Board of Finance Meeting

001[Music] all right good evening everyone this is Wednesday November 13th I call this regular meeting on the Brookfield Board of Finance to order you would rise and join me for the pledge as we know at this table and who's ever at home and those of you in the audience thank you for coming we had an election a couple days ago and we do welcome at this meeting Brianna ruko who fills in a two-year spot so welcome and then next meeting we will be saying welcome back to mark Mulaney who got elected on a four-year spot and tonight we will be saying bye to Ricky a little later so that's that for the first part Breanna as a new member there is nothing that precludes you from being included in any of the business that we

002go over tonight any of the votes that we do you're a full participating member as of when you got sworn in so anything even approval of minutes unless you want to there's no abstention needed okay now we move on to public comment do we have any members of the public here tonight that would like to give comment please join us at the podium three minutes per and state your name and address please Betsie McIlvain 1 to 7 Longmeadow hill i am here as chairman of the library board you will notice on your agenda that we made a special request to the Board of Selectmen for a special appropriation it was denied at last night's meeting so you will not be discussing it I just wanted to give you a little heads-up on why we thought

003it was important why we thought it should have come to you even though we know you won't be doing anything about it you will recall that in the 2018-2019 fiscal year you the Board of Selectmen in the town approved a part-time position for the library one of three that we said we were requesting over a period of three well we wanted them all in one year it looked like they were going to come one each year for three years we did not hire the that was approved we did not hire that person it was a fairly hard year for the library with finances and so we didn't get around to hiring anybody and when we put the budget proposal together for the current fiscal year we actually succeeded in leaving that position out of our

004budget request it was a problem that we attribute to half the director half the board not paying much attention to the budget salaries that year and that's the sole reason it was gone and we came in defending a budget which we thought was total and I do still remember mr. Rooney saying if I were you I would have hired that person the 1st of July smart move we did hire the person in April of this current year we also had approved in this current budget one additional part-time employee which we have also hired so we are short the amount of salary twenty six thousand two hundred dollars plus social security of about two thousand dollars and which the Board of Selectmen did not approve so you will not be worrying about tonight unfortunately asked us

005to see if we could manage our budget to cover that and if need be come back sometime after the first of the year and redo the request it's disappointing to the board Marsh has been good enough although I said I don't think the board is ever going to do this again but actually Marsha has some some very concrete plans on how we how we could actually have have avoided it and will in the future so I'm again sorry we are not here asking for the help but I thank you thank you are there any other members of the public here tonight I would like to give comment okay so you can hearing none we'll move on to the next item of business we received no communication or correspondence this month the next item is the

006approval of the October 9th regular meeting minutes I'd make a motion to approve them as presented in your folder I second okay any discussion on the minutes as they were distributed and are in our packet tonight did you want a chance to look them over or alright hearing no discussion all those in favor of approving the minutes as distributed and presented tonight the same indicate by saying aye aye motion carries 6-0 she's a full member she doesn't have to moving over that in previous for these times alright now we move on to the next order of business to report of the first electron sir yeah we've hired we went out to RFP for bond council and financial advisor to found hadn't done that in many many years our current policy is to do this every

007four to five years so we've done it with a lot of services and we this summer late summer we started with bond counsel and financial advisor we got a number of proposals is back we hired a new bond counsel and a new financial advisor both of them extremely well thought of particularly the financial advisor I called seven different First Selectman and they all used one word excellent I've never gotten that kind of response bond counsel also got very very good comments so we use them to do our rolling over our bands they did an excellent job we got an interest rate of 1.2 9% which is a very good interest rate and what I'd like to do since you guys have met them I'd like to invite them to come make a presentation probably financial

008advisor bond counsel does illegal but I'd like to if you'd like them to come in December January to make a presentation to introduce themselves to you give you an overview of how they see the markets and things like that I think it would be a good idea and what I can arrange that I'll arrange that through whoever is the chairman of the board of finance was everyone planning on being the December meeting okay so we'll try for a December okay I'll try for a December good we're also our financial advisor suggested that we refund and refinance our current borrowing and we're gonna plan on doing that and they said with a current interest rates that we have we could save between 175 and 200 thousand dollars of that we're not going to change life over

009the life of the debt that's the net present value on that present value but we are not going to we're not going to extend the tenner we're gonna keep them exactly the same we're gonna pay them off we'll just pay less money pay more from the same time periods just save one hundred seventy five to two hundred thousand what's there for you gonna be on that I'm sorry what's their feet going to be on that somewhere between I would say 20 and 25 in the savings says after their feet and their present value okay thank you FEMA we got noticed that FEMA has approved and forwarded the claim for debris to the state so that set and that was our single largest item 1 million two hundred thousand dollars our total claim claim payable from

010FEMA is 1 million five hundred ten thousand dollars we're still waiting just one item and it's the final item it's management expenses we estimate that's going to be approved at somewhere between 94 and 96 thousand dollars so we think we will end up when we're fully accounted for we'll have approximately a hundred twenty-five thousand all in revenue over expenses so that's that's good that's changed we did have I noticed that Marcia had said at our last meeting we had an outstanding purchase order for the FEMA that we closed out and that's where we got the difference you know but having said that it doesn't account for wear and tear on trucks all the comp time we had to give people you know the things that we did that are not actually chargeable our voluntary firemen

011the wear and tear on their trucks so I think we came out at least even or a little better than even given all the expenses that are not in our budget IT security and just we're upgrading our security we've been doing it over the last few months we're moving next month to multi-factor authentication so if you want to reset your password you were going to have to get an email or a text and get a code and go back in and Reese I nin with all of the things we've seen with the hacking going on we continue to build up our security for our IT systems we went out to bid for fuel last week and we're going to save about $13,000 over last year our bids came in about 13,000 when does that start

012when is the new price and I think it starts January 1st is that right I'm not sure I'm not sure on capital budgets as you know we're having each of our departments put together in their capital budgets so that the boards can look at them in December they will have them to Marsha and I the Friday before Thanksgiving we're going to review them go over them we're going to discuss them at the for select meeting on December 2nd and we will get we'll get the initial package to you guys as is right with no first Electra no Board of Selectmen cuts so we can just have those conversations and then what I was thinking you guys might want to do is that for large capital items or things you're not sure about have those departments

013come in in December in January so we're not cramming them all in in February up to you you can do what you want but I think if we spread that out a little bit more a little more thought a little more time goes into it and then prioritize the projects and then as we go through the operating budget then we make those decisions at the end of the budgeting season they're also updating the 10 year capital plan they're adding a year to it so that should be good we even ever revised that entire presentation the 10 year capital plan there's a lot of stuff in there it's all going to be taking a revised or how I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it so if there are changes significant changes you

014can see what that was last year and what is this year I'm not exactly sure how that is gonna we're trying to develop it in my head there's big dancing you make that good again we've got a new the doctor it's gonna be smaller the cheek I remembered about putting together the welcome to Haven for Brianna and I forgot how long presentation is for the capital plan so each of the capital projects is that all the same questions the the were on six pages last year on one page this year yeah favorite paper same information we're just yes small hug not same information and so we hope to have that for you in December early early December so you guys can start looking at and that's our report we'll move on to the report of

015the finance director all right that we on revenue I gave you revenue I talked a few things about it that property taxes property taxes is our biggest revenue supplemental taxes we estimated at six hundred thousand what we don't know what the prop the supplemental taxes are going to be but mid-december we'll know because that's four cars that were purchased during the year and the way that's calculated is the Assessor gets a listing from the state in early December of what cars were added so so that's still a big if on property taxes prior year taxes that Roberta the tax collector was a little worried about that we budgeted for twenty five and she's collected two hundred and eight thousand so far and I just asked her about any big tax sales and there is a

016potential tax sale that she'll have in the spring that she says that well but it won't be revenue maybe until next year because there's six months that you have to hold that that and they have the the the owner has the option of buying it back but either way we got our money so I don't know look up the leaked legalities of that but I would think it's revenue that if we're going to get it from somebody and then this is the most boring graph you've ever seen and we want it to be boring that tax collections are a big fraud risk that because there's not a lot of segregation of duties tax collector collects the money sends out the bills has custody as record-keeping and authorization and so that we're doing a few things

017on that one is monitoring it to make sure that it stays the most boring graph you've ever seen that and it's what this is representing is the percent collected in July we collect about fifty percent in August it goes up to about fifty five percent not much happens in November and December people trying to get tax deductions it goes up a little bit and then the second payment comes in so we want it we want it to be borings but it we should be watching it because it is part of our internal consider internal controls the the other part of our internal controls is posting and balancing on a timely basis and for the first time in october we had to go downstairs and say hey we don't have the 31st yet could we get

018that because we're trying to finish this off so so that is great that's our new payroll clerk that also is doing revenue and and she is right on this very very quickly so there are no surprises improper all the internal controls that you're planning on putting in place for cash management segregation and duties and everything those are in and working we still have more that we want to put in that and one of that's here is it'll she's developing a list for refunds that those will go to the selectmen smeeting for them to approve it every month but so we're working on that the last one and we've talked to her about it and just if we balanced everything out on the grand rate book balance report the only place there may be an issue

019is an ending balances and so we've talked about alternating who sends out the tax bills because to be honest I've worked on six or seven not I don't think there's any issues here but I've worked on six or seven tax collector embezzlements and they always do it the same way that and there'll be one taxpayer that's paid that doesn't show it well they send out bills every month but let's say you're the tax collector and I'm the assistant if I and I've stolen some money in denim and covering it with other payments I'm not gonna send that taxpayer a bill but you don't know that so you're going to send them a bill so if we alternate the bills every month it's just a cheap and easy way but so we don't have all of

020them we've got a lot of revenue streams and we're still working through revenue streams for controls but we have a lot more access to a lot more things than we did a year ago intergovernmental revenues that I think I misspoke last month and said town aid road money came in I did but it did not it's waiting for the Connecticut bonding is what's delaying it that a big fight in Hartford but there's no changes that an amount from what we've thought in the past that there's veterans and disability we did get the final numbers from the state that these were estimates and I think one is two hundred I was higher than we thought I want is two hundred dollars lower than we thought but they've been audited at the state and so we're just

021waiting for a check now that there's other revenues on the report we're still we've changed munis reprogrammed it so that they're in similar categories is on the budget that and fire marshal that's been a change because we've got two fire marshal revenue accounts now and we have one cash register button so we might be doing that through finance and making those changes but there's nothing I think we're in good shape on all the revenues we'll talk about some more revenues when we get to the to the next slide any questions for me on revenues or on the expenditures any risk in the licenses and permits you see so licenses and permits so far and I haven't had a chance to go through and see where we stand against each of the the big ones that

022we had talked about so we haven't had a conversation on that but what we've done is been reconciling with them on that so I have quantitative answers but not qualitative answers a lot of these are pretty close to where we want them but some are but we do expect a good jump in Fire Marshal inspection fees in the spring because of some of the massive building that's going on and that's going to start so that'll keep and the exciting one is on page two investment income we budgeted 120 for the year and we're at 209 for the year what are you investing a lot of has to do with the fact that Marsha worked to restructure and I mean the jump here but to restructure the bank accounts at Union Savings Bank so we really

023weren't efficiently earning interest on all of our eligible balances so Marshall works very hard to restructure and we are now so far so we're a few things on that that we want to take a look at we've got good can look the three of us had talked about when we did this bonding is we've always just bonded short-term debt in November for the year but we may have been a fun balance now to loan it to ourselves that and what if we were to take a year off on short-term debt and pay for it out of our own - that we would have less interest income but we would you know save seventy eighty thousand dollars of interest for that year that but that's a that decision is not just all on itself one we

024have to make sure we have the cash flow but - we have to consider that in with the cash flow for the new school that because we could maybe use the this cash flow and push that one off it wouldn't be as visible that we're saving money but so we the OPM I think has come to the first meeting now and we're waiting for a separate meeting with finance so we can talk cash flows and figure that out do you expect this pace to continue for the rest of the fiscal year the bank had estimated did given us an estimate that if if our balances were the same as they were last year which I don't see why we weren't wouldn't because we have a balanced budget that we would be on target for five

025hundred and sixty thousand dollars of revenue interesting come favorable variance yeah and part of that is we've increased our general fund balance significantly over the last four years by about five million dollars just in the unassigned general fund balance and that brings up our total balances so that was a big part of it we are opening a new bank account with newtown savings just right now we've got all our eggs in one basket all our money in one bank that what if there was an issue that cybersecurity issues are our biggest concern and right now our return that we're getting on the overnight is 2% and it won't be much more at Newtown Savings Bank the difference is that we'll have we'll just have one account we'll have but it'll be a separate bank it

026will they adjust their savings every Tuesday and there's no fees every Tuesday to equal the state treasurer's investment fund the stiff fund which usually has pretty good rates but they'll divide this up with $250,000 certificates of deposit so it'll be a hundred percent FDIC insured and [Music] so right now that's it's all the same rates for both one both banks and and our overnight is insured as well because as you know no individual County have more than $250,000 we FDIC insurance so there's a program from a company called promontory that allows Newtown to distribute out funds to other banks overnight and make those deposits of two hundred and fifty thousand so if we had a million dollars with them they would actually move to 750 out the three different banks and then bring him back

027in so we're 100% guaranteed that the funds are FDIC insured we consciously yeah under budget obviously for that investment income you know just in case but not this much well could you have predicted nobody so so as we move forward to the budgeting season can we have a break be good did John Marshall to get a breakdown of the source of this so can we predict it for next year and what should we still be conservative but assume it if factoring well we did double the budget from last year and we were a little scared doing that but in and be honest that when we started making the big interest started in like January so we something to keep an eye so I think that that is good stuff and I know we asked this

028about pretty much every month but in the pensions where is it negative because the Board of Ed paid us their portion of the pension okay it was intimate it's gonna taste correct we want to pay it in this month every by December 31st we want to pay our part portion and so that yes that and so just going through these that the wages that the elected officials are all at three point seven seven percent because they don't having a point for accrual the other ones are three point five three percent is 8 out of 26 point four pay periods that the ones that are a little bit higher than that are because of perfect attendance bonuses that the library we've talked to Yvonne about two things one is in munis what the Board of Education

029does is position control they have two hundred I don't how many teachers in one line item and the way they keep track of that as position control that it's kind of like little slots in munis and instead of saying teacher by teacher we should they look at slot by slot that you know kindergarten teacher one can dragon teacher two three four five and so we're going to and a lot of our departments you know we've got one for selectmen we've got two people in the in the non-union finance department but what we'll do is we'll do position control in the library so that we know how many slots when you add a slot we can say okay we have we approve it we put it right in munis and full-time is not that as tricky

030as the part-time because oh my god trying to figure out who's who over there that well this one is two hours to the circulation desk and this one is four hours at the reference desk and then they start flipping around and and so that'll be very helpful for that and the second thing Yvonne and I are going to meet with respect to their part-time people that just to make sure that we keep them on track and we know how many hours that she's got and that might just mean in their time she that that we make some adjustments so that she can see it she can manage it a little easier than the way it's managed now as the time clock system that you implemented earlier been helping a weight departments but though we have

031gone out a bit for that we had ordered it on munis immunise was so expensive that we went out to bid and we've had one set of interviews we have an an interview on Thursday and interview on Friday we're trying to also fit in right now the police on their scheduling it's outside of munis or outside of anything we have access to so we're trying to even if we don't buy it now the police came to the first interview so that they could ask about scheduling because they've got a lot of unusual needs and and right now they're using two different computer systems in a manual paper system all pieced together and you know I think if Peter left who knows who could figure that out again but so we're trying to pull that in

032as well so we have not started that we had thought we would institute that January first but as we go through this my guess and and I don't think anyone's publicly you know in the committee has said we're not going to hit January 1st but up at March 1st might be a more realistic any other questions on revenue or I'm gonna ask a stupid question probably you have the answer what is the column state estimate town estimate so the state estimates that the state tells us how much they're going to give us and those are the numbers that are in green that so we budgeted for 870 the state's telling us that giving us a million 5o so the budget was the what the state told us they were going to give us at that

033time so we budgeted on April 4th or something and we used the state budget as of April 4th they didn't pass their budget until the end of June I agree so what I'm trying to get is we're getting 180,000 extra dollars that is right but that's not factored into the education shortfalls is it I mean we give that money directly to education so why isn't that factored into the shortfalls of the education that we're reading on these we would still have to do an additional appropriation to give it to them but it's the money that was due to education we can't keep that money can we as a town we can't say we budgeted 800,000 education the state gave us 1.2 we keep 400,000 in the jet that money has to go to Education Department

034if the board events budget was only a hundred and seventy thousand dollars then that we would say we can't keep that money because we're not spending that but we spend 40 million dollars so and this is just part of funding it that I get that but what I'm saying is where does that money go at the end of the day we get that 1 million fifty two thousand dollars into our account that money has to go to the board event correct now I'm asking I'm not yelling I'm asking how we do that funding is up to the town but my opinion is I agree with you 100 percent any overage in the ECF should go to the schools that's what I'm worried about the state mandating that we lower the amount we gave the schools

035of our money and increase it to a million Chastain doesn't he - yes the state doesn't mandate that no state mandates that if they had a flat budget and we said with the MBR they meant mandate it so if they had a flat budget and there was a zero percent increase and we had this increase we would have to increase them because we got an increase in education cost-sharing but but so then understanding so I understand I apologize we give this we give the Board of Ed forty three million dollars whatever the number is that's a number to town gives them so this revenue is town revenue so as long as we give them their forty three million that's our money towns money yes and and if everything comes in right on budget we're gonna

036have more fun balance 100 and read that 180 thousand dollars more fun balance and we had anticipated because of that but you have to think that this was meant for education so if there is an issue or concern where the Board of Ed is asking for more money this is a place we could get it without touching the town's general fund I think you guys are saying the same thing yeah thank you any other questions on revenue or expenditures and then you had that one last night that so right now that we're meeting with the department's next month that to just go through where they stand we've got some budget adjustment forms that have come in just internally where they want to move it from one line to the other that but we don't have

037anything significant that we that is a surprise or that we don't think we could handle on our own any other professional service rfqs RFPs out there yeah we're going to be issuing one for counter attorney we have we haven't yet though we haven't yet correct with respect to the capital projects that we sold the notes that if you want the official statement there's a link there which of course I don't give you this so you don't have the link I'll email it to you that that we earned a premium of fifty thousand five seventy-five and it's going to go into the general fund it was that we don't believe normally budget for premiums it's going to go into the general fund because the cost of issuance if you remember last year we changed things around

038and we divided it up so if it's notes if it's one year or or the annual costs of debt that it's in the general fund and if we're doing bonds over multiple years we put it in the bond fund so the $50,000 premium will go into the general fund to cover the cost of issuance that which is in the general fund budget that we also the Board of Selectmen also closed I just it's a housekeeping move and recommended by the new bond council that we had a lot of old debt that was out there authorized but unissued that a lot of it was two thousand here 1,000 here because we were issuing in five thousand dollar increments and we weren't approving and $5,000 increments there's an old WPC a thing for a project that I

039hadn't even heard of Delmar so all that's been closed out so the only authorized but unissued debt that we have other than the and project fit for foreigners phase 3 phase 4 and this these notes we just issued phase one of four corners we just wanted to close at all at the same time and there's some issue with an island that needs addressing from phase one the crosswalk at crafts center has caused about fifteen accidents since it was put in including $5,000 damage to one of our police cars that's a surprise to hope you know the state really wanted us to put that island in and it has caused more trouble and more problems for people so we're gonna be taking it out we still have about a hundred thousand dollars left in the Phase

040one budget and we estimated somewhere twenty twenty-five thousand in the state today agreed to let us take the island ever right so we're gonna go out to bid for them are they providing any funds to take you think that goes under the ground by a little bit we would love them say back granite no kidding aside the island was put in for a safety reason cuz yeah people could cross halfway across the street we press the button and cross the other half anecdotally you're talking to people in the craft Center and our police and everyone else no one presses those buttons to turn the lights on no one have you ever seen them on there they are they're broken right now because something hurt them I've never seen it we're still going to keep the

041rff please the blinkers I'm just going to take that and we hope it will be safe audit update that the auditing I have my department now doing timesheets and including myself so we know where our time is going and and analyze when it's best to ask for another person if we ask for another person that and the I know that the bonding has taken sixty of my hours that just getting that official statement out but now that we're going back to the audit and capital budgets are the priority the open report has been received we've given actuaries everything we needed for the town pension and the firefighter pension so we're waiting for the reports to come back long term debt I've had the intern do that in capital the long-term debt I did a little

042the bonds are all said it's the compensated absences I had the intern work on a schedule for me and I haven't reviewed it yet capital assets the same thing capital assets what we're doing is trying to line up all our capital assets so that what the Assessor has is what the insurance company has is what we have and we've got land and buildings done we've got vehicles done we don't have equipment done and what we might do is say you know nobody really cares about our capital assets we don't take mortgages out on them I'd rather not if we're make changes to it on the financial statements it's going to be a prior period adjustment I'd rather wait till equipment is done so we don't have to capital to prior period adjustments year over year

043but but at least we'll have good schedules the FEMA receivable is waiting Connecticut as Steve said and Dan had asked me for a schedule that gave the matrix that totaled it up year by year over year and total costs so this is it at the bottom that the expenditures we only picked up revenue to meet the expenditures so that that there's no net revenue in year eighteen or year nineteen any net revenue that comes in will come in in the current year that we're in that the total that we'll get from FEMA is 1 million five hundred four thousand there in that is only one estimate left that the best estimate now that we have is ninety four thousand the costs against that are 1 million 376 if you remember there were two additional appropriations

044two hundred thousand and 1.5 million to total 1.7 but we didn't have to spend the full 1.7 we only spent 1 million 376 that's it looks like a net revenue but it's only because not everything was posted to that FEMA line as expenditure some did not require an outflow of cash like the use of equipment and some we were able to get some salary reimbursements and we didn't reallocate the salaries from where they are in the budget to a FEMA the few so we're in this maybe I'm wrong - we didn't we collect insurance money this is after the insurance money that we collected so there is more cost though then this is there is more costs yes yes but this is what we were talking about I think we wanted to see the whole

045picture we want to see all the costs the insurance revenues versus everything because we still because I thought insurance was another nine hundred thousand dollars yeah so that's 10 order to keep track of exactly the storm the insurance the costs or see it I appreciate what you did or not but this is just FEMA cost against FEMA revenue basically but we have insurance costs of nine hundred thousand eight eighty okay and if Cola is nice enough to put our code in the copy machine maybe no we're good I'm good if you've got out of five I just want to see the big picture that's all there any updates that need to be made to the spreadsheet you had I made one update from last month I made three notations one update that we thought last

046month we thought that this final category was a hundred thousand and our best estimate now is ninety four thousand so it went down by six and there are two approvals that we've received and I just wrote in read approved and it was approved for the exact amount that we had estimated so I just wrote that on so you send that out then and anticipation for the December meeting the financials are not going to be concluded on before December 9th are they usually have draft financials they're not gonna be concluded transmitted crap there so we could get a final and review it at the next meeting yep before I get too baked into our financial performance for the year yeah I just think it's nice that one document so when we go back look at it

047at some point someone has a question it's all together the insurance costs instead of having to look at four different plate not four I'm exactly but two different places right this is what the storm cost this was our reimbursement channels we got 1.5 million back from FEMA we got nine hunts and this is what we expended it on and then it says one document done so we started out with an original amount that we we had pulled together before FEMA started making their cuts and so that's that first column it says original amounts of the different costs and then they started making reductions that because some of these employees were budgeted they cut them so they cut 431,000 because we would have had to pay for that time anyway that it wasn't overtime but they

048don't care that there was an opportunity cost that we couldn't do road work because we were cleaning up trees but they don't care that we had put in there for the volunteer time and they give a dollar amount for a volunteer time and used that but then they said no because you're firefighters make a stipend to $1,500 a year we're going to take that $1,500 a year divided by 2080 hours and we'll give you 78 cents an hour for them instead of the 40 dollars or whatever the original amount was so that was a haircut that they took off mutually I have to say that I guess that number because that's why it's an orange that because we never got it all pulled together because we would have had to have this 78 or so

04972 company show us every single fireman when they were here I what work they did by our five-minute and these other companies just wanted to help us it would take them a couple hundred hours for somebody to sit down and put that all together if they add the data so we just didn't get that if more fire companies go on to crisis track which we've gone onto then they're firemen on their phones Here I am to see you dressed I went quick note this is what I did fire bubbly motor vehicle accident etc and if another disaster comes up we hopefully if they do that we could use crisis track also we are changing our policies because if we do this in our written policies that if we ever have another disaster all employees will

050go on an hourly basis that we can make claim against FEMA for any hours over their normal 35 or 40 hours a week and we will also put into the policy we don't know if they'll accept it that our volunteer firemen if they go in a disaster we pick a number we're going to pay them $20 an hour right if it's payable by female so they're not hundred percent reimbursable Kevin told me what that was but I forgot so Kevin if you're watching could you text me and reminds me what that was that so on the bottom of the sheet oh and green which is hard to read it says we got a million dollars back from insurance 991 297 I was different than the 880 we're talking about that's what I said I like

051to see these things just tie back because we've talked to 880 this is nine ninety one here on this sheet so did we get 90 91 back 91 91 and and last month you had the sheet that shows everything that was reimbursed that that came back but I can give you that but that's not but the reason that it's in green down there is because the rest of this was coming from the FEMA reports I was tying it right out to their reports and they didn't care about about a half million dollars of it that they only had 400 on their FEMA reports by the total we got was and then you reduce down this line just so I'm following you reduced two million dollars worth of current FEMA amount expenses by only four 24,000

052on this line and the next line on your insurance reduction and you only reduced it by thirteen thousand on the upper line so each one of these is a FEMA has a FEMA has a report so the category a debris removal they have a report so we were tying that column current FEMA amount that's the amount that we've gave them that was approved by them and then in their report they said insurance reductions so they took it all so that we got because we got reimbursed by insurance for that line item or partial long line correct and so they took off on each of these six or so different categories they took off for 24 but they there was still more that we got reimbursed for from FEMA that they just don't have from insurances

053FEMA just didn't care about and put on their report at all okay so then we take out the insurance reimbursement we get to the net cost and then we divide it between the town share and the federal share thank you so just I know we know this but I need reminder the direct costs fiscal year 18 and 19 were recognized as expenses in those years are they correct that so it in 18 we recognize 698 and we picked up a receivable a six nine hundred where we're going to call it better and and we hope to collect that within a month or so right and in 19 we had 677 of expenses so it picked up revenue for 677 and we think that we're going to and we booked it as a receivable at June

05430th of 19 and we only want we don't want to book a receivable for what seems to be again that our profit or and so the rest we were leaving until year 2020 that for anything else that and that we think that our best guess now is it's going to be about a hundred and twenty eight thousand that'll go to revenue for this year so from a revenue website standpoint we between FEMA UCS and interest word up over $800,000 revenue to the correct we should get a summary of that dope in December we should see the shortfall revenue and the because we threw over and we're gonna get refinance money as well you didn't throw any I know is 175 over to life but it's still money we're gonna cheat we should have a scorecard

055at the six months saying we're eight hundred thousand last year right we should know in December what we're ahead right now in the revenue side what because we've got like Dan said three hundred thousand dollars of revenue we expect to get above budget three hundred on the investment two hundred 200 on the EECS five hundred you know it's adding up to an hour but then there was a shortfall on the prior year taxes right of a couple hundred thousand projected so we need to know that the highs and the lows not the ones that are within a few percentage points but the ones right in the net thing are we have five hundred thousand net that we're planning on being at the end of the year and then we can decide like that 128 from

056FEMA you say we didn't pay for wear and tear on the vehicles is that going to a capital type of fun that we're funding ahead for capital money so the last year I gave you a few times a projection of here's what we budgeted and here's the big outliers and so I'll update that for next week yeah yeah because there's big numbers yeah it's not not to be held but it's nice to know the scorecard because you know taking up revenue and then we have a cushion that connecting if we don't pay attention to it it can start to be further away with special appropriation here and falls over on there then we don't want that data and it also be nice to know for the budgeting process that starts January right any other questions

057for me on FEMA specific first anything else for our finance director thank you thank you this time inviting Colette's term Turner the Board of Education up to the table to go through the October 2009 teen financial report memo and the financials um just to review on the financials first the Finance Committee of the Board of Ed meets the second Monday of every month we review the financials then and then I send them to with a board chair who you all who distributes them and usually that works well because there are some issues that are brought up in this this financial report I just wanted to make you aware that the board event has not officially discussed these financials yet we do that on the third meeting or the third Wednesday of every month so while

058I'm going to explain what's going on here or just answer any questions people may have I'm not going to be able to give you specific answers that the board has discussed and acted on yet because while we did make sure that they saw these financials they haven't been discussed Thanks so financials look a little bit different than last month over this period of time we have documented six new out play students I can't go into really specifics about it because with that amount you're you're talking about student identification I can review the amount of ways that students are out placed which I don't know Breanna feeling some of you that but generally students are out placed if they move into the district with a IEP that that demonstrates an outplacement that we need to really

059honor at that point whether they're identified in district and they are identified as meeting an outplacement service or whether the parents unilaterally out place them in which case if the board needs to demonstrate that or the district needs to demonstrate that they're best served in service if that doesn't work there is a settlement and a mediation and so then they can be out placed through either the unilateral placement or the settlement through the mediation so those are the ways that that can happen how many total students are our plays now before this there were 31 before yes so now we have 37 so that brought us with the shortfall of approximately 400,000 some of that is going to be identified with us freeze we instituted a hard spending freeze as of yesterday morning because due

060to our Finance Committee meeting Monday afternoon then we're also identifying and exploring other possible ways to address the other 200,000 in addition to that though something that we needed to look at and we need we wanted to make sure the Board of Finance knew as well going down the line we do have another additional seven students that are currently undergoing evaluation worst case scenario then there would be seven other outplay students it's hard to predict how many of those would lead our placement so that does what's the average outplacement cost per student it depends it goes anywhere from including tuition and transportation it can go anywhere from sixty thousand hundred thirty thousand depending on the students needs and she is the change of who's at the top of the special ed Department have anything to

061do with the direction that that's going no no the determination of where the outplay students go is directly related to the students needs it could be anything from requiring you know some some learning difficulties to being on the spectrum to psychological needs and all of those directly determined how much the a placement costs and I know a couple years ago when this type of thing happened again there was a discussion about hitting a threshold number of students with a special need with a specific need at the time I think it was more social-emotional than students for being out of place for have we hit that threshold yet to start working on bringing some of those certain we have been working since our discussion last time to bring those services in-house what is the general time

062frame for getting a program established that will meet the needs I'm sure that the needs are diverse it's being addressed already at the high school he worked at the high school trickle down with the middle school there are some students that are just definitely just not appropriate to to use those use what we can provide in-house so you generally find that the parents are receptive to having the kids stay in house versus having to out place them or is it really just whatever the room provides exactly it's depending on the students needs 100% talking about costs you renegotiated fuel oil at townhall and does that have the potential to impact or debentures battle everything we do have the split our 13 is total between the schools and we did together and I feel like we're

063in this situation year after year with often the same type of thing I know that we've discussed also a couple years ago is discussed about how we're approaching what the state average was we're probably under identified identifying ratings earlier and we were kind of a around the state average is that average stepping up now or the average statewide is generally creeping up as well and you'll find if you look at all the districts we are not the only district in this in this situation at all but we are at we're at a 14% identification rate the state averages 14 point one percent I also think when we look at this you know on the town side if we knew something like this was going to happen maybe we put a contingency in the budget but

064the minute you put into the board of beds budget if they don't need it then you hit an MBR and you can't take it away the next year so that's a concern for us too I just a movie keep reaching a point seems earlier and earlier in the school year where their budget freezes and you know we need to provide the services that these students need but at the same time I don't want to see I don't want us to be taking away from the needs of the schools of the staff students that aren't using those services and I mean we keep having these budget freezes and I don't know how many years we put off textbooks or equipment or furniture or whatever and we get we're kicking the can down the road and nobody

065wants to spend more money but I think you know as we get more clarity on what's going on with this and what the Board of Ed but I don't want it to be the I know that there needs to be a budget freeze to reevaluate but I don't want to see that lead to a cut in services for the other 83% of students or any students what's on the numbers you're given us we're looking at a 45 percent increase of special ed students this year how to placed out not total special education students right okay I'm sorry yeah but that's still that's that's 45 percent increase from what we budgeted and we know that that's a really high expense you're talking but huge this sorry this all ties back to the capital plan and meeting

066these numbers that we say we meet you know I keep harping about sticking to that model sticking to that model but when you creep up now and you're gonna add maybe $800,000 to their operating budget the school that we just approved the police department all these things a new library we gotta be cautious of spending all this money and I keep harping everybody was like a clan you know blah blah blah but I'm saying these are the things that if we don't stick to our guns where we can stick to our guns you can't manage this if we go beyond our needs on the model on a regular budget basis we didn't we pulled it back last year right to meet the model and we had these costs that we have to pay I mean

067obviously that's why you know that model is so important the stick it's just like when are we gonna do this school when is the school what like you know you're talking about capital where does that fit in the ten year plan do we have all the approvals is the wetlands approval done it's all of these things in place where we know we're gonna be able to build this school in four years or is it gonna be five years or whatever art do we have the timeline for like the new school I know I'm going to capital on that but it ties into how do we pay for this extra money so we got all the approvals like with wetlands and everything to move forward so what is the timeline for the school years so we'll

068be able to meet that on that property 2022 no it has not to do a special it has to do with budgeting process and the money that we got to spend anticipate bringing in so many new special yes I agree Steve I just I'm on board with you I'm not arguing with you I'm saying there's a point where the money runs out and the money we put forth in that model was pushing our taxpayers to one point one year eight percent increase just on the model alone now we start whatever the highest was number in the model now we're starting to add in four hundred thousand dollars a special net cost which aborted that can't be held accountable for I can't hold the board event accountable for four hundred thousand dollars worth of special at

069out placements right so if they have seven more that's eight hundred thousand dollars that puts them over the model number by three percent next year just coming out of the gate which is now that we're compounding all of our payments are tax increases that's why we start talking about capital projects we have to lay in the operating cost you know when we start realizing the revenue from the new buildings in four corners and all that kind of stuff I mean that will help we haven't really seen a lot of that yet and hopefully it will help offset rightful Brookfield village hasn't give us a penny think it was forty five thousand dollars a year and they won't give us more money out until next year because we had an agreement that was signed six years

070ago seven years ago that said they get no increase for the first three years therefore they built one speak so they'll start paying next year be careful that that money is already counted for the model by yeah but other assumption so it's not like we can speak and spend that money twice it's a really counted for this right so but what's not accounted for is a nice additional five hundred thousand dollars an interest income for instance on my great apartment might so so so that's why I want to understand which one of these rip increased revenue components might also be permanent - perhaps offset the permanent in me not disagreeing but that's part of the whole process of his model it is getting it right I mean models often are adjusted actual as realities come

071through so I think I mean okay we'll be back to it we can even look at it as early as next month or in January when there's actually six months gone and we have hard numbers for six months and your assumptions and what not in January on the screen and then its hold to the numbers where we can't hold it at numbers because these are gonna come alright I have a couple questions on the sheet if you don't mind Medicaid reimbursement difficulty in obtaining parental consent why is there a difficulty in that process what happens is when we had estimated initially $100,000 right which is an estimate I get that yeah that was with the with the consultant that we use that the service that we actually used that doesn't mm-hmm we have to obtain

072that consent from every single parent because we don't know which ones qualify for Medicaid so we get the consent from every single one it goes over to the company they bill those parents whose students call it was children qualify for Medicaid right we don't know that in order to do that we have to get every single parent to sign a consent and even if we tell them and generally we find a lot of the times those that are new to the district don't have a problem it's a new paper even if we say it doesn't matter whether you do or don't qualify for Medicaid we don't want to know this is not anything other than giving this company permission to bill we have parents who are reluctant and suspicious to do it any little bit

073will help the education of the parents isn't the problem that's just their willingness to follow through it we it has not been for lack of trying and we are actually it is clearly defined how much we can approach them and tell them by law and we do what we can to the extent that we can and we try to approach it other ways and try to do rationale we're doing the best we can to get them okay and that this is just a relatively new asking for reimbursement in the last few years we've been a couple years so as we as we have different parents that come in we hopefully will expect that number to rise so then last month you identify two things that you're monitoring closely identified outplacement tuition which is the 404

074in long-term substitutes which is not on this current sheet and you had a burn rate of about 50,000 last month so you're not gonna last your $300,000 if you're going to burn fifty thousand a month coming out of the gate it's the first month long term subs because they often the rationale the reason you have long term themselves or teachers right but you had said 50 burn 42 six seven nine this month it's the first real month of school right that so three hundred thousand is not gonna stand up I don't think in the process it's Aspen it's it's it's too early to predict at this point but yes it does it does necessitate monitoring I think last year we missed it by what 300 3000 was that the number last year's been here -

075last year substitutes was at three hundred and three thousand dollar overrun from budget no I'm just saying the line item now I'm not talking the offsets I'm talking a line item so it trends in a direction of we're gonna overspend that budget the training strollers are and then I'm the offsets I have one quick question to transportation there's an offset of 21,000 and it was a 1% prepayment discount have we been missing that or is that a new thing because if we if we know there's a 1% premium discount prepayment discount why aren't we looking at that when we do in the budget process of transportation is building $1,000,000 or whatever the number is why aren't we looking at the 1% discount as part of the budget process if we pay this big bill 1%

076pay prepayment we saved the 1% we should reduce that line item by the 1 percent and maybe utilize that money somewhere else because that to me is like a known like if if there's a prepayment percentage off that's a known we have to pay it all up front twelve months ahead of time right I'd rather pay a month but they did it it's the city as a savings is what I'm trying to say so it's it's it's located here as I say I agree with what you're saying it should be looked at but this is an identified scene in the bank then maybe that's a discussion that we already prepay this it was just just a thing we're talking about doing we did already preached that so then that discussion see now you lead me

077to say why didn't we have that discussion as well before we prepaid something so you opened up another door where you're saying I was not aware that there was a 1% discount in transportation so but this is what I'm saying we should be talking about these things because you're right if there's a better savings to to not pre the board event should be discussing so we give them a set amount of money and they their budget that they're working and we supplement the budget we went through this earlier right so this is we give them a specific amount every year right but it just seems to me that this is a known if we if we're doing these kind of moves we should all be involved so point taken but I mean I don't think

078we're telling the so the fight the finance office says that both finance offices are talking about this because we just working together we got we didn't get rid of but we inactivated 8,000 vendors and so we have 2,000 vendors left and we are talking about cos munis will calculate the the percent discount and right now that we did on this one we do it on some of on our side to get a discount by paying on time which we pay and what we've been talking about is where does that go do we show that discount is revenue do we get the departments that pay it but what the finance officers even though it hasn't come here have been talking about right but now we're like I say what we talked about - it's like getting

079a payday loan to pay off when you're so far and whole to get a payday loan you're not getting out of the hole so is this a payday loan move or is this a calculated move to save this money that's what I'm trying to say when we're talking we sit here at the budget time we're talking about $5,000 risers we're cutting things out of the budget that we sort of need $21,000 can cover some of this so are we making educated pre payments or are we just trying to because we got a shortfall not by the Board of Ed Zoo are we trying to get a payday loan to offset the cost point I think that in a budget development yeah let us know Marcia what the decision is on how you take or how

080those discounts are should be taken and we'll keep that in mind any other questions comments concerns on the Board of Education I have a new big the Medicaid reimbursement just how does that people it only goes for the special education students because that is where we get the Medicaid reimbursement from a qualified services Goergen physical therapy outpatient therapy those related those related services so it is a packet and then when it's discussed probably at a PPT of planning placement team meeting with okay and is there any other way to get it out other than a packet via its a list it's discussed on in person actually gotcha so there's still resistance regardless understand thank you yes there are everyone's exploring ways to try to increase the rate of people approving that and signing it understood

081completely Thank You Marcia is there any other items Spence items where discounts our potential discounts could be taken things like oil heating oil things like that where we can identify you know look pretty much have a running list of here are some areas where discounts are acceptable or common and here's ones where we plan on taking them where we don't maybe have just kind of a running list because maybe during budget season that's useful to kind of run down that list and say hey where are we taking advantage of these and does it make sense to we're seeing a lot of vendors who offer like a 2/10 net 30 right I don't asked I mean especially for like heating oil I mean some of those guys you pay him up from yeah we have a

082contract for heating yeah it's up just a contract things like Ong that that they do take the discount that it's a construction thing that the truck looks like D&G but that we do take the discount and the the tricky part on our end is Public Works takes a discount and they include the discounted price in their budget so if we were going to try to quantify this and throw it into a revenue we have to tell them that raise their budget and so I know that they have one Staples has one but that's what exactly what we're talking about it looked better budget purposes when you're trying to sell the budget to say you know here here's what we have as our expenses but here are some discounts that we're taking at least you can

083highlight those areas I mean he directed and that's why the offset is nice but sometimes to actually see it how it plays out maybe it plays better to the mind that okay they're actually doing some due diligence here I'm taking this discount and that's why we want to show it in munis that right now so like the Ong one was today that it might be at ten thousand dollar bill but what and and the discount makes it you know nine thousand nine hundred that what's been done in the past is the nine thousand nine hundred goes into munis so there is no calculate calculation of the discount that the net is already being put in and that's what we're talking about is do we put the ten thousand and and and even if we only

084with even if we don't show it as revenue then we at least can give you the answer that right now we can't give you the answer that my point is by showing it by revenue at least you're giving the public the peace of mind that there's no nothing kind of no reserve being baked into the budget accusing anybody of doing that but at least it'll give us a piece of that peace of mind yeah whether it's white revenue that it would be nice to or even just a brick or hey by the way in these items you know these are items where discounts are taken and this is the discounts it's baked into the budget whether they can see it directly in there or not just to kind of have that list or just even

085present future boards to say hey by the way here's where we're taking advantage of discounts here's the net of those discounts and then that way the next year we can go you guys go back to that list and say alright we took these discounts are we taking the same ones are we adding or reducing why yep and and that's exactly what we're what we're talking about is trying to get that quantified and as part of this vendor cleanup process okay cool I do have another question for you : and what do you think the timeline is on the additional possible 7 students identity to be identified or not know what the cost would be by the end of the year by the end of this calendar year so we most of them would be by

086the end of the study either evaluations are ongoing or planned by the end of the year I agree with Eileen I'd like to figure out a way to bridge some of that gap so so so what's once we have once we have a decent number I think the board should work together to try to bridge that gap together because it's French it is we shouldn't suffer in schools but we still can't let it get out of control you know the numbers right and still we got to control the costs on the back side of this too we can't just be like oh now let's it's got to be a mutual we'll be numbers and this will be something that the new board will be discussing next week and so that is why I'm only speaking

087in generalities right now because I don't have those decisions to Steve's point though once we put this in I know it doesn't come out so we add we give them six hundred thousand this year no hear me out give them six hundred thousand and that means their budget next year is six hundred thousand dollars a head starting point starting point you can't come backwards you can't go backwards so this is a special appropriation or say it's still part of their budget so that means once they have that money they're starting six hundred thousand dollars off so when they come to us they can only come to us for $100,000 so increase their budget but that's another thing we had a look at so now you're looking at 10% increase I just say these numbers stagger

088once we've every decision we make compounds the next decision down the road that's all Colet thank you very much don't go anywhere don't go anywhere you doing this has been an honor and a privilege to have you at these meetings obviously before you were the chairperson of the board we weren't doing this kind of thing and the relationship between the boards has grown significantly I think everyone could find a way to agree with that and you know there's there's a good relationship now I think between the boards so thank you awesome job thank you it's been my pleasure to be here and I am too and very grateful for the collaboration and communication especially as demonstrated just at this conversation yet so it's greatly appreciated thank you thank you thank you mr. audit committee chair

089yeah your short report Marshall went through the status I've been in constant communication with Marshall for about 12 hours now we're in good shape Marshall keeps me informed when it's time for the audit committee to get involved with the with the team and get the draft we will do so but last year was smooth this year seems to be going smoother and I am very curious about where the FEMA ends up but from from my understanding everything's going quite well and keeping closer touch as we get closer so I know no other reporter lose man thank you sir any questions or comments thank you we have no matters of all business to discuss first item of new business we have a police outside service fund request for a total of 100 I move to approve

090the recommendation of the Board of Selectmen to approve the appropriation for 25100 from the police department outside service fund to purchase police department wireless network upgrades and three patrol tablets to be installed in the police patrol vehicles second is there anything sir that you'd like to add I see chief Purcell and attendants to explain this one no there is more than we had 37 and June 30th plus an accrual for the work they've been doing don't like it 137 there's plenty of money in the outside services fund and this is exactly what it was meant for and we always appreciate the police commission in the police department using that instead of coming to the town and putting in our capital and they've been very careful as thoughtful and I would suggest that you approve this

091sir Brianna I mean any discussion freaking good and no more discussion I call the motion to a vote all those in favor indicate by saying aye aye aye motion carries six if you have that okay there was another item of new business struck at this time before we do that can I say one thing apologize no before you go the request to go to executive are we voting with your vote every so on yeah before we go if they have the numbers for December I'm going back to the Board of Ed that's where I might is going can we have a joint meeting with the Board of Ed in January to really sit down and look at these numbers and really understand the monster we got a face for yeah one just strictly for special

092ed cost overrun I know we can't get into details of our overruns of because it's a big nut by then Marsha will have her numbers on where we stand we can Steve can understand what we can do and what we can't do to pass over the money to the Board of Ed and not have be distracted with ten other items of the thing if we could all get together one day in January with the Board of Ed it's too big a number it is and the normal I mean the one you were talking about is 2mr plan for next year this is director fine and it should be done before the budget meeting so we know what we have and what monsters so we could set up that meeting in January I think it would

093help us all in the process now I don't want to be bothered with the I don't want to be here for five hours discussing something so important I want to come focused with a mission that we're gonna tackle $800,000 possibly of expenditures that we haven't budgeted for the next time put that request in motion and get it drawn up for ya for the January meeting sure make sure they're for a special January meeting that's not saying I don't you know so we can focus solely on this not we can commit to a meeting now but that doesn't mean they're gonna show up hey shake that but I'm just saying I well if they don't show up then cuz it helped us all of course that's a good idea all right sorry thank you at this

094time again I move that we enter or we add an executive session to the agenda to pending claims litigation matters at this time I move to enter into executive session to discuss pending claims litigation matters inviting John Lucas my from Aryan and when secretary daya okay by 7:00 second on that one yeah I wasn't able to get back a night we'll go into executive session in there [Music] you [Music] and Thanks [Applause] thank you [Music] all right [Music]