Board of Selectmen - April 6, 2026 7PM Regular Meeting

001Item F Are you going to go or what are you going to do? No, cuz I saw the budget. They're keeping it the same. We're keeping a flat. You going to go? Yeah, it's at the Cog building. Can we do it Zoom? Let's talk this week. See what we want to do. Yeah. It's just it's >> [clears throat] >> Hang out with any of them? I just sneak it in If we get cold, I don't know what to tell you. I hope we get hot cuz I'm going to be talking. So, I got the window open. Oh, that's nice that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's up to you, but he's got a legitimate reason. All right. I don't think so. You don't know. We were told not to come. Since when do you guys listen to

002me? That's why I asked. I'm like, "Listen, family first, but when do you guys ever listen to me?" Sorry. Disappointed in you. Where's your people? It's your people that left. That's your problem. Disappointed. You hear anything else? Because we made this room sound good. People say home now. I don't want to. Yeah? Cuz you can actually hear now. Mhm. Do you ever go back and listen to any of the videos? Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. For real. It's like church. Nobody sits in the front row. All right, never goes up. I'm good. Good evening. Today is Monday, April the 6th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. I'd like to call the regular Board of Selectmen's meeting to order. Troy Lemire. Kevin Bishop. Paul Harrington. Todd Arslanian. Glenn Almonacid. William Hester. Cheryl Haberman Rowland. William O'Connell. Selectman Marino is

003excused. Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item three, agenda review. Does anyone have anything? I have nothing. Item four, the approval of our minutes from the regular meeting on March 16th. I make a motion to approve the minutes. Second. Any discussion, corrections, additions, subtractions? Seeing none, all in favor? 6-0. The approval of minutes of the special meeting on March 17th. So moved. Thank you, Troy. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Abstaining? 4-0-2. Yeah, there was two abstentions? Sorry. Okay. Item five, citizens comments. The Board of Selectmen welcomes public comments. Speakers will be limited to 3 minutes and

004may speak once. Who would like to speak? Just make sure you turn on that. >> Yeah, you got to push the button. You're you're a pro now. >> [laughter] >> Uh thank you. First of all, I want to say good evening. Um I wanted to attend today. Uh I hope I'm not stealing uh town manager Harrington's thunder, but I am aware that the uh all of the dogs that were seized in the Sarah Smallac case are in safe, permanent, forever homes um that are wonderful places for them, and it has been a very long um year of working on this case very intently with a lot of other people that uh we are extremely grateful that errors that were previously made were corrected. Uh town manager Harrington has been wonderful to um work with and

005speak with, uh listening to my concerns and others' concerns regarding the needs of the dogs. And uh just a really happy ending um for all of the dogs that have undergone such trauma. They're they're going to live very happy lives now, and I just wanted to say thank you. That's it. Thanks, good. Thank you. Who else wishes to speak? Anyone? So, I have um was sent um something to speak from Christie. Do you want to do it now or in correspondence? Well, it's she wants this part of public public comment. Okay. So, I figured this is she's asked me to read it in front of the council. She says, "Good evening. I'm speaking tonight in support of the town budget, specifically the education budget. It is important to recognize the current proposed education budget has

006already been reduced by $450,000, which already puts it below maintaining last year's level of services. This means we are already operating at a deficit, not an increase. Further cuts to our pre-K through six schools would have significant, very real consequences for students. These could include the loss of all specials, art, music, physical education, as well as up to a 40-minute reduction in the elementary school day. These are not minor adjustments. They fundamentally change the education experience we provide to our children. Additionally, reducing the elementary school day would create ripple effects across the district because of shared bussing, changes to the pre-K six level would also impact schedules for grade seven through 12. The Board of Education has taken a responsible step forward by approving a motion for the superintendent to conduct a comprehensive, independent study

007to guide future decisions and budgets. That work is underway and will provide valuable But tonight is about the present. Right now, we need to support our schools, our educators, and most importantly, the children of this community. Further reductions at this stage would do lasting harm while we are actively working towards more sustainable, informed solutions. I respectfully urge you to support the education budget as proposed. Thank you. As from Christine Ryder." Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Moving right along. Item six, town manager's report. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening, Board. Uh yes, public input did take a little bit of the uh the limelight away, but happy to report that over the weekend uh the 11 dogs that were associated with the Smallac case have now been successfully adopted or in the process. There

008are two where the adoption papers have gone out to the forever homes. We're just waiting for their signatures [clears throat] to come back, and it'll be finalized. Um it really marks the final steps of this very complex, time-sensitive uh issue. I was the first one to say I've never dealt with a dog case of this nature in all my years in municipal government. Talking with a few of the Board of Selectmen, they said the exact same thing. Um and it was a tremendous effort by all, but I need to give a a a a shout-out to to really one group and one individual. Is Lucky Dog Rescue in Stamford. Um they were brought on by the town to do all of the vetting of where these 10 dogs should be adopted into their forever homes.

009Their Herculean effort that Lucky Dog did to make sure that these dogs were going into safe homes had was intense. Their the Rubik's, the reporting that was given back to the town with their recommendations, there were no other choices to make other than to take what Lucky Dog was suggesting. They literally went out to everybody's home, and and in some homes, they didn't go with them. They went with a different home and they gave the reasons why. Um Lucky Dog, thank you on behalf of the town. Your work was tremendous in helping us find these dogs forever home. And then last but not least, uh a small shout-out to Detective Green on Friday. Um he got up at about 4:00 in the morning, went down and actually got two of the dogs that we were

010going to move to another home. We thought maybe it was going to be confrontational that we were going to take these dogs and move them to another home. Detective Green, the second we asked him to do the job, he signed on and said, "I'll do it. I'll do it on Friday. I'll leave here at 4:30 in the morning and I'll go down and get the dogs. So, thank you, Detective Green, but I can happily say that this is now really in our rearview mirror. Uh moving on, 2027 budget season, post-development phase. Um obviously, the town manager's proposed 2027 budget has been submitted, scheduled for presentation tonight. We are shifting from budget development to identifying additional cost containment strategies. The next phase includes evaluating alternate approaches to service delivery and identifying opportunities to reduce expenditures where

011possible beyond the initial proposal. In parallel in parallel, we are preparing a comprehensive public communication effort through the town's websites and social media platform to ensure residents are well informed and have multiple opportunities to engage in the budget process. We tried last year. We went on the radio. We went on websites. We went on social media. Still, even in our office, we heard that we didn't know. We're going to make it even more of of a presence to let everybody know budget process and and everything. Um moving on, Safe Streets for All uh survey is now live on the town's website and social media page. I did look prior to coming down. Some people on social media reporting the link doesn't work. But then I've gotten a bunch of other residents saying that the link

012does work. If it doesn't work, my suggestion to you is maybe try a different browser. It did work for me on the several attempts that I went in. Worked for a lot of all of our residents. So, if you're having problems with that Safe Streets for All link, uh I urge you to maybe try a different browser. Well, the issue was when people were trying to link it from the neighbors page, the link didn't work because it was shared to the neighbors page. You have to go to the original post on the town um page and then the link works. Well, thank you. I did not know that. Um when in doubt, always go to our social media page. >> [laughter] >> Um it's where all the good stuff is. But, uh uh and then

013also uh click on the town's website. But, more importantly, what Safe Streets for All is ultimately going to do is it's going to give us a report at the end. Remember, this is a $250,000 grant that was given to us by the federal government to go out and explore our streets. Once we have this report, we can then go after even bigger dollars from our state and from our federal uh delegation to go after and try and get these streets fixed once and for all without burdening the taxpayer. So, if you have 8 to 10 minutes, please click on the link, fill out the survey. Your us determine the final report to then go after and use this report cuz usually a lot of the times when you're applying for state dollars or federal dollars,

014these people want to see real information, information that's been quantified. This report is going to unlock that for us. So, please take 8 to 10 minutes. I'm going to say it um and hope that you don't wait. The survey will be up for 2 months cuz we are trying to get as much data as we possibly can. But, don't wait 2 months. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. Maybe during the Yukon game. Um there's a halftime. Um click on it and fill it out for us. Um two more quick updates. 44 Elm Street was a police headquarters feasibility study, which was funded in this year's budget. Uh that finally is uh completed. I'll put the number out there. Uh total estimate project cost is $12.8 million. Um I have the report. I can send it

015to the board if they so wish to see it. And last but not least, payroll system RFP update. We closed our RFP, I believe it was 2 weeks ago. Six submissions. We did an initial review. We shortlisted the vendors. We're inviting in the shortlist next week for interviews to hopefully get a final selection in the not-so-distant future. Um we're going to go to an automatic payroll. Our hopes are to go to an automatic payroll. Questions from the board. You're getting off easy tonight. No questions. [snorts] >> Well, and I did bring two bottles of water, so that means you know I got a big talking bit coming up. Item seven, correspondence. Does anyone have anything? Item eight, boards and commissions. Kevin, go. So, I'm very happy to say we have uh many people for appointments

016and reappointments tonight. Um I wanted to ask, should we make a motion on each one or should I read them all? Uh do them each individually. Each one individually, yeah. Okay. So, for reappointment, uh we have Deborah Jablonski for the Cultural District Commission, uh party unaffiliated with a term ending in April of 2028. Uh you can set a motion. Oh, I make a motion to >> I'll second that. Thank you, Troy. Any discussion? >> Yes, you read and make the motion. Okay. Thank you. All in favor? Congratulations. Next. Okay, I make a motion for reappointment of Jamie Colligan for the Inland Wetlands Wetlands Commission, party unaffiliated, a member with a term ending April 2029. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Congratulations. I make a motion to reappoint Kurt Williams to the Recreation Board, party

017unaffiliated for a member seat ending in April of 2032. Second. Any All in favor? Unanimous. Congratulations. Uh we have one resignation from Ben Davis from the Winchester Housing Authority. He's a resident member seat. Thank you for your service, Mr. Davis. All right, we have four new nominations. Uh I make a motion to appoint Annie Trepanier to the Cultural District Commission, uh party unaffiliated, member seat ending April of 2028. Second. Good job with the name. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. I make a motion to appoint Steven Larson to the Cultural District Commission, party unaffiliated, member seat ending April of 2028. >> Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. I make a motion to appoint Lara uh appoint Lara Green Kazlauskas to the Cultural District Commission, uh Democratic Party, member seat ending April of 2029. Second.

018Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. And I make a motion to appoint John Noon to the Cultural District Commission, party unaffiliated, member seat ending April of 2029. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Congratulations to all. And I just had one question. So, the Cultural District Commission has not yet been functioning. It was something that was created in 2022 and then we never had enough members. As of tonight, we have five members who have now been appointed um and we have a quorum. I do believe they can start meeting now. Um as someone who is a nonprofit arts director in my regular day job, I wanted to ask since we did not appoint a liaison to this commission at the beginning of the year of the season, um that that I could be appointed as the

019liaison. Go right ahead. Congratulations. [clears throat] >> [laughter] [clears throat] >> Uh I'll just say publicly, can you give me a jingle tomorrow? We're going to want to set up a meeting time and place in terms of where you guys want to meet, make sure you have rooms and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Anything else? Uh before we move on from that, I do want to mention that we have multiple openings from the Laurel Commission and the Laurel Ball and the Laurel Festival's coming up shortly. It's a long storied history for the town of Winchester. We need to make sure that this event continues, so would like to volunteer for the Laurel City Commission. Please reach out to the town manager's office. Item nine, unfinished business. We have nothing. Item 10, new business. Pearson School Roof

020Project Building Committee resolutions. Town Manager Herrington and Roger on the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Come on up, Roger. Um hit the microphone. I'll just uh recap it really quick. As we know, we had a referendum not so long ago. The town uh passed the resolution to uh do the Pearson School Roof Project at roughly $2.8 million. There's a few steps that we need to take in order to start unlocking that. Roger is here tonight, who is the consultant that the town and the Board of Ed is bringing on. Um and I said it best, I think, at the public hearing town meeting that night was Roger's going to make sure we maximize every dollar we can get back from the state. Um so Roger's here tonight making sure that we're checking all the boxes

021to make sure we get every dollar back from the state. With that, I'm going to continue to cough. Roger, I'm going to turn it over to you. Just hit the mic button. >> You can bring in some water. Yeah, help me out. Um there's a series of uh requirements that the state has when you submit a grant application. And the these resolutions that I've put before you tonight that you have to vote on are five of them. Three have to do with the formality of building the developing a building committee, actually uh submitting of an application to the state, and then uh bringing on someone like an architect so you can do some schematic drawings. Uh those are the first three. The other two are are in response to the funding requirements. Um now you

022already had your town meeting and you voted for that uh chunk of money for the roof. That That's one of the things we're going to need to certify minutes from off to talk to you about that. Um and then the two resolutions specifically tonight talk about the amount of money that's going to be uh used up on the roof and and the town share. Okay, so the state wants to they want it in writing and they want it through a selectmen's vote that you've got skin in the game, and that's the their way of getting it. So Um that's pretty much it on on the finance resolutions. So as you see, I think uh attached in your packet were the five resolutions. Um we can talk about establishing the building committee doing that resolution. We're

023not going to Well, I shouldn't say we're not. Um that just says we're going to establish one and then Roger and I spoke that we will probably put it out for applications, get a bunch of uh interested applicants, and then eventually have the board vote on it. But tonight's resolution is just that we will establish a building committee, but we're not going to appoint names tonight. Um and fast forward a little bit. I did create I'm getting used to this board a little bit. I did create an application that we can talk about a little bit later um to see what y'all think and then we can put it out, you know, on our on our different channels if you all wanted to go down that route. So um the first one being um unless

024uh a selectman wants to read it, um it seems pretty simple that the Board of Selectmen authorize the Winchester Board of Education to apply to the Commissioner of Education and to accept or reject a grant for the roof project at the Isabella M. Pearson School. I'll make that a motion. To authorize the uh Board of Selectmen uh the to authorizes the Winchester Board of Education to apply to the Commission Commissioner of Education and to accept or reject a grant for the roof project at the Isabella M. Pearson School. Second. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Bill. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. I'm going to skip the second one cuz I think I I want to do something a little creative with that one and we'll jump down to the third one. Um the Board of

025Selectmen hereby authorize at least the preparation of a schematic drawing and outline specifications of the roof project at the Isabella M. Pearson School. Pretty self-explanatory. >> Motion. Thank you, Troy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Bill. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Uh third one, the Winchester Board of Selectmen hereby authorizes the expenditure of 100% of the project revenues, $2,898,670, to complete the Isabella M. Pearson School roof project. Motion. Thank you, Troy. Second. Thank you, Bill. Discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. And uh second to last one, the Winchester Board of Selectmen hereby authorizes the financing of the local share local share of $807,569 for the Isabella Pearson School roof project. Motion. Second. Thank you, Troy. Thank you, Bill. Any discussion? I'd just make sure I get correct that. Of not for. I'm on the

026motion. All in favor? Unanimous. And last but not least, the Board of Selectmen authorizes the establishment of a building committee for the roof project for the Isabella M. Pierce Pearson School. Um I thought we would have a little conversation about it. I did prepare a a small application as I was waiting in between meetings tonight. Um if the board wanted to go in this direction, obviously name, address, phone number, their contact information, residency availability, how long you've lived in Winchester, are you able to attend regular meetings, evening meetings may be required. Are you able to commit for the duration of the project, relevant experience? I've got, you know, check boxes, construction, engineering, architecture, project management, finance, uh budgeting, facilities management, uh government {slash} public service, and then I have the other box, briefly describe your

027experience and qualifications, interest in the committee, why you're interested in serving on the Pearson School roof building committee, and why do you believe uh it is most important to ensure the success of this project. Any conflict of interest? Do you or an immediate family member have any financial interest in a business that may bid or participate in this project? That's important to put out there as well. If yes, please explain. References are optional, and then we just ask for a signature that, you know, all of the information that they put. This was just something I put together quickly before coming down here. No pride in ownership. Well, there's some pride in ownership cuz I did make it, but um subject if you wanted me to change it in any way or what your pleasure is

028in terms of um I think we should do the resolve tonight, right, Roger? That we're going to film the form the building committee. >> Yeah. And one last thing is if you can uh when when you're doing the minutes, I suspect. So those three have to stay together and the funding ones have to stay together, even though you did them in a different order, because they get uploaded as separate documents. So question. Um how many people do you plan on having on this committee? Roger, what's typical on it? I've seen them as five, I've seen them as nine. >> Five to seven is typical. Then if they get too large, sometimes they get a little unwieldy. So >> Um so next question is um are selectmen allowed to be on this committee cuz me and

029Bill have a big interest in this, so both of us are capable to be on that committee. I I I think that's going into what the board uh would or wouldn't like to do. >> of the Hinsdale Building Committee the mayor set up. >> It did have Yeah, it had It did have some selectmen. That was a very large committee. Yeah, I think that's a dozen. I would think that with a smaller committee like this, you know, one or another, I don't think you really want to have a lot of selectmen involved cuz then that's and that's like we're doing it, you know. So you know, depending on the size of the committee, you know, unless we're just having a selectman as a advisory position like we did with with the charter commission. Um that's

030that's where my concern is. It shouldn't be elected officials controlling the process. We want the people involved, you know, in it and that would be my thought process. I don't think it's more of a control thing. I think it's more of an oversight. >> oversight committee cuz we have the experience in this. Both of us do this stuff for a living, so that's why >> And so do other members of our community. Right. >> and there's if we don't want to have everyone, you know, being just in the construction. You want to have some variety. People have common sense. Their life experience or knowledge base that would be a contribution if they're not in the construction industry. So um but my point is is I think it depends on the size of the committee how

031many Board of Selectmen would be appropriate on the board. And the other thing is if we are forming this committee and if the Board of Selectmen is choosing the members, then members who are seeking to be on the committee should not have a voting right. They should be excused from voting on the membership. So if I can make a recommendation, um why don't we put the application out? I think we should do the resolution that we're going to going to form a building committee. Um let me The good news is is Roger and I were were talking a little bit before the meeting and then we obviously spoke several times on the phone. We are getting way out in front of this. Remember, this isn't a this summer build, it's a next summer. We got

032a long runway, but we like having the long runway because you never know what could happen along the way. Our thought process practices, Roger won't come back until probably we're going to go to RFP in May. We're going to put the RFP out. >> For architects. For architects, excuse me. RFP The The RFP is actually done. Um we wanted to wait a little bit uh because A, we wanted to form the building committee. We wanted to give you all time to do that. Building committee will obviously search the RFPs. So we're thinking about posting that sometime in May. So that gives us a ramp-up of 30, 45 days to get the building committee established. Um my recommendation to the board is if you like this application, I can go live with it. We can see

033the responses that we get, and then we can, you know, form the committee based off of that. I ask you, we did this with charter revision. I like that you did this. Um give me an end date. That the applications are due. >> application seems very comprehensive and depends on how well people fill it out. So but for an end date, you know, 3 weeks? Just one Look at calendars real quick. So today's the >> to the Friday before the first meeting in So we have a meeting on the 20th, which is 2 weeks, and then we have our next meeting is May 4th. May the force be with you. Sorry, Star Wars guy. So um So the first would be that Friday. So the 30th uh yeah, the first would be that Friday. I

034mean, I'm ready to tomorrow morning. I got to dress it up a little bit, put our logo on it, fillable PDF stuff that going to take me 30 40 minutes to do that. I'll have this up before lunch tomorrow. Because the board would take action conceivably on the 4th, right? Do you want a little bit more time to digest all of the applications? I'll send them as one, you know, I'll I'll gather them all and then send one big email to to all of you. We could have it due on May 1st. We could have it due on the 24th. It's We have time. So, I wanted you to push it off to the 24th. You want to go 24th gives you a one That's 3 weeks. That's 3 weeks. >> weeks. We'll go May

03524th or excuse me, April 24th. I think the 24th, yeah, sounds Okay. Listen, that's what we're going to if we get no response in the first week, I can report back to all of you and we want to kick this out there a little bit, but all right. So, April 20 We're too jammed up with budget between now and the 24th tomorrow, right? No, cuz we're not going to take out cuz we have to decide the budget has to be done by April 24th, right? This is all going to be behind the scenes stuff office. We'll get the applications out to you on April 24th or, you know, the following Monday. You'll have a full week to digest them all and then you'll you'll need to take action on that May 4th meeting. Um I

036I don't Well, I do need the motion to form a building committee. Actually, you Dress it all up. I'd like to make a motion um that the Board of Selectmen authorize the establishment of a building committee for the roof project at Isabel M. Pearson School allowing seven members, no more than two Selectmen and five members of the public. I would um ask for a friendly amendment to exclude those restrictions before has an opportunity to look at who applies, whatever that may be. So, just the formation of the building committee should be sufficient for the motion that we need for the state right now. And then as far as >> You don't need to know how many members? I know you guys are in discussion, but Roger wanted the I'll be honest with you. My concern,

037the state is very prescriptive. And so, when they they actually form that language. So, I want to make sure that you folks stick to that language. But, you can do whatever you want with the building committee. That's a decision you can make however you want to, but the motions have to read that way. Okay. I'll fix my motion to read what it says on the the resolved and leave it at that. Second. Thank you, Troy. Thank Shirley. Any other discussion? All in favor. Unanimous. And to reiterate, I will get this application out tomorrow with a due date of April 24th with action from the board on from the board on May 4th. I just have a question. Um I'm just curious with my first time, you know, seeing this sort of committee be formed is

038I know that in other boards and commissions we have a hard time finding people. Is this the sort of thing where people are eager to apply to? Who knows? It depends. I've seen building committees sometimes form with a lot of excitement and then I've seen begging people to, you know, Hinsdale committee was rather large. Well, yeah, Hinsdale had I went back and looked at stuff. That That was a pretty project. This is a roof. Yeah. You're not going to get 275 applications in a week going, "Oh, I want to do the roof. I want to do the roof." Roofs can be exciting. What's exciting about it? That's the voice. We got water. We should be good. I'm not coughing. All right. Item B. Roger, thank you. We'll be in touch. Thank you very much, folks.

039Thank you, Roger. Have a good evening. Thanks, Roger. Thank you, Roger. Item B, public hearing fiscal year 2026 2027 town budget. Town Manager Harrington. All right. I'm going to stand up. I warn you all that we all know there was a holiday over this past weekend. I have young kids. The Easter Bunny came. Candy was delivered. If you know me, And they jump on you. >> it. I have a point of order on that. This is the public hearing, so the public can still ask questions and have a dialogue through a public hearing. So, not we're not limited to the public comment. That's correct? We uh public hearing we can open it up to questions at the end of it if there's if there's questions. I just want to make sure people know that they

040want to talk and we will have an exchange and it will occur during this portion of the meeting. I'm good. Thank you. All right. So, um this is for fiscal year 2027. Start date actually July 1st, 2026. I think it's important and I say this every year is what is the budget process, right? It It just doesn't, you know, come upon us over the next, you know, few weeks. It actually started way back in October, but before that, in June, the Board of Selectmen actually voted and adopted the approved budget that went to referendum and set the mill rate at 29.17. Keeping in mind that when you approve that the voters approve a budget, they approve the overall dollar line. It's the Board of Selectmen that actually then set the mill rate after the budget

041is approved. This year was was a good year because the budget passed on the first shot. So, I had a little bit of a of a summer. We got a little bit more things done. We got some economic activity done. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. So, it was a good year, but in October we we were back into planning for this year's budget. And we started it off with our capital improvement plan. And we had a meeting with all of our department heads and we started to look at, you know, what capital requests could be coming in, what capital requests are still out there and that began in October of 2025. November, department leaders submitted their capital requests to the budget office. So, they they sat down, they had a

042month, figured out, "Okay, do I need a excavator? Do I need a plow truck? Do I need, you know, new chairs?" Whatever they needed, they submitted and that was due to us in November. In December, we sent out blank operating budgets to all of our department heads, which gave them zero-based budgeting. We said, "Okay. What do you need in order to operate your budget beginning July 1st, 2026?" We sent them out a bunch of blank documents. They started working on that. In January, the department heads were done and they submitted the formal requests to the budget office. Then in February, myself, Tom, and Marie sat down with all of our department heads one-on-one and literally went line by line by line by line. There's a few department heads in here right now. They know that

043we went line by line by line by line and looked at every possible number. We also then looked at historical data as well to say, "Okay, what what's the historical, you know, run rates of of these particular lines?" The Assessor's office submitted the 2025 grand list in February. We're going to go through that, which would be I believe our next slide. And then in March, I finalized what's called as the town manager proposed budget. After tonight, it will no longer be the town manager's proposed budget, although online it will say that, but after tonight, once the Board of Selectmen start talking about it, it will then be Board of Selectmen proposed. Um and then March 13th was when I submitted Superintendent of Schools, hey Dr. Luby. Uh she presented uh the education budget to the

044Board of Selectmen. We did that over at the school just 2 weeks ago. Seems like yesterday. We have positive momentum going on in this town. You've heard that Winsted's potential for years. We're now capitalizing on this potential. And And folks, this isn't potential that I did. This is potential that has been worked on for many, many years. You're going to hear slides down the road exactly the investments that we made are finally paying off. But, some quick, you know, momentum that we have going on. Marshalls came in. Domino's Pizza came in. When I say Domino's, I was like, "Oh, well, they're pizza." With Marshalls, those are national tenants moving in to Winchester, Winsted. And that's exciting because we are on the radar of national companies. There are conversations having each and every day with even

045bigger national companies that I can't mention yet, but they're exciting that want to move into this town. 508 516 Main Street, you know, a couple meetings ago and I put it up on on our uh social media pages and our town's uh website. Um the development, the millions of dollars of investment, private dollars that are going to be pumped into our Main Street to create this condominium. Uh Wall and Hill redevelopment, um the Board of Selectmen prior Board of Selectmen went out to an RFP RFQ uh statute to get that 118 acres developed. Happy to report I should have the report from Goman and York of the three uh proposals that were submitted. I hopefully will have it this week. I've been promised for it this this week. This is an unbiased great company looking

046at the three proposals and giving us the fiscal impact, the school impact, and the overall impact of the town. From that, I know the board's been waiting probably patiently, maybe not as patient, but we're going to finally get to talk about the proposals that came in, but I thought it was important that I give you all that information. Lake Street uh development, 108 Lake Street. Remember, it was the old convalescent home, it was a blighted property. If you haven't been up there, go up there. I had one of our officers go, "Oh my god, Paul, I didn't know this was happening." That building is becoming a beautiful parcel. It'll be residents that move in here at market rate apartments, not affordable housing. These will be, you know, normal rentals that people can move into, and

047that's it that's exciting. And as I said earlier, there is so much more to come. I wish I could blurt it all out. Um but there's more on the horizon and it's going to get really really exciting around here. The town's actions are reinforcing growth. Sale of town-owned properties, the prior Board of Selectmen, this Board of Selectmen, they're looking at properties, key properties on the the town's list to say, "Okay, we can sell this property. Maybe we'll get a house built there. Maybe we'll get a garage built here." So, we're we're returning some of these properties to our tax rolls, which will drive long-term value. Public investment is enabling continued progress on Sue Grossman Still River Trail completion, water and sewer expansion, long overdue facilities upgrades are all in the pipeline, and building this momentum

048has not been easy, and keeping it going has been even harder. But this board, myself, and our entire team at Town Hall were dedicated to unleashing the full potential of this town. And not only do I want to say the team here, the Board of Selectmen, and myself, but we have a wonderful wet residents that volunteer a ton of hours. I think they're all on board with unleashing the full potential of this town as well. So, here we go. Let's talk about the grand list. This is the first start of how we put a whole budget together. I'm so happy about this slide cuz for 2 years, I had to report a grand list decrease. Happy to report we actually have a grand grand list increase this year of just about $5.7 million. You can

049see that the real estate grew about $4.9 million. BAA adjustments, 355. We we put a million dollars in to the BAA. When I formed this budget, BAA hasn't officially met. They listen to any appeals that possibly come through. One of the first items that we'll take when we get into workshops is we actually have a real number now. BAA has made all their adjustments. So, we're actually south of that million-dollar adjustments that we put into the budget. Motor vehicle grand list grew about $1.5 million. Our personal property took a slight dip of 367,000. Um happens from time to time, but overall grand list grew just about $5.8 million, which is exciting. And what does that mean, right? It doesn't mean I have an extra $5.7 million to inject in the budget, but roughly at today's

050mill rate, 29.17, it's an extra $120,000. Far better than 2 years in a row I had to come up here and report a decline. So, we're going in the right directions. We shouldn't stop. Revenues. It's one of the things that I talk about most. I know Selectman Hester will appreciate this. I actually don't worry about the expense side of the budget. Sure I do, I'm a town manager. I do worry about the expense side. But even with our home budgets, if your paycheck's really really big, it's easy to pay all the expenses. So, I try and concentrate a lot of my effort on the revenues because if I can maximize the revenues, paying the expenses becomes very very easy. So, let's take a breakdown of of of what the revenues look like. My favorite slide,

051too. State aid. Anyone see something that looks familiar? Hey, it's the same number. Roughly $8.9 million from the state last year and $8.9 million this year. Zero increase. Meanwhile, the state of Connecticut is sitting on billions and billions of dollars of surplus money. And yet, not just us, but other towns, we are flat with our state aid. Most importantly, you'll see the ECS that's $7.8 million has again continued to stay at $7.8 million. I think it's important to talk a little bit about ECS. Questions have come up at Board of Education meetings. Questions came up a few weeks ago at the Board of Education meeting with the Board of Selectmen. What is ECS? What does it all mean? The town expects to take in $7.8 million in ECS funding. The total amount of education to

052educate our kids from pre-K through all the way up to 21 years of age is going to be just over $26 million in this proposed budget. The $7.8 million helps to offset that $26 million. We then roughly have $18 million of taxpayer The word burden is such a bad word, but I couldn't think of a better word. It's not a burden, it's just a taxpayer you know, ask of $18 million to fund the remaining portion of the total Board of Education budget. There was an ask of, "Well, this one gets this, and this one get doesn't get that." No, no, no, no, no, no. In the way I have to look at a budget, Board of Education's $26 million in the town budget. That gets offset by $7.8 million of ECS funding from the state

053of Connecticut. There's no magic formula. I can't only just give the Board of Ed $18 million. That money does come directly to the town, $7.8 million, right? And I don't actually write it to anybody. It just stays in our coffers. But at the end of June 30th any year, the Board of Education has the amount of money that's in that budget that was approved, right? So, I don't write them an $8 million check. We write them a $26 million check if this budget gets approved. Nobody gets the money, right? I give it to Julie. Hi, Dr. Libby. $26 million if this budget gets approved. 28 roughly $23 million this year by the end of June 30th. That will be the town money that goes to Julie. They don't get any direct ECS money. All the

054money comes in the our coffers, then we write a check directly to WPS, and they disburse it out to their vendors or in payroll and all of that. So, hopefully that explains ECS. Towards the end, if you still have questions about it, I'm willing to take them on. Um this is a pie graph that just shows how we're going to pay for a 43880 budget. Uh we did a $43,880,000 budget this year. Um years past, I don't know why it never dawned on me to make a nice round number. Um it's easier to just say. Um but roughly 75% of a $43 million budget is being funded by property taxes. State aid is uh roughly 20%, and then you have a lot of smaller little categories, but charges for services, licenses and permits, interest and

055dividends, other revenues and transfers in from other funds. But really the the the main portion is obviously property taxes, state aid at 20%. I I I can't say it loud enough, state aid needs to increase. It really really does. And then the small little categories as well. But every little dollar you can get in other categories is one less thing we have to, you know, bring in from from property taxes. Moving on now. So, that's the revenue side of the equation. Going into the expense side of the equation. So, initial department requests came in at just under $46 million. Um we did a line-by-line review. Um and we were able to cut just under $2 million in what the department has were asking. Uh we put that through the blender. Um and felt that it

056was still a little too high. And I had sent out an email and asked for an additional 3% from all of the departments. We were we were lucky. We were able to find some savings. We were we we did get an additional 3%. Uh we didn't get as much as we wanted because we're at bone already, but we did go out after we cut $2 million, we asked for an additional 3% and were given some. Town's Board of Education was flat funded, but the staff applied for funding through Representative Larson's office on behalf of the Board of Education. That I have to give credit to Selectman Bishop. He ended up connecting with Rep. Larson. Rep. Larson was, "Well, why don't you apply for some grants?" And we applied for some grants to help some of

057the capital projects that WPS needs to do. And we renegotiated service contracts, commodity pricing, IT, transit, copier services, electricity, fuel. Fuel, I got to stop for a second. So, I locked in our fuel prices that began July 1st, 2026, our unleaded at 215 a gallon, and our diesel at 246 a gallon. Somebody was smart that locked it in the day after Thanksgiving on Good Friday. Um I had heard the markets were going to go uh they were going to dip. We locked in at 215 on unleaded and 286 on diesel. Man, we're going to pick up some savings on that one. So, some of the thinking that we do, sometimes you guess right, sometimes you guess wrong, but I didn't think I was going to get that big of a win, but we got a

058big win on that one for sure. So, those are the actions today. It's going to get tiny. This presentation, along with the town manager proposed budget, will be available online tomorrow on our town's website. So, if you can't see it, bear with it, but you can see the breakdown. Roughly on the general government side of things, it's a 3.4%. We looked at every line item. We maximized savings. New positions were requested, but we didn't put them in the proposed budget. Blight code officer, housing inspection, no new positions in the general government side of things. Um we did include wage differentials for police and public works. Um you'll see that line item down at employee benefits. You see a 7.1% We have to go into union negotiations with our police and public works. Um we don't

059put a number into their budget yet. Oh, that's the number we want to ask for. We have to negotiate with them, but we also realize that, you know, there will probably be increases in those contracts. So, we we put a a number into the employee benefit line. But right now, general general government, roughly $195,000, 3% increase on the general government side of of of town hall. Moving on to public safety, six of seven newly requested positions have been cut. Lieutenant, patrol officers, three firefighters, and a Windsor Locks ambulance chief. Um a new deputy chief position is being funded. Um and I will tell you that that has to deal with a little bit of the police accountability bill, trying to get us up to speed on getting accredited from the state of Connecticut. But on

060public safety, roughly $78,000, 1.9% increase. Public works, um two new maintainer positions were requested. They were not uh pushed forward. No new positions uh are being proposed in the budget, although there is desperate need bring on maintainers. Eversource delivery rates, we just had a meeting with them across the hallway. Their rates have increased, but we did pick up some savings because we sold the Bachelor School. Um so, happy to report that we were able to take a slight reduction. Uh interesting note on the Bachelor School, after reviewing a lot of the different contracts, reviewing Eversource bills, going back to line by line, and I'll say I missed it last year, we were paying for the electric bill uh at Bachelor School. Although the contract said that we shouldn't be paying for it. So, we emailed

061the new owners and asked for $12,000, um which is roughly what we paid. Um they're not ready to write the check. They realize they have to pay it, but we will be getting the money cuz that's what the contract read. So, on the public works side of things, a 1.1% $26,000 increase compared to last year. Trash and recycling, I think it's important uh RRDD1 uh obviously is a partner with the town, also with New Hartford and Barkhamsted. They took a slight increase, $10,648, 4.4%. Moving on to health, um as we have an aging population, uh we have people that, you know, need assistance as well. This includes the Winstead Cares coordinator, which is contracted agreement with Greenwoods Counseling. That money for and I'll mention her by name, Sarah Tellme, cuz she's a wonderful person in

062our staff and helps so many of us in our community. Um that's offset by opioid funds. So, I'm proposing that we continue the contract that we did for 6 months prior Board of Selectmen did. That runs out. Fortunately or unfortunately, she had surgery, so she was out a month. Um that was actually going to end on uh June 1st. Because she was out a month, it's going to continue to June 30th. So, if this budget passes, we can keep Sarah on and and and continue the great work that she's been doing. Um and then obviously, our our senior services as well do a great job for our aging population. $31,000 [snorts] roughly an 8.3% increase on the health side of things. Libraries, uh libraries did ask for a 2% increase. Um we've kept them flat

063in the proposed budget of roughly $255,666. It's the same level funding since 2024. So, it's three consecutive years with no growth for the library. Moving on, parks and recreation, uh the proposed budget maintains the staffing needs for all the summer camp programs. We're not taking any type of a of a cut on the proposed budget for any camp programs. Maintains the all of the programs. Keeping in mind, we've gotten creative. Obviously, minimum wage has gone up, which increases wages throughout, but with parks and rec and all the wonderful programs they offer, we're only at a 2.5% increase on parks and rec, just under $12,000. Other shared costs, um we're trying to do a little bit better job in in budgeting. As I get more comfortable with the budget and I start exploring more options, we

064had uh $30,000 that was paying for a a charter rental that was in the police and public works, and one was paying one and one was paying the other. That's a shared service. When it comes down to several departments sharing something, we put it in the shared service line. So, when you look at, you know, line item in the budget, you see an 18% increase, I I I I paused for a second because I I I needed to say, we were already paying the $30,000. We just reclassed it into the the shared services line. And the remaining $48,000 was due to higher costs in telephone, internet, managed IT services, and various software uh water, sewer, refuge, snow removal, postage, heating, gas, electricity, and general maintenance. Um In that is also the crossing guards that we

065have out there. Minimum wage went up, so that in fact then changed the crossing guard hourly rate as well. So, we did increase town support in education by $1,700, but roughly, you know, uh flat for, you know, conceivable purposes of what we're doing for town support. But we did apply for rep uh Representative Larson. Hopefully, we'll be able to address some of the items that town support for education at the Board of Ed pushed forward. Moving on, debt administration, this was obviously, you're going to see a 36.6% increase. Back in May of 2022, voters approved that $24 million bond package. The Board of Selectmen, prior Board of Selectmen, authorized the second tranche of money to continue the improvements of roads. We were running out of money, came back, we went out and we borrowed an

066additional $8 million at roughly 3.7% Took it out in 26. First debt service payment is due in 2027. So, when you're looking at your debt service from last year to this year, you see the increase of 465. That is the increase increase in the debt service payment. To go back to that $24 million bond package that was approved in 2022. Sometimes I read, sometimes I hear, the town's been paying interest on this money since 2022. That is actually not true. The town is only paying interest on money that it's actually using right now. It didn't go out, it did get authorized to go out and borrow $24 million. We have not gone out and taken $24 million. So far to date, we've taken a tranche of $10 million, $8 million. We do have a third

067tranche that will probably go out in about a year and a half to 2 years and finish up all of that, which means all of the projects hopefully will be completed as well. Moving on, Board of Education, uh increase of $2,056,697. That was the approved Board of Education budget, and it was also presented to us on the March 24th public hearing. Operating transfers out, this portion is for capital improvement projects. You'll see that this year we are suggesting that we transfer out roughly $730,000 to fund some of the capital items. We're going to talk about capitals a little bit further on in the presentation. Um but that is where it comes down in terms of transferring out. Uh the 2020 expenditures, what does it look like? Um last year we spent just over $41 million

068was the approved budget. This year's budget being proposed by me is $43,880,000, a difference of $2,862,862, 7% increase on the expenditure side of the equation. Um you can see capitals, you you can look at it all, and again, this presentation and a line by line will be available on the town's website tomorrow morning. Um Percent of budget by category, this is important, where your tax dollars going. So, let's start on the right side. The town operating budget is 33%. The debt service is 4%. Education indirect costs, 2%. Winchester Public Schools, 25%. Gilbert School tuition, 25% and out of district expenses, 9% in general fund for capitals, 2%. So, when you want to look at where $43,880,000 is going, there's the pie. Um broken up in all the different little categories. Changes in each of the

069categories, town operating budget's going up $432,000. The debt service is going up $465,000. Education indirect costs, $1,700, that's for the school crossing guards. Um Winchester Public Schools, $440,000. Gilbert School tuition, $822,400. Out of district expenses, roughly $800,793,741. And then general funds for capitals actually a a slight decrease of $93,000. So, you can see how it works. We were playing with little charts, but um you can see how each category that we just reviewed, you know, what each of the expenses look like. Capital improvement plan, um two main sources for funding capital projects. Um first one being the mill rate, driven by, you know, tax dollars being raised. Second one using uh fund balance. Um fund balance dollars come from surplus funds saved from previous years or years prior. Using these savings does not affect the

070mill rate. So if we we take from our savings account to buy some capital items, that doesn't change the overall mill rate. It just either increases or decreases our our savings balance. We like to fund 50% of our capitals through surplus money. The town is in really great shape right now with its with its general fund. And you'll see in the budget we're a little bit less than that, but we try not to overburden the taxpayers. Capital requests are obviously very important to keep the town moving. They they make sure that you know there's streets get plowed and all of that, but we'll go through um Well, sorry, jumped ahead one slide, but um the fiscal year 2017 CIP maintains a 50/50 fund balance roughly. You can see that we are looking for about $1.6

071million in the capital request for the proposed budget, an increase of roughly $56,000 from last year's budget, a 3.5% little bit of a switch though. We're going to use general fund money of 45% and fund balance of 54%. So the year year we're in right now, we used 53% of general fund, which means that affected the mill rate, >> [snorts] >> and the fund balance we only used 47% of it. This year we're switching it a little bit. We're going to try and save keep the mill rate as low as possible as we can to fund these capital items, take a little bit more out of fund balance, but nowhere near the 25 where we only took 4% from the mill rate, and the rest was just funded out of the general fund. Uh the

072fund balance, I apologize. So but roughly 1.6 million in capital requests, and here they are. 59 requests came in. And if we remember, this goes back to the October meetings and the November meetings and the December meetings. We had 59 requests come in from our department heads. I'm not going to read them all, but there's anywhere from roadside mowers to intersection aprons to Skinner Road pavement to turnout gear. Everybody, you know, each department had their had their own little thing. It was our job we we sat down, we talked with each department heads. We simply knew we couldn't fund 59 requests. So in our proposed budget, we are dropping it down to 26 projects. We we we looked at everything. We decided where we wanted to put key investments, and those 26 items are what

073we're proposing to the Board of Selectmen that we push forward to to the referendum. So um Nothing in particular. Well, here's one in particular that we have to do every 5 years per the state of Connecticut. We have to do a reval. And every year we've been funding reval. This is the final year of funding the revaluation, so that's one of those items that you just can't cut cuz you have to do the reval beginning next year. So we have to finalize the payment to bring in the company that's going to do the do the reval. But we went from 59 to 26 projects. Here are some of those projects. You know here's all of the projects that were were were were pushing forward, so it's just basically putting it in a different forms, and

074you can see what's being proposed with general funds and and and and non-general fund dollars. You can look at the reconstruction and a lot of some of that's grants, but we push it all forward to show you the projects that were were were going to bring forward. Conclusion. These are my favorite slides. So fiscally year 2026 what we're currently in, the mill rate is 29.17. This proposed budget does have a fiscal year mill rate of 31.91, a mill rate increase of 2.74, percentage increase of 9.38%. There's some pictures that are happening right now, so I'll wait. But this is the one that I really drilled down in in in that, okay. So what does that mean for me, Paul? What does that mean for me as a as a homeowner as a resident? So I

075did we looked at it as properties, right? And there's obviously cars and stuff like that. But if your property run and you have roughly a property value of $215,000, the proposed budget means it's an extra $410 a year. Going on the complete opposite end of that, you have a $500,000 appraised value, assessed value of 350. It's roughly $958 per year or $2.62 a day. And everywhere in between obviously. Go right in the middle, 250, which is a $357,000 home, $1.87 a day or $684 extra a year. $56 a month. Conclusion on this budget. Consistent with last year's approach, the budget is a needs-based budget. There's no frills in this budget. I I wish I could say that there was. There's no frills in this budget at all. Additions are highly limited, and they're targeted investments

076in that if we feel that we're going to make this investment that the payoff is either going to be immediately or down the road. At the same time, municipal government is subject to all the same inflationary pressure pressures, debt obligations, market conditions, labor competition is affecting every sector out there. We're not immune to it at all. There's not an employee that doesn't come in on a weekly basis, I need more money or or you know, debt obligations or market conditions. And we saw fuel prices alone. You know, we were we were good enough to lock in our fuel prices early on, but imagine if I was negotiating fuel prices right now what those prices could could possibly be. But this budget is a result of the financial inaction and stagnation from the state of Connecticut.

077Can't say it any stronger. All of our boards and commissions have done an outstanding job. But this budget is the result of the financial inaction and stagnation from the state of Connecticut. You can't tell me that we held the towns harmless year over year while you're sitting on billions of dollars of surpluses. Again, maintaining our positive momentum requires continued investments in ourselves. Every dollar we invest today builds stronger public services, safe safer infrastructure, better schools for generations that follow. Growth and prosperity, they take time. The benefits of strategic investment unfold over years, not months. You're seeing it starting to form now. The work that's being done on our Main Street, it didn't happen overnight. That was years of planning by everybody before me and including me. But I remember back in college this quote, "The

078best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is right now." The remaining schedule. So today, April 6th, we're here, public hearing. After this, we have an agenda item to set some budget workshops up. I think the Board of Selectmen are going to want some questions. They're going to want to look at different scenarios. We're going to set those dates hopefully tonight. But by April 24th, we have to have a budget. Because on May 11th, I'm over at the Gilbert School presenting the Board of Selectmen proposed budget for referendum, which happens We have a recommendation date of May 26th. We just had to put a date on there. That's going to be decided at that town meeting on May 11th. Thank you for coming. All of this is going to

079be available on YouTube, Town of Winchester's Facebook page, and our website as well. I'll have the line-by-line detailed report and this presentation. With that, I open it to the board. I open it to the public. Mr. Mayor, I'll turn it back over to you. And All right. So since we have the board section coming up soon, anyone in the audience wish to speak? Thanks for giving me the time. My name is David Woodbury. And I am recently homeless. I'm a person that requires services of social services and mental health resources, of which there is very little in this town. Dare I say none, because I get all of my services from Torrington. Fortunate of me that I have a car and a family that supports me. Um but apparently this town does not. I want

080to thank the local police, local ambulance for some recent incidents where they have been there for me. But it's sad to see that we have $40,000 for new computers every year when we could surely save some money on different IT tech. And the reduction of the social services went from $10,000 to $1,000. There's nothing in this town for social services. I don't understand how that's helping. And I wasn't involved with all of the discussions over the education budget. I hope there's some influx of social services there where improvements are definitely needed. Um But all of the investment I it would be nice to see new facilities for the police department. That downstairs is old. It's been that been like that for all of my life. I don't understand why they can't get better facilities. Like

081the ambulance fund that's been highly invested in. And I I commend the services that they offer. But I think more investment for first responders like uh McCall Behavioral Health Network is investing in mental health first responders to go in alongside police and first responders to be sure that people if they're having a drug overdose or mental health crisis they can avoid going to prison or you know, things that make situations like mine worse. Um so I again thank you for hearing me tonight and um I don't know if you heard any questions in there, but I appreciate any answers if you have the time. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, sir. Um so your name is David, right? David, have you talked with our Winstead Cares coordinator, Sarah Toomey? She's a friend of mine. Okay.

082Sarah does tremendous work for our town and she makes sure, you know, when you say you've had to go to Torrington, Sarah has she gives her left and right arm and probably both her feet to help our residents out. She's just a caring person. Um and it I guess it pains me a little bit to hear what you said. Um I don't take it as a negative, but I take it as okay, we we got to get better because I know Sarah has helped people similar in your situation um do some great things. So you you are in contact with Sarah then. Yeah. Okay, good. Okay. Um but I I just wanted to make sure that you knew who our Winstead Cares coordinator was and you knew how to get a hold of her cuz

083she she does some great work. Awesome. Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to speak? I have a question. I can't see tiny numbers and I don't think it was up there. Uh Candy Perez, 605 West Wakefield Boulevard. Uh we're getting speed cameras to be put in soon. Yes, we have. Well, well. Um Eventually, yes, I hope. >> to impact this next budget and how much money do you have you projected for income? I have projected no money in this coming year's budget for the speed cameras. Currently right now, we're on our third rendition of the report to the state of Connecticut. After the second attempt, you know, obviously the thought practice went through my head of should we put some money in, should we not put some money in. The problem with it is you

084have a uh uh revenue line item that could diminish over time. Um and then you create a hole. So this budget that's being proposed has no speed camera money as a revenue line item. Yeah, my most of my worry was the hole that would be created if it's up there and then it decreases over that. So the whole thing will be put out tomorrow. Yes. Depending on what time we get out, you never know, it could be tonight, too. Well, if you're slapping I know. See you at the kind of basketball game. Oh yeah, 8:50. I knew I hired him. I said you hired him. >> [laughter] >> No, you guys were there. Good evening. Frank Oliveri, 108 Shore Drive. I think this is going to be a very tough budget to sell. For the

085elderly people, retired people I think it's going to be pushing people out of town. That's all I can say. I know we were tied on this budget. I just don't think we can live with it right now. So and next year's going to be worse when the evaluation comes through. So we're only going to make it worse then. But thank you for your time. Thank you for your effort. Thank you for the time you put in. Thank you. Hi everyone. I'm Nora Mocarsky, 605 West Wakefield Boulevard. I serve on the Winchester Board of Education. Um can you give me David, can you go back to that slide with the pie graph that shows what percent is Board of Ed, what percent is the town? It was a 60/40 split. Nice pie chart, pretty colors. Yeah.

086Whoops, I went too fast. >> Right. Um What I'm hoping that you can do is communicate to the community of the education side, which is approximately 60% of the total round. Can you clarify how much of that ask is grants? Meaning what's coming from the taxpayer excluding grants. Because if we exclude grants, the ask is probably not 60% right there as part of that budget category. I'd like to see the actual ask to the taxpayer in a pie chart that lets the taxpayer know that some grants are really helping us out. I think that's important to educate. So when you say grants, Nora, are you saying grants that the Board of Ed is receiving? >> Right. So I think in in in Dr. Luby and I had a conversation about that. The Board of Education

087budget isn't a $26 million budget. I think it's 30 31 32. 31 249 23 million >> 23 million. So you know, I see that obviously in the detailed report of of the Board of Education budget, right? I use so the number that you see I think Nora's thinking maybe I'm just trying to get on this >> It's 26 minus the eight would be 18 as a percentage of 18 million as a percent of the total budget. Right, right. 18 of the 40 current Right, right. Take the ECS out of the town. Take the ECS out. Right, plus the 3 million that we receive in grants on top of that. No, but it's the 3 million grants isn't reflected Yeah, the 3 million's not reflected cuz your budget is higher. Yeah. So I'm just trying to

088Take the ECS out. If you take the ECS out, I'm just trying to see 26 million minus 18 million to 26 >> Yeah, it's well, yeah. I think the taxpayer needs to see the 18 million. Which is You're making me go the wrong way, Todd, I think. I said that's what the budget's been put at. Right. Yeah, you made me go the wrong way. So we have that somewhere. Nope. It was in there, right? >> Yes. 18 million 226 No, not as a Oh, you want the pretty picture. Oh, you want Okay. That's easy cuz the numbers are already done. People are very visual. We had that. Oh, there we go. Okay. So you want the pie chart on the 18 million 226 571. Right, what the taxpayers paying. Got it. Local taxpayer. Anyone else

089wish to speak? Last chance of this meeting. Um real quick, I noticed a post on Facebook about uh traffic safety initiative. Can you go into any detail about that? Or is that not regarding this business? That's separate then. Leave it up to the board. Um so I mentioned it a little bit earlier during town manager report. So we created a Safe Streets for All Committee, which was um federally funded grant. Um it's uh $250,000 grant to study our streets, to give us a report of how to make our streets safer. And currently right now on social media and also on our uh town's website, there's a link asking for participation of actual feedback from the residents of Winstead of what they feel about our streets. And I was uh directed that it's better to click

090on the link from our sites than any of the other forum sites that are out there. I got to look at that tomorrow or possibly tonight, but I'll get it fixed that, but just go to our sites and the links will work. Okay, moving on to item C, Board of Selectmen discussion of fiscal year 2026 2027 town budget. I open it up to comments, questions from the board. Anyone? Well, I I want to emphasize something that Town Manager Harrington is emphasizing. There's been a lot of investment in this town um in in our schools well promoting businesses and it is paying off. You know, I moved here 10 years ago and there were so many vacant storefronts on Main Street, everywhere. There, you know, the schools were coming out of the receivership and there was

091a lot of investment, a lot of grants were applied for and obtained in order to help us build the schools up and we've developed a very good academic program you know, through WPS. There's people investing in the town now. You we would not have Marshalls, Domino's, we wouldn't have the 508 development, we wouldn't have any of these people coming in to to invest significant, you know, we're talking millions and millions of dollars in this town in building and businesses if we hadn't done that investment. Particularly the schools. I had a conversation a couple weeks ago with the the couple that own the company that purchased 508. They're putting $2.6 million into a And I asked them about, you know, what what made you do that? And they said cuz the town had been investing in

092itself. They specifically mentioned the schools. They specifically mentioned that the schools were improving. And I And I said I said, "Well, so if the schools were eh and and the town wasn't investing in new infrastructure, education, would you have come?" They said, "No." And they're in the process of actually having conversations with the other people that they've done business with and trying to convince them to come and do business here. We want that. But they need to be able to sell it. And this is the conversation I had with them. And they said if this town starts going backwards, it doesn't invest continue to invest in its education, if it starts cutting programs, if it starts not continuing to work on the infrastructure, they're never going to be able to sell to their friends the

093idea of investing in this town. So, all the work that's been done by you know, this last several Board of Ed members, the last several Boards of Selectmen has is paying off. Marshalls didn't decide to, you know, come here a year ago or 2 years ago. Those Anyone who's had anything to do with corporate knows that these things take are long-range plans. They don't go pick a site and then it happens. It's a very long-range plan. And they are going to study the town and they're going to be looking at what's going Is it going forward? Is it stagnating? Is it, you know, is it going backwards? You know, Frank, I understand the concern about the budget. We're all taxpayers here, okay? And but if we go backwards, our grand list is going to shrink

094again, which means the tax burden will get higher. So, you have to invest when you have to. We've tried to keep it flat for a while, but still being creative about investing. If we now go backwards and say, "Well, we can't do this to the taxpayers," we're going to do more harm to the taxpayers when the grand list goes down because businesses aren't going to invest in the town. We're not going to increase the tax base. We're looking at putting more housing to bring more people in to properties. They're going to be taxpayers. They're going to be changing our grand list. They're going to be decreasing the tax burden for everyone that's already here. You've got to pass a budget. You have to invest in the schools. That is so important. So important. Ask any

095business person when they're making a decision to open a business, what are the factors? They're looking at Is there an educated workforce? Is this place for families with those people with skills going to come into this town and know their kids are getting an education? They're not going to come here if we're not doing that. You've got to do it. And it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot. And I really appreciate the slide that Harrington put up showing what the cost would be broken down per household because that gives you a realistic number. It gives you an idea how it's going to hurt. But, you know what? Next year it could be less because we got more businesses coming in. We've got something going on. We're increasing our tax base. I mean,

096look at it. We've already increased it. That's huge when it hadn't been happening. So, you can look at it we just want to keep it flat or we don't have kids in it or grandkids or nieces or nephews or friends who have kids in the school system. So, where's the benefit I'm getting out of a education budget? We're getting that benefit because the whole town is getting the benefit of more people wanting to come here, businesses investing, creating jobs. I mean, think about it. You A lot of us know people who are took took the jobs that Marshalls offered you know, those weren't jobs that Those jobs weren't here a year ago. And so, that's some new jobs. The construction of renovating these properties, those are jobs. That's money coming into the town. There's people

097who are going to go into our stores, into our restaurants, and they're going to spend money. That creates revenue for the town. So, you know, you can't just look at what the bottom line is. You have to look at why we feel this is important, why it is important, and why you invest. Like when you you decide, "I'm going to paint my house." You're painting your house because it's improving it. It's going to increase the value of it so that if you need want to sell it, you're going to get more money for it. Well, this is the town needs to paint. We need to make this town more marketable. You do that about investing in education and infrastructure. Whether you get a direct benefit from that education, you're going to get the benefit down

098the road. So, I think that's very important to keep in mind. I've gone through this budget. I have highlights all over the place which I And you know what impressed me? Zeros and negatives. There has been such an effort line item to reduce stuff. And so did the education budget. But, you know what? My utility bills went up. My insurance went up. My income didn't go up. The town's utility bills went up. The costs go up. You can't keep flat and still pro have progress. That's the important thing. You have to continue your progress. And it seems to me this is being done extremely responsibly. Things asked were denied. Things that we probably could use. I know we could use some some more teachers and services, you know. David, you were talking about social services.

099We could use more people, parents or staff in our schools to help our kids. But we But we're trying to be responsible and we're not adding everything we need. But that doesn't mean we can keep it flat. And if everyone wants this town to progress, you have to support this budget. I went through this with a fine-tooth comb. Every item I went through. Highlighted things I have potential questions for which we'll discuss in workshops. But the thing is, I didn't see any fat here. I've sat on other boards and I know how to read a budget. And I would like I wish we could ask for more money, but I understand this is a big ask in one year. And there's many [clears throat] reasons for it and I can agree with Paul Moore in

100that the state of Connecticut needs to step the hell up, okay? But, we're doing what we have to do. And so, you know, I will have questions about things and I'm sure there'll be some cuts, but I really hope that we try to look at this as a way of moving forward, progressing, improving the town, improving our whole situation. It will help everyone in this community. That's my my little sermon. So. I think the biggest thing that is kind of not on the radar that should be on the radar is the Wallingsford development because that is going to bring a lot of new people into this town. I mean, we haven't even, you know, we've we've got it in the works, but we haven't even talked about it that much. So, it's not really on

101the minds of people right now, but that is going to be a lot of I mean, you know, Marshalls is great, Dominos is great, but we're talking about like a whole new section of town that's going to bring a whole new group of people, new families. They need places to shop. They're not going to move here if we let downtown fall apart, you know? They're going to We need to our businesses to thrive. We need our community to thrive. We need a good education. Where are their kids going to go to school? I mean, this is a huge huge undertaking that is so important to our town and will raise our tax base, our grand list so much that development. And it's going to, you know, take several years for this to happen, but it's

102in the works. We've got the proposals going. And I think that that needs We need to be preparing. We've got to have forward vision. If we are just, you know, talking about what we can't do instead of what we can do, what's going to happen with that? We're not going to be prepared for all of those new people and they're not going to want to come here and they're not going to, you know, want to to, you know, move into probably what's going to be pretty expensive housing that's going to bring in a lot of, um, you know, new taxes and new grand list to our town. So, all I ask is as we go through this process and I know that we will make cuts and, you know, we will bring down that number

103as best as we can. I just hope that we can all, you know, talk about what we can do together as a town instead of just, you know, looking at a number and seeing it as just numbers. And, you know, each number is a person. It means something. It means somebody's education. Uh, we just need to be thinking about what we can do, what we can accomplish with what we have, not just, you know, an axe because it's a big number and nothing else. So, this will be my 10th, 11th budget, um, in the town. I've seen good and I've seen bad. Will over 9% tax increase pass? Maybe. Maybe not. But the seven of us of us up here have the responsibility to to go through this budget line by line as Cheryl's already

104started and put forth the most responsible budget that we can, whether that's add money to some lines, take money from some lines. At the end of the day, we have to live within our means and we have to make sure that our residents can live within our means. The town manager and I were at a public hearing this last week. And one of the comments that were made by a speaker were what they thought could happen. And that's one thing that we need to make sure that we stay away from cuz we don't know what will happen in the future. We have to deal with the cards that we have now. So, we need to make sure that we're responsible in the budget now even though Walnut Hill can be a tremendous windfall for us

1053 years, 4 years, 5 years down the road. We can't count on that now though. We have to count on what we have. So, yes, there probably will be some cuts in the budget. Um will the public get a 9. Uh 9.38 >> 8 9.38% increase? Maybe yes, maybe no. The residents have to come out. We have to find a number that they'll support, come out, and pass cuz at the end of the day all of the work that we do here it's not up to us. It's up to the residents to pass the budget or to defeat the budget. So, we have to work the best that we can to make sure that we can get the most amount of people out to support the budget, whatever budget we put forward. Anyone else on

106the board? Yes. Um I just like to remind everybody and I think this is not beating a dead horse that last year's budget only passed by our miracle eight only by eight votes. That's all. So, to bring in $2 million we need 400 homes paying $5,000 a year taxes. There's $2 million right there. 400 homes. I don't see that happening like the mayor said now. Um I I don't I don't think that this budget is going to pass like this. If we push it forward like this, I don't think it's going to pass. Because I don't know about the rest of you guys after last year, I got hammered pretty hard. How much that went up? >> [clears throat] >> So, and I know we do we are investing. People are investing some money. There's

107a lot of people investing a lot of free time into the town and I look at former selectman Perez because I she's she's almost like me, she's everywhere investing in the town not just money but work, stuff to be done. We got the Sue Grossman Trail that's coming. That I think and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I think that brought 10 to $15,000 extra into the town just by people walking that trail. Um so, we are investing but how much can we afford this year? Yes, stuff is coming down the road. A lot of this stuff that uh town manager Harrington read off isn't even we're not even collecting anything off of it this year. Marshals we're not collecting anything off of it. None of it. And we certainly can't count on that

108ticket money because that will create a hole in the budget and that's where we have to be careful. Even with the schools, yes, you guys are getting uh grants and stuff as long as it goes into capital, it doesn't go into the budget cuz that will create a hole. I was just looking from the last superintendent and she was saying even in then and that was two or three years ago, there's going to be a hole, there's going to be a hole. And that hole is starting to come and and rear its ugly head and that's my biggest concern. Like I shared before, I'm looking at things a little differently this year. It's easy to spend money. It's easy to spend it but you we got to bring it in. We got to get have

109that revenue side and that's going to be tough this year. Um I I don't believe in a a zero flatline budget. I don't know how they did it for all those years back then. I think it was like 70 years. I think that's when it was under the school was under receivership. They not only flatlined the budget they flatlined the mill rate. And that's kind of coming back a little bit and and catching up to us here because everything was flat. Like I said, I don't believe in a zero zero budget. You have to if things are going up. Insurance has gone up by almost over a million dollars just for health insurance for people. What's coming what what's going on? And and I'm the more I get involved politically, it it's all coming down

110to the state of Connecticut. I'm even worried that we're not even get the $7 million that we're supposed to be getting from the ECS because they're looking at uh a little deficit in their budget this year. You know, they don't even they're they're they took $350 million that was supposed to come back to the schools that everybody's paying an extra percent when you go out to dinner. It goes to the general fund. What's the state doing with our money? What are they doing with it? There's no accountability. They're unfunded mandates. It just drives me right up a wall. An unfunded mandate. And that's what's happened over the the years. All these unfunded mandates. You got to have this, you got to have that. And and the schools they still have to operate even if you

111lose students. They're still going to have to operate at the same level that they're at because of the MBR, the minimum budget requirement unless you go and you talk to the state of Connecticut. So, I really think 2.7% increase or it's 9.38 is the ask with a increase of 2.74. I don't think that's going to pass. And that we are going to have to do some reduction. There's there's no there's no way around it. So, and there's my my uh statement counselor so to speak, not my sermon but my my my statement. So, my sermon might come a little bit later. >> [clears throat] >> So. Cuz we're going to need God on this. Everything I hear from the people in this town is roads, roads, roads. And I want everybody to know that's watching

112and that's in this room that this budget has zero for roads. So, just and we're investing in our town, we're not investing in their town because our roads are going backwards and backwards and we're at the point right now that I don't even think we would ever be able to recoup from where we're at. So, um I just want everybody to know that that's going to be, you know, I I asked for a million dollars to be put in for roads this year. That was taken out before it even came to this and here we are at a 2.74 mill rate increase. I mean, it's ridiculous. Um the people that I, you know, uh the school is one thing but, you know, other people some people don't have kids and they want their roads fixed

113and that's not in this budget. So, you know, somebody's going to have to take a beating on this. It's going to go down and I will not support a 2.74 mill increase or a 9% increase. So. I'm hearing the same thing. Uh roads. >> [clears throat] >> Uh we we wanted to put some money into buildings in this town. Ev- Every town building I look at, the roofs are leaking. This building, we have buckets in catching rain. We have no money for that. Um playground buildings, public works building. Um maybe funded in the future. That building's just about falling down. I've been through every inch of that building with Jimmy. It it's in really rough shape. So, I'm hearing the same thing but that being said everybody I know is scared to death of taxes

114going up. They took a hit on the last reval. They're scared scared to death of the new reval coming up. See what's going to happen there. I don't I don't see it flying either and I'm not supporting it at that percentage either. Wasn't um wasn't one of the biggest increases the debt service on the on the $24.7 million road bond because it's an on- it's an ongoing process, right? >> Yeah. It was a 5-year process. >> So, we are I mean, uh Mr. Rollins came in and gave us a nice presentation about how we are making progress on the roads and I even asked in that meeting, you know, overall, are we are we getting going ahead or are we going backwards on the roads? And and and Mr. Rollins said we're definitely moving ahead.

115So, I know I I wish we could move ahead at a faster rate and I know everybody does but I just wanted to say that like it's not like we're not investing in roads. We're we have the $24.7 million bond and one of our biggest increases is the debt administration on that bond. So, it's not that no roads are are being re- repaired. >> That bond though was for a specific set of roads. Correct. And when and when those roads were quoted many years ago the cost of paving those roads has almost doubled. Mhm. So, that all those roads that that 20 24 million was going to get, we're getting half of those roads now. [clears throat] Yeah, but we're still doing the roads. We're doing We're doing We're doing a few roads. And we

116we can't do them all. We can't We couldn't take the $26 million and do all the roads at once. We don't have the people for that and it would be a disaster. So, it has to be done in stages and that was a decision made by the prior board and the board before that probably. I know it wasn't on the board that I was on. So, I mean, that was a decision that's been made over the course of a two or three boards. You know, but roads are on there but, you know, you know, I don't know whether, you know, any of you gentlemen um took up Dr. Luby's um offer to sit down and have a private meeting with her and go through the budget and have her explain it. If you haven't, I

117really suggest you do. So, you she you can understand how bare-bones it is. She has volunteered her time, show you around the school, what they do, and you'll have an understanding of how important that is. That's something that you should that you should do if you're what you're looking at is talking about the education budget cuz that's the biggest half, then do that. And then go over to, you know, sit down with, you know, Mr. Susie at Gilbert and have him explain his budget as well. You know, that's and that is a responsible thing to do if you're questioning because yes, you know, I remember earlier on getting hearing a comment from you Bill about how we just get one sheet in our budget book but the Board of Ed. Well, I contacted Dr. Luby

118and she sent me her entire budget. It's available. Line item, everything. This year >> Paper clip. No, you could get it last year. It's It's available. You just have to ask and she's and she's willing to sit down. Especially with people who are, you know, on the Board of Selectmen who make decisions. You know, I know you know, I went there, you know, and Kevin went there. We went there, we talked to her, and went through things. And that's And that's your right and privilege and if you support this budget, you absolutely can. >> No, but I'm saying that before you >> because I'm not supportive of this >> I understand, but what I'm saying before you decide what you want to cut, you should be educated on what is the What's the basis of

119the ask? And what the the result will be of any significant cuts. As I said when I spoke earlier, I know things are going to get cut. I'm not saying this is a random result. We know that's not the end. The proposal's never the end. There's always negotiations, always tweaking here and there. But, you know, you know, if you're going to just say I won't agree to any increase in the education budget, which is a big ask here, make sure you know understand the budget before you do that. >> you hear I I heard I say we aren't going to support any increase? >> I didn't say that at all. I'm just saying if you're going to be looking to cut, that's something that needs to be You need You just need to We have

120an obligation to this community to understand the finer things of the budget and not just what the town votes, but what WPS is proposing, what Gilbert's proposing. Those are things that are out there and available. There's a reason that the WPS went through a lot of work. They did a lot of work trying to get to a budget. They cut. They were just fine-tuned. There's a lot of work that went into that. And, you know, I watched all the meetings. I've sat down with the with the super, you know, and I've gone through it. And, you know, that gives you a perspective. So, I think I'd just suggest that that's done for any member of this board to get a full understanding because she's willing to do it. But, don't don't worry, we're going to

121cut Paul's budget, too. Oh, no, I'm not saying it's just going to be I know the Board [laughter] of Education budget is a big is a big part of this. >> It's the insurance is a is a big driver. It's the health insurance and that's just It's sad because we're being penalized because people are using it and people need it. Yeah. That's sad. >> That's very sad. The pain. I I mean, I recently clipped a deer coming back after Thanksgiving. Um it cost $6,000 to to repair my truck. My insurance went up $1,000 a year. So, I might as well just pay for it out of my own pocket. And that's just What was the point of having insurance after paying 35, 40,000 dollars for 40-something years I've been driving? That's That's That's sad. They

122make a lot of money, don't they? All right, so we need to set up some workshop dates. Yes, and I I have a question if it's possible. Um on some of these workshops, it would be nice to have Dr. Luby and our superintendent. So, before we get into workshops, if you can if I can if I can say this to the board. So, um thank you, Selectman for graciously wanting to cut my budget. Um it's fine. Um you know, in all honesty, and and I want to I want to temper emotions a little bit right now. So, this was a budget that was prepared for March 13th is when I turned it over to the Board of Selectmen. Between that day and even up until today, I have found more efficiencies. This presentation is being

123based on the proposed budget that I gave the Board of Selectmen on March 13th. Our first budget workshop, the first item, if the board allows, is I'm going to come in with adjustments of continuing work that we continue to do each and every day. Just because I passed over the budget on March 13th to this board, we haven't stopped trying to find efficiencies throughout town government. And we are going to come to that first budget workshop with some of the Is it a $3 million? I'm going to temper some of expect It's not $3 million worth of efficiencies, but we are continuing every single day. So, why my town manager's report was a little bit shorter than they will be for the next month is that the only thing that our office is concentrated on

124is trying to find more efficiencies, the best that we can do. We're still out It's small. It's something, but you're going to see a a copy or line item drop $6,000. We renegotiated the copier contracts. It's six grand. I'm taking it, okay? But, in this budget, $6,000 higher. So, in the first budget workshop, I'm going to ask you to reduce the copier line item by $6,000. We locked in a contract. We saved some money. So, again, temper your expectations that this is the proposed budget of the information that we had on or before March 1st cuz then we had to start putting together. But, the work has continued to find efficiencies and we have found more efficiencies. So, even before the board has a chance to cut >> to cut my budget, I'm going to

125offer up some efficiencies. So, I'm going to have some efficiencies that that I want to present to you. And it's up to you because after tonight, it does become Selectman proposed, but I do want to offer up that this number was a was a a second in time of all of the information that we had just before we put it together. But, the work continues and will continue up until our last budget workshop to continue to find more efficiencies that we can offer up and see what the board wants to do. It is not a sprint. It is a marathon. I say that every year. So, I invite anybody to come in here and and help us figure out from revenue to expenditures how we're going to keep that mill rate down. I If anybody's

126got any ideas, I invite them from the town. Please come to the meetings. And just so everybody knows and that's watching at home, this is our budget that we got that's in front of the the mayor. That's how big that budget is. And it is line by line. >> How many pages was it? I know I told you, I forgot. 900-something? It's measured in feet, not in inches. We did count this year. So, we're looking looking at a two workshops next week. Um is everyone available the 13th? Monday? Yes. And we have Yeah, that's We had that earlier in the schedule. I might not be I don't know. Look. So, I didn't know the dates. I have to look at my thing. Um just for scheduling purposes cuz it will have to be a noticed

127meeting. Um I will note that the Planning and Zoning does have a meeting that night, but obviously, we can potentially move them into the blue room. I'll work on logistics. Start time. Sometimes these get early, these get late, but I know I know professional schedules sometimes Yeah, so I don't think Selectman Marino can get here much earlier than before 7:00. But, you'll have to You'll have to talk to him. I'm here, so 7:00's fine. All right, so 7:00 on the 13th. Dr. Luby, when are you going to Any night between now and the end of the month that I can. But, you can be here on the 14th, right? That's that Tuesday. So, if the board so pleases, um maybe we can take on the general government side of things on the 13th. I'll put

128an invitation out if the board wants to Dr. Luby and uh Superintendent Susi for the 14th. Could we do Could we do the Wednesday or the Thursday instead? I can do Thursday. Instead the 15th? But, I cannot do the Wednesday the 15th. I can't do Wednesday, either. That's That's the job meeting that I have to go to. That one pays more. Could we go to the following week? That's a conflict. I I I want to go two days next week cuz I think we need to unfortunately, or fortunately. I mean, I I I might be able to stay on the 15th. Just have to let my co-worker do it. Which He's going to have to do it sooner or later, right? 15th is fine with me. I'd have to check. I don't think so, but

129we'll check. 15th is I can do 14th, 15th, 15th. Okay. Every night. >> We have to check with with Gilbert, but I can get an email out tomorrow. So, 13th and 15th and just And then there's the 20th is another Board of Selectmen meeting, which we could also make it a workshop um that night as well with hopes of possibly on the 20th finalizing the budget. If >> 24th. It's due the 24th. Um We can have a special meeting to to As long as it doesn't last till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Well, I I may. Well, they do sometimes, so >> Yeah, I know. All right. So, 13th at 7:00, 15th at 7:00, 20th is a Board of Selectmen night, but we can make it a Board of Selectmen night with a budget

130workshop with hopes of a finalization of a budget that night. After the 20th, we'll decide if we need to go into extra innings. Who knows? Is there anything that the board would like questions to cuz we're going to move quick. Anything coming to mind? If you If If have something tonight, great. If you want to email it to me so I can come prepared to the meeting, that would be helpful because I think you guys want to take action. So, anything prior to, if you want to know whatever, get it to me either now or you know, via email. Um and then this way I can come to the 13th prepared to answer any questions you all Nothing for tonight? No homework assignments? It's okay. All right. Moving on to item E, 26-11, proposed line

131item transfer by the director of finance. Town Manager Harrington. Let me just catch up real quick and I'll be right with you. So, this one is 26-11. Um we overspent the street department maintenance of equipment line. It's mostly due to a $32,000 worth of overdue repairs for a 2008 John Deere grader. Fortunately, we were able to uh scavenge enough sand from our pile to get through this past winter without running out. So, we are safe in transferring $20,000 from the sand for ice control to cover the overage to uh repair this John Deere 2008 grader. I move that the Board of Selectmen approve the above action step 26-11 budget transfer number uh 2026-05 totaling $20,000. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. 26-12, proposed line item transfer. Town Manager Harrington. Uh so, this

132is uh continuing the progress on the completion of the Sue Grossman Still River Greenway. Uh the town must retain a soils uh science and environmental service to locate and flag soils and prepare a soils report for the project area before vegetation uh buds. Delaying this work until after budding budding season, which would mean we would wait until July 1st. We put it in the budget. Um it significantly increases both the time and cost required to complete it. Because the work must proceed immediately, it will occur before a grant agreement is executed. So, we can't use any grant funding for this. It will not be eligible for reimbursement. Cardinal Engineers uh estimates is about $10,000. We want to move um oh, uh Oh, right. Because there's enough Yeah, there's enough in contracted uh in in engineering

133services. So, we want to move $500 from contracted services and 500 $5,000 from contracted labor into the engineer services so we can get this report done so we can unlock this grant funding. So moved. Thanks, Joyce. I'll second. Can you guys just action step 26-12 budget transfer 2026-06 totaling 5500? So moved. Thank you. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. Unanimous. Thank you, public works. 26-13, proposed line item transfer. Town Manager Harrington. So, this is an EDC request of a budget transfer within their own budget. It's a marketing initiative focused on video and social media contact for LinkedIn and CTV platforms. The marketing line currently has a remaining balance of $2,000, which is insufficient to cover the $3,000 cost of this initiative. At the same time, EDC does not anticipate fully expending the outside

134services line of their budget. The re- reallocation of the funds will fund the work while maintaining the overall budget in effect effectively using available resources prior to June 30th. Um I can tell you they're they're taking that video and making shorts of it and then going to do authentic commercials. We're building more momentum, I guess. >> [clears throat] >> This has not been signed off by the head of the department yet. There is no head of the department for EDC. >> of the commission. I'm just saying that there's Okay, so there is no I just want to make sure this is done right. Cuz You you cuz it's a volunteer party. You brought up an interesting I know it and I can tell you that both Dooley and Tom have They brought it to our

135attention. Yeah. Um But they're not a department head. They're a volunteer. They're a volunteer. You could say um you know, you're going to potentially, you know, approve the action step with with the with the with the reassurance that that the EDC chair is in agreement. If that works. So, so moved. Action step 26-13. Uh chairman is aware of the movement of the money. Budget transfer 2026-07 totaling $1,000. Second. All in favor? Thank you. 26-14, proposed line item transfer. Town Manager Harrington. So, a third recruit uh at the police academy was cut during the 2026 uh budget process, but it was still uh is necessary. Additional training is required for our young and inexperienced staff. We do not expect using the remaining funds in the education tuition incent uh incentive by June 30th. So, we're just

136trying to get um benefit [clears throat] that's not being used by a our our police officers. We want to get um some of our newer officers some more training. So moved. Action step 26-14, budget transfer 26-08 or 07? No, 08. 26-08? How come everything else is 07? No, it was 07 and you have 07. That's the number. That's No, it's your number. You have 06, 07, 08. >> What's that say? Budget transfer 26 That's 08. Yeah, that's 08. The other one was 07 and before that was 06. >> 06. So, we have 06 and 07. Oh, there's the number. That's the number. Okay. So, we keep it in Excel and then we give it to the auditors. Got you. I told you the year. Sorry. By totaling $5,000. I'll second. Thank you, Troy. Thank you,

137Melanie. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. It didn't happen. Just happened to be right there. >> scan. Item 11, citizen's comments. Board of Selectmen welcomes public comments. Speakers will be limited to 3 minutes or less and may speak once. Uh-oh. Oh, we're in trouble. We knew it was coming. This is really easy. Jim Rollins, director of public works. Uh just one thing I'd like to bring to the attention of whoever's watching as well as as the board. The safe streets for all that Town Manager Harrington was talking about. The link that's on the website. It's important that we get as much action through that as possible. Uh what I learned about this process is public involvement is a significant um piece of how much money we get later. So, the more we put into this

138as far as volunteer time, answering surveys, that kind of stuff, all gets put into the equation when they start rolling up the money associated with this. So, involvement is huge. So, anybody that can, you know, that their their information that they put in is really going to be instrumental in getting more and more revenue. Uh we want to reach out to EDC, all those other organizations that we were talking about. We want to get as much public input on this as possible cuz it brings in more money. That's all. Thank you, Mr. Rollins. Thank you. Item 12, executive session. Discussion strategy and negotiations regarding emergency services pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes 1-206. Have a motion to go into executive session? >> So moved. Second. You want to bring them in? With Town Manager Harrington. As

139you all want to bring them in with you. Uh all in favor? We should enter executive session at 9:00 8:54. We should be 3 minutes. Let me hit that mic. >> Mhm. >> Make a motion to come out of the executive session. I did. We have a motion to come out of executive. Is there a second? Second. All in favor. We are out of executive session at 9:08. We have no actions to take for new business. Moving [clears throat] on to item 14, selectmen's comments and reports. Does anyone have anything to report on? Item 15. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor. Goodnight, everybody. >> Goodnight.