001All right, good morning everybody. Thank you for your patience this morning. Um, we're getting started a few minutes late because of technical difficulties. Um, this is the day two of department hearings for the board of finance and town council finance committee. Uh, and we'll start this morning with the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. We're going to begin our day today on page 377 in your big book with the um Trumble Education and Government Access Commission. Kate Donahue and Lar here to talk about TCTV. Good morning. >> Good morning. This is the first time I've gotten to
002use these mics, so I'm very excited. First, I just want to give a tip of the hat to Arie Rogoff, who who uh videotapes these meetings for us. Thank you, Arie. Arie easier all the time. So, as uh Laney said, I'm Kate Donghue. I'm chairman of the commission and Lara Walden runs the station on a day-to-day basis. So, any operational questions I'm going to pass to her. Um the first piece of good news is that we have a full commission finally, which we haven't had in quite a while. Um we brought on Matt Nelson uh a couple of months ago and he is amazing. He's got over 20 years of video production experience. He's worked on shows for ESPN, Netflix, Amazon, uh, Home and Garden Television, The History Channel, the list goes on and on.
003So, it's a it's a really nice addition to our team. And on top of that, we uh, Amanda Wen has has been on the commission for a while, and she's really been our marketing focus. So, we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute. Um, our programming continues to feature regular coverage of Trumble High sports and government meetings and the usual town events. Um, we've got a new server. Thank you very much for funding that um which has been installed and working great. Um the one of the biggest things that's happened in the last year is the engagement at Trumbull High has just skyrocketed. We have now have um teachers either teaching or in advising positions that are really starting to use the studio in the way that we had always hoped. So,
004we have the Soaring Eagle Studio, which is a club that's advised by Jeff Cochran, and it's made of made up of students from the video production classes that are taught by Nick Donna and Matt Barassic. Um, and Jeff has also made uh his wood class, his wood shop class is building us a new studio. So, new equipment, new desks, so we'll have a like a um we'll be able to do group interviews. We'll be able to have like a what do you call it? um >> like a panel set. >> Panel set, but also uh like anchors that can do the morning announcements and stuff like that. So, they're going to build the whole thing and install it, which is really cool. Um >> it'll take some time, but yeah, those are definitely in the
005works. >> So, we have more and more students engaged and they're also showing up as studio student videographers and they probably cover most of our sports coverage, Trumble High sports coverage. Um, Laura has also recruited two seasoned adult videographers to cover our daytime events where the kids can't do that. Um, so we've got a I think a good stable of videographers to support what we want to cover. I mentioned Amanda before. Um, she's raised our visibility on especially on social media. Um, and that along with I think the improved video and audio quality of the channel from the the the um consistent support you guys have given us for capital projects has helped us this channel look better and sound better whether it's on TV or video on demand or live streaming. Um, and there's,
006I think, continued evidence that viewership beyond the broadcast station, um, really underscores the value of streaming on YouTube. And we pushed the last couple of years to meet people where they are on the platforms that they are. And that kind of brings me to my little showand tell here. Um, the top chart, pie chart, shows that where people are watching us on YouTube, which is their phone and their computers. um which again underscores why it was important to make those investments to allow us to live stream. And then the bottom uh chart shows the increase in viewership and the number of programs viewed which I think underscores the work that Amanda has done in pushing us on social media, Instagram, Facebook, um Tik Tok, and we now have an intern that's working with her to
007produce even more um social media content to drive our viewership. So I think all in all everything that we've asked you for over the years um is bring is allowing us to bring this station the kinds of programming that people want on the platforms that they want to see it on. So in terms of our budget request um we're asking for a small increase in the videographer line from last year. um a little more in the supervising producer line because Laura is the one that needs to interface with the high school when they're in the studio. We we needed to make sure that equipment is properly used and then everything else um is pretty status quo with and then on the capital um projects line we had outlined a three-year capital project plan. We're now
008in year two. So, we're looking for um a studio upgrade and maintenance, which is the Vimeax server, and which will then replicate what we have in um here in Council Chambers and at the board of ed. Um and then some remote streaming equipment to allow us to do more outside events like graduation and you know, uh sporting events that are outside. And then finally, because of the new equipment and honestly because Matt's on the team now, he's like, "Our lighting's not good. We need to do better have better lighting in the studio." So, we want to spend a little bit of money for that as well. So, with that, are there any questions? >> Go ahead, Nikki. >> Good morning, ladies and thank you. Um just curious how do you receive any funding from the
009board of ed at all for the work you do or does this come 100% from the town side? >> Well the teachers are paid by the board of ed. Um Jeff Van Steberg is on our our commission and he is fantastic like really supportive of what we do. That's the best engagement we've had on the technical side from the town. Would you say Laura? >> Agreed. Yes. Um, there is one light item that I've been able to find in the education budget. I actually didn't look this year yet. That's a couple thousand dollars for some repair stuff, but no, we pretty much the side of the the ledger pretty much supports the channel. >> Thank you. >> I don't actually have a question. I'm shocked. But I I watch some of these things almost as
010much as I've been watching court TV. Um, no, you guys do a fabulous job and really to go back and be able to watch a meeting for people that aren't here um from town council or board of finance if they can't make it to be able to watch it and know what you're voting on and just throughout the year to see what's going on with things. So, it's it's a really fabulous service and you ladies have done an amazing job. I'm glad your commission's filled. >> Thank you. >> I just have one quick question. And um do you have any redundancy, Lara, for your position? Like if you take a vacation or if somebody goes, is there a backup plan or are we on the um school photos plan? >> Well, usually my laptop comes
011with me when I'm out of town. So um the benefit is it's a, you know, it's portable and if I need to do things, I can do them wherever I am. But the downside is if I need to do things, I can take them with me and do them wherever I am. >> So um I have an editor who works with me. He does know how to program the station, but you know again if there were something to happen to me. Um we would have to get some training but that that is available through the software vendor. >> I think that would be my one suggestion is that you have some redundancy so that if you do go away we talked about that for years with uh school photos and with somebody who ran it
012for years and years and years um and just making sure that there was somebody in the pipeline. So, I don't know if that means that you cross trainin somebody who's already there or you do that, but to think about that. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Wait, Dave, you don't want to ask about that increase. Okay. >> No, I was just going to applaud your efforts. Thank you for everything that you do. And and just to reiterate um on a point that you had made, the quality of the video is significantly increased and I think that helps with viewer viewership as well. Um, so thank you for everything that you do. >> Okay. Thanks. Moving on in the big book to page 373. I see Dan Newman is joined us to talk about BEI. Good
013morning, Dan. Good morning. >> Give you a minute to get settled. some background pages last year. >> You get the when you get settled, we'll do that because they want us to be able to hear you on the mic. >> Thank you. No comment. >> That's okay. We can share >> sir. because you weren't there. Dan, do you have one more packet? Do you have one extra packet or did you >> Otherwise, can you just send it electronically? >> Do that, but I'll give you the packet. >> Thanks. I just want to be able to put it with the minutes. Thank you. L got it. >> Perfect. >> Everybody good? I think I'm live. Yes. >> All right. >> I haven't had the privilege of being in front of one of these before. This is
014great. All right. Well, good morning everybody and thank you very much for being here and for the work that you do on behalf of the town. It's fabulous stuff. Much like we do for BEI, we don't do it for ourselves. We do it for you, the town's people, me, the kids in town. And that's what BEI does is provides opportunities for students to understand what might be available to them after they're done with high school quite simply. So we do a number of different activities. If you go to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Well, there's a page in here, two pages that say college and career participation report looks like this. And you'll see that last year there were 53 5,334 student contacts. And this is all delivered through a very important position
015that's college and career counselor at the ch at the high school that is in the board of ed budget. And we sure hope it stays there because this is the delivery mechanism by which these kinds of services are delivered. You can see it's either uh internships, guest speakers, site visits, etc., etc. This year that number, if you go to the next page, is already up to 3,680. Uh on track, very active, highly engaged. You can see at the bottom of the page the kinds of contacts that these kids are given and it all is to the benefit of helping them understand what's possible after high school. Other than that, uh the other thing I want to emphasize and it has an implication on the budget request. If you notice on the page that looks like
016this where it's bus inflation or transportation inflation, it's amazing how much bus costs have gone up in the past year. These are comparable trips and the it averages between uh between 25 and 40 uh 56% increase in bus expenses over four over three years. So that's why we're asking for the additional $1,000 in the bus transportation. Otherwise, we've got to cut back the number of trips because the money is going toward fewer trips because the cost on each one has gone up. And we don't have any discretion over that. We've got to use Durham like the school district does and that's where that's at. With that, I've given you lots of Oh, one more thing. This is my annual invitation to join us at the recognition breakfast at the public library on April 23rd at
0178:30 is the annual recognition breakfast for BEI. And that's the program from last year. You get a sense of the kinds of topics that we cover. We have some of the benefiting groups present what they did with the money that we were able to give them with the mini grants. Uh we recognize individuals or organizations that have been tremendously helpful in supporting BEI's mission throughout the course of the year. And um we allow Vicki to come and talk, provide a little inspiration. The superintendent does the same. And it's nice to have that that support of both the town and the school district to uh support what BEI does. With that, I'll stop and let you ask questions that you might have. >> Anyone have any question? Paul? >> Yeah, just something simple, Dan, that that
018strikes my fancy here. What is the trip to Jane Ryan School? What is that all about? >> There's a class that focuses on educa, elementary education, and this is a site visit. They spend a day interning as uh kids helping kids at the at Jane Ryan. >> And is this an annual stop? Pardon me. >> Is it an annual stop? NY Jane Ryan. >> I think it's because of a teacher a teacher connection there that's really eager to cooperate >> because it is an imposition on the teachers on the faculty to have kids coming in. It's a variance from the routine >> but they welcome it at Jane Ryan and it could be others but that's the one and you can't take kids out of the high school all the time to go do this
019in multiple schools. >> Yeah. >> Just curious. Thank you. >> Yep. Absolutely. Any other questions for Dan? >> Dave, >> not so much a question, but again, thank you for your support of all of the um specifically the high school clubs and groups that are out there and the kids um uh who are looking to better themselves with um specifically Model Congress, Model UN, um we the people, things of that nature. And uh they appreciate your help. So, thank you for that. >> I appreciate that, Dave. and your son has been instrumental this year in doing a lot of that work too. Mach trial, those of you that have been in this room before when that happened up to about 5 years ago when it went a hiatus, but the adviser is back. Uh, one
020of the there's three teams that are competing a week from Friday actually over in New Haven, the federal courthouse. And Dave's son is one of the leaders of one of those mock trial teams, which is very cool. As a senior in high school, getting great experience also in we the people team going to Washington. Uh once again, state champions and we love giving the kind of support to these kids that are going above and beyond the kinds of normal activities that the day-to-day students do. It's really neat to see how much these young people have inside of them that we don't really recognize unless it's put to the test and then it blossoms. It's fantastic the opportunities when they're given the chance. So, it's good. All good stuff. Mary I look forward to breakfast. Um,
021>> Mary's a regular attendee. Thank goodness. >> Yeah, last last year was tough. And it's not for the food. >> Well, you know, >> there is food, but that's not why you come. >> No, it's wonderful. It really is. The kids do an amazing job. It's really fun to to see the excitement in the room. So, I have it in my calendar. Um, but just curious, and there may be just too many kids for each of the trips, but has there been an opportunity to look at any of the uh the vans that the uh board of ed owns? They have the interns that have the the V license, I believe it is. Um, and I know that they use those for the elite program and within district. Um, I don't know how many they
022seat. Um, but I don't know if that's an opportunity to instead of using Durham to use those for some of these trips. >> They seat 10 plus a driver. >> Oh, it's only 10. Okay. >> And so it doesn't it's not practical in most instances. And the other thing that I have found and I I wish it was different but it's reality that the teachers really don't want to take on the responsibility of having to drive the kids and take on that extra risk. Um I've encouraged it but I haven't had takers. The other thing I should mention and which I'm really happy about that this year for the first time in memory my memory uh we have representation on our board now from Christian Heritage and St. Joe's as well as Trumble High. We've
023got all three high schools represented. Now, it's been a longtime goal of mine. If you've been following along on this front page about goals, I finally got to achieve all three high schools uh on our board. And this is my annual rec my annual invitation. Also, any of you that wants to join our board of directors, we meet once a month on Thursday mornings for about one hour at 8:00 at the high school. Let me know. Welcome to have members from the board on our board. and you could see firsthand what we do and maybe even pitch in some. >> Any other questions for Dan? >> Go ahead, Dave. >> I'd also like to say thank you and uh you guys do a terrific job. You're certainly a gem in the town. Is there a
024program for kids that may want to go into the trades and to help them start and run their own businesses, whether it's carpentry, plumbing, landscaping, so forth. There is um if you look at the last page uh was it the last page? No, it's not the last page. Well, anyway, without going through that, um the BEI club, which was student initiated several years ago and student run, uh has regular speakers come in. I know that the fellow Steve, don't remember his last name, that runs a mobile station at the bottom of the hill comes in and does an annual guest speaker stint for kids that are interested in automotive repair. Uh there's construction day every year that a group of kids on a bus go up to Durham and look at construction equipment that's used
025in that trade. Uh we're actively trying to recognize well recognizing that it's a comprehensive high school. Not everybody is collegebound. Not everyone wants to go to college and we try to appeal to that group as well. Not just aim real high but the full spectrum of aspirations of what kids want to do because the trades are just as important these days. try to get a plumber, right? Um they're just as important as the collegebound and we try to serve that entire community of the high school. >> Thank you and thanks again for all that you do. >> No, thank you. We enjoy it. It's fun watching kids bloom. >> Any other questions? >> Mike, any questions online? You good? Okay. Well, you're out of the hot seat. Thank you, sir. >> Seat wasn't even hot.
026It was just barely warm. Thank you everybody for what you're doing. You got a long day ahead of you. You don't have You have my my empathy and as always, appreciate your support. And hopefully we'll see you at the breakfast on the 23rd of April. Put that in your calendars. 23rd of April, 8:30 at the library. >> Always selling. >> All right. While Dan is packing up, we're flipping to page 155 in the big book. >> That's your wife. >> That's my wife >> for the Conservation Commission. >> That's not my wife. I don't know who that is. >> Can I just ask Dan one question? Was >> is it April 23rd or is it Thursday, May 1st? That breakfast. >> Oh, that was last year's. Never mind. >> Y this is last year that
027I gave you the 23rd. It's actually getting earlier and earlier every year because we're staying away from SATs. um not SATs, APs, as advanced placement exams start in the very first part of May. So the end of year is creeping into April, which is getting pretty early for end of year. But the end of the school year this year is so early that if we try to go into May, there's something on virtually every day >> that we've got to try to stay away from conflicts. And there we are, April 23rd. >> Thank you. >> You're very welcome. >> All right. If uh you will all turn your attention to the screens. Tim Coughlin >> close enough >> and uh John Msari are here from the conservation commission. They're joining us via Zoom this morning.
028Um we're appreciative of having hybrid capabilities and being able to do this. Good morning. >> Yeah, good morning. Can you hear me? Because I am sitting outside of JFK airport with all the Uber drivers in line picking up picking up my sister. So hopefully it's not too inconvenient. Um, but I'm here. I think John's here. >> I am here. Good morning. >> Good morning. So I have I don't have all of my notes in front of me, but thank you for having us. Uh, we are co-chairs of the conservation commission. So we are kind of the environmental arm per se uh for the town of Trumbull. Um, we are an advisory board and we work with inland wetlands. Uh, we work with town agencies. We work handinhand with the parks department. Um, so we are
029the environmental arm and we are here for residents to advise. Um, we do a lot of of uh adisement for residents that live around the lakes with wateride properties and things like that. Um, and we are the tree planting arm uh for the town and most of that is worked with the parks department. Uh the parks department has been very gracious with their labor and planning. So it's worked out very well. We're in the fourth year of our tree planting program. Last year uh we funded uh $10,000 for all of the trees and I think some of the shrubs at the long hill green. That was very successful. Uh, so we are very happy to cooperate with that and we are using the rest of this year's funds with the parks department to plant the
030rest of our budget. I don't have it in front of me, but I think it's either four or $6,000 for the parks department to plant trees. And I'm pretty sure most of them are going to go at Tasha Nolles behind the new lower courts there where a bunch of trees had been taken down by the utility company for line clearing. Um, and that's basically it in a nutshell. Uh, John, I don't know if you want to add anything. Um, if not, we are ready to listen to questions. >> Well, it is $4,000 that we have left and that is going to uh more plantings for Trumbull. Um, the only real additional thing that we added is we've been working um in coordination with the parks department with permission to remove vines. We have a vine
031committee that's actually physically going out and removing vines from parts. Um, and we added $750 for tools. Um, and that's the only thing we're doing at no charge. And this, you know, there's no labor involved. Uh, it's totally volunteer. And this is really something that the parks department hasn't had time to do in the uh in the last several years. So, uh, it's accomplishing quite a bit and I think that's about it. >> Anybody have any questions, comments? >> No. Um, >> so I just I just had one question if you don't mind. So, uh, you had mentioned about replanting at the Tashuan Nolles facility. Um, trees were cut down for power lines and now trees are being replanted, I'm assuming, in similar locations. what sort of um actions are being taken to ensure that
032we don't have power line encroachment going forward. >> Right. So, I can comment on that because you you know I've grown up in Trumbull. I've been a resident of Trumbull for 63 years. So, I kind of know the ins and outs of you know because I also been in the green industry for a long period of time. I'm a licensed arborist. So, we work closely with the park superintendent. The trees that were originally next to the power lines were probably have been there for maybe 75 100 years and of course you know trumble has been developed. Uh so really the trees uh were too close to the power lines. They felt they needed to be removed. But we come in strategically work with the parks department and we will plant these in the right type
033of species far enough away there's a gap in between road and the back of the courts where they're going to be planted in the middle per se versus closer to the power line. So we you know we take each planting with right tree right place and try to really strategically do this. in 20 30 40 50 years hopefully there won't have to be a removal. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Sorry, we're having some technical difficulties. So that was Bill um doing that. Um any other questions for Tim or John? >> Can you guys still hear me? >> Yes, we can still hear you. >> Yeah. So, you know, as we further on down the road, John and I are co-chairing this. We've also been involved with uh uh parcel walkthroughs with the Connecticut D.
034Uh I'm sorry about adding this on later. It's just coming to my memory. So, we've been trying to more actively engage in some of the open spaces that we have. Uh we had a recent walkthrough. I think it was late in the fall at Tashua Tree Farm. Uh they wrote us up a report. there's some great strategic management plans for that property and we're going to try to work with getting a plan together, you know, because there's a lot of vine growth. There's a lot of uh invasive species that are overtaking that plot of land. It's a beautiful piece of property. So, that's some of the other things we're going to do. We're also going to try to get younger people engaged. I know there's a lot of PE kids that are probably, you know,
035want to come forward and maybe be more involved on the environmental side. So, as we move forward and we have a full board membership now, we have a younger person that's coming on. Uh we can have possibly more engagement with the high school. Um listening to the prior speakers, I think also maybe it gives us an opportunity to speak to any kind of group uh through the youth through the high school. maybe uh hey Donnie you uh we can do some video presentations or what have you. So we'll look to get more engaged uh as we we have a full board membership and we get you know probably more time on our hands. >> Awesome. Thank you gentlemen. Oh, hold on. Mary >> coming in last. Um Tim, are there any environmental clubs at any
036of the schools I've been out of? >> You know, I don't know. It's, you know, for me because I'm still working. I travel to Greenwich every day. um once I hopefully get into the retirement phase, I can more engage with that and have time during the day to go to the high school or what have you and try to I'm sure there are environmental clubs, but for a lack of time and most of our board members are working full-time. I think it's just a you know once we get like I said hopefully I can have more time in the near future to do that. All right. Anybody else have any questions for the Nature Commission? Thank you again, gentlemen. Appreciate you uh zooming in with us this morning. >> All right. Thank you. >> Have
037a great day. Safe. >> Bye. >> Okay. Maria Bob Dunn is coming next at 9:15. Um can we while we're waiting for Bob go down to a couple of the um items that you have at the end of the day. Um >> yeah, let's let's go to transit district on page 159. In an effort to be um efficient today, we're going to pull a couple of the smaller departments that Maria reports on so that we can have um board of ed come at four o'clock today. Uh the request for 44,00084 has been the same for many years. Uh it's basically for the greater Bridgeport Transit support and contribution to fund uh the busing that comes through town. Any questions for Maria on the transit district? Okay, there's no change in that budget. Um, let's go
038to page 39 to the finance department. >> Maria, you want to walk us through staffing and stuff there? >> Um, so currently we had two vacancies. I have the grant administrator vacant position. We put it out to um we posted the job and uh basically we only had one candidate so we put it out again. So hopefully we get some more interest. Uh we did just fill the position for the pension budget administrative assistant. Um she will be starting uh Monday and she has quite a bit experience with the Catholic Charities. So even though she doesn't have municipal, she has nonprofit experience. So she and experience in taking minutes and attending meetings. So that would be great for this board. >> Barbara's ears perked up. Any chance she wants to be a clerk? >> She's
039been helpful. Very helpful. Thank God for Barbara. Um, so basically that's the staffing. Um, no change in my budget other than we are asking for $9,000 to implement some software with uh, Munis. It's um, it's an outside service. It's called the Crystal Reporting and that's used for our salary projections and they're basically going out of Crystal and it's a new program that they're implementing. So we really have no choice but to move over. So that's the only really change. Um and we're also requesting some um done training for Munes and UKG which is our timekeeping system just to come up with any other capabilities that currently are not being used. Okay. >> That the salary projections what does that help you do? Well, if you look at page 44 where all the salaries are. So
040basically >> uh puts it in this format and then we just kind of um we export it to uh to Excel. >> So the format it gathers all the information based on the prior year's uh salaries and compares it to the actuals and so forth. >> Okay. So it's not something that is as detailed that comes just from units. So we have to load it to somewhere else. >> Got it. >> Anything else in your budget that we need to worry about? >> Um no. We'd like to get some training, some additional training. And uh unfortunately we haven't been able to go for training. So you know we don't know what other capabilities Munis has. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to go because staffing issues, not having enough staff. >> Anybody have any questions for
041Maria? >> Go ahead, Nikki. >> Morning, Maria. Thank you. >> Morning. >> Um, I'm just curious. I don't know if you would know this or maybe I should know this. Uh, but the grant administrator position, does the board of ed have one? >> I am not sure. They might have. Uh this is to assist us in uh filing various reports with the state. Um when I started here we had maybe a six or so grants. Now it's like quite a bit of grants and that takes a lot of our time to file reports and audit those reports with the state. Uh once once the project is completed, the state audits all these uh projects and that takes a lot of time. So, we need someone to assist us with that. Currently, I have um Dan
042Martin, who was the assistant and retired, so I brought him in to help us because I just can't keep up with that all those filings. >> Okay. I think we went down the road before where we were asking, can there be a shared position between the board of ed and the town side? Um, >> well, I could definitely we could definitely speak with >> I mean, if we were able to pay more, would we be able to get a position in there that would be capable of, you know, working? I don't I don't know what that labor that what that looks like, you know, as far as time spent, but um, might be something to think about. >> That probably would make sense since we have the Hillrest school, which is a large project, and
043there's a lot of filings with the state. Since we uh pay all the invoices and all the bills related to that project, uh that'll probably be helpful because we filed all the request for reimbursement on a monthly or semionthly basis. So, um yeah, that would be helpful. Right now, it's through our office. Okay. >> Thank you. >> I think last year when we talked about grant writing, um Reena Balar talked about the difference. It's not so much difficult to find the grants and to do that once somebody writes the grant. It's all the paperwork that comes when you are administering the grants. So >> yeah, that was the reason we needed someone to help. And actually, we were sharing with Reena, but you know, it didn't make sense because they probably don't have the same
044um cap capabilities or the same um >> uh background or knowledge. So, >> okay. Any other questions for finance department? No. All right. Um Bob, hi Mr. Dunn. How are you this morning? Come have a seat. We're doing things a little bit different this year. We're making everybody comfortable. So while you're getting settled, I'm going to ask the board to go to page 47 just to look at the board of finance budget. We'll get one more done while getting settled. >> Maria, you want to >> Doesn't look like there's really any changes. Yeah, there's no changes. Basically, this is the salary for your internal auditor. Um, she's independent from finance and for any other department. She reports directly to the board of finance. Um, if we in finance need her to look at something because
045we need a second pair of eyes or just some research, she will do it for us. But mainly, she reports to the board of finance. And in there is just the legal notice for the newspaper on the budget and um or seminars and which probably need more time more seminars but um and professional um dues. Any questions on the board of finance budget comments or questions over there? Are we good? All right. Thank you. Okay, so that takes care of some of those quicker departments. We'll come back to those in our next break. Bob Dunn is here um this morning to uh he's our building official is here to talk to us about that department on page 215. Thank you, Dave. The numbers are very little. You want to start kind of walk us through
046where we are? >> Sure. Um >> yeah. >> Uh good morning. So uh feel the building department is in great shape. Um we had a goal of uh 75 um $750,000 in permit fees that we anticipated uh bringing in. And we're right now at uh 63% of our goal. uh $476,000. We have uh numerous projects that are uh beginning um including uh apartments on Cam 12 Cambridge. We have the Hillcrest Middle School project. We have uh 48 unit uh apartment building at 2150 Reservoir. We have a grocery store at one tree foil. We have uh Hankle uh doing some major renovations for a building that they just purchased as long as updating uh some of their buildings and that project uh is valued at about $70 million of which we will collect permit fees on.
047There's a self storage uh facility going in at 6 Cambridge. uh company bought the old vacant 75 Merit Boulevard uh that they're going to renovate and uh they're doing a major uh renovation at the old NASDAQ building uh for AI retrofit. So, with all these projects uh coming in, um I've spoken to Reena and Maria and we uh originally had a goal that we had set for the next fiscal year and we've uh decided to bump it up that we anticipate uh $1.2 million in revenue from these projects. Um, as far as uh increases of things that we asked for for our budget, there were none other than some dues and uh associations that were affiliated with that they raised the cost minimally. So, there's not much of an increase. >> Any questions for Bob?
048>> Go ahead, Dave. >> So, you're not asking for more money and you're bringing us more money. True. >> We should put your picture up in here someplace. That's right. Thank you for everything you do. >> You're welcome. >> Go ahead, Vinnie. >> Morning, Bob. >> Morning. >> Um, how's the uh migration to open Gov? >> It's It's been awesome. They we were able to use open gov to integrate all our old permits from the various sources that we had previously where we can now look up uh a permit by the address and we can close out permits that were uh taken out you know over 15 years ago with the all our old intergov program. So, it basically put it all in one place for us and it's really helping out the uh title
049searchers and anybody that wanted to know if there was any open permits for their particular address. So, it's it's just working out really well. >> Have the other department started to use it as well or >> um the assessors been using it because they get to see what projects are had started and how far along they are in helping with their their assessment. Um fire marshall uses it for their uh plan review fees and uh all the other departments uh like engineering use it for their signoffs and uh engineering also collects fees online using the program. It's it's just been wonderful for us. >> No, that's great to hear. Thank you. >> We appreciate all your help in uh getting through it, too. >> Glad to do it. >> Go ahead, Mary. Uh just on
050the open gov um not sure how that works but are there any efficiencies or savings um working with other municipalities or with um metrocog for the the fees at all. I don't know if we if you have to purchase individually by each town or can you go through like say a metrog and get group pricing if other towns are you using the same? >> Um we actually did go through metricog to get a discount for procuring the open gov program. >> I'm behind. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Morning, Bob. How are you? >> Morning. >> Um, I see one of your goals and objectives for 2627 is to research the municipal uh similar municipalities for permit fees to see if there's an I assume an opportunity there, correct? To increase them? >> Um, which
051is great. Knowing that you guys have revised your your fee revenue goals up, has this been reflected in those targets? And if not, like what do you think that opportunity might? So, uh, I started doing research with various other towns and what I found was our permit fees were in line with other municipalities. Where were we were falling uh short was the values of the materials and the basis that we were using for calculating building permit fees more on the residential side than the commercial because the commercial we asked for a copy of the contract. So we can pinpoint what the cost of the building is without a problem. with residential stuff, we were having difficulty because the values that we were using to calculate the building permit fees hadn't been updated since 2007. For
052instance, uh for a a single family house, we were calculating $90 a square foot for the first floor, $70 a square foot for the second floor, and using those numbers as a basis of calculating the building permit fees. and we found out that that was really undervalued. So rather than change our permit fee schedule, we are just using um the international code council has a guideline on how to use their formula for estimating values of the project. So rather than go through and try to change our permit fee schedule, we're we're starting to use the international code council guidelines and formula for calculating which is basically going to give us a more accurate value to collect the permit fees on. So we don't have to, you know, try to get anything changed in in, you
053know, in the town regulations to to do it. We just have to be more prudent in calculating the cost. And we found out that we could do that with the the international code council which we're a member of and it's actually helped us out a lot. >> That's great. Great approach. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate the uh explanation. >> Any other questions for Bob? >> Thank you for bringing us good news today, sir. >> You're very welcome. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Um, we are running a few minutes ahead on our schedule. I see Michelle Jacob is online already. So, why don't we bump down to social services on page hold on please. >> 321. >> Michelle, can you hear us? Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Okay, so social services. See? All
054right. Um, smallest budget, a small department. >> Uh, there's not a lot of significant changes. You know, we just have one full-time staff member, a senior center, I'm sorry, a social services coordinator who does all of our benefits assistance and client work. And then we have a part-time office assistant who supports her. Um, I don't think I have anything significant in the budget that has changed. >> Let me just double check. Right. >> Um, >> this year I know the department was really busy. We had a lot of fears about um, SNAP, you know, formerly known as food stamps, uh, being cancelled for our clients. So, you know, back in the fall when the state of Connecticut was determining if payments were going to be going out, I know our staff was really busy and
055overwhelmed. We were lucky to get a lot of donations from the community to help support our residents. Um, otherwise, it's been a pretty decent year. You know, energy assistance was very busy this year. We're wondering what that's going to look like uh next year for the cost of heat. And um we succeeded in providing winter coats, Thanksgiving baskets, Christmas gifts. We had a tree uh I don't know if you guys saw, we had a Christmas tree where people could donate gifts for teenagers. So we focused on teens this year and just really got out um gifts for all those in need during the holidays. So uh they've had a great year. >> Mary, hi Michelle. Um, can you talk a little bit about the food sharing with Daniel's Farm and if there's opportunities with the
056other schools and how that might work out? >> Sure. U, it's a pilot program. It's the first school that we've partnered with. So, once a week my staff will go over or we have volunteers go pick it up and bring it over to uh the food pantry and it's all of the school food that goes uneaten. So, we're getting string cheese, apples, all the snacks. Um, it's going really well and it's it's getting taken by our clients. So, I know Karen, you know, is in the works to meet with them again to see if any other schools want to expand and um I don't know if we would end up working with all schools if if we could give it all out if there's a need, but I think when we take one school at
057a time, as long as the food is getting taken and not getting thrown out, we know that we can manage it. But it has been a fantastic program. >> Any other questions for Michelle on social services? If not, let's move on to Senior Citizen Services, page 339. >> You there, Michelle? We're good. >> We are good. Yeah. So, senior center, I mean, I'm just happy to report I have no openings. I feel like in the last 10 years, I always have an open position at the senior center. So, we are fully staffed. Um, we have great membership. We have great programs. Um, staff are busy. Our transportation department is thriving. Sorry. Um, I don't have any real significant changes I believe in the budget this year. Very small changes. >> Any questions? Go ahead, Mary.
058>> Sorry. Small. Um Michelle, how many people do we have taking advantage of the volunteer um tax program? And I did look other towns I think moved up to um a thousand is their norm. So I know they've upped it a little bit, but I wasn't sure how many if we've seen an increase with that, especially over the last couple years. >> Um they've seen a thousand for how much each individual gets that participates. Yeah, they've they've shift some towns have shifted up, but I did I just didn't know um if that is, you know, if that's the incentive or I know a lot of your uh volunteers just love to volunteer. So, and would do it regardless, but I didn't know if you know with inflation if we have seen that there are more
059people jumping in out of more out of need as well. I know the commission on aging had brought um this program to the attention of the town because they were getting uh comments from individuals that are participating on the program and hopes to see it go up a little bit. It is one I believe at the social services department it is one of our goals this year to kind of evaluate and assess all of the towns like property tax programs and compare them to where we're at um you know with other towns because there is property tax assistance depending on your income. There's also I think like the veterans exemption all of that. So, we're going to be taking a look at all of those programs and seeing who else is doing that volunteer tax
060program. You know, off the top of my head, I can't tell you exactly how many are on the program. Maybe 15. I can send you that information if you like. Um, we do have a couple couples that are on the program, but they all do get their hours. Uh, we're I believe we're primarily the only town department that takes the volunteers. There might be a few at the pet shelter, but we are hoping to expand that and work with other town departments to show them how they can use volunteers so more people can participate. >> Thank you. Yeah, I was thinking like the library, things like that where they're, you know, there there's just need for extra hands and um and said you see how it's so meaningful to some of the volunteers that you
061have. >> Yeah. And it is hard. You know, I understand it's really hard to bring a volunteer in and find work for them to do. So, we were hoping that we could work with other town departments and kind of create something for them so that this person could go right on in and help the department and not be a lot of extra work. >> So, once you learn how to use them, it's a blessing, but it is hard to get started. >> Y if uh if you would send us those numbers, I'd be interested to see those, please. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Any other questions on senior services? Um, and then we will move on to page 329. Uh, that's the Mary Sherlock Counseling Center. The good news is is we are fully staffed again.
062We have three clinicians and our what used we used to call the JRB, juvenile review board coordinator. We're now switching um you know the state has kind of decided to reframe how they look at um the youth. So we're calling it the youth diversionary team. We um we do notice our youth diversionary team. We're getting more referrals from the schools. Our staff member is part-time right now. So, we are kind of monitoring to see if there will ever be a need for more hours in the future. Um, you know, we do get the youth services bureau grant from the state of Connecticut, which can right now supplement some, you know, extra assistance if need be, but we are watching that as the department grows and the need for the services grows. Do you know the
063big change this year? I feel like I come every year and I tell you we're becoming a billable center. Um it is quite a process to get going. But the good news is is we um we worked with the town and you know went through the whole process to find our service provider. We have a biller. She is currently working on credentiing all of our clinicians. So the next step will be sending a letter to all of our clients letting them know that we will be accepting insurance. Everyone is getting credentialed with five major insurance companies. Um we've got Husky, Medicare, Etna, Healthcare, Anthem. So, we're going to be starting off um you know, pretty much being able to serve most of our clients. Uh it won't turn anybody away for inability to pay though
064if they don't have insurance. We'll still continue our sliding scale, but we are looking forward to to bringing that to the counseling center. >> That's a that's a huge that's a huge undertaking for anybody who doesn't work in healthcare and doesn't understand the credentiing pro process. So, kudos. >> I think we get 12 emails a day on like one little question. So it's quite a process but we are going to get there and >> good >> we we finally see the light. So that's great. Um >> I think that is the only significant change you might see in the budget is the cost for the biller. Um however you know the revenue will offset that. >> Um the numbers that are participating in the youth diversionary team stuff can do you have any like statistics
065on um how many kids are coming through that program? Yeah, I might have my annual report and if not, I can send, you know, I can have Melissa put something together for me. I know she just had five referrals recently, which five referrals coming in at one time is quite a bit. Um, we're not used to that and then that that happens regularly, but um, let me take a quick glance here at let's see, uh, so last fiscal year we served 57 juveniles. um 83% of them successfully completed the requirements of the program. You know, our panel meets twice a month. The panels consist of individuals who are really invested in youth in the community. So, we have representatives from social work to the police department. I think somebody from Teapot is on our panel.
066Um and what they do is they they have this youth um take accountability for their actions and maybe they'll be asked to provide volunteer work, uh go to tutoring, make sure their attendance is great at school and once they complete the program uh we sign them out. So 83% successfully completed which is great. Um and I think yeah we have one employee handling that case load which has been a bit difficult. So there's an increase in number of female referrals um increase in referrals for marijuana and THC and um increasing complexity of cases requiring specialized intervention. So we are seeing more and more come through that that requires more time from the staff but I can if you like get the year to date and get those sent out to you guys. >> Yeah, that'd
067be interesting for us to see. Thank you. Mhm. >> Any questions on the counseling center? >> Go ahead, Paul. >> Uh, yes, Michelle. I I may have asked you this question last year, and if I did, I'm I don't remember, so forgive me for repeating. Can you comment a little bit about the condition of your building and the functionality of the building? Is it still working out for you >> at the counseling center or >> at the counseling center? Yes. I'm sorry. >> Yeah, you know, it's tiny. Um, we wish we had more space. Um, it is old. We actually this year, you know, we had some issues with the heat. Um, we have flooding in the building just from the foundation. So, I think we are starting to see more and more things pop
068up with the building. Uh, we have been working closely with Dimmitri and and Georgia Estrada um to make sure they're checking in and and looking at it, but the the problem is it is very small. We can't really grow. We do hope to bring in some contracted, you know, um, counselors that can fill in when needed, when there's a demand for clients. Luckily, D staff do all work two evenings a week, so that leaves office space available at other times of the day. So, we might have shared office space and can make it work, but it is tight. >> And you do have issues with regard to uh privacy. Is that correct? >> With privacy? >> Yes. You know, luckily we're it I mean it's I would say it's like any other counseling office. We
069have a waiting room. >> Um we don't get a lot of individuals just stopping in, you know, so the people waiting in the waiting room, it is pretty pretty private. Um but we could we could have a better setup. You know, we we don't have an elevator. We have two offices upstairs. Um, so you know, we have to make accommodations and then we have two offices downstairs. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You know, our conference room is we the six of us crammer on a tiny table just for staff meetings. There's not a lot of room to do stuff with our groups or uh to bring any other individuals in for support groups. We have to find them elsewhere. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions on the counseling center? All right, Michelle, I
070appreciate you zooming in this morning. Safe travels today. >> I appreciate you letting me. Thank you very much. >> Have a great day. >> Take care. >> All right. Anyone need a little stretch break? >> Anybody need five minutes or are we good to keep going? >> Good. All right, Kathy Rasa's uh here with us. We'll move on to the tax collector on page 65. Hi Cath. All right. Do you want to walk us through a little bit anything changes in your budget? Uh reorg anything? Yeah, I I honestly only had a a minor adjustment between our um overtime, which I lowered a little and increased our summer help for just another another week. So, it was just a minor adjustment there. um just for the fact that our um month of August, even though
071July is our busiest and we have the summer help traditionally just during that month, um soon as we hit August, we're pretty busy with our cleanup mail, our delinquent notices, and then we start our WPCA. And since our office does not take any time off during July, August, typically we have somebody off at least every week there's somebody different. So just having an extra week worth of the summer help to assist us with the minor cleanup in the office and scanning checks and mail and things um would be helpful. C Kath, is there any opportunity for like internships from uh for that summer help for to offer internships for college students or at home things like that? Is that ever been thought about? Um I in the past we've never used internship, but we have
072um used different um different sources to get summer help. We just wanted to make sure that we have somebody that is um able to be trusted. Obviously, um we've had issues in the past with maybe um you know, just wanting to have somebody that's reliable and will be there every day. Um a lot of times in the summer if somebody is coming in, maybe they if they're not committed completely, they might not be there for a week or want vacations and things. So, we just wanted somebody on payroll that will be committed to the full seven weeks, six weeks, something of that nature. Um, I I would be open to anything as long as we can have somebody that can commit to it down the road. We have somebody for this upcoming year already committed,
073but going forward, I don't mind >> exploring that. I >> just I know there's so many kids looking for internship opportunities. Uh, you know, >> we've questioned it in the past and but we go through typically through HR and we haven't had anybody. So, we're we're usually left to our own resources of finding somebody. Um, but we'd certainly be open to it. >> Okay. Something to think about. >> Any other questions for taxer? Go ahead, Ben. >> Hi. >> Hello. >> Uh, you had a comment in your goals and objectives? >> Yes. >> And I just wanted you to expand on it a bit >> and it was guide staff and providing more empathetic customer service to the residents. >> Yes. Does that mean that people come in there being like ticked off about what's
074happening and they need to be kind of caught a little bit or? >> Yeah, typically on a daily basis we have a lot of unhappy people that come in for various reasons. Not necessarily toward us, but always our attitude always helps with easing the situation and diffusing a situation. So it it is hard as you can imagine being on the receiving end of what we receive daily from people and not taking it personally. So, it's just I'm trying to guide the staff more for some of those moments and just kind of lighten the um the atmosphere a little bit more and just teach them how to just not take everything so personally just so that it's an easier it's easier on the side of the taxpayer because people are coming in for various reasons and
075it's not always their fault that they're not paying. They have a lot of personal issues and when we take it personally, it doesn't help them. So, we see that it it helps on their side if you just offer a little bit to them. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> It's very ha hard to have a job where they don't come to see your smiling face every day. >> It's difficult, but you can you can get people used to that by seeing it constantly as they come in. And then some people are happy to come in and see us. So >> yeah, you try. >> Uh other comments or questions? Go ahead, Mary. >> Um on the delinquency, I know that um typically you commented another part of the year, but how are we
076doing on collections and then small when you send out a a delinquent notice? Is there a fee included in that for the processing and the stamp or whatever plus, you know, the time, is that allocated in there? So the the biggest part of our um or first to address the first part our collection at this point for this part of the year we're at 78.63% and we have another quarter to go. So we're over three quarters. So I would say we're we're at this point. Um the delinquent statements, we we mail delinquent statements in office, but we also have uh QDS, our supplier, mail our biggest uh statements for the year, which is our motor vehicle. And that's could be over 5,000 to do that. But it's for motor vehicle, there are so many it's
077worth doing it through them. We do that once a year. Um the at the end of every quarter we inhouse do real estate, sewer assessment, um personal property, and we mail those out. But also we mail as we get payments in and we have balances due, we mail statements out just so people have the balance due. They think they're caught up and we kind of have to give them just a little, you know, a little more help and send another one out. So, it is more costly to go outside, but in that situation, it's going to offset the staff trying to print and fold and do all that. It's a lot. >> Anybody else? Follow your lights on. Do you have something or no? >> All right. Well, thank you. >> You're welcome. >> And
078thank you for trying to make it a positive experience. >> We will continue. Thank you. Thank you, >> Laneie. Jeff Crawl was on Bill. Jeff Crawl was online a few minutes ago. Did he pop off? Okay, while we're figuring that out, we are running a few minutes ahead. I would like to take a five minute break. Everybody can stretch their legs, get something to eat or drink, and then we'll come back and pick up with some of Maria's um later afternoon um departments. Is that okay? All right. Take five. >> Bless you. Okay, we're back. Uh, discussing statute of limitations on bad calls on the baseball field in the interim. >> Alleged bad calls. That's correct. Innocent until proven guilty. Is that how it works, sir? >> Yeah. >> All right. And with that, we're
079going to go to page 25 in our books. We're skipping ahead to our 1045 slot uh for Judge TRO to discuss our uh probate department. Um and I will turn it over to you. >> Thank you uh Madam Chair. Thank you for taking me out of turn. I appreciate it. Um thanks for the board for I know you put in a lot of hours volunteer basis so um you probably don't get thanked much when you go to stop and shop. Uh but thank you. So, uh, the the three towns of the Trumbull District Probate Court are Trumbull, East and Monroe. Um, most of the, um, budget is paid for by the state, but there are items related to the sort of the day-to-day functions, the, um, phone and office supplies, postage, uh, dig digitalizing old
080documents and such. Um, so and we go by the grand list. So Trumbull pays their share uh of the grand list. Uh, it's really a I think it's a state put budget essentially. We did ask for another uh, brace yourselves $200 for office supplies. But uh, because of the way the grand list changed, Trumbull's share uh, goes down. So there's a um there's an 1100 almost a $1,200 savings um this year. >> I don't know what you're going to do with that windfall, but um >> yeah, I think we'd like to see the grand list not negate that, but >> yeah. Well, that's fair. The reason was I think Monroe did their grand list earlier, so it got My conversation with them is a little bit different. They're paying an extra $1,500. So, but that
081that's it. I'm happy to entertain questions or leave. Uh, whatever is your pleasure. >> I think I think we're good. Thank you for saving us a little bit of money. >> And thank you for saving me time. I appreciate it. Okay. Good luck, everyone. Thanks. >> Where you going to? I just got here. >> Got your $1,200 spent. That's it. >> Have a bagel. Maria, can we do ethics commission next >> on page 11? >> Well, that's an easy one. It's only clerical fees and we haven't really used it. So, we just um add some clerical keys just in case there is a meeting. >> Yeah. Um it's a little hard to hear. The thing just went on and um there's some people out in the hallway. >> Okay. >> Um uh so basically it's
082just a clerical fees if there is a meeting uh or two meetings actually. Um but in the last few years there hasn't been any. I mean, if there are a series of meetings, then we'll have to come back to the board >> for funding. >> I'm sorry for 10 minutes. >> Um, the only thing in this budget is for clerical fees. If there are meetings uh held by the ethics commission um they haven't met in several years. If obviously if there are more meetings than just the two meetings then we would have to come to the board for additional funding. Any questions on ethics commission? I'm sorry Arie. Is that static? Can you hear that? Do I need to do anything? Ah. All right. All good. Okay. So, um that's ethics submission on page 11.
083We're still running a few minutes ahead. So, we'll go back down to um I was check I was doing the check off. Here we are. Let's go to page 73 for purchasing Maria. Um, so this department consists of one full-time and one part-time. Currently, there is um there was in the budget an additional part-time position, which we haven't really explored, which we should. It's I think the discussion was to possibly help us with any of the board of ed um bidding. Um so we'll be exploring that this year. >> So that that money went unused last year. >> That's correct. Okay. Mary, you have a puzzled look on your face. >> No, I just thought we >> We did put it in last year and it did not get hired. >> No, that's why >>
084Did it Did it go out as a posted position? >> No, it was never we never looked at it to be quite honest. It was overwhelming. We didn't get a chance to look and come up with a job description and >> okay, >> post it and so forth, but we'll definitely look at it this year. Okay, >> Steve, >> I see as one of the goals and objectives to lock in oil and gas. And I think we talked about this at one of our previous meetings. Um, >> actual the diesel was at 26247 and gas 2.3054 >> and last year was 260 for diesel and 2.24 for gas. >> So we did very well on that. >> And what was the gas again? I'm sorry. >> Last year was 2.24. >> Okay. And this year
085>> 230 54. >> I'm sure that's significantly different today. Thank you. >> Oh yeah. >> Any other questions in purchasing? Go ahead, Mary. And then Vin, >> just on the copers. Um not sure if you know that or if that is Kevin, but what is what um uh savings or efficiencies can be found from is that just rebidding the um the contractor or trying to remove some? >> Yeah, we we try not to get too many uh copiers. We try to use the heavy duty printers instead. Uh we try to eliminate uh printers in each office. People can walk down the hall and print to a the heavy duty copier. So we always look for those efficiencies. Um and we lease these um copers for five years at a time, the big the larger ones.
086And um and they're replaced every year. They include the uh supplies, toners, etc. Um, so it's a good program. >> Does the uh Hillrest project require any support from the purchasing group? >> Uh, all the bidding goes through our department through purchasing. Uh, we have several. I think we have four major contractors that we bid for. Um, and I don't have them all. Owners rep, architect, uh, construction manager. Um, and there there's a couple others. Um, >> but that's at the high end. What about all the detail stuff that's going to >> Bis Bismar is a construction uh company and they bid all the subs, all the trades, >> right? But like all the uh I call it like facilities, all the furniture, all that other stuff. I'm sure you're going to have that requirement
087that but that's the board of education. But >> we wind up >> all these large projects, even all the capital projects and bund projects come through the town. >> So >> comes through our purchasing department finance to pay all those invoices and deal with the audit at the end of the year. >> I'm just concerned about the workload that's going to be coming. Yeah. That's >> it's going to be large. >> Not even town stuff or anything, but basically that one project. >> Exactly. It's large. >> Yes. >> On on all departments on the town. >> Would you do that with a consultant maybe to do it? >> We have various consultants already. There is one consultant that's helping us with some of the filings with the state. They prepare all the documents. We just
088have to submit them and they oversee the project as far as finance goes and so forth. So, they're on top of everything. And that's in addition to all the regular stuff. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Go ahead, Nikki. Sorry, >> Maria. What's the earliest that um you can lock in for fuel the the year prior? And what's the latest date that you could lock in for fuel? >> We always lock it about at this time, right before budget. >> Okay. >> Um I'm not sure the latest. And and how does that work for do we also lock in for busing or does the busing company do that? How does that work? >> I I'm not familiar with that. That's on the board of edi. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Do they still does board of
089ed do they still use our town? >> Yes. >> So and then we charge them back. >> Yes. >> So in essence they they get whatever rate we lock in. >> Right. I'm not sure if the buses come here. I'm not quite sure. All the other vehicles do come to the town to fuel the vehicles, but I'm not sure about the busing. >> It's a good question to ask. >> Yeah. And do we anticipate downtime with them um redoing the uh pumps for town hall? >> Um I mean that's a question for George, but um my understanding is they will keep one pump or two open for >> Okay. >> for use and we may have to use one of the garages down on the street. >> Okay. >> Any other questions on purchasing? While
090we're waiting for our next departments, um, Maria, can you do tax assessor on page 53? Um well the the I I believe we filled all the position there is one position vacant for the the uh for the motor vehicle personal property administrators um that individual retire and we're in the process of filling that position. Of course we still have the opening for the tax assessor. Uh we haven't had any applications so far. Uh we keep on advertising. Um so we'll keep on doing that and I believe all the other towns are in the same boat throughout the state. >> Have we looked at what our pay scale is for that versus other communities? Has HR looked at that? >> Yeah, HR has been looking at that. >> So we're commenurate to where we should be
091and we just can't find >> There's not that many out there, you know, that retire and they don't come back. Most towns use consultants. That's what we're hearing. >> And we have a consultant in place right now. >> We have a consultant right now. >> Go ahead, Paul. >> Yeah. Maria, how long have we been at this now in terms of this position? How long have we not had a full-time? >> Probably a couple years now. >> It's at least two, right? >> Yeah. We did have someone in place and then um she left around May and then so two years later. Yeah, we still haven't found someone. And do we know how many other towns of comparable size are in the same predicament? I >> I don't know how many. Uh but we can
092definitely find out. >> Can have Tom HR find out. >> So we've actually had of late no applications. >> That's what I'm hearing from HR. >> Yeah. >> I don't have access to that portal. Um, so the next large account is the professional development, professional services account and that has to do with Reval. What's a smile? Sorry. Um, I think t um I think Paul wants to take the position. You would appreciate that. Um so professional service we're doing as you know with new we're doing a reval. So um that's the large $200,000 for the physical reval. Um this is over three years. We have budget of $100,025 fiscal year 26 125,000 and now 27 200,000 for a total of 425. and they have started as you uh probably know um they send uh flyers
093or uh requests for information on your residence and as far as additions and so forth. Uh and they're starting some of the inspections already. Uh the uh service contracts for the licensing and support have gone up a little bit. QDS vision. Uh they have two items that are new. The field card field cards they want to print and attach to the pen. It'll be easier to see on file online. The near map that's a image image of the property and I guess it's a more clear picture. The open gar that we were talking about with Bob this morning. Uh we have a $4,000 fee just to bridge from uh building to the tax assessor's office. >> Maria, can I ask you a question just in general on um software and subscriptions, things like that? Um
094I'm going to let Mary make me sound smart for a minute. Um, have we done an audit of what all the town subscriptions are and whether or not there are things that are unused or that could be combined or things like that? And how would we go about something like that? What department would that fall in? Just under tech? Would it fall under? >> I I I I wouldn't know. I mean, we can make a list and >> Yeah. Is that something? >> I probably would have it help me with that if we need. the wizard. He's like, "Oh, no." >> No, I I was just administering another meeting that I was chairing. Um, so >> wrapping that up and I guess >> I can ask you later if you like. >> Um, we had
095a question on subscriptions and tech stuff like how would we audit like what the town's using? Like have we looked at all of our subscriptions and all of our software to see like if there are any duplications or things that we could combine? How would we go about something like that? >> Um, I mean, I could certainly help with that. Um, as far as I know, there's nothing on the town side that's being replicated, but um, >> yeah. >> All right. Well, the food food for thought to kind of think about how we might do that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anything else in the assessor's office? >> Um, the training account. um we added a little bit more money initially uh well they requested 6,200 200 we um brought it up to 4,900. There
096are two new people in the office that need some additional um certifications and training. So that's um that's in this budget. Um we added that additional those additional fees. Other than that I don't really have anything else there. Okay, >> Maria, I have just one question going back to the the vacant tax assessor role and I apologize if I missed it somewhere. What is the offset that we're paying from a consultancy basis on an annual basis in lie of having that open position? >> How much are we paying? >> Yeah. >> Um off the top I I don't know. I can get back to you on that. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead, Mary. I should have looked it up, but Maria, do you know um for the last reval what we ended up with
097for attorney fees is like the 50,000 a pretty safe range or on the high side? Um well reval is 1012026 and normally the BAA doesn't meet till March and the appeals any large appeals are we need attorneys outside attorneys for large appeals and so they're pro those probably don't start till the following fiscal year. So we only had a 50,000 for the starting >> only. >> Sorry. Well, normally it's over a 100,000. That's why I said >> just just because I do not understand the line. Personal property audits on a contingent basis, not fee basis. >> I just don't I just >> Okay. Well, in the past, we used to have a consultant that did all our personal property audits and it was a feebased and now we found a company. We actually bid it
098out um and we started off with those two companies. One that was doing on a fee basis and the other one that was doing on a contingency basis. So basically whatever they find there's a percentage. I don't have the percent in front of me but >> No, that's I just didn't >> there's a percent fee that we paid them and so there is no impact to the budget because it's based on what they recover and they take it off the total. >> I like that. Other questions in tax assessor. Okay, let's move away from reval talk. Um, in looking at our schedule, um, Mrs. Man, would you like to move on and we'll do um first selectman's office public events? You guys want to come that way? >> Trumble day public events and first election
099office. We'll we'll start with um public events on 393. It is on the list. >> There's no budget. >> We're gonna have trouble day though. >> And it will not interfere with the Hillrest project. So, >> we're good. >> And we'll have nothing but sunshine. >> Oh, thank you. >> Of course. Of course. and cool weather. >> Excellent. >> I don't mind the rain when it's 95, you know. Um, public events. Um, the price of everything of course has gone up. Flags are ridiculous. But I ordered enough last year and um that I could order this year. I have 30 250th anniversary flags that are coming and we'll intersperse them down Main Street so that there is some celebration of the 250th and um the other flags are apparently still in good condition. So, what
100I do have to purchase are cemetery flags for the veterans to put on the um on the graves gate of heaven. All the cemeteries around town. So, I do I think I need probably 500 um flags. Last year, I think I ordered 1,500. Um there's a lot of graves that they mark. Um and they always need volunteers to put them in. They're numbers are dwindling. So, um they get a scout troop or two, but uh if you ever want to do that, just let me know and I will let the commanders know. and um give you the date and the time that they do it. >> Kathy, just out of curiosity, what is the cost per flag of those flags that we do on Main Street? >> Just the flag is about $50 per >>
101for the for the flag. And usually if the flag is damaged, the pole has gone with it. Um we didn't used to leave them up as long as we leave them. Now we leave them through September 11th. So, if we have any bad storms, and we've had a few summer bad storms, um, lost a lot of flags and poles for last year, >> so I did spend a lot on flags last year, but we're good this year. >> I think leaving them up is terrific. >> I I you know, it looks so empty when they come down. >> It really does. >> It does. It does. >> And frankly, I'm a little surprised I thought the cost will be a lot more than that. >> Well, then maybe why they get ruined. I'm not buying
102the real expensive flags. There are some real heavyduty flags that you can get. But >> yeah, >> and we do offer the program where people who want to honor a relative or honor someone, they're able to purchase flags through our website. And um last year I think we probably had 20 that were purchased that way. So anybody who wants to do that and then the names of who they're honoring are in the program for Memorial Day. But this account covers the boards and commissions dinner, the employee picnics, um anything. >> It's a lot of things that are like public events. We'll put it under public events. So >> Kathy, purely out of curiosity, how many flags do we put up each year? >> We extended it down Main Street last year. Um I I don't
103want to give you a number. No, I I and I know it, but I don't want to give you a number. It's close to 200. >> Thank you. >> I believe, >> but I'll get that for you. >> Go ahead, Mary. Just back to Trumble Day. Who did that? Um back to Trumbull Day. It's going to be on the 4th this year. >> No, it's the last weekend in June. >> Oh, fe Okay. I was just thinking police overtime. So, okay. So, >> no, I wouldn't I I I couldn't do it on the fourth. >> Yeah, I remember that we discussed that another time, too. So, great. Thank you. >> So, that'll be the weekend of June 27th and 28th. >> 27th and 28th. Yes. >> I'm sorry. Let me move it. Mary, >> thank
104you. >> Who's gonna clean the tables? >> Me, Dave. Dave's wife. Yeah, >> we'll get him cleaned. >> All right, moving on to the first selectman's office. Page 15 in your big book. >> Page 15 in the big book. >> Good morning everybody. So, what would you like me to do? I can just answer your questions. However you'd like to handle this. >> You want to just walk us through big ch any changes? >> Um, the only real change here, you know, obviously the people in my office, myself, Mrs. Katsky and Mrs. Mcan and Mrs. Alabelli are all the same. So there's only the regular increases that are included in the salaries account. I do have an addition that I'm asking for this year in a the um it's in the professional account the asking
105for a communications consultant for $30,000. just >> Yeah, just a question on that. Can um just because I'm curious what what's the um objective of using the community? >> So, I'm going to I'm just going to read a a statement that I have for you so we can start off the conversation. So, um in response to the increasing demands of economic development along with the continued growth and prevalence of social media, the town will engage a part-time consultant uh communication consultant. This addition will enhance our ability to communicate effectively with the residents of Trumbull while allowing for greater focus and efficiency and advancing our economic development initiatives. Um I did do a little uh research on this, looked at other towns around us. um Straford, Fairfield, Monroe um all have um in addition to similar
106um other um positions in their budget like us also have communi communication consultants at a much higher rate than Trumble does. I have that information if you would like it. Um and we can you know talk about that a little bit more. Um you know for instance um Straford has a communications director at 110,000. Their total uh budget for selectman budget is 560,000 for the entire department. Um Fairfield uh and of course they're they're you know not quite similar apples to apples. Their populations a little bit bigger than Trumbull but we all deal with the same issues even with our populations being a little bit smaller. Um the population in in uh Stratford is 52,000. In Fairfield it's 65,000. Fairfield's budget is um for total for selectment budget is 742,000. And they have a communications
107director at 106,000. Those are Stratford and Fairfield are full-time jobs in addition to their um their chief administrative officers um assistants to the mayors. Uh so they have you know they're they're called a little bit different things but basically everyone does the same thing but um you know you can see the difference in those budgets between us and them. So we have really never had one anyone dedicated directly to communications and our um our economic development director's office is extremely busy and Reena does a lot of communication work. So, um, you know, in order to free her up a little bit and to give her some more help with communication, I'm asking for a just a part-time consultant at this point, um, to enhance that that department and my department and which helps the entire
108town. For instance, let me just give you a comparison between Stratford's um, economic development office. Um, their budget is $415,000. Our budget is 188,000. So, it's you got to dig a little deeper into all these budgets to see the comparisons and the amount of work that uh employees they have to do this additional type of work. >> Thanks, Vicki. In this day and age, I think it's something necessary and needed and will go a long way for us. Thank you. >> Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Arie. I'm sorry. Um, Mary, >> yes, we know I'm cheap, but I think it's definitely an expense that should be put in. Um, Reena, I know, gets tagged quite frequently on social media to um, can you tell us what's going on here? Can you do this? Why can't
109we have a Costco at the mall? Well, I can't and and it while she is a wealth of knowledge and I've learned I think everyone here has learned so much from her. Uh we certainly don't want her time spent having to reply on social media to things which which could be you know her time is is as it is and it's it could be at all hours of the day and night and she's being tagged for things. but also when she did have the time in her department to put out the umformational flyer like what's going on at all the different aspects in town, what's going you know people people really are asking and social media unfortunately it's it it's not it's good and bad but it's also a lot of things that are going
110on that um may be not given a positive spin because of people assuming or thinking and when we're trying to bring businesses into town I think we need the positives out there and so that's important for people to know what's really going on in town and we don't have the same reporting we used to have in the past. So we I think it's just really important to have that position put in. >> Yeah. I mean that office and planning and zoning is incredibly busy. Bob Dudton just gave you a smattering of what's happening and what's uh there's a lot more coming and I know Reena when she comes before you will probably give you uh another overview of all of that so you can see exactly you know how much work is coming out of
111that office and how it's a very lean uh operating machine. >> So in that vein Mr. Tinker PR is kind of your wheel wheelhouse. Um, is $30,000 a reasonable consultant fee? Are we Is that like a chip like the ocean? >> It's the very very bottom of what you would need to actually have a um, you know, usually you're talking about uh, a PR consultant starting at about $5,000 a month for a uh, um, uh, you know, a small company. Um, so you're, you know, you're already talking, uh, um, a significant amount there. Um, I I, you know, I, this would get you started a little bit. Um, but I would think you would need probably if you want a a comprehensive PR uh uh and communications plan, which I think is necessary here because
112right now it's sounding reactive and responsive and needs, you know, you want to be a little more proactive uh as possible. And you also want to make sure you have a um a well-developed uh especially in the social media space, social media policy that lays out exactly how you're communicating, what you're communicating, when you're communicating it, um what the parameters of it are, uh uh that sort of thing. So, um um you know, for a part-time position, sure, but I don't think you're going to get the the uh >> impact Yeah. with that amount of money. So, not that I, you know, I think it's defin something that we recognize the need. Just if we're going to do it to how do we do it correctly to see if we get the benefit out of
113that, maybe we need to look at that um a little bit more closely as we moved into the budget vote. Maybe want to talk about that, Mr. Pia. Well, I don't obviously after, you know, looking through other towns budgets, I don't disagree that that's on the lean side. Um, but certainly I be appreciative for that 30,000 to start this process. Um, and then you certainly can discuss discuss it further. >> Okay. Any other questions in the first Lechman's budget? All right, you go back to the cheap. You can go back to the cheap seats now. >> I paid for at least another half hour, so I don't know. >> Hi, Jeff. How are you? >> How are you? >> I'm good, thanks. Come on over. Have a seat. >> Oh, boy. >> I know. >>
114You got the hot seat now. >> Jeff, is anybody else coming? Is is Anthony? I believe so. >> All right, then we can >> two and now we just picked up the third. So, >> excellent. >> Um, >> Jeff Craw is here to talk about board of assessment appeals and I'm getting that page 61. >> Good morning. >> Uh, regarding the board of assessment appeals budget >> no on the bottom green. Yep. >> Oh, >> and can you just reach to your right and make that one turn red? >> Thank you. >> Okay, now we're all go. Huh? Uh, yeah. And the board of assessment appeals budget, the the main thing is we're doing revaluation uh October 1st uh this coming year. So, the historical budget for clerical is been quite light because we go
115through fiveyear cycles and when people have their homes uh reassessed, they typically get very frightened their taxes are going to sore and they're concerned about it. In this cycle, it looks like it's anywhere from 40 to 60% increase in value. So, people are going to see some big numbers. the grand list will grow, but you know, everybody's very concerned that the mill rate won't proportionally uh drop as well and you we get through that. So, there's a lot more hearings, people are a lot more concerned about the situation. So, regarding our budget, the the clerical portion, which historically we we have a number and it comes in quite a bit lower uh because there aren't that many appeals, uh I think you can anticipate with revaluation that it'll it'll be remarkably higher. So, uh, we're
116we were in agreement with the first select, uh, person's, uh, budget and just wanted to call that to your attention. I know it's small potatoes in the town operation, but >> Yeah. >> Anybody have questions on revol? Paul, I >> Jeff, can you get us or can you have one of the town departments get us an analysis of historical action within your um, tax assessment appeal process? How many how many appeals do we get annually on an average basis for example? >> Uh we could we could try to accumulate that. >> Can we do that maybe over a 10-year period? What's the number of appeals? And can you break it out as to residential and commercial? >> Uh yeah, the commercial generally we when they're over a million dollars, we we waiver those. Right. >>
117Yeah. >> Uh sure. We could >> I'd like to see that historic analysis. It might be interesting. >> We could try to do that. Yeah. >> Thanks, help with that, >> please. >> Yeah, I'll have the assessor's office that assessor's office. >> Thank you. We appreciate that. >> Anybody else have any questions for Board of Assessment Appeals? >> We didn't even get to sit very long. >> I don't mind. >> All right, sir. Have a great day. Thank you for coming. >> All right. Where are we in our list? Yeah. Um, Maria, um, in a minute, can you do town hall and town council for us? And is it possible for us to, um, ask Mary Markham if she could come in early? Go ask her. >> Yeah, ask her if she wants to come
118up early. >> Yeah, whenever she can come up. >> We're We're kind of cruising through this morning. >> And um if Tom McCarth Hey Cath, >> he's not he's not in. >> Okay. So, we're not we can't move him. Um Anthony Mto sent us all a note that um we can just talk quickly about the treasures uh department on page 81. If you will all flip to page 81 Okay. Um on page 81, the only thing in the uh treasur's department is his salary which is um uh part of statute. So nobody has any questions on that. Hasn't changed for what? Okay. So that takes care of that. Um, let us go to town hall and then town council. We'll start on page 123, please. All right, we're all set. Maria, >> um, we have
119a we had a part-time position in this department just to assist any department that was uh at a missing, you know, at a vacancy or someone was on vacation or on a long-term leave. Um, but we decided that we didn't need a a full a full a part-time position. We needed like a seasonal just call up as needed. So, we moved that from part-time to a seasonal employee. Uh, contingency has to do with contract uh union contracts not yet and those are uh the PD mats mats which is the town hall supervisors and the fire marshals. Those contracts are still being negotiated. That's why they're in contingency. Uh the next account is the uh property and liability insurance. We cover all the towns and board of ed insurance and that went up 3% based on
120our broker. And we increase uh we increased the threshold for the umbrella just to give us more coverage and that was an increase of $55,000 to that. Uh the other accounts are pretty much the same. Um >> she said give her a couple minutes to finish what she's working on. She'll be >> okay. Um, while you're looking at that, Maria, is it possible because that will bring us to about 11 11:15. Is it possible to see if um the library or nature commission want to come in earlier? That will allow us to call board of ed and ask them to come earlier. Maria, go. We'll figure that out. >> Uh 11:30, 11:15, 11:30, whenever he's available. >> Ara, did you have anything else in town hall? >> Um, no. Unless someone has a question. >>
121Any questions in town hall? Dave. >> Dave. Dave took that breath. They >> a little bit. >> Go ahead. >> So, I just had a question in 205 program expenses. I see Mnt bank fees in here. Have we had negotiations with Mnt? Had any discussions with them on those fees? >> Yeah. Well, uh, we used to have all our investments with Mnt, so that offseted all our fees. Now we do not. So, uh, the plan is to move most of our funding from there. And right now, we're just, uh, paying fees and earning more interest at New Town Savings. >> New Town's doing a great job. >> I was going to ask that, too. What What are in the fees? Just curious. >> Um, wire transfers, AC's. Um, >> yeah. So, >> so based on
122the amount we have in they wave some and okay >> detail that kind of stuff >> and then the just for the penal insurance is that it's it was say projected is that locked in at 3% now or is >> no it's not locked in an estimate. >> Okay. So >> it might be slightly lower but we did not know at this point. >> Do you know when that gets locked? >> Uh probably at beginning of July. So after this budget is in place. >> Perfect timing. Okay. Thank you. And just to confirm, Maria, I think I heard you say this, but that is for all town and board of ed. Thank you. >> That's correct. >> Other questions in town hall. >> Okay. And then Maria, the last one on your list is town
123council on page three. T council covers all the clerical fees for the clerk that um tends all the meetings and does all the minutes and uh Margaret does a lot for a lot as you guys know uh professional service has to do with um annual audit and that's an increase from previous year and that's based on that three-year contract. This is the second year. Uh this will be the third year. Um >> and then the legal notices uh for the town council >> are good. >> Any questions there? >> I do. >> Go ahead, Mary. just and you may not know this, but where do we stand with legal notices for I I know when the charter was open the last time and that was discussed and the you know with readership and everything like
124that. I'm just curious >> for because it's within you know all the budgets. Is there is there anything with the state that's changed or >> I don't believe so. Um and I don't have additional information I can I can ask around. >> Yeah. I'm just wondering how many people even get the paper anymore. Well, I think by charter we still have to post them. >> Yes. I just >> So, is that a like a state regulation or is it just in our charter? >> I don't know that answer. Maybe Vicki. >> Okay, that's that's a question also to ask. >> Maybe Vicki or the attorneys can't handle that. >> He's leaving. >> I don't know. >> Well, the attorneys are coming up at some point. I'll put I'll make a note to ask >> remember
125state or charter >> so so if we were to make >> corrections >> if we were to make corrections we wouldn't be out of compliance like with state regulations or stuff like that >> you speak up the noise here is definitely >> oh is that what it is it's that noise >> I'm late Oh. >> Oh, we need more goodies. >> But I bring you snacks. I wish you well luck today. >> Snacks. >> Where are they from? >> Did you make it yourself? >> Sit. Stay for a few minutes. >> Do you miss us? >> I do miss you. And that's why I brought you cookies so you can >> cookies. >> They're from Harborview. >> All right. Have a nice >> Oh, take care of the dog. >> Thank you. >> So, if
126you ask me, I'm sorry. >> We were just talking about like legal notices. We have legal notices in a lot of our departments. Are they based on our charter that we have to post those things or is it like a state regulation? Is there legal reasons beyond the charter that we have those? >> It might be a little bit of each. >> Yeah, that's why we'll ask. >> We tried to change that the last time some of that in the charter and it wasn't changed. So, some of it was, some of it wasn't. So that's why one of the reasons why. >> Okay. Maria, is it possible to pull out like all of the legal fees that we pay in all across all the departments just so we could see what that would be worth?
127All right. Any other questions in town council? >> Stfan will be here at 11:50. >> Awesome. And Mary Markhamm was nice enough to trot up the stairs for us a little bit early. Um, and we will go to Hold on, Mary. We're going to page 15. We'll start with the town clerk. >> Um, you have to put your microphone on. Press that little button. There you go. >> Okay. Is that all right? Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Um, you have to forgive me. My voice comes and goes. Um, to some people are happy about that. >> And just on aside, um, our legal notices are by state. We have to post. >> There we go. >> Just so you know, because you were talking about it, I figured I'd tell you. We would like nothing better
128than to not have to post. So, um, okay. As far as the the budget, there aren't that many changes. Um the the salaries we don't touch. Anyway, the uh seasonal we upped it because it's going to be um an a state election this year and we will have we have to bring people in as we usually do for elections and the state and federal elections take more than the locals. Um the overtime account we went up a little same reason it it takes more with the state elections. Uh program expenses for municipal code that has gone up again. Um so basically all of our things are based on what account what uh contracts cost too. Uh the program supplies again it's the general election that uh takes more than the locals. Legal notices have stayed
129the same. Uh the conferences we had not had we had not been able to go to conferences for a couple of years because we actually haven't had a full staff together since 2020. We finally have a full staff. So now we can start going back to the town conferences. >> Can I ask a question on the full staff? Mhm. >> You mentioned in full-time here there's a uh $5,000 adjustment for upgrade one assistant position to a newly created deputy position due to increase. Can you talk to that a little bit? >> The there's a lot more involved on his part than well that position. >> Um they handle all all of our financials, all of our contracts. Um there's there's more uh responsibil in that job and you know we felt that they they were
130rated at the same and they should not be with all the new regulations coming down from the state from elections. He's on top that position is on top of those as well. I'm going again. >> Oh, I see. Go ahead then, >> Mary. On your uh goals and objectives, you have a comment that says find a new record host for the land records that would also provide a working fee module, >> right? >> Could you explain are you looking for software to do this or looking for something else, a new product? No, it's it's a whole um the the company who hosts our our land records would all it's also totaling out the register and all that. >> Is that vision? Is vision the product that does that? Is it vision? >> No, it's cot
131systems. >> Okay. >> And most I would say 99% of the towns do not use them anymore, but some of the towns still do. We've been using them. We had good luck with them. But we have been trying to get what every other town does is when somebody comes in to record, you're not stamping in the one page at a time stamp. It all is done through a register and it stamps all the information right onto the document. C had this program. They've done it in other towns and it works. They we bought the program to come into ours. We bought the equipment. They could never get it to work ever. I mean, we had it sitting on the counter for two and a half years. And we had that our technology guys working with
132their technology guys. They couldn't get it to work. So now we're looking to go to another hosting company that most of the other towns use that's much more effective. They have a lot more to offer. The only thing is the price is a lot more and we have a contract with COP that we can't really break. So >> what kind >> Aren't they out of contract if they can't get their software to >> Well, no, because that was a separate >> It's a separate module. >> That was a separate module that we were adding and it never never took place. So, >> you know, what what is the company you're looking at to do it? >> Um, IQS. >> Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Go ahead, Mary. >> Are we still getting the grant for
133scanning? I think it was a historical grant or >> Yes, we got it this year. We did the board of ed minutes. >> So, how are you are you are you catching up? I see. So, here you're saying for the uh um uh all the minutes and agendas. So, >> well, these what that grant is for the larger departments that we've scanned. We scanned the town council and now we've done the board of ed and next if we get the grant next this coming year. Um not sure if we're going to be doing board of finance or um planning and zoning. We have to look at the amount of space it's taking up. That's kind of what's determining it. The smaller departments we're trying to do on our own. Go ahead, >> Mary. On your
134activity indicators report on page 117, which is an interesting document. Do you have any thoughts as to what caused the dramatic reduction in land recordings from 2021 to 2026 from 45,000 to 16,000? >> Sure. Why is that? First of all, there aren't that many houses on the market anymore. >> Um, 2020 2020 and then into 2021, >> everything went on the market like crazy, >> right? >> All the the values went up and everything. >> Since then, with the um the interest rates going up and the lack of property, houses to sell, that's why it's dramatic now. Yeah, >> it's a big number. Yeah, it sure is. >> Thank you. >> No problem. >> Any other questions for me? Not a very big budget. >> And then the other one's vital. >> Yeah, that one
135>> on page 307. vitals. Nothing has changed. >> Questions on vital statistics? There's no changes from last year's budget or the year before or it does fall under the Mascola rule. So keep your questions commenurate. All right. Give everybody another minute to look at that. >> All set. Thanks, Mary. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, currently, um, we have, uh, Stefan, who's going to come over at 11:15, you said. So, we'll move library up to 11:15. Um, attorney Shopik is also coming a little bit early to do town attorneys. We'll take care of those two departments before we break for lunch. After lunch, we will have um uh not not as much as we had originally planned. We will have planning and zoning, economic development, and human resources. Those you those typically take a
136little longer than they're planned for. Um, and I have sent over a note to um or a text over to board of education asking them if they might like to move up in time. Um, if they're not able to do that, then maybe we'll take a break and come back um so people can do what they need to do. But I'm hoping to be able to tighten up the schedule for the afternoon uh to be um considerate of all your time as well. Um and the only other two um departments are uh elections Gan and Tracy Gene Rabino and Tracy Vonik and um the nature commission and I'll see what I can do about moving them around as well. Any questions on that? Okay. While we have a minute, um I just want to go
137through are there any other questions or information that you were waiting for followup on that you have not received? I sent out um some information from the police department. they had some additional considerations that they didn't feel were covered enough um in areas that we were looking at. One was uh in their um account uh for autos or for cars um and one was a question about their salary account. So I did did you receive that? I sent that make sure. All right. I got to make sure I have that sent out. Um, as far as that and was there any other information that we were waiting for? I had sent a le list over to board of education. I'm assuming we'll discuss those this afternoon. Okay. Uh, let me find from board of education.
138Uh, from police department. Um, Maria, you received the information on the drone program summary. I don't believe so. >> All right, let me send this. >> That's hello to my client. >> Here it is. Um, they wanted us to look at their full-time salary account. Uh if we go back to the police department on Oh, hello. Actually, we'll hold off on that till we need to fill a little bit more. Stefan is here to do the library. Everybody okay with that? >> Hi. Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Thanks for popping over early. Come have Nope. We're We're doing it. We get comfy seats out this way. >> Oh, >> 385. >> 383 in your big books. While Stefan is getting comfortable. Hello everyone. This is Allison Allen. She is the uh new library assistant
139director. Um she has been taking the place of Louiswis Chihi who who retired last year. >> Awesome. You want to walk us through >> where you are and so um last year we had a lot of success. Um we installed the new library story walk which I'm sure you've seen on the side of the library. Um in addition to uh a a new logo design that was uh approved and run through the board of trustees. Um we've also increased uh you know variety of different services including the uh new library boardroom um has uh been refunctioned into a multi-purpose room. So it's both a boardroom and a classroom setting. Um and that has gotten a lot of um you know usage uh since we have made those improvements. Um the goals and objectives for this
140year um uh so will be new countertops for computer access in the study area. Um if you haven't been to the library during midterms or finals I encourage you to do so. It is a a mad house. Uh we have all these teens sitting around and we actually have to pull out extra tables in order to accommodate them. Um we also have a lot of people coming in to uh do uh work. A lot of uh u work from home uh telecomuters uh that are us utilizing our study spaces as well as our um as well as those uh other areas within the library in order to uh you know conduct whatever business that they need to do. Um in addition to that um you know we are also looking at uh and you know
141expanding our library card users through marketing outreach. We're looking for our various different opportunities in town. Um get more people involved with the library. Um and uh and expanding our popular programming and events. Uh we have a number of large uh bigname authors. Last year we had Alice Nespach uh who was a Trumbull author. She was on the New York Times bestsellers list for 39 weeks. Um she's actually a graduate from Trumbull High School. Um this year uh we have >> Katherine Newman. Katherine Newman. Um, as well as, uh, you know, we are we're in talks with, uh, uh, Ruther, Mr. >> forgot his first name. Rutherford, uh, Mr. Rutherford um, uh, who is also a Connecticut author and very popular as well. So, uh, we're really excited about all the success that we've had
142over the past year and, uh, we appreciate all the support that the, uh, library, uh, receives from the town. All right. Most of our budget is uh the same as the previous year. Uh there are two things that um I do want to draw your attention to. So the first one being is the uh part-time budget uh which is 501102 which is second line item. Uh so this year uh there is a you know a a request that we increase it to uh by 70 uh to a total of $19.13. This would be in keeping with the median uh amount that is paid for part-time staff throughout the um uh libraries uh in our vicinity. Um this is based on information that we retrieved from the Connecticut Library Association. Um, and the reasoning for that
143is simply because we have actually lost staff to other libraries. We we train them. We do a great job with them. I I I don't know how many of you are frequent library users, but um one of the things that the library is really known for is the customer service. People love to come there. They're feeling welcome. Um they feel u you know that those people are relatable and they are friendly and they are there to help them. Um and of course that makes them a prime target for other towns like Stratford who has stolen at least three of my staff members. So um this uh the this is a multi-year effort um that we've had in the past to try and get them to try and get ourselves into a competitive area where we
144are not um underpaying our staff relative to the other towns. Um the second item uh that I would like to draw your attention to is uh uh our collection development budget which is actually called programming expenses. Um that's line item 522205. Um sorry not not program expenses. I I apologize. Program supplies which is line item 53442. Um that is our collection development budget. um which means that this is the budget that we use in order to purchase our our books, our DVDs, um various online resources, ebooks, digital audio books, that sort of thing. Um this year, uh in conjunction with the library board, uh my staff and I have been talking about, uh moving to a new policy, which is um an overdue fine policy. Um this is something that has been a nationwide um
145sort of movement. Um right now in Connecticut there's aund Let me get this out here. 176 libraries. Out of those 147 have already moved to this overdue fine-free model. To be clear, we're not talking about making everything fine free. Simply the overdue fines. So the 15 cents that you're charged when you are day late with your book. Um, the reasoning behind this is uh multiplicative. I do actually have a a sheet here that I can hand out, but for right now, I'm going to walk you through the process and be happy to talk to you about all your questions that you might have. Um, but essentially speaking, uh, you know, there's, you know, for from the perspective of, uh, the American Library Association, a lot of studies have been done on this. Um fines don't
146actually have the intended effect that we we want them to. Like uh fines don't actually prevent people from bringing back uh fines uh books and their other materials late. U they seem to uh you know the the fines are not sufficient to uh to really warrant that type of penalty. Um, and as a result, uh, you know, the fines themselves aren't aren't the don't have the effect that we want them to. What the effect is, however, is to, uh, prevent, uh, access to the library for those who are not able to pay those fines. So, senior citizens, children, um, families from low lowincome backgrounds. Um, and as a result, those those families who might actually need to use that library, especially senior citizens, are thereby prevented from from having access. Um, in addition to that,
147uh, fines are no longer really aren't a sustainable source of income. Um we've been moving away from a traditional library model with you know uh books or even DVDs um which in the past you know generated a good amount of of money uh and now moving towards streaming content uh digital e ebooks and audiobooks um that of course don't generate fines. Um, in 2019, the library uh had $33,000 in overdue fines that they brought in. Um, in 2025, it was 26,000, which is a 21% decrease. This number is just going to keep getting smaller. And if you consider the fact that the inflation cost of books is 5.8% u just for the last year alone, you can easily understand how that math is not going to work out for us in the long run. Um
148in effect the uh the budget is not sufficient in order to both maintain a adequate collection development um budget for the materials that we do have physically in the in the library in addition to the online materials the digital audio books and ebooks that are becoming increasingly popular. Um the the request for the $26,000 um is to is to bridge the gap in the funding should we move to a fine uh rather a overdue fine free model. So before I keep going with a lot more words, do you have questions, >> Stefan? On your um first of all, congratulations. By the way, you guys do a great job. >> Thank you. >> Very warm, very friendly, very inviting, very professional. Thank you. >> Um on your program budget that you made reference to earlier, the
1493442 account. >> Yes. um where you indicate the library uses not only town funds but also trust funds and other funds to correct >> fulfill its desire for program investment. The 180 number does not include those other no >> sources of funds correct >> no it does not >> and approximately how much is that? Um we receive about I I I I between the Fairchild Association which pays for um the uh collection development of the Fairchild uh library branch library >> um in addition to the uh materials or rather the funds that we receive from various different trusts it is about $45 to $50,000 that is dedicated to um collect collection development itself. So your total collection development fund for the next fiscal year if approved as requested would be about 125 including the outside
150source >> uh revenue >> two 225 >> I'm sorry 225 y which would include the outside source revenue >> correct >> thank you >> Stefan thank you again uh for the presentation the library not to overuse the word but the library is a gem in the town so thank you for that um you talked about the fines uh at being 26,000. If we extrapolate that over the next coming years, what do you do you have a projection of what that might look like over the next five or so years? >> I I think it's going to decrease considerably over the course of time simply because well there's two reasons really. Um you know DVD players and cars, right? Uh you can no longer buy a new car with a CD player in it. It's a
151special item you'd have to purchase yourself. Um, and the same thing with DVD players. Uh, those two collections alone for audiobooks and DVDs, uh, like we've seen a a a remarkable drop since the pandemic. Um, and you know, and those were were substantial collections prior to the pandemic, which is where you're seeing that differential. Um in addition to that uh you know as I said you know the the the move towards ebooks and digital audio books has also been um you know remarkable uh for certain segments of our population. uh large print books for instance although they are still very popular uh one of our popular collections. Um a lot of our a lot of our business with uh those type of materials has gone to ebooks simply because um they have accessibility components in
152there uh which allow them to uh you know a user to make the the text as big or small as they would like. Um they can also change the background things of that nature making it easier for them to read. Um and those are things that we encourage people to use but once again uh by encouraging them we don't generate fines. And to be clear uh you know we are trying to have a you know a source of revenue for something that we are actively encouraging people not to do uh which is the fundamental problem with the fine structure in the first place. So, as a newly minted Hoopla and Libby user, uh, I would agree it is a great service. Thank you for that. Um, I guess I was more getting to the, you
153know, when we look at that in the next few years, is that $26,000 number going to be down to 5,000 or 10,000 or something along those lines. And if you haven't done that math, that's fine. U, maybe that would be something for us to to know in the future. >> Yes. >> Um, I've asked this question before. and previous budget sessions with regard to the breakout of the costs that um are used to fund the Fairchild Library. >> Yes. >> If you look at your overall library budget, you're at one whatever the gross number is, what percentage of that in in your estimate as you sit here before us today is to to to run the Fairchild Library? >> Um I I I did the math a number of years ago. I believe it was
154somewhere around 140 when you're talking about, you know, both the the number of staff members that that the town has over there because we do pay for them. >> Um in addition to uh you know the the the type of support that they're getting or rather we pay for in terms of um electricity and and heating and all those other sources sources. Um it is >> so it's it's less than 10% of your overall >> correct cost. Yeah. The Fairchild Association rather the Fairchild Trust I should note um is in charge of the actual building itself. they have a trust that maintains that building. Um, and they have invested a good amount of money as well, I should say, not just in the sense of the collection development and and and the events that we
155host there. Uh, but also, um, you know, they bought a new elevator. They, um, uh, you know, are in charge of, you know, like they had to replace the HVAC unit on the second floor not too long ago. Um, those are not small ticket items, but those that's that's part of their their they're they're part of their trust agreement is that they maintain those things. Might find it interesting. I bought a um book on Kindle yesterday. 50% of the books I buy are probably on Kindle and I buy maybe a couple dozen a year. 19 cents it cost me. >> Yeah. >> To buy a book. 19 cents. >> Yeah. It's almost like one of your late fees. Um, go ahead, Nathan. >> Uh, a couple questions. Um, first on your your databases and so
156forth, um, do you have, if you had a wish list of what databases you would want to be able to have that you do not have access to now, what would those be and what would the cost be? >> We have a wish list. >> I don't know if we have a wish list. Uh we we we do regularly evaluate our our databases. Um yeah we we you know some databases are useful and some or rather have a lot of use uh I should say. Um and some some databases um you know prove themselves to you know no longer be as relevant. Uh um you know and we are always on the lookout. Recently we we uh purchased access to a a language learning database called Mango Languages. Um that was after you know doing
157a lot of SE soularching but also in reflection of trying to figure out how people are using our our collections especially in this case our our language learning collections for our Spanish language and all these other things. Um and of course the the obvious move away from the audiobooks because audiobooks were actually one of the the main methods in which people would learn a secondary language. Uh you would sit there in your car and you know plug in your 50 CDs to to learn Chinese Mandarin or something. Um the uh so M mango languages now fulfills that that niche and now we are are developing our collection plan in mind with that in place. So when people go to that shelf you know we are advertising those books but we're also not going to try
158and buy as many books uh simply because you know this is a better source of that type of uh you know learning and access. I I've got two librarians in my immediate family and they're always ranting about not enough databases, not enough access, etc., etc. Uh my second question is uh on your uh uh uh personnel list, you have two open or at least listed two uh vacant uh circulation positions and a marketing support position. Are those still open? And uh not because my family is looking. I'm not saying that at all. In fact, they're happily employed. But I'm asking about, you know, what what is the the challenge there and if those what the opportunity is. >> They they are currently in the civil service testing process as I understand it. Um human resources
159like we we did post those jobs um at the beginning of January. Um and uh it's just taking a while. I think the police department had a major hiring uh uh project um and that consumed a lot of their resources. Um, I will say, you know, those positions only had funding for half the year, so we weren't able to post them until January. Um, so it's just, you know, plotting along. Hopefully, I will have a list to start interviewing people in the next week or two. >> We'll see. Y >> Stefan, going back to the 402 account, if that is that increase is not fully funded for the next fiscal year, does that fully preclude you from implementing the the fine-free policy? And if not, what what would you do? >> We would we would
160have to make some critical assessments about what it is that we're we're purchasing access to. um and uh the the collection development budget as a whole um and try and really figure out how we can make it work. We we are you know my my staff and I have talked about number of times uh we really do want to do it. We we you know I I there's 29 libraries left at least in July of last year. I do not intend to be the last one. So that's one thing. uh but uh but more importantly you know like it it is something that I think is going to manifestly change the relationship a lot of people are going to have with the library and encourage more users and at the end of the day you
161know that that's really what we're about you know more people in and utilizing library for what they need to use it for um and I think that's a that's an important element for our type of community library that we have >> thank you um so ask I'm going to ask it a little differently. Thank you for the answer on that. >> If it is not fully funded, will you still look to implement the fine free policy and figure out how to >> That is our That is our intent. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Go ahead, Mary. >> This is not popular. Um I just find it surprising that it would be a deterrent for people versus an incentive. I mean my kids alone built the children's area with with not finding books.
162So, uh, you know, but but that was also my thing to them is, you know, allowance or whatever, you were late with the book. And I I just I just find it surprising that seniors and, you know, people of lower income and and yeah, there's probably things out there and I get it and you want everybody to be warm and welcoming at the library, but I just find it surprising that it would be a deterrent and versus, you know, as I said, like I was just lazy and I didn't get there and that's my fault. And then secondly, um I do use my Kindle, uh which is probably why I have such eye issues. Um but I return on time, so there's no fee if someone is to go through the um >> No, ebooks,
163ebooks don't generate fines simply because they disappear off your device. Uh >> but you know what, that's why I was asking because I hear people that cheat. I'm a very honest person, but they turn their Wi-Fi off so that they don't have to so it can't be >> um which I which I find obnoxious because I'm sitting here going you have eight weeks till you can get the book you want and so I don't you know whatever just thought I'd mention that but so I can just touch on um what you were saying before about um the fines not being a deterrent. Um, basically, um, what happens is when an item is overdue for a certain amount of time, um, that item will become lost and we would bill the patron for it. So, we
164turn off your account, you're not able to check out any items, you're not able to access Libby, Hoopla or any databases. So, right then and there, that's kind of putting a stop to it. But the problem is when you would return that lost item, yes, that fee would come off of your account, but you're now responsible for paying for these overdue fines. And in the case of families who have multiple children who might be checking out 4050 books at a time, which does regularly happen, you have a max fine of each of those items at $5, which can really quickly add up. And so those people are now not able to access the library. And a lot of the time, they just don't end up coming back. And on the other hand, the people who
165are taking advantage and um who just don't bring the books back because they don't they don't mind paying the 30 cents are going to do that no matter what, whether there's a fine or not. And in my experience and in other libraries I've worked in, we have moved to going fine free. We have not noticed um a difference in the number of books um not being returned for a long time. Um, and we actually saw the opposite where books were now coming back in because people weren't afraid of that overdue fine. So, it really ended up opening a lot of librarians eyes where these these overdue fine structures were just outdated and they're really preventing people um from being able to use the library who who needed the most. >> So, I know at other
166times um and I don't remember how long ago it was, but there used to be in the summer they would do like a month of a food drive. So instead of So they'd wave the fee and you could bring in a canned good or or you know non-p perishable for the food pantry. Would you consider maybe even doing something like that? It's it's a goodwill gesture if people not mandatory but I just think it's kind of a nice little thing. Just Stefan, you can smile. >> I uh I will say we did that a number of times especially when I first got here uh for a few years. Uh then Michelle Jacob and I had a conversation and basically what uh what came out of it was that you know it it it's great uh
167but unfortunately a lot of people return uh well rather turn in materials that they can't use either expired foods or or things of that nature. Um and then it just turned into more of a hassle for the food pantry than anything else. Um I um you know it's also part of the reason why the food pantry no longer has a donation box um at our at our library. We do have other donation boxes, but not the food ones anymore. Um, and uh, you know, like you know, we we can we can certainly talk about that type of amnesty uh, you know, program. Um, but you know, I will say, you know, this is this is fundamentally, you know, something that is is happening throughout the rest of the of the nation. U, it's not just
168Connecticut. Um, this was actually spearheaded in New Jersey or somewhere else. Um, and it's just, you know, like even in, you know, where where I was in Florida, they no longer have fines, which I didn't think it was ever going to happen. Uh, but even they managed to move to that model. >> Just thought I'd ask. >> Fees fees like that tend to they're hard to in force. Like even if you do that, um, I always find it funny, you know, things like overdraft fees. You didn't have enough money in the account, so we'll just charge you more money that you didn't have. Um it's very hard even in um you know health care for not arriving for an appointment. There's all sorts of rules about you know what you can charge and what you
169can't charge and it's it's a big dilemma and not necessarily the deterrent that you think it is. I am curious though do you limit the number of books that people are allowed to take out at a time like you know 4050 books sounds like a lot all at the same time. Um, you know, if you limited that, could you promote them coming back more frequently? As somebody who did not take advantage of the library as much as I could have until recently, understanding what you guys do offer, it's it's mindboggling. We've utilized the study pod for a meeting. We've done um different things using the Hulu uh not Hulu uh the >> Hoopla account for Kindle. Just amazing stuff. So, um that's the first part is could you do that more as an incentive? And
170then the second part is do you do more um community outreach? Like it's great if you go in they'll spend time to like show you how to use all those things, but have you done like programs at the senior center where you tell teach a lot of people about the um audio and and digital devices at one time? >> Yeah, we we do have a librarian that that has done that in the past. We we are looking at doing more events. Actually, we have a new uh outreach committee that is meeting um in you know so you know there there's more out outwardbound um activities towards schools. Um you know we're looking at getting involved with maybe Trumble Day. Um I probably need to talk to Kathleen about that. Uh um and uh you know
171we also have um uh plans uh we've met with the parks and recck department to be involved with their their um >> artsfest and >> yes artsfest and the uh the farmers market. We were at the farmers market last year as well. >> Um and um you know so there there is plans for for more outreach uh to to try and get more people in that way as well. Any other questions? Anything else that you want us to know in your budget or just those two? >> No, I I think that that was great. Um, if you do have any questions, if you would like uh, you know, one of my little fine free proposal sheets here to think about or if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer anything that you might
172have. >> I'd love at least a copy to put into the minutes as well. >> Absolutely. That would be great. Thanks so much. >> Other questions? Okay. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Um we're going to take a five minute break. Um Attorney Shopic will join us in just a little bit. We'll finish up our morning with uh town attorneys and I'm going to do a little bit of that. Board of Ed um says they can come at 2:30. So that'll give us uh time to meet with Reena and her departments and Tom McCarthy. Um and there's two remaining departments. I'm going to see if I can wiggle them around a little bit. Any complaints with that? 2:30. >> So that should that should tighten up our afternoon a bit. Please. All right,
173I appreciate everybody's patience. It was good to have a little stretch break. Um, we are going to pick back up in our budget hearings with town attorneys um on page 95. Did you want me to bring the other town attorney so that we could >> Well, no, that's just the name of your department, but >> it was I I didn't want to uh >> overwhelm us >> overwhelm you. Yes. If I if I brought then you would see that we actually could use a fourth town attorney. How's that? >> As long as the as long as the um overall number doesn't change. >> No, no, no, no, no. It's this. You have the power to increase. >> We could Do we need to? >> Wow. >> It's a It's always nice. Anyway, uh any questions?
174>> Actually, we we were and we think Mary answered it, but when we talk about legal notices, she said that there's state requirements for the legal notices, but we also have it in the charter. Do you think there will be any movement on how we notify for legal? Like, do we still need to put everything in print? >> The I I think the um uh the zoning legal notices do need to go into uh to go into print. The uh and that's under state statute. Uh what we really could save some money on is town council be but uh that would require charter revision. So, but so if we were to um have the town open, if the town council were to open the charter, that could be adjusted for anything except for planning and
175zoning and maybe probate like >> Well, probate, we have probate is not in our in the town's town's budget. The the probate >> actually the when you see those probate notices, each every time you file a um an application for probate, you also send $68.25 25 cents payable to Hurst Communications uh to cover that. So the the that that is outside outside of this budget um outside of the town's budget. the um but the so I I guess um inland wetlands and and zoning th those things are are uh covered by by state statute and I don't believe that there would be a an ability to to change that. But we we put in a lot of verbiage that nobody reads um for town council meetings. town council notice of the meeting and then uh
176decisions uh subsequent to the meeting and those are not required by anything other than the charter. >> Okay. So we could reduce that if the charter were to open >> and Maria you'll be able to pull out what else that were that were not required by state statute to do. >> I can't tell you what's not required. I don't have that but I could I could give you the totals that we spent on >> we could double check before and then Okay. >> Any questions? >> Dan, can you talk to us about the U 66% increase in the ancillary services budget? >> Well, Paul, you put it that way. I you know, it's a number. Some years we've used that money. Some a lot of years we haven't used the money. Uh there are a
177number of 830G as you are aware uh there are a number of 830G applications that are coming have been coming in um and we don't really know what uh assistance we're going to need uh in order to um defend those uh those uh appeals. Uh the other thing is we have you know there's >> so are we are we yet defending any of them at this point actively? >> We're not actively defending them. They're presently as as you are well aware uh they're presently before the uh uh the various zoning boards. But the um if and the other thing is it doesn't say it here is that we're anticipating uh additional tax appeals over the next year and uh we may need assistance with that unless you have it in the tax collector >> because
178of revaluation. So unless you have it in the in the tax assessor's budget or the tax collector's budget, uh if we need um appraisals and things like that, that that's where this this money is going to come from. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Go ahead, Mary. Just on that because I always ask about that line every year and I know last year um you had said also when saying why can't you just come back for a supplemental versus keeping it in here and some are immediate needs and so the timing to then go through the whole process would stall things. So I thought that was actually a good answer for Thank you Mary. So for why not to reduce it because I always look at that and I'm like well you know wouldn't it be better
179to go back for a supplemental. So that made sense. So, just to put that in, you're very smart. >> Okay. >> Now, they tell me. >> Any other questions in town attorneys? >> Well, that was much easier than we thought. >> It's been really good to see you all. >> Great. >> I didn't I didn't even have to zoom in. I >> I know. At least get cookies and treats before you go. Right. >> Thank you. Um, at this time is are there any questions for followup? Anybody want anything to be addressed? Otherwise, we'll take a break until our next department at 1:00. 1:00 we'll meet with um we'll have lunch in between and then um we'll start with I'm sorry at 12:45. We're looking >> Yeah, we're looking to see if we can move
180nature commission up to 12:45 um to take care of the the remaining two departments um the little ones that were kind of stragglers and then we'll move board of ed up to 2:30. Okay. If not, we're good until 12:45. I'm relaxed. All right, everybody. Welcome back after lunch. Uh, day two full day hearings for the board of finance with our town departments. We're going to pick back up with the Nature Commission on page seven. And we have um Cheryl Bowman, Emily, and Jack Boon on. Emily Shuin. There we go. Hi everyone. You can see them on the screens today. Do you guys want to walk us through your budget real quick? >> Can Can you guys hear me? Uh, who wants to unmute and walk us through? >> Can you not shaking his head? >>
181Can you not hear me? Hold on. >> Hold on, Bill. >> Good afternoon. >> Oh, there we go. >> Hi. Um, we can't hear you, Laney. >> Bill, >> you want me to hold up signs? >> Hold, please. >> Okay. >> All right. Try now. >> Hey, can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> All right. It's all Bill's fault. I'm sorry. It was unclear if you were talking to people in your room or if you were addressing us. >> Are you guys all set? You good? >> All right. Go ahead and walk us through uh your budget. We're on page seven in our big budget books. Uh let us know what's different and what we need to what we need to know. >> Um everything is the I think it looked like it was
182slightly adjusted um due to costs, which is fine with us. So the the budget's fine. We have a couple of tasks that need to be completed that um a task but repairs to the building that are needed. Both George Estrada and Demetri Paris are aware of these and they said that they will look into them. So we're fingers crossed that that gets done during this upcoming fiscal year. Um >> were these things that were budgeted for budgeted for previously? >> There were requests. I do not know whether facilities or parks budgeted them. Okay. Um, is it a lengthy list? Is it something we should be looking at to make sure it's in there? >> It's not a lengthy list. It's pretty short. It's just repair of flashing and gutters and a floor repair or replacement
183that had water damage. >> Okay. I'll look to see if that was in our capital plan >> as for as Yeah. >> Yeah. I think it may have been already addressed, but I'll budgetary wise. So, we'll just look to see where that is. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Okay. Any questions for the Nature Commission? Have people been receptive to the programming? Do you know what the users list is like? >> Thank you for asking, Laney. Um, yeah, last year we had a record number of participants over 6,300 Um all this the second graders from every single um Trumbull Elementary School come to us on field trips. We go into the school on a scholarship. Okay. We have a donor is paying for us to visit all the fourth graders the second year in a row
184for an inschool program. We also go to all the um kindergarten classes. We're also scheduled again we do our a candling program plus we have our weekend programs for families. Um we got grant funding for um to develop new programs which are starting this year for um memory impaired seniors and for um mommy and me type program for 18 to 36 months that's getting off the ground in April. Um so also we received grant funding that is has allowed us to make repairs to the building ourselves. So, and Maria is aware of this. Um there we replaced lighting in the front room and the classroom space and we painted um the ceilings of both. And we also painted the front room in advance of installing an educational display um that's going to focus on Trumbull's
185natural habitats and biomimicry and it's going to be interactive and the Ponic River is going to be a huge focus of that. So, we're we're excited for that because TNAC is located an entry point to Trumbull and we think that it will be an attractive feature for um of our visitors. So, >> very cool. And the egg handling that's you guys bring the incubators to the kindergarten classrooms. >> The Well, that's with the Liz Dy is the science coordinator. She does all that. We go into the schools to do the a kit and we look at the eggs. Our instructor Mark Senary does shows them what you see, what they see when they use the um it's like a little flashlight when they look into the eggs and the parts of the egg yolk and
186talk about life cycles. >> Very cool. >> Any questions from anybody on programming or their budget? That was fantastic. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate you joining us today. >> Thank you. very much. >> All right. In just a couple minutes, we'll have um Tom McCarthy. I see Reena's on now. Hi, Reena. Bill's got us lined up. >> Hello. Sorry. >> That's okay. Um, we're going to go to planning and zoning on page 131. Are we waiting for Rob Reena? >> Um, yes. He's not on yet. I'm just looking. >> Not yet. Why don't we go to your department for economic development on 139? >> Okay. All right. You want to walk us through some highlights and where we are? >> Hold on one second. >> No problem. And we're on 139 in
187our big box. Laney, do you want to just walk through the budget entries or did you want to do an overview? Do you I I didn't haven't been listening to the other theories. >> Um do you have a little overview you want to give us and then we'll walk through what your changes are and anything we need to be aware of? >> Yeah. Okay. Um, you know, basically we we have a similar budget each year. There's not a lot of change um in terms of, you know, what we're using money for. we have some flexibility within the budget um because we we do different things um whether it whether we're promoting um you know a community program like our main street dollars or we're doing technical work to support development and other things. So we're
188we're you know kind of all over the place in terms of how we use some of these line items. we give ourselves a lot of flexibility um to do that. So I just wanted to say that first of all um before getting into it. I mean we had a very good year in terms of um you know development. We have a lot of things in the cooker right now that are looking to really pop for development. We have some major development sites. We've I think you've all heard a little bit about the mall, the work we've been doing there for a long time, the mall being for sale at this point, which we knew we would get to this point. This should be no surprise. This was the next step in the process. Um, we
189have I think folks may have heard that we have robust interest in that property already that we expect that that property will uh this process for the mall purchase will go fairly swiftly. Uh we are well positioned to um you know really move on this. I think that doing the study was key. If folks have not seen, and I know some of the folks here have seen, but if you have not seen the uh listing that the broker put out for the mall sale, I think you should read it. We can get it to you if you haven't seen it. I think it really articulates everything we've been doing. It talks about how we have basically done the study, we've done the zoning, we've done all this to position the property, and they're using all
190of that to market the stud um to market the purchase and you know, the sale and purchase subsequent purchase of the property. So, this is all positioning and we've talked about it over and over again and we're going into some exciting times. So, this will play out over the next few months. We'll have a little bit more of a glimpse as to how this thing's going to move and and where, but we are positioning the property. We're not doing nothing. We are definitely um making a difference in this process. And I just want to make sure people are aware of that. I'll pause there for a second if anybody wants to ask about the mall because that's a major issue. But you'll remember in the study that there's a potential for $10 million over time
191of annual additional uh revenues to the town in grandless growth over time based on the real estate that's there and the potential uses and so forth. >> Um Reena, I'm going to open it up to Paul. I just have one quick question. There's a lot of, you know, the usual social media chatter. um people looking to market the mall to places like Sacred Heart or to other um other entities that would buy up have bought up a lot of properties in the area and can you just touch upon you know what your ideal target is and why why that may or may not be a great idea >> the ideal target of what I I've not >> somebody who would to purchase it and why maybe not you know people are saying you Maybe Sacred
192Heart wants the property or things like that, >> right? I don't see uh at this point that happening, Sacred Heart purchasing the property, whether they have interest in something to do there collaboratively in the future, that could happen. And I don't know that right now here. But what I think is going to happen is if you read the study and look at the kind of real estate that we're unlocking, the potential for the existing um retail and commercial, and then you know what we've reszoned for. I think that gives you a clear vision of what could go on the property, what may go on the property. And so I don't think, you know, social media chatter, God bless whoever's chattering, you know, they're trying to figure out what's going on here. But my sense is
193that this will be a mixeduse development like we said in the um study that they will focus potentially on the mall proper maybe initially and then look to look you know the development of other parcels in alignment with what the town's vision and the town and community's vision has been um throughout this study. So I think that's where it's going. It seems consistent. It seems the interest that so far is surfacing is extremely extremely robust. Yes, there's a lot of people particularly on the um investor side that have to weigh in on the sale u of this. You know, there's multiple debt holders, so they have to weigh in. Obviously, they're going to be looking for their price and so forth. Um so, you know, that's got to all play out. I don't expect it
194to take a long time to play out. I think it's going to start to play out in the next few months um if not sooner. So, you know, look at the study that that is where this is going um you know, in general. Now, will something be in one place that we thought might be in another place? Yeah, that could happen. So, I've said before, you know, we're stubborn on the vision and uh, you know, flexible on the details, Richard Brans Branson. So, you know, that's what I think people should expect. Does that answer your question, Laneie? I'm >> Yeah, I I think I think it really did. Um Paul >> um Reena, you and I have had this discussion a number of times now and I' I've talked to this um suggestion to Vicki
195also. My concern is and by the way, you're right on target as you typically are and normally are and historically are. And my concern is on target in terms of the opportunity that the mall presents in terms of the town being well positioned to implement the wall the mall planning strategy. My concern is that you and Vicki do not have enough resources at your disposal that can be invested in this process to enable it to move forward on a basis which is quicker than seeing it done 10 years from now or five years from now. The $10 million that you site as being the revenue potential that we could achieve if this plan were to be implemented is right on target. My point is I'd like to see that revenue achieved over two years as
196opposed to 10 years. and what kind of resources can we give you to help enable that to happen? I was pleased this morning that in Vic Vickiy's budget there's $30,000 for someone to help on the communication side of things relative to economic development. I think that will help. I don't think it's enough as some people pointed out this morning, but I'm more concerned with someone that should be in your department either on a consulting basis or an employee basis to assist you in enabling this plan to be implemented over a shorter period of time. >> So, thank you for that, Paul. I I agree with you. U this is a massive undertaking and we do need resources. I think that it's about and we do have some resources. So, let me start there. So, we
197still have some funding available from the Stantech process. We still have about I think it's close to $23,000 that we haven't expended that we have, you know, as support to the sale process to any kind of things we would need to um kind of get us through, you know, the next six months or whatever to a year. So, we do have some of those resources. That doesn't mean those are the right people and the right amount of resources for everything, but when we were looking at the budget, and I'm certainly open to any other discussion about this, um, but I don't think like the redevelopment planning, this is going to take time once we figure out who's looking to purchase this and they select a potential purchaser because there's going to be it's going to
198be very competitive. Um once that is selected and so forth, they have to go through a process of actually purchasing, clearing everything, you're talking about months. All right? And then the redevelopment plan has to start to emerge the potential how they want to approach this property. So you know, I think that a year from now, we're in the place to start spending money, so to speak, on capacity and so forth. What I don't want to see is we got money here. It's not being spent. Uh we're not in the place to do it yet. Uh we're we're working on other money that we have to support this for now. If people feel differently, I won't stop anybody, but I just really don't think we need it yet. Um we're going to need it. And um
199but I don't think we're there yet. And I think, you know, next year we're there u potentially, but you have to think, and you know this, Paul from your expertise, you know, once they purchase this, they need some time to get their hands around >> what they're doing and all of that. Um, they're not going to be ready for us to charge in and and start, you know, doing this. I see the money that we need as money to manage, you know, the the whole project from a redevelopment perspective. So, we need a person dedicated to this, whether it's a consultant or it's a uh part-time staff or maybe even a full-time staff person. I don't know the answer to that. We have to kind of see where this lands a little bit and what
200kind of buyer we're looking at and how swiftly they want to move on the redevelopment side. Well, I for I for one would encourage you and Vicki to come back to us at some point in the not too distant future with a plan that shows the kind of resources that we could put on the table that would help ex expedite the implementation of the mall study. >> I think that's very >> we don't need to we don't need to necessarily do it in this budget process, but shortly thereafter I think we need to have a an idea of what kind of resources we can invest to help make this move forward faster. >> Absolutely. And I think that we'll know a little bit more in the next two months. >> Yep. >> Um so I
201think revisiting this would be great. Um and I appreciate you raising it and I appreciate the commission's uh you know desire to to hear this. This is really important and we do need capacity. So thank you. >> It's extremely important. >> I actually disagree with you Paul. I actually think we might want to do it in this budget. We might want to talk about it. Um, you know, Bill Dunn talked to us about a lot of uh great development and things that are happening already on the books and then this is the potential from there. Um, we've Yeah, we we have often said that Reena's department is understaffed, right? Um, we need three Reas and unfortunately there's only one Reena. So, um, I Reena, what would that look like if we were to look at
202the staffing in your office? We've talked about like part-time grant administration help. Where are you now as far as staffing? >> So I have just in economic development, it's me in a 0.5 a half a person which is GIA. Um so that's the staffing. I think that we have consultants. For example, we've brought Stantech in. Now that's not just for my department. that's planning and zoning. You know, it covered other things, but um you know, we we don't have a lot of staff capacity and I certainly think given the mall stuff, we need it, but we need it in the right places at the right time. You know, I think we need to do a little bit more um conversation about if you're talking I I didn't anticipate this question exactly. I knew the mall
203thing would come up, but if we're talking about overall staffing and how it should be utilized, you know, that's a little bit different. We are in the process of looking to upgrade Gia's position u a little bit because she does things beyond her job description and we'd like to compensate her properly and give her challenges as she grows in her role. So, that's a process that's underway right now. Uh, we're waiting on um, Lebrandy. Oh gosh, what's his first name? U, but anyway, Steve Lebrandy. >> Not the one sitting here, but the other one. >> I'm confusing my Landies. Yes. >> Um, but u, we're waiting on Steve to uh, get back to us on some things. So, that's in the process. Not that that solves capacity necessarily, but we do we are going to
204shift we're shifting some things around internally already. um putting Gia in more high value I I use the word high value but kind of using her skills at a higher level. So that's a that's a process that's underway now. >> But Reena, you have >> answer the question. >> Reena, you have Gia as as a five staff member. Would expanding her role to a full-time position be beneficial to allow that to happen? >> So yeah, she's full-time now, but she splits her time. So half of her time goes to the planning and zoning stuff. So, she staffs the zoning board of appeals. Um, you know, other things like that that she does for that side of the house. She doesn't do the planning and zoning stuff. Our other clerk does that, but you know, so
205she's definitely working full-time just at different things. If we were to shift her into a full-time economic development position if she was interested in that, I think that was wonderful. um and then take that other halfime and put in a part-time clerk that could absorb that other stuff. We've had a part-time clerk years ago before I was here. Um I think that was helping out with some of this stuff. So, you know, that would help, but I do think we need professional capacity that is more technical um and that is economic development and related >> and so dedicated. >> If I might, if I might, I think the person that the resource that you bring on ultimately needs to have more than technical skills. They need to have some deep-seated, long-standing political skills because there
206are opportunities out there, as you know, and probably much better than I do, to help fund the kinds of things that we need to build rebuild the infrastructure there and rebuild the the building capacity there. And you need someone that is going to be able to tap the halls of Hartford to enable that to happen again much more expeditiously. >> Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with that. I mean, I see some of that as my role continuing. I mean, that's sort of But I can see that. >> I I see that clearly as your role, but again, you're only one person. You cannot you cannot work more than 60 hours a week. >> Yeah. No, I understand that and I'm certainly open to the help, believe me. Um, but what I'm saying is, you
207know, I I don't know yet what I I agree. We need somebody with political skills, I guess, or or understanding. But I I actually think I think I know what we need because I'm talking to all the people that are and we need somebody to really be boots on the ground working with the development team working through all of the, you know, ups and downs of that process too. So maybe that in addition to you know what you just said but not dismissing at all because I think that that's where the time is spent. >> Um we if we look at tiff money or you know putting a tax incremental financing >> district in if we look at the stuff David Chorus is working on from the Connecticut Development Authority which we are going to
208look at and we look at other grant funding and all that other stuff. I mean, that's that's a lot of effort. No doubt. >> Yes, it is. >> But I think that the effort we need we're going to need to relieve is the daytoday management of the redevelopment. >> Mhm. >> Do you know at this point um this may be unfair to ask because we none of us probably know, but how many malls around the state are in a somewhat similar position, meaning they're failing and looking for alternative ways to improve? So, >> it's got to be at least half a dozen, I would think. Right. >> Yeah. I would I would say this that our mall is in a different situation than some of the failing malls around the state. We're not failing yet.
209If you looked at the broker listing, you'll see that that they they've turned the property around just since it's been in receiverhip and the profit property is profitable. Um, so it doesn't mean that it's making cazillions, but it's a profitable property at this point. So we that I just want to make that distinction. >> Mhm. >> I would say that we're class I don't know B mall, AB mall. Crystal Mall, those other malls Enfield is a disa. You know, they're redeveloping I guess soon. They're going to you know there's I would say four to five that need help. >> Yes, I would agree. And so there's been discussions with some of the folks we just listed about how to help those malls from both a policy perspective and technical assistance. So, you know, they're in
210various states in looking at the real estate and so forth. I think we're more solidly ahead in terms of the investigation we've done and um the planning and the positioning. I think one of the malls and I think it's Enfield received a some funding for um their redevelopment through the CIF I forgot what it stands for now. Connecticut investment, you know, there's a fund and it's for it's not for our municipality because we're not a distressed municipality, >> right? >> But um so they've received some funding. So we there is there is a group of people and it could should be coordinated and the real estate should be highlighted and the potential of these malls for you know Connecticut redevelopment opportunities should be upfront and it should be on people's radars. It's been difficult to
211get it on people's radars um more specifically from what I'm I've heard around the state but I think it will get there. Uh but yeah, we need somebody and and and you know, you and I know a lot of people. We know a lot of the same people. So, I'm sure we're thinking of >> some key people that in common um that could be really really helpful whether they're a consultant or a part-time person. >> But, you know, we I think it needs to be we need to see where this train is going. >> Yeah. I think the bottom line important conclusion is that we're all open to this conversation. >> Yeah. For me, the bottom line that I'm hearing in this conversation is that at the very least, um, you could expand GIA's role
212within your department and cover a halftime for planning and zoning, which would allow you to get more of the day-to-day support. >> Um, and then talk about expansion of the department from there. you know, there's very few uh departments where we look to expand, but you bring so much to Trumbull and we really rely on that. Um, and the amount of work that you're able to put out from that from your office with the um amount of help you have now is astounding. Imagine if you just had a little bit more. >> Oh, I appreciate that. Believe me, and I'm definitely open to it. But if we can just stay in touch about the kind of help and the timeline and those kinds of things because I think also if we hire somebody and they
213don't have enough going on, we're going to not be able to keep people, you know what I mean? So, um I want I want the timing to be appropriate and the funding to be in place at that time, I guess. So, if we I don't know if it would come through um an appropriation during the year if we decided that we needed more sooner or if it can wait till the next budget year, but if there's a way to keep in touch on this with the board of finance. >> Yeah. Well, I think that that's a good way to do it. I think we want to look uh our discussion should be to look at the staffing for your department for the 2627 fiscal year and if you needed the support prior to that that
214you would come uh to us for a supplemental to do that and if it's long longer range planning for additional support whether it's um uh not contractual um >> consultant thank you having finding deficits now uh or consultants going forward then that could be a separate discussion. >> That sounds good. >> All right. >> And um as I mentioned that the the thing with GIA is sort of in motion now and so my question would be if we get some her somewhere in the next few months. I know it's not the new budget year then we would go you know into the new budget year we could further help her. I don't want her to be penalized and have to wait till July to get any, you know, if we're ready to kind of up
215get her a little bit more forward now, you know. >> Okay. So, let's do this for now. We we're going to put that on our list that we'll follow up with as far as how we would make that happen and what those needs look like. Um and then um I'll send some followup to you uh just to kind of confirm that. Is there anything else in economic development, any other line item besides staffing that we should look at? >> Um, no. Because I think we still have some money in our technical assistance fund, which is part of kind of where Paul was that could be one of the things that's increased. We have a little bit of funding there. If for some reason we needed something more short-term, we always have some money there to
216draw on. Um, I think all the other stuff is very standard. Uh, we there's nothing much that's changed, so I don't really have anything else there to add. Okay. >> Any questions for Reena? Go ahead, Ben. >> Reena, could you give us an update on the Trumbull Center, where things stand, any progress, any any movement? >> Yes. So, uh, right now they're they're not moving forward on the redevelopment yet. They're still in their I guess planning process for that. And they also there's some flood maps that are FEMA flood maps that need to be altered through the FEMA process which is in process before they can um move forward with their development. And that process is taking a little bit longer than in my mind it should. So that may be something that we put
217on a list to follow up with the congressional office uh because you know this should have been done by now. Um so that's part of the delay. They are they have done some infrastructure work related to the you know the uh sewer and um they're you know they are doing some other you know they are making what I see as more effort to uh lease up the space. >> Uh thank you for that. Um it just seems very you know it's disappointing that every year we ask the same question about it and it seems to be in almost the same status. >> Yeah. I mean right now there's sort of I have to say that the flood maps need to get corrected. So that's a that is a legitimate you know issue that we have
218to follow up on. So uh but you know they are they are doing some work on the property. You saw a little bit get done. Yes. a lot more has to get done, but I think that, you know, they're they're positioning for that. Um when it's going to happen, I don't know exactly. Um not soon enough, like we said in our, you know, but I really don't have any other information on their status beyond what I just shared. There are I can say that there are definitely people looking at space there still and we're you know we've got a few new tenants and we'll you know hopefully have a few more coming. >> Okay, thank you. >> Any other questions on economic development? >> Any other questions on economic development? >> Go ahead Mary. >>
219Hi Reena. Um just a quickie congratulations on Hankle. That's that is a great coup for Trumbull. Um, and a small one just cuz I was interested. The schoolhouse, how is that going? Have you received any any funds from uh anyone in the community on that or is there any way we can help with that? >> So, yeah. So, we definitely I just had a meeting with uh John Mayer two days ago on this. We're definitely pursuing funds, but a lot of what's come in already are commitments to supplies, building, materials, and and labor for the project. Um, we have a hit list. I'm I'm chasing down I've got six people on my on my list of people that I've spoken with once and then I'm going back and following up on for money. So, I've
220started that process to fund raise for that. Um, I got a little bit delayed for reasons we don't have to talk about, but uh, you know, we're on track and we'll we'll definitely get that that done. This is exciting. I mean, we have so much community interest and support and volunteer support and I mean volunteers that have skills and want to sponsor different pieces of this um, build. So I think you'll hear more our committees meeting monthly and then we meet in between on key things. So this is going to be um a very exciting community project, community development project for Trumbull. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> There's a lot going on with other developments, so I want to encourage people to reach out to me or to tune in to our economic
221development meetings if you haven't. Uh we've got major major development that is popping um including the Gateway Commons project which is going to have a new name on the Trumble Monroe line. We have a meeting on that this month. We we I expect hopefully that'll go to closing soon. Um we've got so many projects that are ready to pop. We have another couple of you know very interesting businesses that are looking to locate to Trumble. So, Cuptech is in the process of getting ready to fit out their space. Um, you all remember them. And so, you know, I think that you're going to see a lot of things that have been percolating. I mean, the Hankle deal, I just would like you to know, took three years from the first phone call we had to
222the groundbreaking to get through that process. So that they selected a site, they determined they were going to stay in Trumbull. Then they had to determine where in Trumbull they were going to expand and what real estate was available and then moved through their whole process of approval with their corporation and so forth so forth until we finally got to the point of planning and zoning, you know, two and a half years later and then approval and then groundbreaking. So this doesn't happen, Paul knows this really well, it doesn't happen overnight, but to Paul's earlier point, we want it to be expedited as much as possible. So that's why these resources we're talking about are critical. >> Reena, are there any updates on the tree foil uh drive project, the corner of Treefoil Drive and
223Main Street andor 48 Monroe Turnpike? Anything movement with those properties? >> So there is movement um on those properties. Some of it I can't speak to yet. Uh it's confidential, but I will say this, there's movement on both. The project for uh one tree foil that you're asking about is a major grosser that's going to be coming here. That deal is still solid. I'm in touch with all these folks regularly. Um so it's in a unfortunately an appeal process and there was something else filed recently that has to be dealt with. So that will get dealt with in the next couple of months. Um, and then we'll see where it goes from there. But hopefully, I'm hoping by the end of the summer, some of this stuff will clear and they'll be able to move
224forward with their project. But there's not, it to my knowledge, it's not at all at risk. My most recent conversation is it's solid the project and the tenant. Um, on 48 Monroe Turnpike, um, to the degree I can't really get into details, but I expect to be able to talk more about that property and its future specifically in the coming months. Um, and as soon as we can get into more details with the public and with commissions and and you all, we will. But I I do believe that we're going to see something very positive there soon, steps being taken, and they may be some different steps. Thank you. Anybody else for economic development before we move on to Planning and zoning can be found on 131. Um, Reena is going to stay on the
225line with us and Rob Lumbrandy is here with us as well. Thanks for joining us today. We've decided to give people comfy seats this year instead of the podium. It's a little >> um do you want to talk a little bit about uh where we are for planning and zoning and uh what your budget's like? >> Uh sure. Sure. So uh you know uh just uh what Reena was just reiterating, same thing with pretty much planning and zoning. Everything uh concerning any type of building, economic development, uh residential development, uh it's come through the planning and zoning office. Uh, one of our main focuses, um, this past year was, uh, updating our accessory apartment lists. Uh, there's been, um, you know, we've been catching up with people who have accessory apartments who haven't been, um,
226they haven't been reported recorded yet in the land records. So, that's something that we could add to our accessory apartment list. So, we've been uh the staff has been working really hard uh with finally getting those numbers together. Um which uh definitely has helped our our potential number. Uh this year uh we've had uh a few residential uh apartment approvals or the past year as well too. We've had um uh we still have some that have been approved that haven't been built yet. We have some in the uh approval process right now through the application process. Um we have um a few uh commercial properties as well too that have gone through the planning zoning process. We've done a few zone changes, text amendments um in certain areas. Um we've uh assisted uh Reena's department
227as well too in the mall study. Uh we're at uh hopefully the final phases of finalizing the POCD uh which I I can't wait to happen. Um we've been working with the uh fair commission. Uh I'm al also the ADA compliance officer. So, anytime there's a complaint uh about accessibility in town, um my department handles that and we kind of figure what the next steps are with either the applicant or the the town. Um in those instances, um other than that, we've been very uh very busy with uh projects. Every applic every meeting, we at least have three or four applications. So, it's been um it's been very busy with our department. Uh speaking about the um the budget itself, nothing has really changed from last year. Um you know, I I we feel that
228the budget is is pretty solid for what you know, what we need in our department. Uh, one thing we did ask is that, um, you know, there's everchanging rules and regulations with state law and just having our staff up to speed on everything and getting them their um, you have their CASIO licenses um, so that they're up to speed so that we have everybody in our department that has that um, certification is definitely helpful um, in that aspect um, for training. Is that reflected in this budget or did you >> I believe so. Yes, it was just for our zoning enforcement officer, but it'd be great to have um our clerks as well too updated on those um certifications as well. >> Are they required? So, your zoning enforcement officer is obviously required to have
229those. Is that something that you can do inhouse training or is it something that they need to actually go to the course? Is it an online thing? >> They need to go to the course. Um it was online and I believe um they may be putting it back to in person. Um there's certain levels and our zoning force officer has to go to the second level of certification and most of the clerks in the state really go to that first level um because it's so informative about legal notices and what to put down on minutes and and how to review plans and stuff. So, it's very helpful for the staff to kind of get that level >> and that's already reflected in this budget. Correct. We don't need to we change that. >> Yeah, it
230was only for the CEO, but we would like to keep it on so we could get another our other clerk certified as well. >> What would that difference what would that cost? >> Um, I believe it was around uh 1,200. We have um 2500 in the budget, but that includes all the other certifications for everybody else in the office. >> Rob, what is that that vacant position that shows on your uh your budget request in the salary lines? You have four individuals that are budgeted, but one is currently vacant. It's a administrator. >> So, we do have um we have somebody who's part-time now uh that we are in the process. They they've already allocated the funds for a full-time position. So, we did the uh interviews and everything and hopefully we're getting somebody full-time.
231Uh hopefully >> someone's currently there part-time. >> Yes. Mhm. >> So, so you would have two separate people or are you looking to replace? >> Oh, we're going to replace that that part-time to a full-time >> and it would be two different people in that role. Oh, it's there's no part- timerr right now. Got it. >> No, there's a part-time person now >> interim filling a spot that's vacant and going to full-time. It's already funded at full-time. >> Okay. >> Yeah, it's Aby's part-time. >> Yes. >> So, we've been working with uh reduced staffing. >> Okay. So, we don't have to change anything for that to happen. No. >> And the only thing that you would need is the halftime position that Gia fills fulfills in that role is already budgeted for if you if
232she were to ex if you were to expand that role in the economic development department. You would just need to fill the spot because it would need it would be an extra half time but not in that department. >> Yes. >> Okay. Just trying to keep things straight. It would be the I would assume the CEO aspect of that. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I think Rob's right. We would move the zoning board of appeals work that Gia does under economic development to free her up from all of that. >> And that would make it would be so much more streamlined and >> efficient. >> I will send a followup just to make sure that I'm clear on where falls what. >> Okay. Any questions for Rob on planning and zoning? Go ahead, Mary. >> Oops.
233>> Hello. Um, housing growth plan. Do we we're required to do that now by the state. Is that something that we've been doing already or that is within your office or already part of other documentation? >> Yeah, we've we've done that uh already. Um, we just have to keep uh updating it every so many years. So, we just got to keep >> So, the one we we're doing is sufficient for what they're asking. I believe so. >> No, no, no. >> Is this something else? >> Yeah, there's some new stuff that we have to comply with that our um Matt Fula from our um Metro Cog is involved with and so forth. So, that uh we do a h affordable housing plan every I think it's five years. >> We're complying with that. But there
234these h housing growth plans are really coming out of the regional planning agencies are the lead on that and they determine like how many you know they estimate how many new units you need to kind of grow your housing. There's all statute around this. Some of it's still being um sorted through um since the this stuff got approved last year. And um I think that we need I think there's an upcoming housing forum being scheduled as well for this area. We need to um and and Matt Fula is is going to be he presented recently I think at at a forum and I think we need to bring him in so that we understand exactly what we're responsible for. Um so that's a new component that is a little bit different and a plan does
235have to be developed specific to the number of units and so forth that we're supposed to be targeting in terms of growth. So, >> okay, >> you can put that on your to-do list, Rob. >> Yep. >> Um, and then you >> that actually falls under Well, it kind of falls between both of us, but it's community development work. >> Sorry. >> No problem. >> And um and then you were saying for updating for the accessory and then what's already been approved uh recently. Where do we end up on our percentage towards the 10%? Are we still like in the high four, low five or >> We're in the fives. 5.38 I think it was that one. >> Y >> great. Getting there. >> Getting there. >> We're up a little, down a little. That
236number is difficult to achieve. I think what we're working toward is a moratorum, a four-year moratorum. Oh, okay. >> So, when Rob talks when Rob talks about the accessory apartments, they're they're really important for our housing stock, but they're also important for our moratorum. >> How can we go from I thought we could only do one years to extend it. We can go to a four if we have a certain percent. >> No, that's a different You're talking about the planning and zoning moratorium. That's internal pol. That's trumble policy. But we can apply for an 830g moratorum at the state if once we achieve a certain number of points. Um and those points come from um you know adding certain kinds of housing to our stock. Accessor accessory apartments give us some senior dwelling units
237give us some um regular dwelling units and especially anything that's affordable gives us the most points that we're adding. So, we're in the process of we we have a very strong idea of how many more points we need. There's some um units that have to be investigated a little bit further and cos that have to be closed as Rob alluded to in order to do that. And if we have some project approvals at planning and zoning um that allow us to build you know add some affordable units we can be very close to a moratorum if not already at the mor moratorum once those new units get coed. So that's a process. Even if we get a moratorum, it takes about a year after the moratorum um units are closed I mean and CODE to
238um you know basically get the actual moratorum approved. There's a big process around it but without a moratorum on affordable housing were wide open to any kind of developer coming in on any kind of parcel of land. And some projects are good and some are not. So, it would be nice to be in a position to, you know, choose our fate instead of being at the whim of um, you know, development developers that not always are in under and don't always have an understanding of our community. So, that's where we're at. We have to that should that's a top priority, I think, to look at that moratorum on 830G and work toward it. and we've been focused on it very very specifically in our office. Rob, myself, Gia, and Abby, the four of us. >>
239Great. Thank you. >> We're getting some support from the building department as well on the cos. >> I wasn't aware of that. Thank you. >> Any other questions on planning and zoning or economic development? >> I I just had one thing if I could just add. Um, so our zoning enforcement officer goes out and he does inspections every day. And I know in the past we've requested or for this commission or the town to see if there's any type of another vehicle that he could use. The one that he has has a check engine light that's constantly on. It's very old. Uh, it's always going in the shop. So, just if we could take a look at or see if there's something else out there that's safer. Maria, where does that fall in our fleet
240inventory >> to check with H uh public works, see if they have anything available at the time. If not, we have to put them in the budget. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Because he usually has to stop on the side of the roads to get the signs and the vehicle that we have is not very >> um >> it doesn't look like a town vehicle really. >> Okay. It doesn't have any h like you know it has hazards lights but nothing more safer for him. >> Okay, questions. All right, Reena Rob, thank you guys very much. >> You guys put in a ton of work >> most thanked >> for everything. We appreciate your support. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. >> Tom McCarthy is online zooming in. >> Wait, where's the red jacket in the top
241hat? >> I was told I had to wear it or I'd be fired, but so I don't know. >> You can't get out that fast. >> One one of the red jackets is in the cleaners. Thank god. because it needed it. >> All right, we're going to move on to human resources with Tom McCarthy and Maria. We're on page one. I'm sorry, uh 99. Ready for me to go or >> go ahead. >> Oh, okay. Um, so yeah, we don't uh our my personal budget is not exactly the going to change the world here. Um, nothing much has changed in our budget. Um, Maria and I had some discussions about uh where we were charging our background checks, what line, and we thought it was not in the right spot. So, we have moved that
242to um to uh 522202. You'll see that's a $2,700 line there. um we moved that there. So that that's that's that's my big momentum for the year. Um that also uh we have asked for more money in that line. Um we we you currently get $1,100 and we're asking for 2,700 and that is what we do our background checks when you hire employees. And there is um we're doing a significant amount of hiring. We're actually very proud of the fact that the um HR really has hit a great stride in terms of turning hiring around. And I have to really give the credit to Steve Lebrandy in my office and Luis Rosario who do a phenomenal job of of getting that stuff done. They um so but we the background checks we have discovered that
243as we dig dig deeper that we're missing one component in our background checks. I don't think it's the be all end all but I think we'd rather cover our bases than not cover our bases. We are not getting counties when we do our background check. we pay an organization to do background checks for us. So, we're getting local, we're getting state governments, but we're not getting county governments now. And so, we're asking that you give us the extra um 1,600 bucks to to allow us over the course of the year to increase um our coverage by by getting the county, we don't we think it's money well worth spent. Um, you know, around here, county government doesn't mean a lot, which is why we don't think about it too much, but in other parts of
244the c uh country, county government's very significant. So, we just want to make sure we're not missing anything with our background checks. We also do, you know, sexual offender background stuff that all that is encompassed in what we do. So that actually is the only real increase that uh we're asking for in our budget other than the regular um increases due to um our vendors uh having our their normal uh yearly increases which uh we have included in our budget. Um and that's mostly things like our test genius. Test genius is what we use to help us coordinate our testing for civil service purposes. Um, like for instance, when we do Excel uh Excel tests for folks to see what their skill set level is, we have an entire program, we can actually have people
245take it from home and they get monitored by uh Test Genius, meaning that if they get up and leave or they try to go to somewhere else to to quoteunquote cheat on the test, this test genius knows that and gives us notice of it. So, it's actually very sophisticated uh testing software. Um, that went up a little bit. Um, Neo gov. Neo gov is the platform that we use for all of our hiring. So if you go online and apply for a job, it is Neo gov. It is coordinating that that does all of our stuff except for police hiring. And so it is it really is essential and crucial to what we do every day. And that that is going up a little bit this year as well. Um other than other than that,
246we don't really have a lot of increases or anything like that. We just our budget is what our budget is. We did um this year the outside council budget you're going to see. I'm going to come back to you at some point soon to ask for more money. Um that has a lot to do with um certain this year particular particularities that I can't really talk about in public, but some of it it has to also do with the fact that we have two new bargaining units in in the um in the city of the town. We have um we we transferred over the DPW group transferred over to a new um to a new parent bargaining group which we have we have negotiated with and we actually settled that thank you uh to the
247town for supporting that. Um and also we have a brand new brand brand new meeting that didn't exist before uh union which is the um the Trumbull EMS Supervisors Union. Um this is one of those weird ones that um there currently is only one person in the bargaining unit. So uh it's a one it's a oneperson bargain unit right now but we will be we're in the process of hiring a second person. The reason this union this union exists is because um I would not allow for these these folks to enter into the regular EMS bargaining unit because I am not a fan of supervisors being in the unit uh the bar unit of the people that they supervise. So, so they they organized their own union. Well, there were two people and then one
248of them left uh for another job and so we're at one person right now. So, but that means that I have to negotiate a full-fledged contract with that union even though there's only one person. It is the exact same process if I were negotiating a new contract with a union of 400 people. So, we are in that process right now. >> Um the Oh, we have good news. Very good news. I don't know if you know, but a couple years ago we had an OSHA inspection from the state. Khan OSHA came down and um we have been working with them and the good news is is that I can officially announce that we are done. Uh we have met all their standards. We have been approved for all of our uh changes that we needed
249to do and everything is now over. Um that doesn't mean that the OSHA consultant that you guys pay for in one of my lines goes away. The OSHA consultant now becomes a regular training apparatus for us and they they update whenever there's a change in the law. They'll update our um our standards of operation. They'll upgrade our policy. They'll update our policies and they come in and do regular uh trainings that were required by OSHA. Like for instance, bloodborne pathogens is an example of something. They come in there, they organize all of that stuff for us. So, so that will be an ongoing expense for us. Um, it's surprising to me that it wasn't at an ongoing expense before I got here, but it's important that we have someone who does that on a regular
250basis. And it really is just something that is so highly technical. It's not something Steve and I can do by ourselves. We we do need the technical expertise. Other than that, we are where we are. >> Anybody have any questions for HR? Go ahead, David. >> Mr. McCarthy, um, >> yes. You're not here today, so this is a little uncomfortable. >> I'm home with CO, by the way. Just FYI. >> When did that happen? You didn't have CO Thursday. >> I have it now. Tuesday of this morning. >> Um, it's a little uncomfortable, but kind of the chatter around town hall is that you're just not here very often in general. And the salary that you're looking for is $162,250. Uh again, I've enjoyed the camaraderie and having pleasant discussions. This one's a little awkward,
251but the first lect has two executive aids that combined are about what your salary is. police officers who put on a bulletproof vest and a sidearm and do things that most of us would not want to do. Uh make considerably less than than you. Most of the town employees, including the first selectman's office, make less than you. Yet the muttering around town is Tom doesn't have much to do and he's never there. So I would have rather had this conversation in >> person. I don't think this is a conversation that we should have in open session. I don't see why it's a conversation we should not have in open session. I'm here elected as a representative of the people that fund the salaries and I think I have every right on their behalf to ask
252these questions in open session. >> Muttering. >> I don't mind I don't mind answering. >> No, no, no. There's a town hall. >> Yes. Hold on. Yeah. >> Can you take a a five minute break, please? >> There's been a request for a fivem minute break. So, we'll do that and then we'll pick back up. Okay, we're going to come back in from our recess and get started again. Tom McCarthy is on the line. >> Um, yeah, we're starting. >> No, I meant Are we on? >> Yeah, we're on. So, I just want to clarify that there's some things that we do in our budget hearings. We talk about um the requirements for a job. We talk about the cost of a position. We talk about full-time equivalents, but we do not discuss personnel items
253in open session. So, we don't talk about someone's job performance. We don't talk about those things. So whether um there's something that needs to be discussed outside of this meeting, I don't feel comfortable allowing that to happen. So we'll pick back up with human resources. Um Tom, did you wish to make a comment? Do you >> No. Um I No, I'm not going to make any comment. >> Okay. Um I have a question that's actually HR related. We talked about earlier when the um tax collector came in and a couple other departments. We've talked about um the need for seasonal and temporary help. Do we have a policy on internships? Do we offer internships? Is that a program that we could utilize um talent and resources in the area to provide some, you know, uh
254entry level help in some departments that just might need that? What What do we have for internship opportunities? >> We do. We do have internships currently. Um and uh they're very very limited though. Um the pro no I would say a problem with internships is that you know internships if they're done correctly um require a significant amount of supervision particularly if you're doing it through universities and you have a requirement to do tracking and grading and evaluations. And so it it it's a much more significant uh job than people realize when you take on interns if you do it correctly. and we do things correctly in Trumbull. So, um, so yeah, so we do do that. There are places where they've had them in like for for instance, you know, Reena Reena's office, you know,
255had an intern that turned into their part-time person, right? Um, that has that has happened before. There's there was an internship fire marshall's office uh where the person was getting credit and they were very successful internships, but it does take a significant amount of of overseeing and coverage um and review and evaluation. But we do allow for that. >> Is there potential to utilize that more than we do or is it not cost-effective? >> I don't. So operationally I think it's a department that by department decision because you have to again have the time to um to invest in the training and the evaluation of the of the intern. And so, you know, some departments are stretched and find it very hard to keep up with that kind of thing. Um, >> okay. >> Any
256other questions for human resources? Go ahead, Mary. >> Whoops. Uh, hi Tom. Hope you're feeling better. Um, I I know that the edit or or hopefully won't feel worse. Um I know the edit committee had uh some discussions about um diversity training uh perhaps in the town you were looking into that. Is there any update on that or um do you feel that we are covered sufficiently as people are hired or um you know when they go to general training or anything that would be specific for this? We actually um this year piggybacked off of uh training that is done by the police department and we did it for senior staff in the town. Um and it really is um I would say it's it's more of a recognition of of the different types of
257people that might come in for customer services purposes, you know, I mean, and how how you deal with different populations, things like that. That was the kind of training we did. It was very successful. Um we had um a dean and a professor from the University of New Haven come in and we had a very good all day session um for that training which I thought was successful and we're actually looking into expanding that to the next level of of supervisors and we're going to then work our way down because um we think it we think it's a very very uh helpful thing to have uh folks trained in on not just c customer service but recognizing what different folks from different backgrounds uh would would be expecting when they come in, includ including things
258like how to handle someone who is, you know, speaking a different language or things like that. That's kind of those are the kind of techniques and things that we were training up on. >> Yeah. >> And I reported back to the edit committee about that as well. >> I'm behind on minutes. >> Yeah. Um Tom, as far as contract negotiations, I know we have the new uh bargaining units, the two new units. Um who else who else is in process and where do we sit with with our bargaining units? Can you just run down that list real quick? >> Yep. Uh DP DPW is done. Uh we signed off on that one. Um the and was voted on by town council. Um we have currently opened that uh TM's supervisor. That's the uh EMS supervisors
259one. We because it's a brand new union, we literally need to create that from scratch. So every single word has to be written for that one. So we have we have begun that process. Um and we we actually are moving very quickly through that process. Um this coming year as of July 1, Matthysse will be up, which is our supervisors union. It is our regular town hall supervisors. So like your department heads um that are not that are um affiliated with the union, they are that's that bargaining unit. Um and the fire marshals union will be back up again this year. Um the police union is still open. Um we are I mean you're going to be hearing good news from us on that one very very soon. and anything that was settled this year
260besides >> DPW was set was settled this year. >> All right. Any questions on contracts HR? Okay. Um and then the other department is fringe employee benefits and uh for you and Maria on page 107. While we're flipping pages, um, Mrs. Mcanon, is it possible for you to reach out to Jean Rabino? We sent her an email earlier. Can you see if you can text or call her and see if she's available um to come earlier so that we or or we'll do her at the end of um >> But as soon as she would be available. Yeah. >> Let's see if she has she sent me an email. >> Uh was Tracy's available. Both of them and we're looking at um page 107. >> Want me to go? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Yeah.
261So, um we for for the employee health benefits, we are on we participate in the state partnership plan. Uh the state partnership plan is um all of the state employees are in are in a plan and we there the state law changed a bunch of years ago to allow for municipalities to piggyback on top of that plan. So, in other words, we go into the plan, but we get the benefit of of having negotiations of the very very large group of employees because when it comes to um benefit negotiations, the uh the more bodies you have in your plan, the the more likely you're going to get a discount when you negotiate with pharmacies and you know, all the other healthcarees and hospitals and coverage like that. So we we have been piggybacking on and
262been in the partnership plan for the last few years. Um actually since before I got here. Um the partnership plan over the last uh number since the this is my sixth year here. In my six years if you take it as an average we actually are doing very well in terms of healthcare inflation. We've had many good years. There have been spike years though. There have been uh years two years ago was a spike year. Um and uh those are years that the increases go up pretty significantly. I would probably call this a spike year. There are a lot of uh there are a lot of factors that have not that we have no control over and nothing to do with us with the partnership plan um including you know what's going on in Washington
263and things like that. There's a lot of stuff happening that um that is that is driving up the healthcare inflation. And so this year the increase uh came in at 12.5% for for um for Trumbull. That's the increase. The um it's re this is how it breaks down. It's really an 11.5% increase, but they do a cost adjustment. So, because Fairfield County is more expensive for health care than rest the the counties um in Connecticut, we have a plus one% search charge that is added on to us. Um other places actually get will get a deduction because it's cheaper. So, in if you go to the quiet corner of of uh of Connecticut, they they figure that they they pay less. They should pay less because their their healthcare is less expensive. I mean I'm
264we have we have quibbles with that information and believe me we uh we mention that every single time there's a partnership meeting there are quarterly meetings and we are very vocal in the meetings on that uh that question but the answer is we're at 12.5%. Let me tell you why it's that is still very good news. Um we also monitor our actual um spending. So they give us our expenses um and claims as they call it for uh for the partnership plan and our claims are high running higher than what our premium cost is. So that's a bad thing for the world but it's a good thing for us because if we were say we were self-insured we would be paying the higher rate plus administrative fees. So even if you include the administrative fees,
265we're still paying less than what the cost of the actual health care benefit that we are getting as a town. That is a um it is a that is a yearly thing that has to be analyzed and there's general claims that follow a pattern. But then there are spike claims like for instance if one person who has a med like a major heart operation for instance just an example um that would drive up your cost for one benefit for the year that claim will drive will drive uh the cost up and we have a few high cost claims this year that are driving that issue. And so this year particularly we are we're doing very well by being in the partnership plan. you could not and we have just so you know um every year
266particularly the spike years um the first selectman directs us to go out and make sure that we are covering our bases and checking um uh checking cost outs going out and essentially getting people to get give us unofficial bids on what the costs of covering us would be and because we're such a small town it really is cost prohibitive. it would be way more expensive to be out to go to a private plan and also because we're so small we don't have the ability to um to smooth the risk out by go by doing self-insured like for instance Bridgeport and New Haven Bridgeport is now the partnership plan but for years Bridport and New Haven where I was before here they were self-insured because they had enough bodies to to smooth out the risk right
267so we are a small town so we don't have that ability so being self-insured is a real big danger for us. You we'd have to buy significantly cost um coverage on insurance on stop gap insurance if the if the costs went crazy and we had high claims and that would be that would be very expensive for us to do. So the bottom line is is that although it is more expensive to significantly more expensive to to be in the partnership plan, we are still making out very well for for being in that plan. >> Okay. Um, one of the things that we had looked at is um, does the town offer a stipen for those who choose not to take benefits, medical benefits through the town? >> There is all there there are like a
268very small number of people that have uh, have that in their contract still. Um, most people do do not. It is a it is something that every single time we negotiate, we have a debate in the office on it. Um, sometimes what you what you do with that is you because you can't just you have to offer it to everybody. And so we have people that already do not take our plan because of a spouse's plan. They choose to take it might be cheaper for them or maybe they think it's a better benefit, although I doubt it because we have very good benefits. Um, the so sometimes you'll be rewarding more people than you would be getting a benefit from for that. And so we we're doing a constant analysis on that and we we
269have decided so far not to offer that again. Um but it is something that we I mean every single year we are having a conversation not not just Steve and I internally um but also with our with our seagull our healthcare consultant and we we run the numbers and it's it's always a close call to be very honest with you. I know logically it seems like a great idea and by the way it can be if you were able to do it in a way where only new people would be able to claim it. You know people that would be newly off our plan. The problem is no bargaining unit's going to going to agree to that. It's going to they have to agree to that if if one can get it they all >>
270and that can only be done at contract time. >> Yeah. I mean that's really when that's really when you can address the uh the benefits. >> Okay. So that can't be done outside of the contract. Well, I I I I want to I I don't want to say can't because I could ask them to reopen a contract and the union could agree to do that, right? Um but when you open reopen up a contract, you reopen up the contract, the whole thing. >> So, if I were to say I want for that, they're going to say, "Okay, well, we want X, Y, and Z." >> Okay. Any other questions on employee benefits? >> Did you want me to go through the other line items? >> Yes, please. >> Um, the next line item is the
271workers comp and we budget for $2 million. Um, we never know how many claims we're going to have. We keep on settling large claims that will eventually will cost more, but we can't tell how many claims are coming in. And uh and I know Kerma is our third party administrator and they um you know they can come to the board to a board meeting and explain more in detail. I think they came one time >> so we can bring them on again. >> Had we looked at going out to bid for that at one point? >> Well, we don't have to go out to bid for fully insured was we're selfinsure just like with the medical with um >> partnership plan. But we're we're self-insure which means we paid all the all the bills you
272know if we it is more costly and they had told us that but um yeah we could look at it's just more costly. >> I wasn't sure there had been a large claim and at one time we had talked about whether or not we would look at a different provider. So, um, so for third party administrators for doing the workers comp stuff, there used to be like five or six of them in Connecticut that did it and we're down to like two, possibly three as do as a side gig. Could they do it? There really aren't the same level of people doing that anymore. Um, so it's kind of like you have two big dogs. There is Kerma and PMA. And so we we so it coincidentally PMA is the group that does our OSHA
273>> stuff. So we we are in constant contact about the costs of that. Um Kerma does a very good job. We're we're very happy with them. But yeah, we do we check we check the costs and we and we keep our toes in the water on that kind of stuff uh all the time. And it's one of the reasons why we brought PMA in to do the OSHA because then it if if we ever did want to change then we could it would be an easier change because they're already here doing some of our work for us. Um but so far um you know I think and I won't speak for Maria but I think I think Kerma does a very good job of of controlling our costs. It's just that you you like Maria
274said you just never know when someone's going to get a very serious injury. I mean, we we are very vigilant with our safety stuff and our training, but people get hurt sometimes and so um and those sometimes become very expensive. >> Okay, >> Maria. >> Um okay, the other larger ones are the the pension contributions. Um under 5222105, it's uh 273,000. That's for the new police uh uh pension plan. That's for the new hires that that plan just got implemented July 2024 25. Um we do a actuary evaluation every two years. So the next one we're going to be doing is July 1st 2026 and that's for all all three plans. Uh the next account is the 5222106 and that's the regular police pension for the old the legacy plan and um that plan is
27591.65% funded at this point and again we'll do a actuary evaluation as of July 1st 2026. The next one is the the pension for the town and the board of ed employees and that's um 5 million 921 and that's um 54.38% funded and again the actuary evaluation will be done as of July 1st 2026. >> Can you give me that percentage again please? >> 54.38%. >> Okay. >> It's gone up but it takes time to get there. Um the fine benefit uh the fine contribution plan it's increasing uh because the new entrance to the previous uh town plans um they're no longer eligible for it. So they're going to the defined uh contribution plan and that's 888,000 um which is offset by the forefeiters. If someone leaves the town is not fully vested, we end
276up using those forefeures for the town contribution. And next one is just the >> the administrative fees for the >> has a question on pensions, I think. >> Uh not specifically related to pension, but >> sorry, >> not specifically related to the pension, but do you or or maybe Tom, as we sit here today, do you know the current town FTE number? What is our full-time number of employees? Uh about 350 maybe >> 350. >> Yeah. I mean I could certainly get you the exact number. I mean thank you. >> In the summer there's a lot more >> because of the >> significantly it grows in the summer. >> All right. >> Go ahead Ben. >> And and and just one more comment and remember there is the it's it's hard to give you an
277exact number because think about our EMS. We have a significant number of people that sometimes are doing full-time hours, but they're actually PDM on the system, >> right? And so, uh, it's it's a it's a large complicating factor, but I'll get I'll get you a real number. >> Thank you. >> Uh, could we get a split of the, uh, 5921 for the town and board of ed? Like percentage-wise, how much is town, how much is board of ed? >> Yeah, I actually did that before. Um, I will get that. >> All right. Thank you. Yeah. Anybody else? >> Okay, Maria, sorry. >> That's okay. That's anything else we need to go through. Masimo, >> actually I don't know if I missed this, but based on what the percentage increase that came back for the benefits,
278is there now going to be a revised budget request? Yes. >> And what do we know what that is yet or no? >> For the town, it's just approximately 55,000. We budget 13.5. It's now 12.5. >> Thank you. I >> I'll put it on an email all the changes. the medical. It was the golf um director there and I'll look through to see if there are anything else in my notes. >> Okay. Anybody else have any questions? Mrs. Manon, what did Jean say? >> Cathy, >> I'm sorry. >> What did you >> Jean is driving from Norwalk. >> Okay. So when she gets here, we'll >> we'll squeeze her in and >> we'll do that. Board of Ed will be here in a few minutes. >> Anybody else? We have any other departments? Any other
279questions? >> Um they can come in whenever they're ready. They're going to come in in uh two parts, I think, because they're finishing up PD. Anybody need a break? We good? Okay. Am I good? >> Thanks, Tom. >> Okay. Thanks everybody. >> Feel better. >> Thank you. Lucinda, you can come be comfortable if you want. >> Yeah, we're just we're just having informal discussions. So, >> yeah, they can come in. Just a second. >> Sit here. If you like Sorry. How are you? Fantastic. >> Afternoon, sir. >> Hey, good afternoon. Take your normal day back there. I can sit more. >> I did all my talking. >> We're working together. I just my leg. >> It's all good. >> You're good. >> No, it's all right. Not a big deal. >> How you guys doing?
280>> It worked good. So you might also like >> No, this is all >> Did you send it by email? >> I did. Dr. also printed out. >> Do you want me to go make something? I'm so sorry. I only >> probably like maybe about five more. >> I could sharers. I have one extra copy with the because she's finishing up with >> Yeah. >> Or there's a spot. >> Anybody else coming? >> I think that's everybody. >> Oh, Julia might be coming. >> Do that. I don't know. >> Yeah. hope next week. >> All right, Arie, we're all set. We're good. Okay. Uh, thank you guys for coming back this afternoon. This will be easier than an evening meeting. It's been a long uh couple days already. Um, we sent some follow-up questions and
281we really wanted to have uh kind of a meaningful discussion of where we are and how we get uh to where we need to be um at the end of the process. Um Allison just handed out the year to date which I know we wanted to take a look at. um your mun system doesn't kind of match ours. So um you have different um numbers and stuff. So I'll give people a chance to look at that and we'll talk about that towards the end if that's okay. Um, as far as that, we had sent um the um some follow-up questions um including looking at the Bank of America notes. Do you want to kind of walk us through these a little bit and see where we are? And then um we have some questions on
282some of the uh numbers that were in your presentations along the way that we're just trying to make sure that we're following correctly. if that's okay. >> Of course. >> All right. Um, Ben, this is the these are the Bank of America notes that were recast in I think it was 2020. We we said they were recast when you looked back. Did you bring Did you look at those numbers? >> Yeah, I took a look at those. um over the first five and a half years, I think there was a a cost avoidance of about a million six uh when it was recast and now we're at the point where uh it costs us a little bit of money to continue. Uh but I think the net result after the total uh lease is something
283like uh I think 400 or no I have notes but I think it's either 400 or 40,000. It's a big difference. Let me get the note. Just a few zeros. >> Just a few zeros. >> There's a four. >> 403,000. And how far out does that go? >> Uh 2020 2026 is where our ben the benefit ended. Right. >> Right. It was done in in 20 2020 during co uh actually 19 I think we talked about it and uh I think it goes out for 15 years. >> It's 13 years. >> 13 years. Okay. Sorry. Um, at one point, uh, Paul Hendris, uh, looked at Hendrickson looked at, um, whether or not to pay off some of the loans. Which ones did you actually >> So I know we had So when Paul and I
284were working together, we were looking at some of the um >> loans for leases that were done for technology, which we know not all of those were paid for technology, but we we ended up over the past few years. Um, nothing last year, I don't believe, but a few years before that we paid off some of the TD >> TD Bank >> I think it was the TD bank loans and that helped us avoid those future costs. >> Yeah, I think all the TD ones were paid off. I think they're all done. >> So, this is the only one that I think is there. I think it's 423 >> u a year >> and I think it's a 2% penalty if you want to get out of it. >> Uh, it's paid twice a year,
285>> right? So u >> so now we have to think about what we do with that going forward to avoid the 400 which was always it was always identified right at the very beginning that it would be a cost. >> Is there benefit in looking at this now? Do we >> well if is it still 4 >> yes >> 67 million at this point? Well, that's the total >> that's the total left. >> That's the total amount of the of the initial loan >> of the initial loan. Do we know how much it how much is left? >> We can get a balance. I think it should be just about half or something like that. It's like two something. And I haven't checked it for the actual balance, >> but you could recast it and
286release it uh if you choose to take it over a longer term to reduce it. The question comes down to how long do you want to keep this thing? And you know, you may want to just get rid of it, but it becomes a business decision as to what you want to do, >> right? >> But we know that we don't have the money to pay off that loan. >> Well, no, maybe not this year, but going forward, you may want to look at that as part of the planning for the future years to either get something to take it down or maybe recast it a lower, >> you know, but the the actual I think the interest rate is like 2.2% which I don't think we'd get now, >> right? Right. So I it
287still seems to be a pretty good deal overall. At the time it it avoided a lot of cost where we were hurting for CO. So uh >> so it was a good thing to do at that point in time and as I said it's like it was like 276,000 a year that we avoided in cost. >> Okay. Any questions on that? Um the total debt services miscellaneous account um can you talk about the the change from the 2526 figure of 7,000 to the >> of 115? So, in the uh 2526 budget, the allocation for the CSDE um national school um school program, new national school lunch program agreement was not budgeted. Um we have an agreement for just over 260,000 over five years. So, 52,000 a year, a little bit over. Um as well as
288district-wide dues and fees for professional associations and memberships um across the district. So, as of this year, as of today, or as of the end of February, we were 15, um, $389. That was year-to- date spent. So, we were almost $10,000 over budget. >> Okay. So, this agreement, >> how is it? It wasn't budgeted for before. So, this is a new agreement. Can you just explain that a little bit more? >> Yeah, I can talk about this. It's a very frustrating time in my life. Um, the state department of education believed that when we hired Mr. Malino as our new food service director that he didn't meet their requirements, which I went back and forth month after month with the state department of education about how we thought they were wrong. Um and in fact
289he's doing a remarkable job but because he didn't have K12 experience uh he didn't meet a certain requirement that they expected. Um so the beauty is I guess in one respect is that they wanted us to pay it all back in one year and ultimately we were able to agree on a five-year payback plan. And what happened here is that because food service operates independently, um we were paying Mr. Milano through the food service program, which is what you're supposed to do, and his insurance benefits. Um when they said that that was inaccurate and you must pay that money back. It must come from the general fund, uh we had to pay two years plus benefits back. They wanted it within the six months and I said that's not likely to happen from us. So,
290we kept working with them and uh they agreed to a five-year plan. So, I'm still >> So, so this is a penalty from the state >> for the hire. >> The penalty is that they're saying that because the hire in their mind, the person didn't have the right qualifications that we could not have used food service money to pay his salary or his benefit. So, now we need to pay that back from the operating fund. It's ironic that now they're asking him to participate and help provide training for other K12 food service directors, but um so it is a point that I'm frustrated with. >> So where's the offset for the money that would have paid for him out of food services? That's still in food services, but the food services fund is completely separate
291and you cannot take any money from the food services fund >> except for when >> or right or for the services that we provide them like custodial service, electrical, you do see a transfer going from the food service account over to the general fund um to pay for those services that we we provide to the food service um group and they they pay for that. And how do you audit custodial services to what you charge back? Like how do you come up with that figure? >> Like custod if you're charging them custodial services. >> Yeah. >> So how do you what percent like is it just when they do the square footage of the kitchens or is it like how do you come up with a fee for that? >> Mr. Hendrickson worked on this
292a couple of years. I think it was a couple of years back and he has a a full schedule of of how we calculate what food service owes us so that we have something to fall back upon. And it's not just it's not just a number. It comes with all the mathematics behind it. >> And it is based on square footage. >> Yep. And hours utilized. >> And you do see that transfer. You'll see that transfer from the food service program over to the general fund over the past several years. It ends up being close to $100,000. >> But that would have been in addition to that salary if that salary had stayed there. >> In addition to >> Yeah, you would have taken the salary out of that account and >> no, we don't
293no the salary. So again, the >> you can't take the salary out because of the the hire that you made, >> but in if it were weren't penalized, you would take the salary and the custodial stuff that would have been both coming out of there. >> No. No. So we we are now that Mr. Molino is past the uh there was a two-year requirement. So now that we're past that stage, he's allowed to be paid for out of the food service account and his insurance. So that those that line item for food service pays for all of our food service managers. It pays you know all of our staff and their insurance that work for food services and it and it now can pay for Mr. Molino like when M when Miss uh Sinko was
294here Betty Sino was here food service >> paid it >> always paid so the food service account always paid her salary. >> So the increase to that line item was purely penalty, >> a pet. >> It was the It was the penalty along with uh increases in annual memberships and professional associations for the district as well as we're currently over budget due to a increased costs. So, we're just right sizing the account. >> So, can I ask a question? So, the total amount of the penalty if because I'm confused. I apologize. Uh the total amount of the pen penalty is what? $260,00039 excuse me $260,392.32 over five years. So it's a little over 52,000 a year. >> And the difference between the 52,000 and the other ancillary >> correct? >> All right. >> Right. And
295the penalty being that we have to pay our food service back what we paid Mr. Molino from the food service account. Just uh it wasn't any additional penalty. it was just you couldn't use that money, so now you got to pay that money back to food service. >> Can you give us a breakdown um at some point on what those allocation districtwide dues and fees, what those are? >> I I did a little um it's like the CASBO memberships, the Amazon business accounts, the UPS accounts, our annual credit card fees. There's >> and that's not a reclassification. >> No. >> From before. >> Um and the same justification you had we had asked for the purchasing of professional and techr account the 53303. >> Yeah that is the upgraded transportation software that we purchased this
296year and that is now the annual cost. the old software was was being um phased out. So, we needed to move to a better to the next version of the software. Um, and we're we're doing that now. And that actually should be a very nice upgrade and will support some of the needed changes we need to make in our transportation department. Okay. >> We're hoping it goes much more smoother at the next uh beginning of the school year. >> Um Joe, do you want to talk a little bit about um potentials for um ERIPs, anything like that? Yeah, I mean I think you know like you said in your question, it's either an installment buyout or it's an insurance contribution for 3B insurance could be a hybrid I guess potentially of both. Um I think
297for for us, you know, the the unknowns and it's a little bit of a a risk as far as we don't know how many people are going to do it, number one. Number two, you know, the hope is that you someone retires and then someone comes in at a lower salary. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes with with certain positions, certain certifications, we're not hiring somewhat maybe a little bit less, but not, you know, a first or second year teacher. So there's that concern. So the financial risk there. There's also the risk of like a windfall where people were going to retire anyway. For example, we know we have nine retirements this year. They're going to retire and then we'd be paying people to, you know, to to leave. Another PE piece also is a lot
298of times when people are ready, they're at retirement age, their kids are older, so they're taking single insurance or or one, two person insurance, whereas people coming in most likely are taking family insurance. So that's that's another cost that's hasn't really been factored in. So I think, you know, there there's risk. I mean, we we'd have to look at, you know, how many potentially how many people are close, how many we'd have to require to make it work. Um, but I mean, the the risks there are pretty high. And you know, and I've talked to a lot of colleagues in the area as well, and the majority of them are are not offering um as well for the very same reasons I just mentioned because it is a little bit of a risk. Um you
299know, and and the district did do it in the past. I know in in way back they did it and then they did it recently in 2018. But um yeah, I mean those are kind of our thoughts. I mean, but the the model would be the biota installments probably three to four years or the 403b insurance companies. How many how many people took advantage of that in 2018? >> Um 21. >> And what was the potential offset in in 2018 savings wise? >> Um I I we'd have to get that for you. Um I was talking to Allison about that earlier today. So we we we can certainly find >> Yeah. >> find what that is. Yeah. >> Okay. Um also the waiver on the health insurance. So, we had a discussion on the town
300side what that might look like and they analyze they do a costbenefit analysis for that um for what's the potential um and how many people and I understand that it's a union issue that you would have to offer that to everybody not just people who don't already not take your insurance um other communities offer substantially more to not take the insurance um I think Mary you pulled some of the numbers what the potential potential um offset if you can have 20 people less taking the insurance that the potential offsets a couple hundred,000. Um can you run some numbers? That's what we'd like to see is some numbers or what that might look like if you were able to do that. We understand there's an upfront expense to that, but if you could offset some of
301that. Um I think uh for a fact Westport is currently offering 6,000 um and some of the New York districts offered as a percentage of the premium in return. So if they don't take that >> Yeah, I did reach out to Westport. I know the HR director there and also I talked to their their finance director and they said they're they're not offering it. They said there's one bargaining unit they offer it to and they're phasing it out. So they're grandfathering four and I think it's the secretaries in group and they said they're not they're not and it's only $2,000 that they offer. But I mean that's more than we offer I guess but they said that they're phasing it out. They're not they're not doing with their teachers or their larger groups as well.
302>> Okay. >> Yeah. So but we can we can certainly look at some numbers. >> The >> let's do that >> on this particular topic though you know if if we are going to look at something like this I think because there is significant risk involved. I' I'd want a group um to look at that more closely like what like I'd want some actuaries to actually look at this and actually decide if what is the right way to go because maybe it is the right way to go but it's not going to be us wondering what's going to happen. You really do need to run a number of of potential scenarios and risk factors of increasing that because there there may be a number that works but maybe not. And I I wouldn't want to
303just offer something and say, "Oh, well, that didn't go the way we expected." I' I'd rather have some people who are who are truly good at looking this kind of stuff like actuaries and make some decisions for us. I don't know if the town is does the town do something like this where there's a there's a um there's money going back. Have you guys looked at this where you where you've seen an advantage to this? >> We asked our HR department. They do the costbenefit analysis every year or whenever there are contract negotiations. They look at how many people take advantage of it. It's a much smaller number on the town so you have a lot more people. The potential for savings would be there. I don't know what the answer is to that. This
304is why we're having a a work session discussion. Where are there opportunities for us to um bring costs down in areas that don't impact the classroom? Yeah. Right. No, I think that's great. We spend a lot of time and we could look at that. Well, we could have looked at a lot of things for a long time. So, we're trying to figure out how we get there. We wait till budget season. So, this is not like a personal attack, but what is it that we need to do to make those kinds of assessments to help get that number? So, I don't know that what that answer is. I think that's one of things. Go ahead, Nikki. >> Hi, thank you. Um I believe we do have an audit in the pipeline right coming up for
305board of ed. >> Yes. >> Maria, where do we stand with the with that? >> That has to come from the town council, correct? >> Uh we did get the bids in. Uh it was forwarded to the first selectman, Dan Chopic, and a couple of the board members of the town council. Uh, I believe the next step is to interview the the auditing firm. >> I'm not sure if that that's been scheduled >> and I believe when we interview with them, we would be looking at the scope of the inter of the process. Correct. >> Correct. >> Could this be something that's part of the scope of a process? Like does anybody have that? >> It was embitted that way. >> Okay. >> The bid was not that way. No. >> Okay. Thank you. I
306mean, I'm just to say I'm always all for spending money to make money. So, I don't know if there's any money within your education budget, within the board of ed budget that includes consultants and outside auditors or anything like that where we can look at, you know, as Laney said, there have been a lot of big, you know, chunk items that we could be taking a look at here and that we've asked to take a look at. You know, maybe we need to spend a little bit of that money to make some money. Which can I move on then to tiered busing? Um I know everybody that's been the one, right? Tiered busing. It looks like you did get some information back on that. Is there anything that you could share now? >> Yeah, what
307I can say is that we got an original um response back from the uh consultants that we did reach out to because we did want to work with this consulting group also on this particular topic. um the first iteration we needed to give some additional data back to them and they recently sent us an updated um draft of the document. So what we're potentially looking at is um I'm sorry I didn't bring that with I didn't bring the actual document with me although it's on my laptop so I could pull it up if we needed to. Um there's we looked at a three- tiered bus system in three different ways. We wanted to see if we could do a high school tier, a middle school tier, and an elementary school tier. That's one way to
308look at it. We wondered about a high school tier with potentially two elementary schools going into the middle school tier and then the four remaining elementary schools being in a third tier. And then we looked at it, they suggested we also look at it where it's the high school tier, two middle schools with one elementary school, and then the five remaining elementary schools. So they're essentially the report is telling us that the most cost-savings way to do it would be the high school route, two middle school routes with one elementary school, and the five remaining elementary schools going on a third tier. So, the savings potential, what they're saying is that we could go from the 48 buses we currently run down to 44 buses. They're saying that's conservative, but they would that they wouldn't
309suggest any fewer than that going into the 26 27 school year. So, they're saying about four buses, each bus is about $100,000 a click. So, you about $400,000 savings there. the offset. Just something that people should also keep in mind is that because there's three tiers, uh the high school would still start at the same time, middle schools would go about 30 minutes later. Um and then the elementary schools would go, uh about 30 minutes later than that. So elementary, those five elementary schools on the final tier would start around 9:00 a.m. and be done by 3:45. And that's not unheard of. We actually have, we know, we did some research on that, too. Looked around the area. Districts like Monroe and Shelton and Stratford and New Town and Ridgefield all have elementary schools that
310start at 9:00 a.m. Do I think that every family with elementary age children will love that idea? I don't because it means getting elementary kids onto buses a little bit later, having to adjust work schedules potentially. Um, so that is something at least to consider and the board of education has yet to look at this. Um, we, like I said, we just got that second uh, draft in, but I think it is at least something we should be discussing now for 2627. So long and short of it is a potential savings of depending on how you cut it, it's it's either $400,000 of savings from our current buses, but if you remember our 2627 budget currently includes two additional buses, which would not be needed. So we're either going from 48 down to 44 or
311going from 50 down to 44. however you want to like consider the request versus what we currently are running. Um, so that the the other benefit for that is that there would actually be more buses running during the high school route, more buses running during the middle school route than currently, which would reduce the uh the density on the buses and should reduce the length of the trips. These are two areas of concern that our families at the high school and middle school have. The length of the uh the journey and uh how many kids are on some of these buses. >> Go ahead, Mary. >> Sorry, just one thing on that. Are we still overrunning from the uh the allotted time that we have? I know last year there was an issue. We went
312over the whatever it was five five and a half hour time. Is that a concern at this point or are we making those and so this won't help with that adjustment? Right. That was built into this. Mr. Dion might be able to add a few details. Maybe Miss Hefily, too. Um, my remembering of the study said that we would keep the hours to to the five. U, we have a few this year. Every year we we look at our roots and we try to make sure they're below the five hours. I think there's two or three. Three. >> There's three roots right now that are running over the five hours. Um, but that's by like 15 minutes. So, we get charged uh by the quarter of an hour for that. So, this should keep us
313all below the five hours. And like I said, should decrease the amount of time kids are on buses and how many kids are on each bus. So, there's a lot of wins for that, but I don't think parents some parents won't love the elementary schools going a little later. But, like I said, there's plenty of examples around us where they already do that. Is there potential to look at which tiers you flip, which start when to maybe have the middle schools start later? Do the elementary run earlier? Like would something like that offset that uh problem for parents? >> We won't be looking at that. >> Go ahead, Nikki. I do think that we're in a an economic climate right now, especially here in Trumble that we do need to be looking at some hard
314choices and if that means saving a couple of educators, I mean, I think that these are the kinds of things that unfortunately we have to look at. Um, also, how does gas and oil pricing factor into busing and when do they lock in? >> Yeah, Mr. Dion, you want to speak about I know he's wellversed in this. >> Yeah. So fuel pricing, um, we actually go with the town. We work with the town and our town purchasing department fixes that. Um, and that usually occurs at the in the fall. Um, so we do have the rates and that's the rates that we work off and we all use the same vendor. >> Nikki, we had those numbers from this morning. I don't know if you were on your conference call at that time. Did you
315get those numbers for the town this morning? Did uh I I didn't >> Can you just pull up those numbers one more time? >> I am curious why the town though the town locks in about now. >> The town locked in and we did very well. >> So, um >> So, why why are we on a different fall? >> Uh maybe it was about a month ago. Might have been a month or two ago. We got it from Berke I'd have to look up the exact date, but we are with the town. So, we get their rates. How we do it though, they make deliveries to the bus depot. So the usage, we just use the same vendor and we pay the same amounts. >> Okay. >> So we're not on a different schedule. We're
316not paying something different. Okay. >> But we we don't work through the town. The invoicing comes directly to us. We pay it on our side of the budget. >> Great. Okay. And I understand. Thank you. >> So the rates are for diesel 2.6247 and for gas is 2.3054. >> And thankfully we locked in just a couple weeks ago. Okay. Questions on busing, transportation, Dave? No. Um, sorry, Arie. Mr. Mr. Dan, can you walk us through some of the electricity budgeting? >> If it's okay with you, I'll take the finance piece of it and he can speak to the usage. >> Okay. >> Um, so as you can see, I put a grid on there for you so you can see the past few years of usage. Um, since 2024, we've been over budget for electricity.
317Uh, in 24 was 72,000 over. Last year it was $375,000 over. This year um as of February we have already spent over a million. We have a balance of $200,000. We're estimating a $400,000 overage for this year due to usage and uh the public benefit fee assessment of which you'll see below. We did an assessment for you. We are now also getting a public benefit fee on our gas. But just for the electric, it was a quarter of a million dollars in a year. >> So does that when we looked at the line item for electricity the other day, gentlemen, we looked at the percentage increase. Is that because of the overages? >> I think it's probably both are driving it. But the question I would have is in here you guys are specifying the
318increased kilowatt hour usage. what's driving that usage year-over-year? >> So, usage is weather related, right? So, we've had extremely cold, we've had extremely humid, so our air conditioning is running a lot longer. Um, again, we do have night modes, we do have unoccupied modes that our buildings do go into. Um, we continue to have more demand as the weather in the summers get longer. Um, we do have to put in more air conditioning. We have both medical accommodations and just the needs because those classrooms have to be used during the summer for our extended school year and other programs. So, we have added air conditioning at least on the um split units that we spoke of earlier. Um and then just heating and cooling. Um the electrical LEDs, we have not added anything new to
319them. Um a lot of our equipment is older, don't forget. You know, as we do upgrades, this the units come out smaller. When we do put a rooftop unit in, uh, usually have to reset the curbings because it is not plug-and-play. The units usually smaller, much more efficient. But when you have a district where the buildings were built in the 1950s and up, we still have some old equipment out there. So with the addition of we have computers, we have whiteboards, we have other things in there as well as HVAC products, you see that increase in that climb. So, we spent time looking at usage and efficiencies and the LED. Is it something that we should be looking at again? So, we talked about what it would look like. Do we need a a new
320energy audit? Do we need that? Where where is it that we could drive? like maybe it's more cost effective to replace some of that equipment for the savings if we're, you know, looking at 30 or 40% increases or 30% increases in your electricity. Where can we look at that? What options do we have? >> I I do want to say that when you look at the electricity increases, if you we broke out um behind the scenes here, I broke out exactly what the public benefit is versus our monthly charge. um on average uh 16% of that increase is just the public benefits. So when you're looking for the increases plus you have um increases just in the utility cost and the expectation especially these days with utility costs and availability um yes going with a
321vendor going with a consultant is a great idea we can do it there's always a capital that's needed to go ahead and bring these companies in and I think I spoke during the capital meeting that there's many ways that it's done right it can be done through a utility company where then it's just added on to your bill for the next 15 to 20 years you can have companies come in, you can sign contracts, you can buy your power through them uh with monthly fees, you can buy software that's used to monitor that, though you do have to have somebody viewing that software all the time telling you where you're having problems or issues. So, there are many ways to look at it and there are many companies that do it and I'm not sure
322if the town uses that. Um, if there's a provider that they're currently using as well in their buildings, be more than happy to listen to any of their anybody they're using. Um or we can do collaborative or we're starting from scratch. >> What are the what are the potential? So we talked about that. Mosmo, you talked a little bit about places that do no capital outlay. >> Yeah, I think Mr. Dion just spoke to there's a a variety of strategies to to go about. I don't know what we do specific with the town or anything like that. It could be collaborative. I would ask you know I guess you know being the subject matter expert in some capacity like what your recommendation would be to you know try to mitigate usage or optimize like what
323given there are probably dozens of strategies what would your recommendation be to start that process assuming we don't already have one in place which I don't think we do >> so I I think it all depends upon the stomach to pay for it um you know if you're if you're going to agree that we're going to take $200 $1,000 and do an investigative study and have somebody go entirely through our buildings, all of our buildings, um, and actually see the usage and come up with a plan on how we the reductions, putting on certain controllers, shutting things on and off with the software. Then there's going to be an initial outlay of of money, capital, right? Or a lot of these companies will say, well, we're going to come in and do it for free,
324but free isn't free because you're going to pay for it in the back end when they tack it on to everything or they require a five-year service lease with them. So there's many ways to do it. I I think it's all discussing how it's going to be. Is it front end? And and again, these are tough fiscal times. Are we going to put that money out there or are we going to decide to pay for it over the next 20 to 30 years, which again, there's been conversations today about paying long-term loans, things like that. So, I think it's a it's a it's a great it's topic that needs to be discussed. It needs to be discussed between the town and the board of ed and any building uh that's a public use building. But
325I think it's yeah you need a bigger team to come together as which way you want to start with. >> Okay. So is that something that you interface with the department of public works is how do you how do you go about doing that? >> Be more than happy to start with public works uh whoever uh first selectman wants us to go through that's fine. Um in their department we're friend we have the people we would have our group um but again I'd like to work with the town collaboratively. I don't want to do our own thing. Um, and it doesn't work with something that the town's already thinking of or it doesn't work with your systems, your BMS systems and things like that, all have to be included in that preliminary discussion. >> Okay.
326So, at this point, at this juncture, when we're talking about budgeting and stuff, whether or not it has implications for the next budget going forward, how do we start that conversation? And is it uh kind of walk us through what how I I hear you say we need to talk about that, but how do we Sorry, Arie. Sorry. Um, what is it that we need to do to make those things happen? Because we hear we need to talk about it. What is it? What mechanism would you want us to do to put into place to get that ball rolling? >> Set up a preliminary meeting. >> Okay. >> Go ahead, Ben. about uh in the year 2020, we did a uh joint program with UI with a rebate and we did some of the high
327school lights and things. Does uh UI have any new rebate programs that we could take advantage of or are they or once you get their rebate, you can't get it again or are you aware of anything? >> Right. So, it depends upon when what you're doing. So, if you were if you were to go back and touch LEDs again and you still have you're still paying on your bill for some of these programs, you can't touch them again for a certain amount of years. I wasn't here in 2020. I'd have to look how exactly what you did and how it was done. Um, you can there are other programs. I will say most of the push now is towards geothermal. So, it's towards solar. Um, it's not to changing out your rooftop units much anymore.
328Um, it's just solar fields and and energy efficiency in that way. So, the ones we're looking at, matter of fact, Hillrest, a perfect example, there's a lot of um rebates for geothermal. So, it's going to be a geothermal product, but you also can look at the state for more solar panels, but then where do you put those solar panels? We already have some PPAs. Um, what what square footage of flat space are we going to be able to give up in our buildings or on our properties to to advance the solar? So, there are some incentives, but they're not like the old days where they were going to come in and they were going to give you lights that most people have done the lights. >> Um, then they're going to come in, they're going
329to change out all your air handlers. are going to give you more efficient ones and those have controllers on them that will shut off during certain times of the day or manage the usage. So, it's just a different they're moving more towards renewable energies which unfortunately our buildings are not at that level and there'll be quite a bit of capital to bring us up to that level. >> Well, it might be interesting to contact UI and see if anything is new on the electrical front because as you said there's a lot of people offering different things and uh maybe a nocost review is something that they would do. Good point. We'll look into that. >> Do we have mechanisms in place now that control the lights and the heat? So during off hours the temperature
330drops and before school starts whatever the next day it goes back up. >> Correct. Uh that's a BMS building management system. Our BMS does that currently. Um during CO we weren't allowed to shut everything down. We are allowed now. So we have what we go into night mode or unoccupied mode as it's called and there's certain set hours that certain buildings especially administrative buildings if there's nobody going to be in it that the air handlers everything shuts down comes on a couple hours before an hour or two before people come in depending upon square footage and then you don't even notice the difference when you come in and lights go out every light has uh the occupancy sensors every room. Thank you very much. >> Other questions or comments on energy efficiency? >> Go ahead,
331Mary. >> Sorry, I think I'd said this, but um just asking uh the special school pool, is that something that we were looking into? It was the um uh the state set aside it's with a multiplier and ranking car ports, things like that which you can put um solar on and apparently the schools are looked at as um uh they're going to get a better rate and it's a I can I'll send it to you. I just didn't know if you're aware of the name but uh the timing selections are for May of 2026. So it's quick. Um but I don't know if you know anything about that or not. Richfield and Fairfield uh participated. >> I've not been heard of that at all. We can look into it. I don't know um Gasbo Allison
332if anything's come to your group, but no, that's the first time ever hearing of any program like that. >> Did that come up at all during the Hillrest? Um >> it did come up to Hillrest. The problem using it with schools is we have wide open parking lots that need bus turns. um they become very difficult to maintain when you're clearing lots because you have all those poles in the ground and the salt eats away. So it depends upon the environment how useful they were and there that was raised um and it was decided that they weren't going to do that at Hillcross but not for that program that you're speaking of. That was a general discussion in the original uh design development of the building. >> Okay. I'll I'll forward it just if there's
333anything that might be of use. But I said it was very timely. That's why you wanted to check. Thank you, >> Mary. While you're there, do you want to talk about the um opt-in district printing usage stuff? >> Yeah. You know what? I didn't since we just got the information, I didn't have time to look at it. Um so, I'm not sure if you you've addressed it, but I was just looking at lowhanging fruit. Um where are things that we can do that don't impact um obviously students, which is what we're all doing. A lot of these things bring up energy. It's not going to come out of this budget. Perhaps maybe it'll help offset some, but it's not, you know, teacher buyout. It's not things that we're saying do this right now. Um it
334just kind of seems like smart things to just begin to look at. So with that, but um do we do current um permission slips, things like that? Do they still sign them? I haven't had a kid in school for a while. Uh things like that. Are you able to opt out of of materials that go home? I don't know if that is part of the school year anymore. So, most of our forms are either >> I'm assuming they're all infinite campus driven and >> most of our forms in the district are either fillable PDF forms or Google forms like we use a lot in Google. Um, also in Infinite Campus when we have school store items and there's something you need to select, we have activity forms that are built in there. So, we tried
335to move as many of our district and school-based forms to sort of an online format. Um, it's just easier for parents as well. It's easier for us to keep track of because you can look it up and you don't have lost permission slip forms and those kinds of things. So, I would say most of our forms, are there a few schools that might still be using some paperbased things? Yeah, probably. Um, but certainly our, you know, our district-wide forms, we're trying to get those as much as possible to electronic formats. >> Yeah, I Sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to add that we've also been it's it's not tons of money that we've been saving, but in terms of color copies and black and white copies, we we've been looking at that now for
336the past two years. And we've got a monthly spreadsheet going about um use of color copies versus black and white. Color copies are actually 10 times 10 times more expensive than black and white copies. So, a couple years back, teachers now have to use their badge to to swipe. So, we actually know exactly how many copies every teacher is making. Secretary, we've significantly reduced the number of cop uh color copies we're using in the district. It's increased the black and white a little bit, but it has made everybody much more um cognizant of how many copies they're making. Uh we were also able to reduce um our copier contract a couple years back be because we said we're going to move to this paper cut technology which is what tracks all of these copies. So
337we have been doing things like that and it has reduced um our overall carbon footprint but also our budgeted expenses. It's basically holding things in check rather than letting those copying costs go out of control. >> I'm all for the black and white. Yeah, >> I would also add we um all have centralized printing. So they're all done through the copy machine. So very very few ink or toner cartridges, inkjets like we don't allow them in classrooms anymore. So everybody centralized prints to the copy machines which are much more costefficient than buying toner cartridges and replacing individual classrooms. In fact, there's an edict that says once your once your toner dies there, the the budget will not be buying toner cartridges. They're just way too expensive. >> That was when I was on PTA. They've
338been saying that every year. It's still it's still there. >> Well, you know, if PTAs are buying them, which is actually the the workaround, that's that's different. The PTAs can purchase those to, but we are not purchasing them out of our our budget. Um, in talking about that, um, we asked about audit of your licenses and subscriptions and things and you've done a full audit to see if there's any that aren't being used that that are just kind of lingering around. We know that, uh, we asked the same thing on the town side as well. So every year I every vendor we have are for our software subscriptions I get a usage report. It's usually broken down by school by how many teachers, how many students. Um Dr. Iwanicki will tell you I actually calculate
339what every usage costs us. So if we we had it we don't have it anymore but years ago had a video software and it was c every time somebody watched a video it was costing us $12. I was like well that's not cost-effective. So we're constantly looking at like usage data to sort of figure out which applications are being used. We do a lot of our purchasing for edte software through state contracts through a relationship that we have with CLCC um which gets the best. It sort of pulls our region um for educational technology software licensing. Um so we're constantly sort of looking at that. I will also call a vendor if it's a software that some teachers are using but we're not using a lot of I will call the vendor and say you
340know we really need to renegotiate this because we're just our usage isn't high enough and we've gotten some we've cut in half um so that the teachers who are using it can continue to use it but we're not paying for a district-wide license when I really only have one school that's really using that particular software. So we have a cycle we go through every year um based on usage data and cost to run that software. Okay. Um Allison, the Munis software, what does what does the lensure look like for the Munis software? Because the town also has a mun system, right? I understand that the account numbers are. We talked about what it might take and you'd probably need a consultant to combine the two so that you would have one lensure fee. So, that's
341something um we had thought about as an area that we could combine in efficiency. you have the ability to look into our immun system for your capital project so you can see things in real time. Um, and there's ways to segregate so that there's no crossover in accounts. You can't slide things. But what does that look like uh lensure fees and time like when you um apply to Munis? >> So we use the MUNS for um all our financials, payroll um we're looking at the time and attendance module. We're also looking at the general billing and and accounts receivable module for for Munis as well. Um, and I think Joe can speak to to the HR portion of it. Um, but we would definitely be open to going in on a joint contract with the
342town. Um, if that's something that would be advantageous for both entities, >> we know that would be a huge undertaking and not something that you can do in a day, right? >> Of course. Yeah. You're probably talking like a two-year project between, you know, identifying a whole different chart of accounts and setting everything up. >> Um, Maria, we already utilize those time and attendance modules and things in Munas, correct? >> No, >> I don't think so. >> What is our time clock? >> Not through not through Mun. We use UKG, which I believe the uh the board of ed started with that project too. It was called uh It moved to Kronos which is >> Nova time. Correct. So we both went with Nova Time. I'm not sure how much they it was implemented on
343the board of ed and then no uh UKG which is Kronos basically Nova Time move over to UKG and so that's what we have right now. We do not have Mun's um time and attendance. We looked at it when we went to Nova time and it was uh more beneficial to go with Nova Time at the time. So >> is that something that would be beneficial for us to look at combination of those? Um >> that's a really complex we could but it's not a you know like changing any software. It's it takes time. >> That's fine. We talked about in our meeting uh last week what it would look like and what we might need to do to um to look at that. So I think I'd like to see us move forward with
344some sort of discussion about what what the potential long-term savings are, what our licenses lensures are for that. >> Yeah, I mean that makes sense to I think you have to look to see if it would save any money. Is the is the effort worth worth the savings if there's any savings at all. Um, for example, with the Nova Time, the uh company wanted us to quickly buy their new swipe cards and uh instead of doing that, we actually moved most of our staff on to using the app. And if they weren't comfortable using the app, they're using the using Chromebook. So rather than spend $80,000 changing out the the the bars to swipe in, we bought a few more years to make a decision. And we are looking to see if Munis using multiple
345models of the modules of the same um software will make things more efficient for us and potentially save us money as well. So we really do want to look at that munis time and attendance. Uh and if we look at the HR pieces, there could be a lot a lot less clunky parts trying to get frontline to work with Munis to work with our time and attendance. you we're we're looking to see if that would make some sense. So, um we've made some I think good decisions on that part to avoid costs and give ourselves some time. >> Yeah, I think that's definitely an area we could look at to see if there's some efficiency between the town and the border. >> Yeah, happy to do be a part of that. >> Go ahead, Vin.
346>> What do you pay now for Munice, your licensing and support? >> All of it. >> Um I think my Oh, sorry. My piece the the finance piece I think is 115,000 >> 115 a year >> I believe so >> that's it okay >> for the financial piece >> what other >> there's the HR piece there's um >> but you don't have those yet right >> well we have a piece of the HR right Joe >> yeah the nova time I believe it's 55 55,000 >> so we're talking maybe 170,000 here okay thank Anything else on munice technology over there? >> Dean, I have a question. This is like a logic problem. >> Sure. >> We just wanted to kind of walk through in following the presentation. We're talking about outplaced students. Uh back on
347101 on page uh 620 of the budget, you identified 42 outplaced students. >> Mhm. >> And you said the number could grow. >> Yep. >> Your presentation day two on 1826, >> I think it was page 18, the number of sped out placements was 37. >> You said that you were still projecting 37 and your budget number was 5.8. 8 million. >> Mhm. >> Uh for 2526 it's 5,568,9 and change. Is that right? Um in the March presentation you were still at 37. >> Mhm. So the on the financials on the 21st on the December on uh December 21st financials the out the account number 1396110-55600 the tuition for sped budgeted at 5,568,000 is currently over budget by like 600 and some odd thousand but the number of students is less. Mhm. >> Can can
348you just walk us through where that where that change was? Is that all in transportation? Is it all >> No, the transportation is own um budget on the transportation side. >> So there's an out of district. Um >> so a lot of times it's not necessarily so the numbers the numbers entail like just how many students, but the actual programming varies significantly. So, we have some students that are placed at a district that, you know, they might cost, you know, $100,000. We have some that could be I know this is a crazy number, a half a million dollars a year. >> Yep. >> So, what we're finding is that the students that were outplacing, while that number is going down, right, which is a which is, you know, it's good, you know, it's a it's
349it's a good thing um financially. Uh but the students that are outplaced cost more. Um, and you know, I kind of went over that in the budget talking about the gallard services. You know, we get, you know, every hour for related services is $150 $150 an hour. Um, so that's really was driving the um the expenses up. So the the numbers are pretty accurate. They're all they're all projections, so it is a little tricky to say exactly where you'd fall at any given moment considering they're they're programmatic. You can never really identify exactly how many students will be outplaced. Um but yeah, so at the time there was 37 at the beginning of the year there was in the low 40s. So that was accurate at the time. So that just shows how quickly it
350can move. Um but when you look at so what we do in order to budget projected to project out we actually look at this you know we kind of try to see who's outplaced you know we try to see ascertain if there's any movement that we can you know uh project with certainty certain amount of certainty right so and then that's how we come up with the number for the next you know fiscal year but realistically we don't necessarily know where that number is going to be um in May we really try to iron it out when the when they balance the board of budgets to make sure we're still on target, make sure our ECR also is looking good based on the payments for that as well. Um because that is a a negative
351expenditure on the budget. >> I'm just going to add that when we look at those 37 students, they actually have an Excel spreadsheet for every one of those children. So they actually know who the child is, exactly what we're paying for the education program, any ancillaries that they might be uh spending money on transportation because in order to get that excess cost money as much as many dollars back, we have to really be accounting for that. So when he's um calculating his number, he's basing it off of exactly what we're paying for this year. Now services can change during a year. So we may find that a child needed X but now they need X plus Y uh as the year moved on. So some prices can adjust. And then when he calculates the next
352year he's multiplying at times usually a certain percentage. We typically do between 3 to 5% but we found going into 25 26 we actually got really beat up and it was more like 8 to 11%. Um so these are going off of actual students costs. So it's not in terms of predictions, we're going off of actual children. >> So, so my question is um I know that one of the things that Sugata Gadkar Wilcox was working on and bringing in uh more more money to offset that you had said at one point that the costs were escalating at just an outrageous rate, but that that had stabilized. >> So does that have any effect on that number going into next year? If the costs are stable, >> it could have some effect. I think that
353what one thing that we don't always have when we're we start the budgeting process in October is you don't have the rates. So, you know, they don't have to send, you know, there's really no rhyme or reason to when they actually set rates a lot of these out of district placements. We do get some and you know, so what we've seen this year so far is that they're really between three and 5%. So, it's way more it's way more in line with historically what it's been as opposed to 11%. um which really hit hard because it was a place where we had many students. So when you have an 11% $100,000, you could see how that can kind of add up quickly. So um as the rates come in, what we do is as we
354get closer to balancing the board of ed budget, we actually start to fill in the actual rates. So we'll have a better idea of where we'll land for the next year. And then we also have to look at what happens programmatically with students throughout the course of the you know course of the year because you know students do return. they do they they are outplaced, you know, that that's that could very much happen over the next few months as well. >> So, >> okay. >> Yes, it's it's can be quite nebulous. It's it's hard to really >> Yeah, >> the number is such a high number and you want it and it's such a low number of students, you want to try to like pin it down, but it's it's very hard to like have
355a a super, you know, solid number. We we feel very confident though with the 37 students knowing where we expect the tuitions to be that the number that we've projected in in the the budgets actually it's going to be around there it wouldn't be substantially different pro most likely. >> Okay. Allison did you want to say something? >> I just want to point out that in the February report our budget for outplacement was 5.5 million and we're projecting at almost threequarters of a million over budget. >> Yeah I had that 684. >> Right. So my point in in in focusing on that is the 5.5 million feels like a tremendously large budget aotment and even that is not enough to sustain this year not including next year's increases. >> Correct. But you would assume that
356since the number of students went down and your costs went up that you're going to meet the threshold for excess cost reimbursement sooner because it's four times the the number of peral expenditures. And that is part of our excess cost reimbursement calculation of which is on the next line. You'll see it's higher than what it was the previous year. >> Right. Right. And that's calculated per child. So you've got the the one child with all the costs. We look at the four and a half times we get a certain reimbursement for that child. Then you look at child number two. So that's why we have to keep excellent records when we submit them to the state. We get as much reimbursement as possible. >> Okay. and the potential for increasing like the number of students
357utilizing elite our elite program or the >> new chapter uh or reach >> in that >> how do we feel that those numbers will reflect for next year >> as far as like how many the enrollment for reach and elite >> right so if if the enrollment right so if we if we have students that come let's say from Monroe do do we does that tuition cover just the cost of that student or does it cover that cost plus some. >> Yeah. So, so those are, if you don't um let me know if I misspe, but th those are actually expected to be um I say reverse expenditures. Uh they're supposed to be, you know, credits toward the the added district tuition line item. They aren't actualized just yet because we haven't necessarily um invoiced,
358let's say, Monroe for that. So, you know, that'll that'll be toward, you know, when we invoice them, those will those will show up as a credit toward that. >> And they cover the cost plus, right? >> Yeah, they do. They do cover cover the cost of the stu um well, I mean, we we set tuition kind of based on it's kind of a complex formula, but it's typically around 40. It's about $40,000 a student for the tuition for uh for Monroe. >> Um so, that would so let's just say we have five students, we would we would have about 200 grand if I'm doing that right. Um >> right. And that is calculated in our like backend supporting documentation in all of these calculations. So we know let's say if we're estimating five Monroe students
359this year, we think confidently we can expect another five. We'll deduct that 40,000 per student um from our calculation. So that as that um money is already kind of accounted for in here and offset by the general fund. >> Y and when you talk about invoicing other districts, when do those invoices like hit your register? Is it that at the end of the fiscal year? Is it do you do that? So there's no like midyear. >> No, that isn't historically how we've done it. We've done that kind of the the one invoice. Although we have conversations, you know, about the invoice. >> Again, it doesn't matter when you invoice them because they they're still going to owe you the allotment, right? They're still going to owe you the 40,000 if the child goes for the
360entire year. So whether they pay it at the first half of the year or the second half of the year, we're still booking the 40,000. >> Okay. Mary, did I get all that from our conversation before? Did I miss anything? >> That's it. >> All right. Um we had asked about uh regional linking with Monroe Shelton or other districts as far as um transportation for uh Fairchild Wheeler and 66. I'm just kind of scanning through what you put here. >> Um unless you want to comment on it while we're taking a little read here. And we worked with Miss Perkins on this too because she's she's been a part of this process for many many years. So she she provided responses for these in part but you can see a lot has been done already
361to try to make this as efficient as possible. >> Okay. >> Magnet. But you do ask about utilizing magnet hubs to further decrease for our magnet school pickups. And Miss Perkins said that's that's been tried and there was tremendous push back from parents. Um, and you do sometimes run into people going to the state to complain about certain certain rules as well and that can become complicated. Um, in these particular ones, we actually did this in a different district and I probably had to sit for like 300 comments. Um and ultimately they were going to the state complaining that now they had to go to a regional location to pick up a uh and the state is generally not going to side on the on the dis with the district on these. So I think
362that's something to be considerate of. Well, I don't think the the juice is worth the squeeze on that one. >> Just looking for whatever we can >> Oh yeah, >> whatever we can find. >> Been there, done that, felt the uh felt the bruises from that one in a different district. Um and then um Mary, do you want to look at the um 205 account information that they handed and run through that a little bit? >> I Yeah, I said I didn't I didn't look at that part yet. That's okay. You had said Yeah. My my question is really again this was back to the um to the last meeting and just trying to find little pockets here and there to keep teachers. Um for athletics, uh you already transferred the 300,000 out that's going
363to offset and so there's a balance of 122685. Um is that before the um the spring sports uh uh paytoplay has been included? >> I think that they've already collected for spring sports. I don't know. >> No, I would say that we haven't. >> No, I would say we haven't. >> So So that number because I know 400 I believe you said was going to be used in this budget. uh in the upcoming budget. So, with already the 122, I know we don't know gate fees um obviously at this point, but with spring sports coming in, that was kind of my question. How much more we have in there >> to, you know, put towards that uh offset? >> Yeah, we're taking 400,000 for next year. This year, we took 265 from just athletics. >>
364So, we're we're increasing it tremendously just for athletics. And then we're also adding in some additional funds during for the intergovernmental. >> Yes. I was just suggesting since athletics will have more of a budget in and that budget before was used for the trainers and >> well we're anticipating collecting 300,000. We don't know that we're going to collect that. >> I you already transferred the 360. >> That was from that was from last year's money. >> Oh. Oh. So you're saying this >> so the 400,000 is for fiscal 2627. >> Okay. So, you're not anticipating Okay, that's fine. I thought that's why you made that transfer. Um, the building use I know at your last meeting you were talking about and I think it was very hard to hear 94,000 that >> uh I believe
365we have 99,000 and it will be used to offset some general fund expenditures related to facilities. >> Yeah, because they were saying they were saying you had some that was sitting unused. The a science that's the one I was asking to it's about 200. Can that how can how are those funds supposed to be used? I've never really heard. Yeah. So the aggra science program is a is a state regulated program. Um actually the town receives the money directly. Um in fiscal 25 the town received $ 1.49 million for the aggra science program and it's funded through two specific things. The first is tuition from the sending town. So say we have students from Bridgeport or Monroe that want to attend our school. They send the tuition rate directly to the town and the town
366keeps that money. Then there's an additional grant called the ASTI grant. It's the um agriculture science and technology education grant. That grant also is a per pupil tuitionbased grant and that money also goes directly to the town um to support the VOAG the VOAG center. Um however any additional funds over and above the previous year those funds are that that extra 200,000 that you saw those funds can only be used to supplement additional things that are not part of the operational budget >> such as I mean is there anything that >> anything that is not right so if it's not part of your traditional ed uh operational budget such as electricity costs or teachers or field trips or supplies supplies. So, anything above and beyond? It has to be something that is not already part
367of their traditional annual or yearly curriculum. >> Can it be used for uh building projects or like things like that? >> Repairs. >> Um I would have to look in to see if it could be used for repairs because that would really fall under capital. Okay. usually would be used for like big items for the agricultural program. So they might have um something to do with like a big um big machine to take care of the the field out there for the animals. So they might be purchasing a $100,000 item for something like that. I we I had a Southernington boag and we did a number of items and there was always some big purchases that they're looking to try to make for the program for the for the children. So that's typically what it's
368used for is um larger items that you wouldn't get in your operational budget but continue to move forward the the uh the program itself. >> Changes of environment for the animals, anything like that. >> It could it could be a whole host of things. Yeah. And I don't even know. Um I'm guessing the operating budget covers the cost for animal purchases that we make >> should be purchases and feed and >> yeah we have so in the high school budget within the aggra science account lines we pay for their teachers the supplies the purchase services the vet fees >> right but what what if I want to buy another llama >> they would have to budget for it I think >> right >> those are alpacas that would be a purpose >> the alpacas were
369donated to All right. So, now we've got the three alpacas, right? >> So, I happen to know how expensive alpacas are. Just a little bit of a quick light story. My husband is in insurance and he had a client whose dog got loose and scared the neighbor's alpaca and unfortunately the alpaca had a heart attack and passed away. Oh no. >> And the Yes. Because the dog chased the alpaca, they were responsible for the cost of the alpaca. They are very expensive. >> You called that a light. You said, "I'm going to give a light-hearted story." Just I just want to point that out for the record. I I don't know. Death of an alpaca. >> Like if you say to your husband who's in insurance, "How was your day at work?" And he comes
370home and says, "It's a bad day. Alpacas are expensive." You don't expect that. >> That's right. >> I work in healthcare. We have lots of great stories. But >> but if if the if the if the board of finance does want to look at the fact that you do receive $1.5 million of tuition from other places, that is tuition that you probably would argue you already give back to us, but that is 1.5 million in revenue that's brought in by our Axi program. >> Yeah. >> Should we go back to the alpacas then? I mean, >> I don't know how you want to weigh that. >> The the regional programs are amazing. So, >> yep, they are happy to um >> to have those. And then rebates again since you're here. Um >> before you
371go to rebates, Jean, I'm waving at you. I see you online and I appreciate your patience. We move some stuff around. I know you're on your way back from Norwalk, so hang tight. Okay. >> All right. >> Is um any opportunities to use rebates or again is that for can only be used in a specific way? >> No. So our rebates are is is an interestbearing account. So we're going to be utilizing some of those funds to offset general fund expenditures. >> Okay. and um continuing ed I know runs at a deficit just because of the type programming, but are there any opportunities to um to partner with the Rex department to offer something that still falls under that category that might bring revenue in so it's not an annual loss. >> I'm working with
372Miss Maher who's done a phenomenal job with continuing ed. Actually, our summer enrichment program does really well and then our continuing ed just >> Yeah. doesn't bring in. We keep um Christine keeps working with as many different people as she can and she keeps bring she keeps finding new programs that she is trying to see if if there's an appetite by the community to take advantage of. Um so we're happy to keep looking for all kinds of things. We're actually looking to see if we can use our next chapter bookstore for some continuing ed programs as well. So we can use that space because maybe it'd be a space that others might want to use for continuing ed. So we are trying to be creative as possible to try to bring more revenue in. But
373it's definitely lopsided where summer enrichment brings in far more than um the continuing >> ed. >> And some things are just going to be a loss. But I figure if there's an opportunity >> Yeah. >> Um >> the continuing ed we see as the question for me is I could just say we're not going to do continuing ed anymore. Like I could just cut it and not take the loss. Um, but I feel like for the community itself, there might be some people who are frustrated by that. So, I I don't have to offer a continuing ed program. I must offer a program for adult education, which we pay Stratford to actually do that for us. And we have looked to see if we could bring it in inhouse and be cheaper, and we we
374can't. the number of requirements to run an adult ed program is would mean us hiring more staff and we would not be able to um save any money there. But a continuing ed program really is not something I must do. Uh there's no state statute that I'm aware of that requires it. So we could end up just saying we're done with it and and not do it anymore. But I think there would be frustrated um adults in town if we did that. >> So we don't want to do that. And I like that you're using next chapter books. That was I think when you can I think that's a great thing. I still would like to get to the other side. I haven't done that yet to see the other section. Oh yeah. >> Um
375and then a switch off of 205 for the um and I don't know if you have this or not. I had asked at the last meeting reserve for negotiation. Um it was 474 if I can read my writing. 919 and I know you just put out we're at 423183. Do you know what else is going to be coming out of that account before year end? >> So, we don't use it like that. Um the you'll notice that in all of the salary accounts, >> the contingency >> um no, but in the salary accounts like um central office salary uh secretarial salary, you'll see a negative that each um person's salary is off by a little bit and that's where that money lies. So that money isn't getting paid from that reserve for negotiations account. That's
376just the reserve money that covers everyone else's increase. Does that make sense? >> Yes. Cuz I saw all those negatives. Um and I didn't realize that's what that was. I was going, why is it justund.1%. Yeah. Um but do you do you know at this point what is going to be drawn from that? Is the total amount going to be used? Is there going to be any left? because I know it was the the money's put in because you're not you know it's an unknown of when and how much they're going to negotiate. >> Correct. So I believe that uh the para educator um settlement was completed in November and that one was just paid out. Uh I believe the custodial maintenance and security contract is going to the board of ed soon hopefully for
377approval and then that will be paid out uh before year end. So, we'll we won't be able to I really won't be able to give you an assessment until >> kind of the books closing. You don't know. Okay. Yeah. Until we >> see. I didn't know where they were in settlement if you had any idea. >> A little bit late, unfortunately. >> Okay. Always. It's It always works well with budget season. >> Okay. I guess that's pretty much all I have. >> I have a question on custodial services. One of the areas that you'd identified as a potential reduction was to close your buildings and not have custodial services in the afternoon. Um, at any time that you're in the buildings in the evening though, you have custodial services because we have custodians there at
378night doing the cleaning. Why is that an extra? What how do you save money? Because you have custodians in the building. So, how do you save money by not what what is it that you don't have? Do you want to speak to that, Mr. Dion? >> So, you're referring to one of the potential cuts. >> Yeah, the C we were talking about closing the buildings at 4:00 and potentially reducing some custodians. >> How does that reduce custodians? Because you have custodians in the building anyway, right? >> Well, we wouldn't though. There would be so we would have to um likely if we were going to reduce custodians, we would close the buildings and we'd have to since there would be no evening activities, the building wouldn't continue to be getting dirtier as the as the
379night went on. We'd have to come up with a structure where the custodians were um going to the different buildings to take care of the trash and the bathrooms and and things like that. So, we probably wouldn't be able to squeeze out a a tremendous number of custodians, but we'd be able to reduce it. So, the the custodians wouldn't be there till 11:00 in the capacity they are now, >> but you still have to clean the buildings. >> Yep, you do. >> Right. So, I'm not I'm still not kind of following that. So, how would you change that structure? So there are times though when they're cleaning the building and when you have events there where they have to stay an hour or so or there's more supplies being used for some of these events.
380So there would be it's not a major amount of savings but there is a savings there. You could also adjust times so that the cleaning of the building could start at different times of the day or as soon as the students are gone. um people wouldn't be there as late and with the without the events going on. Again, we talked about energy. You can go into night mode quicker and sooner. So, there is savings, but um is it going to be an enormous amount of savings? No, but it's potential. >> Okay, any other questions? >> Go ahead, Mary. >> And this is probably Nikki's, but she just got back. We had a discussion um today with the town uh about regarding grant writing and the the ability to um share a grant writer with the
381town and the board of ed and uh how things would work out. I know we typically have that what we you have that one page of mostly um special ed grants to title one. Uh would that be an opportunity that you think would work that that that you know of? I'm sure a lot of you just kind of look into little things here and there, potentials for any kind of grant, but you don't have the time to uh, you know, really jump into it and do the work yourself. Is that an opportunity that you think would work on your end and that you are aware from an education side of it that there probably are, you know, pockets of money that could benefit or offer new programming? >> Yes, that would be a benefit. There
382are likely there are likely opportunities that are out there that someone has to callull through in order to to pull them out. With all grants though, we always have to be careful about um those strings that that are attached to those grants because sometimes they'll have a requirement that they get you started and then you must continue to pay for it for a certain number of years. So, you always must pay attention to those those strings attached. But I think we could benefit from having someone to be looking for grants. Uh Miss Tempelli and I have talked about this uh time and you know throughout the the last couple of years we've actually had this conversation. Um it comes down to well how would we pay? Are they going to get a portion of the
383grant or are they going to get a flat fee? Are they going to work like how would this work in terms of how they're going to get pay? Um would we try it as a pilot? see if it actually brings in the value of the salary that they might be bringing in in order to look for that. Um, but we'd be we'd be happy to have conversations with the town on on a on a joint grant writer. >> Yeah. And I wasn't even suggesting you pay half. That wasn't discussed, but that's a good point. No. Um, no, but I mean, if there's if there's benefits and cost savings down the road, I mean, it's really it's, you know, >> same pants. >> That's right. >> Uh, and then I guess one other thing I'd forgotten
384to ask. Um, AI I know can be useful or bring you down a rabbit hole or be inaccurate. You never know. But, uh, I know there's a few towns that are piloting curriculum writing with AI, but not taking away the personal aspect of it. So, maybe doing a bit of the grunt work up front or um, you know, ways to begin developing, but the teachers still have or the educators still have their hand in it and um, to be able to personalize it and go over it. But it does reduce some of the hours that it you know that you can and I don't know if if anybody's looked into that or not but again nobody's going to replace a real person but is there an opportunity to take some of those hours that we
385put on the teachers for the extra time? >> I can definitely let Mrs. Heftley who's already been exploring tools and resources expand. But I will say that there are certain factors in terms of how computers work and how AI works that wouldn't be able to just write things without a human involved. Um but I'll let Christina explain a little bit more. >> So one of the things my office has been exploring with I'll talk about um there is this product that's owned by Google. It's actually called uh and they have Gemini and they have notebook LM. And the nice thing about these products is you can create what you call your own gem. Okay? And in a gem, you actually load your data in. So I'm working with my team right now to build a
386uh AI tool for the curriculum writing teams to use to help support them. So one of the things that you can do is chat GPT. You go out there and you get so much garbage, right? But I can build a gem and I can load our curriculum template. I can load our equity rubric. I can load all of the standards for English through the state of Connecticut. I can load the ISTY standards. And then it basically creates a private AI that only uses the sources you give it to help write things. So I'm working with the library media specialist right now. They just aggregated a whole bunch of new lessons, a whole another new scope and sequence for K through eight. And what we're actually doing is using this gem bot to help us create
387it into the Trumbull template, but it's our original work that we're using to feed it. So, it is helping them save time and kind of organizing and formatting, but they've already done the thinking and then the gem that we actually use is only using our source content. It's not using all of the garbage that's out there. It's using the vetted stuff that the teachers have already created. So it can help them save time, but it's not doing the work that we really need their professional expertise for. So we are right now piloting that. My hope is that we have the gem working for the curriculum teams to use this summer um for the teams throughout Trumbull that are using it. So using it, but in sort of a very customized way with, you know, the
388knowledge that we have. So that's where we are with that right now. So I'll let you know how it goes. We also have some teachers that have been using it as a resource to look at things or reflect on certain pieces like how might you incorporate the vision of the graduate for this piece of a unit. So they're not using it to write all the curriculum but perhaps a particular piece for reflection. Um but they've also noted that there are areas where AI can make mistakes. So to be overreiant on the tool is a danger as well that we're well aware of. So I just want to make sure that people understand and when you start to use it sometimes it can produce such a great product that you think it's infallible and we are
389well aware of even simple math at times it can make a mistake. So we really need to make sure that the human factor is still involved. I had I was actually looking up something separate but for the veteran center and I'd put in one of the members and I was trying to find grant opportunities and I'd mentioned this person on the committee and I said well as you know they're well respected and started putting all these things in just because of my comment and I was like you know I don't know if that's true or not so but no I understand I just didn't know if there was possibilities to use it without taking away that personal need and oversight. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Any other followup? Go ahead, Nikki. >> And I
390did dining services come up at at all. I don't know. Well, well, this is my strength, actually. Um, just curious. It sounds like you're very happy with the in-house program right now. Looks like makes some money. Um, when was the last time though that Trumbull looked at any of the big three or going out to bid for a larger food service company to see if there were any benefits in doing that? >> Do you know when? >> It was a while ago, but they did look at it. >> Yeah, we did look at that. It was years ago. I can't even remember, but they really didn't want to do it. And I think Betty Sinko was the person in charge at the time. And they looked at Sedexco. I think that was the name of
391it. Is that it? There was one of those. And there's another name. >> Chartwells. That was the other one. And they were a little too expensive for us. And then we looked at um all the schools. We went to the schools with Mrs. Cinco. We went to Greenwich. We went to Derenne. We went to Weston. We went to Fairfield. And when we went to Fairfield, they had their own program and they were cooking themselves and they had this lunch that I thought was great. They had soup and then they had a cookie and it was a big cookie. This is before all the healthy stuff came out. Okay. So, it was actually something the kids liked, you know, and not the roast beef that when you looked at it was a little green and they
392used to complain to us all the time. So, we took them out there, we looked and uh we said, "This looks like a viable program." And that's when we started to do in um what do we call it now family consumer science we have the chef and he came out and he started making different soups and different things and that's when we expanded the the baking program. So we have baking one and two now. So it went it went through all the cycles but it didn't work for us and they wanted us to get in um the Subway and u McDonald's. We said, "No, we didn't want we didn't want that." And then it became the healthy food. And then all of a sudden the pizza was like cauliflower pizza, the the crust. And the
393kids were going, "No, this is disgusting." So we stopped that. And I'll tell you right now, um, this whole thing about Chris Molyu, he is excellent. He came from Quinnipic University and he came from Sedexo. I can never say that word. I don't know what it is, but that company. And he has done so many different things for the kids. They're really enjoying what he's trying out and he's making sure that it fulfills the state's requirements for healthy food. So, it's getting better. The kids at the high school are loving what they're getting. I know the new thing is the slushie, >> but he's making sure that it's all fruit. >> Making sure that all fruit is in there, no sugar, just with the the actual fruit sugar that's there. So, it's working out well.
394We like him. We doing We think he's doing a great job. And I'll just I'll just add if we were if we were losing money or not making the kind of profit that we're making, then that would be something we'd look at, but we are doing phenomenally well there and being able to put the money back into the program. So, it doesn't we wouldn't want another we wouldn't want a third party reaching in their hand to take to take right because it would be it would be potentially costly. And we we sit down monthly, myself, Miss Pierce, Mr. Dion, and Mr. from Milano to go over the financials where how are we doing where are our costs do we have too much labor not enough labor uh how's our insurance costs we look at our
395margins on our food make sure that we're still and and and Chris has really helped train the food service managers to look for those margins and make sure they're cooking the menus the way they're supposed to be cooked so there's a lot of um we have a lot of control over this and it's going very well so I I don't think this is an area we should be looking outside for support at this point >> understood Good. Good to hear. Um my last little foodie question. Um social services was here today. J u Michelle Jacobs was here today. She did mention um the food sharing program at Daniel's Farm came up. >> I think it's Jane Ryan >> or was it Jane? >> Jane Ryan or Daniel? >> I think Daniel's farm. >> Was it
396Daniel's farm? >> Yeah. They're piloting something with food serve. Yep. >> Yeah. And she said it's been very successful and um they >> that was something else. >> Yeah. So, um I'm just wondering is there opportunity at any of the other schools to uh >> Yes. >> Community partner? >> Yes. We wanted to take this slowly because part of it is part of this if I'm thinking back to this, you really need the support of the PTAs in order to do this because you don't want to have to hire additional staff to make the food sharing possible because there's a lot there's actually can't recall all of the details, but there's a number of rules around the food sharing that you have to keep certain things at the right temperature, you know. So, um, we
397we knew Daniel's Farm was really pushing for this, so I told Mr. Malano to go ahead and and work with Daniel's Farm, see how this goes and then we could expand from there. >> Okay. Sounds like it's been a success. So, it'd be nice to see another school come on if we can >> Yeah. >> Look at that. >> Well, there's composting, too. Like there's there's all kinds of things the state's pushing on us, too. Farm, you know, farm to table. We got uh a whole new thing going on with uh u the Bridgeport and hydroponic lettuce that we just started this week. So we're we're really trying and that's based on a there's a state grant for that. So they're actually taking this food which would be actually way too expensive for us to
398purchase for their program but because of the grant we're able to afford and and keep our prices in line. So we're uh very open to those other opportunities. >> Any other questions? >> Go ahead Mary sustainable Mary. One last one. Um, from the sustainable group, I know they've looked at um perhaps uh piloting a reusable versus uh throwing everything out every day. Um it they other districts have done it and they do have cost savings. They have grants to buy. I know we took the dishwashers out. Um so I don't know if Hillrest does have a dishwasher. I'd asked on the building committee, is that planned in there for I mean there's so high efficiency now and when you add labor in and everything like that, it just seems districts are finding savings versus continuously
399purchasing. And also even the things that say they're compostable, they really aren't. So >> I do not believe that there's a dishwasher in there. I remember there was a discussion when we were discussing the kitchen and servery. Um but yes, recently there have been discussions. Uh we'd have to discuss with Chris, probably bring uh Chris back to explain his reasoning, but he did have a sound reasoning versus the disposable, which is compostable. It is not just going into the trash. It is is being recycled versus washing every day with the staff and the water use. And there was a justification on why currently it still works with the recyclables. >> If you look at Middletown, they're they're like a great model. So they've got a lot of information if you just if you if you
400happen to want to check into it just in your free time. >> I actually come from Middletown and yeah it's great but um we have a lot of backups and drainage and our waste extractors. So there are other issues and other maintenance costs and compounding uh when you have that kind of a system >> sustainable Mary will go away. I do have one quick question because I feel like you're about to wrap this up, but I don't I've been trying to pay attention to the ECS conversation at the state and I don't know where they are landing on that, but it it looks like there's there's suggestions of 100 to 150 million. And I don't know what the number they're going to fall on, but I'm not sure how close you guys are paying attention
401to that ECS and if we know what impact it would have and if there if money is given will be given to the to the board of education dollar for dollar. >> So I believe that they're looking at um supplementing where he skipped the year for um funding for ECS uh changes. There was a year gap. I think this is looking to do an immediate fix. Um, it's $150 million in 166 districts in the the state. So, what does that look like per district? I I don't think they have defined that yet. I don't know when they're looking to finalize that. I don't know. You haven't heard anything from Sugata or >> heard anything directly about that yet. Have you heard something? >> I You want to just come up to the mic, Julia? >>
402Is there a way? There's a button on the >> on the bottom >> on the base of the microphone. The base of the microphone. >> No, I did I did talk to Sugato recently and she said she was looking at preliminary I'm sorry, Senator Gadcar Wilcox and she said that the preliminary numbers were not good for Trumbull that it was looking as if other districts would be of course >> getting increases and right now it was not looking good for us. >> So informal conversation But we are following it. >> We are following trying to >> I do have a meeting with um both the senator and and Sarah. >> Okay. Did Did you guys all hear that? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Um I don't think you guys have any more questions for today.
403We're good. Dave, >> so I just want to thank you for coming out on short notice number one um and providing us a tremendous amount of detail here uh which which is greatly appreciated and I think um you are get your microphone. >> There you go. Um we are um really looking to partner with the board of education, you know, work towards solutions here. I think that's what we're we're really coming down to here. Um to meet your needs, you know, without impacting students. Um and so we've talked about a number of different things here tonight. Just kind of summarize things here. You know, tiered busing, we talked a little bit about the early retirement, um electric rates, insurance premiums, things of that nature. And I look forward to um you know, continuing um these
404conversations as we go through. Um I just wanted to make that comment. So, thanks again for coming out on short notice. I'm not touching anything. Am I okay, Arie? Okay, I didn't touch anything before. Um, let's take uh just a two-minute recess while we reset and then we'll finish up with um elections because Gene Rabino has been waiting very patiently for us. Okay. All right. So, we're uh back. Board of Ed has uh cleared out. It's a little bit quieter now. We're going to um finish up today. >> 29. >> On page 29 with elections, Jean Rabinau is here and she's been waiting patiently for us. So, hi Jean. >> Jean, you want to walk us through your budget and any changes, things that we need to know? >> Um, I'd be happy to walk
405through the budget. Um, some of the stuff obviously we don't know. We have to budget for the primaries that will be coming up in the next fiscal year, the general election in November. Um, and also we have to budget for recount and audit. Uh we don't know that we're going to have any recounts. We don't know that we're going to be randomly picked for audit. Um we haven't been picked for audit for the last couple of years. I'm thinking we're overdue. I'm hoping I'm wrong. All right. The main change um in the budget is the cost of maintenance. Salaries are going up by the standard. It's a very small amount that Trumbled does, but the new maintenance contract um last year tabulator maintenance was about four and a half thousand. This year it's about 18,700
406and change. That's because of the new machines and because there's no way out of it that contract was signed by the state. It was not signed by us and we are stuck with it. The other thing that we have asked for is an increase in pole worker stipens. And the reason for that is that we are getting to the point where we are paying so little compared to other towns in the state basically that pole workers that we had depended on uh working for us in Trumbull are now being hired away by surrounding communities such as Stratford which pay more for the same job. Okay. Dave, >> um maybe you just answered this. Um I'm not sure. Can you talk to the salaries part-time permanent change? There's a big vig in a >> in the
407number >> salaries part-time >> went from 21,000 to 94. We'll call it 95. Is that just reclassification? >> I can speak to that, >> Maria. Uh, as you can see, there's nothing in full-time because the um the the personnel in that office, they're actually part-time, not full-time. >> Okay, >> that's what I think in the past, the reason they were full-time is because they were eligible for medical benefits. >> And so that's why >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Um the staff does work essentially full-time um part of the year >> about two months before the election till about a week after the election every year. But they're part- timerrs 9 to1 essentially. Any other questions for elections? >> She said >> I know I felt terrible. >> Thanks Jean. Gan, are we
408good with our tabulators as far as like the number that we have and our locations? >> All right, the locations are not a problem. The number of tabulators uh again, this was state contract. What we did was we um asked for two tabulators per precinct plus the extra pairs for um early voting and um counting um same day voter registration. The absentee ballot um counting will be done on the medium speed tabulator that we have which is that monster that was in the library. Um I am fine with the number of tabulators. We should not need ever more than two per per precinct. Bearing in mind that we do have 10 precincts, not seven. We have seven polling places. We have 10 precincts. Uh, one of the things that we are stuck with was the
409tabulator stands where the state ordered one stand for each tabulator. Um, that's insane because we'd only use the second tabulator if the first one fails and has to be removed. But we've got them and they're sitting in the garage. >> Okay. Any other questions for Jean? All right. Thank you, Jean. So appreciate your patience today. >> No, thank you. Um I'm just sorry the budget had to go up. >> I believe it it's like that everywhere. So thank you. >> All right. Anybody have any anything else that they want looked at? Information that they want sent? Um I passed out the information from the police department. Did you want to look at that really quickly before we close for the day? >> I'm sorry. >> 273,000. >> I know, but I think some of it
410um was already addressed and then we have to just decide, you know, where you want to fall with that and what we want to do about cars for them. Um so, if there's any follow-up questions to that, let me know. Um the chief has reached out and is willing to answer any other questions. Okay, thank you guys. We made it through a lot of uh little departments today and some big items and then now I think I'm sorry. >> Oh, I forgot about debt service and revenue. >> Say Maria. >> Maria Maria was like sinking down. >> Oh, >> we were so close. Mary, >> let's >> Yeah. All right. Debt service. We're going to page 421. >> Everybody open your books again. >> 421. >> I think we were pretty efficient today though. >>
411421. >> All right. Give us the bad news, Maria. >> Okay. Okay. On the town side, there's um debt service of 5,850 of which 3,247 A13 is interest. And um the principal was initially 6,850 935, but because we sold some bonds and there was a premium, we're able to use the premium towards the debt service to pay off debt service. So we took a million dollars out of there. So it's 5,850 935 on the other side on the board of ed um bonding it's about 5,964 I'm sorry yes 5,96488 and then the town debt services at total between interest and principal 9,898748 so this year the debt is 15 million62 between the town and board of ed. The board of ed is in a different page. It's part of the board of education department. If
412you want to look at that, that's on page because I see Benny's like >> this. I I know. Sorry. >> At one point they segregated. So it's in a different you know it's in the main board of ed department. So if you look at page Oh, my page is upside down. Sorry, my book doesn't have it because I I moved it. Uh, >> 350. >> Yeah, 350. Thank you. My page is upside down. >> 350. So you will see um the board of ed interest is a million517 393 and the principal is um 4,247251 and there's a um short-term interest on the notes of 199,444. >> When will those short-term notes be >> they're due? We we um every year. So in September of next year they're due. So we pay off the we usually
413pay off the notes and issue bonds permanent borrow money because the five million is actually for the new school and because they hadn't started the school and it's we can't bond they would just do notes >> first. >> Okay. >> We issue notes. >> Do we have any potential I know you talked to Matt Sprinkles um >> I could never say his last name. Um, do we have any potential for bonds? >> Yes, we find you did ask the question. There's no potential right now. >> Okay. >> Because the, you know, the interest rate is much higher now than what we're paying >> and he's always monitoring that because obviously it's his business too. He >> it's advantageous for him to make that recommendation to the town because he, you know, he benefits. So, >>
414he's always looking. >> Any questions on debt service? Go ahead, Ben. How many bonds do we have outstanding right now? And I know we asked for this a couple years ago when we got a summary >> of what was around. >> I I could get it for you. I could give you the I don't have it in front of me right now. >> No, I don't need it right now. I'm just curious to see how many are out there and >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And I know that some of them are not fully spent if I remember right. >> Well, no, we don't borrow if it's not spent. >> Okay. >> And that's So there's a distinction here. the the bond authorizations are the authorizations to to go ahead and do the project. So, normally
415we do short-term borrowing first until the project is completed or partially completed and then we permanent borrow and that's when the bond starts, you know, we start paying interest and principal. >> Are you able to show us a breakdown bond authorization to actual bond? like if we said up to 500,000 for something it was 474 can is it will we see that in the report? >> There is a official statement and I can send to everyone and I'll tell you the page that uh this is the offering statement that goes out every September when we go out for bonding. Okay. >> And it lists every single >> bond authorization what's been spent and what's un approved and uh authorized and unissued. That's what you're looking for, >> right? because that would go against the credit
416reference and everything else your credit rating. Okay. Thank you. >> And that's one thing we want to look at too because if we're not going to use that authorization, we want to come back with bond council and to the board of finance and the town council to get rid of that authorization because it stays there forever. >> And if we're not going to use it, why keep that authorization going? >> Yeah, that would be good to clean that up this year. Okay, that leaves revenue. You got any good news? Um, >> uh, the million to you from from Bob. >> That's in the front of the binder. >> Yeah, >> I we you vote on the budget on the mill rate in June. So I we will go through in detail then but right now
417if you look on there's no page for that but it's um it looks like this with four columns. >> Yep. >> Uh one of six. >> One of six. It'll be just in front of the um table of contests. >> So you'll see all the different revenue categories, all the education grants, and then they're listed by pages in individual pages. And then the town permits on page five. And that's where you're showing um like for example EMS we're projecting that you it'll collect uh three million for this fiscal year and we're budgeting for three million2 for next year. Uh building department we're projecting 760 but I think he's going to make more than that for this year but um you know and uh budgeting a million two for next year. >> Nice to be over
418somewhere. Yeah. And then um there's interest interest income uh the treasur is not comfortable going more than 2 million five in interest income but you know I don't know I don't know where the interest are Dave. >> Yeah >> I would agree. And then you'll see the interf fund transfers. That's the sewer and golf. This is the the money we get from sewer and golf that to cover any of the administrative costs because they're enterprise funds and we cover their purchasing, finance, technology, etc. And then of course the bottom line is the taxes. So that's why in the front page you'll see that the mill rate is estimated at 37.09 09 which is a 3.92% increase. And of course that will change as we go through this process. >> Mary, >> I I know you're
419shocked. I have a question. Um I because I really I usually don't look at the sewer. >> You don't look at revenues either. >> Me I love revenue but I don't look at the the the sewer or golf. five. But so for the sewer inind payment, so they were estimating 734, but they look like they're going to bring in 820. >> No, 734 is this year and >> Oh, Department C. Sorry. Okay, I clicked that wrong. >> It's not what they're generating. I'll send you a schedule on all the incind. It's basically we go through all the expenses. For example, their salaries. We pay all the benefits on the town side. So, we charge back their benefits. um some of our administrative cost finance purchasing it there's a percentage recharge back to them and this
420is what they're paying us. >> Got it. Okay. >> It's not you know it's not revenue from them. It well technically it is >> anyone else. >> Anybody have any other questions? >> Okay. You could ask. You could ask. >> Don't be shy. >> Masimo's being shy. >> Yeah. >> Um, property taxes R1 in here. We've got a department request of 207058 and a for selectment of 1991 184. Can you talk to that? >> Sure. >> Um, the 207 is what we needed to cover the entire budget of the 226 as requested by the department heads. As you can see, the first select member reduced that budget to 221, but also she's using fund balance. She's using 2 million8. >> That's not on the list. U well yeah it's different it's just a section before
421so we're projectioning the projecting the fund balance to be 26 million13710 um this is assuming uh muse fund balance of 2 million8 8. >> So using 2.8, we'd be at 12.38. >> We're using 2 milliona this fiscal year. >> And we have supplementals that go against that, which is 243,000 at this point. So we started off at 26,760. We're using fund balance plus the supplementals of so total 3,43. Uh we're projecting that their revenue will be under by 92,000. It's early to to say that and um the expenditures will expecting it to be under budget by 2 million five. I'm not sure that's correct. I have to look at this. >> Will you have an update? >> It's been that long time since February. I'll look at this. Will you have an update for us
422uh for Tuesday? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Um Mary, you wanted a written update on the bus the tiered busing plan. >> I don't know if he emailed it already. He said he had sent an email earlier today. I'll look to see if it's there. >> Yeah, I think he said he had it on his laptop, but he hadn't >> Okay. Sent it. >> I don't know. reading. >> Hold on. >> I don't uh responses. This is what he sent. >> That's what he sent. >> I'll send it to everybody. Maria, I will put you on here as well. So, you have the copy. And Barbara All right, I will send it to a separate because you're not coming up. >> I don't think this had the um >> next >> the
423bus plan. >> I will ask for that. >> Okay. If uh there's nothing else to go over, I'll just take a motion to adjourn. >> Paul is ready to go. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, pass. >> Have a good night. Well, good. So wait, >> so Paul wrote on.