Bolton Coffee and Conversation - Let’s Talk Budget - June 19, 2025

001So, as you all know, we decided to try to get some people together to ask questions and we requested people to send them in ahead of time and uh we have I think send questions, but some of them get into great length of detail. Um and and they're I think they're pretty standard questions. Um, for example, this one is, "Stop increasing our taxes. I have lived in Bolton since 2016. My taxes have gone up 50%. I know many other residents are ma residents are mad about this, too. This is why your budget isn't passing. Operate in the confines of your existing budget. Also, $20,000 for a basketball court. Most locals don't even use Indian Notch Park because it's loaded with non-residents. If you really wanted to make a difference, then make the park for residents

002only so we can enjoy it. Then maybe we would feel better about the $20,000 piece of guitar. Uh, you know, if I had to read the name or not? No. So, would you like me to address that then? Yeah. You want to start with the Yeah. with the so Indian notch park cannot be made for local residents only because we took federal dollars when we purchased that piece of land and developed it into a park and by taking those federal dollars we are required to have the park open to both residents and non-resident um the $20,000 for the basketball court I I think that number is relatively accurate and those are things that so we actually took a a few things out of the capital budget and we are using ARPA money for those things

003because per frankly we thought that those were things that were better funded from other sources rather than taxpayer dollars that we collected from Bolton taxpayers. So there are actually three basketball courts that are being reclaimed and redone. They've been in our capital budget for a very long time. Some of them were getting to the point of being unsafe. But rather than doing that with Bolton resident taxpayer dollars, the board of selectmen decided to use funding from the ARPA funds that we got from the federal government to do those three basketball courts. Those courts exist at Indian Notch Park, uh the park over behind the Bolton Center school that the old Bolton Center school that's now coming down and the one at Heric Park. So, we took one of our uh written questions. Is there anybody

004here in the audience that has a question for the panel? Yes, sir. Uh maybe not so much as a comment, but uh prepared. Prepared statement. Uh I don't know if you want me to stand or not. Whatever. However you're most comfortable. This is Matthew Rivers Fairwood. Uh well I'd like to start by saying thank you to the uh boards of select and finance and education for getting uh pieces of this budget assembled uh and to fit together. It's a you know big task and getting any budget passed. That's another task altogether. Um with this one proving obviously particularly difficult. Uh my guess is that this meeting is to perhaps gather ideas uh to help uh help this budget pass and it's a good idea. It's a good start. Um but my concern is that uh

005the input gathered here may apply better to future budgets rather but less so to the currently contested one. Uh that being said, I am of the opinion given the respective proportions of the budget uh they consume that there are two areas that stand out as having the potential for reduction. Uh those being education and refuge collection. Uh while the desire to maintain the status quo is understandable, unfortunately current events show that that's not sustainable. The tried and trueue methods of board select and finance education have sufficed until now but innovative solutions need to be proactively uh sought with everyone understanding that changes are necessary. Thank you. Thank you. Uh so so this referendum is already settled. There's nothing we can do. Oh uh hopefully we don't have another one. Could I could I ask for

006some additional feedback on refues? Sure. So, you know, we we have refues in there and that is a you know, that is a benefit that you receive as taxpayers and we can't reduce the cost of refuge collection. We've we've done a lot so far. We are we are working with the capital region council of governments to try to work on putting a program where we take organics out of the waist stream because that will help reduce our tonnage and that will reduce our cost over time you know but that that requires buyin from the public who are you know depositing materials in the trash as well. Um, so that's one thing we can do, you know, and refuge is a huge part of the the board of selectman's budget. You know, we've we've negotiated contracts

007for several years out. You know, our town attorney actually works for SCARA, you know, that's one of his jobs, which is a very large trash company in southern Connecticut, you know, and he helped us negotiate these contracts. Uh, we worked very, very hard at this. I think it took us almost a year to assemble these contracts and get them in order. And so really the only thing we can do I think at this point other than as a as a town, you know, find ways to reduce how much we put into the waist stream. The the only other thing we really can do to reduce those costs is to eliminate it completely from the selectman's budget and you would pay for it independently as taxpayers. The problem is that costs you quite a bit more.

008It's actually less expensive, you know, the way that we have it now than it would be individually. Um, so I think that's something to that's something to know, you know, when you're when you're looking at that. It's a it's a big number. It's a big number. You know, we recognize that. We've worked really hard at it. We and we continue to work to try to find, you know, ways to reduce those costs. And we would we would need a infrastructure that handle the transfer stations and and I think I heard something the other day saying it cost them 700 bucks a year to do the trash pickup. Yeah. It's it's Yeah. I I don't know. You got to hire a private contractor to do it. A town like Andover, right, would do that. They don't

009have Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. So Andover has invested a lot of money in their transfer station. So the people can actually bring their garbage to the transfer station and we would we would have to do a lot of rework of our transfer station. It would also cost more labor hours because we'd have to be open more um you know in our it would be a different class of licensing with the D. You know right now we're just a transportation. It takes solid waste. You know we're not taking garbage. So those would be expenses that we would have to incur in order to be able to have residents be able to take, you know, household trash to a transfer station. It would require a lot of infrastructure upgrade. Think back on that a little bit. um

010that when we um we had talked about with state and basically the idea is that the residents are going to you know they have to pitch in in order to reduce cost and things or to to meet some of these solutions. The residents have to step up a little bit too. So reducing the food waste um is unfortunately it's not that hard for people to do if they choose to do it and it's hard to change people's behavior but it was more to make a statement that um that there are solutions or there are some things that can be brought to bear to help reduce the cost and it wasn't to change the contract it was more about yeah other innovative solutions right I mean and the more we can do you know to positively

011recycle and the more we can do to remove remove organics from the waist stream and that you know that could be as simple if you have the right kind of yard you know doing some composting you know until we have a program in place that allows you you know different methods of of reducing that organic waste in the in the trash can um so I got another question on here what is the proposed projected mill rate for 26 that just got posted today right I think it Yes. Yes. And that is uh 32.97 from the current rate which was 32.74 but the actual effective mill rate previously was 30.84. So essentially it's going up 2.15 three 1.3. Um, so and then next question, what percentage increase is being proposed for the Bolton the BOE budget

012uh for 2526 versus 2425 and what are the primary reasons for the increase? Kristen's not here yet. She is. Oh, she is. You want to grab that one, Kristen? Sure. Yep. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me tonight. I appreciate it. So, um, with the current, um, reductions that have been made by the finance committee, uh, totaling $482,382 to the board of education's budget, the budget request now sits at a 1.72% or $284,364. The questions we got by email or answers. And last year's increase was a 2.71% increase. um what has been done and what could be done to reduce the Bolton school budget for 2526. Uh I don't I don't you got to find out where you are first right before Well, yeah. So, if I could offer just a couple of things,

013Rodney, if I could. Um, I did share with the board of education at the last board meeting last Thursday that based on the current level of cuts, um, my recommendation to the board for the cuts would be as follows. um the initial cut of 230,000 for the first um round um we were able to offer up because we had salary savings totaling $89,591 from um new hires and we had finalized um our insurance number along with our open enrollment and we had some life changes that actually went in the favor of the board totaling $140,49. So that total was $230,000. In addition to get to the $482,536. Um it will be my recommendation to also cut a 1.0 administrative assistant position um which was just um vacated a month ago. U the person left the

014district and to cut a vacant 1.0 parah educator position. And we also have some recognized savings um in our outplacement costs for special education due to an outplace student who just moved out of district and that totals the $482,536. You want to explain open enrollment? Certainly. Oh, okay. Go ahead. I can do it if that's a or do you want to? No, go ahead. Other than here. So, um every year in here And again, I turned it up to 78. I'll turn it off. Very hot. Yes, I do. Okay. Sorry. There was someone talking. They are not muted. Um, every year, um, after we receive our insurance number, we have to wait for the final rates for medical, dental, and vision. Once we have that, we have to offer up open enrollment to all our

015employees for employees to either choose to come on to our insurance. They can make changes to their insurance. For example, um we had someone make a change, they were a single person, they just got married, so now they're a two person insurance plan. Um we have people who brought their family on. they maybe they took insurance just for themselves and maybe the husband and the kids were on the husband's insurance and they decided to come on our insurance. So once we have all of that information, we then know what our total savings will be. And just so everyone knows, we don't just take a stab in the dark at our insurance number in terms of what people are selecting. We send out a form every fall and ask people to give us their best projection

016for what they intend to do with regards to insurance. Are they going to stay the same on the plan? Are they making a change? And if so, what what do they intend to change it to? Are they going to come off the plan? Now, we can't hold them to it, but it helps us for budgeting purposes to really have a better sense of capturing exactly what we're budgeting for. So, it's a little bit of a moving target. It's not too bad. Yeah. So, we don't, you know, we don't have the information when we start building our budgets, which is what Kristen's alluding to. We we don't know what our rates are. Somewhere in the beginning of our budget process, we get a best guesstimate from the insurance company. So this year their best guesstimate at

017the beginning was that our insurance rate would increase by about 13%. for health insurance and then you know when we actually get the numbers you know sometimes it's not until after the vote has actually happened. This year we actually did get them kind of surprisingly early and we ended up at an 11% uh insurance rate increase which is compared to what we've been increasing the last couple years it's high but compared to the free market because we're with the state insurance plan it's really less volatile than the open market. So to be honest, if we went out to the open market like we used to be Bolton, the town of and the board of education, we we do our insurance together and we we were with Anthem when I first came to Bolton. Then we

018moved to Connecticut and one person getting really sick could increase our insurance increase to like 25 to 30% because we are such a small entity. We then developed a um insurance collaborative with other small communities and districts. We did that for a few years and then we still weren't really big enough and we had some very high claims between the entire group. And our not to exceed number that year was something like 28% which is what then caused us to move to the state partnership plan which covers a number of school districts and municipalities across the state. So, it's a much larger um bargaining unit in terms of insurance um numbers. So, that is really our best option for health insurance to be anywhere in the ballpark of being affordable. So, just so everybody understands,

019uh the school system has how many employees? I think we have like 148 or something on health insurance, something like that. and and the town has another about 50. So So we're into 200 people here. 200 and plus families. So it's not easy to collect all this data. Uh and and just in the event nobody knows this is Ashley Failen board of Ross Lai, he's on the board of finance. Amanda Gordon is on the board of selectman. Ria Klein is back there. Chris Davies is back there. Uh, so we have several board members here for you and we have questions. Just ask whoever Mark is online to please mute themselves because we're hearing their dog. We're going to we're going to mute them for you. Um, is this Thank you. of health insurance. The the

020other thing has been shared with me by a number of residents is they there's a perception that the health insurance that's offered to our employees is just um, you know, too rich. I I suppose too favorable. Um, so Chris and I, we did spend some time talking about that. Um, and the notion that we pay 100% is is not true at all. The employees certainly, you know, share in that cost of the premiums. Um, and I I understand it's quite comparable, if not a little less favorable as compared to benchmark other towns and other schools. So, I did want to clarify um, you know, I originally thought when I joined the board of ed that, you know, we we paid 100% of Right. Yeah. I I can say on the on the town side depending

021on the bargaining unit our employees are paying anywhere I think between 12 and 18% of their cost share for their insurance which is yeah and and I was and I will also say this you know when we had the Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield that was a very premium health plan it simply got unaffordable and so the employees had to make concessions in the health care program that they adopted you Um it it was mostly equal but not quite as good as it was not quite as robust. It didn't cover as much as the Anthem program uh that we had. And this is a you know this is a health care program that requires employees to be proactive about taking care of themselves so that overall the costs are reduced. That was not the case

022with the Anthem plan that we had. It was a PO and it just covered everything with fairly low co-pays. Uh it was it was considered a Cadillac plan. Uh but we we've moved we moved away from that Cadillac plan probably six or seven years ago. Um and you know we're we're now we now have a a very good plan but I would say it's it's not a cat it's certainly not a Cadillac plan. That perhaps is where their perception was coming you know in that was six or so years ago. Go ahead. Um, Amanda, I just wanted to elevate a point that Jim just made that there are bargaining unions units unions involved. And so while with a private employer who may get an increase, you may pass that expense off on the employees, that's

023not something that the town and school can do, right? The portion of the premiums and the cost need to be negotiated as part of those union contracts every time those contracts are up. So it is it is a fair bit different than the private business market that a lot of folks are used to working within. Okay. Do um the last question on here is what has been done or can be done to encourage new business to come to Bolton and to help to reduce the tax burden on homeowners. Uh so we're working on trying to get water up Route 44. Uh the state might pass this housing law which who knows what could happen with that. Uh our planning and zoning department is working through their regulations trying to make them easier and more attractive

024to businesses. Uh do you want to add anything to that? No, I think you know that's that's the tough part is we we have sewer but we don't have water and without that infrastructure it you know the housing piece of it makes it really difficult um es especially and you know it also makes it less attractive for businesses that might need that infrastructure. You know I we we really appreciate the business partners that we have in town like Simon and Simonise is a great community partner. You know you see that they do a lot for the town. you know, they they do things for the school, they subsidize the concerts on the green, but you know, they're buying water every day. They're they're buying water from the town of Manchester. Um, and you know, all

025of the businesses that we do have on that small section of Route 44, almost all of them have public water supplies. And when you're a public water supply with a private well, that's an additional cost that you have to bear as a business. So this is a vision of the board of selectmen. You know, I think it was about a year and a half ago, the board of selectmen had a retreat and they talked about the things that they'd like to accomplish and this is one of the things that is a vision for them is to be able to bring a waterline in from Manchester. I can tell you we've we've had meetings with the town of Manchester, several of them. Um, you know, we've asked, you know, our state legislators to give us some

026money for us, you know, to complete a study as to what we need to do and what it would cost. Uh, I don't think that was funded in this legislative session, but we'll continue to work with them. We'll continue to work with the town of Manchester and we've also, you know, the the town manager from the town of Manchester was also going to reach out to Coventry and see if they had interest in partnering with the other two towns on this because as if we do it as a region, the grant the grant monies that we get will be much more favorably looked at and we're trying to pay for most of this with grants. Chris, uh, just to piggyback on what Jim was saying, I wanted to ask, can you give us a rundown

027of some of the businesses in town that are either new or have expanded in the last 10 years? Because I can think of like five or six just off the top of my head. Why don't you start then? Yeah, go ahead. I mean, we have a new Bolton Mobile. Um, Ael Coil has a brand new building. Uh, within the last 10 years, Simon's expanded their facility greatly. Uh, Bolton Dental, new building in town. Uh, Dollar General, love it or hate it, it's a new building in town that's providing taxes. You know, that's fairly significant growth and development over the last 10 years, I think. So, taxpayers should know about that and and understand that progress is being made. It's just slow in part because Bolton has so little commercial and industrial land to develop. And

028two, it yes, there's a lot of talk about planning and zoning and the regulations being too difficult to work around, but it's also the case that Bolton is just tough geologically. Uh so many of the parcels that are available have ledge or other features that make it really difficult for a commercial or industrial use to come in and make use of land. We we have unique features that we're you sit on a bunch of rock basically. And that was a great response to your question. So, the Eminem is open too down on Route 6. The old Eminem. I don't know what it's called now, but I think we we don't have much empty space. I think everything is full at the moment, which is great. And I think they're putting in a drive-thru, aren't they?

029Which they might have a drive-thru in there at Duncan. And oh this the gas station on Route 6. Yeah. That sat, you know, empty for the longest time that is now reopened, revitalized. So what does that add to our tax base? Why is that, you know, resident? Why isn't my taxes dipping down a little bit? You know, the increase. Uh so the assessment that was done a couple years back, the commercial properties did not they fared much better than residential properties. They didn't go up much at all when they're giving tax breaks. No, no, it wouldn't happen. It's just their assessment. Just the market demand commercial properties went down during COVID. Demand for residential properties went up. So we saw decreases in commercial, you know, assessments, whereas you saw 35 to 50% increases for residential

030properties. And so I mean that's that's a something related to the bigger market picture that we as a town and as boards have zero control over. And even Jim, I just wanted to ask if you could clarify for the public that plan you were talking about that we're trying to get funded by the government to get water up Route 44. What are they estimating that's going to cost? Depends on whether we put a water tower in or not. You know, on on the low end, it's probably $3 million. On the high end, it's probably five or six for just the plan. No, for the plan, about a half a million dollars for the plan. Well, it's going to change, right? Correct. I mean, we're we're talking about substantial barriers to making progress, right? Moving forward,

031bringing in revenue costs money up front. So, in order to even move on that project, which could ultimately bring in revenue, we'd have to invest at least $500,000 for a study plan design and then an additional Yeah. 3 to 600, which is why we're I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I just going to say a lot of the grants that we're talking about, they require matches by the town and some of them also you have we have to spend the money upfront and then we get reimbursed for it. So if we cut the budget too much then we're cutting off our ability to have monies available to bring in new businesses to go and apply for grants and then exercise those grant monies. So this is where it's a really difficult balancing act and there's no

032one right answer that makes everybody happy because we don't have unlimited funds. So in order to fund some to fund give somebody more money requires taking money away from a different area. It's really as simple as that because we don't print money the way the federal government does. And so that's why it's a really difficult thing and we really appreciate your input on this because otherwise we're flying in the blind. But that's really the challenge here is how do we keep the taxes down low respecting you know that because I pay taxes. I have a small house. My taxes have gone up just like everybody else's particularly because everybody wants small houses now. So mine went up like doubled in value. my little uh my little cape,000 square ft. It's almost $400,000 now. It's crazy,

033but that's just the way the market goes. As I said, I saw Rodney out front meeting, but all that money in our houses is fake money now. 20 years ago, you were making money. Now, it's fake money because I can't sell my $300,000 house without getting another $300,000 house. It's not like I'm really getting anything extra. No, I mean but but you know 20 years ago absolutely that was very true. So just because our house values go up doesn't mean we should be you know I said Rodney I had three vehicles I sold one last year so I don't pay it as taxes to just don't want to pay it. Yeah. And we're going to use that reduction to go against your future tax. But you know as I said losing money because I said

034okay you can't afford to have that car anymore. Oh, one of your options and and thank you for exercising it. You know, you Well, there has to be cuts because we've made cuts in our own That's That's exactly right. Yeah, that's what I said. Um, so the water thing is in the works. We're trying. Uh, and we're and we're going to try to, you know, leverage as much state and federal money for that as we can. And, you know, we want to spend taxpayer dollars on it. You'll all get to vote on it. Yep. So, it's a tricky situation though because we're going to have to get the water from Manchester. Manchester is is even looking to see if they have enough water for us. And even if we do get it, will they have

035enough water pressure, etc. for sprinklers and that's where local businesses will do better because we you can go up more than two stories if you have sprinklers. People can't build without and your insurance rates decrease significantly. There's a great benefit to it, but you know, it's several million dollars and can we get it through the notch into up to Commonry? That way that whole area would be available for water and sewer. I think they got sewer up there. Sewer goes all the way to the Commonry Town line. But our the sewer part, so we got a loan on that, right? And there's only so many available units of sewer that we can put into it. So, we're kind of limited on how many units we can attach to this thing. So, there's there's a lot

036of variables. I don't know if the gas is limited, though, is it? Yeah, I don't think the gas is limited, but you know, the the natural gas doesn't go all through town. It's, you know, that's fairly limited where it is. But it but it is in that in that area, right? Yeah. Which is good. So, you know, it's we're setting it up. It's being set up slowly, but it's not identifiable right up front, but it's it's coming. And we're and we're still paying debt service on the on the sewer and we're still paying debt service on the gas line. Um, you know, those things are coming off in the not too distant future. Um, so that's good news. The bad news is at some point we're going to need to put a new roof on

037the Bolton Center school where we're where unfortunately it's it's at the end of its life and the debt service on the high school edition is 32. Yeah, I think that I think that expires in 2032. So, and we we still have a fire truck that we have to pay for. So, that service on the high school you said is up on 3032. If if it ceases to be a high school, is the the it due and payable at that time? Has that question ever been answered? No, it's it's a we we borrowed money as a town. Yeah. For the construction of the high school, so that that that doesn't change the term of the loan. Okay. So, it could cease to be a high school right now and it wouldn't be doing payable. We still

038have to pay it off. It wouldn't be doing payable immediately. Well, Jim, I think one thing that needs to get answered that I don't know has ever been answered to the question um that has been raised is that the town received um reimbursement. Yeah. From the state of Connecticut because they were building a school. So, I'm not sure. I don't I don't know the answer to that. And I think that's something that that probably needs to be looked into. That's a good that's a good So in case anybody didn't understand, so when the high school was built, you know, it cost X number of million dollars. Let's say it was, you know, 20 $20 million and this the town of Bolton has a reimbursement rate from the state of Connecticut. So although we probably and

039I think it was 56% Jim, so about 56%. So about 56% of the total cost of that was paid for by the state, you know, through an education grant. And the the rest is what the town of Bolton bonded for. And what Kristen is saying, and I don't think anybody here has the answer to this question, is something we should figure out is, you know, if it ceases to be a school, what happens to that 56% that we were given as a grant? So does it maybe need to stay a school until 2032 at the very least or we pay it off or we or we pay it off or we assume additional debt or we keep it school. So it's a question to be answered. It is and the other thing if I could

040just and I don't know Ashley if you want to speak to this part about the analysis that was done about the cost of the high school. Sure. Yep. So, with all this feedback, um, you know, we we certainly did, you know, with with Kristen, our superintendent text's input, helped put together an analysis of what it would cost if we were to regionalize, send kids elsewhere, shut down the high school. Um, and the analysis showed, I mean, we have to still continue to educate, you know, our kids and and at this point in time, um, it's still cost effective to have our own school, but of course, I think it's prudent just to continue to monitor what those trends look like. um and you know these types of questions as well. So we did do that

041analysis um but I I do think it's important to continue to refresh that analysis. I think that's a great idea. Is it u possible to get a copy of the analysis? Sure. We can we can work on pulling something together. I'd also like to offer up I found a document that was put together by a district in Sweden New York uh where they were having similar problems with funding you know around their schools. I think they were potentially looking to consolidate or something. Um they had a group of people get together that had a vested interest in the school system and reducing the budget for the school system and they came up with literally 17 pages of possible ways to reduce the cost of education. I'd be happy to share that. That would be great.

042Just ideas. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody any questions in the room? Yeah. So I want to talk about plan enrollment at the high school system school long time ago here in Boulder. Yeah. 30 some odd years ago they brought kids from Willington into this town high school. That was a tremendous change in the atmosphere of B high school district plus we had those kids here. That contract eventually for one reason or another went away. Then we started bringing choice kids which was even a bigger plus for the school system in this town closer because of diversity and kids could see what other people live like out there and it's still a good program but that's declined but we have Columbia kids coming here that's declined and my question I guess is when

043they decline the revenue declines right so they're not pay tuition I I don't choice funds for $400,000. I don't know what they are. I couldn't figure out what this year, but I know they're a lot less than that. And is anything being done? Find out why Columbia kids aren't coming yet. And why is choice enrollment declining? We have room these kids and those kids come and it's probably life. You're you don't you're not costing any more to bring these kids in the regular budget. That's calm money. It was that way when origin 10 years. It's that way now. And I think you starting to hear I've live this town for over 50 years now. And we fought a battle a long time ago. People in this town wanted to close our high schools. And uh

044one of the reasons people moved to this town was because of that school system. Not why my wife moved here. you have kids, but in terms of people over my neighborhood, a lot of move here because of the school system and if the school system changes, you know, guys going to drop this case, but my question is what's being done to find who those numbers and choice fees. Sure. So, Kristen, fill in the the gap. Yeah. I broadly speaking, I would say this is a huge focus area for the board. I can't tell you the number, you know, we focus on those numbers every single meeting. We've had a lot of, you know, healthy debate over that in in really trying to figure out what what is driving that. And I'll let Kristen kind of

045give some examples as to to what the specifics are. Um, but with Superintendent Heciring, obviously our new um superintendent coming in, it's one of the pri priority goals for, you know, Mr. Cruso as he comes in because it's certainly top of um top of mind for us. But maybe Kristen, if you want to give some examples of, you know, what might be driving the most recent, you know, declines with with Colombia, you know, choice, etc. Yep. Barry, is that you? I I think I hear you that voice. Okay. All right. Thanks for the question. So, um, let me start with choice first. So, back when Barry, I don't know what, like 25 years ago, um, Bolton was one of the founding, uh, communities taking choice students. And back then, it didn't matter where you lived

046in Hartford. You could select a school and go to that school. Within the last, I don't know, uh, seven or eight years, they went to a zone system. So, we're zone two. So, only those students in Hartford that live in zone 2 can select the Bolton public schools. If they live in zones 1, three, or four, they cannot. So right there we kind we took a hit because we had kids that wanted to come from other zones. In addition, uh a number of districts around us, Coventry, Ram, Taland have also now opened their doors to take choice students and they all draw from our same zone, zone 2. Having said that though, we still are above the um average number so that we receive the maximum amount of um monies for each student and our

047our budgeted amount for next year is $380,000. So So not that much off of the 400,000 that you spoke of many years ago. I hope that answers your question about and in the meantime we do a lot of PR. We attend events with par incoming parents, potential parents and students in in the choice program to try to, you know, encourage them to come to Bolton. Having said that, now with regards to Colombia, Colombia numbers are are down. They have decreased over the years just like Bolton's h pretty much just like everybody in Connecticut with the exception of South Windsor where I live. Um, having said that, for many years, Colombia, my understanding, was not um opening their doors, if you will, to magnet schools and to um really promote technical vocational schools as well. Um

048the commissioner of education a few years back sent a memo to all superintendents reminding us that we have a statutory obligation to open up presentations to all types of offerings for high schools. So really before for Colombia it was go to a technical school, go to Bolton High School, EOS Smith came on as a partner um and Windham Tech but now they have many many more options as well. When Eel Smith came on as an option, um it was shared with us that a number of Colombia students were choosing EOS Smith because of its proximity to Yukon, because of its uh large uh field presence in their athletics program, and the ability, I'm just being honest with what we were told, to walk across the street and go out to lunch and not have lunch

049in the cafeteria when you're a junior and senior. So, and to be able to take courses right on the Yukon campus. So, you know, those are things we cannot change. One thing the board could look at and has looked at previously and had made a decision at that time to not do it would be to simply open up for tuition students from other districts. But that itself is fraught with some um potential issues with regards to the cost of special education um and and how that would impact the cost of education um in Bolton. So I just share that as what has kind of gone on in the backdrop. It isn't for lack of trying. Um, we are, it is dictated to us when we are allowed to communicate with Colombia eighth grade families and

050seventh grade families. Um, and we have to go by what they are allowing us to do. But, you know, Joe Melli this year did a great job of um, being able to connect on social media with families and and try things that way to try to encourage participation. Um this year we opened it up um to eighth grade students if they wanted to come and participate in in the uh musical production this year. Um and we had some takers on that. Okay. Is there any other questions on that for in reference to the enrollment? a huge focus for us. stuff. I think can I just add one on it because we've heard this discussion so many times about the schools and I think the big piece that people forget really is the charter schools opened

051up and I think with that environment I can tell you one child went to bowl and one child did not of our two kids and he would have went our oldest son to an aeronautical science place and So people keep saying our school system is losing people, but it's because there's so many more opportunities now with the charter schools. There were none when my son went to school same age as Ashley. We won't tell him how old, right, Ashley? But um but still, you know, it's it's different now. And and we're those poor school systems are fighting against charter schools, other schools. EOS Smith, which I've heard gets funded significantly more than other schools by a pretty reliable source. So it's it's hard for us to compete. So we have to make a decision. He

052restories something else and not see a solution. Yeah, it's really hard. But but do I think that value is still here? Absolutely. Why why am I back here? You know, why did I choose to move back to Bolton? I have three kids going through the the elementary school. Phenomenal experience. So like that value is there. It's it's a bit of a hidden gem. It's almost like having a private school of your own in town, but unfortunately it does cost, you know, more. So it's it's you always say this Ross, what do we want to be? You know, as a town when we grow up or, you know, in a number of years, it kind of have to to decide. Every year we tell people our kids got a private school education and a public school

053both and and and a lot of my kids are all high college now. All these kids that you deceive not once they talk about they still talk about school vegetable high school and a lot of them they're not let them come back here because they can't afford to buy most but not I shouldn't say none but most but um and the kids my kids even talked about that is about the quality of the education and how much it helped them when they went to college how how well they did they all been in college was because of what they had involvement. So, it's a it's a jewel of the town and then I don't I'm going to be here for the rest of my life. I don't ever want to see that school close. So,

054it's going to be a long Could I just offer something Ronnie if I could to to Barry and Ashley's point? Um Bolton High School this year was awarded a Connecticut school of distinction by the Connecticut State Department of Education. very I I think it's a handful five or six high schools in the state of Connecticut were awarded that and that is based on our student data. So that speaks to the work of our teachers and our students and the great learning that is happening at Bolton High School and preparing kids for the next part of their journey. And Bolton ranks in the top three statewide. So there's there's benefits to coming here. We might not have a track, we might not have this, we might not have that, but it's all what you make of

055it. It really is. And and there's there's always college on track schol, you know. So the population's small enough for you can be on the varsity team. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we appreciate anybody who's got any good input on that. You're welcome to bring it forward at any time. I'm I'm hoping Kristen can do some some sch smoozing in uh South Windsor because their high school can't handle the number of kids that are coming in. So maybe she can get them here because it's not a very long bus ride. Uh, an excellent school over this town. Uh, so is there any other questions here? One question. This is going to sound a little off. Yeah. But the house we bought next door to the town hall. If homes went up so much, I'm

056going to toss it out because people have asked me this in the town. Why can't we sell that house? Because as we understand that, tell me if I'm wrong, there's a lot of storage in there in our resident troopers and that's it. Right. That's what So I I I don't think there there's not any storage. There's no storage. There's no storage. The second second floor of the building is empty. It's just our resident troopers on the first floor. So So I'm going to ask you answer your question with another question. Where would I put my resident state? Well, Rich used to be in your office, Jim, just but we're we're I mean here we're we're literally busting at the seams here at town hall. So, you know, it's you know, when we've you know, with

057the tear down of the Knots Road Municipal Center, which really wasn't viable anymore. You know, we're we're paying rent for a temporary building until we have a permanent solution. So, you know, it it's a it's an idea and it's not one that we haven't thought about and discussed, at least maybe not publicly, but certainly behind closed doors. Rodney and I have chatted about it, you know, but the question is what what we don't have enough room for our staff now. Our staff is fractured working in different buildings. you know, it would be way more efficient to have our registars in the same building as us and our finance department in the same building as us, but that's not in the car. So, if you got a great idea about where we could, you know, the

058board on side there, you have to have a you have to have a Yeah, they they have to there there are things that are require there are things that are required. I don't think that would work because they have to have, you know, a private entrance. You know, there there's, you know, there there's a number of difficulties I think that would be created by trying to do that. There a reason for the second floor is not being used for any it it's it was built as a house and it was built as an old house and for us to be able to use it for offices. It would take a lot of physical upgrades uh which would be very very costly because when houses of that vintage were built people didn't have much stuff in

059their rooms right I mean they had a bed probably and maybe a dresser or a wardrobe cabinet you know today houses are built much more robustly but the building doesn't meet the required codes as far as weight is concerned um the stairs I think would be problematic um ADA compliance. Great, great idea. Well, the first floor is generally ADA compliant. You know, if you would address it from the other side of the building, but but yeah, those are all issues. You basically have to gut the whole thing and redo the whole interior with structural improvements. And it's so historic, you'd have to spend barrels of money in there. plus someone who operates an ad an office out of an old building with stairs. Those stairs cost us $300,000 in a worker's comp claim this past

060year. That's true. Um so, you know, it might sound like it saves money, but unfortunately something like that could become a liability. I I think I don't know why that building was purchased. How long ago was that? Probably 10 12 years ago. 10 15. Yeah. And it was I think it was bought just to be part of the campus with the town hall. I don't think you ever I think it was longer ago than that. It was because I because I I came to I came to work in Bolton in 2007 and we owned it then. So it came up for sale and they just nabbed it. It was after we moved here because we actually voted on it and we've been here since 2004. So somewhere between 2004 and 2007. So I'd have to

061look back to see what the intent was. What? I think the intent was probably for them to use it more than it's being used cuz basically you need one room for the residents and probably a conference. That's a big house to use. That's probably worth 500,000 with a market that's changed. I hope it's worth a lot more than that. You do hope so? It would need it would need a billy billing would need a lot of work. So yeah, that not seeing any questions. Can we discuss the money that came in as a grant for the Notch Road for a moment and what we did with that? So we we had a budget to demo the Notch Road facility which was 1.4 million I think it was and and we got a grant for 1.2.

062Well, it was it was uh federal money for ARPA, American Rescue Plan, right? Okay. So, so we got the 1.2 million. We had to invest some and and upon going out for bid, the bid came in at 900,000. And so we've had to find uh projects in town that fit into the ARPA uh their their requirements. So there's you couldn't go out and buy trucks, you couldn't do this, you couldn't do that, but we could buy uh have our basketball courts repaved because it's recreational outdoor in particular. It's outdoor recreation. So, so, so the money we're using for that, the basketball courts, we're putting a new generator at the school, the middle school, because that powers the well, which powers the which is a public water supply for the school, for the not for the

063senior center, for CBC, for the temporary building, for the highway garage, and the uh buildings and grounds garage. So, it is a very significant public water supply. The existing generator also does not cover their refrigerator and freezer at the Bolton Center school and we've lost product a few times and during hurricanes we've shifted product physically from the Bolton Center school over to the high school because the high school's refrigerators are on a generator. So, the generator is in need of replacement. It's it's unre unreliable to some degree and it's certainly not big enough and and has failed us a couple of times with regard to our public water supply which requires energy at all times because if you lose power then what has to happen is you have to sanitize the entire system. But if

064you think about what that means, that means getting sanitizer into a 10,000galon holding tank, getting sanitizer to every tap in every one of those buildings I just mentioned, letting it sit there for a period of time, and then flushing all that sanitizer out. So, that was one of the projects also for the Y. And then we're expenditure as well. What's that? That's a that's a big tap on the Acura as well. Yeah. So, we also are putting in new doors and handicap access to the Notch Road meeting rooms. Uh we had the Notch Road meeting rooms, the floors taken up, the asbesus removed, and we're putting carpet down. Uh now, that was all with ARPA money. We're putting air conditioning in still, right? We're we're so, you know, so we we don't have all the

065numbers yet, but we had a little bit of extra money that we're trying to invest in these improvements uh through the Stanford Wrecking Company and those um discretionary projects, if you will. You know, we're we're trying to provide some better cooling in there than window shakers. um trying to put in the new doors and uh ADA access into and out of all of the exits from those rooms A and B as well as the senior center. There's a door in the front of the senior center that goes out and and all of these things just make a difference for all of the things we try to do in those spaces. Um so that's that's very positive. So we mentioned that we're doing three basketball courts. We did we did buy uh a new UTV for

066the fire department with those funds and their old UTV went to the buildings and grounds department uh because the buildings and grounds department had on their wish list for a future capital improvement to replace their aged UTV. So we were able, you know, to move that UTV from the fire department use over to um to there. And we did a project over at the farm where we removed the old manure pit u and got that filled in and did a little bit of regrading beside the driveway. So th those were all done with federal dollars. Man, did I miss anything or is that I think that's all of it. So the fire departments UTV, they they kind of require that because they take care of the East Coast Trail or which one's that? So, they

067have to respond to that, but they also respond to Case Mountain a couple of times a year. Um, and one of the things that one of the reasons they wanted that replaced is because during the spring and fall, they use it to fight forest fires or brush fires, right? And but other times of year, it's used for going to remote locations for medical calls. And they had this like 400 lb thing that would be in the back of the truck. They'd have to remove on the back of the UTV. They have to remove the pump and then they have to put the um put the put the rescue basket and other stuff in there. And so now they don't have to do that. All of that stuff is on there permanently. So it makes a

068huge difference. And you know, Amanda mentioned workers comp claims before. So we're at less at less risk for a workers's comp claim from lifting that heavy equipment off the back and moving it. Uh we're able to respond better and more quickly. So, I'm just bringing this up because it's not really taxpayer money. Well, it is, but it's federal taxpayer money. It's not. So, so you know, these projects all got done. We had to pay 20% of the grant money. No, no, no. Not with the not with the AR thing. No. So, the Notch Road facility is is gone and all these other improvements were done. We we are we we got an aotment of money from the federal government for ARPA. All of those projects that we talked about are costing us $9 over what

069we are getting from ARPA. So, and and then in addition to that, we're we got another grant for a a soccer field at Her Park. Yep. Uh that came in was a $500,000 grant or something roughly roughly half a million. We got to pay 20% of that. 20%. So it it that project will be going out to bid probably here in the very near future and when it goes out to bid we'll we'll know exactly what our 20% cost is but right now we budgeted for 20% of that half million dollars. So since we have fields at the school for the same purpose we don't we don't have enough soccer fields. our our soccer fields are full all the time and sometimes they're not able to be played upon because uh because they've been used

070too much in wet weather. So, so this is something that's been needed for a very long time. I can jump in there. Somebody who lives on a soccer field. So, you say necessary. It depends on I guess who you're talking to. So, if you're talking to somebody who has no interest in soccer, probably not. If you're talking about, you know, a large population of our town does play soccer. Kids don't play baseball here. they go to Manchester. So, soccer's a huge draw here. Um, we have a lot of um drainage issues with with the other Herro Park um soccer fields. So, I think they first looked at maybe can we just re, you know, fix the drainage with the existing ones, but it was just best to um to do a new field at Heric

071Park. And I I know there's a lot of challenges at the high school with the drainage there, too. So, yeah, I asked the first question, you know, can't we just fix kind of what we have? But um yeah, and I think some of it also you need to rotate the fields to do maintenance on them because when one's torn up to be have the grass replanted or the work other work done on it, then where you know where do the people who were using it go. So it's part of rotating it and we do need to try to keep these kids saying what great fields they have to other kids and try to I mean they're the future of the town. So, but those fields are constantly being used uh summer, spring, everything. So, and

072that that'll give us an opportunity to maintain the other ones. So, is there a question? Well, I I emailed you a bunch of questions, but I do have Yeah, go ahead. You have the email somewhere and there's a bunch of them in there. Um I guess one thing I'm wondering with the the new which I didn't have a chance to read. Um, it says that you're still proposing a 6.9% increase in taxes over last year. Um, realistically, I'm not sure you're going to get that test. So, when it doesn't pass next week, what are you going to have to cut? Well, I'm not finance committee. Uh, we don't I'll speak up chair of the Ross Lowry. I'm chair of the finance committee. The finance committee looks at I can't speak for them because we have

073members from the public at large. We have members from the board of ed and we have members from the board of selectman. So what we will do is let's say it doesn't pass. We'll do the same thing that we did the last time. We'll take a look at okay since we did the last one has either the board of ed or the board of selectmen found any other surplus revenue for this year? you know, monies that have not been spent, those get used to next year's budget, they are applied to reduce the mill rate, but they don't really reduce the spend. We're just covering more of what you would pay in taxes by money, moving some extra money from this year to next year. Then we take a look at like, okay, as you know,

074Kristen Heck did mention, they were able to have some people retire. They had some new people come in at a lower rate. you realize some additional savings for personnel moves like that. You also may get some grant monies and so we look at all that and then those monies that that's how we start with it and then the next step is okay do we you know is that going to fly and if not where do the other monies come from? We don't have line item veto in the finance committee except for expenditures from the capital improvements budget. those we can pick and choose items from otherwise we collectively put our heads together and say okay we can take this item or more out of capital improvement and then we'll do okay this is how much

075is coming out of board of selectmen and this is how much is coming out of board of ed and then the board of selectmen and the board of ed go back and figure out how to make that happen and what the cuts are I don't like this way that we do it because you guys don't know what you're giving up. Right. Exactly. That's so I wish we would do it differently. I don't have any say in it. But that's what my challenge is is cuz I feel that in some ways it sort of looks like to folks like, okay, we go through this drill every year, nothing breaks. What happens when we get to the year when it breaks and you think it's not going to be any different than the last time and suddenly

076you're not getting your garbage picked up anymore? we don't have afterchool sports or something and you didn't know that's what was coming as a consequence of wanting the budget cut. Personally, I would have loved to vote on BOE separately from town budget but that's yeah it was that it was that way once upon a time but you know it it got combined and I think the only way that could happen I think would be a charter change because right now the charter requires that we vote on them together right. Yeah. you know, and I think, you know, Kristen can probably talk a little bit about what might, you know, I think she already addressed it a little bit, but she might be able to talk a little more about what might get her, you know,

077what her recommendations to the board of education would be if if they get cut. You know, I can tell you that, you know, from the on the town side, we we we have a pretty lean budget and it, you know, we put all of our budget worksheets up on the town's website for you to look at. So you can see what went into building our budget and you can pretty much see where about every dollar is being spent, but there are things that we do that we're not required to do by statute. And that is things like keeping Indian Kn Park open. Now, we did decide to open it with the caveat that we may close it if we have to make budget cuts to the selectman's budget. Um we we're not required to have

078resident state troopers. We're not required to provide trash pickup to the town residents. Um, you know, we're not required to give seniors rides to doctor's appointments, you know. So, you know, not that I would want to see a reduction in services because I I don't think the services that we give are that robust truth truthfully, but you know th those are the things that we're not statutoily required to provide to the taxpayer. So those are the conversations that the board of selectmen and I would have uh and it would be very difficult for them to decide what they were going to cut. Ultimately I think it would depend on how much of a cut is required. Um, you know, and you know, one of the one of the things that, you know, I wanted to

079say, you know, Ross mentioned that, uh, monies that we have left over from this year's budget, you know, go to offset what we ask of taxpayers in next year's budget, you know, but we have we we continually try to tighten our budgets and, you know, one of the things that we don't have is we don't have a huge account, you know, for contingencies. So, there are some things that are built into our budgets that are worst case scenarios. Like, you know, on the board of selectment side, we we budget around $5,000 a year in emergency management in case we have that bad storm that we've got to respond to. You know, that way we're not looking for money to figure out what we're going to do. You know, we budget a little bit for overtime

080for our resident state troopers. We don't always spend it. If we budget for overtime for our buildings and grounds crew and our town crew for plowing and storm cleanup, you know, this year we didn't use all of it. So those monies go back and people might look at it and say, "Well, you're overbudgeting." We're trying to be responsible with our budgeting and not budget more than we think we need. So we're not budgeting for worst case scenario, but we're also not budgeting for best case scenario. So, you know, those are the things on the board of selectman side that we would have to consider very carefully about, you know, what cuts there were. And again, I think it would really depend on how much was cut. You know, this year, you know, we are asking

081a lot of the taxpayers with regard to the capital budget. And, you know, some of that I know on the board of selectment side is vehicles. Um, a plow truck is about $220,000. And so what we did is we initially had in this year's budget a whole plow truck where we decided we would cut the whole plow truck and put it into two years and do some repairs to our plow truck to make it last a little bit longer. Um, it it was really in pretty rough shape. Um, but fortunately we have a very gifted mechanic who is also a gifted fabricator and he's done some really amazing things with that truck in the last 3 weeks since the first budget failed. I said, "You got to make that truck last another year and he's

082been going at it." So, um, you know, we also have a vehicle that our building officials and other town uh people use, other other town employees use to go to seminars and things like that. That vehicle is 14 years old. We've gotten our money out of that vehicle. Um, mine's 13 years old and 30 years old. They are still going strong with $2,000 worth of repairs instead of buying a new one. Yeah, this one is not. We're we're having a difficult time getting parts for it. Um, you know, that that is that was our the last breakdown we had with it. Um, you know, and it's and it's rotting away. I mean, it truly is rotting away. Um, you know, so you know, we've truly gotten our money's worth out of it. We have 200

083thou almost 200,000 miles on one of the vehicles that, you know, carries our seniors around and it cost us a lot of money in breakdowns this year. We had to transfer a lot of money into that account um to to make repairs to that vehicle. So, those are the vehicles that, you know, we're looking at, you know, in the in the town budget this year. Um, you know, there are vehicles in in almost every department. Not not department's not right, but there are a couple vehicles assigned to town hall. There's vehicles for plowing roads. There's vehicles that are being used to maintain buildings and grounds. Uh, there's vehicles at the school system. Um, you know, there are lawnmowers everywhere and we share equipment as much as possible. You know, there there are pieces of equipment

084that the school uses that are owned and maintained on the town side, and there are pieces of equipment that the school owns and maintains that we share. There are pieces of equipment that we own together, like, you know, we have a lift to change light bulbs in the gymnasium. It also changes light bulbs at the fire department that makes makes repairs in the high bays. You know, that's a piece of equipment that we own together and we share. We move it back and forth. So we're not both owning equipment that we can share. Right. So you mentioned the capital plant. It's over a million dollars this year. It was $800,000 last year. There's five vehicles listed in here. I can tell you my salary increase was less than 2%. So for me to give you

085guys a 7% increase on my taxes means I have to cut things out of my own personal budget. So this is extremely difficult when I see a capital improvement plan that's going up over a million. What's our what's our minimum amount that we have to do? 1% isn't it? Yeah. A mill. So by charter we're required to carry one mill improvements every year just so that the town doesn't fall behind on maintenance and improvements. If you don't do them, you end up with a notch road building where you have to just junk it because it's not worth fixing. Uh the the number that you're looking at that million uh 400,000 is for the middle school energy management system at the school and phase two. It's phase two because they've already done a piece of it.

086So, every one of these classrooms has a a valve in it that talks to this system and and they've been failing and they're very expensive to do one at a time. So, they're they're trying to catch the system up to itself. What is it 150 of these things in there or something? And and they're they're constantly failing. So, they they've been working on this and and the new system doesn't communicate well with the old system. So, they're trying to just finish it up in one piece. You want to jump in on that, Kristen? I mean, absolutely. I mean, we we have spent a lot of money this year trying to um fix every time the problem would arise and, you know, it's it's 35 degrees outside and it's 55 degrees in the classroom because there's

087no heat because it's failed. So, um it's it's been a um an extreme hardship at Bolton Center School. Um and it's something and we've had a lot of discussion about it. um at finance committee and the need to finish this project so that we don't continue to have um these really terrible issues that impact learning for kids and a working environment for the staff. Um, and then, uh, I do just want to say that one, I understand that the mill rate increase is a 6.9% increase, but I want to be very clear that the budget is not increasing by 6.9%. At this point, for the next referendum, the budget increase is 2.8%. And that's because of a decrease in in revenues. At the same time, there's an increase in expenses, right? So unfortunately the two

088are not equivalent. The budget and your mill rate increase do not equal each other because of the factors that are going into play. The other thing that I will say is that the money that we carry over from one year and I'm hoping I'm correcting this so if I'm wrong I apologize but the money that we carry over from one budget into next year is optional. Right? The board of selectmen and the board of ed choose to take those monies and apply them to next year's budget. that that revenue that wasn't that money that wasn't spent, we could instead be putting that money into the rainy day fund. And I was just looking at a small town budget, specifically East Grampani, who has a policy that every year they put a 10% p on their

089budget every year to go into their rainy day fund. The reason being that that improves their bond rating so that when they need to go out for bond, they get more favorable rate. Right? That is something that we are foregoing as a town right now to try and make the budget work for people understanding that it's impacting our future ability to take on debt potentially. Right? So like everything is a give and take. Everything is a balancing act and we're trying to look at all the pieces and make the best for the town. If I misspoke about anything, please let me know. I think you nailed it. Yeah, I get that the budget itself is going up by less than that seven%. Right. However, your revenues are going down. You've lost $700,000 in grants, which

090means my taxes are going up by more than that 2.8%. And I'm saying that's you're asking a lot if you're telling me my own personal property taxes are going up by almost 7%. I can't vote for that. I can't I can't ropers that with a capital improvement that has five vehicles in it at over a million dollars for capital improvements in one year. I can't prove that. And I'm seeing 10% increases on line items within the budget. That's higher than inflation. I can't I can't understand why it would be higher than inflation. Do you have a specific line item you'd like to talk about? Oh. Um, and the other the other challenge too that we have I'll just mention is the board of ed's budget by state law cannot be reduced except under certain circumstances

091below the approved budget from the previous year. So once we reduce, you know, that to say within a we only have like about 250,000 or more that you could cut and then if you want to cut further after that from the school's budget, everything else comes out of the board of selectman's budget. My questions have nothing to do with board of that because I No, no, I'm I'm just No, I'm just telling you the the balancing act that it fits with it. Are you Rebecca? Um, you got the town clerk going up by I don't know if I read this. Yeah, that's clerk going up by 11%. You've got land in use going up by 24%. So I get let's take a going up by 11%. Let's take all higher than well but 11% in

092the probate budget is not a lot of money, right? The probate budget is only around $7,000. So 11% of that is actually not not a lot of dollars. Um but you know the the so let me let me address the u the 24% in the building and land use. So building and land use is going up by 24% to cover salaries of building officials. But for the first time in the history of Bolton building officials are costing the taxpayers nothing because we are outsourcing services. We are shared services. We are providing building official services to four other towns besides the town of Bolton and getting income that offsets all of those expenses. When I first started here in 2007, I came to you as the chief building official. My salary was more than we collected

093every year in building permit fees. We have ch by regionalizing those services and outsourcing those services to other towns. We have made that so that that is a net zero cost to the taxpayers of the town making money on it for for the building officials. It is still costing us money for the for the clerk in there. Um and that's where some of the vehicle usage comes in. And um so that that one is very easy to address and I think it's a great example of the things that we are trying to do here in Bolton to reduce costs. The other the other regional service we have is is uh is a dog catcher, right? We we regionalize that with the town of Vernon. You know, that cost us about $6,500 a year. um you

094know we have a shared assessor between the town of Bolton and the town of Willington you know so so those are the kinds of things that we are doing to try to reduce costs to the taxpayers in the town of Bolton um I think mayor I think partly we get in this position because we have done so many cuts in the past and have not uh kept the capital funds up not kept her brain bound up. I think those are really important things that we have to do or we just are going to be finding ourselves in this position again. There are always certain things that like you said it just happens to be that the vehicles have to be replaced at this time. you, you know, putting things in capital budget right along in

095a large amount. We wouldn't necessarily be in this position today, but we have to pay for this. You know, to be a function, we can we have to pay for these things when these costs come up. If we can do it more on a consistent basis, then it would have hit us less like the natural, you know, putting that off for so many years because nobody wanted to pay for it. Things only get more expensive the longer we have links. So, I do think that it's very important to keep up with the capital funds and the funds. Thank you. Um, did we get to any of your questions yet? So, yeah. Um, I think this is a good one to cover. So, our town lost more than 7 700,000 in grants. Um, I think we

096might be able to actually not a grant, right? So, maybe if you can address that. Grants lost on. So, we we lost about $750,000 in revenue because our mill rate was higher than the motor vehicle tax cap that was set by the state of Connecticut and you the state of Connecticut was was essentially making the town of Bolton whole. By the following year, we would get get a check from the state of Connecticut for that amount. Well, because of re-evaluation last year, our mill rate dropped significantly and we were just almost equal with the motor vehicle tax cap set by the state. So, we did not get any revenue from that this year. So, it really wasn't a grant, but it was revenue that, you know, we're not getting anymore. In FY23, our mill rate

097was 43.99 if I recall, and the vehicle cap was 32.46. And so that gap in difference that resulted in 700 around $750,000 in the next fiscal year. There's always a year gap unfortunately that's based on 50 million in in car taxes. Right. It's only on the car tax only car tax. So then last year's gap what was like less than a mil between our mill rate and the car tax. So we're only getting 17,000 this year. the year after. Right. So now this year, quite frankly, right, if we end up going what? I don't know what we're at right now. 32.7. Well, we're almost even with it. Yeah. So, in theory, the revenue we're going to get from the state could be even less. Yeah. In next year, it's a but it's a huge hit

098in this year's revenues. But you're right in pointing out that that is a huge part of the equation for the for the budget cycle. It is, but so we have to make up the difference. And you're still asking for more money. But that's an fault of it. I didn't say it was maybe some of that money would have been put away over the high years, the high mill rate years to save for the low years. But how do you predict it? You know, that would have been So just keep your eye on that ball because the state is trying to get rid of car tax altogether and that would just move and that's just going to move everything to property tax. So, so I guess moving on. So, so the next question, please explain why

099the town administration budget has increased by 100,000 since 2024. What is what's in there? So the town of town administration budget uh would have actually gone down this year except we have a couple of placeholders in that budget. Uh a grassroots effort by a group of residents uh wanted to has been working with the board of selectmen trying to raise the uh salary of the first selectman. And so there is a placeholder in that budget for uh selectman salary increase that is still being worked on. Nobody has decided you know if that will happen what that will be. Um but we have held one publicformational meeting I think one and there will be another one later on in the year. Um there is also a placeholder in there to outsource payroll services. We are trying

100to work on some things to create efficiencies within our finance departments both at the hope is both at the board of ed and at the town um so that we can increase efficiencies rather than hire more staff or you know we there's other things that we need to get done within both of those finance departments uh that we are having a difficult time getting to. So would you view that as an upfront investment? That's an up Yeah, that's an upfront investment and and we we hope to realize some savings over time. If you do that, would this amount of staff remain the same? Does this above and beyond the staffing level? Would there be a reduction in staff? Not not we don't see that there would be a reduction in staff immediately. There are some

101things that we are trying to put in place. So, one of the things that wasn't done well on the town side is we both with the school and the town, we went to a um a financial management system, if you will. It's called Tyler Technologies. The school smartly from day one got all of their key staff onto the Tyler system. They got them as users so that they can do all of their bill paying, their their um purchase orders. they could do all of that online. The town was not as smart as the board of education on the town side. It did not do that. Uh and our staff simply don't have the time to do that right now. We we my staff and I in the town administration department have been working directly with

102TR Tyler trying to help with some of that. Um but the idea is that by outsourcing payroll services we'll we'll get rid of paper time sheets because we you know both both board of ed and the town at least at some level are still using paper time sheets. Um we get rid of paper alto together with purchase orders and payment requisitions. It will certainly help me as the town administrator to be able to just log into that system every day and look at who needs my approvals for certain things. I can also in real time look and see what's happening with each of our accounts. So, it's easier to, you know, overall holistically manage the budget and what's happening. Uh, you know, there's a lot of purchase orders that go through that I don't see

103because they're under $700. say, you know, the the the our financial policy says that our supervisors can approve anything that's under $700. After $700, I have to see it. Uh I would probably see more of those things if I could see them in the Tyler system. So the the straight answer to your question is I would not see an immediate reduction in staff on either the board of ed finance team or or the town of Bolton's finance team as we create greater efficiencies because of the time that we free up. That is certainly a goal that we would have is to you know find ways at least you know through attrition maybe you know somebody retires and we don't replace them or we don't replace them with a full-time person you know but it's some

104it it's a it's a step in a process you know we have a process that we've laid out and we're thinking about it you know that we are trying to find ways to create greater efficiencies within the departments that we have and this is one that both the board of selectmen and a finance committee and myself all recognize as something that's very key to our future and ways that a even if we don't re even if we don't reduce staff we certainly can increase efficiencies and we can be better at what we do because we have the information at our fingertips. So is there an additional cost for the selectman side administration side to join this uh Taylor Tyler whatever. So so Tyler we already was something we already have and we already paid for.

105The school is using it and the town is using it. So there's no extra cost. There's no extra cost. The extra the extra cost would be the cost of the payroll system. Okay. And that that cost for year one is about $28,000. Okay. So another big rise in cost this year was the cyber security insurance. That was last year. That was last year. Well, cyber insurance has gone up from cyber cyber insurance has gone has almost doubled in price every year. Cyber insurance is almost d. So we're we're working on that right now. We have quotes from a couple different companies. We actually have one quote that's a little lower than what we paid last year. So, I'm really excited about that, frankly. Um, and here's why. Right, we've invested both the school and the

106and the town have invested a lot of money in cyber security upgrades. I mean, to the tune between us, probably like almost $180,000 over the last several years. We've gotten most of the we've gotten all of the really scary stuff taken care of. You know, there are cyber security threats. Cyber security is an everchanging landscape. You know, the cyber criminals find new and interesting ways to try to come at us every year. So, we're things that we have to do every year to make things more secure. But instead of being at an oh crap level, we we're really vulnerable. we're at an level where we can say okay we're really maintaining at this point and addressing the needs for um you know what's happening in today's cyber landscape rather than having to spend all of

107this money on upgrades. I would also offer to that point um P school which is our student management system which is used across the country um and all across Connecticut as a student management system. They were halfed um this year and as a result all districts that use P school um had a potential breach issue and had we not had novice insight in place as our um IT support and they have been instrumental in our ability to maintain our cyber security insurance uh we would have had a real big problem. So, as everybody can imagine, it's 1 minute to seven. Time flies when you're having fun. Some good questions. A lot of good questions and it and it now we we discuss this stuff at public meetings all constantly all the time. Uh if you

108find that that's totally not a available for you, then is this a better format? because we could go on and on for another hour I think because we get a bridge we could discuss and then I'm trying to sell say there's actually a bridge so no there is actually there's actually a bridge project in our in our capital budget so um I'm sorry that bridge is already in process no oh it hasn't been so we we've you know I can really quickly say this because we have about a half a minute left we've applied for a grant for the Lyman Road Bridge. Um, that bridge is has started to show signs of failure. Okay. And we really want to address it before it fails or gets to the point where we have to close the

109road. We don't want to do that. Um, so we've applied for a grant. Um, and it it it has a 20 20% match. It's about a $1.7 million project and it does not pay for design costs. So we have to pay for the design costs. So we split that out as I remember into two years. Yeah. Um 170 if y for for the uh because by the time we get the design done and go out to bid it's going to be two years anyway. So we we've tried to divide that over a couple of years. But the largest percent of that which of the 1.7 you know hopefully we'll be able to get a grant. So, every time we apply for a grant, we have to make the match. Do do we not apply for

110these grants? Somebody's going to give me a half a million dollars. You get a shell on a hundred. What do you do? So, yes. Okay. So, yeah, we have another grant application out for handicap vans, right? So, we Right. So, one of those vehicles that you talked about, we also have a grant out for, you know, we're hope we're hoping to get it funded by the grant, but we don't have a response from either of those grants yet, and those grant applications have been in for a couple of months at this point. Uh, so, you know, we're we're hopeful that we get a grant to cover that van and and part of it's already being covered uh by ARPA funds. I want to say $15,000 of that band is being covered by ARPA funds, but

111the rest of it we're trying to get covered under a different grant. Um, so it's where we're at. Thank you everybody for participating and uh if you guys want to do it again, uh, you know how to find us. I'm truly excited by the turnout we got here. Kill understand where people's heads are at too, you know, as we go. I want to thank Kristen for showing up. Ross, uh, Amanda, our board members, Ashley, and thank you everybody. And make your business.