Board of Finance Meeting

001[Music] okay I'm gonna call the sport affiliates meeting to order would everybody join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible my first order of business is to elect court officers I think we should take nominations for chairman first do I have any nominations returning all nominee Glenn Rooney for chairman do I have a second call second second any further nominations all those in favor aye Sean will you and I or think you're not obscene okay nominations for vice chairman do we have any nominations all nominee Eileen Eileen cook cook thank you do we have a second Glen Mooney seconds any discussion any further nominations all those in favor aye carries unanimously for secretary do

002I have any nominations well I'll go for the trifecta Brianna okay do I have a second 19 seconds any further nominations any discussion all those in favor aye I turned the meeting over to you mr. chairman all right public comment is there anyone here for public comment okay Eileen communications so we have one from Ron Jaffe 21 white pine drive I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from November 13th 2019 discussion approval nope all those in favor say aye I am statement all right mr. dum Ron to the report of the First Selectman Thank You Marcia and I have been working with the department's we set up meetings for next week and the week after to review their year-to-date versus actual budgets we don't anticipate there'll be any problems we just want to

003make sure that we're where we think we are we're also reviewing all the capital requests with each of the departments you have each received the package tonight showing all the capital requests for the next ten years including next year this is a little change from what we did last year we're given the board members both board of selectmen important finance more time to actually look at capital before we get into the operating I wouldn't expect that will make any decisions at this point in time but it's good to know where we are and to fit everything together the second thing is we're going to be reviewing next year's budget requirements with each of the departments also so that will be clear for the boards as we did last year in the year before we know

004exactly what they're asking for what the changes are and where we're going there's gonna be some slight changes you can see it in this capital budget where we've added a column for to show you what requests have been turned down in prior years I think that'll be very helpful for you you know if something's been turned down for three years in a row it obviously has a little urgency then if it's brand-new and that should be an interesting discussion Monday we had a meeting with Standard and Poor's John Marsha and I joined that meeting along with John Parilla superintendent I can post the finance manager for the schools we spent about an hour and 10 minutes with them on the phone including with their senior analyst Victor Medeiros the meeting went I say exceedingly well

005they told us that we had all the points that we needed to hit that they were pleased with the fact that we had a 10 year capital plan that we seem to be managing and planning very very carefully for the new school debt that's coming on board and overall we believe that we're going to maintain we'll find out tomorrow Friday keep our triple-a rating this was in advance of our refunding of the bonds for in Marshall giving more detail next Tuesday where we funding our bonds we expect to save around $200,000 NPV and that's a good thing given what's coming up Brookfield received we went to the recent cc's Connecticut council municipalities every town and city in Connecticut is a member of CCM and they do a lot of work they our sister organization kurma

006is our insurance agent they do all of our insurance and I would I'm happy to say that Dana Ferrara was able to put together a package they asked for the best projects in various population groups and we're in 20,000 and under and in 20,000 and under we took first place and we want it for reinventing our downtown streetscape Dana did a lot of work on that it was a great presentation and it's a very hard award to get a lot of towns vie for it and there are about 40 50 towns that are under 20,000 and I'm told 12 or 14 I didn't get the exact number I actually applied so we were very happy with that we also want a sustainable Connecticut bronze award we've done a lot of work over the last year

007and a half to meet the sustainable requirements for those awards we'd like to continue to do that there is a silver level you can go and I think there's a platinum that is just out of this world to get but we're gonna continue to work on that and that shows that Brookfield is paying attention to how to be sustainable and we're continuing to do things to maintain that I had a conversation with we talked about this previously the supermarket that's going in the downtown they signed the agreement amongst the developer the supermarket there's three or four involved entities they're going to be moving forward with that as you know we did offer them a tax abatement our standard tax abatement which we'll give them right now around $300,000 in tax abatements button return for that

008they're going to give us a parking lot with 50 spaces in it dedicated to municipal use it's around 50 not exactly 50 right because they haven't finalized the design they're gonna own it they're gonna maintain it they're gonna stripe it they're gonna plow it and pay taxes on us and I think that's a win for the town especially if they move forward you know sometimes developments they get everything and then they don't go but that's a good thing is there a bridge that's gonna build a bridge over the lobby they've got to work that out but where they're going it's not real steep to go on to their property across the stove River green light so they're either gonna have to put the rfp's the blinking lights for the Greenway and they're gonna have to

009meet both d-o-t in town requirements on that because it is a state road they've already bought the cut off the federal road across some two hundred thousand dollars just to put a driveway in so they seem to be very very interested in doing this iroquois cast came to us i think we discussed this also previously they had they have age men are not meant for a plant that pressurized this gas at Brookfield on 84 acres they are increasing the capacity of that facility and will be putting in between 90 and 100 million dollars in additional equipment to go live in 2023 that 90 200 million will generate between 1 8 1 9 million in today's mill rate and higher if taxes go up so that's that's a big plus for us from a revenue standpoint

010but they're also they had a meeting last week where they invited the public and they brought about 10 of their people down there doing a lot of public outreach so do people understand what they're doing and how they're doing it and how it affects people if everyone remembers about 40 12 14 years ago they came in to Brookfield originally and there was a lot of concern about gas and people gonna be safe and it's art-school gonna be saved and they went through a long nine-month nine-month process of showing the town what this facility would do how loud it will be what kind of emissions it will have it's a very safe facility we have the management plan they work with us very carefully on that we updated it on a yearly basis with both our

011Emergency Management Director in our general police I am satisfied that the work they're doing based on what Jay and our emergency management director I've told us that they there are there are high-quality corporate entity they have absolutely no desire to cause any problems in any town and I think this is a win for profit they're gonna be increasing capacity in the sense that they're heading a second pumping plant I guess that what I what I would call it to pump the gas and they will be pressurizing it at a higher level but they were also going back and retrofitting their old ones put ours less emissions and also to quiet noise attenuation in there are two neighbors who live pretty closest Cillian right now I've been on that street it's for me it's virtually impossible

012that here's a plant so it knows should not be a problem they do have their own stamp that go there and maintain it their own security so I think this is a plus for Book Fair tonight in sheers I'm sure so I had a few discussions with him because I was when I hear increased pressure I was worried about going to increase pressure on pipes so what's been described to me is right now they operated a maximum pressure when like if no one was using gas problem is when everybody in New York City starts using it they don't have enough capacity to keep that pressure up it's true so they're putting in additional pumps a variable dry humps so they keep the pressure up to that maximum now level they're not going to be increasing

013the pressure in pipes well no danger there's no that's at their highest they will be having higher pressure but their limit that they're allowed by law is 1440 pounds per square inch and they're gonna be in the 60-day no 120 range they're gonna be well below like 10% of what their maximum could be and so you're absolutely right then they will be cutting emissions like you said which is good what's the timeframe for that projects they'll be live 2023 so they'll be building right now their plan is to go to go to FERC click on FERC in January FERC is the only entity that regulates them so they're going to go through the FERC process they are not gonna be coming back to sound like they did last time and going to Inland Wetlands and

014zoning and all of the town process because they're not regulated by us they did that the last time for an information for people I think people are pretty comfortable with them right now if need be I can ask them we can have another public information meeting last Tuesday was a bad day for it because of the weather what was the turnout at that meeting there weren't many people there it was really crappy weather so if we need to if there's a lot of interest in a part of residents we can have another information meeting we had the new tree lighting in the downtown and fulfilled won another award I 95 named us the nicest downtown in the area Wilfred was second damn Barry was third and if you haven't been through the downtown we do

015have a new Christmas tree I never agreed it's about 40 feet tall between the funeral home and portabellos May moon and the four-corners business group paid for the lights and but right put them up and it looks really nice looks really nice so we're happy with that we did have one request for a tax abatement for a development on Laurel Hill Road 101 103 to 105 more though Road it's on the right we can make it right on the station road going north it's on the right up on the hill the Board of Selectmen looked at that and turned it down we didn't believe at this point in time that a tax abatement was necessary to get and my concern there and I expressed this to the developers both privately when we met before and

016at the meeting is their building market rate right now it's gonna be market rate apartments same Studios single one-room one-bedroom two-bedroom but we have a lot of those developments in down there you have like 700 bedrooms 700 units approved and if we give them a tax abatement you have to give every single development that similar debate and the Board of Selectmen was not convinced at this point in time that other bateman was required or needed to make sure this project could get off its feet so and I also I would like before we did anything like that especially with something like that is to have a little more public input you know allow people to understand what we're thinking of doing so we turned that down and that's it I have one question on the

017school planning and your meeting with Moody's that when your SP they bring up the part of that was the model that we've used that Marshall put together is that part of the footprint yes we talked about the model we said it we had a ten-year model we were willing to share with them but they wanted and we're using that we use that model to show residents where their taxes would be there in my opinion very impressed that we took that effort in time I said we took all our current spending our projected spending inflation bonding that payments everything that possible could affect our town and it was an interactive model and they seem to be very happy they didn't review them all or I'm sorry did they review the model or look at how order

018didn't but it was clear for the discussion that we had that they were a little surprised that somebody had gone through that level of detail and I Victor himself said at the end he said you guys clearly you know are on top of what you're doing in town and clearly have made plans to do everything you want to do so that was good Moody's when they looked at us quickly without right us paying them asked for a copy but S&P did not so Moody's did ask for a copy so Moody's will look at the model as well okay all right anybody else all right on to the report of the financial director all right the first thing on the agenda revenue and expenditures with respect and I don't have a detailed report this month just

019because I like to review it before I give it to you and know all the answers so for your questions and I hadn't had a chance to do that but we're on target the revenues the supplemental taxes came in this week is the and they're not finalized yet they haven't gone to the tax collector but it's approximately six hundred and fifty thousand dollars of supplemental taxes that's for people that bought cars in be after October 1st of last year the the levy D and then I just gave you some data our budget was six hundred thousand some data on where the supplements have been over the last few years and the Assessor said to make sure to tell them that that is the gross number and there will be some adjustments but I did knock

020it down a little bit before I put it in here so this was based upon conflicts or people protesting correct that for supplements they send the bills out and then they wait for people to protest which I promise probably shouldn't advertise for supplementals it's mostly its first see all cars and so people don't usually and and we don't assess them the state it is the limit that does that when when does that process finalized it correct it's gonna go it's due the payments are due January 1st and so it is with the Assessor today and by the end of the week it should be with the tax collector because they want to get those bills out expenditures Steve stole my thunder on this we have meetings next week that with each of the department heads

021other than what we've all heard from the Board of Ed that we have no known concerns and the town side right now we have a few little people and things that people want to move a little bit here to there but we had talked last year about doing budget adjustments during the year and we'd like to do some adjustments for January 1st and that's why we're doing this in December we have all of the meetings next week other questions on that with respect to capital that Steve done my thunder and this - that we are selling the notes that were essentially refinancing the 2010 that the total savings is two hundred and twenty three thousand that's after we pay for the bond attorneys and and professionals the net present value is estimate it's all estimated

022because we haven't told them yet at 2:05 the percent savings is 5.3 percent the rule of thumb is that if it's over 3% we should do it so that's why we're doing it pardon me a term of the new bomb it will be less than the term of the current bonds equal or less the point well the important dates on Monday we had our rating call we should have a response for Friday with as far as what our rating is we're going to sell them on Tuesday and the settlement date is January 8th you have the capital budget books that these are just what the departments have submitted if you prefer to have it in a PDF I have that too this is early previously we had been doing it on it's in February each

023year so you've got it two months early and there's the 10 year capital requests not a ten year plan because nothing's been done with it 10 year capital request from the departments in the back of that budget book audit update the there's two steps I thought I'd divide this out with the financials with the audit one is the preparation of the financial statements and since we're doing that in-house it's it can be separate from the audit you each have drafts of that that I promised in I'd send them out before the weekend was over and I had an hour to spare that but we have named ranges that link to the word and if I pull those up on my personal computer when I bring it to my to work or even if I bring

024my work one home all the links break so this white didn't get you then the notes but you have them now that I've got WPC a that the auditors had made an adjustment so I I got their trial balance on Monday I'm just grouping everything's to put in there we have a disclosure checklist and proofreading and and the MDNA to prepare and we had committed that we would have it done for December 31st it will be on the website for December 31st the audit the auditors however they've done their field work but they haven't done their final review and the partner called last week and said when was supposed to called in this week or and said that they don't know that they can get their portion done for December 31st it has to do

025with their workload and their peer review that's happening this week I said well do you think maybe you could attend the January 1st meeting and a January 8th meeting and have it done for that and he was going to look at his schedule and talk to Dan that down so I don't believe he's called I don't see it on my phone so I'll reach out to him he doesn't okay but the only difference ideally if I've done a good job the only difference between the financial statements that we put up there and the ones that we replace them with will be the audit opinion and we're not expecting anything we've art if they've already done the work we're not expecting it to be anything but an unqualified audit opinion that would be a huge surprised

026we as when they left they hadn't they didn't have any findings they have an open question that for the board of it and the it's called the level of effort that on chapter tight or they call a title one now the last 20 years but on the title one grants that you if the grant increases you have to increase the related special ed spending in the general fund so that you're not taking the grant and over and instead of your own money that you have to move them equally and wait self to look into that that or the Board of Ed may have the the education finance buyers may have looked into that but I haven't talked to them about it so that was open one we met a few weeks ago before Thanksgiving is

027theirs it's kind of the same same status is when we talk the correct we have not other than his called we have not heard from the auditors since they left under the grant status updates okay I tried to make it nice and clean here that FEMA that that if you look at the rows on the first row for a FEMA expenses we spent six hundred and ninety eight thousand in 2018 the Year in 2018 and we picked up a receivable that for a FEMA grant revenue of six hundred and ninety eight thousand so there's no profit in 2019 we spent six hundred and seventy seven thousand and we picked up revenue of six hundred and seventy seven thousand we think this year were estimating that we're going to get another one hundred and twenty eight

028thousand that which will be revenue in this fiscal year the reason we have more revenue than we have expenses is because we have salaries for example Kevin our Senior Accountant we could get reimbursed for but we didn't move his wages to a FEMA line item we have wear and tear on the equipment including fire trucks and so something so that's why it it looks like it's a profit it's not a profit it's just what we spent in the line item versus what we're getting reimbursed for that so FEMA owes us 1.5 million and they have paid us as of today 1.1 million three hundred and seventy two thousand one of the big things for the audit was were we really going to get that 1.2 million and could we prove it enough for that auditors

029to accept it as a receivable well when we get the cash that they have to accept it so that's good that we have two outstanding areas that we have a $38,000 for that we're expecting for that that's the where and Tarrant on trucks and things and and emergent volunteer time that is has been approved but we have not received the check yet and then there's ninety four thousand which is the management cost it's just a calculation I went into there it went into their portal today and I couldn't get any new information the Greg that handles us has no new information so we're just sitting waiting for them I did see that they hope to close it by August of 2022 but we're hoping that it's a lot sooner than that so that ninety four

030thousand is user that's mostly allocation of management is how do you go about it's a person about five percent of your total expenses as a management expense and then we put in the time I spent at Morris man yeah what time management spent we could easily put in two hundred thousand but this is what they estimate they'll give us for that so it's not a real this is money we've already spent we've already been paid this is just a reimbursement for those and I don't expect it'll take to 2020 no no no we were expecting it much sooner than that but that is what the the bulk of it and anything now we have 5,000 more to pick up on against our receivable which I'm sure the auditors are fine with that because we know

031we'll get the 38 we just haven't gotten it yet and any anything after that 5,000 as income this year the last thing on my agenda was review the the budget model that and I'd like to do that in January that the original model this is the 10-year projection the original one we did just for a single year that was single purposed to say hey should we do the school should we not do the school and I'd like to switch it over to a recurring model to so that as we go through we can keep it interactive but not try to not try to plug the old model with in the back pages I'd like to make all the changes in the front because if we start changing this the supporting schedules we start having errors

032so that is its I would like to for us to have a very similar model just for our recurring needs instead of the one time so I had a couple requests you just spoke to like you can do one of them which was to add columns to so that we just roll ten years but still have the actuals for existing your is that something that you oh we can do that and that's a type of thing I'm thinking about on the original we we okay it screws it up okay so yeah and also if we could if in the same workbook you can just copy paste values of the of the final version of the previous model so that would for reference we can go back and forth what I suggest it was that it

033be interactive where it frees the years prior yep so you'll roll forwards and assumptions would roll them forward on your active years seven exactly be saying the same thing right yeah yeah you take the actual numbers for let's say we're three years in but they freeze and then when you make an assumption of like health insurance cost goes up two percent from five point one assumption not a seven point one assumption it rolls it all forward yep yep yep fun night at Marion house doing what my husband did all set Marshall up and do you have any questions no questions all right I'd like to invite Rosa Hernandez up to the table for the board of ed Financial Review so the finance subcommittee has not met since you're the last report was given to this

034board so there isn't any new financials to update I can provide you or answer questions regarding the special ed overage that we're seeing now if you have any specific questions on that can you see cuz I'm gonna do on the board can you walk me through that yes just briefly yep um so currently right now we have about six or seven students that we had not budgeted for being out placed we anticipate another six potentially so right now we are currently seeing a shortfall a net shortfall of about four hundred and seven for under actually yeah about four hundred thousand dollars with an additional four hundred still potentially anticipated and we'll know more in probably February the six more potentials yes there are they do we have a feeling if they're likely to be out

035all six I'm more likely to be out placed is that what we're thinking we are probably thinking yes right now the evaluations are being done so and they'll be finishing up in January in February so when the evaluations are complete how what's the timeframe to get numbers for expense purposes to think about we'll know immediately yeah because they'll be you'll know exactly what the placement and they would start March in the March timeframe I believe yeah as soon as the evaluations are done they will feel be able to start immediately so yeah so that 400 is just for the remainder of the school year for those particular students and then obviously the total amount which is close to a million dollars will be in next year's budget can I ask you a question while we're

036going through the evaluations I'm sorry I just don't know the answer to this what do we do these things are they mainstreamed or do we so I'm getting the education they need why we do this well we have to be really careful not to attend they identify these students being in a small town I can't tell you and I don't even know the answer if these are students that have moved into the district with existing IPS or if these are students that we've had for a while and now they're having issues but the issues that we're seeing are profound social emotional issues that we don't have the programming right now to to manage so so yet did that answer your question or was there I'm just wondering what we do in the interim in the

037interim where we are we're making do with the staff that we have but we're that's why we're anticipating that these students will be out placed yeah because we've reached sort of that level of concern how many students do we have a place now we have thirty I believe I'm not trying to pound as I know I think it's I think it's thirty thirty out place that's thirty with this that includes the six to seven ones that were already now there's 30 so 36 so we anticipated I would think around 30 so this year alone we were at 30 plus ones this year alone we're adding 12 to 13 comple students yes 40% 6/6 accounts dramatic is this in line with other surrounding town it actually is yeah there's a national rise in some of these

038particular issues that students are facing but yes there are issues in all the surrounding towns with similar outplacement issues and so it's that one of the long-term solutions that we're looking into is you know regionalization of some of these services because it is it's still expensive to to make a program greenhouse and transportation is a big cost factor as well so there's a program that students currently go to in Danbury and we dr. Burrell is working with other superintendents in the region to kind of see if there's room for expanding that program creating a new one so last month we talked about trying to get as good a handle as possible on what the increased numbers would be for this year and rolling it forward and then possibly even having a special meeting between our

039two the two boards to figure out the way to bridge the current your gap and how to roll it into an appropriate budget for next for the next years that's still something that that that we that we can do and can we think we can have that information prior to the heavy budget season maybe late January yeah so we we have asked the so we have implemented a freeze right now so that saves us a small amount probably around 200,000 that's about half of the cost of the known expense that we're seeing a shortfall in we there was that 181,000 that the Board of Ed under ran last year - 85,000 out of that for the kindergarten teacher received we were hoping that that ninety six ish thousand could come back to us but again

040that's something can I stop you there just for a second yeah did we take that money out of that thunder do we appropriate it out of the general fund no the kindergarten teacher was that done out of the because I don't think we took it out of the 180 that she has left over we appropriate out of the general fund I think we transferred it from the what we've had in the budget to pay for Teachers Retirement if that came to fruition right so those overlapping funds - as 181 not 96 I believe something so that's the number she should know though okay so you should have 190 whatever you're thinking in your roll over you should have 90 more you should have another 90,000 right there isn't 180 yes look it up right now

041thank you so that should help you that should yeah but we yes to answer your question we do still need to probably come to the Board of Selectmen in January in the January meeting for a special appropriation for those potential yeah so yeah well the idea that the request last last month was that we have an actual special meeting among the either our two boards are the three boards to discuss that specifically as opposed to just having go through the appropriation process so we can play before you'd like that are before the Board of Selectmen meeting in January I think part of what we are asking for I'm speaking out of turn pleases one of the things was the freeze was hurting not hurting but putting a stranglehold on other students as well in the

042thing and we wanted to hear what was really needed so now though if you're looking at if you have this extra 90,000 I'd like you to redo what you can say what you've identified and your $200,000 of freezes so if it's something critical we can maybe review to appropriate some money or talk about it as a group general areas where that where monies will be frozen but we we've asked the building principals to come back with sort of but can we get sort of like thanks I guess my question would be like if textbooks had $80,000 budgeted there should have been in line and I'm like eighth grade four thousand dollars seventh grade six there should have been like a tree that built up to that eighty thousand and then at some point there should

043have been purchase orders put in for some of these books so we should be able to backtrack out exactly what hasn't been bought against the budgeted item because eighty thousand for textbooks like I say probably ten thousand was for eighth grade math so there should be areas identified that aren't spent in these areas in your budget so then we can maybe look at those as separate items yeah as soon as I have all of those specifics look at them from what perspective if we want to appropriate money a general knowledge if should week appropriate instead of freezing and help out in the cause in the short term yeah I'd like to know you know what's frozen hoping I guess that there's nothing that's really impactful students yeah yeah for generous oh no no we can't

044tell them what the big sample so no extended duty for teachers for example technology equipment yes instructional supplies textbooks those right now are not being those items are not being purchased what the extended duty means is there's no curriculum development going on so it is all impactful to students but I would think you'd buy textbooks at the beginning of the year I don't think you'd be buying textbooks versus always here right so yeah yeah so I'm gonna try to put him spot up just just trying to think you know curriculums been developed correctly curriculum development exam is an ongoing process yeah so we don't have programs and now we're just sort of implementing them so okay yeah yes technology again I would think bulk of that early yet those are these are sort of like

045general areas that that we typically hold off purchases in but as soon as we have specifics and we're gonna have to the building principals are gonna have to reorganize and reprioritize and that's sort of the specifics that we've asked them to provide so looking at your old report from October which is the November 11th October financial report you had 15,000 saved and Chromebooks you had about 120 thousand saved and salaries he had eleven thousand saved and workers count 21,000 saved on the transportation costs so now if you take the 191 that we stolen your rollover fund and start adding this is what I'd like to see the whole yeah like so the actual total exposures is more than 500,000 but after all of those things we're still short four hundred yeah but you haven't added

046in the 200,000 rollover yet so you're still to four hundred thousand short after your two hundred thousand rollover yeah yeah assuming what the role of right they looked up at the minutes and so it's it's instead of they didn't use the rollover money to fund the teacher it was a transfer from the Teachers Retirement that was one hundred and thirty thousand and the budget that moved forward up there so that the rollover money is still all there okay so right these them yeah I think we need to get a different report because these numbers are closer I think than what we're looking at I think with the rollover you're a lot closer Marsha is that your assessment to that they're close with the rollover money so when I talked to Ken that it sounds like

047we have the same information that the four hundred thousand is what they think they're going to be short for the current known students for the current known students that and they think they can cover that with the freeze and the end if the Board of Finance gives them the non lapsing money the rollover money that they should be covering that it's me it's fifteen thousand short but I guess it's close enough that but the the problem would come with the second set of students in February correct right but that cost I got questions on as well now this is where Tobi's they're not gonna be enrolled until March so they're only gonna have to ition for in transportation for four months or five months maximum the cost of each student we learned roughly is a

048hundred thousand dollars for a full year so the back end of this shouldn't be a liability of 400,000 or 500,000 it should be someone a neighbor two hundred two hundred fifty thousand if you're only prorating four months worth the school if era for entering them in February or March there's only four months tuition yeah so it's roughly ten thousand a month in tuition the transportation so now it shouldn't be thing let's just say unless they're saying that the actual cost will be the born and that's not well then we're looking at a bigger budget increase on the backside cuz it's four hundred thousand a quarter it's 1.2 million for those six students next year let alone the special ed that math doesn't translate these numbers hopefully yeah what's the Glens point we seem to be

049looking at a few different things and I think we're kind of looking at a moving target yeah I think it would be easier for the boards to see it if it's all on one page here's what we are at this is what we got six students and part of that cost is this evaluation process justified private professionals that will do these evaluations so that part goes away next year for these twelve students that replace this year yeah but don't we periodically do ongoing evaluations of students and how they're doing yes but not with these particular Nationals yeah we have neuropsychologist and psych yet psychiatrists that are doing these particular organizations thank you any other questions thank you and to the report of the committee's mr. Dan so we've already covered where we are awed it

050looks like it's probably gonna be delayed although through no fault of our own or our finance department so I'm glad to see that assuming the committee stays the same I'll talk to Michael I'll invite the I'll invite the rest of the Audit Committee - to that conversation and figure out when he's coming to the meeting as in past years we've had a presentation either in live or on the phone among the Audit Committee to ask questions and then either the auditor or myself presents it to the full board I would anticipate that being the same process this year the work last year worked very well you did a great job okay anything else any questions for Dan okay old business there is none any old business to go over none okay moving on the new

051business set the schedule since it you know today with just that proposed calendar for the regular meetings being on the second Wednesday the month seven o'clock so it's more of a discussion of whether or not we want to keep that as seven o'clock meeting time I didn't put together a good budget the budget schedule that's in a separate entity Marsha Eileen copied you an email do you Monday up on the screen and since you're connected thank you so as always happens with these things like Wednesday's probably the best day because you're not gonna have Monday or Friday holidays so that typically and works out well I'm assuming I just glanced at it on my way in here thank you for sending it out but I'm assuming you looked for holiday clashes I didn't see a

052Christmas in there I'm not sure about Jewish holidays yeah I didn't have I didn't have the calendar template pulled up didn't have the holidays important to us I need to find the macro to do that maybe Brown we can work on that for as long as Christmas stays the 25th I said I didn't see Christmas that's never the second Wednesday July 4th the religious holidays we need to probably the school calendar would be the easiest thing now I know Sean moved the meetings here because of the crowds we haven't had big crowds and forever is it easier for the two of you to go back to the Town Hall yes it is because we need to get something printed or to copy something it's just easier it's up to you guys we'll go either place

053I think Diana's satisfied those responsibilities immediately or even quicker than immediately telephone that would Steve what it's a we're in a town meeting it's less lights less things to keep open which is always nice it's it's the meeting room right next to Steve's office we have competent just always seems to work out easy they're good I was never go either way I'm more comfortable here I think I mean I know I mean I don't care either way we're not sure he's won worst I think the dialogue is easier in this room I agree is the technology for recording better up here then no no no it's better down home this is the YouTube channel yeah YouTube channel so people want to say this YouTube is far easier to navigate than the earth channel can Hollis

054that's channel 7 so then how about we have the next one here and we think about it for the next meeting - plus - is Steve and you can come up with pluses from your side if you want it's fine I think you have to adopt the schedule you can you can adjust it yeah but I think you need to adopt a schedule Lisi states yeah yes with not the day it was meetings versus location can change I think you can put to be soaked term I'll make a motion that we approve or to finance calendar for the year 2020 has hosted regular mini calendar yeah second more discussion follow those in favor motion passes cheering up one new piece of business mr. e yeah why did we need to get an appointee to the

055are back committee it was John Pitt so we need to add somebody from the board of Nance if you choose to assign somebody to sit on the are back retirement benefits Advisory Committee all right you don't have to do that this but it's something that probably should be done the next month or so let's think about that by next week can you get a summary of what it takes to do for next week's people have an idea of the commitment yeah now do we have to amend the agenda for these four items brought like Anacortes let you add an item I will make a no particular order I'll make a motion to amend the agenda for the Brookfield Fire Company requests of an ambulance second the motion yeah you asked for a second yeah do

056we have a second thank you I second all the discussion any discussion well no now we're just adding it to the agenda when I thought that discussion closed it out and then add it you goes one out of my discussion the vote to amend the agenda hi all in favor aye should pass a 6-0 discussion let's see what we're gonna talk about we can fight a nd up to discuss yes but it's ready come on out the ND I got it the right order first Thanks okay abl assistant fire chief I'm here for two items may I interrupt you for one second Andy they've been having trouble with feedback from these microphones picking up the speaker so if we can okay I'll start again Andy Ellis assistant fire chief for Brookfield headquarters company tonight the

057first item we have is ambulance replacement we're here tonight because one of our ambulances has exceeded its life at a hundred and three thousand miles for several years the 40 years or so we had two ambulances we replaced one every five years for a 10-year life on the ambulances and they were doing a fraction of the calls that they're doing now in 2010 I think we added a 30 ambulance and we decreased the replacement to four years but that extended the life of the ambulance out to 12 and as the call volume has increased which it has drastically every year we've put a lot of miles on the ambulance and 18 to which is our oldest ambulance has 103 thousand miles on it [Music] it's a 2010 put in service January 2011 and it needs

058to be replaced on the advice of our mechanic and the service people it's been out of service 30 days this year twice with a patient in the back of the ambulance I love getting those phone calls today I got a phone call cuz the heat broke in it and that's an OEM s violation so we had to put it out of service so we need to replace the ambulance the money that we have in our emails reserve fund was based on a four year replacement one every four years we need to change that and we'll be talking about the budget a budget time about that but Marsha we can we average thousand twenty nine miles on each ambulance every month every month / we have three ambulances so yeah that's a lot that's three thousand

059miles on it you know back and forth to the hospital that's a lot of miles we do a lot of calls this fiscal year we're probably going to do 2,000 and merging medical services calls that's a lot of a lot of running around and you multiply that over over 12 years it's - it's not it's not feasible for us anymore so after you know some discussion with our mechanics and our service people I believe me the mechanics would love us to keep fixing it because they're making out on the deal but they said look it's like a million miles on a car a hundred thousand miles on a Mel's so to put that into perspective it's they're tired and we need to do this with the upcoming nursing home and skilled assisted living facility that's

060being built on federal Road and the new medical facility being built where the cornfield is that's gonna put many more hundreds of runs into the fire company over the next couple years so any just curious you use that metric of you know the million miles versus Andre what's what's the 10x it's just it they're not they're not getting they get started up they get you know someone's having a heart attack they get pounded on you know I start my car but just for five minutes warms up I cruise around you know yeah yeah that just it's just the nature to be Eastern it's hard they're hard vials on that you know and then running all the time the idol that you know they're there they're put through the mill you'll a bounce around they're out

061in every kind of weather they put chains on them in the winter times they bounce around front end and this 18 - a shot that's just we put a new motor in that vehicle already under a warranty but we've already put in a motor in it it's just they're getting tired you know just they really get beat up you know I have two questions but when we put the third one in service how do we pay we well know we have not bought the last ambulance at the fire company bought is sitting at the police department right now is the dive truck we used to buy them with don't we can't do that anymore we couldn't we came to the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen years ago and said look we can either

062buy fire truck ambulance as we can do both and the better option for the town was to take on the animals as they cost less money and it worked out pretty good you know ms was taken off we have this one research our donations are stagnant it's pretty consistent our town is growing our town is growing our donations are staying the same the request for the fire department are going or increasing as well we're gonna do probably 70 hundred fire calls this year my dad started here they were doing a hundred fifty a year okay and now we're gonna do 800 fire calls responses you know hundred percent volunteer the money when we went to the 38 minutes it was due to the fact that we are call why I'm so high that we had

063to do it and basically through reserve funds we were able to put it do this in my mind what is the potential further injury for a patient if this breaks down again with a patient in the vehicle oh it could be catastrophic because if it's a cardiac arrest or serious if it's a pediatric having the anaphylactic reaction or something and the a melts is dead on exit six and Ambria like it was the other day or two months ago whatever it was when I got a phone call on a Sunday night because they chief the the animals just broke down with a patient aback that's unstable that's very bad and that's why we started we contacted mr. Dunn and Marsha we said look the first thing I asked could this wait till next year no

064I can't you know and and I don't want to see anybody get hurt or put us at any risk or any are citizens that we protect thank you thank you mark we also now for the summer at least I think we stopped the program we've had to have three crews on two we have two crews on seven days a week now we've increased our staffing we met with mr. Dunn in September we've increased our staffing on the weekends the call volume is very very busy it's it's only gonna get busier we're trying to stay ahead of the curve we watch trends and part of the equipment you know with all the manpower you ain't you know you add on all this other stuff is the ambulances the emails are getting we recovered a hundred percent

065of our calls and and it's beating up the equipment which is okay but we just have to adjust the replacement schedule and this is the time that we have to do it and and as things continue I see of fourth ambulance in our horizon in four years or so yeah absolutely I do I see stab more staffing I just you know there's nobody else to call and everybody else around us is feeling the same pinch with this so this is the ambulance replacement schedule and and as you can see we've kind of adjusted it to be for nine years so when we come through guys in March we're gonna be looking to increase our the reserve you guys put away from the ambulances instead of over four years it's gonna be over three and that's

066we're gonna try to do with that as we told you it's running on borrowed time who's out of service 30-plus days it's 31 now because it was out of service today and a multiple breakdowns whether or transporting patients in the back all right we do have an option we talked to the Board of Selectmen about it because it is your ambulance you guys purchased it about doing a remote which was basically they would remount the box do some work on it and put it on a cabin chassis a new cabin chassis with minimal internal repairs you know some cosmetic stuff and that's about two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars to do that project and the replacement option for brand-new ml's soup-to-nuts is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I know what I think we should

067do I let the Board of Selectmen on Monday make that decision I believe the replacement option is the better option the fact that if it was closed it was a hundred thousand dollar difference I think all day long we should remount it but it's really not and I think once we get into there's no guarantees at that 2:15 but they get into it it takes it apart there's some problem underneath and we've already had them you know some other issues it's I just don't think it's a good idea but I needed to be honest with you guys and give you that option to say that it is available out there either way I need a no animals so and those are two question the Board of Selectmen unanimously said makes more sense to us to

068just buy new we don't this is not a piece of equipment that you can have up 95% of the time it's got to be up 100% of the time is there any resale value on the old ambulance for the box it's it's a town asset after we're done with it we the fire department owns it right now because of we are the license holders but we give it back we sell it to a dollar we had a dollar transaction I think or something we bought the MLS whatever we did it'll be back to town it's a town asset so we've looked at 15 20 thousand dollars yet 20,000 is not ours it's a town asset so whatever you guys want to do with it at that point it's yours some so many stuff comes out

069if you look at our when we do our poll from now when we do our budget we've lined up all of our stretcher replacements in a nine year cycle so every time we buy a new ambulance or buying new stretchers no it's about the same life so it was kind of staggered before but we're gonna have it all lined up in our budget so somebody come out to some of its Noor but this stuff that's not salvageable won't and anything I said it's your and else we're done with it that's for niemals that's it stretcher other things that's different stuff that's in our bets in our operating budget that we that we have planned and we have that at our 10-year plan out with our operating budget and everything else has that stuff in our

070capital all has the yep this stuff in there to replace the stretchers and the chairs and why that's about fifty thousand dollars worth of equipment you're estimating no one more for your estimated 250,000 for a new one why are we all plus or minus 5% is what gets you to the 262 yeah yeah and so if it's less correct absolutely yeah we're only gonna need what we what we need and and you know do I think I think to 50 to 55 again I it's right around there i I don't know but I'd rather err on the side of not having to come back and ask for anything and you know it's in the process right now where it's being we have an idea what it's gonna cost it's going out to bid so we

071have an idea we can pull the trigger on it very quickly make it happen is there any other use for the older ambulance that you can think of in town that might suffice to put it in somewhere else that could help us versus we've already done that with like the police took one of the ambulance and made it a scuba truck at this point in time I don't see we everybody has what they need right now and I gotta be honest with you I don't see it as a reliable piece of equipment especially if it's gonna be something they're not gonna use every day and start and maintain and it's I think would be best to find somebody you know there's a market out there using ambulances and there'll be some money not not a

072lot it's not half the price of it or anything it's it's awful what happens when you drive an emails off a lot it's like a fire trucks they're worth nothing thank you and do we have money in the reserves or do we wipe that out was the last name here yeah I believe Marshall put something together she's got a plan that gets us to where we need to be you guys didn't discuss it it's in your packet that you had on the table tonight and also what Ginny had sent out that there is some money in the reserves but not enough there is some money that if we use the fire department we had two separate service fire and EMS so we take all the EMS reserves we take all the reserves from the fire

073department after the next presentation and then they had two hundred and forty seven thousand dollars for a roof but they have about a hundred and twenty two thousand dollars extra there they would have to reclassify that and then they had the HVAC control reserve there was twenty thousand and they're not going to need that and so they're looking to reclassify five thousand from that so will not be touching the general fund and and there will be twenty five thousand dollars from the fire company which we haven't bought an ambulance in years but I feel strongly enough that we don't mind we need to get this done so well that was a that was a that was based on a total replacement and once we got up there that was a totally replace the roof and

074that was what what we were told that was probably gonna have to happen we had a new contractor a couple new contractors come and they are not gonna replace it they're gonna put a membrane over it and seal it up and insulate it and at a huge substantial savings to the town so we were okay with that no they it's in the process of being bid out and they were very jewels they were I think this month and then a month that's when the price would be so so we don't have a firm quote it's pretty fun and are we getting the same years out of this are we getting the same two twenty yet it's a warranty as a 20-year roof gentlemen from your office they helped us with a bit uh Jerry Jerry

075Jerry was there he's involved in it did the whole thing he was actually on the roof up on the roof with us the day the guy was up there much to his chagrin and you you know it was that both the the contractors and the building material rep said oh yeah this is not this is we didn't tell him what we had and they gave us a price oh this a new technology I guess I'm sort of like what sure you know we have departments and I think what your needs are needed so I'm not saying that so I don't want you to take this next step to the but if we have departments putting in quotes for half a million dollars coming in a hundred thousand and having four hundred thousand dollars of free

076money to spend it's not conducive to controlling a budget this is a big mess of a 50% miss on a two hundred and forty thousand dollar I think characterized as a big mess what I would characterize it as a fire to farm I went out and got right one bit and what they got they had trouble finding contractors I think in the first Kirk correct and then you got a bid in and the guy said it's gonna be sold 250,000 right and I'm looking at and kept on looking at it and down other providers who could come in and come up with different solutions right but we approved a new roof right at 240,000 so we as a group as a line item the taxpayers voted on this line item for a roof at 240

077now it's coming in at 120 are the taxpayers getting what they voted for in my option as far as line-item then what we're saying is we're gonna put in the ambulance and a roof underneath the the roof that's not really transparent to the taxpayer or not what we're doing what we're doing is asking this board we're going to transfer money that was not spent on the roof in a totally open and transparent we're sitting here talking about it right we said what we spent on the roof we have 122 left we're saying we would like to transfer that money to buy a new ambulance to say that's not transparent I don't know no no but what I'm saying is what happens now we go to the high school roof and the high school gets approved

078for $400,000 when I first took office we had three hundred thousand dollars to replace the Town Hall roof in the budget right by the Board of Finance the year before I took office we actually did it for one hundred and twelve thousand dollars I believe because whoever came in didn't give us a good price that occasionally does happen but you need to correct it to save money on a probably agree with you we want projects to be as close to the bid and the budget as possible sometimes that does not happen it doesn't that and that's where we come back to you we're open we're honest we say hey we saved 120 hundred thirty thousand dollars we found a new way of doing this that is less expensive is it at risk low to take

079one hundred and twenty two thousand dollars now when the project hasn't been done yeah I mean I'm not comfortable with that because then who knows if six months down the road find out that when they're replacing there is something that costs on during twenty two I mean that's great that we think that there's a one twenty two but that's not a solid number I wouldn't feel comfortable using that now towards no we have pretty solid bids with some contingency in there so I'm comfortable with this not person and and to back you up on that statement is it an identical warranty so in five years you're not gonna come and say you know this repair didn't work and now we need that's it's a twenty year roof just like the other one was gonna be

080so the repair is good identical only thing different was we were we thought that the decking the the gentleman that gave us the price we needed to have that price you know and for your to meet with the board of fines to get a proof of the project you know and the gentleman that that has been the roofer there met with us and said okay to do this and any met with us there's gonna be two hundred and forty whatever thousand dollars that was to replace the whole metal decking and everything else once we put the project out to bid and people came to meet with us different people and they said what wait a minute we don't have to do this that we're up here looking you know there's a process out here that

081it's widely accepted we use for a long time and this is what you do and it actually increases your installation and everything else and we met with the gentleman a couple months ago and it went very well and we said okay so we said well what do you think you said I you know what it would cost and we realized what our savings been paying and we immediately Jerry and and you know before we even knew we were doing this the ambulance you said look we're gonna have some money left over on the roof alright and I don't ever want to come back I always plan worst-case scenario and when we told the guy to look at the roof whatever you got to do it so we don't like idiots coming back you're saying or

082fifty thousand dollars short I'd rather come to you to say look I have fifty thousand dollars extra because this guy you know overestimated it and and and that's that's what we did and you know we wanted to make sure that you guys knew that um I can't control who comes and gives us bits you know and what they say I'm not a roofer I have to at that point I have to rely on them to come to you guys to say this is what we need on our capital you know last year two years ago wherever we put that in for so I don't think any like I say nobody's question the knee but down now this sect record another conversation is we got contingencies built in on the 120 we got a contingency on

083the topside of the cost so we got double contingencies built into this number of savings you got the roof savings the contingency on the roof you just said you just made a statement we built contingencies into the roof so make sure we have the right know Eileen's question was nope just right correct I'm agreeing I'm just saying but we got a contingency on the topside of the cost of twelve five as well so we built two contingencies into this project is to ensure that we didn't put a contingency in there we could say we have 135,000 so I think what the what you're trying to say is that the ambulance hopefully it comes in under the total because this is the maximum and then the roof hopefully it comes in under the total because that's

084a maximum so I guess two hypotheticals if not for the ambulance but would the money be used for and not for the ambulance would we of knowing about it at the Board of Finance level on mine you would have because the bill for the roof would have gone to the town because that's what happens I submit the bill to the town and whatever's left in that whatever you guys do with it doesn't come to the fire company no you know and we've done that in the past equipment has cost you know we you know we'll get it you know you guys didn't spend $8,000 your capital I know I'm in and whatever I don't know what you guys do with that at the end of it but that's that's what happens yeah like we don't

085we don't get the money to start the project the bill comes to directly to the town once the bid process is done and they handle it we don't we wash your hands of it all we do is ask the money for you guys and you guys take care of it from there so what happens it's like at the last board it's not this sort of slept in the meeting we retired nine hundred twenty-three thousand dollars in approved spending that we did not actually need and we would just retire it if we didn't need it okay so the bottom line for me is I need an ambulance and however you guys figure it out and we'll help you out look so we're willing to put some money into it to make it happen we feel that

086strongly about it but I wouldn't be up here right now wasting your time talking to you if I didn't wasn't feel that strong in it that we need to get this done yeah so I kind of feel bad cuz we're leaving you at the podium well we're kind of having these right good but I just want to go back to this this roof you know I understand value engineering at these it's a great and I thank you guys for doing that right but I'm wondering now you know we have Jerry working for us we've had a few instances of we budgeted something and it was considerably over which works out good in the end but you want to minimize that so I'm wondering if maybe Jerry can have a process of you know in the

087initial budgeting maybe we get more than one professional in to do something absolutely we don't do that every time this was not bid out by the town this was it out by the fire department they came to us first but sue does do that normal thing cuz he we used to not do that yes so you could not tell them we have him okay thank you presentation sir that's I just like I said I need an ambulance it enables and I hope none of you need one that's for sure that's the truth that's the truth but that's it guys I mean whatever you got to do to make it happen I get the fire companies willing to chip in 25,000 dollars I'll commit that from the fire company we've talked to the board of directors

088and have a problem doing that but we need to make it happen tomorrow tell me about these reserve funds so the 25000 is on that there was an old reserve back there that was years ago that had $100,000 in it for fire equipment but it didn't say what fire department 50,000 was used by Candlewood for their boat so there's 50,000 left because we tried to be fair and divide it in half that as of June 30th if you look at your financial statement and the capital non-recurring fund there's a hundred and seventy nine thousand that's sitting there as of June 30th as a reserve for the fire department that we added in the current year twenty nine thousand or where we added fifty thousand to that but twenty nine thousand would be needed for the

089fired fire truck so there's 21,000 left in reserves for the fire department that they're willing to move over to the ambulance since they're all the same entity that we have at June thirtieth of 1916 thousand four forty four in the financial statements for the ems reserves that they had bought some things last year so that that's not a lot of money left we put in a reserve in the current year budget of seventy two thousand nine thirty one so this would take up all of the reserves to date for the fire company in the EMS you say today but through next year through June 30th of twenty two day and beyond today and beyond for up through this fiscal year and then the fire department is kicking in ninety two thousand dollars of the between

090the two pieces of equipment yes so say that so we're so those reserves will be zeroed out let me know nothing there's nothing on the which if you guys remember which I know you Dukes I'm looking at some very familiar faces you gave me your word and mr. Dunn has been a man of his word so far and all you guys have that when we got to this point because we knew we were underfunding those those that you guys would make it happen so that's why I'm here tonight am i calling you out what I'm just stop pointing something else that's right I don't feel cold Oh Briana wasn't here I will hold her accountable but so how long did it take us to accumulate these reserves - do we have a timeline of how

091many years we put into these reserves and a scheduled fall down yeah but this is exactly what they're meant for zero yeah I'm talking about that I'm doing about our next hurdle and putting enough reserves that's why I asked the question I'm on board with you we're all hours about zero we're all moving in the same direction here definitely and just you have to do it yeah if you were to look at the but the tenure requests the reserves are highlighted in green because each fire department did it differently so I don't want double account for them so that the actual is what shows up there and if you choose to do reserves we just adjust that I just have to connect yeah well we're waiting can you remind me what a paid fire department

092and a payday bill it's company would cost this town potentially per year a minimally staffed fire department would cost you about five million dollars and you wouldn't have the volunteer fire department raising money every year to buy fire trucks so be more but five million dollars to staff a minimally staff Fire and EMS Department there's just four to give credit to my people that was that all volunteers eighty five people in town that keep five million dollars off our tax rolls every year and we are very grateful that you guys are very good to us and we appreciate it the Marsha has your fourth ambulance request right for the model the one you think you're gonna need down the road down the road we didn't put that in our long terms that's gotta happen a

093model yeah yeah the apparatus replaces but adding in a fourth ambulance isn't in there yeah I don't know when that's gonna be I have to look at numbers it could be in two years it could be in six years are we gonna need this with I don't know it's coming online I'm not calling you about the retirement whatever the one of the new buildings might need more ambulance one for assisted living averages 1.8 calls per bed per year it's gonna be it's gonna add another two hundred calls for and we're doing 800 calls with three you know not even we're doing two thousand emails cause that's 800 fire calls we're doing two thousand ammos calls that's got to get put into the future needs again I want to tell you when that's gonna be we

094look at trends we try to we meet we met with Steve a couple times we've increased our staffing as watch this towns needs have but I think that's one of the reasons they want to go to a three year recycle you know we play recycle and I think that's the right thing to do we tried we tried the four years and it was working for a while it's just it got too busy and we have great maintenance the guys take very good care of the stuff we have a great mechanic and and it's just retired so this is a summary of the reserves at the as of November when we looked at the boat so there was this old fire truck that 50% of 50,000 went to the boat the the Candlewood boat so that's

095where the 50,000 is left that and you can see that that was an old reserve that I traced back to 2016 and before then we started to do with department by department and said so you can see each of the budgets through 19 some was spent for the ambulance and it was these two on the f-550 and that was an increased cost that was a four-wheeled our first four-wheel-drive ambulance so it was a little bit more money the first time we ever done that was a great idea actually worked out well so that's why they wiped out all the yeah but this one is going to be a two-wheel drive yet and so when you look at the schedule that of the payments that hundred and seventy nine thousand that from the financial statements this

096is how that was that came together as of June 30th of 19 the ambulance 16,000 for 44 that's how that came together are you paused for I'm done yes why aren't we doing this one four-wheel drive I've got to imagine in the long term it saves money in between quit chains well actually cost costs and maintenance we're gonna buy our plan our mechanic and our chief engineer deeper the town highway mechanic is our is our chief engineer the fire department and our mechanic Bruce Taylor and Brookfield heavy equipment we figured we buy every other one four-wheel drive so you guys are happy yeah we're happy with it very very much so our highway department is second to none so they are always out there with us Jim doctor keeps the guys out there the roads

097in Brookfield are awesome as you guys know so we feel pretty confident that if we go every other one we should be pretty good but thank you for asking the okay absolutely we ask the same question it's a very good question you know it really is and we try to we try to stay on that stuff and we really it worked out really well for us to have that and some really bad snowstorms and the ones with the chains I don't work really well too so we're gonna go every other one okay thank you any more discussion internally Eileen anybody so then we got to put each item to vote correct so huh dude I don't know if we have to vote on them separately because we're getting the request so fine yeah each other

098and then vote right so we added the ambulance ambulance to the agenda right now so the ambulance we would make a motion so I will make a motion that we approve the request but from the Brookfield volunteer fire company is sent forth by the Board of Selectmen to replace the ambulance in the amount of 260 two thousand five hundred dollars to come from the fire company the reserve fund and other unspent funds as shown on the breakdown second but it develop all those in favor say aye motion passes 6-0 thank you to keep things moving on the commotion that we amend it add to the agenda discussion of the tower 100 firetruck refurbishment second discussion we vote to put it on the agenda by passes 6-0 on the agenda you can make a motion that

099approve real quick real quick I go over this this is the one we've been telling you guys who's coming yeah this is our 2001 tower ladder we bought it for six hundred eighty thousand dollars back in 2001 with Fire Department funds in town to not purchase it the town is yet to purchase the fire truck for Brookfield for headquarters company yet but or a portion of till this until tonight we've been putting money away for this project for several years that's when we started the apparatus replacement fund four or five years ago I'm not sure when we started doing that with the anticipation that this was coming as you can see this is our ladder truck at work it's a hundred foot long it's not needed so much for the reach up but to reach

100out here's the deal we can keep it another it's 19 years old in January we can keep it another 5 years or so and replacing a new one for one and a half million dollars or we can send it out and get 15 to 20 more years out of it for $325,000 all in compliance with the safety standards and the cuff fire company feels that this is the way to go we've already earmarked the $67,000 I had a fire company money to proceed with this project it'll take six months to get it refurbished and we'll have a new like new fire truck for another 15 to 20 years so we'll get almost 40 years out of this fire truck if we go to replace it's a million and a half dollars that's a lot of

101money for a truck that doesn't get used every day but we need what's the additional cost for renting so every rental we don't have we don't need a rental we have a second aerial devices smaller one which is 78 footer and we feel that right now we can do that because we have some towers around us that can get us started if we have a big job just like we were just covering the Milford well there's risk getting built we kind of help each other out with those things Danbury Bethel Newtown all places that we can call if we need a larger arial 'arial device the company that's gonna do the work bought out American LaFrance which is out of business which is this truck is they have all the parts and they're the ones

102that got do all the work and I feel comfortable with the fact that that it will probably come under budget and which is a good thing I see y'all smiling and within six months we'll have it back this was our plan all along it's been very well maintained we have a power washing system that we clean the underside of the trucks because fire trucks ride out from the bottom and the underneath and we try to clean them and keep make sure that doesn't happen basically what they're gonna do is remove the ladder to turntable the outriggers disassemble the whole thing blasted Prime and painted new hydraulics electric welds third party test the Russ protective frame all new LED lighting it's basically gonna be a new fire truck but for the price it's a no-brainer for

103us so we are this is the first time that we are asking for money from the fire at best reserve we don't even know what the process is so that's why we're here tonight I don't know what we have to do all right good you go back a couple slides Marshall back to that slide so that's so we're gonna have left in the fund at 2:58 in the bottom two but it's not okay so that's a total of these other numbers 252 179 229 right yes so what is left in that fund zero after you buy the MLS nothing all the funds are all gone that's zero now he feels it's gonna come under correct maybe the other one we have a contingency built in where's that money if we do come under where's that

104drop it was it gonna go back into the apparatus budget my suggestion would be to take that money and put it back in the reserve fund right mostly if we do a prop capital project and when it's on dirt the money just goes back if we if we bonded it the money goes back into the general fund I would not suggest that I would say every penny we get that's under here goes back into the fire apparatus and just so you guys know our next purchase is 2023 I believe it's on the extended for a pumper to replace our pumpers which do we do every 20 year so that's our next time we'd be coming here to say we need money out of the reserve my question is for the boys to talk about this

105one since that's the topic we're on sixty seven thousand dollars is coming from the volunteer fire department fund can you tell me about that fund is there is that that is the fund that we are and you our donations come through fund drive we go out every year I would say forty percent of the town donates to the fire department the other sixty does not so the forty percent is doing a lot of lifting for the fire company right so how depleted is that fund after we take the twenty five thousand and we already talked about in this sixty seven thousand dollars we still have money in there but we also have we have three loans out I don't know it's not the videos no we also have three are two loans out for three

106apparatus that we bought in 2012 and 2016 which we're paying off that's just fun you know my mind goes to I don't want to let that fund go to zero so if there was a call we back the thought would be to maybe instead of putting it back into one of these which is great but the time the fire department works hard to get those done yeah we know that we can was discuss maybe putting some more of a chunk or all of it or whatever if it runs under we appreciate that and like I said we've this is the first time in eighty five years of our existence that we've had to come to the town to ask for assistance to buy a fire truck or portion of a fire truck we've tried it

107ourselves to that four years to try to do it ourselves but the costs it's just cost prohibitive with the donations the way they are and cost the equipment then we did this with the boat if you met John Mark you went on the board we did not ask them to clean out their fund you know can we get back to it that's fun like that anyway are we allowed this so we wouldn't give back anything to you just keep it on the reserve fund right we just spent less no the fire department is fully okay with that sixty seven thousand dollars no problem we've budgeted it we moved it did not take the full sixty the milk comes in less we take 65 that was fine whatever yes just discussion I was having if I

108appreciate that we had a discussion on this uncomfortable that the fire company is comfortable with their donation I think it's a good thing they're putting up about twenty seven twenty percent of the expense of this but we're not cleaning them out by any means and I think I just under think I understand how difficult it is for them to build that yeah and it much appreciated thank you very much for thinking of us all right staying with it mark go ahead first day back to me I'm gonna make a motion that we approve the funding of $325,000 for the refurbishing of Tower one hundred as approved by the selectmen and detailed the spreadsheet second I second discussion all in favor say aye aye motion passes 6-0 on behalf of the fire company I'd like to

109thank you guys for keeping your word from years ago it means a lot alright thank you very much I'm gonna make a motion to amend the agenda for a discussion of a proposal to purchase property located at 43 Silvermine Road we have a second I'll second that discussion all those in favor of change in the agenda this is zero you're getting there so as if I could start as you aware we had an executive session on this two meetings ago to discuss the sistas property directly adjacent to the police station the town had just for historical purposes the town had a 20-year option to buy that property when we first bought all the patek property so it was always intended to be part of the town campus that option expired 20 to 23 years ago

110and a gentleman bought the property he is now interested in selling it it is a preexisting non-conforming use as a contractor yard and so another contractor could come in and buy that property and use it at a much higher level than the current owner is using it we could see I can envision seeing 20 30 trucks in there right next to the police station it could happen if you've if you've seen our contractors in town sunburst or A to Z they use a lot of vehicles they're in and out all day they're in and out on the weekends too because they do a lot of work on the weekends the other advantage to that property is that at some point we are going to expand the police station we're not going to have a choice

111on that it is in my opinion the police if you remember they came back with an outside services fund request to do a further study on the police station part of that study is expanding towards this property if we own this property we could expand that way it's my personal belief that we could probably save a lot of money by just expanding rather than trying to go up or trying to shoehorn a police station on the existing property and so we would get about $1,800 a month rent from the house we're more than willing as a town to continue to rent to the people who lived there we would also gain the access to the garage which is heated and has storage above it we can use in fact I've had three departments already come

112to me if we buy this property can I have a garage space nothing kills the vehicle harder than leaving it outside and not using it the police have almost every single one of the vehicles outside and they've had problems with them so I think that you know we've had discussions along the lines of our executive session we negotiated with the owner and we have achieved an agreement that we will buy this property for $535,000 fair market values um we got one commercial appraisal we got one commercial no it's a good question we have one commercial appraisal that valued the property at three hundred and eighty four thousand dollars the problem is in the aquifer this the valley that we're in our zone industr yards to be built so they're at a premium and I think

113the owner knows that no one can come in and just buy a piece of properties how come the store and all my equipment my you know trucks and my hose and my equipment and it becomes what is it worth to an individual so we had both this board and the Board of Selectmen had extensive discussions as to what we would pay for this property and I think the price that we're paying is while it is above the the bid that nothing did but the appraisal that we got it's very hard to price these things and another cost is do we want 10 15 20 trucks going in and out of that property every day for the rest of time and since we can use it for the police station to extend that spike we can

114use the property for ourselves we can use the building we're gonna get about a 2.8 percent return on the rentals we get from the property and I think it's a it's a very very good I think it's a very fair price that were we've struck with the owner and I think it's very close to what another contractor would pay does it give us any potential for additional field space center that's an ongoing possible we looked at that yeah you could extend the fields man there's a lot of briar and brush between the town property and that property this property is about almost 2 acres I think and so yeah you could extend there could you put a 300 by 300 foot baseball fields no could it possibly help a little bit if you needed space

115for a soccer field or something like that yes but I it's not really you're gonna get from art the property line to the house and the garage is about 50 feet so you're not gonna get a ton of additional space there you know I think that contractors yards can't be you know I wouldn't want to put a blanket statement in any contract you're in trucks and it's gonna look horrible I mean no no no my job that location but no we have to run to a station in a town hall I don't know I wouldn't call it houses but we're potentially discussing buying for maybe two hundred fifty thousand dollars over appraised value know about 50 100 150 months but that didn't work that didn't factor in the grandfather clause of the yard that factored

116in the the property itself that just the property itself they did in fact in a commercial we got a search for appraiser to come in and that's what they gave us as a price but I might this is my personal wait fine property selling property is very difficult he could sell that for three hundred eighty four thousand dollars in one day yes he could probably it is worth more than it belongs to our campus yes it does we had the police expansion that we need and every project that we've looked at in town major issue has been Lee and where can we put this and that solves that problem at a time what sets us up in a better position for projects we know we're coming I agree I mean if he paid a little

117over I think what you're saying mark I think if the value we're gonna get out of it in the long term fires always we're stirring it well so so if the town is is purchasing property we're worried about not having a property there's 22 acres for sale in Brookfield for $300,000 it's by that where do we we're not buying stuff just to buy stuff no we're not I know this because it's originally intended to be part of the town campus we can extend the police station and I believe save money when we intended to be part of the town campus explain that we had a 20-year option to buy that property when the town originally bought the padang property when when one of the brothers was living there that expire or windows it expired about

11820 years ago and two weeks after it expired the current owner bought it I think the town should have bought it back then yeah I was a - it sold for about a hundred and fifteen hundred twenty thousand dollars back then now it needed a lot of work the owner put a ton of money into that property because it did need a lot of work I have one more question because I don't yeah this is really for Marsha is it a is it appropriate is it a appropriate for us to appropriate funds from other items to buy something or should we use funds from the general fund to purchase something and then replenish the general fund at the end of the year with overages just seems like we're mixing things up in the middle of

119a year we try not to do additional appropriations and the general fund we try not to because the the rating agencies ask about that they don't ask about the other funds that but the other funds there is unrestricted money that is in there for example in the town rental property we have two pockets of money in there we sold so in in in the rental funds we have about $400,000 we're not taking all of that money usually the money from the rentals of the properties that go skiing across the street that we own and rent out to people while that money is used to maintain those properties and this year we redo deciding on one of the buildings we have more than enough money in the rental account to maintain those properties so not well

120you know robbing from people a pool but my question would be like if I look at a school room for reimbursement or less amount used in year in 2020 budget the taxpayers approved us on a line-by-line budget to do stuff so if we don't use the money or got extra revenue or whatever but from other sources for transparency and I know we're transparent cuz we're at a meeting but it would seem to me that those should stay as separate buckets of money for the things they were yea for and then go into the general fund or going to tax rebate to next year VIX break that is a fair you raise if they're poor mark but in our bonding and when we go to the town and we ask them to approve it lists some

121of the projects that we do and other projects that need to be done so I think we're being totally transparent with residents that we could use this money for things that no not specifically in the capital budget and having this meeting having the Board of Selectmen meeting that's open and transparent there are funds left over from some of those projects you could dip into the general fund the rating agencies look at it really askance they do not like it and I don't want to touch our general fund well the new or maybe I should have said a contingency fund because we do put a contingency now we cut that way down yeah I mean you have to do we have to do it just seems like a muddy muddy pond to me and if your

122opinion is that that's the appropriate way to do it and I will bow to your knowledge on so it is it is done quite frequently within towns that before I was here it was a government audit municipality to for 35 years and I do see it that in the other for example the the town rental fund that that's money I went back I think 12 years just to make sure it wasn't something that was restricted for open space that's just profits from that every year with respect of paying for the costs that that leaves them about 40,000 the Conservation Commission and that they felt was comfortable with having the rest of this is access that we could we could take that for this purpose a probably for anything playing what Mark was saying a little

123bit is some of these funds I know they're in the audit but they're not generally talked about it a lot of our meetings how many more of these funds do we have out there what are the balances in these funds and you know you stevie made a stand i agree with you the Gursky property this rental comes in that's right then we're putting siding on it but how much of the rental versus the maintenance and how much do we have in these accounts because this year's budgets gonna be brutal I mean we may have to look at we need to have a listing of these accounts with these surpluses in that at Gursky property takes 20,000 to maintain a year and we got an $80,000 in there and we're collecting 20,000 we need to be

124able to see these instead of seeing them at a time of purchase we need to see them at a time of planning I guess is the statement it's not a hiding thing see I'm not saying you're hiding I'm just saying there seems to be and I know you'd around the books the 462 was on the books but it would be nice to know what other these accounts like the school reimbursement received it's it's really that it's the next step of professionalizing and improving operations that I mean we it was impossible to do what you're asking for two years ago when I started the board now I think it's probably possible to get requests just like that so if you go to your financial statements that you receive tonight and go to page 93 I know

125it's in their summer I didn't make it 393 also called d1 on the top right so most of our money is in the the what I have it in a book but yours is not in a book so that when we are outside the general fund this is where most of the money is pensions are not here and and custodial money is not here but Parks and Recreation is the first number of first column and if we look at the the fund balance we have sixteen thousand dollars in Parks and Recreation that that and they use that for all the recreation activities the camps and the and the classes and things go through that fund this and the special revenue in order to be in here it's got to be primarily restricted money meaning that

126someone on the outside is telling us what we can and cannot spend it on the small cities grant fund that's some some loans that we have there the asset is a loan receivable so there is a large a balance there but it's not cash we can't spend it on anything else that the gursky property fund is divided that fund balance of 440 is divided into two pockets the 207 is the money that's restricted on the outside that we can't spend that except for open space that is the sale of forty of eighteen Junction Road that the 232,000 is the money that is accumulated four rum from the rental properties to be perfectly honest with you if I was your auditor at the time that the rules came in Gatsby fifty four came and I wouldn't

127let you put this as a special revenue fund because most of the money wasn't restricted that but the auditors did and this cleans it up because now it is mostly restricted Social Services fund our donations for heat and things like that that's thirteen thousand that the town grant fund those there's a schedule a few pages back that shows all the grants coming in and out we can't spend that on anything else the education grant fund there's a schedule in the back we can't spend that on anything else the cafeteria fund there are certain things they can spend it on for example that they're freeing up the cafeteria table and chairs because they're going to spend it out of there instead but why this fund I guess this is this leads to my question I can

128remember two years ago we voted on Capitol items for cafeteria tables and if I wouldn't have come out of this fund instead of appropriating we would that we went back to the school's the cafeteria funds what can only be used in conjunction with the cafeteria correct and after further discussion we're saying wait a minute you can expand that description to include any equipment that goes in the cafeteria it's just we're getting smarter and smarter at this so they've agreed they have a lot of money there so in prior years though we did folk though the cafeteria tables in and stuff so that should not come up again that should come out of this funk that's I agree they should anything in the cafeterias because they got way more money and they can spend now if

129they redid a kitchen they could also use this for a kitchen which would be great and if you look in their ten-year plan there is some appliances being replaced and I said hey wait why can't we pay these out of the cafeteria but that's in the the classroom for the whole mecha I don't know what it's called these days that that's in the classroom and not the cafeteria so I can replace the cafeteria want to move the budget they on the next page the special revenue funds the the police contract services that's a hundred and seventy seven thousand the police come to you for India they're very good about that and there's a schedule in the back of make that up the asset forfeiture fund that is when we get drug money and stuff that

130that it goes in there and that's the federal government monitors that that we have to report to them on what we spend it on the library has a special revenue fund that they that there's nineteen thousand dollars in there that six thousand of it is a grant that hadn't been spent at that June thirtieth and twelve thousand is fees and and things that have come in the library endowment fund has is a endowment we talked about this last year mark this would be new for you that it was a donation that came in 1954 and [Music] 367,000 can't be spent 177 can be spent for library purposes and they're the library's trying to use that for capital expense so I guess instead of going through all I don't know if we want to go through

131all this and I'll add to that what I'd like to see is when departments come to you for requests for this budget are we gonna look at this and see if we can use these restricted funds to cover the cost so someone comes to you in one of your departments as I need access and are you gonna now next step look at these restricted funds that we have and say we can use this money in the same thing with the Board of Ed are they going to look at what their restricted funds with the help of Marsha and say instead of asking 15,000 for cafeteria tables we're going to go to the restricted fund yes we've already done that particularly with the conservation and with the gursky properties and rental properties we've done a lot

132of improvements on those properties that came out of these funds they do do that but we'll look at it very very carefully we don't like with the fire department we don't want to strip a fund down to zero because they may have an emergency repair need a new heater you know the way it goes but yeah we can look at that and that's a good idea it's not gonna go for 20 years yeah that roofs not called for 20 years I'm not sure about specs acid let's circle back then I'm sorry it's just the cafeteria fund and you said they have so much that is can any of that be used to give back to kids for food I mean you know you always hear about the special lunches and food and stuff like that

133can we circumvent that to help kids in need that's a question that I did ask the Board of Ed I did not get in the answer I think they keep my opinion is yes they could they could offer them lower prices but then the question you start eating it down eating it down eating it down that would be a question for the Board of Ed just you're right there's quite a bit of money there and it should be used is wonderful to get back to the children yeah but could we use it is there a budget land request for that in their budget is there a spot in their budget that they supplement lunches no they don't stuff but this is they there may be a little bit on every lunch over the last 20

134years okay right and what we have asked them to do is that right now that that the process of for buying equipment in there does not go through any of the same formal channels that all the other equipment purchases goes through that and we've asked them if if they could bring that and just be more transparent say we'd like to buy a cafeteria table and chairs and this is how we're going to fund it yes that's okay but we're getting off but let's stick to this and if you want to dig into funds yeah circling but no no that's fine that's fine come back let's see if getting back to the topic of silver mine road searches so Steve you've discussed this with other people that 535 is a reason yes 2.2 acres so I'm

135behind the times as usual so the police station last I heard was gonna be two stories out over where they have parking now is that and I heard tonight police station moving over into this problem spanning over into this property so something has changed so no changed yeah you remember about three months ago police out police came and asked for an additional and ask for an additional appropriation to further explore with their architect different options one of those onset at the time was using forty three silver mine and that'll keep the cost of the addition down that's my guess I cannot tell you yes or no but it seems to me to be reasonable new construction is a lot cheaper than trying to build up or add-on it just is right you do a lot

136of this so my guess is yes you build an addition to this all right connected with sites you know you're not gonna build a brand new police station no I just so it has that added bonus that's what I believe okay let's bring this to vote so that's what I believe we need to make a motion then right to appropriate Oh second that all those in favor say aye aye motion passes 6-0 well that was to put it before the vote before the tie the agenda yeah all right so we got to put it before the agenda then revote so it wasn't much room you the money it was to set that's a special town eating right yeah yep you everything go to bat now that you ever prove that if you don't have to

137do anything further okay except attend Diane is that clear thank you thank you I guess I'll make a motion to amend the agenda to add an item of final budget transfers Rima rested all right discussion all those in favor I need to be six zero discussion Marsha you got some so you have to approve final that's on the screen that you have to approve any transfers that go between departments and so there's essentially three to part three places where we need more money that we're taking from other departments for the June 30th of 19 the financial statements that you have assumed that these are past pension consulting we've talked about that number of times during the year that we revamped the whole pension turned it into a hybrid plan switched from Wells Fargo to MassMutual

138so we had additional legal fees that's the $64,000 the roads that we had taken money out of his budget for something and because there was a easy place to take it at the time and we he wanted to do the micro paving on the road so we were going to move that that's why he needs $30,000 more it wasn't because he spent $30,000 more than his budget it was because we had reduced his budget and then the the last big one is the short-term financing that was we had two payments on the short-term loan that were misclassified and I thought we had more money so I took that out of there but in the final balancing I needed to put it back so we had $23,000 in electric savings is that we did okay and

139that the grounds maintenance is that I mean I know our fields aren't really in the best of shape and so I'm just wondering if that 21 it's great that they had some savings but I'm just wondering if maybe that money could have been used to improve the fields as that through Parks and Rec is that because of their allure they've contracted out all the mowing and that type of stuff right they have a grounds company that comes and does cutting the grass okay right the bids came in lower okay okay so so I don't owe you I'm sorry no no I don't even have we done any transfer ins transfer outs during the fiscal year is this the this is all of it no we've done quite a bit yeah gone through this okay you

140said something that bothers me you took money out of the roads because it was easy um so I was on vacation and Steve called up and said where should we take this money and I I had thought that we had extra money in there from talking to Ralph and I said well we could take it out of there and then when I came back Ralph said but that was where my micro paving money was so it was convenient because you were on vacation that's all right so but yeah okay no I get it well no one's talking I'm gonna make a motion that we approve the budget transferred as approved by the selectmen from December 9th as detailed on the spreadsheet on the second page second all those in favor yes sir I'll make a

141motion to amend the agenda that we will vote on that we open discussion on an agreement with Wright Pierce for water line on Candlewood Lake Road a second discussion on that all those in favor changing the agenda go 6-0 so we have you may want to go into executive session on this if you remember the discussion we had at the last so that we can bring the two new members of the board up to speed there's only one member um did the did two selectmen go into X yes we did as the board if dance went into executive session on this yes so we have to make a motion now to go to executive session so I make a motion that we go into executives discussion session to discuss the agreement with Wright Pierce for

142the waterliner Candlewood Lake Grove all those in favor aye we now enter executive session Oh we'd like to invite with Marsha and John Lucas to come with us as well as mr. Dunn and Diane thank you [Music] all right we've returned from executive session and they're ready to make a motion yeah I'll make a motion we approve an amount of four thousand seven hundred fifty dollars to enter an agreement with Wright Pierce for a water line on Candlewood Lake Road that will be appropriated from the water fund so we have a second any discussion further discussion on hearing none let's take a vote all those in favor say aye aye motion passes 6-0 other items to come before the board anybody I'd like to take a quick second to thank Sean for his leadership for

143the past two years we've come a long way from where we were we were two years ago we were not as good as we are today and through Sean's work with the Board of Ed working with Marsha appointing dan as head of the Audit Committee I think a lot of good choices were made a lot of good decisions were made so I'd like to thank you for your leadership and guidance for the past few years Thanks thank you are we and other items to come before the board yes they do have something but it can wait till next meeting if we're all tired let's we could wait till next meet or it would be appreciated any public comment nope motion to adjourn second those in favor aye we're adjourned