001sitting on the other side. Yeah, I was cold over there, too. No, I'm good. I still got Okay. I could be right. I want a baby. I think. I'm not [Music] sure. Good evening. Welcome to the East Sign Board of Finance special meeting. Today is Monday, April 28th. It is 10:39. We would like to call this meeting to order and begin with um deliberations and action to send the proposed fiscal year 2025 2026 budget town meeting on May 22nd, 2021. We normally start with allegiance, but we kind of did that already, so skip that part. So, um, where do we begin? Um, I, you know, I I think that we had, um, a lot of comments. I think um I'm very much of the mindset that East Lime does a great job with their their
002school system. So I applaud everybody that is all through that. Um that being said, we have an F job in front of us. While everyone that spoke or people that are in support, a lot of people that may think that it's too high are not here tonight. But we also did emails from those people that were also worried about the taxing breach. And so, you know, it's it can be a little overwhelming when um so many people in the room that are so adamant, but we're still back in the position of it's our job to come up with a fiscally responsible budget. So, um I think I would like to open it up to any comments from my fellow board members. Anyone have any um anything that they want to share? Yes. Um this is
003my first season on budget. I keep I keep reminding myself that uh The next one's got to be easier. But I uh I couldn't help but be uh inspired by all of the comments earlier tonight and um I have I think the breadth of the people from the education community that came out and the breadth of the different uh reasons that they gave us to try and uh find ways to restore the budget. I guess um if not a lot of it compelling and uh my inclination is to try and uh find a compromise and that will uh we'll achieve some of the goals that uh a lot of the education community uh presented to us tonight. And um I think for me some of the the uh objections that that I might have had
004to those arguments were that you know the taxpayers in town who don't have kids in school uh will will be suffering by a large mill rate increase. think that an argument we heard a couple times tonight that I thought compelling was that um you know it does enhance our community to have um a strong uh educational system. So, um I would uh love to hear from other board members tonight, but I I would be compelled to try and find a compromise. [Music] Um tonight, Mr. Holland will just flash through my mind. And for those of you too young to know about that movie, it was about the elimination of a music department, a music teacher that was very loved by his community. Um, I like Scott was moved by many of the comments that that
005were made tonight. We we are in difficult times and I can't see a restoration of the entire 1.35 million that was cut, but I believe some of the the funding should be reinstated. Um I believe Mrs. Dumbrossski had suggested 750,000 meet in the middle. I don't know if if that's a proper figure or not. believe last year it was a $675,000 deduction or somewhere around there. 650 650. Okay. Um, now you can do a calculation of what your increase in budget was and get to figure higher than the 650, but it seemed like you could live without devastating impact to the the staff and the programming last year. Um, I would hope that that would be possible this year. I don't want to see impact to staff. Um I I believe what Lucy had mentioned
006about real data is a very real um real experience that that we are going through. some of the numbers we get from either side don't always make sense and I think that we need to be more communicative with each other throughout the year to try to resolve some of this fuzziness that both sides have. There were some comments regarding um mutual exclusivity of the schools in the town and I was hearing some people in town mention, oh well the the town is getting this department's getting this for miscellaneous. This department's getting this for overtime. This department's getting a boat. We're getting a firefighter. We're one community and we need to work that way and the schools are a vital part of the community. Um so if there isn't going to be a drastic impact on
007schools, I would say somewhere like last year's reduction 650. But I also would like to have us have more communication throughout the year than what's been the recent history and to agree with which I know I voted no against the cut initially and probably in reflection could have made my vote clearer. I am against a significant cut to the board of ed. I feel like it will significantly impact the quality of education in our town and I think as I think sentiment showed tonight, education is synonymous with East Lime and I am willing to compromise but I am against a large cut. I just like to clarify one thing in the beginning because I heard it many times tonight. Uh they keep saying that we the board of finance are cutting staff or teachers. We
008are not cutting anything. We just reducing the amount of the $4 million that was requested by the the board of ed to two and a half million give or take. We don't decide where any cuts are. We give you a by number and then the board of ed and superintendent decide where the cuts are made. If they decide to cut staff, that's not on the board of finance. So, I've heard a number of times. Just wanted to make that clear. The other thing uh a lot of families in the town that are connected or have children in the school system are like around 25% maybe. Uh people over 50 50 years old in town make up 40 plus% in the town. So a lot of these people retired. They moved here for whatever reason. Could
009have been because of the school system, could be because of downtown, the boardwalk, whatever. But, uh, everybody that spoke tonight was advocating for the 25%. And I'd like to advocate for the 75% whatever that number is because a lot of people that I got messages from retired and wanted to stay in their homes and if you have depending on how the budget turns out on board edit you have an assessment home of $350, $350,000. You know, our taxes could go up $1,000 if the budget is not reduced. And even if it is reduced, it's still going to go up that price up. That's just how it's $600. Now, a lot of people in town can afford that, but a lot of people can't. and they're worried about what they're going to do if they can't
010afford money for food, for electricity, get a mortgage, rent, whatever. So, I just wanted to put out put that out. Uh, as far as what I feel about the reduction of the $4 million, it's a tough call. I mean, we spent a lot of hours going line by line on the town side and we went line by line looking at different things, what we thought may be excessive as far as materials, administrators, teachers, a plethora of different items that we thought may or may not be able to reduce. So, right now, uh, I'm on the fence. I don't I don't really know. I I'll have to take, uh, my direction uh, from some of the other board members on their comments, what they think is a realistic view of what the budget could be on
011the board of Edite. heard a lot of compelling arguments tonight from from everybody and I'm inclined to maybe find a compromise where we can give something back and just hoping that there's a way that uh you know the board of ed can use the hopefully some other ways we can save some money to keep the staff that so critical um public benefit charges going away hopefully That's some way to save it or something will come up, but a lot of good points are made up tonight. So, I'm just finding down to zero. Well, you know, again, just sort of reflecting on some of the comments. Um, I I grew up in a family of five and when I was young, we lived in a town that didn't have a good school system and we moved
012to West Harford specifically for the school system. So, those comments were resonating with me a lot because that's there was no way my my the oldest ended up going to private school because the school systems were so bad. But dad being a teacher and mom a nurse, they couldn't afford to send five kids to private schools. Um, my dad was a teacher, he thought until he was in his 80s, you know, he retired, but they called him back every day to be a substitute. Um, he was on peritineal dialysis. So every night he was hooked up to a machine that he would get off that machine and they called him in to substitute. His students routinely came back to my father and said, "Do you perform my marriage?" When I first ran for office, I
013got a random donation from someone, you know, I didn't know at all, but he had a note and said, "I was going down the wrong path and your father straightened me out and I'm now a successful business fan and I want to donate to your campaign." So what I always say is teachers have an unbelievable ability to have an impact on their students lives and I do respect that. I people thought a comment of mine was you know random. It was just it's just so hard to balance everything. And I someone took off the fence. I I apologize, but it's just trying to come together to find that spot where people who can't afford who are, you know, calling us up and emailing us. And so I'm trying to put both of those things together.
014Um yesterday I have a teacher here in the school who came up to me and said I'm a teacher today because of your father. So feel like that's even impacting slime too. So um so yeah let's let's find a compromise. Um, and I know it's not my argument at all that if you don't have kids in the school system, you're going to vote against it. I don't I don't look at it that way. I know our property values um are affected by it and and that's key. There's a part of me that also is thinking about um you know what the town will be going through next year when it comes to um assessment reassessment every five years the town has to reassess all the properties and um theoretically if nothing changed with the budget
015no one's you know home value went up hopefully our mill rate would go down So it would be an automatic but what tends to happen is that there can be a shift. Um the last assessment we saw a lot of shift uh away from commercial to residential and that I think has even been exacerbated even more as co drove more and more people from you know New York and wherever to buy up whatever house they could especially around the shore. So there's still a lot of, you know, modest homes around in the shoreline communities, but their values are going way up. And that's what we heard um a lot from after the last assessment. So, you know, I keep that in the back of my mind, too, that while it right now it looks like,
016oh, it could only be, you know, $500, that's nothing. But that could drastically change your do. So just um throwing it out there. Um yeah, I I also want to point out we didn't elaborate it there um over there wherever we were. We really did go through all the town um budgets and we looked at things that could be um cut there and it did include not filling positions. Um there's two police officers that Dan Wright you cut out of that budget before it even came to us. So um when when we look and say geez the town operations went up a lot too. I think there is a um for a lot of years there was times when the town budget didn't do much at all and I found that when I got here
017I was like wow we don't have we don't have like a a real IT department. you had um the police chief and the public works um director spending their time as the IT department and given how complicated the world has gotten with all of different um everything the way we're all connected everywhere and cyber fraud everything else. It was really important for us to invest in building out the IT department. Um, building out the fire department, too. That's, you know, that that's not just for the town, you know, the town budget. This is for everyone here. We public safety is a really important thing. So um so that is needed to be built out a little so that we can be sure that we're providing for the safety of everyone. Um as I said before
018that service there's nothing we can do about it because we can't default on our bond. So there's nothing we can cut there. you know, if we were to restore some of the board of ed um uh money that had been reduced, you know, I don't know whether we can sacrifice the addition to our cash capital. um that's going to end up having an impact down the road because we'll end up having the bond fall and cash. Um you know the the uh the only way to stop increases in everyone's taxes is if our brand list grew at a pace that would make up for it. Um problem with that is we are hindered by our capacity in the water and sewer department. So if you wanted to build more in different places if we can't
019provide the water and sewer capacity then you can't continue to grow the grandless without that. So that's another lever that you can't push um so so I don't know maybe Kevin did you want I had a specific question for Kevin I was gonna I was gonna make a motion I think um I'm I'm I'm proud of the work we did uh in all of those meetings in all of those hours in all of those uncomfortable chairs uh to work through the town budget. And um while not everyone in the audience who spoke tonight saw how we went through line by line with the town budget, I'm confident and uh feel good uh and I think we have integrity in maintaining uh the numbers we voted on the town budget. I would like to make a
020motion that we restore um some of the that we voted on to the board of education budget. I think it's interesting we're sitting in I was looking up at the motto behind us you know about contributing citizen responsible independent critical thinking and um that that spirit I think we of course can learn from that too. So, I don't know uh what the exact right number is, but I'm going to throw a number out there. Uh I believe there's 1.5 million that we originally cut is now down to 1.35 because of if we split that in half, it's 675,000. So, my motion is to restore 675,000. Is there a second? So, um motion has been made and seconded. Maybe um Kevin, could you um take a look at what that would do to the budget? So
021that would make the cut for the board of about $825,000 inclusive of the $150,000 health insurance reduction. Um that would bring our mill rate uh up to 1.79 increase 28.14 6.8%. And um 6.8% increase um and there was eight and a half positions um reduced on the town side budget. No, it was only the full-time fire that we added. It was over there about 10 requests. The percentage again six 6.8. So Kevin, those 10 requests were those for new positions or were for those existing positions? Um, a new admin in the OC, a new part and correct maintainer. So we did half of that. um an additional fourth person in IT that was cut an additional well there was additionally five firemen we cut it back to one and a half then we cut it
022to one um a full-time case manager for the senior center two additional police officers uh the filling of an engineer position in public works and we actually eliminated uh the third the 23rd person public works had nothing to do with changing any of the other town correct items that we have already voted on just well I think um just part of this is you know the discussion and I think there are a number of comments about how wasn't sharing in any of the pain um and I think we were very diligent as we went through really reducing every single department um unless the only thing that was in the department was a salary was contractual. But so it was it was a very we actually I went to the acting police chief, went to the
023head of public works, went to the head of the fire marshall, and I said to them, "Well, you I need something. You know your budgets better than I do. can you please come back some way that you can reduce your budgets at all. So it was definitely a shared pain across the town and the board event. I just um for discussion purposes here too, Jeff, could you just there was a also a lot of talk that um you know when people were going to lose their jobs this was going to happen this could you just clarify exactly what you're thinking at this point would happen just to make sure we're all on the same Yeah. The the hard part in all that is it's a shell game because it it can change too. Like for
024instance, just last week we had a teacher that's out on maternity leave notify us that she's decided not to come back next year. So that that opens up that helps with somebody else not losing a position. So I mean that could happen. Somebody could move to another state. Um with the number of staff that we have, the total number of staff um there are fluctuations that that occur. We're trying everything we can and looking at all the different scenarios. obviously make sure there's a slot for everybody to have a job at the end of the year. So, um right now we say, you know, 10 certified staffing positions. There's four at the three to four at the the lowest number that still would not have a position at the end of the day. Um and
025that's today. It could change next week. It could go up, could go down, sort of thing. So, um we just look at everything. dual certifications. We've got another certified staff member that's a teacher right now at the middle school might take a multi- language position because that individual is s just got a certification that so she's willing to maybe move over that would open up an English position which would save another person. So we're just trying to work through all those scenarios potentially three to four people as of as of right now. Yes. Yeah. that still would not have a position. A certified staff would not have a position at the end of the day. So, and um for the non-certified non-certified um there's no there wouldn't be there wouldn't be a position. I think
026it was the elementary library since there wouldn't be a a position um in that realm, you know, for her. we would try and find something else, her position or some other area to offer her a position. Sort of. Yeah. Again, looking comparatively with the town, we were down eight and a half positions and four well people that Yeah, the oneup job positions are different than people not having a job. the two different two different which is really what we did to eliminate it those positions and I think I just want to point that out too because so many people talking tonight made it sound like you know it was it was going to be wiping out uni classes it was going to be wiping out different um you know courses and everything else. Can you
027can you address what the impact really would be on whether the whether it's clubs, whether it's sports, it's classes with the the 1.35 where where it's that um it's some of those would be impacted. Yes. Uh there was an example I think given tonight of a English teacher that would be moved high school down to the middle school. She teaches one of the only ECE courses at the high school. That course would be eliminated because nobody else could fill that that role um sorry DC EC uh a college credit um college credit course. So nobody else could fill that that specific English uh course because she's certified to be able to teach uh you know that uh that role. So think but again that's right now that could again it could change it's just that
028shell game of moving around now by restoring money as well we're going to go back and try and establish what the least impact is on the courses and and the classes that you know that are being offered and obviously staffing positions um and hopes too that things will continue to shift and move like we just had that maternity leave individual that say she's not coming back that's through attrition now we can eliminate a position and nobody leaves is their job. That's and and that does sometimes happen. Expect that. So I I'm struggling with answering that Denise because there's you know I can't specifically say this AP course is going to be impacted or this isn't going to be impacted because I could say it today and it could change you know tomorrow or next week
029sort of thing. So, but just I think in general there is a there is an impact as that that ECE course uh college experience versus would be impacted as of right now. Then could you also the motion was 675,000 675 if we someone second that by the way I just perfect um in case if we adjusted cash um capital what would it look like if we were ude so million322851 we move that to just 1 million 3002 22851 project point of order um the the motion on the table isn't dealing with other adjustments to the budget at this point. And I I would not be including that in the motion, but in order for me to kind of really evaluate the 675, I just wanted to see whether you know something else that we could
030move would do. So it's just for information and would not be I thought that would just for after was motionless. That's okay. I I just find that would help me to down weighted. That's all. Okay. There was another good suggestion I thought from the crowd tonight about um that I would like to expand upon and that was that maybe uh in the future if it's possible that we should visit schools and learn more about classrooms directly from students and teachers and staff. I would I would advocate doing that. I would also advocate maybe uh people in the school visiting some parts of the town similarly they can learn things are having to get cut and and I really appreciated the tour of the the high school because that was very eye opening and um the
031needs in the auditorium as well as like the gym and what have you. Um are are definitely something that one resident had said to me, "Boy, if we only had all of this in the auditorium, maybe we could actually turn that into a revenue producing. Is there something is there some way we could make that an event facility that could be rented out?" So, these are all good ideas. We're thinking about the same thing with one of the historic homes. If we renovate that, could you then also turn it into revenue producing? So, all stuff. All right. 998. Almost there. You have 10 seconds. anyone else have any further comments on motion? Well, I have another proposal. I know I had another proposal. Okay. But then wait. Oh yeah. 320. I'm sorry. I thought that
032one was going to be an easy one. A little bit of a I could I have to shuffle the projects out of debt and make or add a cash into debt and then work on the other spreadsheet. So it just takes a second. So if we reduce $324,000 of cash cap, move it into the debt. Um so that'll make um our cash cable 998,851. The impact on the budget drops it to 28.02 mills 1.67% uh 1.67 mills 6.34% increase. I'm going to back that out. Any further discussion on the motion to um reduce the restore 675,000 into the 1.5 that we cut. No further discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? So, was that four? I didn't quite I couldn't look in both directions. Yeah, I I was an eye for
033two. So, that motion carries that other that they would like to make. I'd like to thank make a motion to uh reduce the one and a half million down to 1 million reducing the five by 500,000 for 1 million which would be about 5%. That's the $1.5 million reduction. That's uh 4.22%. 22% we like to stay around 5%. Which means instead of having 4 million plus would mean would be an increase of 3 million budget. Okay. So, so it's a million reduction instead of one and a half production of one that's increasing 175 from where we just vote 175,000 cut to the what was just you're adding an additional 175 restoring going the opposite direction reducing 1.5 by 500,000 which brings down the $1.5 million to $1 million increase. So we just million further. All
034inclusive concerns. So I'm I'm sorry, John. I'm just not. So you're saying instead of restoring 675, restore 500,000. Is that right? No. No. Reducing by 500,000. So instead of a million and a half, it's not down to one million. So the four million the original $4 million increase is now a $3 million increase, but I think we have to the 675 that just got approved. So I have I have the number. So, um, the initial 675, your motion, if you want it to be the million-doll cut, would be a motion to, um, cut the budget by cut the board of budget by 175,000 where we currently are because we just approved the 675, which makes the cut 825. If you want the cut to be a million, you have to add 175 to the cut.
035So, your motion would be to reduce the board of ed budget by 1.75,000 and that would bring it to a million dollar cut. Is that what you're a million dollar cut, right? Okay, I got you. Yeah. Does that mean that we are restoring less cut? We are restoring part of the cut. So, your 675 would actually be 500. N between the two of you. I I'll second it. Open it up for comment. Um, I guess the question is, does anyone uh who had voted on the 675, would you be willing to increase that by another 175? You're reducing the 675 to 500. You have a difference of 175. So right. So your motion is less money for the is to decrease the 675 credit back out to 500,000. We are removing 175 of what we
036just restored. Doing 175 of what you just restored. Thank you. It's the new map. See if you get a second. I did second. You second it. Okay. We're clear what the numbers really mean. All the question. Okay. All those in favor of the further reduction another 175,000 signify by saying I I opposed. So that motion fails for two. Um, um, we did get updated state figures for two grants. If we want to make changes to those, it does help us out by $50,000. I'll take it. Okay. So, for pilot, we initially budgeted 749,591. Um, committee at the state house has so far approved, crap, I didn't write down the total. Um, they increased us by 48,996. Let me make it 798. 587 is our new total. Still $3 million short, by the way. Um, I'll
037make a motion to adjust the revenue for the pilot grant from the 749591 up to 798 587. Okay. Motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor? Any [Music] oppos? Pilot and said there was another update. Okay. Uh yes. So we just did the pilot one. Um the next one is Town Aid Road that went to affect revenues and expenditure. So it's a wash. Um, but we currently budget 316,487. The state approved an additional I think it was either 40 or $80 million for Town Road across the state of Connecticut. Um, our cut is an additional 105,390. This does not offset taxes because we have to increase revenue and expenditures by this amount. It's a wash, but to the town we're getting under 5,000 from uh the state house. I'll make a motion to
038increase the TAR uh grant by 100,000 also 105 390 105ated second all those in favor signify by saying I I suspension so that motion Z. All right. Um I'm going to make a motion to um reduce the cash. I 324 even 324 even. Okay, the motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion on that? Yes, I I like to say I I'm supportive of this. I had brought it up at an earlier board of finance meeting and um I'm glad that it's being brought up again today. Will you speak to the impact on bond rating? does a specific I haven't seen it come up specifically in any of the discussions since we've Evan there's usually a lot to discuss in these S&P rating calls um the amount of debt we have has not alarmed
039anybody I think there's other things that kind of keep them up at night um but uh the bigger thing is would is so we're really bonding for everyday expenses and now this kind of exacerbates that a little further. Um so I mean this year we're going to bud bond $7 million but that's really just comprised of roads, a couple vehicles, things like that. um when we have to go bond major renovations for a school that's going to be what really you know pushes the debt service to another level 4,000 is it cross the line into having to do for the school um I don't think it's just that 324,000 I think it's more of a discipline across the capital projects because it's not just this year it's you know every year the debt is just
040kind of snowballing on us right now um so just something to keep an eye on. But and so sort of related rating agencies have been more concerned about the town's inability to produce an audit on time. Um we haven't done that in 11 years. We're up to 13. Um so this current year we're going to pay off $4.5 million of principal. We're going to add 6.8 million. Right. So next year that continues. We're adding every year $2 million, 10 years, $20 million of debt service. Um, right. So, I think that kind of happened the last decade or two. I was making that point about not getting an audit done on time. mainly um a Kevin has done a great job trying to get us back on track, but me it shows that we our finance
041department has been understaffed for a very long time. And so, you know, these are some of the things that we really had to focus on at at the town site. You compare our debt to other towns around the area. Um, and I reading a little bit about what they're doing with budget. So, I'm wondering how we compare. Um, there is a study that um I have and I would say we're I want to say we're around like 140 that are capital. So, Connecticut. So, it's really an area um that we do lag. to the south. We have a higher debt. We have more debt than three quarters by taking away this 324. Don't help our cause. We're still hope it's a 10% increase to cash year-over-year. So, that's it's not like we're hurting. We're still
042helping. It's still going in the right direction. just not a draft, you know, some of us like to see placeholder with most of resilience. Correct. As ambitious as Yeah, we're adding 100,000 budget 900. This is 998. No, you know, every 100,000 helps I remember what the question do we have a question on the table right now the 324 okay um so it's been made and seconded all those in favor u reducing the cash capital um was increased by 324,000 signify by saying I I opposed what you seconded. Thank you, Scott. And what was the number again? 99851 324 324. Yeah. Okay. All right. Does anyone have any other adjustments to the budget that they would like to propose? I would like to propose $350,000 on the fund balance to be used our budget. Okay, I
043I've figured as much. Um, and then just a a question regarding the the statement that was on the slide about maintain undesated fund balance at the target of 17% of the job. I I thought our wording was strived towards that. Um I think uh when we were writing the investment policy, we wanted to not put ourselves in the position of always like with every budget trying to adjust by few thousand dollars here or there. So, we settled on 17% is where we'd want to be, but if there's, you know, if we go to 17.25, we don't want to have to take action. Or if we go to 16.9, we don't want to have to take action. But we know we are we're targeting by making it a percentage as opposed to a dollar amount. As
044the overall budget changes, then it will answer. One other item. Um earlier in our budget meetings I had brought up about Miami Main Street and the amount of ARPA funding that they had received and the um goals of some of that ARPA funding for uh work in the Flanders section of town. Uh Kevin was going to get a response from Nyanic Main Street, but I never think that we heard anything. Um, and I know it's a very small amount, but I would like to remove the 2500 going to Miami Main Street because of not following through on workingers. I'll second that. Okay. Um, I think we did get an email from Niantic Main Street people that basically said no, they hadn't done anything in plers. So that call that I don't I don't recall seeing
045that. Um $2,500. Do they go to zero? Yeah, they would go to zero. I think it might actually be negative 250 real quick because I think it's only 2250. Everything by 10%. Okay. So 2250. I think it's 22. I I amend my motion to 12250. after the amended budget 50 then won't have any any contribution from us to be able to work on Main Street at all. I guess I would Dan, are you um in regard to street funding of other sources of funding besides the town donation? Yeah, I I really I don't know. I don't know what there's other sources of ask. Um, so I apologize for laboring this. They're Niantic Main Street. All they do is help to beautify Nantic Main Street. That correct? All the signage for the farmers. Martin, they do
046the buoy thing on the screen there. And a lot of the events downtown contributing anything and we don't know if they have other sources of fun. That's right. Um I think given that we don't have the other all the other information I would probably not submit. So I I think I could be wrong. I think that we have I think they do too. Uh what I just said is given the lack of our information and you know this was in the hands of the board selectman who viewed everything um was a very good point which that we were giving ARPA money um based on they're doing something in Flanders and they didn't and that's an issue and maybe it's something we have to select and can take up with them and they see if they
047can't rectify So I'm going to call the vote. Those in favor Street signify by saying I opposed. So the motion doesn't carry. Do I have any other questions? Okay. So, um that being said, I think any adjustments um let you know something else. Any last minute money pouring in? That has been pretty uh pretty well run. What's the final? Our final budget overall 96 million 65786. Read that again. 966 657 786. What kind of increase is that? So, real quick, that is a 6,64,792 increase. The mills, it is going up 1.66 mills. The new uh new mill rate would be 28.01 6.3% The the collected taxes is going up 7.9%. But the grand list has grown because we increased the collection rate offset about 1.6%. Any new forecast on collection rate? 99 is looking pretty
048uh pretty good. 9 have a little cushion somewhere. Like $5 a cushion right there. And I have a motion to adopt the budget to the numbers that Kevin just all elucidated. um bringing the mill rate to 28.01 a 1.66% um change of 630 previous year that the time of the meeting what you will do. So all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed extensions? Anything carries? 600. Then um we are also in uh forwarding this to the meeting on May 22nd. Next on the agenda is discussion and possible action on the capital improvement. So after eight zillion capital improvement planned meetings, I now have 8,000 documents and I'm not sure which one was the most documented. So can you just give me your numbers on? So the numbers haven't changed. So uh
049total capital projects $7,529,000. Um uh okay so bonded annual yes that's for the annual so that didn't change we just shuffled cash capital versus debt so bond we're bonding 6 million824 so um you want to I think what do we approve approve the annual and then the 10ear what do you do you need anything else for the capital okay so I'll make a motion to approve that plan was just related by Kevin. Second motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Any extensions? Motion carries. 600. And then um for the 10-year capital improvement plan, this is a total of 109,137,65 um as in our deck from 2026 to 2035. Have a motion to approve the 10-year CIP. Motion to approve. Second. Any discussion? So,
050I don't have it in front of me, so I'm not sure I'm looking at the right numbers, but I think that like in 2028, there was a really big jump up of 20, right? So in in the discussion of um um the new senior center library uh youth center. So there had been originally in the public works current year some 19 million because it it was going to end up in the building but it they were looking to approve it for this year but after discussions we said a this is something that needs to go to referendum and then b we had um some discussions with the state and there's opportunity to see if we can get some state funding. In order to get the state funding, we got to show that this is a
051real possibility. So if it's not in CIP, then you know then clearly the state looks at us and says, well, they're not really serious about this. So if in fact that funding does not materialize um you know then that will be a discussion for the next CIP that explanation. So it sounds like while we are saying that this is our goal, we're not committed to it. We could actually take it out if we can't find funding for it. We have applied from the state for that specific project to fund the entire thing with bond money from the state of Connecticut. And so if that gets approved, any dog gets approved, that's, you know, savings. That's just a list of the capital projects from the town. That's not indicative of the bonding that we'll have to
052do for those projects. The 109 million, one of the projects in 2020 is uh the sidewalk construction from Society Road to East Paddic Anset. That'll be funded largely from the state of Connecticut, but we still have to have it on this listing uh to show that it's being planned. distinction. All right. Discussion motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor of approving the 10-year capital improvement plan signify by saying I. I. Opposed extensions. Motion carries. 0. Item on the agenda is board comments. comment. No comment. I I'll be very brief. I I think we worked very cohesively as a board. We were greatly uh I like the reaching out to department heads for their suggestions for cuts. And um I I I think it's a painful process. It's a necessary one that I
053think we do it as efficiently as possible and everybody's work on it. I also want to tell board members who work really hard in particular Denise. I know there's a lot of leg work you do as chair that maybe goes unnoticed or unseen. So I want to thank you for that and also presenting and leading tonight. And then I wanted to thank all the educators, students, families that came out tonight to speak to us, in particular students. It's just so impressive to see young people getting up and advocating for their community and school. So, thank you. Well, can I just echo that? I uh you as I said before I was I was held by a lot of the arguments that were made by the whole education community and um I know that it's your
054job as their superintendent to to advocate for the budget that you guys all put together and um and uh and also to rally the troops feels like you did you did so in a way that I thought was civil and uh educate an educational opportunity certainly for me tonight. Well, there was definitely a few sharp comments that got made of course happen. I just want to applaud you for managing that in the way you do. Excellent. And thanks to all of you and appreciate your your work for sure. Yep. So, as chair, I it's I will close out and just say um it's it has been tough. It's a very it's a it's a tough thing to do to recommend cuts. But I think that we we really work hard at trying to to mitigate
055it while also um sure we value the students and their parents uh desire. So um uh thank you to all my board members. Thank you Dan, Kevin, Jeff, Mariana and all. I appreciate all the hard work every spring motion to adjourn has been made. Second. All those in favor. so much for all your years.