Board of Selectmen Budget Workshop 3/24/2026

001Good evening everyone. It's 7:00 and we're about to start our budget workshop, the first one for the season. I'd like everyone to stand if you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So, I'd like to welcome everyone that's here in person as well as those that are watching online. Tonight we start the process of going from my suggested budget to our budget for the town to adopt, hopefully at the May 11th referendum. It's a messy process but and it's a public process but I think it's important that we go through that. A couple things I'd like to see tonight. We have gone through

002this budget closely, all of us, over the last couple weeks since we've had it. We've gone through with each department when we're looking at it last week and the week before. Today we're going to get down to some decisions on different budgets and different items. We have our our folks here to answer questions. I want it to be interactive. I'm not looking for unanimity. I don't want people to agree to something that they don't. I'm looking for people to have a strong discussion about what they feel what they think it should be and we will kind of work it out but I think that that'll get us started for right now. Any questions before we start? Any comments before we start? All right. What I'd like to do is I'd like to start from the

003beginning of the budget and work our way through department by department, line by line not line by line but department by department and see if there are things in there that have stood out over the last couple weeks that you want to address or ask some questions of the folks that are here. So, I'm going to start with So, with the budget we'll start with page 18 or this list and we'll work our way through. So, there's a few things on here that I have notes on. We have talked about a charter revision which is something that we are looking to do. We have not budgeted for that and if you notice we have a charter revision clerk payroll. There are costs estimated to between 5 and 10,000 dollars for that to be done properly

004with legal and all the other things. We can probably get away with it for 5,000 dollars you know, if we if it's a simple one but that is it's been quite a quite a long time since we've done that before. So, I'd like to at least start the discussion. We need to put some money in there. The estimate that I have is between 5 and 10 to be able to do something like that and have it make sense. So, is there any reason why that money can't come from the current year's budget because we're going to start talking about this before I don't know. I think the money now instead of putting it in I think we have to because we will be starting it after we approve this budget. We really should put it

005in there. It'll be something that we'll spend next year. And Tom, correct me if I'm wrong, we have to spend it next year. So, it would have to be in this budget so. So, that's I hate to add things to it but I know we have talked about that but we've never talked about the actual cost. I will I confirm up with our attorney. I've talked to them already to some degree but again that cost is between 5 and 10 so we should decide if that is something that we want to do which I think it is. I think that would probably be a must have since we haven't done it for a long time. I can get back to everyone with a firm firm number certainly by tomorrow or early next week but I

006do think it's something that we should put in there. I would say get a firm number. I mean that is definitely going to be a driver to get it done. The money's been set aside. Yeah, I agree. So, I I recommend you get a number. I don't know how everybody else feels. Bobby? Yeah. I'm very good. So, I will bring back to the board a estimate on that that's more accurate. I'm hoping it's within the 5 to 10,000 dollar range but I think it will be and we will decide what to do with that. I will. Okay. So, we have a thought on this page >> Yes. Some of us, I won't speak for everybody, would consider giving back the stipends of the Board of Selectmen members. We've talked about it. It's in the charter.

007We can't do it. You have to change the charter to do it. We just can't say we want I brought it up like 3 years ago. Yeah, we we we talked about it before trying to help by electronics and to to do some other things. Is there a number in the charter that we have to go with or is there a I think it says a thousand dollars per person per year. I wish I had brought it tonight. We talked cuz I I brought it up correct? Yes. Yeah. It was when Ryan was first elected. >> we want to we can't. Yeah. So, that'll save us Okay. 7,000 6,000 dollars for the And then I think I asked this question last time. We also looked at 88001 program services. I don't remember exactly what that

008is in this budget. But we currently have not used all of the dollars in this current budget. So, is that an area where some of that money could go to the Well, now we need to put money for the charter. It is Yeah, but with 3 months remaining the balance was 1646 dollars out of the Look on the bottom of page 18. It's the last line. It's the cost of recording and providing online access for meetings in town. Except But it's But in this current year, right? It's not There's like a lot left. So, are we using all that? We will use all of it? It'll be up to the four issues. So, is is that a number worth bringing down [clears throat] to 4,000 dollars to next year's budget? Well, that's my question. >>

009this is a set aside budget. Every dollar makes a difference. We could [clears throat] always we could always back it back out when we get to the end if we Okay. So, is are is everyone comfortable here with putting that at 4,000 dollars for next year? It's a 1,500 dollar difference. Yeah, let's try it. Decide everyone's fine with that? You know, it's not a lot of money but it all adds up, right? Anything else on this page? All right. Next. So, on this page the miscellaneous issues are the various groups that we work on. The ones are page 21, 20 and 21, excuse me. So, over the last year I've spent a lot of time with the with our with our COST group, with our Middlesex Chamber and some of the other ones and they

010have been quite effective in terms of helping us with programs, helping us with business. I find it very effective. I've spoken with Susan who I believe she was president of COST at one point for a while and was able to leverage a lot of help for the town in different ways. So, so I think those are are valuable and well picked themselves. I certainly actively go to there and we're able to again get resources for the town. That includes if we need to have a traffic study, that's part of what the River Cog will do and others at no cost to us. So, we've used that a few times already. So, those are the areas in my It's not a lot but again it's it's it's some money there. It's the same question though that

011program services it just seems vague. Again, you're not That money isn't I don't understand what that's for and it's not saying Yeah, on the >> This year there's like a lot of it This year out of 2750 with 3 months remaining we have 2110 dollars left. Okay. I have no problem bringing that down. Yeah, but So, for both of them Yep. There's people that are very new to the program. First Selectmen are new. Yep. You know, you you can run the detail on those. There's various programs on both of the first the Selectmen's budget, you know, the the age of the age of uh the meeting came these these meetings back before that what you were doing was like I said you were running various programs that you guys would support. Either you would you

012know, if you there was a special group that you needed to get do a dinner for. If you you guys yourselves went to some people for the training and you went to CCM and it went into various things. It was a number that allowed you to do specific things. You know, Michael can get the details on that from from years before. And then in his budget it's it's again it's the same type of thing as program services. It's you know, okay they you know, they you know, maybe they need a picnic table behind town hall and and he wants to do that. Maybe there's a you know, a group that you know, needs to get um support for you know, what they've done and and you know, they want us to show throw them a

013dinner. He wants to like a first selectman's petty cash kind of. It's not like a petty cash. It's running a program. It's it's it's an ability it's in a place where you can spend money to do things as you're the the board of selectmen or the first selectman. So those were the two amounts. The the the the board of selectmen line got just more or less you just had enough money in there to pay the people that run the programs, the these meetings and then you know, every year the minimum wage goes up. So there's you know, we try to make it be where they actually have people that come. So we have to raise that rate periodically. So that's what you're doing on the board the board of selectmen one. And then on this

014one here it's it's you know, it's it's CCM events that he may go to or the or I just various things that they run for the you know, obviously something like if the first selectman may do a holiday party or something. That's where he pays that for the the town employees or you know, just various things like that. You know, if there's a long time retirement and they buys pizza or something. It's for those type of things as well as just various other any type of program service that he's that that position holds. It's just there's been lately you know, it's it's been new people doing doing things and you know, they haven't been able to get in the rhythm of of do you know, to do those type of things. So the money is

015there. It's been a similar type of money that's been allotted and the B board of selectmen one the BLS one. That one is just totally you know, pushed over into the you know, you're running the meetings. And then that was why there's a thousand dollar difference cuz usually there was some type of a program that you paid for. I can't remember what you were what you guys It was one of them that you guys did and one that he did. So there was some one that you were the board of selectmen was like, okay, we're going to throw this event. I don't know if you've done it in the past couple years. I don't think you have. And I know and I know that that's the type of thing that's in in that board of

016selectmen budget. So I just wanted to let you know that that's >> Yeah, no. No, I appreciate it. You know, I think you got some transitional you know, transitional loss where there's it's not being spent yet cuz the person may you know, they have they haven't either done them yet or you know, getting in the rhythm of what you know, what's going on. And look looking at the last three years that explains it because we really it it appears it's starting to pick up but it the the volume of money you used hasn't been tremendous over those three year periods. And to be honest I've been so busy with everything involved in this that I haven't had a chance to spend that $3,000 or any programs with that. So So shall we keep that there

017for now or we'll discuss it further. We'll we'll tag it for discussion. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Now I have $3,000 to spend on good things. All right, next page ethics 22-23. Nothing really here to talk about but 24-25 probate court. Yep. Elections. No. No. Nothing there. Yep. Skip that. Next one 28-29 finance department. I had no no specific notes on here from times that we've been talking about this. I'll just take one more look at it. I had a note Yeah, I had a note I think when Tom spoke about it about the rental use buildings overtime school custodians and things are are lumped into that. So I understand that jump. Okay, good. And we I had a note under miscellaneous I believe Tom also explained purchase of technology furniture consultants evictions. It's a catch

018all for a lot of those things. The only note that I had on here is um is is there any software that might make it easier to do this but that's an unknown and um in terms of what we do for the accounting side of it. It's just more of a note to myself. Whether there's software that might be able to help Tom be able to get the job done easier and and and less stressful. For the under under finance department. Oh, in Just a general. I mean that's the only and that's the only note I have. I have no other issues with anything on here. No, but I just So the miscellaneous I it's just sometimes the categories are just vague to me because I'm new and I'm not understanding them. So what Tom

019already explained you said John what you or Tom if you could tell us what that is cuz that jumped you know, quite a bit from one year to the Is there any wiggle room there in that um account? So again, there's a lot of things in [clears throat] this town that based on the charter based on responsibility based on people asking me for help to we don't have places where to do things. People come to me and I have to try to figure out where to purchase things. If there's a something that's and where it's really nowhere else that's legitimately needed or that we need it comes out of that. But there's there's definitely things that go there. Evictions go there. That's a weird thing that goes there but it is it's any type of

020eviction and that number can swing in a year to be very high to being low. So that's a that's a swing. Um there's definitely you know, like you said there's different um if there's a furniture need that would go there. If there's there's there's computer needs um if there's a money at the end of the year I I accomplish that you know, at the end of the year and a lot of times that's how we replenish our computer stock. Um but it's you know, something that I manage the account. I review it and and it's it and it gets and if it's if it doesn't need to be spent I don't spend it. And then that flows back into fund balance. If it does need to be spent it's there to be spent and you

021know, it's you know, administered well. So I I mean I think it's a good amount there. I haven't asked for any increases to that account. Um so I mean I think it's a I think it's a valuable account to have there. I do accomplish things that we need to do especially at the end of the year when there's you know, things that need to get acquired. Thank you. Any further discussion on this page? No. No, I'm good. I'm looking forward to the next. Next page 30 and 31. I don't see anything. This is salary and service contract. Good. Mhm. This side. Yeah. Page 32-33 assessor. Again, I I I don't want to nickel and dime but but I know that with this increased medical insurance we may have to nickel and dime. Um I was

022just looking at line 3200 and again I was just going back and comparing a lot of these to to our accounting report that we received for month ending February. And I see under the conferences meetings and dues 25-26 we had allocated $2600 and as of the end of February we spent 445. Okay. We had 83% remaining and I'm wondering if there's any wiggle room in there or if it if for that small amount it even makes sense but I'm looking for any penny I can find. The two previous years we didn't break a thousand. I know. >> [clears throat] >> We can we say a thousand out of that? Can we Well, can we bring it to a thousand? Or make it or 1600 knock a thousand off of it. I'm fine with that. 1600?

023Yeah, cuz it's 2600 now. Take a thousand off of it. Tom. Let me just tell you what what what it is. So that account that does also have the the training and so it's the training for the assessors department and the board of assessment appeals. So I didn't know with the you know, with this being the reval year if there was any if there was any training that was needed there. I mean you could try to you could try to probably do six hundred. I don't know. I mean I that's the number that the assessors provided me with the you know, with what he needs for training. So I mean but I mean I mean it if you need something you could try attempt maybe try to do six hundred or something. I'm willing to

024drop it down to two grand and take six hundred out of it. I mean it's And again we go back and rework our numbers at the end. If these are silly we can kick them back but I agree. And I'll and I'll talk with Rich, too, and and double-check that. We'll confirm. Yeah. Make sure it's not not a a need. Right. By By 600. >> By 600. It was 2,600, but we're reducing it to 2,000. Next page, 34, 35. Next. I didn't see anything there. We're re-evaluating that. Next page, 36, 37. I I feel comfortable with these numbers. I mean, for 91,000, we're getting excellent legal care when we need to from the various services. I think this is realistic. We've got labor and pension matters money in there that I think is realistic. Really,

025every number in here, I think, will will be used. It all depends on what's what's hitting your plate at the time, right? Right. Right. Now, we did have an unusual year this year with all the MDC costs. We had that whole negotiation uh blew our budget this week uh this year. I don't anticipate we'll have another issue like that next year. But better to be safe. I I'm comfortable with that I'm comfortable where it is. Not an increase. No. No increase. >> Stable. Yeah. All right. We're good? Next, 38, 39. Town Clerk. The only one I did I flagged again just looking at what amount dollar amount there and what was expended or not expended. I saw the indexing and recording, but I know in talking with our Town Clerk that that's a big deal

026coming forward now, right? Yeah, so our our clerk Sorry, I was trying to avoid you getting up, Mike. >> [laughter] >> Um so, our our current uh land record system's contract is up April 30th. So, um if we did nothing and the price is still going up, we're upgrading to that version that has like that fraud identity system, which is going to be available to every property owner in Portland, so they can sign up to get alerts. So, you know, it was kind of a long time coming, and unfortunately, that's, you know, but even even we stayed with the antiquated system we were on before. We We had a sweet deal. It's over. So, the con- you know, the contract's up, so. Okay. I I knew there was something there. I just needed to remind

027me. >> [clears throat] >> I don't really see anything else there. All right. Next page, 40 and 41. >> [clears throat] >> Central Services. Um our discussion last time uh we discussed re-bidding contract, reviewing, consolidating. Yes. And let's have a little more discussion about that uh in terms of how we can do that. I know I've talked to Tom somewhat on on if there's an opportunity to consolidate. I know we consolidated a number of things already in terms of how they do things with Board of Ed, but Tom, any thoughts on this? Okay. That advertising and printing and publications is that uh is that all some of your stuff that did you have to notice uh uh uh No, that would work that So, it's advertising, printing, and publications. There's some publications for certain departments.

028There's some ad- advertising. Advertising is very expensive. Anytime you you you uh have to put a legal notice in, uh really there's not too many players. It's usually the Hartford Courant when we have to do the big bids. Um they're they're expensive. Um the printing uh that's for various printing, printing of various like types of envelopes and things like that for the for the printing for the um tax offices and things of that nature. Those are all like centralized uh purchasing uh that we try to do um through um some of my staff. When we have them, um and um those are the area that So, that's kind of like kind of what's your point of you know, trying to bring things in. That's what this uh department really is is centralized. It's trying to

029get the controls over, you know, the the types of purchasing that we have there, this type of events that we have. So, most of the stuff is done with through the people in um my department, and then we um you know, we purchase the items for the other uh people. And then the bid you know, the except for like the like some of the printing they do, they have to get their own quotes and things of that nature, but a lot of that is is there. Um so, that's really what that office you know, department is for. It's to you know, purchase the things that are for all the departments. That's why it's like a central office. Um and um the you know, I think we do a pretty good job of keeping that within

030the the number that we request. Uh postage just keeps going up. It's just an item that um it's just you know, it's a big number that keeps going up. There's certain things we have to mail our checks out. We have to mail out tax bills. We have to mail out things for the voter of registrars. So, there's just things that we have to do, and so we want to uh make sure we fund that appropriately. Um There we possibly have a rental for our copier fleet may come due this year, so there are some mon- monies in there for a potential expected increase to that. So, uh this this this what it you know, that department is what what we say it is. It's a centralized wise place where we try to accomplish a lot

031of things for a lot of departments. And the postage increase is just simply the postage increase, not the fact that we're mailing more, right? It's just that it I mean, there's some things that we mail more or Well, we updated but was it mainly just because This is postage increase, yeah. the increase. Yeah, it's just that it keeps going up up up, and and then um you know, um and so that's what you have with that. What I'm trying to do is there, and then you see how it just went up again. So, it's like every time you try to get ahead, you're like, "Okay, yeah, I did it." You know, and poof, it goes right back up again. Okay. And it's up 2.38, which is I guess reasonable compared to some of the other

032ones. Yeah. No, it's I don't see any anything else on here. Am I right, gentlemen? All right. Next. 42, 43. Technology Department. Peter over here. So, Actually, Peter, I'm going to pull you up there for a second. Just cuz there was I had a couple different things on here. One of the things that we had discussed at one of the last meetings was what can you do together with Board of Ed tech side to be able to combine services or combined efforts. Um I know you'd reached out to them and and started some discussion. I know there was some interest on this side of the board to see if you think that that is something that we could be able to do and work together with Dr. Britton and and the folks at that side

033to make it either more effective or more cost-effective or something that gets us more mileage from the dollar spent. But what are your thoughts on that? You know, what's your Peter Lipka, Director of Technology. I think in there's opportunity. The opportunity would does require investigation, fact-gathering, analysis of that, and then a planning exercise, not just within myself, but within multiple people within the town, within the BOE, to identify all the potential improvements and and consolidations that seem practical, which are deemed most valuable. As an example, if there is a known pain point that you are experiencing, and we happen to have internal expertise to solve that pain point or access to a vendor who we trust who could solve that pain point, then that would be certainly move move up in the the list of

034things that we'd want to put more effort into learning how how we can make that happen. So, there's potential there, but I don't have specific actionable um initiatives that I'm ready to, you know, bring to the board. Peter, I know the licensing is up tremendously high. Now, I'm when I was doing it uh because I had the town tech program, I was able to avail ourselves of the you know, [clears throat] all of our GIS licensing and uh all of the offices stuff, we were able to acquire educational pricing for that. We had We had a site license. Are we still doing that? Uh can't say that we Well, for the GIS uh licensing that we we enjoyed many years at that great deal. Um I had some discussions with our our land use uh

035planner, and we came to the conclusion that the work that that software was meant to do could be done by another party as part of a pre-existing contract that the town had with them Okay. for essentially no cost. So, we relinquished that license. We did not renew that. We also had discussions with the vendor that convinced me if we need it in the future, it it will still be available to us, or at least the parts of it that that we need. So, in that that example, we shared that cost without losing the ability to do what it was meant to do. So, that's So, we're no longer using the We no longer need that tech town tech. Reduction in cost. >> of that then that elevates the question for me because we've eliminated that

036from in 2023-24, that was about $29,000 and now we're proposing $82,000. So, it it's jumped substantially if we remove that piece from it. Cuz I what I'm thinking of is when we talked last week, we talked about consolidating purchasing and things and it was it was told that if it's educational, there's a cost a reduced cost for it. Non-educational, we have to kind of separate those out. But if what Dave is saying is true and when he did town tech, if we can get the the education cost sharing, then I'm wondering if this significant increase in price is related to the loss of that It is not. In my opinion, it is not and here's why. Uh last year, there was a significant increase in the licensing budget, tens of thousands of dollars and that

037was all due to uh new online land use permitting systems. So, that was 10, 20, maybe 30,000 dollars worth of an increase last year. Uh to the best of my knowledge, we are not eligible for an educational discount for something that's going to be used by the land use department. >> Okay. This year, we're adding to the increase not through that. That remains stable. Uh As a reason So, so the town has a relationship with a external company called an MSP. We refer to it as an MSP. It's a multi-service provider. And they are a group of technology professionals with various skills and they come together work under one firm and that that provides the town sort of a portfolio of technology skills. Um far beyond what the two full-time members of the town can

038do themselves. And for years, we used the same MSP. And that MSP in May of 2025 shuttered their MSP operations. And so, we had to go to the market, find out who's out there now and what price do you offer these same services for? And what we found is we were we knew we were getting a a good deal. Turns out we were getting a great deal. No one else offers anything close to that. And so, what this reflects is 2026 pricing as opposed to maybe 2016 pricing, which is what we had for years. And so, that is the sole driver of the increase this year. So, that's when we were working with this tech and is that Correct. You are correct. They no longer Well, do that. >> Back back in back in the

039day, I mean, we used to have a guy on site guy come in a day a week. Is that still the case? No. So, why is that cost so, you know, So, well, we we still have the work that they must do. They just don't come in and do it. So, they're still available, they still do it, but we don't have someone sitting in my office 8 hours every Thursday doing it there, but the work still must be done. And that work done by a new firm, the lowest cost we can get is still significantly higher than what we had. And so, that's another contributor to the increased budget for fiscal year 27. Sounds like they're doing it remotely, but they're still doing the work that needs to get done. >> Well, they Yeah. Yes.

040We Yes. They do much of what they do remotely, but they're available to come on site when that's needed, absolutely needed. And they have been on site. So, I I I don't know that I clarified anything, so I encourage you to re-ask the question so you can get the answer you need. Well, I'm just interested in in the level three skills that we can't provide that they are providing. Yeah, I'd rather not discuss them, you know, in a public forum. Let's just say they're there and we we could have an offline discussion. So, I'll I'll just as I answer that question. So, we know we said we had that the company we had a hourly rate. The hourly rate has gone up quite substantially, but it was a you know, like I said, it was

041a probably about a six or seven-year-old rate. Um that company doesn't do that business any longer. Um we we know we've lowered the So, we used to have 52 weeks a year at 8 hours a day. So, we're trying to do about 47 weeks with what we budgeted in that network. And we're working through that bid um process and we're you know, we'll likely have a a new vendor on engage in other month or so. Um maybe a couple months now, but we're right now we have a vendor that kind of took over and we went we went we went to the market and and either way, the licenser went up by this about 12,000 like I explained. That was about the the cost of the remote management monitoring system, the software, the the um

042the >> and the MDR. Yeah, the RMM, the MDR and then we're going to try to get these another vendor on site to do the the the level three stuff that we do need and we need it. No, I agree. I agree. So, that's why that line item has that in it, that bump in it. So, instead of having the 8 hours for 52 weeks, it has the hourly rate of about 47. About 47 weeks at 8 hours. Now, is is the hourly rate when we when I was doing it, we used to use a a blended rate? >> Blended rate. >> So, you know, whether you were doing >> the new model would be the blended rate. Okay. Currently, there's multiple there's a couple rates right now. But when we go forward, we're going

043to have to get that blended rate. There's certain people right now that the entity that works there is they they don't they one they do one component and they have another component and that's why we're trying to get it all under one. So, working through that process. A lot of a lot of balls in the air right now. Any other question? No, right now. Peter, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. It helps give us a better insight as to the struggles that we have with price increases and the whole bit, so. Page uh 44-45, fire department. As we discussed before, the the only thing that that I added in were uh the additional stipends that we talked about last time for the three lieutenant nine lieutenants and three captains, um which

044I thought were well deserved and I think appreciated and I think money well spent. The other things that are on here, um I've reviewed their budget increases only 2.54. I say only 2.5. Every dollar makes a difference, but 2.54% it's within um I think a reasonable amount. Um if anyone has any questions on this one, um we've got our chief here. We can check it out, but there's nothing on here that stands out to me. After discussions with him that we can certainly not have anything >> they held the line really well then. I know that and as the last discussion but also lays it helps a lot trucks last longer versus buying new ones was also enlightening as well, so. Um so, I would be comfortable leaving this as it is. Oh, no. I

045think it's I think it's that's a good addition right there, so I'm good. We're good. All right. Rob, thank you for everything that you and your team do. You guys been busy the last couple days, too, so. All right. We're good on this? Mhm. Fire marshal. Um Ray is not here today. Uh spoke to him. There's there's nothing specific on here, but one of the asks that he has had was for a new program. I'll share that with you later on today or tomorrow. Uh but there is a small program that he'd like to add in here. Um I don't have the details to give to you right now, but there is a a small ask that he has on this budget, which I'll share with you guys tomorrow. I want to get the details

046um from him before I provide that to you. All right. But anything else on here that stands out to anyone? Again, there's just not much there. Yeah, I know they've been very busy with their the development going on this year. >> and I and I have to tell you, I know we've talked about this a bunch of times. I mean, when Tom and I went through the budget and when we looked at every department and I'm sure every manager here for the department, I mean, we pulled out everything that we could that was low-hanging fruit and then pulled some bone and muscle out of there as well. Um there there just isn't a whole bunch of extra if if I can even call that in these budgets and every time I've gone through this over

047the last couple weeks and I've gone through it so many times, there just aren't a bunch of places to pull. Example, page 48 49, this is an emergency dispatch contract that we have that ends at the end of next year. We have to redo that budget. Now, one of the possibilities with this is perhaps we can combine what we do with Middletown and Glastonbury and maybe some surrounding towns. So, this is definitely something that we can look at and see if we can expand to be able to get a better price for us. That's an area where we could probably find some savings if we can work creatively to make that happen. I don't know if they could do that. They have a bigger center now in Middletown that they reopened, but that would be

048some area that that I or we as a team could approach and perhaps make a difference starting next year, but for now it's it's a set number and we can't really do much with it, but I think it is an area that we have to keep on looking at every year. And we have an opportunity next year to maybe do something with that, so that's my plan with this particular line item and there's a number of things like this that there are things that we could try to plan on and improve or combine, but but there are some things just you can't you can't slow the increase or there's some things you can't change, so so nothing we can do on this one right now. But I'm working on what we can do next year.

049All right. Next page. Police department. All right. Um so I have two notes on here that um I'd like to start some of the discussion. One of the one of the asks earlier this year for our police force was with regards to our canine program that we have in town. Um and currently the way the the way that we fund this is we provide a $4,000 to the canine budget. It's 59002. Um and that is uh I guess the base price for the maintenance of our dog and and some of the equipment that's there, but the police department through fundraising provides the additional funds estimated between say 8 and $9,000 a year that is that is needed to provide if there needs to be a replacement dog gotten and that's expensive. The equipment that is

050used for the dog, the equipment for the police car, etc. So, the insurance and the vet bills, etc. So, I was asked if if this board would consider adding that in there. Um and I understand I understand the concern. The way I left it was I thought it was it was worthy of discussion here to talk about that. Um there are other departments in the surrounding towns that that have this. Um we we like they uh share those resources in situations that require and demand it. Um but that's one that that I think I'd like some feedback. Um and then the other I've heard from residents in town is now that we are fully staffed and we have our 13 officers, uh there was questions about whether that allowed us maybe more flexibility on the

051overtime. You know, do we need this much to address it and I'm glad um but I'm glad to hear tonight. Those are two things I at least wanted to throw out there that I wanted to discuss publicly and get the ball going and there's anything else, but maybe we can start with that, so I thought it would be great. Yes, absolutely. Thanks for coming with the rest of them. Hi. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Uh so, regards to the canine program $8,000 is a pretty big pill to swallow to put into that program all at once. Um I don't think it would have to be this year contractually the town is obligated or supposed to actually fund the program 100%. We've never done it. We've always utilized union fundraising to assist with that. I know there's

052an account right now that he has some fund balance in that we can carry over into this year. So I think we're we're pretty set with that number that $4,000 for the this fiscal year, the 26 27 year, okay? I wouldn't touch it. We can drain the other account and then reassess it come next January. Uh Scott Yep. So, we have uh now we're going to have 13 officers and we have the canine it's four. Um I mean the dogs really only I mean they have a limit the a certain amount of uh police duty if you will expectancy, right? Is are there services that we're getting from other towns because we have a I mean it's I don't want to say quid pro quo, but it comes a we have a police dog, we

053help Glastonbury, we help East Hampton, we help out in Middletown and because of that we're getting services from them to help us out and it's you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Is there any of that going on? >> We always rely on other people. And alone, the dog is the dog. Well, dogs are dog. The town of Portland's dog. However, with any of our programs, every department will assist one another regardless of what they have for services that they can offer us in the future if we need them. If they have something that we need, they'll jump at the opportunity to come over and give us a hand. Um do we expect anything in return for the the services we provide? No. That's part of public service. That's what we do as

054part of our protection for the state of Connecticut. Not just the town of Portland, but the state of Connecticut. Oh, and then I think the second question was the overtime? Yes. Okay. So I know it's a big a big number there. Um I assess it at the every month. I pull up the numbers to see where we are. And this year we were pretty much right on the mark with with our not with coverage, but with money spent up until January, which was half of our funding. I only went up $2,000, but you have to remember if you look at that particular account, that's a it's a time and a half account, so if the officers are scheduled to get a 3% raise, that's really a 4.5% cut if that remains flat that I would

055show in that budget that line item. So, essentially by going up that small amount, I'm still taking a cut of about a 3% cut on that line item itself. And with 13 officers, yeah, we can have more coverage on the road. As guys age, they get more vacation time. They tend to take it more. There's more training for guys. So, you add 13, now you have 13 guys you have to train, not 12. So, training costs money. They have to be generally the guys are taking the training while they're not working or if they are working, then that shift then has to get filled. So, it's the number didn't go anywhere. We actually lost coverage with that particular number. That's the unfortunate fact for that. And um we have a couple new members up here.

056Uh the way private duty works private duty Okay, so that that line item 14014 Yes. that is a a balance there that will pay the officers upon them submitting their slips for private duty. Rosanne is our collections agency and she then collects the money from the companies and that is reimbursed over to Tom who puts it into a another account somewhere. Um that money set aside for us so that there aren't transfers throughout the year. It sits there, so it's ready for us to go. I'm not really sure. I haven't looked at that line item this year to see how we are matching as far as percentage-wise. We've had so that Nordic spa probably you know, started eating up some of that money pretty good cuz there were two or three officers a day working

057with Eversource. And they're still out there. Got it. Do you have anything else, guys? Um I know I wish you I wish it was smaller. Yeah, trust me. Um I I was able to at least cut down the examination services. All right. >> [laughter] >> Cut that down a little bit for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for all your help. Not that they're going to, but how many officers are eligible for retirement? That are past 20 years. Okay, so if I'm going to give you a guess one, two, three after Capello's Lizio. So, I'm going to say just three. Yeah, all the supervisors are the only ones available right now. I think Lizio probably has only like 10 10 to 12 years on and he would be the next one. No. All right. Very

058good. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate that. Next page 52. Don't have any issues with this. Small increase, we know exactly when it goes go down. We're lucky. Very lucky. We're very lucky. Keep them busy and keep our town safe and God bless. Uh 54 55. We went in the other direction in this budget, down 7.83%. We all know why because of the new person that did there, so there's nothing in here. By the way, he's he's doing well and picking up picking up the job quite well and expanding his skills and knowledge. So that's that's been real helpful. Very responsive to our to our businesses in town. So nice job, Dave Smith. Uh next page. 56, 57. Mr. Jason over there as well. So we did have some the hazardous waste, we talked about

059that before. Uh it's a requirement. That that we know about. I don't think there's anything on here that stood out last time. I have no notes from before. You know have any issues on this? Jason, I'm going to I'm going to pull you up just for a quick second cuz we have we have a couple we have a couple of real ones up here. A general question before we go through the other line items. So we're going to go through several of the lines that you're responsible for and all of us up here are looking for anything that might have extra fluff in it, anything that might be something that we could take some out, but also in fairness of the things that you've talked that maybe were things that you wish that you wanted

060to switch around or transfer. I should have mentioned after everyone here uh cuz we're trying to find the right budget and the right mix on on what it is. So on this particular page, I'm not sure if there's that much on there. Uh the gas and diesel with everything that's going on, I don't know who knows what that'll cost 2 months from now. So it's whatever. Correct. But is there anything on this page that gives you what gives you pause or No, I mean pretty much we kept everything uh stagnant except for the hazardous waste and the the wages. Got it. Mhm. Okay. Next page. 58, 59. So so my note on here is is of all these of all these different items on here, there's a variety of contractual services and others. Um is

061there $5 to $10,000 of money that you would either feel comfortable taking out or moving some out and shifting some to another place on here? No. I mean I can I I could lower my conferences and meetings. Uh what that number is is $5,000 more cuz uh I wanted to send two gentlemen to the tree warden school. Uh I've also been um asked by uh employees for some training with bucket training and forklift training, so that number reflects that. Um for safety purposes. You know, everything else I think is a solid number. Storm water monitoring went up, but we have to monitor more now per the state uh this coming year uh per the MS4 permit. Jason, in total, right? I mean you have the uh you got the highway department, you have vehicle maintenance,

062and you have grounds, right? Water and sewer. >> And then water and sewer. >> Building maintenance. So when you add all when you add all that in, uh I didn't I didn't I don't have the water and sewer. They're in the back. Okay. Uh And the transfer station's in the back. So without that, it's like $1.9 million of of spend. Uh instead of I mean we're kind of going through these things and we're going line by line, which is important probably for all of our understanding, but I think in a big picture, if we just said, "Hey, look, for all the all the departments that you run, uh it's, you know, $2.5 million worth of worth of cost. Uh go through all of it and we gave you a challenge and said over the next

0632 3 4 days, come back with $50,000. We don't care what line item it comes from. Uh but you know, cuz you're the one who knows your you know your items with your supervisors more than we do. I mean we're we're going to go into these things and we're going to start looking at, you know, item number 80023, you know, for $7,000, can we get it to five? Uh and we could go through every one of these, but it becomes at a big picture, you know, there's probably two point I'm assuming with the water and sewer, I don't know what that budget line item is, but if it's like a half a million dollars, which I think it was, uh you're it's $2.5 million worth of spend, which is really significant, right? And it becomes

064uh take on the challenge of can you find $50,000 in your 2.5? Work with your supervisors. I know you already did that because I think if we go through line by line, we're going to come up with $3,000. You have to also >> near where I think we need to be. You also have to realize that all, you know, these line items include, you know, a little bit of inflation for the the cost of stuff that is going to go up, you know. Uh asphalt costs are going to go up cuz oil prices are going to go up. Uh our, you know, gas and diesel's going to go up. All that includes, you know, all our road maintenance uh infrastructure. So, you know, chip seal's going to go up because it uses oil. Uh you

065know, we have to fix all the aging infrastructure, not only roads and you water and sewer and storm drainage, but you also have all the buildings, aging infrastructure in the buildings that we're seeing um that need repairs as far as heating, cooling. All all that all those costs go up. So I I as as we remove As we remove stuff, less stuff gets replaced to newer equipment and more efficient and we we end up throwing more money at things for repairs. Um so that's you know, it's it's very hard cuz you don't know what is going to happen next winter with a aging, you know, buildings. I don't I don't know if the PD or the library or the senior center or town hall, and I'll say all of them, are going to have a

066furnace or boiler that that that are going to let go. I I don't know. I don't know that answer and neither does the board. So we take a guess. So you could gladly cut it, but then I'm going to come back and say, "Hey, I need 50 grand to replace the boiler or, you know, 20 grand to replace a boiler or a furnace." And well, why didn't you think about that? I did. It was cut at It was cut at the at the budget level. That that's how I'm going to approach it, you know? I could gladly find somewhere to cut, but what don't you want me to do? Can't close the senior center. Can't close the library. Can't tell the PD that they can't have heat. Can't tell city hall that we have to

067shut off, you know, two offices aren't going to have heat because I can't replace the the units that are in the walls that I don't get that luxury. I I can't tell a resident that I'm not going to fix their pothole or repay their street because we're not going to get any money or had to cut the budget. So I I get it. It's very It's a very hard thing to do. My budget was a lot higher than this. I sat with with Tom and and Mike and this is what we came as as a bare bones. I could probably cut, you know, two or three thousand dollars out of somewhere out of some overtime. Um and I could tell you why I put the number in there. Um but my answer to, you know,

068if you look at vehicle maintenance, I could give you maybe I could my line item for overtime is 9,000. I could cut that back down to six, but I'm not undercoding any other town vehicles besides my own. That's why that number's so high cuz everybody keeps coming to me and saying we want our vehicle undercoated. I can't do it during the regular day. I have to do it on overtime because I'm not going to not fix a payloader or a pavement box to undercoat a vehicle in August or not get a plow truck ready. So we do it on overtime. I'll cut the line item and um unfortunately, I'm not going to undercoat anyone else's stuff besides public works. I just saved you two grand. So now I'm down to 48,000. >> [laughter] >> You

069have a big denominator, that's why. Yeah. No, I I understand that. But I I I got a I have I have a bunch of divisions that we that you know, we take care of a lot of infrastructure. And and this doesn't even address all the problems. You know, some of the stuff we rolled the dice on. Hopefully this will last one more year. Hopefully this will last another 2 years. You know, we're going to put a little money little extra money on the side here because, you know, the such and such furnace needs to be replaced, but we'll keep band-aiding it until hopefully next year. You know, this generator needs to be replaced. We're throwing $10,000 at it, you know, every 2 3 months, but I don't have 60,000 to to replace it. I recently

070had a uh tour of the uh town garage. Uh very very well organized. Excellent leadership. Uh it shows uh just wanted to throw that out there. Thank you. Not just after the 50 grand. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Um the uh the uh tree warden line, the service con- I'm sorry, the uh conference and meetings. I'm all for training. Um we talked about this this is part of the discussion about um what we need to do to kind of have a well-trained force, make sure we have flexibility and all that kind of stuff. Um I highlighted that. I highlighted overtime and a few other ones as well um when we first went through this, but I know there's not a lot in there. Um really as as is is is number increases 3.89, um I'm

071comfortable with with training the team that we have there so they can expand their skills, so I don't have a problem with 3,200 or 32,000. That number there for the 5,500. Does anybody else have an issue with that? That's the only one I see possibly flexi- possibly flexi- >> have an issue with it because in the long run they can do more work in-house and stop paying contractors to do work Agreed. >> that they can do themselves. But they can't do it if they're not trained. I I've That's how I feel. I want to make sure And I went back and added the [clears throat] forklift training, too. I mean, if if you didn't get that training and somebody got hurt, God forbid, then you're not only worrying about a guy getting healthy again, you're

072trying to work around that vacancy, so How about I bring back How about I Uh I don't know it off the top of my head, but I would If I had to cut anything out of that line item, I guess I would say uh the two that I wanted to send to tree warden training, but keep the at least the bucket truck and the forklift training. I can get those exact numbers um and come back and tell you you know Does it Does it help your team get more trained and better able to handle things in the future? It does, but you know, if we all have to, you know, give and take, I can give a little bit on that one. Oh, $475. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So, you know, $800 for, you know, almost

073$1,000 for two guys to go to tree warden that much For that much is it? It's not. It's not worth anything. I'm the first thing to go. Right. I I will I will say It's not going to move the needle. We we collectively have 60, 70 years of board of selectmen time here with the members that are up here. And I know in every time we when we go through the budget, we have to be careful that we don't get lost in the weeds and what the big picture is, making sure we're getting trained properly. It's not just a single number we're looking at, so I think this is a good example. We just have to be careful not to do that, so. All right, so I'm good with this as it as it is.

074All right. We'll set this for a second. We'll go through a couple of yours really quickly. 6061 Overtime is for the undercoating. The additional time was for the undercoating, yeah. That's fine. Can you explain that last No, absolutely. Just want to make sure. And I'm okay with that. There's nothing else here that I flagged. Next page, 6263 town engineer. This we discussed. I think you explained the requirements of the new state law Yes. So, item 38 to 05 and 06 Other than that, it's it's unchanged. It was the only ones, yeah. Those are mandated, so. Next page, street lighting 6465. It is It is what it is. We can't do anything with that. We could throw a party Good plan. I like that. Um We could put candles up and have the guy going around

075lighting every headlamp period, but Uh 6667. I needed that. Grounds maintenance. Grounds maintenance. Um Same thing, the overtime is only thing I flagged on here, but um I don't know what you spent so far in overtime up until this budget time. >> Yeah, it's just it's it's an increase because of contract increases and then, you know, just and that this budget has That's their snow Snow. Yeah. It's not even an increase. Same as last year. Yeah, same as last year. Um one thing that did come up here last time was someone had asked whether we can farm out some of the uh the work with contractors uh instead of our guys, maybe have someone else do the cutting at one of the town lawns or whatever. That was an idea that got floated out there.

076I don't know if anyone has talked to you about that. Um I don't know if that's even allowed by our contracts, uh but that was something that was brought up. Um when you were at your previous job, uh were all the all the fields covered by all the town employees? Is anything else? >> Park and Rec took care of the parks. Board of Ed took care of the Board of Ed. Public Works took care of all um public buildings. Uh fire department mowed their own lawns. Yeah, we'll we'll keep cutting the lawn. There you go. >> [laughter] >> But was that a Was that a paid a paid part of Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so they were there already. So, they they took care of their own firehouses. We'll we'll we'll we'll keep cutting. Well done,

077sir. Well done. Um that's all I had in this page, only up 3.55%. There's nothing on here that stood out. We're We're okay with that. Next page. 66 or 6869 One of the things that came up here with several of you was whether we could consolidate cell phones. It's not a It's not uh a small number. It's not a big number, but it's it's it's significant enough that um is there a way to consolidate that? Do we have the best plan? I know Tom is involved in that. There he goes. I just wanted to address that for those that have brought that up. So, you know last time when I explained this there was numerous people that people that I needed that were required to have cell phones that for 2 years, I didn't get

078them the cell phone cuz I was very busy and I didn't renegotiate the deal. I've renegotiated the deal. I've got them on there. They're the people that now needed it. They're going to So, now you're going to have like three to four people that were supposed to be on there that that are on that are on the plan. So, we got to see how that works out. I want to work it out another year, see what happens. And I think there's also possibility of some other devices with some of these other softwares that are in need some additional like either like a cell phone or like a tablet type of thing. So, that's why that number was low. Some of that was uh just because I didn't have things charged that they should have been

079charged there. So, I apologize to those who are No problem, Tom. All right, so I have nothing specific on here other than again a double check on the overtime. It went up a little bit, but I'm assuming that's the mandate you need and Yeah. We also flagged um I have HVAC increases on the tree this contract, too. Yes. Yeah, so the HVAC contract will increase and um it increases every year. 3%. But if the three guys that we have in the town building maintenance, these guys not only are uh maintaining the buildings, they're actually cleaning up the buildings, right? >> Right. Yeah, that's a big deal. Yes, it is. Yeah. All right, I have nothing on this page. We can talk about a carpet cleaner uh for equipment purposes. Yeah, so we have we have

080an older carpet cleaner that we use to clean the the carpets in all all the buildings. It It's just uh it's a little older. We're looking for something a little bit uh more efficient. Uh maybe something one that could hold a little bit more uh water so that we can uh you know, not stop as much um It was It was just uh something that the building maintenance guys have been asking for. Yes, we have. Uh next page, 7071 I just had a quick question. I know we have the overtime in 69. What What did we with the storms we had, which happened to be on Saturday and Sunday, um what what was our actual spend on the overtime? I'm just curious cuz we're setting a number that's realistic. But we lack this year. Yeah,

081we we got hit pretty hard this year. Uh I don't think you could you want to base your budgeting off of this year. Of course. Most of our storms were on Sunday. Of course they were. Correct. 152,000. Yeah. Right. But they cleared them off great. Um and it just Yeah, so all all those all those guys do an excellent job. They are 125% dedicated to their truck, their route, and the building. Um hats off to them. They even come in on their uh some of them on their days off to hit their route before they leave. Um They They do whatever we ask of them. So, hats off to our snow removal crew. All right, and I think we've gone through all yours. Jason, thank you very much. We'll have to 7273. Appreciate it. That

082was easy, right? All right, planning department I have no flags in here. We have question about plan consultant. What's that for? How do you want to come up? >> department has a plan consultant Hm? He's not here. He's not here. He's not. There was no money there. You see it? I like it. So, we're on like four grand four to 44 to what I say, six is something for tie and bond, which is a update to a parcel based on this whole new online permitting stuff. So, there's at least a $4,000 deal in there, four to six, I think it is, that there's the issues that need to be there. Um and then the differential would be um for uh Jacobson for, you know, things that would needed to be done and or Tice planning

083if there was a specific item that Tice needed to help on land use. But generally it's for Jacobson for specific land use things that you know, that they need once in a while. I mean that's why there's a that's why there's a couple of grand there in that line item. It's it's you know, when you need a consultant you need a consultant. So, that's there. So, you have the planner Tice and Bond is you know, I can see the number there from last year. Plus I think he said there was an additional There was that amount that was the four and he said there was also some additional one that he needed that was maybe another I think it was up to 2,000 and I said I'm only you know, that's what you know, that's

084why there's 8,000 in the line item to get this these two things these things accomplished. So, I believe that's why that's that's that's what that is. That's what that is. >> yeah, it's about it cuz this year $0 of that 8,000 has been spent. >> Nothing is encumbered. So, he didn't do the update yet, but he's going to do the update for there is definitely an update. Every year there's an the company now GIS update. He did he did it in June. So, you do it like in June. >> some of these things just fall at the end of the Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah. Oh, definitely. There's so many things that fall throughout the year. Sure. >> wonder what that was since you know, maybe it wasn't being No, there's definitely the definitely between four

085to six is used and then the other is you know, for when they need a consultant. Thank you, Tom. We'll only bring up the 10 more times. That's it. All right. Um I have nothing on planning. Nope. Zone enforcement. Nothing significant. Everything is understood. It's all Yep. It's all locked there. Next one 20 76 77. Uh with the right direction negative 20%. It's small and there's nothing significant in there. Yep. 78 79 zero increase small dollars nothing in there. Let's go 80 81. Same thing 1.6%. Everything in there is needed. It's bare bones. Probably not enough, but it's what we can use. 82 83 Nothing there. $900 next. Economic development 84 85. Um Only notes on this. Um we have a Mary Dickerson past EDC uh chair is now back again um and I'm glad

086she is. Uh she has a a rich history to town. She is working closely with Dan Buray and EDC team which she now heads up to assist in this. One of the one of the items 31005 grant consultation contract uh Tice uh they um they they do very good things for the town, but I I want them focused on what the name says the grant consultation. I need to make sure we're driving grants into the town. I I had a long talk with Mary earlier today at an event at Hometown Auto one of the businesses of the quarter for us and uh we are planning on utilizing their services more focused so we can drive more dollars in with the grants. Every department I'm here I see a number of people I know that worked

087on grants in their own departments. Uh we need to do that more often at the town level and I'm looking to really expand what our EDC does. There are there are a number of great programs they've done over the years on Main Street and other ones. So, we are we are bringing that back. We want to revitalize that. Um we will make the $24,000 there which I initially had flagged before as a budget item I wanted to discuss. Um I think we can make that number much more effective and back to what it's its original purpose was. Please. What did we get for it last year? So, there's two answers to that. Um part of it was they were used as because the the gentleman that comes to our office every week is incredibly knowledgeable

088with planning and other things as well. So, he was used in other activities involving planning and and development. So, he was used for other services in addition to the grants. There weren't as many grants that were being written with him. They were more services to help Dan Buray and his team take care of issues that they had. So, he his services were spread out over other things that were helpful. I can get you a whole list of the things that he was involved in in different ways that he touched. But Well, we didn't get grants out of him. We he was involved in two of the RFPs that were put out in two two he was involved in two of the grant writing um both of which I do not believe we had got we

089got, but um he needs to do more >> [clears throat] >> and we need to change that. Well, well he is now yeah, absolutely. He and that's and that's part of the other things that he's doing. Yes. Over the bar. Yeah. Absolutely. Um but that was that that again that was one of the things that he's working on for the town. Again, he's very helpful. He's been involved in the things even the POCD he's been helpful in in in in the background. But my my big focus is >> Mike, let me ask you a question. I know that we just talked about the the the budget line item in the planning and zoning that that's part of that $8,000 that is supposed to absorb some of the Tice that for planning and zoning issues. Right?

090As well as I know we've got the town planner with Jacobs I mean the town engineer with Jacobson, but there's also some some of that 8,000 is for Jacobson when he's working specifically on planning and zoning issues. So, the 4,000 that's in the grants block right? If he's working on planning and zoning if if if Tice instead is not working on grants and they're working on planning and zoning I assume that should be charged to the planning and zoning budget going forward to that $8,000 line item? I believe [clears throat] so. Yes. Okay, so this 4,000 is specifically to go after grants. Basically to work with economic development and support them. Yes. Okay. Anything EDC yeah. No, no, I'm yeah, I'm I'm comfortable with that. I was just I was just differentiating the work that

091he's doing for planning and zoning which we is cuz he's also this firm in that $8,000 that as you just explained to us. Nothing. No, no, I'm I'm yeah, I think we're comfortable. Right. Who writes grants for the town apart? It's typically been myself or Ryan or Thomas helped out and you know, there's there's various things that are done for the grants. It depends on what the grant is. So. So, the grants consultant person that was doing I I get had did other things is not writing grants. Well, they're supporting the town. They they are supporting the town getting grants, but we don't have a grant writer per se. Like for example, I've used him where we've we've been doing grants for different programs that this that we have gotten where he's been instrumental in

092working on the program and giving us advice on there. So, he has experience and he works I believe Tom he works with a dozen other towns his his organization. So, they have a lot of experience in other towns. >> Did you say what his organization is and I missed it? It's Thomas the full name Tice. Right. I pronounce it Tice t y c h e. Okay. Tice Tice he planning. Maybe Tice he planning. The ones that are doing the um This is an EDC The name is what it is, but it's they're an EDC consultant. That's what they are. They do help with grants. It's just that this whole thing's always been an EDC consultant. They did write grants. The other person consulted. It's just it's EDC consulting. They named the thing as a grant

093consultant. They do write grants when we have grants to write. Uh EDC, but there's not a lot of EDC type of grants. I mean you know, generally they would help I think they helped when we were trying to do the RFP for the the stuff down under the bridge. Right. Pretty sure he helped review that with with with Ryan and Mike and then um the bar I I know they were helping on the bar. They were they're doing part of the POCD. That wasn't a grant anyway, but they're they uh won that won that bid anyway. So, they do that in their own, but um you know, the ones when they do the the grants that he's writing it's um you know, Buray's having him do. He he helps in those and then he does

094EDC stuff. He's like the EDC. Okay. Another question I have maybe it's comes to the same thing you was talking about Mike kick starting this whole EDC the marketing program we have $4,000 for 25 26 and we still have 97% remaining. We've only spent $104 of the four grand. Right. That that's yeah, that's it like the business of the quarter and some other things to to Mike it has not been fully utilized. Um but it should be. I I'd like I like to keep that in there. We have we have so many things going on right now and again that's that's where I want to get the EDC to up and run and and and do more of the work that we need to do. >> I'm not necessarily. I'm just flagging it for You're

095absolutely right. under you signs and banners on Main Street. >> It could be signs. It could be could be brochures, it could be you know, any support material to increase what we do on downtown and and and and some of the smaller programs. So, a lot of times it's just effort and and and getting getting to the businesses and putting their their program for themselves. Yeah, I had to change that. That was bought a lot of those back in the the day. And then This happened also you said uh I think one of the EDC people had probably you know updated part of the signage under the bridge. Um various signage in different places. >> Business of the month, that kind of stuff. >> Yeah, there's business of the month. That was up with things.

096So, there's definitely things that you know things Yeah, you know the if Dan and and his team looks back at the prior years of when it was more active you know, there's definitely ideas that can be obtained to uh to utilize those funds. They paid for like the directional signs in the industrial park telling you what business was going on. Back in the day, that was a while back but I'm pretty sure yeah they you know the ones out there names of the people even parcel parts of them. They had done back then and then you know all those ones that have been the the ones that are down on Main Street when they hang off the banner poles. It was all those too. Those were all considered marketing for the town. We actually found

097a couple parking signs I saw in your office today. Yes, so. Building signs. Yes. They're good so. So, again not a lot of dollars but it could do a lot if it's done right so. I agree. Um I'm good with this. Yes. Right. I only have a couple more pages I want to do before I want to do I want to make a shift on what we're talking about. So, let's let's go next page 86 87. Yes on that. 88 89. We can't say it just it's just set. And then 90 and 91 zero. Like that. All right. So, one of the things let's let's go come back to the beginning. One of the things that we have a couple folks that one of the things we that's been brought up earlier this evening is

098a discussion about some of universal costs that have come up and one of the things that was discussed was health and the cost of health care. I know a couple folks here wanted to get some more information about that and understand not only the cost but also the impact on the town so I think there were a couple of folks that had questions so we could start with that cuz we have a couple people here that can maybe help me answer that. Yeah, I think it's it's a good discussion to have. I think it's the number one um I think it's the number one class driver for our budget this year. Um So, I think I think the the issue is we just want to make sure there was obviously we have you know the

099RFP that went out. Um This is for medical insurance. From for medical insurance. So Uh we want to make sure we understand how the responses came back. There was obviously the existing plan and then renewal for that as well as options to look at the state plan which has its own a couple of different options there. Um So, let's let's start and let's start with that. Um what I would like to do is either Charles or whoever wants to at least attempt let's walk through the process and some of the costs involved cuz I think it's a it's a good question and it does have a big impact on the budget so. Nice try. [laughter] Is this your state? So I'm I'm getting better at explaining complicated things that are definitely not in my area

100of entire expertise. Um Health insurance is one of those. Be clear, I'm not an actuary. I know I'm not a health insurance broker but I've gotten good at this. I've actually worked now with um Susan Ryan and Mike. Okay, so I've been with with three different first selectmen and the process is largely the same. So, we we the town hires an insurance broker. Um her name is Lynn Gurnham. Um I actually reached out to her today see if if she might be able to pop in and meet her. She is a very talented, skilled and has an incredible understanding of the whole health insurance marketplace. Um The way the process is set up is that generally around October or November that's when we get our first um cost our renewal bids from our current vendors.

101Um Lynn will share those with us. She she takes care of all kinds of things on the town side and works with us in managing claims and and just managing the entire very complicated system of of claims and and premium cost shares and HSAs the whole thing. It's it's very much we need need that level of expertise. As it relates to how we go through the renewal process she comes to us in late fall and shares with us the initial renewal bids. This year it was 26.9% where she called me up and I can always tell by the sound of her voice whether I'm going to be in a good mood or not. She said I have some not so great news for you. She said the initial bid came in at 26.9%. She comes

102shaking his head as she might shaking his head and you know, clearly that was not acceptable. We were you know, Stephanie was was there. We said that's not acceptable. We can't we can't do that. So we met with her. She explained why um that has a lot to do with the health and of the pool and the claims and which we we see the claims every month and there are some very high claims in in a small and pool which is the both the board and the town side which drives that increase. Um I have my feelings about the for-profit nature of health care in America. I will spare you those but it's a it's still a profit driven industry. I mean they they these companies need to make money off of us and if

103if we're costing those insurance companies more than what their profit margin suggest the way they make up those profit margins is by increasing their premium cost shares on all of us. It's it is what it is. It's it's a broken system. Once we heard that 26.9% we met with Lynn and we said unacceptable. Go out to bid and also look at the state partnership plan. Um she wrote an uh RFP. The shared essentially an RFP or put out a a request for proposals to to all of the companies that um provide health care for our employees. Now, just as a reminder and um feel free to pop in and and give some of the specifics. We've done this several times over the course of my time. I think we've changed vendors from Anthem to Cigna

104to How many times Tom in the past seven years? 10 years? I think we changed a number of times. Started with Anthem and then we went to Cigna. Cigna to Anthem. Put back to the Cigna. Right. And back to Anthem again. I think they're back to Anthem. Right. So, we we jump and we do we do this regularly cuz we we see the initial bids and we say that that's not good enough. We go back out to bid. Um and and over the years we've I know we've changed I've been here nine years in those nine years um I know that the town has changed three or four times. And it's a lot of work. Every time you change you have to you know, it involves the contracts and and communicating. It's a lot on

105Lori Lynn and Tom and we do a great job and Lynn helps us. It's it's an enormous amount of work that goes into providing health care for all of the town employees. So, this year we did it again and put them out there but you know, when when companies are going to bid on you they're going to look at how much you're going to cost. Right? They're going to look they they they have a right to see what you're charging. Right? And what what is the health of your employees? If everybody's healthy you're going to get a low bid. If if people are running up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills you're not going to get a low bid and well, we we we put out the bids and at the same time

106we also said to Lynn go look at the state partnership plan and we also said to Lynn go back to Anthem and argue with them. Negotiate on our behalf. Right? And that's what she did. She spent all winter doing that and sharing claims with us and making her our case for us to all of these companies that bid bid on these. Um at the end of that process um none of the the companies that bid or decided not to bid were competitive. None none of them came back below what Anthem said. Um and and Lynn did go back and renegotiate Anthem from the 26% down to the 19 which I talked to you about last time I was there. Um and then she provided us some guidance on the state partnership plan too. Um and

107we we met with her. We sat down, took a look at um all of the options and decided to stay with our current vendor and and take the 19% because the other bids that came in were either higher or nobody bid and also the state partnership plan while that is an option we want to consider for several reasons which I'm happy to go in and in in to some detail with you. She would advise us not to do that this year. Right? It wouldn't have saved us an awful lot of money depending on how things worked out to go to the partnership plan. In the future it might make sense to do that but this year the long and the short of it is she's advised us not to go into the partnership plan because

108the state union the state employees bargaining SEBAC SEBAC can you help me out SEBAC Yes. SEBAC SEBAC SEBAC is negotiating now your contracts. I think some of you are state employees, right? Retired or what? Right? Retired. Okay, you're you know you're in SEBAC. 2027 is the opening of SEBAC. Correct. And and that that negotiation session um might change that plan right when we jumped in. And and if we jumped into the partnership plan it would be a 3-year commitment and the time to do that would not be in the year that SEBAC is negotiating with the state about that plan because of the potential changes that that There's a lot of reasons. She explained them all to me. I I again I'm not a an expert on this but he said I'll summarize it for

109you briefly. Part of what SEBAC's concern is that the state opened this plan to municipalities. Lots of municipalities that chose to join it were in situations like ours where their pools weren't the healthiest. Right? I mean nobody's going to jump to the state partnership plan if you're getting renewal bids of 0 or 1% because you have a healthy pool. Right? So the people that are jumping in the state plan often coming with the baggage of claims that are higher and that therefore they're making this decision to jump into the state partnership plan. Does that make sense? SEBAC is not happy about that. SEBAC is saying well wait >> You're letting these other folks in and driving up the insurance costs for all of us who are the state employees. Right? So this could be a

110very contentious round of negotiations and we we don't want to hitch our hitch our wagon to that until it's done. Tom how did I do? Right. Um and that and and that this is what Lynn knows. I'm I'm just I'm kind of I wish Lynn was here. I wish if she wasn't on vacation she could be here to explain it to you but this is what she told us and and the long and the short of it was based on the relatively small savings this year cuz it would still be expensive cuz even that plan's going up a lot because of the health of our pool. To to ask that question when we talk about relatively small savings there are two um plans that the state offers. One is the hep plan and one is

111the non-hep plan. When I look at the RFP the savings associated with the non-hep plan are there um but not as significant. The savings with the hep plan are not insignificant. So I'm kind of curious as to were both of these plans discussed both considered or just the non-hep? Okay, so I think and Tom correct me if I'm wrong that when you join this partnership plan in the first year you join as Yeah. You must yeah. Join as hep. Right. Join as that one plan and then you have to be in it for 16 months or 14 months or something before it changes to the the the other one. >> Before before you had the option >> Before you had the option. to opt out. >> Correct. >> And pay addition. Yeah. See you sound

112like you know more about this than I I do. >> Been there. Yeah. I'm kind of I'm kind of winging it. I'm not going to lie. >> No, you're doing good. All right. Like 100 bucks a month or something if you >> Yeah, the the hep is basic the basic requirement is that as a you have certain annual requirements like an annual physical, annual blood pressure checks, things like that that you're required to do. And I know a few state employees and I was working when this changed who quit because they didn't want to do it. But you know I speaking from experience I I had surgery a year and a half ago and they found what they found and they got it out of me when they did because I did the hep there's

113a hep. So you know I I got nothing bad to say about it. I'd prefer to go make them tell me to go get my annual physical cuz it did good for me. But that's why I think the the plan is so good. But I right. I think that's how it's structured that way. And and look I from what I hear from and Stacy Stephanie used to be on the plan too. It's it I don't hear any complaints about it. I don't I mean it it this might be a good option for Portland. I think it's something we need to keep in the back of our mind and and and and see how this works out. But again I would just say on the advice of our insurance broker based on the the calendar of

114negotiations that SEBAC is going through in 2027 now now's not the right time. >> [clears throat] >> Because of that that there could be So explain it briefly but there might be some significant changes that that come out of those um was it a 3-year contract you guys do I do. >> It's typically it's a 3-year 3-year commitment. >> And Charles just so you put this in the back of your your pocket I know um that the Rocky Hill employees Rocky Hill school system used the state plan. Right. So if you wanted to understand what the benefits are like now and maybe reach out to them as a baseline to find out how the SEBAC agreement has impacted them that might be a good thing to do. That definitely. Yeah. Well and I think that's

115that's part of the reason why as a municipality we at least have to be given this a lot of consideration. We talk about you know basically having a very small pool versus roughly a pool of 60,000 people across the state that use this. Um which definitely helps with the overall the overall costs. I think it's a good number too to check on um quickly looking at trying to do a little quick research without all the tools that the insurance agent but I think the majority of municipality has gone this way now. Um it probably um They're online 109 of 169 are on >> Yeah. Yeah. 65% But they're also in from last year an $18 million deficit. Right. Right. That So when your location comes up you that's a red flag. Cuz how are they

116going to cover that deficit? Yeah, so part part of the issue >> and they have to look at that but I what's interesting is that that when you look at it right with I think the overall plan was across the state was roughly a $720 million plan whatever it is, right? So a $22 million deficit is you know what 3%? And I think looking at the um the health care costs that we have the health care costs that were per the RFP our costs are going up 16.4%. With the hep our health care costs would have gone up 11.94%. That would have been in a budget year where we have very little wiggle room because of contractual obligations and because of contract services and where everybody is doing their level best to try to keep

117costs under control I think that we've got to make sure as we go forward we're looking at all of these potential savings. And I also and I think Mike I know you and I have talked about this is that um going forward you know I know that in February as a board we asked to be involved with this when we knew the RFP was coming in um so that we knew it was going to be a tough budget season. Going forward I think if we're going to have the single biggest line item on our budget this board's going to be involved in that. Um I think we we better have a we we've got to get some meetings whether if they're in negotiation we do them in executive session but there's got to be I

118think that it's helpful to have a broader view. I know that that probably hasn't been their tradition in Portland but with this is the board that's requested to allocate the budget overall and this is a huge driver of that budget. More more the merrier. I mean tran- transparency to me is important. The the the process that we used this year is the same one that um Ryan and Susan used for years. If if you know if there's a suggestion that you want to change that process um Yeah, that's that's I think that's my suggestion. I think this is getting to the point where this is enough of a driver. We've got to it's good for us all to be able to stand up here and say where if we're we're 100% um and at least

119understand what's going on, right? To to find out after a decision's been made Yeah. what some of the black box decision box decisions were that and went into that um is not not helpful when we're trying to work on a budget the way we're trying to work on this one. Yeah. I I wouldn't object Mike. I think that that's your prerogative and you too Tom but Sure. I put for the record I again 35 years with the state. I understand that SEBAC negotiations can get dicey. So you know I I understand the guidance you received and I don't you know I I'm torn because this could have been a chunk of change that could have helped us all. I know you're digging out of a hole before we even start. Um but you know it's

120I I I I would have liked to give it a little more thought and maybe reach out to our state reps and see reach out to some folks who know that are union representatives and get a gut feeling for what it's all about. >> Yeah, I and I I don't disagree. I And and specifically again I wish I wish Lynn were here to describe it but I think the concern is that if SEBAC says we want our own standalone plan from the state >> Mhm. and that state you want to make a new pool for the municipalities go do that. Right? That could have potentially had SEBAC employees going one way and us joining a group of municipalities going the other way. >> We're all in the same boat though. But it's still a bigger

121pool than you're in now. Sure, but that that bigger pool was $16 million in the hole in the hole and that if if we had jumped into that we would have and Tom will tell you given up our ability to be flexible with our RFPs and had then been in a pool that made up might have made that 19% hit that we took this year which is shocking and unacceptable look good by comparison. That was the risk. Right right how did I do? Bingo. It was gamble. I think it was a gamble that we sat down right and just said we don't want to roll the dice on on this one this year with with this uncertainty and again that was based on the advice of the expert in the room who was our insurance

122broker. It's hard it's complicated but none of us are happy about this and I'm I'm really sorry that it us this year because I mean when we first heard 26.9% Oh my god. What that is we've done numerous bids throughout you know the time that I've been here and there's been a few times where you hit in the 15% and the 16 and some very few. There's been the most of them have been you know very strong renewals. We have the plan designs in place that we uh you know we think that have helped mitigate those costs. We have when you when you do switch into that state plan you do lose your plan design. So once you're in you're kind of in there and then definitely after that three year period you know and

123that was another you know another thing when we had this time we had so many uh the bidders were just not it's very rare that when we go out to bid we don't get a positive uh group of bidders. The market this year I think you're seeing it through everywhere on on medical. Okay. The bids are just not coming in good. Kennedy Care leaving the market was a that's a big hit. You know so now you're you know you're left really with the Anthem the United and the you know the Cigna and the Aetna. So I mean you you know you're just losing that play. Um and then Anthem also uh you know was they're kind of both the state and ours right now. So it's like you know it was just a different plan

124design. So you know we you know we we felt during that decision that we were making the best decision for the town at the time and you know we'll keep working through that and and every year we look at that and hopefully you know hopefully we said hopefully the the uh claims get better and then we can actually have a better renewal in the next cycle. You know if it isn't then you know then those other options are probably going to come into fruition but um you know that's that's kind of what we were doing and and that's what we worked on and that's what we did with our with MDG Associates and and uh and you know you kind of went with that advice as well as you know during that review of the

125transition. And people you know that the employees you know did go through a transition last year that is a you know we always try to consider that as well we consider all aspects of this. We consider the you know that they they have had to go through all the mapping of all their current activities all their medicines all their claim activity all their doctors. Um we had change all the HSA designs have all the HSA banks converted over. So all those different components you know we don't take it lightly to move a carrier. We don't take that decision we want to have the savings we want to generally have the savings. We also partner with these companies there's a limited pool of companies so we we try to we try to work through the issues

126as much as we can with them because there is a limited pool and if you get to the point where no one bids on you then that's a troubling scenario as well. So you you know we work through this we we kind of understood we see where we had a rate guarantee which we more or less got that. We had when we went out to bid last year there was around a 19% guarantee and that's where they were at plus or minus a small margin so they were trying to go above the guarantee so we got them back down at least to that guarantee. Um so um no that's I just wanted to add that in so thank you Tom. Just one of one of the thought about the answer to the to the question

127of the process you know um hey do I think it would be good if you want to form a subcommittee of Board of Education and Board of Selectmen members and and sit in with us next year as we do this and get to know Lynn and see the comprehensive work she does. She's really good I mean the books she puts together the data she provides and the advocacy she provides for the town. I've always been very impressed with and I I think I know that you would feel the same way too if you worked with her too. She's right Stephanie I mean she's a pro. She's and she's a pitbull too. She she will go and she's like having the right lawyer in your back pocket. She'll she'll go and and tell those insurance executives

128I've been in the room that this is unacceptable and here's why and and and make our case. But if you'd like to see that and be a be a experience that with us I have I have absolutely no objections I'd welcome your input. No I think that would be helpful. I mean you know it's when we sit and we look and we look at the RFP itself and how the numbers come back and that's part of the story and you start digging into the numbers um there's definitely a lot of discussions we've got to have um and not lost on me as well as the fact that you know I understand the issue with the two with the three years and wanting to see where it goes with SEBAC um and those negotiations so I

129I understand that point. Um it's unfortunate because I do think we had an opportunity to save some money this year which would have been helpful but also a transition in that plan I think we also have to make sure that if there's reticence on the part of like if there's concerns on the union that we have a good chance to socialize what the plans really mean and what the like the health requirements are and things like that um because the other side of these plans is the employee portion of the of the of the HSA match which is a liability to them if they use health care that also would go away. So it's not just the town saving money it would be the employee saving money. So I think we need to look at

130all of these opportunities as we're doing this. Great so I look forward to it if we're going to have that committee next year I know I'll Absolutely. >> I assume I'll still be here so I'll volunteer now. Absolutely. Listen the the more the merrier. You know we want to we want to work on this together so Yeah. Thanks for the information Charles I hope we appreciate it. And and just to note as well looking at looking at other towns in the area I know it doesn't directly affect us but seeing the insurance that came in I know there was one chart that you would put together it just listed the medical increases in different towns across the board whether they were self insured and bumping 30 40 50% up that was kind of crazy it's

131just very it was very enlightening how it crossed over and how dysfunctional our whole insurance system is so ramble minor ramble Absolutely. All right let's continue on 94 please. We're going to go to go to 94. I want to come back to social services on on we can do it now but I want to do I wanted to We're skipping one. Senior services. We've got a couple discussions about this with um not only this much but also um municipal agent for the elderly and van stipends so we've we've discussed taking money out we've discussed adding money in. I know there's some feelings on this board about about these two budgets. Any other suggestions? Well I'm I'm comfortable with keeping the van stipends you know with the updated number. I mean it would be nice if

132we had a we had a better looking budget but we took a big chunk my understanding is we took a big chunk out of the folks that couldn't get rides. We've been able to take a good chunk and and help the folks seniors that need medical rides and help them. I don't think we want to back go backwards on that. No I I think this for the senior center the senior center budget is fine there's nothing to touch there. For the agent for the elderly I think it needs to go up. I don't think we're doing enough because like Sarah told us before they're still turning down multiple visit multiple trips every week that they can't accommodate. Two to two to two to three we're down two to three is that where we're at now

133roughly if I understood the numbers? And how many more are we doing incrementally from the money we put in extra from the money we put in? I know we added 6,000 last year and that allowed us to do incrementally how many more? So what's your recommendation? Uh cut money from social services and put it in there. Because we waste a lot of money on that page. What? How do we socialize Well we'll go back to that. It's not as simple as that but we'll go to that. There might be some money there. So, what's your proposal? What's your suggestion? 2,000 1,000? It depends how much we take from the other page. Let's go back to the other page, then. Let's Let's get back to social services. So, on this page, this is a collection of

134various programs that over the years from Susan's time up to Ryan's time up to my time that have been added for various reasons. So, our community health center uh has had $500 for a while. I had I had uh Michelle check whether most of these were used, if not all of them were used and used for the intended purposes. Uh she came back and said all of these other than the regional mental health board, whose headquarters had moved much farther away, so that one would not be something that a resident in Portland could get some benefit from. Uh but the other ones she's she's checked. Um there are for example, Brownstone Quorum, uh emergency shelter, that's used by um our residents. Uh Connecticut emergency shelter or connection emergency shelter, yes. Memorial Day parade. Everything I

135have is the top five or six on the page. Everything that's in town, I have no problem with it work. Right. Supplying it to town functions and town organizations. What is MCSAAC? Middlesex County uh it's something social action or something. Um I don't have the name of that. Well, in 23 24, we didn't spend any money in that, so it's got to be something relatively new. Right. Yeah, I'm sure it's Middlesex County something. But they they don't they have to ask for the money. Middlesex County something to do with the action council? That's the one. Laura May. Thank you, Laura. I had to shut off my phone so I couldn't look it up. So, so the only thing about these other things, and I know we're, you know, looking at amounts of $500, and I

136asked the question about these various things as well, and Michelle shared with me how it's sent and why they're asked. But, you know, one of the concerns I have, and it's not like I'm questioning, you know, potentially putting money into those rides, but what we do not have in this town is any real huge level of social services for people who are not elderly. We don't have that. There has not been a social worker in the town of Portland since 2002 when the general assistance program ended. And there are people with all kinds of needs that get served by places like CRT, like the community health center. So, an amount of $500 going to an organization that might be giving thousands of dollars worth of services to a Portland resident, um I don't know. And

137just sit because it isn't just that they're out of town. They're I think that it's because they would serve people from Portland. There are certainly um the community health center [clears throat] would, Rushford Center would, um a sexual these assault crisis center, um Middlesex Behavioral It's just the concern, and I think it's a you know, Portland probably has that need, not one that we're obviously going to fill in any near future, but I think um Sarah would probably um concur that people come to the senior center who are not seniors. And because she is a licensed social worker, she, you know, tries to help them the best that she can, um but we have limited resources to help others here. So, that's just my thing. Yeah, that's well said. Now, the big the big one

138on here is I would My question is with the community health center, if we don't send them their $500 check, are they going to close their doors? No, and they're not. >> Rushford is owned by Hartford Healthcare. They don't care about our $500 check. They're a multi-million dollar conglomerate. They're the largest in Connecticut. And we send them $500 for no reason. Well, we have, and I think it's a goodwill. They probably would like to see more Some of them like the community health I I get it. Maybe these bigger corporations that you're talking is different than like community health center. That's probably a different budget than Hartford Healthcare. I just My only concern but if, you know, your point is is so is what you're saying that you think that this money from those should

139shift to something to the other to the ride thing. I mean, to the the seniors rides. To the rides or to to something else? As to me, it's just we're just throwing the money at something that doesn't matter. Who do we have to speak to that that now is representing social services? Who could Who could speak to this one? What do you mean? To Apologies. To to justify these items. So, that would that would be Michelle. Michelle, and that's what I and I asked about it, too. And it's just something again to to Bob's point, it's, you know, it's just it has been something that they've been doing kind of a for goodwill or whatever. I think Tom's coming to talk about it. Yeah, and so so all these people request the funds. They, you

140know, they send letters usually to Michael and Michelle and request why, you know, for the money, what they're getting, you know, what they're doing, what services they're providing. You know, I mean, there's some of them are just so, you know, there's obvious places that help. So, you know, so a while back, the city Connecticut kind of decentralized social services down in the municipality. We don't do that. We don't have a social service department. We don't face social service. They do it at the state level and the nonprofit level. So, this was the town's way to throw a reasonable, you know, amount amount of money to these various agencies to show say, "Hey, we see you. We thank you. We recognize you for helping these town employ, you know, these town uh residents in in their

141times of need." Um you know, so I mean, that's why that is, you know, uh why why they're there. I mean, to cut one from another from each other, I mean, they you know, they all serve their specific reason of why they were there. Um you know, as I guess in time if if like when if they're if I would say if they did it where 2 years in a row they didn't request the money, okay, then we don't we don't probably wouldn't give the money to them, but I mean, it's hard to, you know, say that uh you know, these guys, you know, you know, are, you know, of course they're not going to close their doors without our funds. But I mean, I think it's saying, you know, I think it was the

142gesture from the first selectman to these agencies to say, "We thank you. We see We see that you're helping our people here in the town and the surrounding area. This is our commitment to you as a partner, and here's here's the amount of money that we provide to that." And that's what, you know, they've done with these $500 ones all this time. Um so, that's what those are. I I mean, like I said, if you're so inclined to to cut that, then then you are, but I mean, that, you know, it's hard when you, you know, I mean, like I said, some of these are community things where you're you know, you're working as an agency. Um if you give like a Rushford $500, and they can help, you know, they, you know, help five

143to 10 people, they you know, clearly cost us cost way more than $500 for them to do that. You know, you're you're definitely getting your $500 worth of the town is for that contribution to those to those people. I agree with you, too. Yeah, I just wouldn't feel, you know, No, thanks, Tom. But but I understand Bobby's point of view, though. Like it's it's money kind of nebulous versus money that you know is maybe helping a specific rider in town. So, I understand the conflict. Um we we we talked a little bit about the the rural transit program and the Red Cross Dial-A-Ride. Uh and that was discussed last time about That's a big hunk of money. That's 55,000 out of the 66. All the other stuff is 11 grand. And out of that 11

144grand, 9,500 is the vets activities and Memorial Day parade. So, the actual $500 ones are a couple thousand. It's It's I mean, it's $3,500 for substance abuse, community health renewal team, mental health, Rushford Center, crisis center. I mean, we're asking for five times that for a carpet cleaner. No, I I know I I get that. I get that. Um but one of the one of the issues with cuz we had looked at the Red Cross Dial-A-Ride, like is there something we can do with that? And one of the one of the things that that does is it it doesn't just it primarily gets people that are working. Um the rural transit program helps people that are working, not the seniors. I was going to say the the rural the transit helps the rural. Right. And

145again and the >> And the Dial-A-Ride if they're not right on the help. So, that's where most of that money goes. Now, now if this board is so inclined to look at that and see if we can renegotiate that down and and do some funding, I'm happy to reach out and try to do that. Um but that I I'm I'm concerned that that the need that's being served is served by that $45,000 uh is probably needed and holding um vital to the people that are using that. I don't know. Um I I think the the transit program is fine cuz that's the bus system. I think we're overpaying for the Dial-A-Ride because we've can't even get a straight answer on how many rides they give or how many people in town use it. And we've

146heard horror stories from people that have used it about how bad it is. Or how long how long they wait. Yeah. Compared to our town system, that's better. Because our town system has actually had to so much rescue people and bring them back to Portland because Dial-A-Ride wasn't there for them. So So Mike, you have a I think you you are sitting on you sit on that board now as the town's right first selectman. >> Yes. Have you had an opportunity to discuss any of those these sort of these issues that we're running into? So I you know one we need to get some sort of metrics which they they seem to not want to provide or not be able to provide. But we also need some sort of escalation system. When we've got a

147town resident waiting three and four hours for a ride home. That should not happen. And we we're hearing that that this is happening and and you know we want to make sure that what we're trying to address. And I think they would be just as concerned about that kind of incident happening as well. And we had one of the gentlemen come to Brendan and spoke about that and described the program. They do have the data available. I will reach out to them I'll reach out to Brendan again tomorrow to share that with this board in terms of how many rides they do. It was they were transitioning software so they didn't have it ready available readily available for us. But they do collect most of it they do not everything. So I will get that

148back to the board tomorrow morning. But how do they set the because obviously the amount you know each year it goes up by a little. Is it like an amount or town size like how do they It's calculated by it's it's by the town size yes. And it's part of the contractual price with the whole area so. Yeah, it's not by it's not by the amount of rides. It's by the potential based on the size of the town, right? >> Well, that's what I meant. So that's how they get to the >> Which is that was the challenge that's cuz that's the question I was asking a couple of weeks ago is is it a subscription where you you know you guarantee a certain number of rides and is there an opportunity? And that's what

149we were saying no it's kind of an all or nothing based on how they they do it. We could pay them $33,000 and not one resident town uses that program. Or we could or we could pay them $30,000 >> data to prove who's using it or who's not. So So I think that's I think that's again worthwhile looking at and seeing what they're what they're getting up will be based on the data. So I'll share that with you tomorrow. Should be easy. And we still just have to be careful because it doesn't only serve seniors. No I agree. Completely completely it's based on what the need is like And I think and I think that was part of the problem even when we were doing this is that we can't tell right we can't we

150can't tell even if we can get data on the rides we can't get we don't I don't think we can get data or maybe hopefully they start to have it about where the rides are going to from and if they've got any demographics of how many seniors are getting versus I mean all of that would be really good data for this board to have. Agreed. As we're trying to make a decision. Agreed. So obviously we do a better job. Right right. >> Well and and honestly the upside is if if if it's being underutilized and we could get five or $10,000 or if that's something allowable by the contract the contracts that we have Right. then but I I need to find out whether that's an option. If it is I would have no problem

151putting it into an area where we're getting the need. And again as as many seniors have said to me over the last couple months when you when you're senior there's not a lot of services the town provides. And right now with what you're doing there, you know there's it's become a hub of of activity for a number of programs. So So I think it's worthwhile. If that's something you can find some money there and work out a deal with them, I'd be much more comfortable pulling money from that to help out than pulling a lot of these these behavioral and crisis intervention programs. >> Well and and I will tell you I mean there are residents in town that are using these services on a regular basis. I mean there's a number of it. And

152and you know our $500 if we were trying to handle even a portion of this would far exceed that by a factor of 10. So we are getting but the data is we need to confirm and verify check. So I will get that to everyone tomorrow. What was the final verdict on the top five at 500 bucks a piece for like 2500 bucks? We have them all like we have in the past. But I'll I'll I'll add to what Bobby said though. I will have again Michelle is the one that deals with all these. I'll ask her to provide a quick update on these when we sent them for how long etc. She has all that data. But if Okay. And I'll just let it go but it just sounds like it's a goodwill donation,

153right? Yeah, pretty much. I think that's what it is. Okay. You know. You feel good and sleep better at night. Right. Two organization I mean we're here to chat we're here looking at for stuff to spend money on for ourselves, right? I mean if if if if we had a set budget that was done and everybody agrees to it, honestly it just from my my standpoint I'd rather give the $2500 to Sarah. Well unless you have unless you have someone in your family with a mental health issue or something. Well I I Well this $500 is not going to stop them from getting service. Well the thing that I that sticks to me here is I'm looking at this community read renewal team CRT. So the CRT I've I've been actually helping a a lady

154that lived next door to me when I was growing up. I actually complete her application every year for CRT. With every single year. Right. And and you know and it's And so to see that we're I'm like how how did I get helped? She has no one to go to. I'm helping her right now I'm doing it. You know just cuz it's you know Mrs. Cartelli who I've known since I was a little kid. So I do it for her every year, you know. Nobody helped me. And I guess I'm just wondering when we have our own needs just a thought. And if we're looking for $500 here a thousand here I think there's 2500 there. Okay. Anyway, I'm done. No that's good. That's good. Let's also remember you know I'll just say one last

155thing that if any of these nonprofits are some of the first things that are cut at the state level and everywhere else. So 500 may seem light but when you're talking about nonprofits I mean I'm giving my hands to Jeff Myatt so he can help domestic violence shelters. So I mean you know with the state budget they're going to first take from a lot of these groups. Well I know too the the the Rotary Club and the Exchange Club donates to that every year. Yeah, certain ones and I can agree the big if some of them are big conglomerates I get you know you know what you're saying. But I just think in this the nonprofit arena they'll tell you they're on shoe strings a lot of them. Right. Well I think that further discussion

156will be dependent upon what Mike brings back to us tomorrow. Absolutely. And whatever the will of this board is. So we need to discuss every line item. Right. Yeah. And everything's got to be talked through so. All right I don't have any other issues with Sarah's budget. And I think there was consensus that we'd like to add more to the van stipends to get more use of that and we'll discuss that tomorrow. Very nice. I I think that's a big deal. The the van stipends you know cuz if you kind of look at what's kind of what's happening to our our seniors, right? The average social security wage increase over the last 10 years been 2.6%. Most pensions unless you're a a state worker who has the automatic you know cost of living adjustments, they're

157frozen pensions, right? My father-in-law has he retired from Pratt 27 years ago. The pension he had 27 years ago was the same dollar value today. And then you look at some what we're trying to propose it's you know it's 4.88. I know we're we're trying to whittle it down but just just to kind of ground everybody 4.88 is going to come out to a 5.4% mill rate increase. Right? That's the real increase. That's real tough to absorb. So I mean so I think we really got to start looking we got to start maybe adding zeros to these what we're looking at. Really? We got to we have a lot of our costs are you know when you have you know almost 70% of our budget is Board of Ed and then 30% is our town

158government and we keep talking about how we're locked in we're fixed. Fixed. I think once we get past this budget cycle we absolutely got to start looking at what we could do to create some shared services and make it so that more of our budget is not fixed. You know working better together and I don't know what that is. We have plenty of committees in town. Maybe we create three four people that look at this like we're people to strategic capital looking at the school. Maybe we come up with a group of intelligent people bipartisan qualified people to actually look at what we could do to take real fixed costs out because you know what happens? It's a fixed cost. Oh I'm contractually obligated. I got to do this. Oh well now they get overtime.

159Well you know it's it is time and a half and it is contractual. Oh and then there's the pension and then there's the insurance. And I'm saying we just got to really look at it. We do. And we can't we can't go down this way. We have to in order for us to have flexibility our fixed costs have to be reduced. Agreed. >> Or people ain't going to be able to live here. Right. Agreed. We need to we need to change whatever systems we can to allow us to maximize it and and and and combine the services where we can. So agreed. All right. Portland Library 98 99. So in going through this last time, I couldn't find anything of significance that stood out here based on the programs they do. It's very similar I

160think to to us here at the department where they have a very involved group. They are doing a number of programs. I see the data every week when they do the reports. So, I see the programs that they're doing. I couldn't identify anything that stood out of any significance. I don't know if anyone else could. There were no notes that we had when we went through this last time. I don't know. Andrew Jen, uh, question, Jen. Is uh, the service contracts this this uh, this HVAC uh, fall under that category? Jen Billingsley, the library director. Yes, it sure does. Okay. All right. You know, HVAC is a huge huge hit for us town-wide. I I think we can you know, uh, potentially bring that HVAC service in-house. You know, the money that we spent on

161uh, That that would be that would be a conversation to have with wiser, more uh, mechanically minded heads than I. [laughter] That is a whole town question. But I like I I don't I I truly just don't know enough about HVAC systems to to even have an opinion on that. Like I agree with you. It's it's a huge amount of that budget for me every year and it's very hard to kind of put a pin on how much it is going to be each year. I I I know and you know, I've I've you know, when I was working we we have one predominant guy that that basically knows the whole topology of the whole town. Okay, and he makes you know, we we could offer him a very healthy salary and and and come

162nowhere near what we're paying for the services. Keep that in-house. >> Getting no argument from them. I Yeah, I I Yep, I've I've met him a couple times when he's come here and made it not boiling hot in this room. But I can't That would be a turn into a cost reduction. Yeah. Yeah. And better service quicker. Guy knows our equipment. He he does. Bob Do you concur? What? Are you Okay. We we have enough. Yeah, I think Yeah. Yeah, because because this this this came up at last year's Right. And this is this is more in line with what what Vinnie's saying as well. There's there's a number of contractors that we use for various services. Like for example, we use we use an attorney that handles a number of different services. It's cheaper

163that way because we have so many different things that happen. We spend 91 grand on that. It's we couldn't get a real attorney a real attorney couldn't get a single attorney for anything close to that. And I know there's other areas that we've talked about, but if you can expand upon you know, the HVAC systems. Are there any other contractors that we use now that we could It's an investment in people. There's risk with that too cuz now you've got people that are on the payroll and there's a certain amount that it makes sense, but Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a risk in any change like that. So, you're contracting your services out and you have been for quite some time and I've worked with those contracted services for a long period of time. Those

164prices are getting expensive. And they're going up every year. And I can talk on the Board of Ed side now. I certainly know on the town side how we manage that. But the Board of Ed side is extremely expensive. Just our preventive maintenance contracts are about $27,000 a year before they even show up. So, we're on them every single day or I'm on them every single day to make sure that those maintenance contracts are certainly completed in a timely fashion. But I'll just use since the storm that we had last Monday a week ago, right? Cuz I can't ever remember, right? Um, I've had our contractor at the schools every single day related to issues not only from that storm but every day. The high school, 205,000 square feet of roof has 80 appliances on

165it. 80. General maintenance, you're paying for at $120 an hour. Very little control on time spent. You know, we try to push them to get work done, but there's an opportunity for sure. If you look at the town's contract and or the money that's spent every year on the town side and money that's spent on the Board of Education side, I think you really need to look at those numbers and see what we might be able to do with an employee that's able to do that stuff on a daily basis. That doesn't mean that, you know, one employee has vacation time. One employee has sick time. It doesn't mean that you're going to get rid of your backup contractor, but you're certainly not going to have to pay for the PM contracts every year. You're

166probably not going to have to pay for um, Oh, it's a lot of stuff. I mean, you're going to We have contracts with all our suppliers that we can get discounted parts. Sure. But we're not running out to get the parts. Our contractors are getting the parts and then they get a certain markup on that. So, we'll we'll be able to get I don't have to explain Everybody knows that business side of it. I I was in it for a long time on the other end. Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's it deserves a look. It really does. And everything we're getting quoted is on prevailing wage, right? Yeah, it all depends on the job. So, it's state, you know, we we work off of of of a state agreed hourly rate, which is

167you work with Tom very closely on that. Um, and you know, we are getting those numbers. But you know, we have control over employees. It's it's hard to have control over contractors. Um, especially time. So, you know, you can get a great hourly rate, but it's easy to add hours. So, um, to get those numbers up there. But the money that we spend which I struggle with all the time, but we have no choice. Um, you you know, the heating, air conditioning, you know, where we have it has to run. And we we struggle with that. This this winter was tough. I'm sure just as tough on the town side. So, Bob, is it safe to say that basically every town building has HVAC requirements? >> Every town building has work to be done every

168day. I'll say that because I don't really believe that. Between the town side and the Board of Ed there's not a perfect temp vehicle in this in town. Every day. I might say the contractor No, they don't swing in just to grab lunch. So, they're here a lot. Yep. And then I I see every one of the bills. So, Yeah. So, yeah, it's a discussion. I think, you know, we've talked about it for years. I know I've mentioned it years ago looking at the numbers, but you know, it's something to really look at. I mean, there's a lot into that. I know that. Hiring employee at a very high rate, these guys are very skilled. Especially the one that, you know, Dave mentioned. Extremely skilled, but knows this town with his eyes closed. Um, and

169then there's, you know, your fringe benefits and everything that goes into that. So, it's it's a cost up front, but I think over time you might really save some money. Thanks, Bob. Yeah, thank you very much. All right. Kind of what I was getting like before was how do we capture you know, when I was saying that that three or four person committee of people that are subject matter experts on this. How do you capture that along with 20 other initiatives and they don't get forgotten about once we vote on this budget and it gets approved and we all go on with our lives. Right? Very good. Um, anything else for our library? All right. Um, So, let me take another quick stop right here. We've been doing this 2 hours and 20 minutes. I

170know there may be at least one or two that may need to Yeah. be out of here. Um, Does the rest of the board want to continue? Dave may have to leave sooner. Um, I'd like to be able to do it with him. We have tomorrow night on the schedule as well or do Does the rest of the board like want to continue on? >> Well, I think we should be here tomorrow night anyway, so Right. If Dave's got to go, I'm fine with tomorrow. Okay. It also will give an opportunity to get some of the information for you that I know you're going to for us to have deeper discussions on some issues tomorrow. Okay. I'm beside too. Bobby and Dennis You're okay with that? Andrea? Yeah, I guess. Okay. Um, all right. So,

171why don't we why don't we stop here for right now? Um, you're very welcome. Um, I think listen, we're we're looking for nickels and dimes here, you know, compared to the budget right now. And again to some of the points that were made over here. There there I think there needs to be some systemic things that we do to bring this in. A lot of it is is employees, is people cost that that are fixed. A lot of them are contracts that we have with with contractors that have been doing business with town for a long time. They could all need to be looked at. They could all need to be assessed. And I wish we had found more dollars. I will put out I guess a challenge all the department heads here as well.

172You guys have been following this along. Some of you have spoken. Some of you haven't. I would ask I would ask that each of you please take a look at the budgets again. Let us know if there's things that you think that you could do at your side to consolidate or perhaps maybe I work with on the Board of Ed side if it's that maybe you're we're duplicating, but I'd like everyone also to look because you guys know what you do better than any of us up here in terms of the day-to-day things. So, I would enlist everyone's help. Last year, one of the things I was the most impressed with when we did the budget cycles we got really close and I think uh you may have kicked it off, but there was um

173there was a request to you know, lose another $50,000 or or drop a certain amount of money and we had uh I think everyone kind of stepped up to the plate and we were able to find the numbers and that was that was fantastic. We were able to hit what we wanted to hit. Uh we may need to ask you tomorrow night the same thing, so I'd ask everyone to to do that. Look at what your budget are and let's see what we can do to kind of pull this together. I think it's uh we're we're working on not only our budgets, but anyone that's watching out there, any taxpayer is paying close attention to this. Every dollar makes a difference, especially for our seniors that are on fixed incomes. So, uh again, every dollar

174makes a difference. We talk about just a 2.7% increase and those are real dollars and because we can't lose sight of that, so um that's all I have to say tonight. With that in mind, would someone like to make a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion, please. With Would someone like to second that motion? I'll second that motion. All right, John seconds. All those in favor? I. Opposed, abstention, motion carries. We will reconvene tomorrow night at 7:00. Don't forget