surveys out there and from DOT to Yukon traffic safety and they put them out and they who knows who answers them. When I get them chief, I say I I have him answer the survey what what areas in town better lighting, better signage. I ask him I ask ask a DPWR who's our traffic authority. I ask him and I give it to the state police all

086three of them. Uh in fact the last two weeks I think we had two um where they can identify spots in town. all three separately in the survey what our needs are and get them to them. Will it help? We'll see. But DOT has been very responsive to us as we uh needed them to be in town, not including that way. Is there an expectation uh for the troop to do something with those reports or Yeah, I believe they would. I know they did on I sent one out again today um from Yukon, the last DOT one. Uh they filled it out. Um it would benefit them. I I'm sure they're they get their accident numbers down. They're responsive with those reports. That's good. Okay. Good. Appreciate it, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Um

087any other questions with counselors? Just kind of like a administrative question. How do you how do you determine the split because I noticed the public safety officers are listed are listed both in the ambulance services as well as the fire um services. So how do you split out the salaries between those two? So we separate the career staff. So right now you have five uh career people out in the one part-time admin. And then the fire side you have myself and Captain Sites and two other career people as well as the full-time admin. Okay. So basically you have eight you have eight staff full-time staffs. Does that So you have eight fulltime staff. There's eight public safety officers, right? Correct. And they're both they're all trained firefighter EMTs. So you split the salaries up. Half

088come out of ambulance and half come out of the fire. Oh. So that's just a 50/50 split. And we try to we try to balance it because obviously the the fireside equipment and everything else is higher price-wise and everything else and then the medical supplies. So we try to split the staff between those two budgets and it's been it's been great. Obviously we had to make some switches as we had a promotion with the captain years ago and we we rotated one for one. What's the um what's the call volume? Ambulance services fire 7030 70 ambulance 30% ambulance 30% fire. Just a followup question to that. The 30% does that include motor vehicle accidents? Yep. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I guess we because we double up. I mean, sometimes you send in an ambulance

089and a fire truck to a call. And that's one of the things when you look at your call volume, you look at, you know, it's an accident, but then it's an accident with an extrication. So, it takes both the fireside, both the ambulance side. So, you know, your ambulance sides are high, but obviously that's two staff members compared to a fireside where you need twice the amount of manpower. Okay. So you get a car accident that with an education on fire, you're it's hard to run that first aspect of putting the fire out, educate. Yeah. And then try to transfer staff to transport. Statistically, it kind of crosses both. Yep. Throw some hazmat in there. Hazmat stuff. And we have an auto accident. We say we send the ambulance and the fire truck out there.

090We get reimbursed only for the ambulance, not for the fire truck. Right. So we have uh uh you mind me answering that? Go ahead. Hit 84, John. Yep. So 84, we hit the 84 section. If it's a uh transport, obviously that's a medical transport by state statute medical wise. We build out for the ambulance patient. And on the fire side, we put in for reimbursement back to the state of Connecticut and they give a small stipen back that comes back in. That money goes back into the ambulance and uh rescue recovery fund. And then if it's a motor vehicle accident 84, you're out of town, out of stator, big tractor trailer, 14 hours, that gets build to the rescue fund. So we try to recoup as much as we can. And that's that rescue ordinance

091that I created about 5 years ago. Okay. But if it's on a town road, we get no reimbursement from the state. Fire truck. No, the only reimbursement that we have is the town ordinance that we created that we can go back if it was an out of town with a cracked pole or you know that type of stuff. He has some discretion. Town town residents. We're not here to Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, tack on there. So, he's great about it. Yeah. We compare everything. We take the police report, we take the other reports, and then I look at it and if it's a resident, they weren't at fault. They got hit by something else. Well, that's where taxes got back to that side. So, we try to take care of our residents 100%. Any

092other questions, CH? Uh, any other council with questions? Um, on page two of the budget book under train and development, we actually think that's accurate. Is that meeting all requirements needed for staff? Yeah, first two. So you have two different training accounts. One's obviously under ambulance and you have another trading account under fireside. So the ambulance account we try to budget in there for continuing education, bringing outside speakers. We just sent eight people, 12 people to say um Harvard Hospital for a uh indepth uh extra above and beyond which is your EMT skills. So they spent the whole Saturday, Sunday there. Um so there's expenses for that and then there's expenses in there where if you end up joining our department, um you pay for your EMT up front. If you pass it, you stay

093on board as a volunteer. We reimburse you back the cost for the class uh with a commitment that you get to stay here for a year or two. So the training expenses varies from year to year and also you never know at the end of June when the prices come out for all the new classes. So an average EMT class is just about 11 to $1,200. Then you have to buy books and then pay for the test. And then there's also reertification in the ambulance training account for their annual CPR uh reertification. Um no no unless you want to just go into the the new standards for fire. So that's yeah so the fire so the two different there's two different categories the fire side's come out hugely because you have a whole new uh

094OSHA standard that's coming out that is requiring the OSHA standard targets me admin staff and everybody and then I just want to touch base on base on um stuff from hosting the council will review some of the stuff, but I'm not going to go over everything. Just wanted to highlight some things. fines. I already highlighted them too about potentially movement to having a central fire station or said 15 20 years down the road. Um everybody knows I'm very concerned about timing the patient and come to find out on the weekends it's um the time can be up to 20 minutes that amal gets between dispatch time, turnout time and um travel time. So I think we really should focus and look at that more. Um, the only thing I really didn't see from Fitch is

095how many uncovered hours there might be is do you have an estimate on how many hours are not covered? How many hours are not covered by volunteers or the weekends or at nights? So, we try to maintain one shift throughout nights and weekends with volunteer stuff. And as soon as that ambulance goes out, depending especially if they go to Harford Hospital, St. Francis, you're talking a two and a half hour time frame, returning time frame. So it depends on the standards. A lot of other services close to us. They only run one one career staffing at night time and that's where your staffing might be jumping to that town and then we share it. So you know this town comes over here when that our town's over. So it's everyone's fighting for that time frame.

096Okay. I was just wondering if there was a lot we put an ambulance staffing on. It's what we put on a night time. We try to put a duty officer in in a tech, okay, from like 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. And obviously the Yukon program has been the biggest advocates that really save us, but we don't have the EMTs knocking at the door begging down because volunteer wise, right? You know, I've had that conversation with pitch that volunteers like everywhere, every time every similar to what I said, anything what it is, similar to what I said a couple years ago. Summit 2025. That was the national standard that was coming out that was going to affect all the fire departments around here. Just everything in general too. Um the other thing that they um

097did say is that three ambulances are required especially how we have the station set up now with the four the two on um right now the main one in Crystal Lake. So I'm glad that we do have three. He said that although it should three analyzes should be staffed. So and possibly a fourth as a backup as well and also a page assisted fire sheet. Again, some of these are long-term goals, but these are some of the things you will be seeing. Um they are um predicted some growth in the vineyard area by station 440 and I think Brian also touched on it too. If we do move to a central fire station, we'll be able to downsize as many trucks. So save on capital that way. But I think overall, Jacob, that's just a

098very high level. So I hopefully if the council can get that study or the draft that I got to see and Brian and the chiefs got to see, I think that would be very helpful during this time. I have bunch more I can share with all the counselors. my notes. Um, confirmation from the gentleman from Fish to make sure I understood what I was taking. I say thank you for for giving us. Yeah, I spent like two hours and went through page by page with him. So, it was definitely and all counselors will have the same opportunity. So, yeah, it was really great and informative. Can you go with sharing that? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Um, didn't share it. Okay. Nothing to hide here. Yeah. What is it? Lots of graphs. These were the questions I

099sent to Steve Knight. You're on that. Um, but yeah, he has some graphs that will show you how many units of each one time and everything. So, you really see the graphs how how much different is on the weekend that it takes a lot longer to get calls. So, is that an report that's coming to us? So these are so the when the study was done yes Steve and I who is the project lead on it had offered to meet with counselors councelor Udichek had taken up on that opportunity. Okay that's where those notes come from which I want to share there is a full report though that the whole council will get um somewhat near future. Okay, we talked about that last time, right? Okay. Okay, good. Yeah, they'll also be here to do

100a presentation. Okay, thanks. I don't know if we're on the presentation, but I I assume that's what that was. I just wanted to make sure. Good question. Um, can I just go to council man first? Back to you, Council C. Thanks. Yeah, I think you just mentioned it, Jacob. I just wanted to confirm that we're going to be getting the presentation from Fitch with the final report at some point. Yes. Yes, we will. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And just uh chief, I had a question just your sentiment on transport like a centralized station. Do we would you say the I think it's planes the station up past the vance the least used station or they kind of all serve their niche. Obviously you guys work a lot out of Crystal Lake and do the main

101here but yeah so the planes road one um is a satellite station. They station 340 and Garing road and station 440 planes roads. They were built as satellite stations um for ISO ISO ratings to to manipulate as well as backup. So so call volume wise that is one of the lowest stations that you will probably end up seeing in in the report as well. So it it is one of the lowest stations. Would those kind of dissolve and mothball those two station 340 and 440 if we were to centralize or those would stay? His his exact words to me were don't spend another penny investing in infrastructure on the distal stations. Okay. To need repairs, keep them going as long as the town needs them. We have them. We can maintain them. Okay. Minimal apparatus.

102They're great for the volunteers. We all can curb with that. We need those distal stations. Uh, but we should be investing in a central location, really the main firehouse to set it out. Not staff 24 hours with firefighters, but EMTs. We can save money if we staff with more EMTs long. Right now, we're paying firefighters and EMTs. That's an expensive employee. If we lower that number of firefighters and increase the number of EMTs, we can stretch out 247. Uh, conceptually, again, we can talk to the guy from Fitch about that. Um, so that's, you know, right now we have eight 70% of our calls are just EMT. So, um, things to talk about down the road, but nothing again, he said everything everything what they're doing right now is fine and, uh, a good job.

103So, we'll look to as as populations go up, needs go up, uh, certainly want to do that. And there's a benefit for for the town to go to a central fire station. one, we can get that land down there onto our tax roles where the the training center is and the firehouse is, and two, we can likely lighten the apparatus load um and have a central located firehouse here. And then just add to Brian and Chief Litel's comments. I think Chief Litel kind of touched on it, but those distal stations are really weren't for our homeowner's insurance rates. It's not likely that we would lose any homeowners if we got rid of those stations. our home owners rates would not be affected, okay, by that. I asked him specifically for a breakdown. He sent that

104to me, especially with our central location staff the way it is and responding and getting our response times down with that central location staff 247 uh and that sort of thing and we still have those stations, but we're we're not in any danger of losing that. Okay. They were built for that or that was one of the reasons why they were built. Yeah. And you know, I'm sure it was. Yes. If we lose them and it's a good idea. I I again I support having those those stations out there. Okay. Um, it is it is a great concept. Forget about the insurance rates, saving lives, saving houses, and having those those trucks out there in communities in different neighborhoods and so forth. So, Chief, back to my question. Is that accurate your what accurate the

105affformentioned all that? So, your satellite stations are there. We we actually had a firehouse meeting just about a month ago. I can share that. We scaled back to keep that station to ma mainly just touch the repairs. Um because before we were going to add a bay and do some other things and now we just scaled it back to where keep it to two bays, fix the roof, fix the inside and maintain that. You got another satellite station that obviously is brand new. So if something were to happen to, you know, one of your other main stations, 240 or 140, at least you have a a brand new stations where you could, you never know, fire devastating situation or something, you got it. So you could roll the apparatus back into, you know, a backup

106station. So um, and we're going to try to touch that station 140, the simple repairs and the rest of the stuff, I think, as we move forth and then obviously come back up to the agenda with the centralized station. We that centralized station's always been a key topic for 15 years. Yeah. And um, you know, we've had different locations in town. Um, I had my eye in one or two pieces of property that would make a lot of sense. Uh but you know things we we got to manage but like the town manager said that that property down there with to get you know the firehouse and the train center it's that's worth a lot worth a lot to the town being right there at that intersection so it makes the most sense tax space.

107Thank you. Is there any uh can we can I jump in here? Yeah. Isn't is there any discussion or or anything in the budget that includes paying a stipen to volunteers because I understand other towns do that and we could be losing good volunteers because they're going to go work for let's say Vernon who I know pays a stipen to the volunteers and then the second concern with that is that I understand on the weekends that the volunteer drivers don't need to stay at the location of the ambulance. So there's 5 to 10 minutes lost the driver going from his house correct to the ambulance station. Why don't we just have these people at the ambulance station while they're volunteering and they pay them a stipen? Um, you know, they may be more incentivized to

108do such a thing. And that way you cut 5 to 10 minutes down in response times on weekends. So we we considering putting in a budget for stipening, stipening, if that's a word, providing stipens to volunteers. We've t we've touched it over the last couple years as a spreadsheet. So, we we have an ambulance duty schedule that they can sign up for and they also get a stipen uh for responding to calls. So, the $100 duty stipen we raised uh once uh I think last year we raised it and we talked about looking at it this year and we had some money from last year that we split up and we added to the evil dwy stipen as well um and tried to encourage what you just said and we try to staff mainly the

109the main firehouse at Crystal Lake Road right now because that's the you know the easiest one and if you look at call volume wise that's kind of in that general area close to highway access but most of the time it's the Woodley calls or the other nursing homes. I wanted to improve that site last year. We did. Thank you. Uh and I'll keep looking at keep boosting that up as long as volunteers is going to be a problem forever. So I'll always be trying to bump that up to make it more attractive. Yeah. I mean, if we go to a 247 EMT program, obviously that doesn't become as big of an issue because the paid people will be there. It's just to prom volunteers to, you know, to sleep over. Yep. instead of that 10-minute

110drive to the ambulance that they're doing. Understood. So, so we do have ambulance and do we have we have stipens for volunteer ambulance both and fire? Okay. And that's under your professional services. Okay. All right. Council, did you add something? Um, I have done some looking around, but correct me if I'm wrong, but over in Vernon, they're full time. They get paid about the town burning pays them around $20 an hour. So if you're an EMT, you might want to work over burning when you're making a small. And then like I looked at some other towns as well kind of like in the average and we get dual firefight. What's that? We get like So I went I checked out four towns and we were pretty good because we do full services. So like our

111guys get paid maybe $28. So like burn an EMT only gets $28 just to do one job. So but other times it's different than Mansfield it's like $33. So I'm just putting it out there that um to Joe's point or Joe's question people getting paid 28 bucks from where how much is the stipen? It's a $100. It's a It's up to $200 something dollars for a duty ambulance duty schedule and then they make 350 for a stipen if they make a percentage cost overact over three months. Yeah. Percentage budget. The regular duty stipen for the ambulance is around those are those are paid those aren't volunteers. Those are paid volunteers right very very little little to no stuff. That's just what I'm saying is that you know difference that's all. Maybe that's why people go

112in, but the people that aren't here in town really want to give back to but that's it. Thank you both. Um I've got a quick question from ambulance for a second just animal control because I know the budget's going up um by about 20% this year. I just wanted to confirm is all that additional re revenue being paid for out of the dog fund or is any of that other sources. So if you look at the FI22 and 23 act budget, yeah, you will see um the transfer out 69 67 70,000 and 71,000. Right. Yeah. So what we did this year, we kind of line up with the same dollar amount and this is going to be transferred out to do fund to to keep the doc fun operations. Thank you. Um, everybody else kind

113of touched on what I wanted to touch on. Is there any other counselors that have questions on public safety minus police, which we'll get to later? Um, never sense. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Good. Thank you, uh, Chief and, uh, assistant chief for coming here tonight. All right. Um, turn over to you, Brian. All right. Thank you, chair. Uh, let's move on to general government op. Thanks, Chief. Uh, move over to general government operations. Uh, this will cover town council, town manager office, economic development, uh, human resources and benefits, as well as, uh, your and our legal services. uh town council. It's uh obviously you guys have a budget uh largely paying for our clerk's uh town council budget. Uh the proposed amount is $39,249 increase of $1,71. The primary increase is due to printing

114expenses. What 89 89 to 91? Sorry. on there. I will volunteer to get everything electronically. Oh, thank you. That takes a seven. No, we have a big It is a big bump. So, it's all just printing expenses. Yes, it is. Okay. It's the budget book and the budget flyers. We have cut the budget book down. Uh, you know, and next year we're going to cut it down even more. Um, there's a lot of Yolola has done a great job um in the transition here. I'm very happy beyond what we expected. Very very happy with what she's accomplished and and where we're in the direction that we're heading. It's been refreshing to get a new set of eyes in there and um we're going to look to uh revamp a lot of this budget process. Yeah.

115Um and the paper involved. So to be clear though is it's not that we're printing more things, it's just that costs have gone up. I would say that's accurate. Um, we also are required by state statute to print the annual report have a certain number of copies. So that comes out of your budget also. Okay. That's a significant that's a good chunk of printing job. Yeah. And all the mailers, you know, budget referendum mailers. Oh, that comes out of this line. Okay. Yeah. You guys receive an interpreter. Did we receive it? We have a we do have a new printer. We don't love it, but yes. Does that make things more efficient costs or no? Well, I mean, we put this together. We didn't send the book you have in front of you. Yeah. Thank

116you, Sarah Beth, for your hard work in putting that those together. Thank you, Sarah Beth. You're very welcome. So, yes, it was true. That's a part of that cost. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess I would love to send that out, right? If we can, we we will. It's a joy having Sarah in my office putting these budget books together for me, too. How many staples? There's no staples. Staples. Oh, no. It's the threehole punch paper. That's really a pleasure to work with. Brought it back. Oh man, when I went into the office and start mess up a chart, I guess I mean if there's any opportunity to reduce our printing expenses, I think it's a good opportunity, but we're trying. Paper is going up and it's expensive, then we got to do all the

117mailers and things like that. It's going to be tough to paper where you can agree with. Yeah. questions on our budget. So if we do So we used to have this issue on planning and zoning, right? Because they used to have to print large format drawings for all of us. Yeah. And we went to they do that occasionally, but we went to instead of having them for every commissioner, we share sets and then a lot of us work online. So if we do are able to just work entirely electronically, I can email you and yeah, we we would love to ask you guys like, do you not want this? You rather have it like I I this is my first time going through this. So this was a benefit to me to be able to

118sit physically with it, but I'm perfectly comfortable working electronically and I can email Sarah Beth and you can stop printing stuff for me. And that's fine. That's happened with past counselors, you know, who have said because I don't want to store this at home either, right? Like I've got right I've got an entire cabinet of stuff in planning and zoning over the years. I don't need more. It we can't get away from it 100%, you know. Understood. We are by law we have to provide copies for the public. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You can't get away from it all together. Some people are just paper, you know, hard. Yeah. Some people can't like I I have friends who have a hard time reading on the screen. So, but that's fine. I can sure anybody who doesn't

119want a copy, let me know. Yeah, I'll email it's on the record. Okay. Yeah, I would say me and counselor Shay are pretty old school. I don't think we ever brought a computer. But if I can can say, you know, actually this book, it is digital budget book and some of the charts I eliminated in this book just to save a paper. I did save paper um probably for like 70 pages but some of these chart you can't see the numbers the only way to see the data you have actually have to go online and click on digital book to see how it fluctuates and how the numbers goes so the purpose of this it has it's a digital sorry but just I want to share this so you understand and I've actually put it

120a note on some charts like you can't see it you won't see it you have to actually go online. I will say the website that the budget is posted on, it's not clunky. It works pretty well. I definitely I'd agree is there is some nice benefits having paper and being able to mark it out right on it. Any other questions on council budget? All right, great. Moving on to town manager's office page 92 to 94 in your book under the council form of bug uh government uh you hire a town manager and staff I work at York leisure I serve as a chief executive officer responsible for overseeing all the town's operations my proposed budget this year is $346,57 increase in $8,000 $8,500 roughly almost all in salary uh except for $1,000 in rising costs

121due to due to the clear gov software that includes myself uh Sarah Bethan uh and Megan our grants person as well in that I'm happy to take any questions counselors It's pretty close by. We've seen some attrition here in their savings in years past. That's what any All right. Moving on to the econ Oh, we're good. Yeah, you're good. Sorry, chair. Moving on to the economic development commission. It's a small one. 95.97. Uh the the cost there is 2150. You know, there's some flex. We don't want to give them we want them to have some money to work with should they need anything. Um in the past, they spent money on clerks uh and uh advertising, but right now uh we have 2150 uh in there for the economic development commission. Any questions? Good. Okay.

122Human Resource Administration, Mike Wilkinson. obviously is here should should we need it. Uh our human resources department which works under the the town manager's office uh does a lot of things. Um you know hires people any the typical things you would expect uh HR to do but uh Mike also manages our all of our insuranceances all of our legal affairs refu and recycling which is a lot for human resources but he does a great job as you've seen uh benefits. He handles our FOI uh complaints or FOI I'm sorry requests as well. Uh and so budgeting in into the um HR I have $149,563 an increase of $23.99 from last year's budget payroll increase of 3500 uh with a reduction of 1,000 in advertising expenses. Any questions? Any questions from councils? I think we can

123move on. Okay, the next one, uh, human resources and, uh, benefits, the benefit section. So, our ECHI, our health insurance, as we've gone over in, uh, great detail here, I I have, uh, based on the recommendation of our consultant from ECHIP and working closely uh, with Dr. Willlet who is chair of EIP and Mike Wilkinson. Uh I am proposing $2,661,638 an increase of $130,000. Echip's health insurance rates are up 12.09% this year. Uh an increase of that. We also want want you to note that there's an increase likely a likely increase in contributions uh coming to the teeners as their health plan contractor up for negotiation. Does that build into this number as well? Yes. Have any questions on return benefits that Dr. Willlet isn't on, is he? Mike is though. He has a really

124good grasp on this stuff. I don't have any questions at this time. Okay, we can move on. Legal services. uh that as you know we hire town attorneys here uh that to serve at the also at the pleasure of council. The town attorney provides the town manager and other town officials with comprehensive advice regarding a range of legal topics. Uh typically that's Rick Ki for most um external affairs and then um for for stuff with um personnel and labor issues internally in the town. Uh we have Pat McCale. As far as uh Rick Ki, we we are budgeting $76,000 and Pat McCale $35,000 um for each I believe we've gone over with those but found some savings in the state police budget uh in years past. We are increasing it by 10,000 uh this year

125for on the Rick Ki side of things as we have a lot of irons in the fire right now. For example, uh there's some zone on zoning issues going on, including a current new appeal. Uh they were obviously Rick was Rick was very helpful with the electric blue, our sidewalks, and contaminated wells. Um and Pat McCale is fantastic when we need him for um personnel issues. I tell you, pay I'm sorry. uh we certainly couldn't hire an attorney here to work for the town for the prices that we are paying there uh for the two of them combined. Maybe we could, but it wouldn't be very competent legal advice. So that I mean I'm here Mikey and I are here if you have any questions. I think we covered this one a little bit on

126the first night. Um you can 116 for several years we were over budget. So, my opinion, as much as it would be nice to cut back up on that, I don't know if that's correct. I am going to try to cut back. Uh, you know, that you have the electric blue coming off now and so that that should help us some. Um, I'm hoping that the the town green sidewalk settles out pretty soon as well. Yeah. Although that currently is not costing us anything. It did in the past, but once insurance picked up on it on the latest suit that they filed, we jumped off with that. But you still assume we'll be sorry. But you still assume we're going to be over what we paid this year. Thank you. Does that I know our

127insurance picked up on that which is helpful to us because I know that's that's a not a small amount to the court. Um does that affect our insurance rates? Does that affect rate rates moving forward? So is there a follow on effect from from insurance picking up the cost of that lawsuit? I don't think it does. Mike Wilkinson, are you on? What she's asking is the fact that the insurance picked up on our sidewalks, is that going to does that affect our premium with the with the insurance company? Um, I guess all our claims ultimately they look at, you know, Kerma's a member only group, so you know, they're pretty good, but you know, it really depends on the claim how big it is. you know, it's but it can but that's what we're you

128know that that's why we have the insurance and luckily they're going to defend it. Other circumstances we may not be in that position and we'd have to pay for it ourselves. So ultimately it may affect it but it depends on that every claim is different. We're not a frequent flyer with either. All right. So I guess we'll have to see how that rolls out in the next couple years. Yeah. Thank you. No free lunch. True. Um, any other counselors have questions on our legal services budget? Go on. Great. Moving on to our registars of voters. Um, I believe we have we have April Dvaris, our new uh Republican side register. Thanks for hanging in here with us, uh, April. And I believe Brenda Fuzzi is on uh somewhere online there. She's on Zoom. She's on

129Zoom. So if we have questions, you certainly can ask them. Uh I'm budgeting for the um registars $83,745. That's a decrease of $9,200. Uh the long and short of it is um there's there's they're both new registars, so there is some training uh with them, but it's not a presidential election and it's, you know, going to be a much smaller election um this year between referendum and uh town elections. Uh that's that's why the drop. So if you have any questions, they're both here. You see there's there's there's decreases across the board. I'm just trying to look at your chart here because the current fiscal year is mostly spent the election presidential election fell this fiscal year. So the remaining funds would just be for like operating like the referendum. Referendum. Yes. Okay. Does the

130budget to print ballots and and things come out of uh this budget? I believe so. Yes. Okay. Decrease. Yep. Yeah. So much less unfortunately. Any other questions or counselors? My concern is the same as you have. seems still seems kind of high compared to the 2004 actuals and what we've got for the current year which had an election presidential election. It's almost done. So still I guess I compare it to like fiscal year 23 because that's when we had a mission was a bit higher than that. Early voting. Early voting. As of March 18, I have $77,690 in taxes. This is up about 5,000. Where does that cost incur? Like where does that cost again? How is that birthed? We pay for it. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, we pay for it. Is there

131a benefit to the early voting? I'm not really sure. Like what what what's the reason? I'd say there is a there's a lot of benefits to it, I would argue, for early voting. Um, you know, especially for the older folks in town getting down here. Um, everybody really. Um, but I think we saw a benefit. I wish the state would give us some more money back. Brenda, Brenda's on there somewhere. Are you on, Brenda? Yes, I am. Can you hear me? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So um at the presidential election we saw over 50% of our voters participate early voting compared to coming in on election day. So there was obviously a a desire to be there um during the early voting. Early voting is not or it is a requirement. We do not have

132a choice of not doing it. I can let you know that there is legislation currently um that may reduce the time or the hours that we will be doing early voting. So, we may see a decrease even more than what we have in this current budget, but we'll have to wait until June to see how that pans out. Thanks. Thank you. Uh are you good, Council M? Council. Oh, yeah. I was just going to make the point that we don't have the option not to do early voting at this point because of state law, but um I I think Brenda mentioned Sorry, I forgot to put my hand down. Thank you, G. I because of because of my association with elder relatives and stuff, I talked to a lot of older people who were really

133thankful because they were telling us, I can't stand in line on voting day. So for me to come down and and be able to get in and get out in like a half an hour or less and be and not have to like wait in a line and you know spend a couple hours. Some of these people have physical issues um that make it more difficult because if you as we all know when we've stood on the polls at election day sometimes the lines get really long. So for for that elder population this was like a real boom. This was a real benefit to them. um was very well received the early voting for the presidential. I don't know how it's going to be, you know, for just say the municipal election coming November. How

134how what the turnout will be, but definitely people it was wellreceived and I think that it it's going to stay. Maybe not on the exact same terms that it is right now, but I don't think you'll see um early voting uh being significantly decreased or eliminated. Um let me just add to that that no excuse absentee balloting will probably also be in effect for November and we can't predict again um how that's going to impact. So if we do see an increase of people using absentee ballots, we will see a decrease in people showing up at the polls and during early voting. So we may in future years be able to see some cost savings by um for temporary help or for printing of ballots, but we won't know that um until we experience it.

135Thank you. Some some uncertainty with the in legislative changes. Any other questions of our historic voters? Thank you both for uh answering our questions. Appreciate it. Okay. Uh moving on to our uh probate court services and we have the honorable Sophia Shake, I believe, back there should you have any questions. Uh she's been a ray of sunshine as has April and Brendan in our building every day. Now uh I have a proposed budget of $18,754. This is spread out uh spread out in four different ways between Tom and Mansfield uh Willington and Coventry. Uh it's shared proportionately by uh population. It's an increase of uh $2,500 largely for the communications uh fiber optic requirements of the state to have the service available uh for the probate court. Uh upgraded obviously statewide. Uh we saw a

136decrease of $2,700 in office supplies. Uh Judge Shake is is in the office. Our DPW has been working uh with her. We thank her for the kind donation of the table. Uh yeah, see she's showing it off now. Yep. She's she's gonna charge she'll fill us in the budget next year for Rumor has it this was the original probate court table or the original hearings were held. Wow. Oh wow. Yes. So it's got some was historical significance. She kept the g but I did hard with that. But thank you all for having me and I'm I'm new to this position. I just started on March 10th, so it hasn't even been two weeks. Thank you so much. Any questions for Yeah. Any questions? Go ahead. No, I have Oh, wish I had. Um, yeah. Well,

137congratulations. Thank you so much. And I just had one question for your budget. So, we the probate district is a few towns. Do they all contribute something to this? It is I anticipated that question. Um we the budget is split between the four towns of Talin, Mansfield, Coventry, and Willington. And the exact agreement and how that budget is split I I don't know. I apologize. Proportionally based on population. Yes. I it is I I pulled the statute. It's by you know population or by the grand list. It's one of the other. Okay. Yep. And we do collect probate court fees and those fees get turned over to probate court administration and that's how the staff is paid. So I I anticipated that question. Where do our fees go? They go straight to pro probate court

138administration which is the governing body of all probate courts. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Other than that I don't have anything else. It's uh basically the same as what it was last year. So I will state that I did not put together this budget. It was put together by my uh pred predecessor. So you may see an increase in budget here. We've got some furniture falling apart and you could use some more supplies. Keep the table stays. You came on about that. We moved the bookcases. Oh boy. Yes. Mounted the TV on the wall. It's going to be They did. They did. It's been great. It's been a wonderful reception for It is nice to have her in the building. have probate court in the building as a town resident as our probate judge. You know,

139look at probate's used by a lot of our older uh population and for them to everyone knows where Hicks is. For them to know how to get here, um it's centrally located. It's fantastic. So, I'm looking to get a uh pew or a bench so that if we have any um disabled folks waiting to for their probate court hearing, they have a place to sit, somewhere to sit in the hallway. It's actually not a bad idea. Yeah, there's nowhere. And and of course, as town manager Foley stated, you know, the probate court serves our most vulnerable population. So, I want to make sure everybody's comfortable and our town is accommodating. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions for counselor? Oh, got one from counselor. Thanks. Uh, congratulations, judge. And, uh, we're lucky to have you. You

140have a great background to be a probate judge. So, um, we're fortunate and as, uh, everyone's mentioned, having you in Talon is great. I just wanted to confirm. It sounds like it, but um sort of the way uh the probate court is funded and the way it's allocated by town and by population, is that all set by state statute? It is. You will find it under Connecticut General Statutes 45A-8A. Thank you. I could see about uh getting that pew maybe donated. Oh, that would be wonderful. I know a lot of good carpenters that might be interested in that. So, Oh, that would be great. And Here we go. Timber frame if you're okay with that. Be very sturdy. We'd have to run it by the town manager. Okay. He's he's got an eye on the

141Some fees may apply. Yeah. Any other questions for counselors? So, the the probate court has historically been in Taland and remained in Taland. Correct. Um historically it was each town had their own and then there was a giant consolidation by which Mansfield, Coventry, Willington and Taland were meshed together. Okay. And at that time the probate court was moved to Taland I believe. Okay. Is there any need for us to be concerned that it might be moved out of Holland? Well, actually the probate judge is the one who would be the one to move it and certainly would not want to move it. she gets her judge. If she gets her app. Yes. Yes. And the process by which to move the probate court is also outlined in our statute. I of course have no intention

142of doing so. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner Nan work on that ping. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's it. All right, with that um is there any objections to adjourning our meeting at 9:04? No objection. We are adjourned at 9:04. Thank you everybody.