Boad of Selectmen Budget Workshop 3/25/2025

001good evening everyone it is 7:04 we're starting a couple minutes late it is time to start our budget Workshop I'd like to call the meeting to order also like to welcome everyone that's here in person and those that are watching on Zoom so tonight's purpose is to go through the budget and deliberate all the different uh expenses and various numbers in there what I'd like to do if everyone is so inclined is I'd like to just start from the beginning and go I or go Department by department and check off the ones that we have no issues with and then for those that we need to discuss if anyone has any suggestions or um something you want to point out we can go there but let's if we can start with beginning page 21 first

002P 21 we'll start with second s we can cut that we'll get rid of that right away all right so does anyone have any issues on this page it's a 0 41% increase over last year no no no okay there you go we are done with the first select next page ethics commission 3.4 54 57% increase it all makes sense there's nothing on here that bothers me anybody else nope s with that Probate Court 11% down it's just a set number is what we pay as our share yeah how does that how do we determine the number Tom I know that we cabinet last year and that's why the budget's had 11% right what happened there was I have a note here it says last year and we don't need a new cabin that was

003it it will be fast I promise you yeah so the prob Court signs you the budget uh they bought a bunch of fireproof cabinets last year they didn't need to do that anymore therefore the amount goes down that was good 10 seconds well hold on before you leave before they bought the cabinets it was running 13,000 in change now it's 18,000 that's just doesn't matter to us it is so in other words we have no say over the more or less if you're participa in the prob Court which you have to yeah I me I think there's people possibly might be a board member I me there's things where they share information with the first selectman and during the budget processes and stuff that you know but uh it's generally it's what they they say

004is the number there was I think some rentable increases last year there was a I believe T my brain on this one but I believe there was a rental increase too in space so that would have continued because they needed the additional space that was in the prior year so and there'll be goes up usually that's I mean it's what towns are we do we share probate with okay Portland East tamped East hadam Mar okay so who who would we reach out to get details on that no there's a there's a sheet of it I mean it's just that's our OAS we have we have the sheet of it what it is what the breakdown yeah they present it to the first selectman saw first selectman said it to me it was approved so Mike's

005keeping that from us pretty much there's nothing you can do not you can't just not pay it it's either this is the number you have to pay the number yeah they it's just interesting that it goes up 50% and then it goes down like 11 it was it was those it was those the filing cabinets and then there was an additional I think it was an increase in the space and an increase in the rent from the past but I mean again there is a I believe there is a board or someone that ad minister be court and then that gets through and I'll find out more details chadam Health there's a chadam health district provides you a budget basic on per capita and then it gets allocated those are two very similar type of

006things so it's they come in they tell you this is what it is you know me if it was you know a drastic issue then you know the first L we could you know talk to them but I mean once it's Ved out on pretty much that's the operating budget you got in get I'm just saying hold their feet to the fire absolutely I shall hold I shall do that all right NE so we are we go with that yes I will I will follow up and get a little more details on that page 26 elections down 4.61% there's nothing on here that stood out to me as being an issue um early voting for The Municipal elections the same two weeks or whatever oh yeah come evening Michael tney town clerk um yeah so

007minicipal right now there's potential legislation to reduce that but the municipal early voting would still be at seven days or excuse me 14 days at this point um that obviously we just came out of a presidential election uh more B early voting was new last year so there was some unknown in the uh you know some of the numbers um you know this year with the municipal will you know anticipate unfortunately lower voter turnout so you know some of the supplies and stuff like that will go down but and and probably no Municipal primary do you need as many will you need as many poll people yeah so that was kind of some of the up in the air last year and that's kind of why we had a little bit higher higher number we

008came down on that um but we still you still need like you still need three people for the early voting because there is also same day registration during early voting so people can still register to vote and then vote almost like what they do at the polls so you have to have one of the you know poll worker for that as well okay thank you no other questions no other questions good anybody else all right good finance department [Music] the majority of that's in payrolls right yeah right right that's is um there's nothing I here they're flagged okay is it the um is the payroll or and the all the benefits everything by by contract Tom I believe so I believe is contractual yeah okay okay what Tom said is for all allocations and for

009all the employees correct Tom you have to you don't have to walk up yeah across the board all right 3% non-union and contractual for the difference yeah and then just the bump we saw in service contracts which we seems to be a trend yeah next okay that was good right good let's pick up the P collector of Revenue 0.2% increase nothing stood out there next I'm good with that all right page assessor did you make a run for it um I know he's uh was 4.06% um I know he's got an assessment starting later this year uh that he'll be doing I have no issues with with these numbers or what he had talked about before everyone good y next Board of assessment appeals huge 26 % increase from 1300 to 1700 cost of stiens

010to members it makes sense to me that's thank you Count Council so this one just brief comment we uh we've had some issues over the last year or so that we've been pursuing I was able to stop one potentially costly issue um by doing a settlement which saved our town probably 20 grand um in potential cost um I'm watching that number very carefully I'm trying to be um very cognizant of what we do for Council um but we do have a couple things coming up uh we have the water issue and MDC and some other ones so I'm trying to be very careful on what we do and what we use this for um but that's the only reason why it is slightly higher I'm anticipating um we may need to do some of those

011things but nothing nothing unusually big that I anticipate so I feel comfortable with this this about everyone else good what is it thank you town clerk 8.12% does anyone have anything for Michael Noe well he a software system right the increase driver there technology GNA make us more lean and better we'll remember that next year okay let everyone know that he crossed his fingers and said yes all right to clerk I'm good with yeah Central Services it's it's not a department but this is they're buying it's 1% I'm surprised it's not more with the cost of everything going up um but is there any particular numbers here that selectman would like to look at or discuss Postage and printing Publications I think for the predominant changes that's common yeah all right technology department I think

012we have a technology department gentleman here why don't you come on up there and I thought we were only stopping if we had questions this one I have questions this one I have question right all right I don't know Peter lipka director of Technology there go um it's 8% I know a lot of it's contractual Services um and and and others you can just walk through again the licensing software and um and and fill everyone in that again because that what I was asked a couple times so talk to me about that so the licensing software uh you'll see a jump up roughly $25,000 that's a result of three new public facing services that are in the process of being onboarded um two of which are already onboarded the third one is expected to be

013complete and therefore we will have to pay for these in the upcoming fiscal year 26 um before I tell you what they are if you they cost roughly $28,000 worth of new expenses so were it not for those that budget actually we found a way to reduce it slightly so that's the good news the other good news is they're public facing services so they're considered valuable potentially money saving or preventing us from having to spend more for the same and what those three uh in particular are is one is a GIS web portal so there is geographic information system information uh that's now available to anyone who wants to access it um from a computer browser and so not only does that help residents who want to learn something or a pro potential property developer

014who wants to get a ballpark an estimate of is it feasible for me to do what I want to do within the Town of Portland it also prevents um our land use staff which is busy all the time from having to answer even that many more questions so Dan Bray could speak more to more detail of that service and its benefits but that's that's an overview from my perspective and that one particular is 3500 for the upcoming year another one is the laser fish electronic records maintenance so that is uh building plans for example rather than have someone have to come in to town hall every time they want to examine a plan or whatever they would do with the plan many of those are now online and so they can be accessed without having

015to come into town hall without having to ask our staff questions and just the convenience factor again you can do it 247 that one is a $7,600 annual fee and then the third one is the online permitting system that uh this is in progress um and that is uh Dan Dan would really give you the details but my understanding is that um you know our land use and building department is a generator of Revenue and uh this will help that process um people can get information about the permitting process through it they can I don't I I'm guessing here um but my assumption would be they can actually submit some of the permits it can help track the permitting process and it will make the process better potentially stalling the data which you would have

016to hire additional staff because you can now do more with the same if this system can in fact do that uh I do not know if Dan is here no one raising their hand learning me that they are damn I the P I'm assuming adn't here Tom's our go to all right good so this spoke if there's more detail to add just those are the ones that he just spoke about were the arpa funding approved projects that you guys all had approved article funding for and we had were implementing those projects uh these are the ancillary costs that result after the implementation of those the laser Fe the gis and the time bond amount the uh the actual land used online permitting and then the other one that was larger one that's the Adobe permitting

017that licensing is going to a more of a software subscription based feature that was another one but those are the ones that he's talking about were really the there was about a $99,000 swing up to $10,000 swing up in that uh licensing one after the big world hold on a second so are these going to be recurring fees are these pretty much Annual fees they are recurring fees yes okay and I wasn't here last year but it it seemed I'm looking at the budget book it ran like 28,000 for two years then jumped to 50,000 last year and then jumped to 75,000 this year so do we buy some new stuff last year too or get new software I believe it was new Services came on board last year I also am you're new relatively

018new I was not in that decision-making process okay um in addition to new Services uh as Tom did speak much of our software is now subscription based and so it ends up being more expensive we find and use alternates whenever we can find one that does what we needed to do they're becoming harder and harder to find and so that budget item in particular has suffered from that and has incurred increases year over-year so is it safe to assume that like this 75,000 is kind of going to be the the new base yes I would say the new base andless additional service are are found that are considered valuable and come on board under that budget number but I I can't speak to all departments and what no well that's true that this is this

019is covering all the perits all right is is it the hope that the software will increase the efficiency for you guys save some money at the other end as well as make it easier for residents to do their permits I mean it it should have a a positive benefit I it's a cost to it but it sounds like it may increase the efficiency that's my understanding yes simplify the process allow us to do what we're doing without having to bring on additional staff which would have to be manag taken time away from Dan everyone good right P thank you very much my pleasure thank you excellent next page 44 fire department the only change that I I had looking at this was um I'd like to see with with the costs that have gone up

020over the last couple of years I'd like to see us make an adjustment to the stien and move that from 18800 to 2000 fine are you Jim um the annual stip in per member and I think we have 58 members is $1,800 I'd like to see us move that to 2,000 which would be a net cost of $1,600 but it will help some of the costs that have gone up that they're bearing it will help our volunteers a little bit I think that's a great idea I agree because we keep talking about having retention in the department Y and it's it's not a lot of money but it'll make a difference see it over there is it in this yeah where does it fall in where's it fall in I was going to say where

021is that I think it's part time oh part is that what is buil in there I bet you Tom knows yeah say it's the part-time payroll right is that it it is okay under parttime payroll so what's that going to do that so what would be the it brings it up by 11,600 so from 1385 it's 11,000 on top of that uh it'd be what one um 14 141 140,00 140,00 00 and the difference would be again it only brings it up $1,100 no, you you missed a digit I'm sorry I missed a digit 150,000 um I thought we had 58 people 52 okay I thought the write up said 58 so if it's 52 it would be slightly less do we know when the last time that statement was increased I I know that

022I was looking at this last year thinking it would be nice to do and and budget the budget season was rough last year yeah so I know it wasn't last year yeah yeah it's proba been four years since we've done it four years yeah okay so 52 time 200 10,400 did I do the ma yeah no 52 time 200 yeah 10,000,000 10,400 yes y all right all right is everyone good with that I'm fine with that I'm fine with that fine with that too all rightjust that number up to 10 400 so comes 139 yeah be 14 48 mil would be that L okay down every year depending on who's active it could be 55 next year yeah alwaysed okay kind of fluctuates so 58 is what the number for 58 oh it would be

023um 11, 600 what is it what is that bud 52 members to 1800 yeah okay yep Al so he's got to bump up the number from what he has in here right plus the Sten difference okay I I got you so that includes updating the number from 52 to 58 and updating the stipend okay thank you Tom and what what's that total number now [Music] Tom 169 16 16,900 I believe 15,000 on that prod action total and we at 9360 there other things in the number yeah right 22,4 to the 1385 yeah right it's additional all right so how much uh 22400 2,400 inre to line 113 and then the total down all right yeah I think that's I think that's well deserved four years it's it's not a lot but let's let's uh we

024appreciate all those guys do appreciate they do gentlemen ladies do for us y I agree any other questions for fire department I just had one question we talked earlier in the year uh about the training Captain is that replacing uh the assistant deputy chief position was that what that was about that was a while ago that we talked about it so in this year's budget um as it's proposed if it does pass uh those both positions were funded not necessarily going to utilize the training captain at this current time but the assistant chief would be funded so theoretically it'd be less 3,000 because I thought when it was originally brought to us it was that there wasn't qualification for the assistant deputy chief that's why they wanted to lower at the training cab so what

025happen the person in that position is no longer with the department so things go up and down all the time so that person's no longer in the person who's filling the assistant chief position was already the assistant chief so we just giving him the stifen that he rightfully deserves at that point could we list that as either or and not having both no we could um not fund one you know this particular time that that that would be okay we just leave it in the the pay plan and just not fund um but it's possible that it' be harder to add and remove you know if we were to take it right off than to keep well that's why I was asking if because if Personnel changes right it's always there would always be there

026as a captain position but it would be funded as either or not both so if you had the assistant deputy chief that's fine if you didn't have anyone to fill it then you could have the chief the captain position available to fund it that way what are you asking for this budget cycle then as it's written now um under the fiscal notes it does have both wor funded in that uh part-time payroll right now I would like to see one funded but not take away the the title so if you know like I said if the assistant Deputy Chief's not available you can put something in the captain position it would still be filled so what I would ask for for this particular budget cycle seem as how I had to appoint someone to fill

027in the position is that we fund the assistant chief position and not fund the training Captain position this go around all right so you want on 11 or 1103 you want the lettering to be the assistant will fund the assistant chief correct of training position and get rid of it like that orever right that's because I don't see the putting the money aside yeah if we're not going to hold the position right but if it's needed we can always change the title all right so you no moneyy is coming or going you're just changing the verbage and that no well no we wouldn't wouldn't fund the training Captain put in their it's just moving over to the assistant Captain all right no they funded both so if you look at the fiscal notes right there

028the assistant chief and the training Captain both were funded in this proposal um I would propose that we just do the assistant chief right now and not fund the training Captain this year so we'll take away that uh 3100 I believe or okay 3,000 from the budget 3605 oh yeah is that 30,00 I thank you 3 3605 thank you 3605 lexic here thank you rob Tom you got that okay all right all right ready to move on yes Bobby yeah thank you all right check all right Fire Marshall we have Mr Shay here as well I believe the increase here was for uh his new position has been able to help out as a deputy Fire Marshall and he qualified for that you qualify for that just Mak sure all right I'm gonna say check

029move on so the the payroll the part-time payroll is for the Fire Marshall yeah period right y okay was there anybody else in that number I see here personal expenditures cover Fire Marshall and deputy and we have two depy Fire Marshals and the fire inspector okay all the inspections that they have to do they were short this year so yeah I was gonna say four people that's not Mr Shay got the training necessary toble add into the next okay right we're good B yeah all right there we go emergency dispatch um this is just contractual U I stopped by the The Dispatch Center last week met Wayne Bola Bola I believe thank you very much um I was close though anyways uh very impressed by what they do they're actually building a new building uh

030a new center for themselves um they got $40 million to build it but they show be the plans are excited but they are um they cover our people they have nothing but good things to say about our Police Department how we work together with police and fire it's a great relationship but that's contractual right everyone good yeah they invited all the Selectmen whoever wanted to visit them they're happy to give you the tour as well if you haven't seen it in Middletown it is worth going to see is it at their Town Hall it's no no it's at one of the firehouses I'm not sure which one is right right next to Wesleyan or maybe on Wesleyan property oh so okay weth saying all right on page 50 police [Music] I think I was good

031with this I think that the U I know this includes the funding for the3 officer yes and also included the additional dollars traffic ceras traff connectivity right yeah that's was that in this or was that in incremental I think we allocated some money we had we had it in capital last year and the remaining is in capital this year 12 covering that need um and I think we got the two vehicles that are also in capital for yes and I've also got a note here that the state mandate with the cameras and and all the other elements are included under contractual Services too yeah where are the cameras going to go tell me about we do that um in April was that we do that in April we could do that we could do yeah

032I'm sorry or how much are the cameras are they in so just for a second so they were asking about the cost of the uh cameras I believe you had gotten some in last year's budget you had quotes like 4 and it came in a little higher than what the capital approved so then I believe the board then was appropriated new money to cover that cost and I spoke with Tom and I don't think that money is available until after July 1 at the close of the budget which means we can't proceed know until that point Goa but we've already been in contact with the utility Communications as the vendor and we're going to start shortly right after July one with the uh with the installation right so I have one question here for the

033the private duty yep do we anticipate a lot of construction Mike I couldn't tell you okay it's hit Miss we haven't uh permits would know but you know I haven't seen a lot out there because we don't foreseen anything with the bridge no is mostly the bridge is done elmis is mostly off-road they have very little work left on the road until probably that last phase where they do the commercial work right on the B oh 2030 pretty much I think it might be 50 now oh but until that point there's not going to be a lot lot to do there the only thing that might be rolling through is the the power upgrade for that for the eless property because that I think has to run through some windy roads to uh to make

034its way down to that project but that should uh that's a figure that Tom had come up with and we're we're pretty confident that should cover everything so we don't have any big Paving on like 66 or 17 or okay no no state jobs um the next job I think is 2026 and it's just the little book Bridge down by uh middle Marine that's the only one they're doing it's not been yeah all right anything else what's the date that the new officer starting um well we have a graduation tomorrow for our 12th which is very exciting and then uh for our 13th who is John Wilson from the East Hampton Police Department he's being sworn in on Friday at noon at the Mike's office and he is going to start the week of April

03514th that's the 12th officer he will be the thir he graduates tomorrow okay but he's he will not be solo until at least the mid to late summer okay great holy staff that's great thank you how long will it take for the 13th to be Wilson yeah we don't anticipate very long we're going to rotate him through our shifts just so he gets a feel for everything he they use the same RMS so everything's going to be extremely familiar to okay thank you you're welcome thank you very much thank you all right I'm going to say that checked everyone's good with that thank you Scott Emergency Management no issues here no next building department 3.79% increase there was nothing here contractual yeah it's all contractual are we good good next page 56 Public Works I'm

036good I'm good is all the uh payroll increase contractual or be higher did we put another person on um this oh includes two fulltime increased regular payroll due to contract Spectra salary yeah I'm sure with funding the Public Works director position it's not yet filled so we're anticipating a higher payroll if we had a qualified person MH okay it's there's been a lot of wage inflation out there on that particular position because of the requirements of the job so it's it's been a challenge but right now uh right now we're able to get by with what we have we're getting by we're getting by right yeah right and rhyo Hal has continued to step up and help as we're doing this as well and also still a streen in the audience uh in his new

037position is also helping to supervise and and run the public works department out there so appreciate a help all right I'm good with this everybody else yeah yeah all right next page 58 Highway Department got Michael here if you have any questions but there's nothing on here the one question I had was for the gild Reeve light the 3500 I didn't realize if it were that expensive that was the one I asked about that right the state was supposed to take over and they said no you can keep it right Beau um the only thing I have on this is the line below it for the tree Sur service um I'd like to see us add $2,000 to that to make it 23,000 um I know everyone has seen the the past wind storms we've

038had uh this year compared the years in the past we've had minimal power outages because of what Mike is doing whether it's with Town Crews or hired contractors um we have less road closures every year because of it um and I I know it's getting more expensive every year for them to do what they do with the small amount they get there okay have no problem with that have Mike can you come up here real quick the 2000 that what what does 2000 more get you like for service like would I give you two more days two more days 1250 1250 a day and I would Pi what how many trees um size average if we get the normal crew that we get we could probably do a dozen we talking around 20 20 trees

039for $22,000 is that what you're saying roughly probably 12 Trees a dozen trees six a day oh oh six a day maybe seven depending on the size yeah so we try to pick them you know because eversource helps us too what's the current conditions out there like there's a lot of work to be done still I know you guys been diligently working on yeah two years ago I think Bob when eversource came in and gave us three weeks that down there that helped immensly but we're in pretty good shape yeah because it seems like you know we've been increasing your budget on it it seems to be and it went to yeah we're 138 172 and you know I think Bobby's been a big advocate of this and and we've noticed it so I was

040just curious if 2000 or it gets you gets you somewhere be bading every year oh there's no more trees left we have PL yeah we have PL who's gonna speak for the trees who's gonna do that all right anything else on the highway I think we're good then Bobby good vehicle maintenance I got nothing I got nothing too I just I know they just do Miracles down there they keep everything moving that's a good thing D only 1.56% increase that's great uh Town engineer it is what it is really it's a relatively small budget we we fully utilize uh that team what's in the what's the miscellane in the miscellaneous line seems to be bouncing all around the number 380 yep the one that's 5,000 yeah what's 5,000 this year a couple years ago was

04128,000 got that flag um I is it I might I know someone that does know place going to get an answer oh okay so uh miscellaneous is the account that is used uh for miscellaneous engineering um so things like that may fall into miscellaneous engineering are uh things like the airline Trail extension two that hasn't really moved forward but people trying to move it forward uh things like the work that would be done on on the project that people are trying to do some typ of a Inlet uh into the river the riverfront access yeah we we had a gr but there was a lot of upfront money uh that uh was kind of required due to uh compliance with specific uh rules yeah with deep M yeah yeah okay um I'm familiar with that

042project that's probably a lot of it there was like survey work there were you know Specialists and things of that nature and then um the airline Trail obvious was something and then there was a sometimes there's a few that are it's like things that would grants that maybe are not like on the verge of necess Public Works there sometimes we put some type of pregrant activity in it but it's more or less those type of projects that would require engineering that are not really fit into the Public Works category per se yep okay yep Tom thank you very much just like to know where we're spending the money he always has an answer Tom knows things all right Town engineer I'm all set with yeah yes very nice uh Street lighting ever Source the prices

043go up nothing we can do about that next do we do we contract our electricity or do we just are we totally at their whim it's contracted it's contracted okay but it renews in December so it's not a good time to do it yeah right when gas and oil are high all right next Grounds Maintenance I'm good on this nothing on yeah I didn't have anything on those for employees do a lot of work out there Nate we spent 30 seconds on your page next all right page 68 Town buildings maintenance I have nothing flagged on this except for the electricity and telephone yeah that's all I had seemed to me that does the telephone include our internet I don't know just seems like I don't seems like a big jump usually 52,000 oh there's

044a note fiscal notes longtime state of Connecticut contracts have ended Frontier and Comcast have both increased rates budget increased by yep time to look for a new vendor yeah if there is one okay there go well I think even that new technology well you know you're that's up your belly with a little bit um no because I know one of the things they talked about was even some of the challenges with in some of the dials 911 there's a few things we need to look at technology wise going forward okay okay we have a big number in capital for that don't we for telephone service um I think that was for some of the rep phones right so yeah that's for the schools right yeah and I think that was for like the terminating equipment

045that the the schools would use whether that's phones 90,000 the equipment of that all basically homes back to looks like it's High School Middle School complex 90,000 but there are ways that we should be able to do that it's like the equipment's a little bit more expensive but there's some things we should be able to do that are um either give you more features or better from the cost we need to look at that okay that's all I have in this next all right next h70 snow removal this just is what it is so I have a question for Mike is the big jump in Road materials is that for salt that's when we switched from basically using that mud yeah yeah okay so for those watching Mike just said yes yeah that's why we

046don't have snow on the roads anymore yeah how but it must make it easier to plow does it or seems like the roads clean up fast you can tell the difference I can always remember driving from you know eastampton in Portland you go it was almost like a line right you basically go from Pair roads to snow pack now it's yeah and your cars would be brown your car would be brown yeah I'm much better I was gonna say sweep it all up at the end water okay all right okay all right next 72 planning department who is the town planner D Town planner and addition okay so they they they were multiple hats down there okay and the last fisal note on the left hand side really explains the only increase which is the

047payroll additional responsibilities due to staffing issues and based on contractual increases for the administrative assistant that's that jum what's the plan consultant is that like some outside Consulting we okay so in cases where they do need somebody outside we do to do a we do for a new plan development plan of conservation and development about about this we got get you closer there about a $4,000 is going to be related to Tian bond for the gis annual updates so that's going to be part of that and and then uh for the gis system and then the the play consult can vary it can be um Jacobson on specific projects it could be Traffic Engineers more or less through Jacobson on various projects it could be T planning on things that are not um economic development

048that we may need so uh that's kind of it's it's it's the it's what it is is plan consultants for the planner so sometimes when you go into the engineering budget there's specific things that are you know not necessarily considered the engineering budget they're planning specialized so that's what some of the money is uh back in the day what it used to be some of it but didn't come to fruition was last time when we did the pccd we had allocated like two grand a year to update the pccd annually but that never occurred but so now that's morphed into these other um things and that GIS that's based on the new GIS s system that's another SE segment the licenser component goes into Licensing in 017 the work that they actually do on the

049updates goes into the planning budget okay thank you thank you Tom all right next 74 zoning Zoll y y 76 now the primary increase on here was a $ charge um for a new 5-year natural Hazard mitigation plan that's a requirement so without that it would have been virtually the same virtually identical okay so next doing appeals nothing on here that's good $1,800 in and wetlands jum there enforcement officer was a jump okay and that was that was the only jump yeah who is our enforcement officer yeah Jim Jim Jim slyy Yeah so basically we're using him a little more this that's what the Yeah there's more building going on around town yeah just more activity y all that we have but that that's money well spent I think all right next page page 82

050Conservation Commission that's that's a big one $600 budget I'm okay with it epic Economic Development commission my only question on here is if we're getting our money's worth for the grant consultant contract like what grants are they writing and how many are we getting awarded that they're involved in is it worth the $24,000 or are we doing more of the work ourselves um that's a good question oh yeah if you good just get a seat right up there I I told you gotta get a closer seat it's get a steps in so um to answer your question yeah I mean the the the the person that's there is quite valuable to the department um they help in many aspects of Economic Development they help in other aspects as well they do help in grant writing

051they're helping with the bar this bar Grant they assisted on that they assisted in the review of that um I think I think you're going to see uh more activity now that we're morly more kind of sort of fully saaff there you have the town planner now you have the the other gentleman that's the zoning guy um and now you and now tyon you know really can continue to focus on the economic development side of it and so um that's the and it's called like a grant consultant it's really it's a consultant you know there's some Grant in there but it's really a consultant on economic development are helping uh that piece of the puzzle but um I do you know they are one of one of the well respected um uh you know Consultants

052within this industry um they definitely have helped us and uh throughout some of the harder times we had in the department with Staffing changes and Staffing shortages so but I do think that um the first selectman uh the previous first selectman um the department the planner you know I think they all did and will lean on that person for um that special uh planning and uh in Economic Development so do I think you're getting worth it yeah I me I think you're getting worth it I think the guy does spend the time and his team does spend the time there um I think hopefully is as um now they get more fully staffed if there's specific it's got to be like focused toward what the first you know the team wants the first l wants

053it for Grants and so uh I think those would be some of the the things that uh that we would uh that would help us in that would be to uh you know would they be involved on the the plan of conservation and development as well or is that outside of their R so I think they could actually I think he's staying a little bit away from that because that he that company may want to bid on that job so I think they're staying a little bit away from that item uh as they may be a bit around okay so that would be make sense that they would stay away um that's something it's like I guess allegedly it's in my cue to be reviewed the bid going out so I will need to look

054at that in the next upcoming weeks and get it get it out get it out C the the actual bid for the RF Q RFP for that that item who is Tom before you leave who is the Consulting who is the consultant or the firm T planning oh okay there guy I think the gentleman's name is John um I will tell you um with with funding concerns out there and how tight the budget is um my push is to be able to find any grant money we can out there so I'll be utilizing him going forward in any way I can to find funding for the various Department that maybe are missing some or have not gotten from the state or from the federal side of it so uh so I'm planning on leaning on

055him and and he's done a really good job for us so far absolutely um but that's a number I'll I'll report back to everyone let you know what that money is getting us in terms of Grants and or finding some of the funds out there y so all right we're good with that next page Capital expenditures commission $500 one I'm good with this good good that was a quick question Health Department good chal thank you this is contractual contract they've done a great job with us you love how it works environmental health nothing next there's no funding in this at all page 92 Social Services um my only question on this I think we kind of overlooked it was we don't have any funding set aside for the 250 committee I I I have the

056same notes on here as well yeah so I believe this would be where we'd want to do we we put kind of miscellaneous projects in here the Memorial Day Parade we do 5500 Portland Fair 2500 I had a couple um I know the America 250 committee um that I think deserves some funding not sure what the number is that's worth the discussion um the folks that do the concert series also asked if there was funding that we could do there to assist them Greg Rose and others thought that that might make it better I thought that was worth the discussion it it used to used to get some funding through um parks and R and and I think that's been caught about 75% okay um the fund the contracts are are largely donation based but

057those always help with a lot of the um it takes some of the pressure off in terms of the Bands but also some of the admin and the advertising and all that front stuff so so those are the that have done let's talk about the America 250 committee um we uh will be seating them I believe on Monday um we have a full compliment of folks for that committee um they're charged with coming up with celebrations for our country's 250th birthday for next year there's a lot to do I know they've talked about fireworks and different events and coordinating all the activities in town um I think all towns in Connecticut were given the charge I believe all towns are have their own committee but um there's a lot to do there is there any

058I can't recall I know that's a a state recommendation at all towns to do this the state helping us fund anything with that what do you think no no just want to put no but that's a good question but I would like to say yes but if they're not gonna fund all of our special special needs funding that we need there part of their charge too was to piggyback on already planned events and like the like the parade is going to be occurring and how can they be part of that there's other events y and also culturally what did Portland bring to the country and you know Historic Society so it's a it's they're trying to make it as allinclusive as possible if probably needs funding I don't know what the number is I don't

059know if it's 5,000 I don't know if it's 2,000 I don't know what exactly we would need I know we're hoping a lot comes in for donations whether it be from businesses or private but it's also we can split it between this year and next year so it'll be funded two years not just one lump sum this year that that's what I was going to say that that makes sense then so well because it's not not reoccurring though it's like well I know you're saying it could be funded two years basically by a couple of days but I don't see why the committee couldn't get together and just ask us like at some point during the year like when they know what their basis will be we can pull it out a contingency like we've

060done for the uh solidarity committee and then we'll have a more exact number and it's all I mean we do pretty good with our contingency for the most part so we we do have a pretty good balance in there so we're not we're not funding it but we're keeping it in the back burner until we know what's going on it's hard I don't think this board had any problem giving contingency to them it's hard to put a dollar amount on on what they need when they haven't met yet I agree let me ask Tom can I ask you a question if contingency versus putting the number in there is what makes more sense for you you can answer from there if you want to you have to walk all the way up would you rather

061put the number in there contingency okay so okay I want to make sure okay that's told by Ryan and Susan make sure that you're happy with how we do this so [Music] okay okay so you're saying contingency is the way to go because we don't know what the number is going to be in case anyone's watching and not hearing you okay all right very good all right I'm for subtracting from the budget not adding right yeah I'm going the wrong direction all right here should go in the wrong direction we got this um and I guess the same thing for concert series well I I think that I think we've got we've been able to handle that the way we are um I think it's not a bad thing as we look at trying to

062do some different things you know maybe in future years just to have it on the radar that at some point it may need some assistance but let us keep working the way we're working it it's it's keeps it a free show for our for our rate payers so our taxpayers yeah okay yeah and we if we were going to do it we'd boost it back like we used to we used to run I think about $1,000 in parks and W for the concerts I think that's down to I think maybe a few hundred right now and that's begin a lot of other pressures in parks and W A lot of other challenges that they're trying to meet so there's a line out of my here that I have marked off for the Red Cross dial

063ride we have 32,000 put aside um I guess my question is um maybe Sarah do do you know what we're using um or what kind of use we have for the dial ride program yeah if you could yeah just whether whether we're maxing it out whether we do more with that how it complements what you do well yeah or just the dialar wide in general pass but it's from 2024 um Sarah keratos director of the SE Cent so these are the recent writer statistics but um you know I think that we can it's worth it to meet with them and see if they can break the data down specifically um for age groups and what services they're using um like senior activity for example just as 50 and um you know it doesn't it doesn't

064state that they AA vehicle or anything like that so but this is the most recent data they have they're going to get me some more more enough time okay no problem so so with um and again I'm not sure if you you have but with the rural transer program and the uh dial ride how does that impact you there and complement what you do ready for the dial ride specifically um well we really I mean we just do referrals to them okay okay it's basically stricted referral okay gotta and so is that an amount just on a contract you just pay that to them in whatever usage level they can provide um yes Tom might be able to answer that a little bit better but um as far as I know yes but there's really

065I think we need to do a better job of tracking the usage that means uping down a lot more yeah because there's no way for me to track it right except for and ride them we refer to them but there's really it's not a good tracking could be better got it we probably have to get that data for that yes yes so what's this the brighter statistics you gave us that's from River Valley Transit also referred to as di R so are all these numbers these are people that use dial ride or they for the Town of Portland for the Town of Portland by month and then dialer ride bills us Mike that how it goes um it's a contract uh Tom has more details on that I believe um I'm hoping that it has

066that Tom so I'm just little is this the Red Cross dial ride or is that something separate no um it's so I think that dial ride from my understanding they contract out so this is through Estuary which is um River Valley Transit they've changed their name several times but really everybody just ref left side the budget it says it increases related to the Estuary Transit District's budget so the Estuary Transit District to provide that to partake can dial ride in the buses that go around the town of Portland you got to pay into it and they pay into it they tell you what you pay into it and you pay into it that's what that is so it's just a participation we participate in they give you they give you tell you how much so

067so individuals access that individually every consumer town make when they drive around the town they yeah it's an access to it that people can do what they need to do and then um is also part of I think the buses that stop around in the town oh okay yeah I think that's both components of that it's not age specific for seniors on oh okay so yeah this is the social service line This is the budget usually that's run by the first selectman's office so in that these are the ones that we're providing to organizations that um help us help the community so there's certain things that we're giving like sort of like a donation to but then there's other ones where like these two are they're providing us with a budgeted amount and they're saying

068to participate you must pay you know pay out these amounts oh yeah yeah so that's how those are then the other ones in the bottom are more you know parade driven and things like that which are you know donations into the parades and and into the veterans to do veterans activities so Tom so their di ride is telling us for for next year we need to give them 32,000 correct and then what's the rural Transit program same it's same the transit okay just it's all part of the same people getting mass transit as Transit District runs the mass transit in the area used to be called Matt to area oh yeah yeah likeed or whatever taken over okay and so now they're called the as Transit District so they do that kind of stuff so

069people can just hop on those buses and they don't have to pay a fee I don't know about that they do pay a fee in addition to we're paying to have the service they are they are discussing lowering subi for college students they're discussing how they're going to do that but that's an active thing that pursuing so okay excellent thank you thank you Tom everyone's good I guess um while we have sah up there I know her is next but while we're talking about rides yes can we skip to page 97 and this is where she's requesting the more funds and the Hand driver typ in well actually let's go let's go uh 94 Senior Center for just to make sure then we'll get to together there anything on page 94 95 no we have

070there's nothing on here as well well no the only thing I have is like I know Bobby said it's contractual but it's like electricity just seems to be buring here like if you look at they're doing a lot more activities drawing more power and I think the usage there the usage there is is pretty tremendous they have things going on all the time it does seem like so that's from growth yeah as well document that this eversource has major distribution charges right they they increased it everywhere so they did that this year um and then and then in the senior center itself I believe it's a lot of the new equipment we we purchased a major amount of commercial equipment and it wasn't being utilized and now it is being utilized we did purchase quite

071a bit of uh HVAC equipment Air Handlers and things of that nature that's got to run uh we have a generator now we didn't have so that you know I'm sure Cycles so I mean there's a lot of uh things there that that are you know definitely usage wise are increasing it but uh all over the board I mean the the the distribution costs has been very high and and I'm sure on your own bill you've noticed that from ever Source we do had we had a locked engagement for like four years uh Bobby mentioned that earlier in December that's ending so we have to go and redo our deal on the supply side of it okay um so that is all I'm kind of estimating that that's not going to be a pleasant experience

072um because it's not as good as it well we were we had a pretty nice uh lock in for uh for quite a while unless we have a glut of natural gas on the market yes we usually ccm's uh energy Consortium and the the Titan energy and they they usually work with us to kind of help us through that process and get the best of bidding out there but well Mike and I got to work on getting that approved and uh um the team with Dr Britton and Stephanie and and Mike and myself kind of help uh work all that out when the when when those guys tell us the time is right and we usually go at it from there but that's what we're seeing I definitely the just so it's just it's just

073hard to say right now I mean it's possible we might get a win but without knowing that's we're seeing it but definitely I mentioned that during um some of the budget meetings on the senior center itself that we looked like we're going to have to increase there and I think it's really due to the commercial equipment you didn't have commercial equipment you had residential so these commercial things are they're awesome they're great things for the people and for the The Entity but they're they're definitely more energy required have um have we taken advantage or have we converted to um LED lighting when I know there's programs with eversource where you canver you've done multiple LED programs right off the top of my head I couldn't speak to which ones where when how anymore uh but

074we've done we've run them through uh you know through our um through the various departments uh we ran those we I know definitely in the library we definitely did them with fire companies um and we and they kind of like a loan back yeah on the aners horse bill so we did a lot of those um and then the department the directors and the um public horse Department themselves have taken initiative to switch out a lot of the uh stuff that they can do themselves and they really done a nice job with that throughout the various buildings so um again I don't know specifically about that CU that would be the director of polar fors but I know that they've made various improvements throughout but uh we are seeing U the higher dollar values of

075of electricity at this location so that'll be fair to provide them with a higher number there if that would be be something to put forward in the future just food for thought I know we we have panels elsewhere in town has any thought been given that building I believe the back half back half of the roof is facing due south has any thought been given to putting solar on that route yeah I believe you proba last speak with your Public Works be engage in public works director i' hire one which would be great be really help that here you know working hard but I mean it's uh you know that would be very helpful uh Endeavor um so that would be something we look forward to but uh yeah I mean you know I don't

076know you know when the roof gets replaced I mean it could be addressed but the roof recently was replaced within the past since I've been here yeah so I don't think we're going to do much with that um honestly but U you know whoever's uh in charge of that so we'll uh we'll make those decisions we put on the first selectman's list Andy B would love to look at it yeah I mean I know I know we did we did the the roof improvements uh we did that through the eqc program it did work out pretty well um uh the roof is still in quite good shape to my knowledge um so I don't know if we would do it on that typ building but we've made a lot of like I said we went

077out with this uh senior this covid um um C the cdbg grant that rants um a lot of U good equipment because we're kind of um like a like a shelter for the for the local people uh when the the residents so that was helpful to have the improved kitchen and then also to have some of those HVAC and Generator improvements right so I think those are really uh big steps forward for that building um and um we you know have to keep working through any of the other components but I I know I wouldn't be able to speak specifically to the ability of that roof to maintain and hold oh I know just thrown out food for thought right thank you Tom so we're good on page 945 so let's get to page 9697

078Michael Bobby you guys were talking about this yeah I'm just big piggy backing what Bobby was talking about during our Workshop about the stien's going going down when it should be going the opposite direction but Bobby go ahead yeah with what you're asking for if it goes up to 36 from the current 34 do you feel that would be enough to cover most of your requests if not all of them um for the short shortterm goals yes not for the long term the long term as I mentioned last time I think it would be really beneficial um to be able to go and pick up older folks in the community bring them to our social events and um great Stone has asked us to come and pick their people up because they don't have the

079ability to get down there and they'd love to come to some of our programs but we're unable to would this cover the essential medical visits do you think I think so I think we can make it work I mean we're making it work now but it's not working well could be much yeah I see that you have a driver or two that are here yeah if you'd like like to hear from them that would be great they they really um have valuable input to this and the benefits of how it would help our over they've waited for an hour and a half can I ask a question before do that just when you in you're right up you was it just had it kind of barely got through it sure yeah that's okay some of

080your one of your comments is that this would allow us to pay or for drivers fairly is this increase to also provide a a rate increase to each driver as well no not a rate increase but to you know they're they're willing to take on many more hours but we're un right no I understand but so this is hours of work not an increase of hour paid per hour of work okay thank youcome um I I'd love to hear from one of the drivers just just in terms of impact I think it's important to hear sure one or both or uh both here yeah both come up I think sometimes we get so immune just to looking at numbers only and not realize what the impact is so H good evening um my name is

081Joe Cara I'm one of the drivers for the senior center I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak um I think a lot of people don't realize what what it is to be stuck in your house um we have people that we pick up um I picked up two people yesterday in that rainstorm that were vets that were going to uh Newington and they must have thanked me 10 times on the way up there and back about and how good this service is um we we have a hard time keeping you know getting every ride that's possible and most of the people that we that we give rides to are people with with disabilities um we have people you know that use Walkers that use canes we have the Wheelchairs and

082we now have the two buses we've now uh worked our way out of the sharing bus with crownwell so we now have two buses with lifts we have a brand new van uh that's excellent um and and I think you know we were talking earlier about uh dialer ride and I have a gentleman that I'm conservative for um and he uses dial right in Middletown because they don't offer this service and he missed an appointment two days ago to a vein specialist because he was 20 minutes late because the bus came a half hour late um and of course if you're 20 minutes later at the doctor's appointment we all know what happens you have to reschedule he is now in the hospital because of his circulatory problems so and not only do you not

083only do you have to to get call up and make an appointment to get picked up they give you a huge time frame of when they're going to pick you up so you may have to be ready an hour before your appointment or an hour and a half and then after you go to your appointment you have to call them back when your appointment's over and reschedule a ride back home so there was a woman in Portland a few years ago that told me she waited for a ride back until 6:00 at night and they never showed up so I think our service because Portland is is you know a smaller town we can do this I think it's extremely important to fund the um the services and I thank you thank you thank you

084good evening uh my name is Jack Rowan I'm the senior uh driver for the center excuse me I've been with the are about approximately 16 years now and um I have seen uh seniors where they will spend $2 a ride round trip when I first started $3 a ride after a few years that I've been around now it's $5 a ride and like Joe was saying dial ride these seniors are Thanking us and Thanking us for doing this for them because di of ride quote unquote is extremely expensive and not Dependable we have some seniors here in Portland that are so grateful to Joe and I for what we do that they pay us $10 for a round trip one one woman up off of near the atrium she goes to Manchester once a month

085two days a week for blood fusions otherwise she's not going to live another woman she pays up and Beyond Cancer Treatments she's already blind in one eye and she's still surviving and she's still go going for treatments I believe that for the type of town that we live in and that how we function that I believe the seniors who have done so much with this town in their lifetime should have the ride so that they can have the treatment at a reasonable price and they know that we are Dependable thank you thank you thank you both thank you both I mean I think that's important to hear for every reason that both of you said that I I said I think it's important for all of us to hear um what you just said because

086we sometimes just think of numbers and we think of a service and you don't think about the people behind it you know and the seniors that have worked on their lives and um and what they get as a benefit and what they need so I I thank you for what you do and for all the years of service I appreciate it appreciate I mean since I've been retired from my regular job law enforcement and Corrections I've been helping out the town of a Portland and this like I said this is the beginning of my 16th year I'm retired from everything house finally and but I enjoy still doing this because I hope seeing that I'm going to be 80 this com in September I hope someday if I need a ride from the senior center

087I'm I'm gonna get a smile from that driver like what Joe and I do with these sers yeah thank you you're one of the people that make the town a better place thank you yes thank you guys 100% thank you um my request I would like to make this number for the driver stiens either 37 or 38,000 I think Sarah was very conservative in her ask of only going up to 36 I I I agree I I think $44,000 I know we're going in the wrong direction but we're going in the right direction I think on this service yeah I think for the budget about we have as taxpayers right we all consume different services at different stages and I think that there's not as much that we can do to help our seniors this

088is something we can do I think it makes sense to do that and I I would agree Bob I think you know maybe the 36 would be sort of the minimum but I think if we can put a little extra in there we can probably help people out a little bit more and that's that's an important thing for us to do you're also saving lives because um transportation is the biggest barrier for older adults you know increases their mortality especially excuse me I um if they don't have any support at home they um they don't have children that live in the state they really rely on us and for um not only medical rights but it would be nice for that social fece that will definitely help about that well I was going to say

089even even the medical which I think you guys do a great job at at working to cover those but the the ability to get people out of their homes and into a social environment into the senior center that s of saves and helps people in a different way so it's important it's great all right we all feel good about that I do uh it's 38,000 instead of 34 up 4,000 you're [Music] welcome oh should we should we bump that up a couple hundred I say we address it if we need to yeah they're going to feather the gas all the way wherever they're going we're going to be good there you go no no lead feet yeah we're looking at you get a solar bus right all right thank you really appreciate it thank you

090and thanks for the suggestion gentlemen I think that's again it's it makes a difference sometimes small dollars make big differences and that's that's one y um I see the libraries up next I see that we have our library director here as well anyone have any questions on this I have just one one comment actually could I I spoke with Jen earlier today um with regards to uh part-time payroll as a number Smash and Crash it's fine balance this over here hi I'm Jennifer Bings Le the library director um do you do you given some of the changes at the library um I know there was a concern about the part-time payroll and do you still have that issue or is that something that you want us to look at either funding additional or are you

091good with that I think we'll be good I I did um I Tom was very gracious and gave me a slice of his time today and his number and walked me through his numbers and I found the error in my spread sheet and so I'm feeling good about it um so thank you Tom good yeah I think this is [Laughter] um we've all been there Jen where Tom explains us the error in our calculate I I got there I got there eventually so I'm grateful second that by the way um I had no particular thing here I mean they do a number of things down there we all know the upsid of what they do and I know it's an 8% but they probably do 20% more um than the year before but anyways any

092any issues on this I don't see any place is this the only position in the whole budget that's new one water one but that was existing from last year right it's not new no I think we have a new one oh we added another water one there's only two water and that's how yep so the halves are becoming fulls on this budget yeah you that few so it's not like a new person it's just fulfilling a full-time yeah we funded them in the last budget for example to start in January right so we only had to pay half the ft and then so it didn't impact but this would only be a new hire Al together for Library the library the library the LI yes the library would be a new part-time person um what

093would be the impact on Services if that weren't to be filled were not to be filled thank you for thank you for the question um my so I know that there's been a lot of conversation about moving the board of Selectmen meetings back to the library which I am happy to have many many meetings with Pete about um thank you Pete uh the my big concern is that moving those back um we we can figure out how to make the Staffing pieces of it work but my my big concern is that we would have to drastically cut programming like we would we would have to cut the amount of youth programs we offer we've had great increases in adult programming and we'd also have to trim that so we would be we would be looking

094at a significant decrease in the amount of services just because of space this would allow us to adequately staff our public public service and Sh and shift those uh the full-time people into being able to work flexible evenings if they wanted to instead of like contractually they only have to work one evening a week um so that's that's that's where that piece of it would work it would also allow for more flexibility for Saturdays right now um I worked six days in a row last week because you needed a person on Saturday ideally that would not happen I was happy to be a your your public service library and answer questions about the meeting rooms and what books to read but it really wasn't the best use of your money to have me doing that

095um and uh that's that's That's the basis of it so it's it's not everybody's kind of pitching in and making it work right now but that that additional evening and especially during March um when you are having budget meetings we'd really be at a crunch to be able to offer um the programming that Comm the community has kind has come to expect um from the library did that answer the question I guess it just it mixes it up a little bit in my mind because how the part-time position is would be tied to the board of selectman returning for one for well two nights two nights two nights a month so it's Wednesdays most of our youth programming and it's it moved to Wednesdays when the board of selectman meetings moved out because yeah so

096it's it's we got replaced yeah yes you but you were meeting statistics not programming statistics and the state cared about the difference so um yeah I think that's the other the other piece of youu yes yeah and Saturday coverage is the other piece of it so Saturday the which I mentioned for that piece of it so um the over the last um winter we had a staff member that was out on medical leave unexpectedly um after the Saturday schedule had been published and so staff came in and worked a single hour of overtime so we would be able to like in in rotation to be able to um keep the library open as usual it was very busy everybody was uh just kind of rallied to being able to serve the public for kind of

097like a straight run and was only relieved for the meal breaks that they were contractually obligated to be given um and so it was it was tough tip um couple of months um and the the I think the the biggest piece of it is that um like it could be possible to have overtime get added and but the staff are not interested in overtime and we cannot obligate them to take overtime and so what you have in place of overtime is me because I your salaried employee um and I'm already kind of working more than is is sometimes uh is doable to still get the administrative piece of this job done because you don't need me there on the weekends you need me there to call contractors and try and figure out the best uh

098yeah the you need me to be an administrator not not a a fun uh front of house librarian even though it was it was a fun Saturday so I didn't mind doing it so did that I think you got that yeah thank you thank you any other questions so what what's going to happen then if the board of Selectmen go back to meeting in the Mary flood room you're going to have to reschedule other programs or reassign them or so we um we've worked out that um because of how we book the meeting rooms and arrange our programs and schedule them that's why we requested that they move you move back to our building no earlier than September to get me through summer reading um because uh we will book with other libraries so we've

099already committed to things on Wednesdays and I don't want to cancel on those commitments so um starting in September gives us enough of a chance to um hopefully get a position like this funded that would that would make it doable and uh and smooth to do this if we don't get this funded position it's uh it's much much more Rocky and there's much less margin for error because um what we we we we operate right now on week nights with two human beings Staffing the library in the evenings for those three hours and if one of them calls out somebody can try and come in and shift their hours throughout the week or I can try and stay and work a bajillion hour day um but there's no there's no cushion there's nothing like if

100that person is out I have I have no backup I have no sub I have nothing so um the answer to that would be that we would need to close because it wouldn't be safe to operate the library with just one staff person present so and I don't I don't think like the staff have done everything possible to have that happen I think we've had it happen once over the past year even with the medical absence so and that was just because that was that was just a it wasn't able to happen so that's that's my concern is that like I think we've we've been done a really great job of communicating the way to make this happen as seamlessly as possible um but this would and this would be the best way to also

101try and make that happen so okay everyone satisfied those answers y we good thank you very much pleas don't work 80 hours a week building in for 80 not not that few it's just not it's not 40 all right thank you 20 hours list we are moving along we're in triple digits right now page 100 101 employee Fringe benefit there's nothing to change here no no risk management nope same thing let's keep it going at this pace uh Debt Service no what it is that is correct and then the transfers we've gone through this before as well um the only thing I had on this page and I brought up earlier in our meetings was I wanted to increase the open space to include the rental money from the parking lot on Main Street so

102that it would be funding open space not just going to the general fund so what one complication with that and Tom can add on if I if I don't explain it properly I think we we should put additional money in there um from my understanding because that LE be that lease money needs to come into a general fund and then we as but then we as a board would transfer it into there he said to do it this way not to make it that it had to go there so next year if we wanted to we could make that 50,000 again okay so I'm suggesting we make it 66,000 this year right right account for the rental payment I yeah I agree 100% I I I agree yep agree so that 50 becomes 66 66

103yes and that's for the least with the parking lot near the Cannabis yeah manufact we signed yet uh it is signed as of earlier today okay so they finally sent it back so yeah thank you Bobby that's all I have on that that's great that's all I have too that's good and found contingency that stays the same and we are done with the individual Apartments so at this point um oh wait we're not through the no never mind it's not a I was curious how much of the cons contingency we went through this budget cycle Tom might be the go out Tom how much of the contingency have we gone through so far I don't 104 pum no they 28 for the [Music] snow 64 yeah I guess that's where I was going do we

104typically use it all up um oh I know it's a good number I mean if we don't use it all does it just roll over yeah okay that's what I was looking to hear all right all right before we go on I know it's been a long night for some for those of you sitting here u i see Dr over there as well I know we have not we probably should have talked maybe bard of bed budget in the beginning but is there anything that you wanted to before we go on to some other stuff is there anything that you wanted to bring to our attention and talk about your particular budget question you want to jump ahead to Board of Ed well yeah we can Hi how are you good good play there tonight

105by I'm Charles B I'm the superintendent um I question I was reviewing some of the minut the reportings of the Board of Ed meeting when you guys approved the budget and it was Stephanie had talked about I believe it was the EDC funding amount you guys I think establish a 70% reimbursement for that is that is that right or did I misunderstand the excess cost oh I'm sorry what did I call it cost cost yes 70% right there and that there was a lot of discussion around whether that was a good number or not good number I know the legisl done stuff since then where where does that look now does that number look good or does it look like maybe we could there a better number um you know it there there's I think

106there are are there's a lot of talk at the legislature about special ed funding you know they just approved the supplemental right which which helped us a um significantly um we won't know until we know right and so between you know the excess cost and of course what's going to happen at the federal level with potential um idea title funding there's a lot of anxiety that we have about that the last couple of years we've been at what 62% Stephanie remind me what did excess cost come in at it was 62 one year and right so right that's what I thought it would had been higher in the past right Dr Britney I want to just repeat the numbers yes Stephie tell come on up here Stephie remind me so it just because we heard

107it but nobody watching heard it what was it last year what was it this year and 80% coup this year it's it's 62 but hopefully I think we're going to be up to the 73 they did that restructuring I think it was three years ago where they did it by tiers and depending on where your angli rank is so we're the middle rake so we'd be 73 because you know when I first started we were getting in the 80s there were District getting in the 50s so they were trying to make it Equitable for everybody by doing this tier system but then because the knees are so much more there wasn't enough money to fund it to what they were supposed to fund it at so this year was 62 but I'm pretty sure it's

108going to be the 73 last year was 67 the year before that was 70 and then previous years before that it was in the 80 I think it was 88 one year 82 one year um but once they started that tier system it ranged in between 67 and 70 it never was fully funded to the 73 we're supposed to get at 7 there's risk I mean we budgeted at 70 in hopes that we get the 73 but we haven't in the last two years so that's why and that's why we talked a lot about do we go lower do we go higher but then you don't want to over put it in because then that's a lot of extra money um so we're just trying to be realistic yeah conservative great thank you which 11

109is where Bo of bed budget starts right uh Dr how do you stand on your budget for this year uh we're we're in a much better place than last year we are projecting Surplus this year um it's gone up and down you know when when Stephanie was saying we found out that the excess cost Grant was going to be at 62% we were back in deficit not as bad as last year but probably about a $15,000 deficit that supplemental that recently passed and bumped that number back up put us in a much better place and not filling some positions that we had some midyear resignations have put us in a better place I don't want to put it put hold Stephanie down to it but I'm confident we're going to end of a slight surus

110okay good excellent what do you say St going to hold you to it but always disregard both what it's still early so but we're get I mean it's far enough into the year that we're we're in a better place than the way what did you put in your budget for new hires uh admin side no nothing how about teacher side um we did so we made Some Cuts last year during the difficult season we did bring back some of those cuts specifically to Art and to physical education and then we absorbed some of the reduction uh some of the positions that uh were Grant funded where we offset them with some some reductions just that were a functional class SL that Eric M's position not get filled or uh it's not filled now but we're

111attending to fill but it's not a new it's not a new just being filed correct correct I guess what I'm getting at it's like all right so not this budget season but the following one their pounds expecting you guys to you know cut a school out of the savings right so that's add so somebody's going to be on a chopping block for a position right right now if you still that at that position Eric Martin position wouldn't say the principal or assistant principal would like that position that's a really good question why someone's going to get Cho next year and someone's getting higher this year yeah so that's a really really good question right um I have plans I'm not I'm not quite ready to share them with the community yet but um what we

112did this year just to give you an example is our Gilder sleeve principal is here on a one-year only contract we we offered her a one-year position because if we had we're we're heading towards Closing one school because we had a different outcome that was the position that we were going to reduce and generate some savings now that we have this vacancy does it make sense to to post that as a one-year position um that's something we're considering so if we did fill it that position or if there was an internal transfer into that position I'm looking to next year to fill that as a one-year only contract so that if we were consolidating schools at the end of next year then that position would be the one that Inu but that's a great question

113yeah yes I just I don't have the exact plan I'm ready to share with it yet but we're hatching it yeah that just in my head I'm thinking the person who is the principal or assistant principal would be like I a Portland so much I want to stay here but I'm gonna be gone and there's this other guy that just came in and yeah and that's why it's always important that you're upfront with people at the beginning so when they take the position they understand it's one year only otherwise hiring for a permanent position and then reducing it that that just wouldn't be treating people the right way so we're going to take advantage of this vacancy but whomever next year is a administrator is they will be here with an understanding that the term

114of the employment is guaranteed for one year but but beyond that no otherwise you know there are terms that what if you reduce in force there are salary protections and other things in the administrator's contract that we also want to reort okay thank you give me a yeah that's a that's a really good question we're working on that are you staying for the meeting when we talk about Capital happy to yeah I'll save my questions for them okay I have no other questions for right now um I see a 15,000 repairs and maintenance what's what's some of that is that the boiler Bob do you want to come up we talked a little bit about that so the boiler right and and you know what are we I hope we're not repairing the school we're

115going to close no that's his yearly budget for breakdowns throughout the year every year except this year we're trying to get it well I'll come on on that yeah we are because we're still using it so you still have to heat it you still have to repair it you still have to use it so yes we are every day maybe we should just give it to somebody and let them repair take ownership with the town no why it just doesn't Mak well so there's a lot to go along with that because you know you have the students and everything but yeah we're we're making repairs every day to an infrastructure that's fairly new 20 years still making repairs every day and going all the way back to 1932 making repairs so um the budget that

116you see is trying to get back to a budget that we had prior to restarting we're still considerably under where we were we're making great strides and doing an awful lot of work ourselves but it's becoming very difficult with Manpower so I do a lot of mechanical work as well to fill the voids to try to save money as well as be the director which I love to do because I'm the Hands-On guy anyways but it saves US money but we're getting to a point where we need to start putting um more money into these schools and that's what we're wrestling with now through consolidation and trying to find a better way to save money consolidation is definitely the only way to save money so we have to do that is there any big in

117this repair number is there is there something big happening or is this just no those are just general repairs our big stuff you know comes out of those line items but we do have fund balance um fund maintenance maintenance fund money that we use for really big um issues um not quite like the boilers and we also have Capital line item monies which is pretty minimal for me to use for hbac and stuff like that so really to understand the depth of what we do in building maintenance is to really understand the systems and the number of those systems just for instance there's over 80 appliances on top of the roof at the secondary school that have to be maintained fixed and serviced every day that's a very small portion what we do of the

118job I don't want I don't have to talk about bathrooms classrooms light fixtures faucets it's not the three or four that you have in the home it's the four or 500 I have in the schools that get used by an awful lot of people so the wear and tear and the the usage you'll see in my budget we have supplies the usage for paper goods and other things is just incredible if you look at our line item for electricity and natural gas those are some huge numbers and we're trying to get more efficient each and every day and we are using some programs moving forward especially with new efficient boilers new efficient controls that control our appliances in an efficient way so we're getting there but it really is all about the budget well actually

119you're one of the few this is one of the few times in this book I've seen electricity actually down a little bit every other department I've looked at it's up yeah we're we're making hard push uh LED lighting and and working with our control vendor on better controls for our heat and you're right heating systems and stuff we work hard yeah and solar panels at the at the bis they finally came online actually this year which school Brownstone y well I know that's kind of what I was getting at when I asked the question earlier yeah so this year we're able to do a big push at the high school on our own using some of our uh electrical our contractors for um environmental systems and uh we were able to push and grab a

120the advantage of a grant which I saved about 65% on each fixture and we were able to do the fixtures ourselves um and we were able to save that money right up front on our bill that's good yeah so I'm looking at that more than jumping into plans that we have to pay over time if we can certainly do that um then we're going to we're going to reap the benefits right up front on on energy we're going to see those savings instantly when we turn the lights on and that has again through consolidation and repairing some of these schools you're going to be putting those systems in and you're going to see some incredible savings on on energy okay thank you um more to come on that within next month with um I know

121you guys are yeah you guys are of handicap by the fact that you guys are actively talking about what to do with the schools as you have this kind of kind of cement a budget as well so um other what are what are the variables right now that play into this budget that you have to submit versus what might happen is there anything in here that you would change that we should be aware of that you think might be a big impact six months from now I know there's so many unknowns I know that's a moving Target you know did I have did I think that I would be standing here last week you know knowing that we were going to lose a boil in our school that we still have to keep open no

122yeah um you know you hope you don't have those those issues you hope my phone doesn't ring but it's really every Department that tries to run a building Andor um you know I did roads you just never know water sewer at all falls into so you hope that you have enough little contingency in some of those areas I'll tell you what that's one of the leanest budgets as far as there's really no contingency in there what we have to rely on is the building maintenance fund some money there um to be able to take care of those those critical needs um if that happens and then money and capital to make some improvements where we're not fixing something but in turn we're replacing it because it's too old and we get to that category where

123it's not worth fixing it's worth replacing such as the boilers but it gets it gets hard thank you that's good um right so I see Andy out there for parks of Rec um here's my suggestion let's go par right now and then let's go to Capital while we have gent here we'll go to Capital and then if we have time for the rest of it we can finish it up tonight if not we could put that on to tomorrow but wee that way we have to keep it going here if we don't need to yeah so good with that all right Andy come on up gonna go your department we may or may not have any questions but might as well be close by just in case uh so PA paage what P 132 it's

124going up to 1.17 okay got it 4.6 to okay between the two Rec 133 okay got it got it okay okay I gotta all right that's good to know all right um let's go to what page we 133 133 all right okay 13 all right I know we've gone through this before there was no big questions I had I know one of the things you mentioned was shortage of facilities especially with the maybe one school closing and what not so I'm sure that's still a big concern to yours in order to maintain the programs and all that kind stuff that I have the only thing I will add uh from our point of view um we're talking about um for this year uh adding uh different things to the events that we have the road

125races and others to perhaps generate additional revenue or reasons for people to stay so I know because you have so many activities running through the year um that may help offset some of the budget as well as get more participation which should keep on building and building the programs that you have so it'll start from one event at a time sure um but that I think may also assist with what you're doing thank you I don't have any specific questions for him just have a question that maybe we talked about this and I don't remember the the teen Recreation payroll were up by 12,000 is that tied to the minimum wage change it are there other factors there additional positions or not additional positions and I'm Andy di Prof director um it's mainly tied to

126the minimum wage increase and that's been it hasn't been announced for 2026 yet but based off recent history you know it may happen again I think it's maybe about 10% or so uh each year um but yeah this is just based off that I know Tom touched on it uh at the budget um workshops last week right thank you you're welcome right anybody else you got off easy thank thank you very much for stand the whole time absolutely like I sat here for this I can ask one more you gotta get one more question out here with the town Rec programs and the US of schools somebody had mentioned that what which are any of the schools not really utilized much by Parks and Rec or is there a pretty good amount by all I

127would say Valley View is used the least the least um but we're in Biz every single day we have our after school program there right um and then in the winter we're at the middle school Builder sand and um Biz every single day until closing and um sometimes longer uh traval basketball it's not a town entity but they had you know we were grateful that the codo staff is willing to work overtime they had to pay overtime two nights a week so um yeah we're especially in the winter we're in Three schools till close where in biz for the my son used to go or both my toys went at one point where is it still downstairs in the lower the old sewing room right now the old sewing room cor what is that in

128the basement in the basement it is we use the cafeteria and um in in the past we used the home act we the transition programs there now the whole the whole basement we make use of and the gym of course as well great thank you than Andy thank you very much you got a busy season ahead don't you all right um let's go to page 135 for Capital Improvements we got some of these people out of here where it's too late um I'll start I guess my biggest issue here is I know we've all talked about the school bond coming off and I don't think we're spending enough in school improvements at the high school middle school which we know isn't going anywhere um we've done minimal work and Capital Improvements the last five to

12910 years on the schools and with that money being freed up I would have thought we'd have seen a lot more on capital for that I know Bob had a presentation for the Strategic Capital Improvement committee uh how he would budget it if he had the money and when a school closes the money stayed from that how that would influence his spending and budget that way um I just I don't think we're doing enough to stay ahead of our repairs yeah for the last two years we've been talking about this saving off The Debt Service coming off $450,000 and we were going to roll that right into maintenance capital for for Bob Shay at the schools and that 105 is not really going to cut it for him I don't believe and I was under

130the impression that I mean everyone on this board that's been here for a couple of years was assuming that Bond was G that that debt service that off the bond was going to go into this fund $450,000 so until our next Bond starts yeah until starts which would be a couple of years so this would give them some money to start getting things done up at the secondary school so I don't know how the 105,000 number even came up but I don't know Jim John I know you guys been on a while were you guys kind of thinking the same thing that that that when it came off a Debt Service yeah and I'm also I'm the leaz on to the Board of Ed and I've heard this discussion I heard Bob's explanation of it

131and you know it's here I said this to a million people when we talk about this topics but here's my analogy you know you I our family runs into this problem all the time we have a car that we we want to purchase a new car but we sit on our existing car so long that there is no trade value in that vehicle at all when you go to get rid of the vehicle and buy a new one you paying full price I mean I look at this as as common sense we they needs to have some additional funds and we saw it Bob what what is that furnace the the unit costing in B $192,000 what was the number yeah say two of them right so you we're talking about you know we're saying

132we got $400,000 that we could let them leverage for a couple years we got $100,000 in there and he's already spent $300,000 on the boilers you know long answer to a long response to a short answer I agree with you I mean this is the thing we know is the high school middle school isn't going anywhere but we've already seen estimates of8 to1 million in repairs that two School need and we budgeted $105,000 in repairs because the other three schools obviously we're not going to do a major Improvement or renovation not knowing which which school is going to be closed but we know those two aren't going anywhere and we're not putting any money towards it yeah I mean I agree right we got look at doing the break fix to keep the schools operational

133while they're there but the long-term Investments whether it's in the Energy Efficiency or some of the other you know things that are you know basically make these things last longer yeah we need to focus on the buildings we know are going to be high school middle school once again I'll say I'm I'm also a member of the building us committee and the capital Improvement committee Bob has done Yan's work going through those items in each School line by line by line by line and trying to give us in a way to cut down the costs for this project trying to identify the things that could be done by maintenance instead of big ticket and it was a slap across the face for me to see the costs that we're talking about here every item is

134is tremendous and if you know if if Bob and his crew are willing to try to keep the total cost of a of a new project or major Replacements down by trying to do the maintenance as it comes up you can't do it for $100,000 I just want to Echo what Bobby said because that I was on the board of that and that was always our wish that when that Bond came off that a good piece of that money would be invested into the schools to keep them operating and to keep us with solid roofs over our heads and U it's it's a concern I didn't want to see that get you know just cannibalized into the budget to where now it's just gone and all we see is $157,000 um being used directly for

135the schools Bob would you come up for a minute so you have your fund 11 right which is that's your maintenance fund or your your Capital fund or can you explain that for you so fund 11 is a building maintenance fund and it's it's a not recurring fund if you don't you don't lose that so there's a certain amount of money that's put in it every year in the budget as well on the town side but we also are um able to put any fund balance money um that we may have that we' be lucky enough to have at the end of the year into that and we've done that for a few years I don't think we were able to do it last year because we were in a deficit but that's a wonderful

136opportunity to be able to not lose any savings that we've had in the budget and move it into into the maintenance fund that we can use for projects that I'll be able to tap into um each year as needed and right now separ in this budget it looks like we will be giving it looks like $41,000 is going to that every year or this year Town gets the same on the end where are you seeing that number um that's the 131 131 top okay that's what you're referring to as like f 11 yeah that's one of the funds separate from capital okay that's like the emergency fund it's one of those yeah capital is a little tighter both of them capital is planned it tells you what you have to spend the money on this

137is if something explodes capital's price and it's being able to advertise it over you know years there's a lot of financial stuff based on what fund to use but Tom is extremely helpful finding the right direction and what fund to use based on availability but as we know those funds are used for emergencies and those funds don't have an awful lot of money money in them now otherwise we would have been we probably wouldn't have had a dip into some other funds to do the boilers as well so like I said when I was here last time the work that Tom did to get us to that ref that town meeting was pretty incredible for us to be able to get these boilers hopefully online before we're that's needing to heat so we're going through

138that process now so hopefully we'll have a successful town meeting and then we can move forward with with a bid request on that and move forward but yeah so those funds are there for me to go after in the event that my phone rings at any minute and something doesn't work the form that you presented to the capital committee yes just the 4501 the first year yeah could you give us a brief of what your plan would be to do with that right so Dr Brittain met with me and we discussed this and we were trying to come up with a plan that worked for not only the first year but potential savings through consolidation and and adding to that and how much we thought maybe we'd be able to get over a three or

139fouryear period in savings before we started to have to possibly pay down a bond and then that money would go back and be used to pay towards the bond those consolidation savings so we came up with a number of almost $4 million over three years with the added consolidation savings and with that said the only thing that I did put together was some Poss possible improvements with the first $450,000 that we would move over and those were some in uh very important air quality improvement standards that we have with the state moving towards that you know put some money towards that I'm not quite sure what we're going to do there um there's an ionization project that I was very interested in but I'm looking at that now and seeing what the benefits are based

140on cost there or if I can move if I'm going to be making some changes with my HVAC unit my rooftop units need to be replaced we'll be adding humidification in those and new controls on those um with our vendor but also looking at possibly making sure that those rooftops are large enough to be able to handle a higher mve rating filter which may meet the standard for the air quality stuff so I might be able to save there and do more with my rooftops um control Replacements I talked about that goes hand inand and uh you know we have some valving issues at the school that really us back from making repairs and to be perfectly honest with you it's we just did 80 80 valves in the high school and the valves were

141able we had no way to isolate an individual heating unit in a classroom without draining 1,600 gallons of glycol from the system and shutting the school down I did that three times since I've been employed there which is not very long it's a very difficult process to do and so we I finally got tired of that and we invested the money money and valving off the majority of that school now so I can actually shut a classroom down and make a 10-minute repair to a valve and be back up and running so it's just things that were missed 20 years ago that I'm not quite sure why but some of the numbers that John sees are really because of where we ended that project 20 years ago and probably cut things out that we are

142really desperate to put in them so um some of those valve Replacements are part of this that you know I need to work on rooftops I need to add controls so I have that list mic with those improvements which come up to about four feet now that's a priori list that changes all the time based on me but I'd like to start the rooftop I'd like to start the air quality stuff because I know the state's going to be breathing down our back in the next year to find out what we're doing as long as we have a plan moving forward I think the state's going to be very happy about that because it's difficult for every school district to meet these standards so but where's where's this 450,000 it's did it come off this

143year or is it just coming off we made the last payment in this the year okay the next budget year we don't have it right we would have 450 without affecting the mill rate that we were used to paying that we were hoping to put where is it in here you 105 I think 105 you see how it's negative 36% oh thank that's the page I was looking for principal Bond down to 5 560,000 right5 back so just just explain this part and you guys can do what you want to do but so the on the so I'm pretty confident I don't can't access it right now but I'm pretty sure the 157 came from your Capital commission report from your longrange Capital commission pretty sure they uh recommended 157,000 for the bard of b

144um so that those numbers uh the the split of the 157 was a little different but we uh gave the 157 that they recommended and then um on page uh where the debt is you see the debt go down and what we did do is we increased um the uh the debt uh went down on the page 7 so th000 of the debt that went down in the capital lease that is now in the board of Ed's budget to replace Chromebooks so it came out of this budget from Capital lease but into their budget that's the plan that was great perfect the differential in the bond was more moved over to and and moved over more or less into the two the town and the board of capital so the town and board Capital increased

145by quite a substantial amount of money uh the boards was Zero last year an increase to 157,000 um and then uh the was 100 it was 56,500 last year for the town and that increased to 83,000 10 which if you do the difference of that 10 it is 43,500 so the the decrease in debt went back into Capital whether it went to the town or the board the the the utilizing with the long range commission I believe it said what they wanted for the amount for the board of AD that's what was given and then the remainder was and if you look at the you know the capital commissions report there's a huge amount of whether you want town uh items that are out board and and you said you want to do board do

146board you want to do town do town but there's capital projects everywhere immensely so we were trying to make sure we didn't build the capital the operating budget from the decrease so we moved it into Capital whether it's in the dur of where the capital you guys were expecting or or thought but that is in capital u so the most of the decrease in that is in the capital line so that's where it is I just wanted to explain that so you guys you know didn't think it was there and that's where the 157,000 came from Dr Bron I have a question for you without the Strategic capital improvements committee coming up with their finding right we know one way or another we plan on closing a school in the future is there a possibility

147of one being closed this fall definitely not um yeah we we we we we want to it would be way too complicated to do that and um we we want a year to plan I mean we need to communicate it we need to get rooms ready you just packing up alone is going to going to be a lot um that that closing a school in next fall that between now and then that it would it would be way too disruptive I couldn't I couldn't recommend that I don't think the Board of Education would support it I think it would be really bad for the kids if if we were you're you're going to hear from the committee right we're hoping probably the middle of April we're going to have some recommendations some you know some

148proposals if those show up in a a new bonding measure maybe this spring or early next year and we can plan spend the year planning for and I can build a budget around it that's the right way to do it um but closing a school this this fall oh my goodness I think that yeah that that would that would be alarming I I don't know how without knowing which school we would close and then it it would be I think it would just just be too much but to your point you know if and and I know you guys were on the facility study committee and that was the plan out of the facility study committee that by consolidating from three to two schools I'm still projecting there somewhere between 700 and $ 800,000 in

149savings there right well that that's what I was wondering because if say it was The Brownstone right sixth grade is automatically going to the middle school right and fifth grade would be moving backwards that's part one one of the things we're looking at so you're right if that if that happens right and there's that $800,000 in savings which you know we talked about the consult stud committee matched up with what we were looking at with the 550,000 from the retirement of the bond at the high school you know that's $1,300,000 that we would in in a future budget proposal I'd be saying hey instead of going out with a low lower percent increase let's capture some of that money use that for three years which would get us close to $4 million over that three-year

150period work on the high school side of it and then when we start paying off the new debt service it's there to to contribute towards the principle that was the the concept that we actually came up with I thought was a very clever idea coming out of the facility study committee that's still very much alive I think what I just heard Tom say which is important is that he's done that that that while the capital from the retirement of the bond of high school hasn't gone to the the um School side it's still there for other Capital needs in the town it doesn't mean that if we're consolidating next year and that 800,000 7 to 800,000 in savings is there you can't reallocate it right we can grab some of that back and start working

151on these things but I think what you're going to hear coming out of a committee that that John and Bob and I are working hard on are some of these recommendations that are going to show up in the future but I don't see any way out of the pickle we're in just through Capital there there's going to need to be some bonding right but once you borrow that money to bond it's going to for a period of three years free up some funds through the the savings from reducing the operating budget and potentially grabbing back some of that Capital um but you know I think that when when you see Bob stress we got to do this like I mean things are getting progressively more expensive at the same time that the buildings are continuing

152to deteriorate more as evidenced by the borer issue um we we need to move um and I know that that committee is working very quickly we have our our final walkth through at Gilder sleeve Thursday we're getting back together the first week of April and I think either at the the meeting on the first week of April or or the second week we're going to start making some decisions and one of the big ones is which school would be decommissioned I know that that's something we're very much [Music] wrestler it's safe to say that it's it's not going to be on the May 5th or may no it's GNA go November no way no no right would short of a miracle short of a miracle referendum in November but you still have to game plan

153for The Following fall like it leaves you what say 10 months yeah and the hard part about that right and we're gonna have to figure this out is that we we don't apply to the state for the grant which could be upwards of 50 50% or more until the following June so we're you know if we got this in let's just say we had a referendum and a miracle happened in June right which who knows I we got a lot of work to do but you know I think there's a lot of wind in our sales and we if we did it in this June then by June 30th Stephanie and I would be doing what we did last June which is submitting the grant we can't do do it the same way because of

154of this presidential election and they allowed us to put in a grant before they had an approved um bonding measure now we have to do it the other way we have to have the approved bonding measure before we put in the grant so if we got to November and had the bonding and it was approved by the the voters then we'd have to wait till June of that next year to submit it and we wouldn't yet hear back from the state until the following December so you see how the the timeline gets pushed out but that doesn't mean that if we had a bonding measure in November we couldn't then plan to move the children and and some of our grade levels the following year we would just need to be in very close communication

155with with the state and making some decisions about what we can start doing to to move up the Tim it's it's complicated but it's it's not impossible and I I got to be honest I haven't given up hope of potentially a June bonding referend I think May would would be a big ask but maybe if we looked at first or second week of June you know I think we would be wise to potentially do this before school gets out because people go off on vacation with their kids um but you know I I know that there are at least three people in this room right now that are on that committee that would mean that some recommendations and decisions needed to be made first or second week of April so that I could write that

156specs plan do the work with my my team frier could give us a conceptual budget we could work with Bond counsel it would just have to happen very quickly if we were trying to meet a June 30th deadline otherwise you're right it might be looking out towards the fall next year but your plan back to where we started here the the original facility study committee I thought it was very clever coming up with this plan to apply consolidation savings match it up with the funding that becomes available from the consolidation apply that funding to the secondary school for the three years before The Debt Service on the new Bond comes out and I thought that that was one of the very clever recommendations coming out of the facility study committee that that you gentleman and

157it's still something we should definitely be considering doing to start working on the secondary lot of work to do lot of work to do we're good Dr Britten thank you very much thank you so we can continue to go through the capital Improvement plan um I have a suggestion I think we've covered all of the Departments that are represented in this room right now we have some of the miscellaneous categories we can after the capital Improvement plan we can plow through and work on that and finish it up tonight um folks that are out there don't need to stay for that if you don't want to because it doesn't directly affect yours um or we can with capital and just continue this tomorrow I say we go through the other sections I don't think it'll

158take us out long I don't think so either everyone's up for we continue on all right beautiful so if we've covered your department and you feel like going home I think we've covered all the questions we want to ask so all right Capital Improvements uh I just want to add one thing uh if michrina could come back up that' be a big help uh we talked about in the budget workshops that there was a container lids for the bulky waste that if if they had had Lids it would save us a bunch of money and overage page for paying for water snow ice yada y y that's correct is that just for one container or is it for $3,400 per container and how many containers would have to get done we were going to experiment

159with one right now one and the bulky waste one where you're paying by the tone yeah but like snow rain water and we I mean I don't know what the overes are that we pay but I'm sure it's a pretty decent size number in at 34 we probably pay for itself in a year what what does it cost per dry ton versus what does it cost per wet ton you know sitting out in the snow all all winter because in the winter months there's not a lot of use we don't haul it out a lot so thing just sitting there wide open so it could be two weeks three weeks it's all snow ice rain you paying what are you paying per ton to get rid of it I don't know what the cost is

160tom9 I was going to say it's at least but we we were looking at how much water would get trapped in there if we you know just I 8 pounds per gallon and how many how much gallons when you get a 24 by eight container and it's full of stuff and it gets water loged you know you you significantly increase your weight and that once we they people came in and dropped that off when it was dry and uh they paid one rate and then we're paying a much higher rate to get rid of it yeah covering the containers makes sense and I think Mike we have neighbors that are doing that you know Cromwell and and they've had success with the same yeah and we can install and so essentially like you would get

161that in Savings in a year or so like it would instantly have l a year so you yeah so we're paying to get rid of water and ice and St this is the same thing we talked about with the food scrap recycling program we pay over $3,000 a year to get rid of the food scraps and we're paying three times the price that we do to get rid of waste we pay over $300 a ton for food and that was one of the things we were going to discuss about whether we were still going to do it or not if we don't pays for another cover yeah so I mean we need a couple CS to to spend $3,400 on a cover makes sense to me if you're going to get that back in Savings

162in a year and then multiple years after you're GNA start making money out not making money more yeah you save more more and more yeah spend money to save money right what's the useful life of the cover I mean are they pretty durable yeah crell swears by them I mean eight years old okay so they'll last a number of years what are they made out of plastic that's why the idea was by it takes 15 pounds of force to move the entire coverter off the can let it down and to put it back on then the ratchet straps take the can and go you cover it every single night and I think that's why Mike your the recommendation would be right start with one get the experience with it see see what it's actually going

163to save and then then buy another one next year or or whenever we can waste is that's where you're you're spending a lot of a lot of money hauling water you know it would be nice to get two and put it on another can because when you swap it out right but to start with one know how do you guys feel about adding that to the capital program or Capital RIS that a small enough I think it makesense with it it's a small purchase it's going to pay for itself total 3,400 that's a it's bot today though we got to add a little bit couple hundred bucks was 3460 so without having to come back ask you for more we should go just a couple hundred hours more $400 Tom saying four grand 4000 all

164right go to 4,000 okay [Music] right where are we back on page 140 bottom of the page page 140 40 all resource recovery compactor containers so and four grand in there we're doing [Music] transfer out cap non [Music] Rec 4,000 [Music] okay e [Music] recovery not yet I'd suggest we go through the rest of it and then leave after those for tomorrow I'm fine with that all right because I think we can go through everything else going to be too much discussion no no problem I agree let's let's go to page 111 so now on other special R right okay uh let's go right to go right to 113 looking at the other ones 13 sewer that's Revenant yeah second let me see and then 114 yeah 114 I don't have anything on 14 or

16515 I have nothing flagged at all here no anyway so so something was brought up today with regards to sewer um you want to bring that up a ter of once brainer gets up and going oh yeah um had a good idea I talked with with uh Rhino Halpin with Jimmy Lynch about us bringing in septic trucks uh right now they're only two places nearby to dump that's reasonable is East Hampton and matasa and Cromwell um since we had a couple of large water users closed in town like Stone container um who was the printing price where concentric is and somebody else they didn't have the flow to take the concentration from septic tanks but it is a large Revenue builder for the town um they both said when brainer play starts coming online and

166the residents are moving into the apartments then we should look at it and consider it to start bringing it in again um I know East Hampton just raised their rates 50% this year yeah I think that's a good idea Bob we got um I know we talked about that a few years ago is Revenue generator and that was exactly the issue the flow was too low and when those trucks come in they're typically a very high concentration yes and you can cause imbalances if you try to process them but if we have a higher flow there's much more uh it'll allow things to operate in much more steady state y so hopefully maybe if it's not the end of this year maybe early next year there'll be enough residents living there that they think we

167can start doing something good idea that would add to our Revenue yes yeah whatever we could do we haven't done it I believe in like 15 years like the last time it was um Stone container was open and the printing place next to it way really they were two of the largest water users in the town okay and they got replaced with people that don't use water so the Flow came down to a trickle got it did you um you you me you talking you said Ryan you also talked with yep yeah that's good because I know the last time we talked brought this up with him he he was not in favor because we didn't have the flock so it's a nice um yep that that's good that's really good all right great idea

168anything else with sewer no I don't see all right next page 116 that's Revenue all right and let's go to 117 yeah I mean I think the challenge with water right as we're looking in look at these we saw a pretty significant uh we saw fall off in some Revenue [Music] um in the 23 24 right probably because it was a very wet year you know you know um people weren't watering WS as much and I think that the meter sales Mike if I I think the meter we looked at the 20 23 24 the metered sales were down about 10 million gallons or something like that it was it was um so we could actually see that but it's it's tough because right now we're looking at you know about a 12% increase and

169some of that is obviously to get that um the addition of half an FTE and some of that is building in additional costs for water um mainly around the uncertainty with our pending negotiation I guess the issue is that you know I'm I'm kind of trying to figure out how we do this without having to uh sort of like reactively look at doing anything with rates you know the voters trusted us to basically take on a bond that's going to lower rates in the long term and at a time you know and we've been running a surplus in water and then this year we I think we switched from we went from a surplus to a deficit and I think it's a combination of some of those factors we had some incremental costs and I

170think we had some reduced sales what's [Music] that yeah um are we allocating for the additional employee here I I believe that's I thought work because we're jumping from 229 to to 75 that's yeah I have a note here that says the extra someone must have told us that yeah yeah yeah this say fulltime one full-time person to be hired but if you look at the water cost you MDC went from 815 to 875 yeah so so for example right in 23 and 24 and we at our 146 million gallon take a pay right um but that's always something can be a little um interesting because the take or pay runs January to December 146 million but the budget but the budget right obviously were you know July to June 30 so they're out of

171sync so you could ostensibly have more than 146 million gallons acrost in our budget year um it doesn't usually happen that way I think usually the water crew they they run the well poter in the back half of the year when things are drer coming out of Summer and they do that to make the 146 million gallons and then in the spring they much more they really modulate it to try to hit the town budget um they you're saying in the spring we're running our well more we run our well more typically in the spring than we do right and then and they'll really control that flow to try to make the budget what's that yeah we did for not um we we had to pay we had to pay because we didn't I think

172two years ago we were we were about six million gallon shy and then I think we were about one and a half million gallon shot of hitting the 146 million taker pay which in my view you know it's always nice to get everything you pay for but it probably hurts our budget a little bit less than if we went over by 6 million gallons right because the MDC water is a lot more expensive than what we taken out of the L so it's a you know I'd rather come it's kind of like federal taxes right I'd rather I'd rather come owe just that little bit than than than have to pay out [Music] um but I guess that was my question looking at this is we've got a 12 and a half we have a

17312.2% um you know increase overall in that budget some of those numbers we're not really sure if they're going to put into coition you don't know how the negotiations going to go um you know Etc and I guess budget wise I'm fine with the way things are budgeted the question would be do we think we need to do or or you know I don't I don't know whether or not we'd want to do anything right now looking at rates other than just be aware of if some of these other things with we just have to see how things have really tracked that budget I think the the jump from but we're not even sure if we're going to use the 8115 th000 well that that's what was interesting right so yeah that was a pretty

174146 million and we were running at you know 750,000 I think the the rates went up from um I want to say it was like U $380 you know 80 cents per C 391 or something to 391 per CCF so it's about a 2.8% increase in the in the water class plus we don't know what the water cost is going to you jump will look like in November um but I think part of it is is that you know MDC has stated that they would like to see a a new model emerge where they're charging customers for reserve for you know the reserve water and I'm not necessarily sure that we agree with that methodology um I'm pretty certain we don't but um but that's that's what that there's there's a a number in there

175that's a hedge against that um you know just in in in case so that's that I just kind of want to lay out the different things I saw in the budget I'm not sure we you know need to make any adjustments at this point but certainly we're going to have to watch the budget really close to make sure you know we're managing those expenses well I don't know I I think that 875 is a little aggressive they that we're putting in this year but we don't know what happens after January 1 well that's true but I have a note here on the revenue side that we're not none of the brainer Place revenue is in here is that true yeah the brainer place I don't think there there's no history of it yet right they

176we don't know but we know they're using it's all bonus for Stewart and water yeah we know we know we to start seeing a bump and when you think about it it's you know if you got 238 units that come on with just the first two towers right and obviously the first Towers coming online but you know there's 2,300 users on the system so you know that's not an insignificant amount of water that that facility is going to use in general well in the Starbucks is they're on the water Starbucks is there definitely the one offset is that because of the way everything's currently written in the way it was built we're not doing one meter per apartment so we're not getting a meter charge per apartment I think we're getting a meter charge per

177per building if I I don't what's that it's all monitored by the Yeah so we we're doing like a bulk handoff I think per building metering it and then they're monitoring it for you know they're breaking it down which is I think consistent for example with how um Bartlet Hills barlet Hills oh yeah you don't want hundreds of individual meters well it would have been running a water system I'd love to have be charged for those meters versus you know but because they pay a quarterly fee per meter correct right we also it yeah all those meters yeah that's okay that's one van driveth through there and it would read them all I'm okay because they those would all be self-read would be good remote reads well hopefully a year from now we will have

178a a functional well and we'll have a lot of things in place and be on our way toward water Independence that's kind of where I like I look at this and I I look at why and I understanding all the numbers in the budget um you know I think it's very important not only do we have the the the individual listed in there um to get that FTE but that we actually start we have to get that FTE posted and moving um that department is still running with just the two active people and um that's that's a little lean you know we just had a situation with one employee out and one employee really having to uh do double time you know because they're on they got to have somebody on every weekend but um

179but I think we're just really going to have to track this this budget when we do our finance meetings we're really going to have to track this one carefully to see what we're gonna have to doing so to Rick's point do we want to keep that 875 at that number I would because we don't know what happens after the New Year make sure and I and I think we can have it in there as a budget number knowing that and that um hopefully we won't need it right oh but up everything's upside well yeah that's that's kind of where it is it covers us if we need it perspective but was that I'd rather be safe yeah agree yeah right yeah I'll do with that I'm good all right next Animal Control first page 19

180is revenue s here we go 120 I don't have anything on this I yeah got nothing of the take kill we in Animal Control right yeah I still I have a note from the presentation they're still trying to locate a partner for the program I mean if they can get a partner that can help yeah that's an on yeah we're looking right now 122 is Road fund that's Revenue the town a road fund that's that's yeah just comes in what is what what is that town a road on road that's from the state that's us to fix roads every year oh oh they give us money and then we yeah we decide whether the chip sealer pave with it yeah is that correct Mike Services 125 I don't have anything for each Services the the

181only thing I flagged was the high medical for one person there but there was that was a change in their plan Tom told us y That's they went from like a single to a family exactly that's just what it cost so yeah right okay that's all set well for one person that's pretty good well crazy that wasn't it yeah what your cost I mean that's half of their salary half of the salary all right resource resource recovery department that's 128 I got one thing on 128 yes the last item bags and stickers yes we went from 58 66 10 15 uh just question that amount because I visited the Landfield and when I was trying to get that see ask more questions about that dumpster cover and I'm buying my bags there I talked to

182the gentleman in there and asked him how's your bag Supply yada yada I said oh yeah we have enough for two years so I'm like so we're still funding bag supplies I understand you have to change stickers out of years because there's dates on them but I think we might have an overabundance of bags there so I'm trying to pay for this cover if I could take the money out of that to pay for this cover inrease is a big increase I to go back to five but I mean I don't know how much bags cost and stickers cost but is there any truth to what I was saying yes we did an inventory yeah and that is true the we have a total count I don't have to right count but hdden inventory then

183either the mediums or the smalls you have enough for two years large you may have so you're saying consolidating everything and doing an inventory so we may require a a small budget for large bags and and the stickers for the windshields Without Really knowing what a price would be stickers are yeah so the year buy the new ones for New Year I don't know how many they buy but I you don't need pets of bags yeah so it's at 15 grand now can we go to 10 you want 75 and split it can we go lower maybe ask time what the bags cost I don't know what they I'd like to pay for that new cover four and then possibly another one like to go eight grand yeah if I can save eight then you

184can get two BS together get feel the same way I think that we farmwell has a great history with those covers I know we're talking about one to try it yeah but yeah if we could fund it with something that would be terrific so yeah we're trying to pay Ste for Peter to pay paal here so so so the rationalization of what that number is is the the director of Public Works had gone out and tried to research how to acquire bags in a better manner um the uh we use waste zero as our current vendor we've used them for long time they're the people that kind of created the whole Ro to pay model um they are the people that provide the bags that's uh they have a strong hold on that market um

185when the uh attempt was made the to make the purchase to make it reasonable you had to purchase close to $20,000 of large bags from a different vendor that's how they would produce them to be at a level to be in cost savings measure um so uh there was a change in the Personnel in this department so there was some slight Savings in areas so I tried to get it to uh try to get to the number that he was requested um I believe was like a 20 or 25,000 number I could not do that so we got it to the 15 to try to creep it up U if they want to say the course and buy with weight zero um buy your stickers I mean you can probably what was I think the

186number last year was 10 so you stick with the 10 number um in the 10 the 10 budgeted that I mean uh it's like a the thing is that you can't just be like say oh I want like this little bit of of bag you're buying these massive uh real reams of bags and then they come in um and the in in the models are switched behind different years so some years it's small some years it's a medium some years are larges depending there is a possibility that Mike says that there is some potential overage there but if you do Buy in it's not like you say I'm G to go buy $2,000 of bags this year that's how it works you have to have enough to make to buy into their the ball deal

187to be able to be what anywhere cost efficient so that's where that was where the the the 15 came from was to go up uh trying to get to the number if we were trying to get another vendor um so I mean you probably are safe with the 10 um to toh be able to accomplish both and if you don't you're going to be slightly over so it wouldn't be terrible that'll give you the Five Savings M you yourself I'll take the the 10 and it gets us a cover all right this quick question um do we this is more of a general question do we ever go in with other towns and buy supplies like we ever go in with eastampton and share in order to buy things at a discount Municipal well the

188difference is all of our bags are stamped Town of Portland well that's a minor complicated General right so yeah East Hampton does it very different they station you pay somebody five bucks and they let you throw away but yeah very different hey Mike I had a question what what are the service contracts like what the example big service contract is gring okay and where are we taking where are we taking our like to okay the the bin we throw most of our stuff in the recyclables supposedly just going to the incinerator the inator Clos truck train okay thank you so we are KN that together on 112 [Music] what on page 112 hold on no no 128 128 okay got yeah we're dropping 00501 General 5K Tom what page was that again that last one

189last one 107 107 thank you trying to keep up with it moving fast was that 9005 they were taking five k oh we added four gr we added four now we're taking five off so we're net down one all right that's good again toward BAS all right um anything else with resource department no I have nothing we coming to the end to the end um page nothing par is it possible that we are done we haven't we're in New Capital tomorrow but we did 4000 we add 4,000 so far guys want to try to give this a shot so we get it done tonight we students oh that's right over I'm fine let's tomorrow I got I'm good it's early it's early for Jim yes it is all right um well was it was three

190hours it's a long numbers and discussion we've been here since six you've been here all day been all day it's only been a 4 hour day um all right well listen thank you very much spending the time you're on this people in the audience I appre you guys sticking with this for all 17 hours it's what it felt like probably um if you're watching at home we appreciate you paying attention I would like to call this reading over someone second it I move all those in favor yes any obsessions no we got it