Farmington Town Council Budget Meeting - 03/13/25

001[Music] I like to call the order the March 12 2025 Town council meeting actually it's the 13th isn't it 13th yeah 13th town council meeting please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and Ann would you lead us Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for thank you all right we will go to public yes no sorry you all set yep all right anybody inside the chambers would like to make public comment please step up to the podium you state your name your address and you have five minutes to make comment looking once looking twice anybody online C I do not see any hands raised all right then we will move over to D please sorry uh

002make a motion to consider and take action on the proposed fiscal year 2025 2026 budget second motion second Kathy so maybe we can go through the process for tonight M please so typically what we do we're going to try to run through all the department heads tonight um we have the schedule in front of you I've asked everyone to come about 4:30 so um people will be here and we'll just start clipping through all the Departments typically what we do is we use our book here and we go through each one of the sections I'll give a brief highlight on the sections um if anyone we can ask questions if anyone wants to make any changes or wants to come back to it we make a list of that and then we tentatively approve each

003one of the sections and then if we have a list at the end we come back to the list and we can come back to each of the sections and then we go through it I think tonight we will probably also go through what's on our schedule which is all the Departments and then on what was uh for Saturday we'll also try to go through Debt Service and non- tax reeven depending on how far we go that would be the end and then we could start talking about the overall um tax and budget worksheet all right so we have the register of Voters um are here and then I think oh perfect and then the library will be next and the register of Voters if you everyone wants to turn to in the yellow section

004General Administration and the registar can come right up to the page nine page nine thank you and I'll go down and we'll go from there how are you ladies we're fine thank you fine thank you for coming out today hope everybody's well so page nine any comments you guys want to make before we ask anyone any questions um well we do want to thank you for considering and approving our salary increases our base salary increases for the new term so obviously that shows up in the budget um and stiens um and 2526 will be interesting because we'll get new tabulators in the spring and we'll be rolling those out and first general election we'll be using those will be November 2025 um and a new state voting system register our voter won't be Connecticut voter

005registration system will be called total vote that will also be launched May June so we have a lots to learn a lot on your plate a lot of learning right across the state and um a lot of teaching we'll be going to several meetings and train the trainer so we can train our own people after that we'll be training everybody and then for the referend you all will be using the brand new tabulators so that's going to be our first uh our first experience with all the system which're grateful because not all towns will be able to they don't have a referendum so it's a practice and a low turn good trial run for us not a chance anything and we're also lucky it's not you know like last fall for the presidential election with

006that many people so right this is good excellent and we'll be getting word out in the newsletter and other ways so that people are hopefully most people will be expecting it it's much more friendly we like friendly don't we new tabulators it will really tell people right up your vote was accepted oh good so we have to worry about I didn't see my number get changed and all this other stuff nothing about those numbers again that's great awesome any questions from the deas Brian uh no thank you for everything you guys have done and we are in good hands with learning and training the new systems so thank you for that fingers crossed Patty yeah um So based on my quick math I think we increased your combined salaries by about $24,000 over the course

007of a year um and the budget last year was $136 and what's been what's in the town manager's proposed budget is 154 so that's about an $18,000 difference um so I want to confirm that this request ballpark addresses you know the new things that you just mentioned the new tabulators the new registration um because I did see that your request was about $10,000 more so I want to just right well there's been some tweaking you know between the time the budget book came out and um our salaries weren't um approved until after that so um it's my understanding that what's behind these numbers we've actually been able to take some things out that are likely not to happen like a second referendum right or um a primary for the municipal and we kind of understand

008that we may need to support that if we have to but they're unlikely events so there was some shifting around to kind of keep the budget about the same amount with our increases with the stiens and some of the increase that we'll be experiencing with the new tabulators and the service on those new tabulators right so so in general you're you're comfortable with as Pro great I don't have anything else thank you thanks Sarah I don't have any questions Keith no questions thank you Amy no questions Dave just uh just we're lucky to have both of you and the capacities that you you know operate on a weekly basis is the registers of Voters so and we're happy to have you thank you excellent thank you very much two of you and I thank you

009for obviously a great presidential run for our elections I know everything went smoothly and I look forward to the new implementation of the machines and stuff and look forward to a smoother events for us as we go into the new year good luck with the rest of your budget work have a great day thank you very much thank you you too thank [Music] you all right make a motion for a temporary approval for page nine of our budget book is it temporary or tentative pardon me what did I say is it temporary or tentative did I say temporary yes tentative rough start a lot of talking a lot of talking for me tonight too on these motions so tentative approval page nine of the budget book second good luck motion second any discussion all in

010favor hi hi hi opposed motion passes the library hi everyone how are you jine I'm great it's good to see you all long time no see I know thanks for having me here thank you for coming I have um Dana pescatello with me who's the um chair of the library board if you want to send the other side Dan if you're going to talk you have a microphone right in front of you be easy think going to speak you sure I'll I'll share mic with you if you want to talk sit wherever you want page 17 thank you so thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you about the library and our funding requests for fiscal year 26 I'm very proud of the work our library team does every day to help

011our residents have the best day ever at the library so I invite you to visit the library's children room early in the day and um uh there you'll find our earliest Learners making new friends and exploring our spaces you'll see parents grandparents and caregivers building foundational relationships alongside their children a first grader visiting on a recent field trip enthused quote I had a great time at the library and we'll come back there soon soon thank you for letting us take books home end quote that student was back that very afternoon with their parents to show them all the cool stuff at the library we recently started an Adaptive story time for children on the autism spectrum one parent had this to share quote programs like these are literally lifechanging for our kiddos and for our

012families walking into that welcoming and supportive space with loving and familiar faces is so apprecia end quote throughout any given day tutors students adults seniors and small business people visit the library to learn and connect our rooms have been booked almost 3,000 times this year they use our computers for personal research and professional growth uh 2,800 uses so far with over 6,000 database logins as of February community members browse our shelves settle into comfortable stair chairs to read newspapers or a good book we we've circulated 265,000 items so far um local creators are building and making in our maker space the use of which has increased over 30% from this time last year with more than 500 adult volunteer hours logged at the library our volunteer program provides the library with much needed assistance while

013Al also improving the lives of our volunteers like this person who completed their hours and said quote it proved to be extremely beneficial in helping me get a positive outcome during a difficult time thank you so much end quote more than 177,000 people have attended our various free programs from history lectures to crafting gardening trivia and movie Nights to our pet adoption event which is tonight maybe it will coincide with your dinner break at 6 uh and we have a murder mystery party happening on Friday there's something really for everyone at the library when the high school bell rings Controlled Chaos ensues as students make their way to the team space in the words of one of our teens quote this is my safe place the library is the only place I can go and

014be myself end quote we provide firsttime jobs for teens through our page program and rely heavily on their on their volunteer work to help with many of our larger events we continue to provide space for adult EDS ESL program and it's an honor for us to assist these members of the community as they find their footing and develop both cultural and language skills on their Journey the libraries aren't just for folks who can travel to our physical locations our outreach program delivers reading material and for some members of our community human interaction to those who are homebound or living in one of our many facilities in town they can't travel to us so we go to them spreading Library Joy our digital resources are available to anyone with a library card and an internet connection

015when they download a book from the library onto their phone or stream a movie their living room they are bringing the library into their own spaces because the library is truly wherever our patrons are and we've circulated over 38,000 digital items this year to our community and we continue to grow our Patron base this year we issued 847 new library cards to our residents our libraries continue to evolve and serve broader purposes within the community and to meet that opportunity we just completed a strategic plan which will guide our decisionmaking over the next three years the library's mission is to empower people to learn connect and grow we aim to serve as a catalyst for connection and growth fostering the joy of reading learning and Discovery in our town during our planning process we talked

016to many people across Farmington and Unionville from town leaders to families teens to seniors and we consistently learn from our many conversations that our residents see the library as an incredible resource with room for growth from that input we created the four pillars of our plan reimagining spaces increasing access to materials promoting a lifelong love of exploration learning and creating and strengthening connections we're currently undergoing a building condition assessment and we create a 15-year Capital plan for our two buildings so we can make informed decisions to responsibly care for and Steward our physical plant for the next two decades we will continue to grow our Partnerships with Town entities like economic development Community Services adult education and the school district to amplify the great work they do to make Farmington and Unionville an amazing place

017to live work and raise a family this includes our um ongoing efforts to provide resources and support directly to classroom teachers co-hosting Middle School book clubs class field trips and a safe supportive environment for high school students in our teen space in the coming year we will look to expand our connections to the Senior Center and other senior living communities across town and work closely with Community Services to to identify areas of cross support we'll partner with economic development and the Cultural District uh committee to support the work of our cultural heritage institutions we will also continue to provide the exceptional service Our Town members expect from the library including access to print and digital collections expanding our local history offerings and providing interesting and engaging programs progaming that bring people out of their homes

018and back into our community we can't do any of this work without the support of the Town Grant to the library this year we ask again for a modest 2.8% increase over last year this funding increase will primarily address Rising costs of utilities and maintenance and continue to help us lift the wages of our team who are responsible for providing the opportunities and resources so beloved by our town allowing us to retain exceptional employees and ensure our library remains competitive in a tight job market in addition to town support we rely heavily on and are Greatful for the generous donations from the friends of the Farmington libraries which are community members uh here in town and sustaining investments from the Farmington Village Green and Library Association finally I want to invite each of you to

019join us on uh next Sunday Sunday March 23rd from 1: to 4: for our maker Fair uh we get about 500 people I think you might have received a postcard in the mail so I think we're going to get more than 500 people um we have high and low tech maker crafts and science skills and there will be food trucks um and last year um like I said we had about 500 people who attended and then I'd also like to sort of mark your calendar for early evening on June 18th where we will hold our summer reading kickoff uh that's attended by about 200 families here in town so thank you again for your continued support of the Farmington libraries and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have thank you very much and

020I just want to again commend you doing a great job I love the fact that you are outside of the box or maybe outside of the library with your ideas of involving so many different programs and entities into the library to use and to reach so many different levels of our citizens thank you Dave any questions no great presentation Amy no questions no you guys are doing awesome and it was great to see because the library obviously has lots of needs but you guys were also very forward think I remember in January or maybe it might have been even December when you were checking in on where you thought the budget was going so you're Forward Thinking uh I mentioned last year the fact that JN when you came in and Dan when you took

021over um uh unilaterally deciding that there was a need to raise some employees pay which helps them morale um I just think the library is in a very good and healthy place so no questions thanks Kei Sarah no questions but great presentation Patty so first I recently started working remotely so I am now in the library a couple times during the month cuz you got to get out of the house so thank you for making those comfortable chairs and making it easy to get on and the bright light is great happy to have you and I also I do have a question just in general about ebooks I I use a lot of ebooks and I read a lot in the Press about libraries are limited on numbers of um number of times someone can

022borrow it how long you can have it and I know there's a bill pending in the state legislature I'm just wondering how that's impact ing your budget um so it the way that it impacts the budget is it means we have to make hard choices about what we make available to our patrons so last summer we actually reduced the amount of um the amount of titles that were available in one particular ebook platform we have multiple ebook platforms that we use that one particular was downloadable audio books which people were kind of upset about um unfortunately the Publishers who publish ebooks and the ways in which we um license that content um are not Library friendly um they're not they're very opaque it's not transparent libraries different libraries are charge different amounts for the same

023material and you're not allowed to ask either right and we're not allowed and we are not allowed they they sign non-disclosure or they ask us to sign non-disclosure agreements on our contracts so um if I had all the money in the world I could make every single book available to people I don't have all the money in the world I think we do a good job of really listening and paying attention to what our patrons are asking for and trying to make that those resources there's many of those resources available as possible I think you may see us here in the next five years um talking about our collections budget and that it's not sustainable as more books move to ebook platforms and more people demand and electronic resources over print resources they're um exponentially

024more expensive so a book that would cost me $12 in paper that I can circulate until that paper disintegrates um May cost me $150 and I can only circulate it 25 times and then I have to pay another $125 to circulated another 100 another 25 times so right now I think we're okay but is certainly the future is Bleak and we're really hopeful um that our legislators in Hartford will hear the Library community and and help us with this legislation thank you I think you're doing a great job and I'll say there's only been one or two books that I've not been able to find my husband's a big audiobook person so he's feeling some of the pinch but yeah thank you for we'll have him call because we can help we might be able

025to help him find it in a different platform I will thank you great Brian ah thank you yeah you actually answered every question I had in your presentation great so thank you you left me with nothing except a good book thank you for everything you do we appreciate your support thank you both very very much we appreciate your time and all your energy that you and if dinner break is at 6 there will be no I I can't go home come home with a new dog being out of the house y hold on a second lady your 15year Capital plan yes like so that's just starting as far as the ideas as far as pulling that together yeah so we've engaged an architect um spna which the town's familiar with they're doing a condition assessment

026and then they'll help us build that Capital plan and we should have that by uh the end of April for both buildings for both buildings yeah and then we'll have conversations with the town manager and um see if there's ways in which we can work collaboratively together on the care and keeping of those buildings got it very good thanks great thank you thank you both very much have a good night thank you also Keith a TA please make a motion for a tentative approval for page 17 of our budget book second motion second you do the whole page for the library library right not page 17 right 56 you want to call by the line item yeah 5468 yeah I think that's what you want to do yes okay yeah so it would be a

027TA for the line7 line item 5468 okay line it uh I make a motion for a tentative approval for page 17 line item 5468 perfect second motion is second any discussion all in favor I I oppos that motion passes our set up here uh me the chief can come up for a second and uh retrieve this peace if you want me to no I don't thank youate thank you chief [Music] [Applause] this uh Tim you want to come on up we're going to start with the police department and the police department is in your books from 32 to page 40 mhm you all know acting Chief McKenzie welcome [Applause] hello all right all right to go we are all right so the police department's budget is um overall a decrease of 1.59% um some areas

028to note um one thing that is positive is that we are able to continue with the part-time seasonal help in the police department due to grant funding um so there's no uh seasonal help in the operating budget it should be noted though that this is the last year of that help but for this year at least we have the grant funding and this is for what is it the the people the um the Summer Weekend summer weekends the river banks and things like that and that's a program I don't know if many of you know we started it seems like it was just the other day but it was probably a few years ago and it has up uh C csos csos on the trail going up and down going to the meat and doing

029things people really seem to like that and you see your presence and helping with litter pickup not picking up the litter but making sure giving out bags and different things like that so people do that so that's a program but again that's still in the budget um the other thing is one of the reasons why the police department budget is so low is that the Fleet Maintenance account does not include any funding for new uh uh Patrol vehicles and the associated technical equipment to be installed in the new vehicles so the Department's request called for the purchase of two marked and two unmarked vehicles uh and the technical equipment um that is associated with that so that is one of the things that I did bring up in my message that I think this is

030something that's probably if the council um could support some of the police cars it's unusual for us not to have our replacement plan but to make the Target that was one of the things that was um taken out the other thing should be noted is the salaries correct the salaries um the salaries are not included in this department budget right now they're in the salary Reserve account that's because the police contract it has not been negotiated yet so it's in the uh Personnel line item um and then they do move to the Departments once the contracts are settled so those are not reflected in the full-time payroll mhm you mean the incre the estimated increase of salaries or all of the salaries sorry the estimated increase in salaries is not in this line or all

031of the salaries the increase thank you so I don't know if anyone has any questions on page between 32 and page 40 all right 32 to 40 obviously I do want to discuss I don't know if it's now or we should do it later about the Cruisers and the costs probably should have some discussion about it okay so we're looking at what four overall Vehicles two and two yes two marked and two unmarked all right and um we still with the the the tahos we going back to the smaller we were staying on WE budgeted for two Dodge Durangos because they were about $10,000 cheaper really that's how prices went up this year so to the Dodgers and will we repl obviously we're replacing two or we moving the two Patrol Vehicles into a different

032category are they going off to auction so they'll rotate obviously you know to our school officers all right and then want the highest mileage Vehicles we speak with Joe if we're going to auction them or give them to another department all right what's the total cost again for the four vehicles outfitted one second C you have that cuz obviously it's two different prices from an unmarked to a marked with it's a 147 486 and then 50,100 47486 and 50,100 and that's for four vehicles okay can I ask a question about that certainly go ahead bran I'm just wondering how I mean I don't even know how many cars we have in the fleet but is our rotation usually for at a time or do we space them out differently we usually I think our rotation

033typically has been three and then last year we only did two two and so now and we have um not done an unmarked car in a while am I understanding correct correct we haven't done an unmarked car so we got a little bit behind on our schedule but um so that's why there was four in this one okay just curious yeah no problem Patty any other questions about that about the police vehicles the vehicles yeah or if you have anything else obviously I do have others but I don't know that we want do we want to bounce around or do we want to well we can talk about the vehicles then and go okay uh Brian covered my question on the vehicles all right Sarah yeah I don't have any questions on the vehicles think

034Keith I'm all set there Amy my question was already answered Dave yeah we I have the information on the vehicles yeah all right then we'll move so obviously we can look into that further as we go into the budget what we can try to look for numbers if we add that back in would you be interested in maybe taing the place where the vehicles are and not ta I'm sorry um putting a mark to come back to that page yes okay and that would be page 40 page 40 so cat will make a note to come back to page 40 about the vehicles excellent so then we'll open up for any other items or questions about the police budget Dave you have anything else about the police department um I get I guess uh is

035is the overtime that's in the in the budget is that something that's fairly consistent year toe I I can't say that I looked back 10 years but I was just wondering um the overall total of overtime I would say it's it's some of it depends if we are down like if we if we're not a full Squad of officers over the last couple years sometimes we we aren't cuz we're always recruiting then our overtime costs are typically higher if we have a full uh slate of officers are pretty close to it are overtime could potentially be lower um also depends on uh different things of people not recruitment wise but also Family and Medical lead people out for different things that overtime can go so I I gu I guess it goes sort of like

036this but it's in the bigger picture I'd say it's pretty consistent um but it does um go up because when the salaries go up the overtime goes up within the dollar amount right Amy no questions Keith my question was actually on the overtime too which was I noticed that um of all things the the police budget actually the estimated for this year based on what was budgeted for this year is under and most of it's because it looks like on each department the the overtime has been less than budgeted and I was just curious sort of like functionality how they're running is that are those hours where we don't have officers that are out there or is it just is it lack of need or lack of want to take on that overtime are you

037saying that the overtime is less yeah so like I mean just even if you go to patrol or sorry the administration Patrol and a few of the other departments there is budgeted for we budgeted for a certain amount of overtime and right now the estimation of where we're going to come in at year end will be less than what was budged for just so Tim could follow us we're on page uh 33 are you looking right 33 33 but it's it's it's true across some of the other sections but yeah just on patrol so we budgeted for 800,000 we're going to come in at $ 789 which is which is close enough that it's it's fine but if you go to the full budget I think when I looked at it it was a little

038bit more apparent um yeah overtime uh we're estimating is going to be down under Investigative Services um 14,000 uh and there was another one too that I saw um estimated versus actual for uh training was also lower uh than budgeted by like um another 10,000 and these are all estimates so but if you add them all together it's like $3 35 $40,000 worth of overtime we budgeted for that we haven't needed which is it's great to be under budget I'm just was wondering if that means that we have a lack of people or is it just we worked out the way the schedule's worked out we didn't need to fill those hours yeah if I can answer that I'm the one who does the I believe in based on what happens TR history yeah also

039Bas Captain said based on the amount of Staffing that's available not just the Staffing that's available but where the Staffing is so you could have full Staffing but if you have three people in the academy you're still covering for three people it's like you you don't have people so the short answer it's it's based on history it's based on what they've spent so far this year it's also based on uh what grants are available for for overtime also um there are some grants that we could shift overtime costs to and the estimate is that we're going to shift some of that money to the grants um we do have pretty much full Staffing um I think we only have one person in the academy at this point and one vacancy good so it it's based

040on a lot of those factors yeah I mean it's great to save money but whenever you talk about the police department when you see stuff that's budgeted for you just want to make sure that we have the people that are out there because that's what you know we people expect out of us so um and just you know and just to give you a warning though or heads up um you know this is again this is based on a normal year based on on on history and quite frankly you could have one investigation that'll just blow the whole blow the whole thing up sure blow the whole thing up so um you don't budget for those extreme those extraordinary things you budget for the norm yeah but something extraordinary comes up and it could it'll

041blow the whole budget out okay answer my question thank you thank you Joe Sarah um I just had I had just kind of curiosity question what is a full considered a Full Slate for like fully staffed in terms of number of officers 46 more 46 and I'm just curious have you seen any Trends and like the type of um issues that you're facing in the community like more motor vehicle accidents anything like that any types of crime or things that are coming up that impact kind of what what you're all having to do deal with we're still we're still facing the motor vehicle fact re of Motor Vehicles hence the arpa grant that offset some of the money there we it was a surprise that we got it again this year so we can put

042extra patrols on the road overnight hours to um saturate the area or we can pay the investigators to follow up on the stolen cars out of town and and you know they they end up out of town and it costs a lot to go and investigate and track down some of the um the suspects so but that's the most common Trend right now is still the unlocked Vehicles leading to the motor vehicle thefts thank you Patty um sorry I had to collect myself for a moment um I do have a question um look for looking forward into next year's budget because I am one of those people who very much appreciates having the seasonal folks on the trail as I use the rails Trails by myself and it's great to see folks so um for

043plan what is the estimated cost of like what we're where is that what we might have to add back next year 15,000 per person or total for total right yeah toal total for the warm months yes okay so that's that's two people and usually if they're riding in pairs or are they writing single yeah fully staffed would be four on each weekend day and they would write in pairs okay we would split them up each side of the river okay if we get all four on a given day thank you and um I'm assuming can I assume that the difference between like in the full-time staff department request versus manager is related to the contract negotiations because that's about a $30,000 What what page you want P oh sorry I'm on page 33 I'm just

044looking at the patrol but I think there's a couple others basically what happens here has two things the larger part of that is how steps but a young department so um how the steps are calculated some the department calculat slightly differently than I did so that's part of the difference the other part was was before they after they submitted their request and before we finalized the man budg we did have a vacancy and so everything you have a vacancy in the higher ranks everything filters up so we were able to drop the salary of the lowest position now so B going down between a 5 year or six year officer and a starting officer is significant that's also part of the difference okay thank you I have nothing else Brian oh thanks I just a

045a question because I'm curious about accreditation on page 32 that was one of the items that uh you was requested and seemed to drop down uh a bit so I'm curious to know it's it's part of the contract actual Services which I know includes a lot of different things but one of the things that was called out was accreditation fees and so I'm wondering is that is that a reflection of uh we're not getting folks accredited as needed or are there other things that are being moved around in that budget which is fine I'm just curious yeah the contractual Services has other things in it so the accreditation is still being funded fully there was another item in there that we did take out which makes up that difference no worries that was my question

046want make sure we're getting these what they need y so thank you in the accreditation process it's it's a whole for the police department right and I saw that on page uh 35 that we do that excellent thank you Chief so how do we do this since we have a open item for the vehicle so we still ta just keep the yeah we ta it and we're just coming back to that one when we come back later do you want me to do 32 to 39 or oh yeah we have we dispatch also all right yeah so what page 41 thank you so the dispatch is on page 41 uh I don't think there's anything really of significant to note you see in the narrative it is nice to note that one dispatcher position is

047100% funded um through a grant and that's because we do a regional dispatch with Burlington excellent Sarah any questions no no questions Patty the grant you mentioned Kathy how is that indeterminant does it have a finite period this one has been going on and we anticipate that it will continue uh the state really is pushing for more Regional dispatch and actually we've been exploring different opportunities one with Avon actually to be doing some more dispatching so and the state is really pushing and we like the idea of being the Hub being the the person so um like I said Burlington we've been doing for quite some time and we've been exploring some opportunities with Avon to see about their dispatching if we could be a regional dispatch and one of the things when did we

048finish Tim was it for the The Dispatch Center um we finished in fall fall we uh if you guys remember we have supported some uh upgrades in technology and upgrades in the system and they did a really great job of doing our dispatch uh Center over again anytime anyone wants a little tour of the dispatch center it's a something that I'm not you know if you're not used to being in a Dispatch Center it is very it's neat to go in there and see how multitask and how great the dispatchers do there's a lot of stuff going on with the screens and all the different things but we've upgraded the whole system and the dispatchers I've been in a few times after the upgrade and they really are uh happy about the work that was

049done in there and it looks it looks great that's awesome yeah thank you thanks Brian awesome yeah no no no questions thank you that Dispatch Center is very cool yeah it's neat Dave anything on the dispatch again um so so the one dispatcher position that's a 100% uh is basically dedicated to Burlington uh nope it's uh it Burlington pays for it oh Burlington pays for burlingon pays for one dis okay okay that's what okay that's what I was wondering yeah okay Amy I just want to thank you for the quick response that we had personally this year and the wonderful service that we received from you guys thank you thank you when does Gary get his Deputy BGE any day Keith anything um I just had a question Kathy on the um the what you're

050accounting for versus what their request was the $50,000 difference um in which which it under full-time employees um you you to see this a lot in the budget um last year or the current Year's budget we did not include these salary increases for asme employees and for sea employees okay we put that in salary Reserve so after the contracts were settled December we um they got their raises so next year we have to build in two years wor of raises instead of we had building this year's race plus next year's race so you're going to see in a lot of cases what I told the Departments because at the time they were putting the budgets together we didn't know what the contract settlements will be yeah so we said leave it at the existing salary

051and we'll adjust it okay so because I I did see that a couple other spots so as we see that that's based on those negotiations we see a substantial increase like that yeah because there a% increase thank you very much anybody else we're good all right so what would be the ta's cat or oh that's okay page 42 one more one more yeah so this is a really very little change and Tim maybe can you just this is our fair share that we're required to pay and I always forget what medical EMD EMS service EMS yep for our dispatch is the EMD service it's our control medical control it's our yearly fee yearly fee it doesn't change it's all right any questions on the contractual Services no from anybody we're all good Keith all right

052so oh I have no questions sorry all right Amy no questions Dave yeah I think a couple meetings ago we we uh we approved uh a grant for Behavioral Health didn't we and it was going to be a joint effort with the police depart right it was going to it was going to pull from different public service and I was just curious is that reflected in this budget uh no that would be in how would it's not in the budget it's a separate that that came from the opioid money okay so that's a separate distinct thing financed through the opioid money okay EXA Brian all set thank you Patty Sarah good good okay right cat wanted you tell what they're taing PES 32 39 And1 I'd like to make a motion for a tentative approval

053for Pages 32 through 39 as well as Pages 41 and 42 second motion second any discussion all in favor I I I opposed motion passes and that is it for the police department thank you thank you Chief welcome have a great day thank you Cat you have the notes to go back to page 40 for us or whatever yeah okay uh next we have public works and Mr ronal what page we starting on this one we're going to be all over the place yeah hello Russ so what are we starting on when did you read them here do you read it yeah do we want to start let's do 44 what was it pressing through engineering yeah Marsh Joe tell us where do you want it 40 44 to thft 55 we doing right now

054right we've already talk next year we're starting at the beginning of the book and we're going down in order yeah that's that would help be helpful that would be helpful that took yeah 30 years for me to figure out that's a better way yeah so anyway thanks Russ all right 44 all right all right so overall Public Works account includes uh Highway grounds engineering uh many of the full-time payroll accounts include two-year salaries which Joe had just mentioned again another uh thing that we talked about in the police department is that we're able to continue with the part-time seasonal help in the highway department due to grant funding so there's no seasonal help funded in the operating budget again this is it seems uh it's really a quality of life thing so hopefully next year

055we'll be able to put back the part-time help in the seasonal help in the highway and grounds but it this year we have it it's just with grant funding for a second year the one thing it that is I think should be noted is that we are only funding one seasonal employee at the Westwoods Golf Course previous budgets I think it was probably two years ago if maybe I think it was two years ago we eliminated the second position and we we're still unable to bring it back in this budget this is something where you do need the seasonal help person there and so for that reason we do transfer one of our Highway and grounds employees over to the golf course during the peak season which does reduce some service in the highway department

056and it's a busy time of the year in general but again we did uh we did did it last year and we did it again this year the proposed request for the public group Public Works group of account um has a 6.09% increase from the current budget all right Brian do you have anything uh are we going to pay just on the total 44 to 55 I know it's a lot I don't have anything right now okay Patty yeah I had it sorry trying to um I'm looking at 40 page 47 the line for auto repair and maintenance um and my um I noticed that the estimated for this year is 1 131,50 but that uh 23 24 was 156 and 2223 was 162 so I'm just noticing that the request for this year is

057lower than it was 22 23 and 23 24 so I'm curious do we have better equipment was this low of was this low on a fluke is there All the Above All the Above okay uh you know we replaced some of the older equipment as time goes on and when those higher years more things broke down for whatever reason um I don't have that information with me I could I didn't think the bring five years ago no um but I would say there was something big broke down we had a big expense there was a lot of older equipment back then and then what we did with the 150 was we figured hey we're replacing a new load we're getting we're Joe's giving us a new loader this year and our Capital recuitment program so

058expenses for that so um but things like that so you're absolutely right it's older equipment getting replaced other breakdowns things happen um I know a couple years ago we had a for whatever during one snowstorm like four plows went down so we had some lot couple big expens expenditures there and a lot of hydraulics and things like that so okay that's what it makes it up just so how we it's not a perfect science but what what we typically try to do is we typically try to look at the fiveyear average on these types of counts even like if it's snow um snow removal snow overtime things of that nature we try to look at fiveyear expenses we also try to look at in particular if there's a spike like Russ said is it because

059something broke down and things like that if we see something consistently going up which we potentially would probably because our equipment's getting older and we realize that maybe we're not budgeting as much as we should be budgeting and then again I mean we're not at that point now in these accounts and you'll see in the fire budget is that sometimes what we've in the past had underfunded some of these and um we even though we know the fiveyear average is this and this is that we still would underfund it and that when we talk about fire budget you're going to see that that's what we've done in some of the fire budgets and we tried to bump those up in the highway and grounds I don't think we were in that situation but it's somewhat

060of a gamble if we have a big piece of equipment go or some different things but I that's kind of the logic on some of these accounts what we do okay um and I had a similar question on page 52 but I'm based on the explanation with materials and supplies I assume it's a similar kind of analysis rough on the materials and supplies yeah corre um I do have just a general question um it the it says the contractual Services includes funds to plant annuals and perennials do we make an effort to get native plants yeah oh yeah everything and we we work with the Garden Club M and they uh they tell us what they want and buy it why so all right doesn't sound like you work with them you work for them

061not work with them pretty much yeah but no it's a good group but they yeah we we're getting whatever plants they want and they have a pretty good handle on their Committee of what plants we should be planting okay okay and then um on page 54 I saw that the department had a $155,000 request for equipment is that it didn't make it into the town manager's budget is that something a known something that needs to be repaired or replaced or is it this was I think we're getting a trailer we asked for a trailer okay they requested a gator repl bu they have an old kushman that's they requested a gator but we um decide we can find another way to pay for it it's in like grants when you say another way to pay

062for it Kathy's paying for it thank you to see how well the course budg do okay and see what we have forus and then assuming we have a surplus at the end of year move some of that money to buy the gator okay um oh I noticed it looks like we switched to Outsourcing I think that's what it said that we're switching to Outsourcing surveying on page 55 yes is that from an efficiency skills cost that so what happened was our surveyor after 24 years retired and we were able to keep them on part-time we tried finding someone for over two years cat did a great job canvasing the whole state looking for somebody and we had a couple interviews a couple people came in but just weren't going to be a right fit for

063us um so we ended up getting a another engineer and L of a surveyor and if we need to we we do our own General surveying in house but if we have to do something very technical I'm going to be the first one to tell you I'm not the one to do it um so that's why we have money in there for we had money for uh hiring like a local surveyor to help us out in those instances okay right thank you I don't have any other questions I appreciate everything you guys do Russ I know you're you work you create you you have creative solutions to working with issues that come up tell them because like what you sent no what you s what you sent to me I just can't believe Russ I

064just can't believe Russ doesn't do something like really can we train him in in the whole surveying part next no tell him about the picture you sent me today because it's based on the last meeting we were at so back to the Joe swiky Sawmill thank you we have a uh so we we the Kathy blansky garden plots are going to need to be laid out again coming up in the spring couple weeks so with the Sawmill uh instead of spending about 11 uh $900 roughly in Stakes we made our own Stakes for the for surveying for the garden plots and for our highway department when we're grading roads and repaving instead of purchasing the stakes for $2 we make them for a little less than a dollar and how we use the our Sawmill

065Sawmill that no one knows about we use that quite frequently hey tomato tomato plants are coming up last week what's that there was the it did make it to the Inland Welling group last we The Sawmill Sawmill yeah no it's it it exists we have video we have picture I keep it a secret you're going to start doing pinewood derby cars for the boys that's a little differ that's ball bit helps and we got a nice picture how they're all stacked and a good thing very efficient very cool you make some big money making tomato steaks Home Depot charges arm in that one rust tomato steak business Brian I'll go back to you since I started with you we still going through the pages any questions no I didn't have anything marked so I just

066would want to say thanks for all you do it's awesome thank you Sarah I don't have any questions um I have I think an easy one which is just the the estimated overage on the snow plow uh ice snow and ice removal overtime um page keyth page 4 49 right uh 48 for snow and ice okay um so OT was budgeted at 140 and we're at like 172 I assume that's just because this was a bad year everything fell on a Sunday or at night or weekend or at night yeah it did it was everything was on a week and a holiday so it wasn't yeah I so the only reason I asked these questions I just want to make so it's not that where a person Less in the department or I know you

067could always use more people but it's it's just bad luck yes we can always use more people that I get but it was just the the time PR just the timing of it and again like we go through it and it was was very good about doing a 5year average and you know some you roll the dice and this is one of those years that we lost the last couple of years we did very well um but because of the way they the storms fell on weekends and holidays it just cost money they were nasty too yeah yeah they weren't fun right I don't know if any we realize it all the time but I don't know why it is but snow storms fall on the same days they do on a pattern they do

068on a pattern all the time and so when they start at the beginning on Fridays and Sundays the whole rest of the winter that's when they're going to be and that's what happened this time there were Sunday nights and then into Monday and we had a couple holidays and they always were on Sunday nights or whatever it was but they are it's a pattern and to reiterate um we are a one of the few towns in the state that we only bring in half a crew for pre-treating the majority of towns bring in a full crew just to pre-treat or an assault if the police call and say we have icing conditions or we have some we we bring in seven people so we save money there and the all our guys have bought into

069it uh that we did that uh probably in 2005 we went through a little bit of a turmoil because it was a change in philosophy and how we were doing things um but overall you know when the guys realize that instead of getting called out everybody every night you know because some nights we'll get a crew in every night for whatever just because of the temperatures and the I icing and Rain something happens but when they realize that hey I don't have to get I'm not getting called tonight because I can get a good night's sleep it kind of helps out the team where only half are coming in for that salting so that but it ends up saving to Town Money MH so it was a really good change in philosophy okay very efficient

070same question on Street Maintenance which was just that's a little bit over on Su so what uh that is page 50 it just looks like that's going to be over and again I I'm asking the same question over and over again I just trying to get an understanding of it the so uh estimated for this year we're at 120 um and I noticed that we moved the ask up also for this year's current budget which I think makes sense um but what was the reason for that over was just a lot of work a lot of basically with the paving and a lot of the being short-handed okay a lot of overtime because of um you not having enough guys we put the one person up at Westwoods full-time yeah and then with the large

071larger we got a lot of lot of Paving you know it's a good thing to have good problem to have here uh but it ended up costing a little more because of the overtime yeah because my general line of thinking when I was looking at that just as a was well if you add them both up we're at around 55 or so but because the snow thing is just is really just bad luck CU in my head if you're at 55 and maybe you go another 1020 and then you put a full-time person do we knock out all the overtime and then everything's kind of taken care of but it doesn't sound like that's the case because some of it's just crummy luck so it that's why that's why my line of questioning but if

072you're willing to put another guy in we'll take him no one of I was reaching for something I didn't I don't I don't want to compete with Russ he makes me like like jerk you know one of the things and we've talked about it before and it's it's throughout the all of the budget actually is that we run with very low Staffing and we do supplement with overtime and um we've never really got to the point where we felt that the overtime was over you'd hire some more people yeah as long as we're we try to balance it out but honestly between Russ and I have been talking about it quite a bit because I think we've talked about it a little bit is that people aren't as interested in overtime anymore in general not

073everyone but there's a different philosophy and it's hard when we base how we run things on a lot of overtime and so there is we're trying to look at it and and right now the the job market for all sorts of uh Public Works jobs whether it's high level engineering on or even the maintainer types of jobs right now when I you know we we used to get 70 applicants for a maintainer one position and we're getting we're lucky if we got 20 20 and things of that nature and so again we we are somewhat short staffed and we're always trying to recruit and then we are trying to supplement with overtime and that's difficult when you have a a a work population that doesn't particularly want to do overtime so it's something that we're

074we're struggling with a little bit and kind of deciding whether or not it may be time that are we going to have to hire some more people or is it just a phase you know we're just in a moment of time and so anyway just a comment no I appreciate that I noticed that in my own work too about the overtime thing people are just they value their time more than in you know 10 years ago even right very true thank you Amy thank you for being such a fixer thank you Dave yeah my line of questioning was very similar to Keith's you know and obviously you know it's the overtime not so much the amount of it but back to like can you get a full-time equivalent you know somewhere along the way and

075I guess we had this discussion last year about recruiting about people value their own personal time over overtime and I'm just wondering if we can if there is a way to strategize that a little bit where we actually I don't know think outside of the box again I mean I you do a great job of that where we could create a bandwidth of of some kind of position that that would be attractive enough where you know it would it would pull somebody's interest because it's almost what you have to do today right you run a like you you said Russ is that it's you know going all over the state and permitting things all over the state this this department set up a little you know you have everything in a One-Stop shop which is

076a little very unique compared so I'm just wondering if there's the uniqueness aspect where we can promote it where people would feel vested you know to maybe take a shot at that I think the the biggest thing Dave is is money yeah and um right now you know there's an economy that there's not a lot of money in it but there's a lot of work out there right and it es and flows it's a cycle where kids are working construction and they're making $ 110 $15,000 a year they're working 60 70 hours a week but they're making a 100 over you know a six figure salary unfortunately we don't have that capability um so that's where I think the the drawback is um we do a great job with the benefit program I think that's

077a non-issue it's just overall it's the the salary itself and to take that to the next level just not feasible unfortunately one of the things though we've done over time is that we really try to if um you say being unique in some different things is that if we have people and some of the positions there are no promotional positions that's just the nature of the position but if you have someone that's a a really good employee and different things we try to cross train and we're creative like we I wouldn't say we make up positions but we kind of make up positions and it's a unique position because we have such a good person and we want them to stay and we have different work that they can do so we have it and

078we like we have planners that do building we have this that does that and in in some ways that's really great but in other ways when that person retires and you want to try to fill that position no one else is like that so but again trying to find creative positions and we always try when we recruit to say once you come in if you have an interest in something else Russ and them we have um a person that had an electrician business and we say well listen we could probably have you do some electrician work here if you're a maintainer and you can do this if you're a carpenter we can have you build something you know cuz Russ and uh Jim are always trying to be creative and using the people we have

079to the whatever skill set they have know one thing else just to follow up with that is when we need bodies like we go to the treatment plant they come and help for whether it's leaf leaf pickup plowing uh just in general with our road paving programs they're out there helping you know to get the job done as well um we pull guys from the Westwoods and depending and it all depends on what's Happening MH you know so we we have a crew that the good thing is everyone will step up and help without any for the most part without any Kickback right so they they bought into the the philosophy that we're selling right and it works right um does it work great every day no but I think we're on we're on top

080of our game where we have you know we do as much as we can and Kathy said you know if somebody has a skill we try to let them use it and let them run with it so that it you know they they have a different mindset too right right I'm just not some guy who digs a ditch you know I can I can weld so hey we need this done why don't you come in and they go in the shop and you just see a different you know different you know step in their you know gate in their step they just hey I'm doing something that I'm contributing my skill set so it works out well yeah yeah money's a big I mean money is the tough issue I mean obviously right now you

081have you have work all over the place you have public work all over the place and you know it's it's a difficult it's a difficult climate right and then when there is no when there's not a lot of economy going well then we get 60 80 100 applications for a job but we're in we've been in this set where it's a good thing you know things are built getting built but those people aren't going to give up a six plus figure job to come and for you know 80% of it 30% of that right it's and that's just the reality of it but that was my question thank all right thank you Joe can I ask a followup question sure how um it occurred to me in this conver in your conversation how um are

082we generally on target with the road paving plan yes okay everything's there um the uh we're doing Portage I one thing I did just so you're aware I flipped Portage Crossing to the begin first round this year uh just because it it was really falling apart a year about a year and a half ago uh I've taken a lot of phone calls and emails and uh so we move that up to the front of this that'll be the first round this year right thank you all right so I think we're going to TA 44 to 55 make a motion for a tentative approval for Pages 44 to 55 of our budget book second motion second any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes all right the next ones are Pages all right Russ

083do you change outfits for this part I got to be right back but I right here just think of me as something different right now change your [Laughter] hat yeah this is basically these accounts are just salary changes would say nothing new to report on all right very strong planning team we have just want to give a shout out to them I would I would second that being at the TP meetings and so forth I mean they're they're a team that does their research they're a team that dogs down on their detail and every project has details they're a team that works together like to solve you know you know anybody that comes before us is always you know there's always things to mitigate right and uh they're they're certainly proactive in that and uh

084yeah so I would I would compliment that team it's not an easy job but they're very detailed and they work they're very they're they're very seasoned all of them very good any questions I'm good not anybody on this side all right so I guess we'll TA 18 through 20 make a motion for a tentative approval for Pages 18 and 20 of our budget 18 through 20 of our budget second motion second for 18 through 20 any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes um page 27 please the Fire [Applause] Marshall so the Fire Marshall the one thing I always like to point out is a 55530 the hydrant charges and you can see that we spend 1 million 24777 is what the uh proposal is again with this is our hydrant charge it's

085just a I like everyone to notice it because it's just a big amount of money that goes into the the hydrant charge and with when utilities go up and different things this is a big number and when it increases it's it's a large ticket item for us very much any questions on page 27 anybody to the left here I actually I do have one question you're to the right H you're to the right I'm to oh I am right what do you have BR I'm curious uh only because I don't know I see that we're in rightfully you know giving money to other water um districts uh for hydrant do we provide any water to other districts uh the town doesn't provide any water to anybody okay just curious this is all they're all privately

086owned and these are the uh five water companies that uh provide water to our residents or commercial businesses within the town MH now just know it was going both ways it just curious no they so Connecticut water has Avon they have uh they the majority of Avon water up there MDC is in West Harford and various other towns Valley Water is at a plan that's right that makes sense yeah than on the New Britain line which water tastes the best who's getting the best water in town are we are we live yeah Poland Springs shout out anybody to my left thank you I think it's pretty straightforward all right okay I get a TA for page 27 make a motion for ATT tenative approval for page 27 second motion second for page 27 any discussion

087all in favor I I opposed motion passes I think our next one is 43 and that is the building inspector so in this account we have uh just to make note that we do have two years worth of salary increases one of the things I think we're happy about is that we do have finally it has been a while um full Staffing we have a building official and assistant building official that knockwood um and they've been working out you've been very happy with that very good um so that's something that we had struggled with for I think a couple of years almost and so we do have two really talented uh building officials for us so we're happy about that excellent Dave any questions none Amy no question Keith no Sarah no Patty no Brian

088I think I'm good but I was just curious to know for that full-time the reason you just uh mention is that why the uh um Department request was was lower and then it went up for that Russ forgot one of his people I did and he was very nice to point that out so clearly to say I thought it was the Union contract I was going to let slide yeah I want to be in that Union yeah you always love that when we're adding that money back in they forget to put it in I was chastised very heartily don't do it again sorry dude yeah similar to that can I get a TA for page 43 make a motion for attentative approval for page 43 second motion a second for page 43 any discussion all

089in favor I opposed motion passes doing refuse sure yeah yeah uh 71 through 73 this is uh the brown tab in the back yeah refu as you can see on the waste collection fund on the first page the total revenues is 2,923 61 and our Appropriations balanced that off um the bottom line is that the budget includes a 3% or an $8 rate increase and the annual fee will be $276 per household all right Brian any questions do not Patty yes um chomping at the bit weren't you know wow um I have a question on the revenue line the fund Equity is that the same as our fund balance or is that a different fund balance okay um and then for the waste hauling contract how long is our current contract is the you know

090I actually don't recall um the only reason why because every every so many years we extend it I think we extended it to 26 I'll get you information okay thanks and I think we extended when we extend it to they does the tip fee change to are fees like do is it a renewal with are we talking The Collection or the Tipping fee The Collection sorry so when okay and does it change is is so we negotiate every April okay what the um what the fees would be for household okay a fee for for collection of waste and fee for collection of recyclable okay and we negotiate that inas every April for the thank you for intuiting my question that Sarah I don't have any questions Dave no no questions Amy no question Keith no

091thank you can I get a TA then for 71 through 73 make a motion for a tenative approval for Pages 71 through 73 second motion second any discussion all in favor I opposed motion passes and that is it for Mr Arnold Russ thank you thank you Russ I think we have fire time I M up fire time fire time page 2 oh sorry 28 through 31 28 through 31 council president there so we are 28 all right all right so a couple things in the fire department so the calls for service in the fire department have increased significantly uh resulting in higher contra actual payment to the volunteer fire departments another thing is accounts in the fire department budget have increased to reflect actual spending so those are two items so out of all the

092accounts and things like that um the fire department's overall budget has increased 6.94% which is much higher than all the other budgets and the reason for that is what I just stated is that earlier about some of the underfunding of accounts some of the issues that we have with our buildings um that maintenance items things you know things breaking down we're paying for that equipment we're trying to get a handle on some of our calls for service um again that's something where you look at years and different things and it usually is pretty stable but for whatever reason our calls for service have been increasing uh quite a bit so that's happening overtime accounts different things so we tried to take a fresh look at the fire budget in general this year and we tried

093to make some strives I would I'd be honest and say probably some of the accounts are still probably a little less than they probably should be you know but we're trying to it's not like you know we could have a good year it's not like something's not in there that would be crucial it's more about getting fun getting accounts up to you know what you are actually spending so um you know you'll ask the I think that in general we've made some strives which we needed to do all right any questions keep no everything I had was explained in the prior page so all right Amy what's the increase due to for the increased fire calls is that is there anything in particular ambulance right so you have you're just getting an increase in calls

094but I I know it looks like it's costing the town money but it's a good thing because you're getting more more volunteer response so you're getting uh more of the volunteers are responding on calls um unfortunately the calls that are coming in are just there it's an increase in EMS calls and there's a bigger increase in fire alarms that are being set off uh I don't know why it's it's just a trend it's a nationwide Trend every Department in the country is seeing an increase in call volume one of the things Amy is that people we are we get pay our volunteers for calls for service and sometimes it's a you know you want your a bunch of volunteers to come yeah but then you wind you're you're paying your volunteers which is a good

095thing but then also the calls for service too so it's kind of a combination of both things do you expect that to increase with the apartments that are coming in yes anytime you have a population increase you're going to get a call increase it's just it's the nature of the Beast unfortunately we we always try to look and we made some changes because it's a lot of the uh it's medical now a lot of the medical calls as you're probably familiar is that we've evaluated and I don't know what it was if it was two or three years ago with our medical director and with our volunteers our chief our director we look to try to have um a certain amount of calls that the volunteers don't go to and because we used to have

096the ambulance and the volunteers go and we stopped doing that because um first of all it burns out the volunteers and it also costs money so I think we're looking at our Chiefs meetings that we have to look at maybe the next level of calls to see if we can not go to those calls too and so instead of having the ambulance and the volunteers go you just have the ambulance go because again you know as of the volunteers getting up you know a lot of times and you know one of the things you always hear about is that going to some of these assisted living and you don't want people just having to come and take someone and we're asking the Assisted Living place to have someone on duty to do those types of

097things so there's a bunch of things that we're still trying to look at to kind of reduce our our response to some of these calls mhm anything else Amy no Dave well that was one of the questions and I think you you you've kind of answered that um one question I had on page 29 was um on the on the overtime line there you know 23 24 was you know it's come down sub substantially um you know in the revised budget and then the actual and so forth and so I was just curious was there is is there is there a reason on that line Adam yeah that's Staffing just Staffing that's a staffing issue yeah um with the with the paid firefighters if we if that we don't if they're out for various reasons

098we have to supplement with the overtime so if we have not full Staffing then our overtime is much higher and so uh right now knockwood we have full Staffing so our overtime we've seen over the course of this year has been going down because of that but when you have some vacancies and some different things and over the last couple years in the fire department we've had substantial turnover in the paid people and that's why our overtime was very high got it okay and then um and then they're they full-time the uh salaries are they have they been negotiated and and they we're going into negotiations we're going into negotiations on them now okay yep that's all I had Sarah all my questions have been answered thank you Patty Could you um going back to

099the um you mentioned the assisted living facilities Kathy um it's my vague recollection that as part of zoning approvals or somehow they have an obligation to have someone on staff yep that's something that they I think they recently like when I say recent I lose track of time but that was changed over to have that so I think when any new place comes on board some different things that they're required to do that okay CU um so that'll address cuz when a few years ago I was talking to someone who explained to me that it was the assisted living facilities that were really driving a lot of the calls because absolutely and we what Tom do you know off the top of your head what did we change that really helped us reduce the calls

100it was something I can't remember what it is so what happens is like an assisted living or medical facility if you already have a nurse or a doctor there you said you might not have to have a volunteers respond to it because we already have a licensed Medical Professional there so we just dispatch uh the ambulance also lift assists um you know unfortunately you have an elderly population somebody just falls off the bed or slides off the bed we don't need to send 20 people to do that we just an ambulance crew can sometimes handle that themselves so things like that where you know of course if it's a major medical we we dispatch the the volunteers and the fire department but if it's something minor and I know the NFPA and all the governing

101bodies that cover fire and EMS they're looking they constantly look at it because a lot of uh towns and municipalities they're running into the same issue where you know they're getting burned out because they're going on 40 50 calls a day um in some places and unfortunately 50% of them are I don't want to say they're nonsense but they're not required to have people there so that's what we've done here are there um if a facility now that we've made the change require people on staff are is if they don't meet that are there is there a consequence for them that then like somehow pays the like something yeah ibody janon about that because for planning I'm not sure what the what the requirement is but I do know that it's interesting because once we

102made the changes a few years back and you really really saw the reduction of the calls because but now the calls are back again and so I think it's just the volume of calls and some different things and I think that we're looking actually almost for another layer to stop going out but again we we want to make sure we're offering a good service the volunteers you also want them to they want to go on calls so it's a fine balance of you know what you want to do but you also don't want to burn them out so that's it's a never ending kind of looking and we have to work with uh what is it called our medical person that says you know you don't have to have response for this and then you

103have to work with your Chiefs and your volunteers and your director so it's but there is definitely like Tom said I think the population and different things we just have a lot more calls okay thank you Brian thanks you know I just have a question because we respond to uh calls on Route 84 in the extension and I just feel like I've seen a lot more accidents on the highway how big a component of our budget is that uh I don't know if you track that well we one of one of the things that we I wouldn't say track track it but the state has what they've done is that and believe it or not the money has not ran out I don't think is that when you make a call on um when we

104go to a call on 84 we are reimbursed from the state of Connecticut a little bit of that money because it's on the state highway and I guess thank you Joe we had that in the past like I guess in the way past and then they ran out of money and then they started it again so we are able to track so every time the call goes on the on the highway it's typically East Farm's fire department they have to fill out a form and then they get reimbursed thank you that was my question not fully I don't think but just they do get some reimbursement for that because there seem to be a lot of yes I agree thank you yeah all right thanks for your service man thank you Tom can I get

105a TA for Pages 28 through 31 make a motion for ATT tenative approval for Pages 28 through 31 one second motion second any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes next is uh Economic Development Rose EDC Rose be 14 and hi Rosie hi everybody sure sure thank you there you go hi Rose how are you I'm great how about you guys well thank you I'm sure you have a lot to tell us I know you've been very busy so Rose's budget is basically flat but um I think she wants to take an opportunity I think you all we like to hear a little bit about what's going on in the town um with economic development and just to give Rose a plug and we just recently I said to her and the staff

106I said we just had an event for our Cultural District and I think we talked about it um and I said to Rose I I said you don't ever do anything small as I mean nothing gets small I come in and we have these beautiful posters up the news cameras there the the the person's playing the piano the lieutenant Governor's there I'm like what is going on Rose what is so they do an excellent job and maybe just tell us a little bit about what's going on I'll just tell you a little bit and it it feels like I was only here a few months ago but it's been an entire year I don't know how time is going so quickly so as I usually like to start off we really like to say Farmington

107is the economic leader in the Harford region but I I like to make sure we look at our numbers and prove that statement and as usual the the proof is positive again we have uh 4. 6 million square fet of office space and as many of you know uh throughout the country there are towns and cities really struggling with vacancy our vacancy is really quite stable at 10% while other towns in this particular region are as high as 20 and 30% uh our manufacturing sector we have 100 uh 1.9 million square feet of industrial space and for this second year in a row we're at zero vacancy so many of our manufacturers who have wanted to um add on have really had to expand um we look at the Town profile and that one shows

108our most recent one that our population is growing so we're up to 26,6 23 we have 3,123 active businesses and we're employing 32,41 15 people so we continue to double our population Monday through Friday uh because of all the employees that make Farmington their home uh to work here so our medium residential sale price uh we're one of the hot markets uh Hartford recently I think it uh just last month realtors.com called it uh the number one hot Market in the country and some of that is fueled by sales in Farmington and um our medium sale price for last month was 573 thou, 750 and compared to last February that's a 19.5 increase which is really speaks to the vibrancy and the value of homes here but it also speaks to the fact that the

109demand is very high and our inventory if we compare inventory this February to last February it's down 4.8% so it almost really makes it hard for people who want to come and buy a home here to be able to buy one at this moment um the medium household income is 118,00 329 and when you look Statewide that compares to Statewide the medium household income is 9,213 so again goes to our families you know are are doing quite well the current unemployment rate in Farmington is 2.1% while the state is at 2.7 that has changed dramatically last year I was looking over my notes it was almost at 5% so a big change there too um of the 29 towns in that in our Metro Hartford region subfield has the lowest mill rate of 22.63 followed

110by East Wind Windsor of 24.5 6 but we are still the third lowest mill rate which is so important at that at our 25.45% I'll tell them why are you coming to Farmington and they say the low taxes and the same with residents they're very very people are in tuned with that cost so uh it's great our uh commercial base contributes at this this year's uh Grand list 29% of the total Grand list and that really takes a big burden off our residential base and it really again speaks to this vibrancy of what's happening in our econom in our local economy so I I always look to the Future how are we going to continue to have this growth I want to see growth in the grand list every year but that's a little bit

111difficult when you when you look around Almost 100% of Farmington is built out so what do you do about that and really the name of the game for us is going to be Redevelopment Redevelopment but it has to be smart Redevelopment and what is Smart Redevelopment means it means that we can continue to grow but we're not changing the character of this special community and I have to give kudos to our planner Sharon Rutherford and the tpz because they have done really some very forward-thinking business friendly um regulations that for example allow manufacturers to grow like I told you before we have zero vacancy rate so manufacturers that have wanted to add to their existing facilities before had some trouble because they can only they couldn't be more than 50% coverage so Shannon and her

112staff came up with these great regulations that will allow the ability to have more than that 50% coverage making sure that that company then makes investment increased investment in underground water and other remediations to make sure yes can we allow businesses to grow only if it's done in a smart manner another great example of that was when the former Lorden Taylor became vacant that was 100,00 sare fet of retail many retailers around the country are closing so of course everybody was pretty nervous about that the the owner of that property came and said to me you know do you think we can have other uses other than retail Shannon and her staff looked it over they ended up allowing medical use and as it turned out we didn't need that because it was Jordan's Furniture

113who we located there and that was a great relocation again redevelop it's uh that Jordan Furniture not only added to the tax Bas but it it contributed 39 Mill part of that $ 39 million increase to our grand list a big portion of that was Jordans so it just goes to show when you have friendly business-friendly attitudes when you want businesses to strive while protecting the community it really does work uh just last uh month they did a small little uh change and that was permitting food trucks and you think to yourself what what is what is that going to do it does a lot because there are a lot of restaurant tours Who start off with food trucks so it kind of gives you that bubbling entrepreneurship an opportunity so they again they limited

114it to uh different areas of town where it's appropriate we at commercial use and they did all these very smart conditions to it so it's that type of ability that we as a town are really looking forward and making businesses feel welcome here and they can strive that's kind of giving us these these great outcomes three great projects that I'll just briefly tell you about Mach Corporation they have uh facilities on Spring Lane a very very successful Advanced manufacturing company they wanted to expand they had no room in their current facility uh they came to me I was able to locate an underutilized office building 1690 New Britain Avenue it had originally been manufacturing so Shannon was able to help that applicant move it up to get a zone change so that empty office space

115now all of a sudden has 67,000 square feet a very Advanced manufacturing space Innovative there that's where they have their Innovation Center and they've hired a 100 people just in that one spot that's the perfect example another great uh project that we just finished was a Yukon uh Health their Brain and Spine Institute they were able to um uh they're leasing it which is great for us because having it lease by Yukon Health means it doesn't get off our tax rols and they have a beautiful new facility with Advanced um state-of-the-art health care right for our residents in their own backyard they were able to consolidate various uh different services in their main campus so now that opened it up for new services on the main campus and then we have a brand new building

116I had the privilege of having a little tour I couldn't believe that things are Dowing there it it it's magnificent and um and then the last one is two affordable housing projects right on South Road Great projects why because it addresses this need that we have we need affordable housing especially for young people they might they're coming right out of college employers need them but they may not be able to afford being in Farmington in a in a home this affordable housing does allow them to do that and it's built right on South Road which is near our largest employer Yukon Health uh Jackson labs and many other uh different employers that we have over 3,000 of them and by having that first step housing it really allows employers a vast opportunity to hire younger

117people these young professionals that they want and it helps even our volunteer firemen it helps in so many other ways so that's a great example of one of those three substantial projects that we had uh looking forward to 2025 it is that Cultural District that was an economic development initiative they took the lead on it you may ask yourself why and a lot of that has to do with number one it allows us to support our arts and culture it brings tourism here which then helps the small businesses who people may shop or drink and uh eat at which is all important and it really starts to continue to build that vibrancy in the community pride in the community um thank you Kathy for mentioning that event I myself the the state that was a

118state kind of driven event because they were giving us this designation so they picked Friday at 10:30 I thought oh my God nobody's going to want to nobody's everybody's working nobody's going to come we had close to 80 people that day I was shocked um really proving that yes this is something this community is interested in um so we're looking at 2025 to continue to do more things with that group um in your folders you'll notice um those are brand new folders the economic development commission uh did marketing materials back in 2018 our stats have changed so much that they needed to be upgraded so we did it inhouse to save some money and uh those are our new f folders which a lot of companies really love to receive When I visit them uh

119real estate agents use them to attract new people into town and that's all been updated and in that folder you'll also see an artistic rendering of a local artist at the Cultural District selected um and she's born and raised here in Farmington and is now raising her children she's an art teacher at Bristol schools and she handrew all those uh things that you'll see in the map and those will be given out to people that come to Cultural District events to further promote tourism we've had some great Redevelopment examples that's the theme of my talk today Sally aizza open up in the former Lauren Taylor and Jordan store curated a unique little gift shop opened in the former Design Gallery Forum Elite Fitness went into the valley fitness place golden mango went into the um

120gallery of restaurant Farmington Valley cigar will be opening in the trunk show and holistic health which is a woman-owned health clinic in town she expanded and she moved into a greater space that had been uh left uh empty by Aero Pharmacy so again Redevelopment thinking of okay if somebody leaves the market is alive so what else can go in its place there's always an opportunity for that uh looking into next year we uh in the spring Trump will be finishing up their smart Factory uh it's the most efficient Factory factories of the future they only have two one of them is in Chicago the other one will be here in Farmington uh that's going to be opening up in the spring the hestad a brand new uh beautiful Community will be on Batterson Park Road

121right next to cim current uh that's going to be you know a a great thing and then uh maple tree nursery many of you on Route four it's Ben dunning's place we can't wait I'm a flower person so I can't wait to shop there that's going to be opening up soon and then many other smaller you know the Marriott has has finished and Stadium 15 and you read my newsletters so uh but I I want to leave you with is that this place is bustling it's vibrant and so we can we hope to continue to make that happen next year thank you Rose I can't say enough about what you do for the it's amazing not only you known throughout the state but with with your own Community too inir where you touch us about

122every business so thank you for doing all that you do oh it's my pleasure it's a lot of fun Brian any questions yeah actually I do thanks Rose for everything you do it's awesome that we hear all this great stuff I am curious to know if you have any idea what the impact of our school system is on making Farmington so desirable I mean there are so many factors where does that factor into it well uh I I like to do a lot of rese research like why Farmington why do people pick Farmington and school really is one of the top choices if you look at niche.com it's where when people are choosing a place to relocate and that's one of their criteria so it is you know best practice in Economic Development if you

123have a good school system you will attract not only businesses but engage residents and so I think it's a big factor um I know it was all the buzz you know whenever I went to any different event everybody's like oh you're high school I heard it's one of the most beautiful you know in in the state so I think people talk about that and I think school choice is very important whenever for a business and residents both I have other questions but I'll see if anyone else wants to ask go ahead well I'm right I'm just curious about uh two uh developments that kind of started and stopped I don't know if there's any movement on those uh the uh Lo Plaza and on the big bird Bridge uh yes so the Lan's Plaza is

124owned by two different development groups it's a 5050 split um the best way I can describe what happened there the they're having irreconcilable differences so they're in divorce court and uh until such time that they can figure out uh which one is going to buy the other one out it's a very very valuable piece of property the location it is is over 9 acres and I I just you know have faith that because of its value someone is going to have to Blink and and make it happen um but that's where that one stands right now uh the midpoint by the Big Bird Bridge um I will tell you it was my favorite project uh Bill Warner and I started that and I I really am just so sad that it's stalled and it basically

125has stalled because of the death of both owners and one was an untimely death um and the other one was uh through sickness and because of that we have a brand new owner for the midpoint section but the other owner which is for the housing that's in Probate Court so that has not been resolved the difficulty that's going to happen with that project is that it's almost like an arranged marriage when that project came before planning it was considered by all of us really one project because the housing would give the density that would then feed the economic development that would go into the midpoint and so all the there's so many cross easements and you know things that because they were they ended up being equal partners that each one was going to be

126doing things for the other and now we have one brand new partner that this was not his plan they purchased it and then we have the other partner that to be determined who is that going to be so that has really paused I will say the people who have purchased midpoint are doing things and are trying to do certain things nothing has really come to the surface yet um it's not exactly you're not pausing it they have made a big investment and they need to develop it so that's going to be first now rather than the housing being first it was usually we thought it would be the other way around um that had been the plan but that's where that S I have no doubt you'll help make that happen we'll hope thank you

127yeah Patty first rose I I think you do an amazing job and I look forward to this presentation every year because it gives me the run down on everything that happening and and I know we've had offline talks about everything and I'm always excited to see what farmington's doing and I very much appreciate your comment about responsible development because the businesses support the tax Spas but people don't want to live with businesses so um I think I think you do an excellent job than um the only question I have about the budget is on page 15 um the Metro Hartford yes what what I noticed it's not in the budget what's what benefits did we have from it why aren't we moving forward like what's the well that was a hard decision uh that we

128made you know with the economic development commission the Metro Hartford uh Alliance had been uh for a very long time the regional Economic Development agency and um they did a lot of out of state attraction and retention and they really offered economic development services for the whole Hartford region and so it was always important for Farmington to be part of that uh especially since we want to be the leaders in the Hartford region then when covid hit you can imagine things changed rapidly and a lot of what they focus in to go was from doing Regional Economic Development efforts to really focusing in on Hartford and also being like the Hartford Chamber of Commerce which there is benefit to Farmington when Hartford does well we also do well but it became to the point that

129the the agent the the organization itself really started to change and we started asking ourselves what are we getting from this from this money that we we pay in every year we were it was starting to stray more and more and more away from Economic Development and we were realizing that we weren't really getting any bang forget about bang for your buck we weren't getting really much of anything um and so we did invite uh the executive director to come to our Economic Development commission and kind of address this we had invited him the year before and he came and I could tell he kind of struggled a little a little bit saying how are we benefiting you know concretely we really couldn't come up with that and so all we could think of was

130you know we invited him again he he did not come and so we just thought that was very telling and we thought to ourselves well we have this great initiative the Cultural District maybe we take that money and use it very very much in a local level to see what can we do to help this new initiative get it off the ground so that's what we decided that sounds like a good strategic decision thank you for explaining it yeah Sarah I don't have any questions but I loved your presentation I really love these materials oh so beautiful like even the the these and you did these all in house they're gorgeous yeah well we yes that's what I was going to say I I give all the credit to Amanda you know we all have

131our strengths and and weaknesses right and so Amanda just has this vision and I just have to tell tell her I want it to look like this and then like magically she does it and I love like her use of font we had we had done the materials originally back in 2 we started it in 2017 we produced them in 2018 in fact Brian I think you were part of that and Good Times awesome the economic development Commissioners took the photos many of them themselves it was real they rolled up their sleeves and they did it and and it was time to update those materials and Amanda just took it and you know I supplied a lot of the data she looked for it also she rewrote it she put in all those pictures so

132she did a beautiful job and you built on The Branding yeah we kind of kept on The Branding you know we kept the colors because you know we didn't want to throw away all that great work we had done they just needed to be freshened up a bit it looks beautiful thank you I'm going to tell her it was all her yeah I'll just say anecdotally like with the housing market it's amazing how um much interest there still is in Farmington and even on on my street a house went on the market within a day they' had like 10 offers we saw so many cars coming up and it's sold for Far Far Over asking price so it really is a testament to what's going on in Farmington people really want to be here right

133and it's unbelievable because before covid maybe five or six years ago our housing market was very stagnant and there were lots of people who live in Devonwood who would call me up angry they're like why isn't my house selling and it has totally turned around and and uh you know between the low inventory and the hot Market I feel I feel bad someone like Amanda who we love so much she's like I can't find another house cuz she's out growing cuz she had a baby so that you know there it's important to be able to offer you know more options that's one Keith I have nothing to add Rose the only person with uh a higher approval rating than you was Nash and it's not even a person really good presentation well thank you nothing

134I think that was a compliment I was meant to be a compliment I swear I love Nash so I see even yeah I love Nash no questions excellent work as always thank you yeah Rose excellent work I I would just e your comments I think I think we've taken the opportunity like tpz and kind of looked for opportunity I think you're always looking out for opportunity I think that's really what's rounded out Farmington I mean I think you know you know like you talk about the Redevelopment the repurposing of things and I think you know we're strategically located we have a lot of just pluses in the plus column and now it's taking advantage of all those other things right in in in leveraging what we need to do to to make that happen and

135and I think I think we're on a good course I think you're a big part of that and uh I I would thank you for it oh my pleasure it's a big partnership you know Economic Development cannot succeed alone and planning can s it really has to be a partnership and uh we all get along really well and um I I think it it's it's a good relationship we have a lot of fun and we make things happen right excellent and a little shout out to Sarah May yes that's really came out great isn't that great she did a great job so can we get a TA on pages 14 and 15 please I make a motion for attentative approval on pages 14 and 15 second motion a second any discussion all in favor I

136opposed motion passes question on page 16 the regional associations is that part of it I'm just cu areas which one you said 14 and 14 and 15 14 and 15 you said and 16 is the regional associations of is that your thing or we haven't gotten to that okay sorry I thought that was your no problem I was thinking I don't think that's mine thank you Rose thank you next we have um community service I think Nancy's here between Pages uh 56 and 66 what is it again uh Community Services Pages what 56 yellow tab n everybody's talking 66 that's what she was saying 56 66 yeah I was just getting the six Park when I hear the 66 hi Nancy how are you very good how are you very well thank you that right

137so this group of accounts uh includes community service housing as well as Recreation services a new account for the administration of Recreation services uh this budget includes full year funding for a recreation director in accordance with the town strategic plan last year this position was only funded for half a year the total request for Community Recreation services is a decrease of 15.93% um from the current budget I don't know if you have any specific questions standby we did make some movement of some of the items that was in nany's original budget into Jesse who's here into the recreation budget so that's where some of those decreases are just so you know all right well open it up Sarah anything I don't have any questions I know it's a lot of pages to cover we can

138always come back if you find something Patty you have anything off the top I I do um I think some of my questions are going to be addressed by what Kathy just said moving from Community Services to Recreation but I'm want to confirm so page 56 the full-time the department request was 221 and what we have is 177 so that's it's like about a $45,000 difference just is that a transfer or and what page was that P sorry 56 Joe Here Yeah Joe do you have that yeah the um if you notice the department did not request a part-timer they requested that part be M the full time okay and we put it back to part okay and that's in the community service section not Recreation and then just what page cat just so I

139have it3 just to not make note on where Bud year in um in general um cuz I I I think Nancy you and I have had just conversations about Staffing in general do you feel like this budget is like providing for the staffing needs or are there things that we need to be considering moving forward that in terms of community services and additional staffing needs or additional people or I mean we continue to to grow and needs continue to grow in population so it's something we're going to want to keep our eye on for the next couple of years okay yeah I think I mean to be fair Nancy and I talked about it a little bit I mean it's a tight budget and this and it would be something if we were you know

140you have to kind of draw a line somewhere and um you know Nancy it's the the needs are there there's and Nancy and her staff do a great job of trying to do the best with what they have but you know it's there's some there's some pressure points definitely in the social service department and things like that but we we try to do our best but it like Nancy said it is probably something that um if it was a little bit less of a tight budget year that we would probably be looking to make some increases maybe in some staffing and some different things for her maybe in a part-time capacity or something like that but I think it should be noted that you know if you ask Nancy if I wasn't sitting here she'd

141probably have some something else have something else to say so I'm trying to circumvent that I'm sure your role changes a little bit anyways with now having to watch over Recreation anymore so you can now put 100% some those things in the administration are just growing like the Fair rent and you know a lot of those issues and that was the reason for my my request and and recognizing that it's a tight budget but something I'd like to you know keep the conversation going with Kathy over the years right and I think one of the things that Nancy and I have not had a lot of time we're going to try to address it I think in the upcoming goals and objectives for Nancy is that you know with not having Recreation and social services

142and stuff what she's looking for and what we can do and have our what are the big priorities and look at some different things that maybe she wasn't able to do before because of recreation and what what is the top things and some different things to evaluate everything and I'll be looking for her input we haven't really had that conversation yet and it'll be interesting to see and there's there's things I know Nancy has an interest in and things like you said are growing quite a bit so absolutely those types of things Pat do you have more I know you said you had several several I don't think I said several numerous um how far what was the highest page number that we were going what was this through we are 56 to 66 okay

143so on page 64 um it's the Mountain Road buildings yep um I noticed um the in terms of um what types of building repairs and maintenance need to be done like our like is that the one we're going to do the front front porch yeah the second front porch the second front porch okay yeah but in general these build so is this repair and maintenance to keep up we're meeting I assume we're meeting code yeah just old buildings people live there and sometimes not always take as care of it as we'd want them to so just the upkeep okay and just um a I guess a point of question it only went down actually no I was looking at it wrong never mind ignore my question I was comparing the wrong two numbers um and

144few years ago I know there was a five years ago now we're talking about Stonehouse and repairs and things that needed to be happened and this is 65 for Stonehouse I'm just curious where those repairs done is there ongoing needs at Stonehouse well Stonehouse it's interesting so they we made some significant improvements to the outside of the Stonehouse and now there's apartments on the top and then Recreation was on the bottom so um I think was it because of the flood what was happened that yeah that we ended up getting some work done by an insurance insurance claim and so what's happening now at the Stonehouse and we'll be evaluating it is the upstairs is vacant and and we're leaving it vacant downstairs temporarily Recreation Jesse and her staff are moved back in kind of

145bare bones until they can move into the 1928 new town hall and then between Jesse and the staff and everyone we're going to look to see what we want to do with that building the outside still needs to be done but it's um we've done some progress on it but now with that whole complex out there we want to look at it and see if there's any Innovative things that we want to do and some different things has a great outside P porch on it and things of that nature so we're making progress and right now it's temporarily being used as office space okay thank you I don't have anything else Brian thanks uh yeah I got a question on um uh elderly services I'm kind of curious to hear a little bit more about

146the growth of Need for elderly services in town and what page is that Brian that is page 60 and it's not a budget question per se but I'm curious to know about how that the need for outreach to seniors has grown in town I mean it it's definitely a huge need in town um not just seniors but folks that are disabled or um you just need some extra help and it's a balance the senior center is one of the only places in town that does 45 year years age span um you the needs of the 55 which I'm actually eligible 55 up to 100 or 105 the needs that they're looking for are so great and so different so it's trying to keep up with all that based on what their mental health needs are

147wellness and you know what a 55y old is interested in is going to be far different than what a 95y old is different in so just the growth in the needs for all those whether you're providing it in a building or you're going in their home is just significantly different yeah there is a lot of need yeah so I'm kind of curious because we all we've also heard from Hope who uh have has come to us uh how do you work with hope and is there a difference in how you guys reach out to people or do you work together and do they help you guys do stuff or how does that we absolutely work together they are uh non profit programmatic agency that provides Meals on Wheels and a loan closet um so um

148I look at us as kind of the focal point that has the first interaction with with the folks and then it's one of the referral sources that we may make among many you know someone may need home care they may need our you know our dial oride Transportation they may need Meals on Wheels so we're kind of the case managers we have licensed counselors that kind of would go out do the assessments and then determine what services and hope part is one of one of our first to referrals at all times awesome I didn't know exactly how that worked so I was Mental Health Services I mean I could go on forever of all the services that we set people up it's a whole Patchwork of thank you for doing that it's a huge need

149it is thank you Keith I have no questions but uh Nancy you deserve a lot of credit you have a very hard job I only sat through one housing uh Fair rent hearing so far and you deal with that level of you know mediation which is you know part mediator part therapist part and all these other things that you have to juggle it's really a incredible job you have so thank you very much thank you any I have no questions Dave yeah I would just Echo uh you know Keith's comment you know you know you do a great job and you know it's a tough it's a it's it's a tough uh Arena to be in to you know keep those services at a high level but I do have a couple questions one would

150be on on um on the elderly services page 60 um like my Curious uh what I want to know is I know we get uh a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services the Aging cluster grant for $1 16,370 and I'm curious like how does that find its way maybe here like does that those those do those dollars arrive here to do something in this in this area NC NCAA okay I I just didn't know exactly we call it something different so okay clarify no that's fine I mean so our NCAA Grant which is where that comes from it's the title three is what fuels are Wellness services and every couple of years we've changed it as I said it's a huge age span that we're working with so right now our

151grant is working with our Wellness Center or our exercise room if you've seen it um it helps pay for our trainer Brian who's a rockstar who's wonderful with the seniors doing fall prevention um BPT we have we do boxing for um folks with Parkinson's and all of that so that's where the 16th that goes to all towards Wellness programs I'm actually it's due tomorrow at 5 o'clock and I'm 98% done um for the next Grant which we're going to include because you can do five years for a specific thing but we're also in um going to start um some more mental health um which is just I I mean postco outside of Youth having mental health there's seniors who are like you're never going to stop me from going out into public again you know

152so the anxiety is high and we want to start some mental health so our new Grant and I'm hoping to get a little bit more than the funds that we've gotten in the past few years um it's a pretty extensive Grant um you know to be able to address not just the wellness but the mental health as well right and that was kind of my question right my question was because now we've split off Recreation from you I I'm hoping those are the opportunities too that present themselves right that you you're able to focus on these things and widen those programs or those grant opportunities for that I mean obviously the backdrop of what we have going on in in the United States at the highest levels with funding you know we'll have to see

153how that plays out but I'm glad to hear I'm glad to hear how that specifically rolls into what we do now in the fact year and the senior center is just an or you know it's a place obviously we have recreational facilities but I take great pride in the fact that we are one of 13 in the state that are recognized for providing a full range of services and yes people come for certain activities and that's absolutely wonderful but also there's the the whole Wellness mental health um you know beating loneliness discussions all of that that happens you know people can get Medicare help they can learn where to get in home care they can get Transportation as well as um you know play a game of chess right right and we know that these

154things are just growing and growing and growing so as as we can adapt to that and expand to that that's obviously in our favor great and that's obviously the population that I love one the other question I had was on page 58 and I was just curious on 58 um the the youth coordinator salary is supplemented through funding from a youth service Grant is that again the youth service Grant is that just something that kind of you apply for every year or in a fiveyear period and is it backstopped or is it like would that fall off at some point now we've actually received the youth Service Bureau grant for 38 years I think um for quite some time and it's based on our demographics of our community so it's a set amount they tell

155us you qualify for this amount we then apply for additional grants to run things like our juvenile review board our atrisk teen counseling groups our education which are covered through other areas within the ysb the youth Service Bureau Arena so we we have some part-time staff that that works in that Arena as well right right cuz a lot of those services are Grant driven you know to at least backstopped Grant driven so it's got I you've clarified that and I thank you those are my two questions excellent is that it from anybody else Nancy thank you so much you do a great job as you we just have one more what page is that what page is that you want us do a TA for these 56 to 66 first yeah that would be great

156all right for attentative approval for Pages 56 through 66 always forget second motion second any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes and now you said page 22 page 22 that's the the red house here on campus the Staples house this is where Nancy is housed and uh just really General Repair and utility accounts have been adjusted for usage in rates one of the things that we're going to start looking at is you know Nancy and her St are going to be moving out of the Staples house and into this town hall the town hall Annex um so what we're going to do with the Staples house it's a nice building um but it's it's hard to maintain it's it has a big steep staircase there's a lot of things that go along

157with it so that will be something that we're going to try to figure out what the use is going to be of that building um so but Nancy is going to be moving in here mhm any questions anybody to my left no to the right all right can I get a TM page 22 please make a motion for attentative approval for page 22 second motion is second any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes now we can say thank you Nancy thank you very much hope you have a great time and get that 2% done I think we have uh Jesse and Jeff here and what pages are we on cat um there's one Recreation services page on page 67 and then okay so page 67 hi Jessie hi Jeff I feel like

158I'm met Keith's restaurant going through his menu very we have tight tight menu not the cheesecake Factor we keep it one page everyone has met Jesse our new Rec director who I said before is hit the ground running for for us so we're very excited about that her and the team is going to are going to be coming to the April meeting um we have we did hire a a new golf pro we have our new recreation director we have the Carol's uh lunchbox and um some we've been doing some significant improvements over at the Westwoods Golf Course um we're going to have a meet to greet on with the new golf pro when is that going to be uh March 19th uh from 2:30 to 4:30 over at the senior centers and uh Jesse

159has been doing a facelift to the Westwood's Clubhouse and if you go over there you would be amazed this is there's uh painting just a cleaning new chairs they're putting a new patio on so lots of different things which is really great and the golf pro there it's a hub of activity it's very cool it's a hub of activity so uh thank you Jesse you really have hit the ground running for US Jeff everyone so um page 67 um is the Recreation services this is basically now uh Jesse's department and this uh account now is showing her full-time salary and other things in it so it's now last year we budgeted for half a year and now it's a for a full year of a position excellent any questions on page 67 Brian nothing here

160Patty uh my only question is because a lot of this is moved over from um the community service but the combined so we don't have a lot of past year numbers Kathy can you just is most of this this is what this actually is is just a salary and then I think it's a showing the building and repair of the Stonehouse correct this is one year operation ston house okay everything basically is I don't want to say new if you went back maybe five years yeah six years probably even longer than that but yeah at one point Recreation was at the Stone House they moved out and now they're back there temporarily for the next year so that's what we anticipate the expenses for that office for for next year only with the exception of

161the obviously the salary that will be there continuously hopefully and the No No Pressure yeah hopefully that's a positive the ink dry on the contract then Communications that's the telephone and that's always been there actually look at but you go you'll see that that's you have dedicated lines for recreation okay great thank you any other questions for page 67 sorry that's a compliment so you should be happy can I get a TA for page 67 please uh make a motion for tenative approval for page 67 second motion second any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes uh the next item is the rec fund the red in the back of the book MH and this is our Recreation fund which is not funded through the operating budget if you look at that first

162page of the recreation fund you can see that we have the revenues of total revenues of 1,338 680 and you have the appropriations of 1,338 680 so it's a match it's the different programs it's the sports and Physical Fitness the cultural and creative the uh social programs the bus trips um and then the uh contractual Services we have something inclusion Services the camps um and the administration of the recck department and so this is all the revenues come in and the Appropriations go out we look to balance it um this is something now Jesse's brand new here and been working with Jeff and we're going to be looking to see it looks you know not any significant changes but programming and different things as we go along so I have a quick question I don't

163know go ahead Dave I didn't know if you were going to dedicate to start you can start go yeah let's give everybody a chance to look at all the pages we're going to 86 so the the question I had on this when I saw this uh a couple days ago was and again I'm not you know this isn't a this isn't a a criticism at all it's just I'm just curious now on the on the revenue side where we're at the 7mon actual and we're at $524,999 and what the revised budget was and then you go through the 7mon actual on Appropriations but those don't seem to be lining up right now and so I'm just I'm just curious for two questions one being do because of economic reasons or programming I'm not saying programming

164in in Farmington but programming maybe even in other towns or whatever is it are we are we taking a hit I think I'll I'll let Joe answer but I think the answer and Joe maybe you can correct me too I think a lot of with the this Recreation budget and how it is it's the timing of fees when we collect things and the different times of the year of how it how it goes and so it you it's almost sometimes you're in two years budget and so I think that's the reason why it goes like that and either Jeff or Joe I see a lot of head shaking so it must be that must be it yeah it um I w't it's um I'm probably I'm probably wrong it is the timing of the revenue

165and the timing of the expenditures this is kind of an awkward budget because you take in a lot of the revenue January February March but you do a lot of programs and the expenses occur Jun end of junee but majority July and August so you'll see like you were to get a a report as of February you see that the revenue number changed pretty significantly a lot of lot of programs were open registration in February lot of if anybody has kids you know with camp we open registrations February and March so our major jump in Revenue happens after this uh so you'll see over 300,000 in Camp Revenue and different things come in in that point so yeah if we if we reviewed this in October we'd be in the negative right majority of the

166revenues will come in like Joe said probably starting January February March but the expenses will happen at the end of this current year and start the next go and perfect accounting world not we would we would actually defer a lot of that a lot of we would defer a lot of the revenue um so you this it's and I show you example that technically a lot of the revenue that they take in now we shouldn't even be counting for next yeah that's kind of where I'm yeah that's what that's kind of what I was thinking about that that a good example of that was when we open summer camp registration that will fill in one day probably you know January 26 or whatever it might have been right those expenses only two weeks of those

167expenses happen in this right right in this budget weeks of expenses happen the next budget got it yeah okay Amy are youall sit there yeah that was my question I'm good I don't have any questions Keith uh I don't have any questions Sarah um my only question is is I know you're brand new so this may be something you can't really answer but just having started in the position in looking to the future is there anything you know that you have some goals about maybe of having um generating more Revenue ways to do that in the future and grow some of the activities or yeah I'm evaluating everything um part of it comes down to space and Logistics of what's available to US based on operating out of the schools and where we are with

168the 1928 building coming on board we'll have more opportunity to expand and grow but when you're in borrowed space you're definitely limited on how much you can expand so we're evaluating all of that and where we can continue to go Revenue obviously um and then also with the golf course as well so yeah one of the things and again it's not being critical of past but it's just having kind of a fresh eyes and we got the grant funding for the golf course and things and Jesse and Jeff and everyone were talking and it's simple but just even at the the patio when the patio's done getting some aderan de chairs in the back getting some bean bags doing some or cornhole or something kind of making it a destination and then anyone maybe that

169if they're over at playing pickle ball or uh doing the splash Park you have you can sit outside but also have that more atmosphere where people are able to play bags and there's a lot of space and some Jeff mentions that the sunset's there and some different things so I think there's some different there's quite a bit of opportunities and just one of the things that we had talked about and what is it did you call it like a like a monitor um to when they go into the like on the weekends and stuff um what did you say to me like for trash and park the park ranger the Park rer yeah it just like the only reason why I mentioned it is because one of the things is is that again it's quality

170of life and on the weekends when the garbage is filled and there's different things and you had mentioned something yeah so in my former town we had a a park ranger who would go or a monitor who would go around to the parks and just check on things check the permits to make sure that the quality is is up to a certain standard um so we'll be evaluating all of those things one of the things that I discussed in my interview and one of my goals would be to do a community survey regarding Recreation and what the community wants and need and then go from there to evaluate so you'll probably see that as stakeholders coming from our department looking for your input on where we're going but then also out to the general public

171so that'll probably be my first two months are kind of information gathering uh to make sure that I'm following the direction of why our Farmington wants to take this as well I can come in with a vision and know what I know from outside but I really want to meet the needs of the community first and foremost right yeah thank you Patty um uh I think this questions for Joe the we didn't in the last year's budget didn't account for a fund balance appropriation but the estimated uh the estimated 12 month for 2425 does have a fund balance appropriation that's the contribution um you maybe call the capital budget put $125,000 um for some improvements to the I think those are tons meet improvements actually did not show that in the Revis should have showed

172that in the Revis did not show that in the Revis okay so I just captured it it's actually it already occurs be okay thank you that was it one of the things that we do do and again it's depending on how we we break even but we do try to have a fund balance and then some of the money that we have goes to some of the improvements that tungus meet and different things back into the um system and things like that so that's what the wck fund and Jeff is doing it started prior to me so I can't take any credit for it but Jeff had really done some great improvements down at tungas me that you'll see this season um at the concession stands and then over at the bathrooms we'll a little

173later in the spring season you'll see those but that was funded through this okay Brian uh a question on the worksheet on the uh senior programs uh I'm just want since there's nothing they're requested nothing in the budget it's on you know that first sheet that was um that was actually n program that's that's the the paper uh the Fe Bas programs that Senior Center runs okay I was wondering that I just money accounting wise the money was being put in here the expenses were being paid out of here since the separation we took that up okay yeah I didn't see it I'm sure I just missed it but it's in there somewhere it's not in this budget at all oh okay budget now it's still it's not gone it's just not gone gone it's

174still there they still collect the fees they still run the programs it's just now going to be part of a different fund it's not going to be part of the recreation fund okay um and I see under social Pro uh programs under Appropriations um there was a request for $2,200 and I saw it there you know also one oh okay thank you I have one followup certainly me are there any other programs um that we're offering to uh youth that sell out like I mean I know that there are but I could you tell me what those are yeah uh well listen well I will say thank you to you and Ryan because I sign up late every time and to come begging but yeah I'll to Jeff yeah I mean I could tell you

175right now like we have weight list for our soccer program for our tennis program weight list for black football we have weight list based on our projections yeah and then we will try to accept as many as we possibly can in the program but again we're just on Space okay and I was going to ask this is the limitation space or is it coaches space space space okay I will find coach yeah okay thank you call you I I volunteered for uh second grade flag I retired I said second grade flag I said I would I would jump on again so I never coach flag I coach basketball hey if he's always late for signing up to make him a coach that's was for that one okay right on it any other questions all right

176can I get a so just on that because of space um and and I don't know how this happens on the other side of like tpz but uh you know cam current did come in and they're they want to expand what they can offer and one of it is the playing fields that they have they have a playing field in the back and that did come up in their presentation of tpz which tpz grant them them that so they were looking to partner you know with uh with you know municipalities uh you know primarily we right here in Farmington so if space is one of those things there might be an opportunity there you know nice so uh make a motion for a tentative approval for Pages 74 through 82 second motion second any discussion

177all in favor I I opposed motion passes um the next one is the Westwoods fund the blue at the very bottom I mean back of the book [Music] to8 and again on the front page you can see the revenues and the Appropriations it's the green fees the season tickets the rentals the driving range uh the lease and then the interest and then the Appropriations the clubhouse restaurant practice Range golf cart rentals and so we have the uh 823 378 as um the revenues and the match 82837 78 for the revenues so again lot of stuff lot of stuff going on at the golf course um just uh um with the new new golf pro we're updating a few things with the computer systems and things of that nature the restaurant um I do feel like

178out of a lot of when you talk about growth and where you have the space feel like that facility right there is an opportunity for growth and it we do have the space and we do it's it I think out of a lot of the programs with Recreation this I feel right now is like our biggest opportunity and that's where I've asked Jesse and Jeff to spend their time and I think with um Carol's lunchbox coming in and some different things like that I think it's a a known quantity that it would be great that she would bring not just golf people that are going there but other people more of a destination um you know new signage Jesse's been working on some new signage and when you come in and having not maybe exactly

179the same but like here when you come into this campus now you see like you come up and there's a town hall this way there's uh the library this way same thing that's going to be down at Westwoods you're going to have a splash park you're G to have pickle ball you're going to have the driving range some kind of signage that people know that there's the driving range there that there's a splash park there that there's a restaurant there Carol's lunchbox and things of that nature so um I think you know and uh Jesse had mentioned today in our staff meeting that there's some new leaks coming in because of um oh you can say explain that oh yeah uh so so I think Blue Fox Run is becoming privatized I don't want to

180speak out of turn um but there have been a few leagues that have reached out that are looking to join Westwoods which is fabulous so we've gained some new interest that way and then we are trying to operate a little bit more like a business in that sense and Market ourselves as such so we're working on developing a new website unfortunately it's going to take about two months for it to actually launch so it'll be like a June start um but Brian Rush has been instrumental in trying to get that up for us um so we're working with the vendor which is actually already our software vendor to launch a really clean website that will link directly from the towns but allow us to do some of those online tea times and keep up with

181modern amenities um still catering to our seniors who don't like those and leaving some of those tea times open um but really trying to operate and present ourselves as you know a business and a nice a nice place for people to go and looking at evaluating how the course is set up we've met with JP um to look at you know what we can do next year and where we can continue to make Improvement ments based off what we make for Revenue so we're really hoping that this is a a great year for us and fingers crossed no rain M right or the right amount I should the right am yeah I think it's it's just a it's a great opportunity in the timing just between the retirements and different things that have happened and

182with the splash park gun being built and the pickle ball courts it's really the facility and we were talking a little bit about the Stonehouse there kind of Jesse and the group kind of thinking about that what you really want to do with that it's a beautiful building and some different things that possibly incorporating that into this it's in the complex but what the need would be and what we could do there so you know we're trying I said to Jesse we you know it's government we don't move that fast obviously but you know you when you really see like the progress that's going on and kind of having like a a couple year plan and just start chipping away on some of the different things any questions Brian uh just uh just a small

183one and I think I know the answer already but Communications uh the uh restaurant has a small budget for internet do they not share internet or they you just break it out by entity the portion of telecommunications for internet out between the CL and rest oh that's what I figured I just think I ask cuz they're right there yeah uh I think too part of it is the golf course is the clubhouse is part of our Network um and we want the restaurant to be on their own internet just security reasons as well oh all right thanks Patty I don't have any questions um but I like your plan for the future Jesse it sounds great um when I was on Town Council a little while I like in 2017 2018 the the numbers for

184the golf course were not as strong and it's nice to see it's it's really growing and as someone who doesn't in golf but has been there for the sunset I totally would appreciate having you know ader Rond de chairs and whatever it sounds great yeah from carols and yeah should be a fabulous place for families and everyone Sarah I don't have any questions ke thank you I was just gonna say I like think what Pat said I love the plan and I the one thing I wanted to highlight that you said because I think it's worth reating is that you're going to be changing improving the services while working with the seniors who are very to the way Westwoods has been for a long time and you know aren't necessarily you know sometimes when things

185change it's not their favorite sometimes it's hard yeah it's hard there's going to be there's going to be people parking in different places there's going to be different chairs there's going to be pickleball courts and splash bits so it's going to be for people that are used to it just being there a little quiet corner it will be different but I do think it will be better so doing it and communication and and just getting it out there and some different things and and being like you said really still understanding the clientele and the seniors and the different things that go on it's a that's important they have been the people that have supported the course 38 40 years you know they've all been there for a long time we want to make sure it

186still feels like home for them as well yeah that's great thank you Amy sounds great thank you I have no questions though yeah I I would just say yeah I kind of jumped in numbers before but I would say welcome Jesse you're you're hitting the ground running you got great ideas and I think working with Jeff and institutional knowledge there I think is great and as you leverage your new ideas whether it be the website bringing it up to speed and and I think computerized tea times is is a big deal but like you said it's a balance between how people have been accustomed to it over the years to some new things but you know and hearing that leagues are already migrating up to here it's it's it's it's a work in progress but

187I think you're uh I think the energyy is right there from the start and I should credit our new Pro as well I can't take so credit well I'm going to be there that day I like to I want to meet him over he's been fabulous he's been down there all week working um and he's been integral in the website talk conversations and tea times and also like I said accommodating the seniors so it's it really has been a team effort and I appreciate the warm welcome I've gotten in Farmington um every been been super supportive so thank you great I think it's kind of cool though one of the things at at your level at the council level is that you know a lot of towns don't have like the Strategic plans that we

188do that have been going on and on and on and our and one of the things is that you really see the result of a strategic plan when you say you're going to invest and you want to do something different with the recreation and it becomes a top priority and then when it becomes a top priority because that's what your goal is then you we are applying for Grants and we got the grants for the Westwoods because that's where we should be applying for the grant and then we get a director and you have the splash park and you have the pickle ball and the goal was to start after Co and you saw the need for recreation about what's going on and then it's backed out through the Strategic plan so I think as

189a govern government lesson it's like a neat thing to show how that works and the product of it so it's it's I think it's very cool and thank you Jesse you're doing and Jeff great job my pleasure excellent very good thank you Jesse can I get a TA on pages 83 through 86 make a motion for a temporary uh sorry tenative approval for Pages 83 through 86 I didn't even catch it this time second motion second any discussion for awake over here all in favor hi I opposed motion passes welcome back Kathy okay so let me just R kind of run through where we are we are we're going to do uh General Administration which is the last section of the budget and benefits and then we're going to hit Debt Service and non- tax

190revenues so we're making good progress the general Administration the budget pages are Pages 1 through and I'll take some time to go through some of these just it's most of it was in my narrative but I'll just talk a little bit about it um obviously and we've talked throughout the day on just contractual obligations and overall Personnel cost have increased our contracts have increased to recruit people have increased so that is um something that um we're dealing with um with the you met with the registar of Voters there's been some increase because of um the early voting mandates um our townwide contractual services accounts have increased significant building repair and maintenance contracts have increased 23.2% you know all our contracts with the computers and all of that everything as you all know is just it's

191expensive everything is very high um utilities have increased significantly through the budget I think in my presentation I think townwide or without the board is about 9% but electricity on its own has gone 23.5% and communication internet and telephone has increased 19 uh percent um and also what's driving the increase here is that this budget funds to operate and maintain the new town hall the 1928 building for four months it should be noted that next year we're going to have both this building and that building so we have that so those are um what I think is driving the the increase um you had asked me uh during uh one of the meetings to talk about what is not in it and that's what I did on the presentation and what I think is important

192to mention again I we put in a for a part-time custodian um for the new town hall the town hall Annex this building and the town hall does the Staples house we have one custodian we asked for 11,500 um to get a part-time because it's only going to be for four months in the next fiscal year I'm not sure how we would be able to do it without another uh someone else to help us clean the building so I think that's an important item it is a new service that's why I kept it out um hope Partners as former services for the elderly requested $10,000 above their current funding the additional 10,000 was not funded and it's above their current service levels that's why I put it in services for the elderly are hope I

193have a hard time remembering that they're hope but they um you know they're like an extension of services that we would probably be offering if if we didn't have them and I think they do it you know I think that's a um they're a great organization and the $10,000 does not seem like an unreasonable request to help them out and so I thought that was important to note that interval house requested $5,000 we don't currently fund interval house back in the day we did I know we had interval house come to the town and give a presentation and it seems like you know unfortunately there is quite a few Farmington residents and things that use that service uh a lot of it for domestic violence and some other things so um they did request $5,000

194and if that's something that the council was interested in I just wanted to make note that they did have a request for that and it does seem like it would benefit um the far Farmington residents which is important the ad hoc sidewalk committee survey and marketing materials was $35,000 and was not included in this budget this one I mean this is a it's a goal so um you know it's a difficult one to say but I think in some ways we talked maybe a little offline last night is that we're doing some there's a lot of backup information that has to be done for the sidewalk committee and potentially if we wanted to push the survey off until we see what some of that backup information comes out as or if you'd like to fund

195it you know it is part of our goals and objectives I I do think it's important and I still stand by that until we know really what people want for the uh sidewalks it's hard to spend a lot of money doing a lot to it but if we wanted to kind of phase it about the I think the the most of the stuff that comes out about the side walks and the request are new sidewalks which is a whole different topic than repairing sidewalks and I don't think a survey we need a survey to learn about how to what we're going to do about repairing sidewalks because if you ask any single person they're going to say they don't want to repair it they want us to repair it so again again if you can

196um afford it at $35,000 to do some kind of marketing and explain um maybe we could do some marketing um without a survey which wouldn't be as much just explaining what the what the um sidewalk ordinance said put it in an extra newsletter or something and do something of that nature maybe that would be an alternative um the proposed budget request for this group is a 5% increase over the current budget again between Pages 1 and 26 yeah the in general of surveys when a survey goes out isn't would your experience say that there's a reasonable expectation from the community that action is taken yes I I think that people get very very annoyed if you ask for you do a survey and the survey comes back and you either don't do what they said

197or you don't take any action okay and just important as we think about that side because whatever the following action would probably be another expense you know or whether it's an expense in just education or how we figure out how we're going to do some of these things so I think because like you know Brian on that sidewalk thing we know that there's a lot of work that has to be done behind the scenes our meeting is next Tuesday so we'll know more about that then but so I just think it's something to keep in mind that if it that doesn't go in this it doesn't mean that we're saying it never happens it just means it's not happening yeah one way or another there is some communication that's going to need to happen but

198it's not a survey necessarily and the committee wouldn't be dying either the committee Contin exist so um anyway never realized how many layers they're going to be to this you take sidewalks ah it's going to be so simple yeah and then it's this it's that just you start peeling it away and it's just reveals itself very complicated actually all right any questions from Pages 1 through Patty oh really well I I can you know start with a couple of um I I think Kathy you already raised these um but the I the part-time custodian well I know you did the part-time custodian for both buildings I honestly I I don't do that work but I honestly can't imagine how you would do this building and another building um and because I assume they're currently very

199busy as it is so I don't know how you expand more hours in a day um I feel strongly on both of the um organizations that have requested funds um I know from talking to folks interval house that they have made larger requests of other municipalities and some municipalities are funding 10 15 $20,000 so I think $5,000 is very reasonable and I know that they have um in the that theyve serve I don't remember now over 50 but maybe close to 100 Farmington residents and I think um they perform a service that is very unfortunately as you know very much needed and I'm going to set a inside the sidewalk committee because I think that's a larger conversation um but I do have um just general question um about Information Technology it um I know

200and I honestly don't even know what page it is ah seven um and mostly my question is just I know these costs are going up we heard from Matt Ross yesterday licensing fees are going up everything's going up um and in looking at the budget I I also see that you know we there are um there's um increases for full-time staff there's as compared to last year um and also um the the department made a request from our office equipment and just um and contractual Services I think what and software support these are all just they seem like they're big yeah amorphous things yeah so a lot of those things are like Office 365 MH you know it's a it's a yearly cost that we have to pay um our backup services that we Outsource

201to a third party um we also use a company called arctic wolf who you got in security awareness training from um you know those costs go up every year with those companies um our antii software costs go up every year um as far as the department request for computers um I don't know if you guys know but Windows 10 is going end of life in October so we probably have 20 computers at Town Hall and 20 at the police department that will not be supported okay come October so we're going to try to get those replaced before that and once they're not supported um I that also means that there's no security updates there's nothing like it it opens up it opens up a big security concern um and I I've heard I mean I've

202heard more my I've heard more stories about municipalities being facing cyber attacks ransomware things like that so um that's say I think it would be fair to say and you can you can say no if I'm wrong wrong a lot but um the things that we cut out of the computer it budget are not Security based we take that as real and Brian and staff and everyone we spend a lot of the money in the budget on that and um but to be fair um out of all the different accounts and all the different departments yes this is in my area so I'm more like I want to support it more but I would say that the it budget it would be one that if we had a little bit extra money in it it

203would we could help with doing some of the things but they're not security but it's just there's so much there's always replacing computers doing this this and that but Brian does a really good job and we did make some reductions and I don't think that we made reductions that are going to end you know do anything damage yeah we kept all the security stuff in yeah and and I think we're going to maybe try to see if there's some if we can get some stuff in this year's budget maybe possibly be able to do something replace a computer or do something but it is it's a it's it's it's expensive and it's it's a tight budget for sure I'm sure I'll have other questions but I'm going to pass I look through the pages nope

204one and done that's it Brian I actually wanted to follow up on one thing that Patty said about interval house because uh that was one of one of my concerns and that is I believe when we heard their presentation last year they said we were the only town in the valley that did not support them yeah I think that could be correct yeah and I was wondering if that was still the case and I got said I don't I don't know but I do know that a lot of towns support them I'm not you know and I I think again I at Patty's point I think some towns support them more we used to support them they came it seemed like a valuable thing and again if uh it's we you have to I try

205to have some kind of overall philosophy when I'm making cuts and one of the overall philosophies is is that if it's a brand new service or something that hasn't been there before that's why it wasn't included so I think it's it's a worthwhile organization and that's why I made note of it for you all particularly if the town folk are using the services for sure and that's why I was asking uh you know about uh how uh our senior services engages with hope yeah you know and it seems like there's not a lot of duplication but we're really a support service to them yeah yeah they're they're an arm of something that we would probably have to do and they're able to almost like a contractor right yeah and that's you know something and again

206we mentioned that with the stuff with Nancy with the opioid funding and that group the clear and it's like there these are are things Services it's they're enhanced services that we aren't doing and they're doing it for us and so that's how I think services for the elderly are right so uh that's something that I very interested in supporting those two organizations sure anything else BR that one answered since I'm it's a lot of pages we can come back to you if it's yeah sure sure I'm just making sure that I have no re ask question s have question all right Keith no I mean I did go through this previously um knowing that all this is I mean I know everything's under your per Kathy but I know that wanting to be you know

207I think you you had an unblemished record of budget targets and so I know this year was particularly difficult and it show it's a I don't see a lot of things that I have questions on most of them are either in the notes or I've talk to you offline about it so don't have anything on that Amy have no questions Dave so just a couple items one being that um so we're at 3 and a half% um on on the town side um and you explain at the last meeting the Target and so forth and but getting to the 3% was like just we'd have to go to people and I mean again you would the reason why I would said that is that um you would see a significant reduction in service a significant

208reduction in service to get to 3% the this three I I mean this 3.5 you are just Pro you're you know you're maintaining services but you're chipping away at it you're chipping away you know between not having Westwood's people you know it's you we're we're trying to keep um it away from the public but you are seeing some different things and and it was the same thing same thing last year you know when you have a contractual services and your Contra I mean your contracts and stuff that between steps and things like that when you used to be at 2 2.25% and then a step which would' be about 3% and now you're talking about 3% and with the step you're at 4% and your majority of your budget as your people plus the utilities

209and then just the cost of all our services and I think I you know I probably underestimated of when we did the um uh budget targets the first time because typically we can run close to 3% I would say now you know we we are much closer to typically running at 4% of what you know what it is MHM and this is you know in this section in all the sections as you can see there's reductions and it's really a Bare Bones budget that's where we're at MH the now on on the 3 and a half% budget with the with the ad hoc sidewalk committee where do we stand on that I mean I'm not really sure like we're not going to do the survey uh the proposal is not to do the survey it's

210not budgeted yes uh now again it's a it's a goal and I think we want to do it and so if that's something you know we we can put in the $35,000 I do think though that if that's something that there is still a lot of back end work because it's we just started the committee and there's a lot of backend work and there's a lot of like kind of communication that we can do that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to do the survey that maybe you need to do some of that backend work and again we would have it done probably during the year and then we do the survey but I don't think we would be doing the survey like like July first you we'd be talking we'd be doing it way

211into the year because again it's there's just it's a lot of um time just pulling all this stuff together so I think maybe doing some Communications in the newsletter some different things and also we're learning a little bit about you know I when we reviewed just recently we one of the charges was is to review other people's sidewalk ordinances and I when we reviewed the sidewalk ordinances I was actually kind of surprised that how we do our sidewalks is how everyone else does their sidewalks in general right like you know West Harford which is a different Community but communities like us all the ordinances are exactly the same and so really it's going to be kind of like a financial policy decision on and that's where you're going to need the the survey eventually to

212come and I think where the financial part is going to be is twofold are we going to start building sidewalks and where that's the question are we going to start doing that are we going to pick and choose potentially where we're going to put them that could be an option but that's a financial thing does the community want that and then the other big thing is that how many sidewalks in this community need repair and we don't have an idea about that and that's going to be a question because it says that the homeowner is supposed to repair those sidewalks now if you have the whole most of the Town having their sidewalks needing repairs that's a lot different than having maybe 10% where the ordinance says you have to start sending letters and start

213doing things I guess all of this my point is is that all of this could probably take place before we have to do the survey got it got it because I guess where I'm driving at this a little bit is that I do think that the part of it is the sidewalk right part of it is like you know who's responsible for the sidewalk the financial piece I agree the survey but the other half the other half I think is is basically the public safety aspects of some of our quds you know what I mean I mean you know you have people that come down copper mine road to get to the bike trail you know these things are like you know they the the the connectivity in some of these areas is you know

214is is dubious at best you know what I mean and and and I just think that part of the sidewalk policy I think needs to be a a focus on that we want to make these connections safer more direct because we don't want to be in a situation where we're we have an incident and then we're kind of backing into something you know what I mean so I for me it's the it's I don't want to call it the delay because it's not a delay it's it's it's like you said the the backend work that you have to do but I don't want to lose sight that we need to somehow get to these action points you know what I mean at least for people to understand that we're thinking about not only the sidewalks

215and in the sidewalks we currently have and the ones we plan but like if you take if you take the sidewalk we're going to do on meow Road I mean that's a that's a huge investment that's the right investment to make that quarter safe right you know what I mean and and to connect those neighborhoods over to Judson Lane and and and the ones that are to the west back to Jud I mean so and we as unique of a community as we are when we talk about when we talk about our Economic Development and we were very fortunate in that case you know what I mean to have the things we have in this town we do have roads that now have traffic counts and speed and so forth that do present they do

216present um unique public safety issues you know what I mean and I I and I really um you know in an interim in the interim I'd love to see some signs about speed limit and you know I mean I just think it's a wider discussion but I think it's a discussion that Dov Tales to sidewalks I think you know again I I I agree with you 100% And like but I think that what what I think hopefully maybe the sidewalk committee is going to do too is come up kind of with the plan because like if I look at it in stages because what you've just said is and this whole thing like you said it's huge there's a huge undertaking but what you need is kind of a plan because what you've said we

217have done but why have we done on it because there's no nothing in writing that says it but like what we've done we repaired sidewalks on Main Street because it's Main Street in Farmington we repaired sidewalks in Unionville we got grants on both sides because it's the centers and someone that's we're doing that but there's no plan that told us to do it but it makes sense it's good things to do we did metal road because it's a grant and it connects you to a path and that's what you want to do but there's a whole bunch of other ones why did I pick that one over some some other one and you know that's why I feel like you have to start and say okay well we have all these sidewalks in town that

218need to be repaired that should probably be the first thing that you're going to tackle existing sidewalks so you do that then the next thing you have to look at and you say okay you get your your existing infrastructure in shape or a plan how you're going to start repairing it people or the town and then you have someone that looks at comprehensively what you just said copper mine Road this road that road and what is our philosophy is that we're going to try to get people to the paths because we're not getting people riding down Route four we're not getting we're not doing that so let's or walking so then you sometimes got to look at it and say okay here is the six places that we want to get people to the rails

219to trail system what is the priority having it and then you have some kind of document and plan and you start working and it's a 15year plan it's a 10e plan whatever it is and so that's I think comp apprehensively we have to look at all that and that may not be ordinance driven that's policy driven so again the ordinance may be fine it's the policies that come along with it and who's making those decisions M and also I think there's a communicating that in small bits yes not that we're saying here's our plan we're saying here's what we're looking at here are the things that are in place right right and there's and again there's priorities you have a a a a the community um New Horizons and that should that be part of

220the priority and some things like that so I think that again goes back to maybe we're not maybe we don't really need a survey but maybe we need again to start chipping away at this uh doing this comprehensive plan which is the back end I'm calling it the back end right I think that was the thing that we our due diligence we sort of uncovered at the first sidewalk meeting yeah we sat down and we all went over the charge of the committee and we were like oh wow there's a tremendous amount of information we don't have but that town staff has offered to get for us between uh the what percent of the town has sidewalks what percent of the town has sidewalks in working order what percent you know what are connected to

221the trails and yeah things like that what shape is it in yeah you know because again to what my my point before too is to fund a survey when potentially that's the survey may be may be better and uh more timely coming out next June so that would be this fiscal year or it could be next July or you know when we have all the information so to squeeze it into what's a a tight budget you know again to stress the work does not stop but just potentially that part of the work would not be currently funded that does make sense but as long as there were at least enough to so we can start feeding information to the community and develop the interest so that when it does come out in July for example

222is yeah I think it should be S you know similar to any of the other committees that we do is that you know when we have information to report you do some sort of like we do a couple of public hearings but you know again in starting in even just in our basic newsletters do you know what sidewalks like again explaining what what is the rules what is this what is that I mean people don't know anything really about it you you know just some basic campaigning of information could do a whole and then maybe later on in the year could do a whole newsletter on sidewalks once we have more information did you know this did you know that this is how it works that almost sounds like a better plan than doing a

223survey because you may by the end of that have a better idea of what what you need a survey on right you know rather than right now it's almost like we don't even know what we really want to survey so I think that actually sounds probably a better use of time and and money yeah like I said the especially since when I looked at that all the sidewalk ordinances are basically the same so it's it's really more about like a philosophy and fun and things like that and it maybe in some ways it could derail us because no one wants to pay right and so if you get a survey and no one wants to pay then you listen have we derailed sidewalks all together in town and that means even the repair of it

224you know so because so maybe you wait and you see what you know some of this back end and get information like I how much how bad are our sidewalks in town like I said I don't I get information about want people wanting sidewalks I get very little people calling me to complain that says their sidewalk is in bad shape and that we need to repair sidewalks so I don't know C Kathy the $37,000 that you referenced is that just the cost of a survey or were there what are the other layers of Sur Co so built into that number was um a cost for a survey we used uh previous surveys we received for the high school in the 1928 and then because those were a few years old you know accounting for some

225escalation in the C um and then the other one was just marketing materials um a dedicated newsletter which was successful when we did surveys for the you know like a postcard saying hey there's a survey coming out and then a followup with the results of the survey um those are just based off of our typical newsletter Printing and post each class any other questions oh I do I remembered I have another one go ahead um so I know that um Farmington is part of um sustainable CT and that there are matching grants for connectivity and for climate resiliency type activities and I'm assuming hopeful that at some point there'll be other grant opportunities for climate resiliency and I think sidewalks go towards that from connectivity and just making it so people don't have to rely

226on cars and what have you is there um I mean obviously we don't know what grants RFP say so we wouldn't know what we have to demonstrate but would not doing a survey impact an ability to apply for a grant you know I don't I don't think so because I think that and again I don't know because I don't have it like Grant but I I think that part of most Grant opport things are showing that you are dedicating resources and doing things to it and the fact that we have a committee and we're looking at all these different things and there is going to be an interest like we could show a newsletter we could show this I think that that would not um like doing a survey per se I don't think it

227would hurt and and also a lot of the times if there was a grant what you could do is put a matching Fund in to show the dedication to it offline if we wanted to does it make sense to have funds allocated for marketing at this point I mean we we do four newsletters right I I I don't know what space is in to communicate with the res and like in the last newsletter there was a little blur about hey we created this ad hoc committee there's a like you know follow along here so that could be sufficient in the interim to keep the community informed and not need to allate additional okay yeah and I think if we wanted to could do an insert possibly in our already existing newsletter so that you don't

228have to rebuild the whole thing do an insert or we could really dedicate up more space to do more stuff you know put the Ease on the other department heads at the right such a long article yeah let's take the town the town chair's not yeah that'll be perfect thank [Laughter] you any other questions well I I am happy to see and hear that there is some you know support and we can talk further about you know interval house and hope Partners so but I don't think those two are even covered in the pages went through 26 they are they are do we need to I think if maybe at the end when we talk about everything we can talk about that okay so we can do a straight same page as the library yeah

229same page as the library so we can just do a straight ta go back to so would you like to go back we said the police vehicles a TA for the um the non for-profits uh a TA not a TA go back I go back and then go back to the custodian yes yes yep yeah unless somebody here wants to volunteer like my own house anybody anybody yes Jack okay all right so we can do the TA through pages 1 through 26 please uh motion for attentative approval for Pages 1 through 26 second motion second any discussion all in favor I I oppose motion passes thank thank you Brian thanks briks Brian have a great night Joe what page are we on next 68 please so this is um 68 and 69 this is the

230other group of accounts um the recommended uh budget for this group of accounts is uh a 2.68% above the current budget the pension account has been increased based on annual required contribution is determined by the annual valuation the increases also a result in turnover a town staff with new employees joining the defined contribution plan so that's both page 68 and 69 I don't know if you have any specific questions for Joe and Joe would this be the spot where the board was talking about with the prescription drugs I think you should maybe mention that too that was great okay the um health insurance account actually shows a decrease for next year and the reason for that is part of the reason for that is that back in the fall you got back in the fall

231of anthon blue crust we provide a Medicap policy to our retirees over 65 retirees and we had it through Anthem and antham decided to Dro that group cover they do it on an individual basis they no longer do it on a group basis so we had our Consultants Farm Shop it around and they came back with a proposal to move our over 65 Medicap medic Medicare supplement program to the Harford and the Harford also offers a prescription drug program and for our retirees we offer prescription drugs Tom pays 50% of the cost of the retire and the employee pays the other 50% for 100% for their for their family and so what happened was the we're paying about $600 per employee per entie with the Harford the cost was about $300 per employee so it

232we dropped the obviously we dro the premium cost and the Big Ben benefactor of that would be the retiree because they basically they paying $900 a month and now you're talking about paying something you know closer to $300 a month4 month um but the other part of it is um actually goes against My Philosophy but um it would be a pre premium based program it's not a self-insured program and and so the Harford have looked at our experiences that they were willing to take on on the town's group um both the town and the board of bed's group and and you know we would have to pay the premium they would cover the cost of the insurance we've did or du diligence make sure that the coverage was like or comparable to what the anthem

233coverages for drug coverages and it is all the teers are there all the for formul are there so we attempted to put it in place for January were unsuccessful but we did make a commitment to put it together put it in place for um July 1st and we notifying our employees that our retirees that we're going to be doing this and we also waited to see how well the transition took place going from The Anthem Med program to to the Harford Med gap program how well the retirees took to that and they seem to be all have survived it and we decided that we would you know continue with this transition Bo gets significant more savings they have a larger pool of of retire over 65 retirees kind the town program what has happened to

234the town program because it's been so expensive a lot of people have migrated off it but our claims are still very high now we're not going to be responsible for those claims any longer we're just going to pay the premiums every month and we actually expect more of our older retirees to actually come back to the town program but the the short of it is we're going to be saving the significant amount of money probably in the neighborhood of about $420,000 a year bying this transition and this is just the town great so I think the board said close to a million dollar I heard them right board board has basically three times the re on the we have about 24 on the program right now um most of them like said have migrated off

235the program um the board has about 70 75 on the program so um but and our claims were even though we had like onethird of their numbers we probably had one half the amount of claims that they had so we actually were generate our r24 generating more CL almost half half as much claims as they people um generate so it's a significant savings for the town the other part of the savings is just the we actually have been having some decent experience in the past year so our claims numbers are pretty um are pretty good right now not kind of would and our new consultant also has been doing some pretty aggressive negotiating course on some of the rebates that we get from Anthem so we're expecting some good Savings in that area so some

236positives in the the budget I would say another positive de would be the pension right I mean the the results of the of of the Retirement Board you know the portfolio seems to this past year uh now we're in a different climate so things are things are moving differently but uh through January I think we were going really well yeah you know what I mean so I think so work came up and and suddenly things aren't so well right right and but we've already we've already got that that valuation we got that contribution and and we're we're good there right fully funds the contribution for next year yeah also obviously F Our obligation to the new employees who are on the 401 right and that's actually a fast growing contribution we're um we're pretty much

237uh pound staff wise I think we're down to uh 24 people on the pension plan aclo in the pension plan everybody else is on the 401 so it's been quite a turn around is that you're talking about the retirement rep is that to they get that isn't there like an eighth of a percent remember when I was on that board that Joan was talking about with the eighth of a percent that we try to knock down our not the liability am I what am I talking about well you're your unfunded liability you always want to close that percentage we were at like 60 something per last year we were like slowly knocking it down well you want to you know what I'm talking about the rate of return rate of return Yes yes we went

238from 8% 8 and a half% 8 half yeah sorry we're taking it down increments currently at a 6.62 yeah I'm like 18 months removed from those meetings but I remember Jo Valente hammering in my head that we had to do it every budget cycle don't screw it up so that's happening for Joe right okay actually have sto doing it because we now feel the portfolio is in a place where it can generate uies concurred that the portfolios in a place where it can generate a return of 6.6% correct thank you very much we've stay at 6.6% at this point right for the record I asked Joe a complete nonsensical thing and he got me the answer I needed so like I could not have garbled that more so thank you Joe you saved me any

239other nonsense you want to throw out there anybody just a kudos to Joe and the the finance staff I mean they really do a good job managing but the Everything But the insurance and things like that and it's it's really great savings for uh the board and for us on that absolutely correct any questions all good so I get a TA for Pages 68 and 69 please uh make a motion for ATT tenative approval for Pages 68 and 69 second motion second discussion all in favor I I I opposed motion passes all right I think debt what's next Joe debt Debt Service which is the next page over um yeah so that we talked about quite a bit but the total amounted recommended for next fiscal year is um 13,716 271 this is an increase

240of 2,293 which is 20.04 I talked about it in my uh presentation but it's uh to pay leas fin financing obligations clean water fund loan repayments and the principal and interest due on the town's existing bonded debt funds also are included in this account for interest payments on a debt issuance plan for the fall of 2025 the debt proceeds will be used to pay for the expenses associated with the building of the new farmed High School the renovation of the 900 wing of the Education offices Road pavement Westwood School roof replacement the purchase of Two Fire apparat and the uh replacement of the HVAC system and the police facility so as you know we talked about it a lot is that you know this is our year with the The increased debt as Joe has

241gone through our financial forecast many times and this is not unexpected that we have a big increase in our on our debt this year so that is something that we have to pay for our projects we have any questions on the debt like you said we we were expecting it so yeah no surprise there on that one anybody to the right go ahead I do have a question I know we're taking $800,000 out to pay things long last year you were cons said that we're okay with our AAA um reading uh you didn't know that you wanted to take any more out and yet we're doing that I'm wondering where Ryan that's going to be our next topic oh sorry yep no problem thank you I just saw was yeah nope that be the next

242one no problem anybody else on our debt it um now is the high school still some debt coming into the the picture as long as cat keeps sping it I have to she she comes in with the bills and I have to pay right do anything about yeah we have what I expect or hope that be one last um deadish on that will deal with high school and central office I think uh going to delay as long as possible to make sure that we capture everything that we need to capture with the next dead issuance so it doesn't carry over into another one right so anticipate that we're probably um looking between 10 and 12 million just for the high school thatb project with the next bond issue and and then um hopefully after that

243there won't be any any additional of course the um problem not problem the other situation you're the state holds back a certain percentage of the reimbursement right so once the final qu done they release the re the final reimbursement we'll know if there was actually a short call so there maybe a small got it and do you think you're targeting that for the end of the summer fall um I really would like to do this in October um time frame but um it's really depend on how well the cash holds up got it really will determine when um the cash flow will really determine when when we do the issuance not well that not that's one of the criteria the other criteria will be what the rates are doing at that time who's borrowing things

244like that but my goal right now is to do this in October got it okay any other questions can I get a TA for page 70 please I make a motion for a tenative approval for page 70 second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes so the next item we have is uh revenues and I'm going to take you to two pages one is just the summary if you go on your tax and budget worksheet which is the first page and you see the revenues and so you see we have the other property taxes license and permits fines and penalties interest grants service charge other um uh Westwood's contribution and fund balance that's what you were talking about Brian yeah and then if you look on the summaries on the red

245tab you see where everything is license and permits fines interest it's the backup of everything I summarized it in my um report but you can see I think the big ticket items that we should really talk about which is great is that on the front page you can see the grants the the grants are up 2,757 so we're getting almost $10 million in Grants um with the governor's budget there was an additional close to $2 million put in for the grants and that I mean it's really a game Cher in this budget it's a it's a game Cher for us our you know as you go down the other uh grants the revenues are doing quite well the license and permits are up uh 12.9% fines and penalties small dollar amount 8,800 the interest you

246know 39.7% up um some of our others are down um the fund balance Brian we we adopted a budget with a a 1,200 we're trying to move ourselves down we're only asking for 800 out of the fund balance this time so it's a reduction of 400 because that's always a whole that you have to do so I think that it's important to show that we're not relying on it as much so our overall revenues are up 14.56% and like I said the majority of that is the grants and um that we're grateful on the state that that's happening so we have the detail behind it if anyone has any questions on the on the fund balance though just so I remember because this is the third year that I've seen it budgeted in but the

247first year we didn't use any of it correct and then this past year we did need to use the 1.2 MH and then now this year we're we're slowly weaning ourselves off is basically the idea um yeah combination is uh slowly waiting ourselves off and also setting ourselves up for the future okay I anticipate even though it's not in the forecast or wasn't in the forecast I anticipate that you'll probably be using some of that again in 26 27 so making sure that there's something there for you to use okay the other problem you also have to play a mathematical game with this because um your fund balance you like be a certain percentage of your budget your budget grow fund balance sure so you have to be careful that also and are we in

248a in a safe range for our rating as Brian had asked before right yeah um and and to answer Brian's question as long as you have a plan for replenishing it I mean obviously you know they want to see a large fund balance they want to see 20 to 25% we're never going to do 20 to 25% on a consistent basis so but we were doing real good though so thank you and and I think you know if we could show them uh something consistently in the 17 to 18% range then we're doing really really well so the rest of it you know we put into the budget and and we use part of it we don't use it and they like that too so and it also helps you last year you got to

249use $1.2 million again you know it's like you use it one year to begin of next year this year you're next year you're going to use 800,000 so um and you're not going to significant well I shouldn't say that you're you're still going to maintain a 17% fund balance good so that's really what you want to be thank you any other questions yeah go ahead Patty um Joe I assume that the interest estimate was around January February does the current whatever's going on right now the the volatility in the market is that how confident are you in that interest number you that's probably the one U one Revenue probably will give you sleepless nights so we're going to and and again look you can look at the estimates we're going to get 2.8 million again

250this year so um it it's you know I don't see it dramatically dropping off but I I did have it almost for this for this next year's budget um rates are dropping a lot quicker than I thought they would drop um and like you said if I looked at it in January you know the rates were here one level and now the rates are they're dropping pretty consistently and just even without that cuts they're still dropping but at the same time we are see some banks especially the smaller banks for some this is how you know the econom is going bad smaller banks are looking for deposits right so um smaller banks are looking for deposits and they're looking for cash and so you're still getting some artificially High rates at this point and but

251I don't anticipate they'll go that'll continue just give an idea I was looking today actually for the meeting tonight we were getting around a little over about 4.4% on average in July and now we're down to a little under 3.4% our highest u u institution that was paying out in July was 5.8% right now they're paying out 4.4% and and actually we've gotten a lot of them below three so yes so short answer is this is the one that I'm more concerned about any of them but I think at $1.4 million will probably be okay okay anybody else do we ta this page or with not numbered so we just say a revenues I would like to bring something up and I just want to do this for uh so everybody knows and nobody thinks

252that I'm trying to pull a fast one on you and this is something that just devolved in the past week um you see the um the motor vehicle the uh you don't see it here you see it on the at the Grand page the motor vehicles Grist went down significantly and as Kathy mentioned the other night it's because appreciate it's because of two things they changed the valuation method you have to go to manufactur suggested retail price and they also changed the depreciation schedule um and basically the depreciation schedule went from 15% went from 85% down to 15% um a lot of towns saw serious hits like us our gr went down 8% the state legislature in recent weeks has passed emergency legislation to readjust the depreciation schedule so that it's now 90% to 20%

253with a flat of the flat rate of $500 valuation um and they gave every they open they allowed everybody to reopen their grand list their 24 Grand list to make the adjustment um my assessor offered our assessor offered to um do if we wanted to and I told him not to do it um I he thought he felt that if we did do it it maybe bring the groundless back up to where it is in the current level um I felt that um said if we did it we'd have to do it now and then we'd have to reopen the um board appraisal process the budget basically you had your budget by the time we learned of this this was last week um so I told him that I would know I would mention it

254to you but my recommendation is that we not do it at this time but that we do it for the next gr year so I just want everybody didn't know that because I'm sure you may hear it from somebody saying you know um that we could have readjusted groundless and bring it back up again for bring it back close to where it was last year so I think otherwi we'll do it but at this point it's um you know I I felt that the amount of work that we were doing and where we were at the budget process that we probably were in a good place at this point and it would just um it it actually would delay us um not so much delay you and your process but delay Us in getting out

255our tax bills and doing everything else we would have to open up the board assessment appeals we would be going into May with all that stuff so I personally think Joe you made the right decision I because I'm asking you I know I I understand I understand that but I I wholeheartedly the what your recommendation is uh I think is a strong recommendation for the right decision because I think all the reasons you just said the fact that this thing was influx the thing was new the thing needs to be repaired it's just been in the timing of it with the with the fact that we were drawing you folks were drawing your budget together I think it was an impossible situation and I think it would confuse things now and I think in addition

256to confusing things just like you said I think you'd have a you'd have appeals you'd have a lot of administration connected to this correction and I I I just personally think that it would open it there would be more downside to it than upside and I saw in your numbers that you were had already brought the numbers forward that were original so uh I so that that would be my my my comment on this excellent anybody else guess we're all good Joe thank you so that would be a TA on the on the revenues make motion for a tenative approval on the revenues page of our budget book second motion second any discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes so basically we've gone through the book we had a couple of places that

257we wanted to look at just the vehicles the um the nonprofits the two nonprofits and I can't read my custodian and the custodian so um I was gonna bother Joe about a question on next year forecast should I wait till we're done with this I think we're we should I wait till we're done with the few things that the few outliers we had or should I think that can I ask him that now or yeah I think we don't you can go sorry Joe do I know that you uh in addition to everything else that you do um you usually keep a good forecast of what to expect for the the next year and I was curious what sort of budget year we could anticipate next year um with our skewed numbers yeah but knowing

258that we we not J and say you keep screwing up my forecast we know no seriously um the original forecast was that you were probably going to have the tax increase um you know probably somewhere in the 3 33 35 probably around 33 35 range next year you're talking next year and with what you have right now is the recommended budget and assuming that well and what we have with the new Grant number from the state of Connecticut some of that number stays good um next year you're probably actually looking at 37 you're actually going to go up next year because you your U one one your grand is not your grand your uh fund balance is going to go down recommendation it's going to go down again next year and two um you know

259obviously you if you had 4 and a half% on top of what you get it's not it's not a 3% increase anym coming forward the increase goes up so you're probably on the based on the forecast based on the methodology you're probably looking at a three and a half% board to bed next year instead of a 3% you're probably unfortunately for Kathy you're probably still looking at a 3% for for for the town and so basically the short answer is you're you're looking at a 35 to 37 tax rate percent tax rate increase next year and which is you know quite frankly a lot better than a 4.75 or a 5 well that's what I was going to say so because it's 5.75 it's significantly better than this year so I know you know yeah

260that's what I was going to ask because I know yet not de's not going up as much no but I but that's what so what are what's the biggest driver behind that behind it looking so much better next year is that that we're not adding new debt or next year it's well it's comp yeah one thing is the that I go back to my com May many three years ago and if I had my drill this three years ago I would have issued $145 milon I remember that yeah in high school debt because every year your interest payment goes down every year I'd be a hero already first you probably me so proba never get the benefit anyway yeah it's your debts going to level up next year that's that's the big thing and but

261your again your base is bigger next year so everything's going to grow based on what happened this year so will never give us good news but next year next year we you know forecast wise next year will be better than the past three years and unfortunately it'll probably be the best year you have you know for two years afterwards because after next year you have R yeah and so next year's next year's the so next year's the gold next year looks better golden um woohoo okay so and by next year I'm talking next year next year I'm talking I got you next year budget like when we're sitting here those of us that choose to put ourselves through this again uh um okay so knowing that and then so at the end of last night's

262meeting Joe had um requested the last thing that he had said was to ask um uh superintendent Greer and Kathy to take a look at the we had talked about the transfers and gone over those and so we had gotten some of the summaries of those and then to look at any additional um potential uh Capital that could be reduced um so they did get you know I do have some of that information so if I can just go over that real quickly and then I'm GNA make a couple recommendations people can yell at me or agree or whatever they'd like to do um So based on what Joe just said the financial forecast does look better next year um uh both the town and this and the school budgets as presented to us you

263know with the exception of there was uh I made no of community service and it which were both areas that Kathy said that if we were going to push something else into like the actual budget maybe those be areas to look at but otherwise they seemed reasonable and supported um the boa Boe transfers were 9,482 these are transfers to Capital right M uh Town transfers were 65,000 um the board was able to find uh a reduction of 125,000 which they wrote was 75,000 from technology and 50,000 from furniture um the town found 75,000 which was Town Hall improvements account uh the total reduction to Capital based on all of that is uh $384,500 but I'm I don't need to zip through um So based on that and based on some of our discussion what I

264would suggest Capital wise is the custodian goes back in for Town Hall uh hope Partners get their requests funded interval interval get their request funded um having listened to um Chief McKenzie um I know that they have requested four to do a like full make good based on only getting two last year but I would suggest doing three police cars which is what they had been getting on their budget um which would be uh so and that number is $167,200 one unmarked and because that's what and that came from the chief right that's when when we had said three those are the ones that he was uh around um and then do we have the tax budget worksheet that can be put up based on that suggestion I think so and just I um what

265I jotted down from what you said so just it would be 167 245 for police cars two marked and one unmarked and the technical equipment 11,000 500 you said the custodian that's the number that goes with that 10,000 for Hope Partners services for the elderly and 5,000 for Interval house and I don't want to get back I don't I think we all I don't know that we were at a consensus but I think we all at least understood where we were coming from in the sidewalk thing and I would just stress again the work still goes on in that committee I get concerned with funding a survey or putting a survey out and not you know given that the budget's very tight and not being able to take action on it so I would continue

266to do the behind the- scenes stuff put stuff in marketing do inserts to Brian suggestion and then see where we're at when we get to fall and when we get to next year's budget cycle if we're doing if we're GNA go forward with something like that and I think Joe's working on it and so it would be reductions of a capital of 384 482 and I think uh Keith I know you said it but just to note that the Boe transfers and the town transfers that doesn't mean you're not getting those Services we're just getting were funding them from different places yeah they moving I think C can go through it and tell you we had we had I I remember some of was like the yeah just so you know it's just we're just

267taking it through the transfers so it's not like we're reducing the capital from it so um on the town side in the this is the motion that you guys approved on Tuesday night on the town side um Lucas devices was um an account that money was put into that's $40,000 you would see that Lucas devices listed $40,000 in the capital budget that would come out of the capital budget but project you know it would still be funded um and then the other one here is street light polls um we put $50,000 into that account the capital budget calls for 25,000 um so that would come out of the capital budget as well from the town side and then the school side it's in two of their buckets school code in safety um and school structural

268architectural so you're not actually losing those projects and then I talked to Kathy Greer today and we work through our budget and on I think that again on the town hall Improvement accounts which is in this uh bucket that we would be able to reduce it by $75,000 that's a banking account and so we you know Bank Less for the renovations to some of the things here but I think there's enough money to at least get started into next year and then the board um 75 ,000 from technology and $50,000 from their Furniture account and Kathy Greer and I talked about it today and they feel comfortable with that and so that would be the two 384,000 when you look at the year-to year over what our increases have been you know this year paired

269with last year will be the highest two years since I think uh the last financial crisis like 0809 or 101 I may have my years mixed up but it also is important to recognize that without The Debt Service um to the high school uh we'd be like a percent lower um and so it is a project that was popular in town that we did fun that we all knew the bill was coming to we all did know that this year was going to be a tough budget year um but I do think that that's also why I'm not sort of beating my hand on the table for some of the things like more money and technology and Kathy's budget uh and even as much as I'd like to um for Community Services just because as

270a whole at least the commitment that I was making was we were going to try to be as tight as possible because we knew how expensive that project would be soort of like but when you see all these Capital transfers coming off and there's things that are like real targets of opportunity I I think it makes sense to go for them um but if anybody wants to comment on the other stuff you know obviously feel free so Joe is that up on the board yes that's up on the board can you make it a little bigger yeah so if you look I would look at your regular books just so you can see the comparison on your tax need put there yeah you know we have these so hold on I think Joe going to

271try to print it out you can see it firsthand oh that would be awesome there needs to be a way to just cast it onto the iPads they're probably right they're definitely is oh no you can because on cath's like I was watching the PowerPoint on Cathy yesterday that's what I want I want they're all new ones these are all new iPads that's awesome but for this there is a way just okay we should have kept Brian here longer poor Brian just missed the cup of the break I who said break he was [Laughter] like well he's making copies of it so we're just so we're clear at this point on the education you guys did not make any changes so it's still at the 4.6 on the town side of the budget oh I'm

272sorry I'm I think we should all yeah I'm sorry note and for ourselves or hand down to whoever takes our spot that like IP training no when we go to budget Target season next year that three and three and a half it's like a good area to think about I don't know that's what he said because you know obviously we've always tried to be three or less but seem like that's going to be in there but yeah iPad training too sure so on the town side you get your thing but just so the board you didn't make any changes on the town side now we went from our 3.5 to a 4.05% increase and that's including the things that you talked about the police cars three police cars the stuff for the um non for-profits

273and the custodian so it moved to 4.05% The Debt Service is the same at 20.04 the Capital Improvements now has a reduction and now the the dollar change is 734 the debt Ser the defined contribution stays the same you keep on going down the chart and that all stays the same the revenues stay the same and now the tax in budget increase went to a 4.61% instead of a 4777 instead of a 4.77 okay yeah and then the the mill rate is what do that say 26 62 yeah so so my points too would be you know for if we all like the look of this this is this is lower than we started the week with which is nice sorry the wrong one too and then also and I don't know that these numbers

274are the same after everybody else does their budgets but at a local County mill rate so we you know right now we're at 2545 2662 would still put us uh three points ahead of Avon now again everyone else is just going to go up well that's what I'm saying every but but you know so subjects change I don't want to say that that's gospel but I when you look at this as like a total picture yeah as a group if we go for this we've done our job and gotten less than we started with um we still feel like we're funding everything and we still have a m rate that I think as a town we can be proud of um and I'll I will sit back and let other people speak too much oxygen

275I I I can say that I'd be satisfied with this I I wanted to make sure we were funding things that needed to be funded and I appreciate you Kathy coming like following through and you know giving us information about what's needed um I I always when I I mean I I always hesitate when people are you know when people say they're going to leave cuz our taxes go up we're still to your point Keith where where are they going to go if they want lower taxes um but I think we need to be conscientious and fund the services of the town and I think this budget does that um albe it you know there are still things that we might like to see in it but it's not the air for no we should

276remember that Kathy said at three and a half we are maintaining but shipping away yes right so you know I for anybody that thinks that we are up here just willy-nilly spelling spending money like we are doing our best the thing that I don't want is I don't want someone to walk around town and be like H we used to have X or you know what I mean and I think most people don't want that so we're trying to keep what we have um you know listen I when I listen to anti Mar do I know she could use more money so I think we have to understand that there are things that I think all of us in our heart of hearts might love too fun but when we're trying to do it as

277a big picture it's hard to do it all and I've been impressed with everyone who came before us today who was um I mean I almost wanted to call Russ mcgyver being able like the things that he pulls together out of thin air and listening to Jesse's plans a lot of those don't sound like they cost a lot of money but they'll bring the community together and I think it's important to keep those types of things going and I think so you have anything yeah I would say that what I like is that we're better than where we were yesterday we're saving the T or they're going to be uh increasing taxes even less which is lovely we're doing things we haven't done in the past which I'm very glad we're doing this time and

278we're uh bringing things back into the budget that need to be done like police cars because we want to support our officers in the town and our safety is important so I'm I'm happy with this absolutely excellent uh and Keith you got to go over and flip the switch for the transfer oh the switch is happening happening oh it's happening it's happening you're off the hook off the switch Kathy was on the phone with me for 4 hours today I was damn switch no uh the switch is happening uh Matt Ross is having a party they're gonna they're all good ER Robbins is good as a whole I would have done it you know Sarah I I agree with you know everything that been said so far I think this is a good budget I

279think you know we need to make sure that we don't get behind in finding things like the police cars we already didn't do the three last year so so if we weren't to do those this year I I think that would not set us up well for the future and um you know we heard a lot about the nonprofits and what value they provide so I think giving them those that money is important um as they continue to serve our community so I'm in favor of this since Keith took up all the oxygen Amy uh I'm I agree with everything everybody said um I'm okay with it all right Dave yeah I mean I think I think the work has been you know productive I I so for me I would just a couple questions

280first question is as far as the police cares when we order those Joe when do they get deliver um they're ordering Dodges probably we would order them probably would have been in June I guess they would be delivered in September that's pretty good okay based on the last experience the last um ones we got this year we order julyy got it okay thanks thanks for that so so I think yeah and I think the the tweaking of of the capital side of the budget you know those I think those were smart moves you know I will I will I will say that I think I guess I'm kind of hung up on the sidewalk thing and I guess I'm looking at it more from I'm looking at it differently I guess you know I'm looking

281at it more like like if you look at on the capital side and you go to like the department of planning department they have affordable housing funds will be used for a planning consultant $35,000 to figure out affordable housing and I just think sidewalks as a public safety issue as a Connect AC it issue as an issue of just Finance whether it's the town side I almost think it's a it's a it's a big enough project to actually fund a consultant to help the ad hoc committee get to where they need to go and I just so so we could disagree or agree or disagree and agree to disagree whatever we want to do but I just think that I whether the survey is is you know right now it says a survey but I

282I just think it's money to help that initiative that I think is really important and I just I just hope it doesn't it doesn't fall back because we're not we're not earmarking we're not earmarking that money I just I just think we might be missing I think it's just going to I don't know I just I I see it becoming kind of being pushed and I and I just think it's a public safety issue I think it's a real public safety issue so I I appreciate what you're saying I um I again I I don't know I do think that the work Will Go On on the sidewalk committee and I I I think that we can I I don't think if we if we put this money in the budget for this year I'm

283not positive that we'd be ready for that survey in this year and knowing that to me the I wanted to keep the budget as as tight as possible um I wouldn't feel I would feel better if I was putting 35 Grand back into ny's budget which I'm already have said as much as I'd like to I I don't think that's the right move right now um so you know but I understand your priorities I don't think that you're wrong I think I understand your concerns about bug safety I just um for me I think we can I think we can do both even with that not in this Capital yeah and as the other member of that committee I agree that I think it there's so much to be done before we even get to

284the survey point it may not get done till you know the you know middle middle of next year so why don't we just put it in next year's budget and do the leg work the the research there's a lot that has to be done really just on the statutes yeah before we even get to you know the sidewalk but we can start looking at things like how many do we have and we can start doing some planning before we get into the survey component and Dave to your point too when you talked about it one of the roads you mentioned was was my road like trust me I'm I'm like deeply into this issue and I don't you know would not want the can to be kicked you know um too far but I just

285knowing what we know from from our initial discussions yeah no I agre it's a very important safety issue so so let's get it right no I I agree with all you and I I appreciate all your comments and all your work and I think having two people who are so Pro sidewalks on this committee I don't see this going away and obviously already starting to and collecting that information you know we've been talking about this for years and we can't you know we can't just say it's done mhm but to other points like Keith says you know if we're going to take $35,000 then we really need to look at the whole Community picture and say where're just $35,000 really work best for the whole Community is it sidewalks is it mental health is it

286you know police fire whatever it is so it it's huge you know and I know maybe in some lights of $35,000 in a you know and this huge budget is minuscule but it does add up over time so I do appreciate that and um I just want to thank everybody you know this has been a hard process it's a long process it's gut-wrenching M you know especially we have so many people coming up to us all the time like we need help we need help we want this we want that and then the other side of the coin is you can't raise our taxes you know and I think this budget reflects like you said Public Safety are police officers victims of ab abuse our elderly so we're basically hitting all of our different components

287and still doing a proper funding for Boe for our children so I think we're hitting all the markers that we should be hitting and still being conservative enough to to deliver a budget to the people to say Hey you know we're doing ab andc in in a huge debt Year we're still coming in a great number so I think it's a a great push for all of us to uh to be able to say that we had a part of this and we're doing the best for our community by doing all this leg work so thank you so I'm just going to roll with a couple things uh and we and we'll do some motions any discussion that can be had in the meantime right y um my first motion would be to set the

288board of education budget for fiscal year 2025 2026 at $83,200 n83 increase of 3,696 7 $43 or 4.65% over the current budget year second have a motion in a second any discussion all in favor I I I'll opposed motion passes make a motion to add $4,825 to the police feet feet Fleet let's keep a counter on those uh technical equipment account second motion as second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make a motion to add $121,400 to the police fleet vehicles account second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make a motion to add $11,500 to the public buildings 1928 building part-time account second motion a second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes I make a motion to add $10,000 to the nonprofit organizations services

289for the elderly hope Partners account second motion second discussion all in favor I I I sorry opposed motion passes make a motion to add $5,000 to the nonprofit organizations interval house account second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make a motion to set the town operating budget for fiscal year 2025 2026 at 36,44 1,160 an increase of 1,419 53 or 4.5% over the current year budget second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make a motion to set The Debt Service budget for fiscal year 2025 2026 at 13,716 271 an increase of $2,290 and3 or 20.4% over a current year budget second motion second discussion correction 20.04% 20.04% I'm sorry you're right 20 0 4% over Uh current budget year that's what you thank you motion

290second discussion all in favor I opposed motion passes make a motion to reduce the capital Improvement plan Town Hall improvements account by $75,000 second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes and just point in clarification all these accounts are the ones that are the we're pulling from one to do the other the um transfers not the town hall improv not the town hall that was part of the budget but then the next few are part of the transfers uh make a motion to reduce the capital Improvement plan Lucas devices account by $40,000 second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make a motion to reduce the capital Improvement plan light pole replacement account by $25,000 second motion and second all discussion all in favor I I opposed

291motion passes uh make a motion to reduce the Board of Education Capital Improvement plan school code safety compliance account by $ 48,2 24 second motion second discussion all in favor I opposed motion passes I make a to reduce the Board of Education Capital Improvement plan structural architectural account by $ 71,2 second motion second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make a motion to reduce the Board of Education Capital Improvement plan by $125,000 as follows $75,000 from the technology improvements account $50,000 from Furnitures Furniture fixtures and Equipment classroom second motion second any discussion all in favor I opposed motion passes make a motion to set the capital Improvement budget for fiscal year 2025 2026 at 3, 17,18 an increase of motion a second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes make

292a motion to set the fiscal year 2025 2026 Board of Education defined contribution budget at $350,000 an increase of 24,000 or 7.36 over the current year budget second motion second discussion all in favor I opposed motion passes make a motion to set the this is all one right Patty get ready I'm GNA need you I'm sure okay make a motion to set the town of Farmington fiscal year 2025 2026 budget for the board of education at 83 m240 983 or 4.65 increase over the fiscal year 2024 for 2025 budget and the town operating budget at 36,44 one, one60 or a 4.05 increase above the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and The Debt Service budget at 13,716 271 or a 20.04 increase over the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and the capital Improvement budget at 3

293million $1 17,18 or a 32.1 five increase above the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and the Board of Education defined contribution budget at 350,000 or a 7.36 increase above fiscal year 2024 2025 resulting in a total appropriation for fiscal year 2526 okay MH that one wasn't on me of 136 m765 432 or a 6.35 increase over fiscal year 2024 2025 budget and that's it that's it that's it need a second stop second second motion a second does anybody need those numbers repeated you're good everybody good on all that any discussion mhm all in favor I opposed motion passes I make a motion to approve the warning for the April 21st 2025 annual town meeting and the May 1st 2025 referendum which I believe Moren gave us sorry I have the original to sign second motion

294second discussion you understand that those have the fonding questions correct you have the you have the here yep any discussion all in favor I opposed motion passes have one more motion uh to cancel the Saturday's uh Town council meeting Saturday the 15 make a motion to uh cancel the March 15th uh budget meeting 202 2025 this Saturday be with your family motion a second discussion all in favor I I opposed motion passes and before we call for adjournment again thank you everybody I appreciate all your work input and your service to our community and we'll call for an adjournment make a motion to adjourn the March 13 2025 budget meeting second motion second all in favor I I opposed motion passes at 8:32 good night everybody nice job thank you everybody thank you Joe appreciate

295it [Music]