001Noting the time and could you please turn >> is >> its mute. >> Turn off your mic. >> My hand's muted. says, "Am I unmuted?" >> It's kind of funny you didn't hear you say no audio. [laughter] >> All right. Noticing the time and in presence of a quorum, I now call the finance committee to order uh to to meet, I guess, whatever we're doing. We're we're meeting and public comments. >> Hello. Good evening. I'm just taking a moment to formally introduce myself. I'm Lisa Adel. I'm one of the school committee members and I will now be serving as your alternate liaison to finance committee. Hello. And happy to answer any questions. We may need you when we talk about the school committee meeting and u right after we did anybody have a chance to
002look at the minutes that I sent around today. >> All right. All right. Um do you want me want to hold them for the next meeting and let's or do >> or do you want to review on our phones right now? >> That's another option. >> Uh there's a lot of them. I don't think we want to watch people review them. >> Okay. Uh, Steve, did you see any material edits when you went through them? >> I didn't microphone. >> Steve, Mike, >> microphone. >> I was wondering who Mike was. Um, >> I didn't see anything, but like I said, mostly I I read what I supposedly said and found that to be accurate. >> All right. So, I'll hold the uh minute approval until our next meeting. Um, everybody has them. So, um, I
003would say bring your comments to the next meeting or edits and we'll try to do it efficient efficiently. Um, that brings me to our next agenda item, which is really to just talk about the meeting that happened on Thursday. So, I'm looking at Greg and Christie to see which one wants to lead the charge there. So, Thursday's meeting of the Actton Boxboro Regional School Committee um had several parts to it. Um, one part uh was one of the assistant superintendents talking uh about the special education program, but the vast majority of the meeting um well over an hour was um about 50 people, mostly parents but some teachers and one student talking about the two options that we're down to. And um [snorts] this may not do justice to the process that people are going
004through but let me give it um the best description I can share. If there is a grieving process, according to Kubler Ross, um a lot of parents have moved beyond denial and are in uh either anger or uh negotiation, which are the second and the third stage. Uh one or two are in the depressed stage, which is stage four. And almost nobody has reached acceptance, which is stage five. So, we're at a uh very fraught emotional point. And I if you're into the argument over the two options that remain, um it's it's uh it's gut-wrenching. You're talking about what are my kids going to do next fall? Who are they going to are they going to be with their friends? There's a lot of a lot of uncertainty being worked through. If you step back
005a few steps to where we are, one of the things that interests me is the fact that the financial impact of either option 4 or option 5v2 is identical. In other words, from um how much money are we going to save? And I was expecting there's going to be an expensive one and a less expensive one. It turns out um both of them cut about $1.87 million off of what they need or they they've used in the past. Um they are going from three to four buildings or going from four buildings to three. And the the building that has been identified is is going to be surplus is Conan. Yeah. >> Uh could you please remind us all what five what four and 5 V2 are? >> Oh, sure. I'll I'll I'll I'll get into
006each one of them. But what I want to basically say is um both versions are going to eliminate uh 11 um classroom sections which turns into 11 uh classroom teachers, seven uh uh general education assistants, uh four uh unified arts specialists, and one instructional coach. So 23 FTEES get cut no matter what is is selected and so financially this isn't a financial trade-off. Yes. >> I'm sorry I was not able to watch this meeting. Um when the consultants in AB forward were discussing this it was not about what's the one-year benefit. It's about the benefit going forward. Was were those finances discussed? >> No not yet. >> Okay. because there was a significant difference >> there between the two models. >> There there is a significant difference of opinion but no numbers yet. >> So
007um let me then get into option four versus option 5v2. Option four is called, for lack of a better term, and and there is some debate over the terminology of how you'd categorize option four, but it's it's being called a targeted school merger. And um basically it uh concentrates um the displacement of a couple communities of 826 students um uh who are currently uh either in the uh Conan or the uh Miriam communities. Uh and um and that's one way to go. The other way to go is option 5v2 is called, for lack of a better term, uh systemic equitable disruption. And what that means is they're going to reorganize uh all of the Actton schools, not just uh Conent and Miriam [clears throat] and to a lesser extent McCarthy Town, but basically say all
008of the schools that are in Actton today will end up getting [clears throat] um impacted one way or another and they're going to move some things to specific things that people could identify and talk about were the special education programs because they will go one place or another. But for the students, there will be uh a band of K to3 um in the boardwalk school. There will be a band of uh four to six in the boardwalk school. There will be a U K to3 band in the Parker Damon building. There will be a K to4 band in the Parker Damon building. And the Blanchard School will pretty much stay as it is. And interestingly, there's about give or take 100 students from Boxboro who go to Actton schools and about a hundred kids from
009Actton who go to Boxboro schools. And so I'm not quite sure how that sorts out, but most of the discussion Thursday night was focused on what are these two different trade-offs. And [clears throat] there are pros and cons, but the debate is centering now on the initial um disruption. Do you concentrate it in a couple of schools and and less so in a couple of others? Uh do you spread it out equitably across the whole system? And then that brings us to so what do the educators want? And it turns out um the leadership team which includes Peter Light but also the principles of the various schools basically said if it were up to us and you've asked us to try to cobble this one together we'd take 5v2. We're going to we'd rather be
010creating something new um [clears throat] because it will give us long-term and this is gets to gets the question of beyond the initial there will be change. It gives us more flexibility and I think that's the thing that the finance committee really wants to be clear about because no matter what they do, this is not the last step. I got to believe a year from now we're going to be facing crunch time and a year after that we will be facing more crunch time. And so reorganization is a critical first step. And yes, it's going to be budget neutral whether they zig or they zag. But down the road, I don't know that money is going to start pouring in from the state or the feds or um suddenly the business community is going to
011increase its contribution to property taxes beyond a percentage point or two. And so we're going to continue to deal with stresses on the system going forward. and and and that's then where a whole lot of questions came out from the school committee members who were discussing this in some cases for the first time because up to now uh much of the discussion was being held with the AB forward steering committee which had a few school committee members but not a majority. um they've been listening to parents, but we got basically the school committee members doing their first and second cycle of so what do you think and their final vote is coming up on January 22nd and they [clears throat] were asking the superintendent for the kind of financial information that you just mentioned, which
012is okay. We know what the short-term number is. You you talk about flexibility going forward. Can you give us an idea of what that will look like? And so my guess is that by the next school committee meeting, probably in the packet that will go out, you know, beforehand will be that analysis. And that's then when um well let me give you just one sample of one issue that hasn't been addressed. If we go from six schools to five and we go from six principles to five principles, which one doesn't get a chair at the table? We don't know. Yeah. Well, so there's a whole lot of personnel decisions that will have to be sorted out. So there are school assignment decisions to be made. In other words, who's going to what school next fall?
013There are teacher assignment. Okay, if you've been teaching fourth grade for five years in this school, but you're now going to move to a different building, where are you in the pecking order? And if we're going to be eliminating 23 FTEES, who are they? So that there's there's there's still hard decisions to come, but the shape of this is such that um the school committee is wrestling with two different educational approaches. One is uh they call for lack of a better term continuity. It's like what we're doing but with five schools instead of six. The other one is [clears throat] we're going to do something brand new across the whole system. And that's a that's a tough educational call. >> Thank you, Greg. Um Chrissy, since you're our other liazison, I'd like you to add
014to whatever you want to add and then we'll just have a little circle. >> Like I said, I wasn't able to attend this. I'm disappointed that the discussion did not include the financials of the two models because they are significantly different. Um from the the research thing um the com the group before AB forward the the steering committee before it became very clear that the problem we had was that when you have a school with three or four sections for a grade you cannot adjust that you cannot if you need to save money cut a section of the third grade because you would just balloon the other size. So the point was that if you make the schools bigger where you have more sections that is feasible. So, it's really 100% clear to me that
0155v2 is the financially feasible way going forward. And what we're looking at with the two models is simply do you take this painful hit of 200 $2 million, which we'd have to take because we have to close one of the schools and then do you set us up for more flexibility going forward or not? To me, that's a clear from the financial perspective. We're not talking about any of the how you get there and all of the other difficulties. There are other things they have to talk to also about um discussion about where the people are allocated. Do we switch to neighborhood schools or is it a lottery again? How does that change busing? I cannot believe again from the previous consultant that we can save much with change busing. It sounds like we're pretty
016much as tight as we can be. And that again in that situation the lottery is what made us have the most efficient allocation across schools. And again even more than that they're not talking about educational philosophy. Do we maintain the same philosophy across all the schools because the reason people choose different schools right now is in part because of the educational philosophy. But that doesn't come into the cost hopefully. >> Yeah. >> Let me just add on on the the buses. um there is a savings but it turns out 85% is reimbured by the state. So the hit to act is the 15% and then when you start looking at the savings it's not in the magnitude of numbers that should sway you one way or the other. when it was asked so what's the
017benefit of one option versus another in terms of how the buses would run the biggest benefit turns out to be time because in a neighborhood option um you're picking up kids from roughly the same area therefore the trip is shorter but that doesn't necessarily impact cost in a way that they had a measurable number for. So, um again, there were discussions about estimates. Um but at the end of the day, um um you you have basically an argument for flexibility. And um I think that's a persuasive argument financially because I don't think we're out of the woods yet. And this is not a one-year blip that, okay, we make some cuts and we're we don't have to worry about this again in the future. My guess is that we're going to be facing these kind
018of questions um for years. >> All right. Thank you, Greg. Uh do you have any other thoughts, Chrissy, before we go around? U Karen, do you want you have any thoughts that you want to share or >> I always have thoughts about the schools. Um I'll say it's a huge pet peeve of mine. um when the cost of transportation is dismissed because it's reimbursed, it is still taxpayer money. And even if it's coming from the state, we should be trying to minimize the cost, period. Um and yeah, I heard one of the school committee members during that meeting refer to it as free. It's [laughter] I we all pay a lot of taxes and we pay them to the state, too, and we should be trying to minimize wherever we can. Um, I agree 100%
019with Chrissy. The like the whole reason we're in this discussion is because of finances and like the option that gives us the most flexibility to adjust sections is to me the only serious option. >> Do you have any comments you want to make? Um, I did submit a comment to uh the committee asking if they could provide any information about projected implementation costs because, you know, to move the Conan school to a new building. Okay, maybe that's a couple moving trucks, right? And then to consolidate Mary McCarthy Town, maybe there are no moving trucks, right? Uh, so we know what that cost looks like. But to completely reorganize all of the schools, that's a cost that we have to it has to be factored in this summer, right? So, we have to know how much
020that's going to cost. I'm I'm not saying that should necessarily change what we ultimately decide, but it's information we need. Um, so I'm hoping we get that at some point. Um, yeah. >> Steve, do you have anything? Christine, >> I think it's important to all remember that this is purely a school committee decision they will be making at the January 22nd, they don't need to give us any information unless we're going to potentially threaten to not support the school budget. Um, I know they're talking about if they decide to go with the neighborhood routes, the neighborhood um district that that's going to require hiring a consultant, which is another chunk of money to have happen different because it's so different from what we currently have. >> All right. Um, Go ahead, Stephen. Um, just to
021follow up on Allison's, um, but if there are differing one-time costs, I'd like to know where the money is coming from because they're going to spend it in a few months. Um, [snorts] um, as I and I haven't been all that close to um, this whole process, though, I did sit through almost all of that meeting. [snorts] Um, from my reading of the background material, the the recurring savings are around 1.7 1.8 million a year on both cases. Um, which I find it remarkably coincidental, but that's okay. [snorts] Um, which by my rough calculation, that's one and a half% of the [snorts] total school budget. Um so again doing figures in our head um if they were last year they were escalating their cost at 5.6%. Um then we're talking about getting it down to
0224%. Um absent any other disasters like we had on health insurance a [snorts] few years ago. 4%'s not it's way better than what we're looking at, but it's it's still not necessarily where we would need to be to keep up with our revenue, which is more like 3%. Um, so yeah, I agree with Greg that this is not the this is not the end of it. Um, and that leads me to two uh different scenarios. Uh well, if it's not the end of it, then maybe we ought to go with the least impactful because we're going to have have another one before we know it. Uh whereas um my personality is more inclined to oh no, just rip the band-aid off all at once uh and get it done, which would be my preference. No,
023I'm talking almost in complete ignorance of the topic and I do not envy the school committee [snorts] the decision they have to make. However, uh I am concerned about the time frame for this. Um I like quick transitions, turnovers because I hate ones that linger for years. Um on the other hand um the risk of project mishaps failures increases dramatically with the speed with which you try and pull it off. Um and I don't know what the um school administration has been doing in the background in terms of preparing [snorts] uh to implement one or the other. Maybe they've got a very well uh sorted out plan for both options. Um but I'm I'm very concerned about the the speed with which uh they're going to have to work this through. [snorts] Um essentially they're
024going to be ready before September. They're going to be telling kids and teachers where they're going probably by 1st of August. [snorts] Uh and that doesn't seem far away. To your point, Steve, um this is one of the reasons I'm curious about implementation costs because if it's going to be so expensive that we couldn't afford to do it all at once, then there may need to be a plan to do it in pieces, right? And then maybe we have to think more realistically about what we can afford for implementation and whether it's even feasible to accomplish it in six months, January, seven months, I don't know. >> Um welcome, Alex. Uh, I'll give you a second to take a breath, but I'll come to you in two seconds to see if you have any comments
025about the school meeting. It's okay if you don't. Some people didn't have comments. Um but the only thing the only thing to add to um your thought Allison is I wonder if maybe not having to move everything out of Conan if they're going if there's less students in the existing schools then maybe they can sell some of the stuff instead of moving. But I have no idea. Um before I finish my thoughts I want to give Alex a chance. If you if you don't want to say anything, it's fine. You're passing. So, Roland, >> I I think if you're going to do it, do it all at once because if you break it up into chunks, as you know, it lingers on and then your cost savings from doing this is going to come out
026a lot slower as well. You're not going to get that savings, you know. So, if you do it all at once, you're going then you're going to start realizing the savings right away. Otherwise, you do it, it's a slow ramp up to the to the savings. So then in theory your implementation cost would be more because it takes longer whatever prevailing wage etc. And then your savings take longer so the net result is more cost. So that that's my only you know concern on that. And I think you know as Steve said just rip the bandit off and do it. I mean, it's pretty much it's gonna stink for the people that are not gonna have a job and I get that. I've been in that situation in my career before. So, and I feel
027for it. So, there's a lot of tough decisions that still have to be made even when they decide on what they're going to do. >> Um, to Allison's point and to drag us down a rabbit hole, [clears throat] um, mostly to Allison's point, if it costs a lot to do this, we can't just rip the mandate off. This is what we're looking at with the DPW. We can't just build the DPW that should be that will solve the problems because we can't afford it upfront. So I think there is a question that that said we don't get a choice about it. >> Our school committee liaison is there anything you're welcome to say something now if you feel like you've heard something you want to correct adjust comment on. Um your mic is yours. Uh
028there was a mention about implementation cost and I just wanted to remind the finance committee that the school committee or the school district has uh something equivalent to the free cash where there could be you know money pushed over to do something like that. So I think that was one thing mentioned and there was something else mentioned but I completely blanked on it and I'll circle back if I remember. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer. Thank you. Um, so >> keep it. Go ahead, Greg. I don't know if you share my observation, but listening to the parents, I heard two camps. Um, listening to the teachers, um, I I heard uh a plea for support, but the voice that surprised me was the student. Now, I think she was 15. And I
029think she said by the time I got to junior high and high, which elementary school was an issue because they typ cast us. Oh, you're that kind of student. And um if that is true, I if that is an issue, then that's probably a problem we want to solve. And the way to solve it is probably 5v2. >> I can only comment as myself and not speak on anyone's behalf and how that was received. But I do remember the particular comment that you were referencing. There was a student um who was 15 years old who is a sophomore and came up and spoke and talked about the fact that the the labels from the different elementary schools stuck with students later on. And um one of the if I could summarize her statement, I would
030just say that it was in reference to the fact that there's enough labels in high school and in junior high to deal with as it is. There's enough things that they have to go through, you know, as they're interacting with their peers that that was just kind of one more layer that um many of them wish to be um abolished or have see abolished. So, but that was her perspective and I personally found it compelling. But again, I cannot speak for anyone else only as an individual. >> And Lisa, I have one thing uh one request uh since we have two uh apparent same financial impacts. Um, I think my request would be that at the ALG meeting at the end of January that I'm that Peter Light put into his multi-year financial model the
031projected savings of since they're same underneath both scenarios and run that out. And I believe he's already changed his health insurance assumption to run it all the way out to David. Is it 2031 or 2032? The ALG model 2032. run it all the way out to 2032. Um so that when uh as a committee we review the revised multi-year financial plan and the ALG model, we have what is perceived to be the best and most accurate projection that the school has. I would be very happy to pass that along and encourage um them to do their best to be able to do that and especially as it seems that there are more numbers to be you know uh calculated and considered and for them to kind of figure out. So I think um we don't
032I don't have those numbers. We don't have those numbers yet. >> Yeah. >> And I understand it won't be perfect but at least we can >> Yeah. It it it would be better than us trying to guess ourselves. Absolutely. Yeah. >> Um and as the Thank you very much. Have you have anything else? All right. Um I just as a committee I I feel like since we have the financial impacts um I know there's obviously a lot of opinions on this but um I mean our primary objective is the financial model. So, if we have a known financial impact underneath basically both of them, I feel like I don't feel like this holds us back on moving forward on, you know, what we're looking at for numbers. Um, I appreciate Steve doing a swag on
033the financial impact going out in time and I think when we get um the revised ALG model in a couple weeks um I think that's going to give us we can sanitize that look at that and see if we have any issues with it. But I think that will give us a better idea of u the long-term impact on the town. Um, so that's all I have on this right now. I think David, you're welcome to speak. Two things. First, very quick, I believe uh this is so I'm lectur. So I'm at almost every school committee meeting. Um my understanding is that the moving costs, if you will, are mostly going to be handled in house, right? There will be um you know a a a truck firm hired to move the stuff out of
034Conan, but most of the moving around in the buildings is going to be handled um in-house. That's my understanding. Um second, I I I just wanted to talk about the uh the uh cuts in a way that I think of them and if it helps you guys um uh you can. So we have um somewhere between a2 and $3 million problem for the that the schools fit in and we're really solving that in three three ways. Um one is um both towns are now funding the schools above 3%. That's part of that um or above two and a half if you want the limits of proposition two and a half. Um second is going forward there are efficiencies in the new system especially 5v2. Um and the efficiencies or sustainability in 5v2 um is you
035should not be sneezed at. I mean some people say well it doesn't completely solve the problem. Um that doesn't mean that over a million dollars is nothing. A million dollars a year is nothing. Right? So to me that's okay. you know does just because it doesn't completely solve the sub problem by itself doesn't mean it's not significant. And the third thing and the reason why it's not a coincidence that the first term uh first year things are the same is they had to cut to fit in the budgets that we have this year mostly this year limited by Boxboro not having an override you know um also Actton but a little bit more this year Boxboro not having an override. So the fact that the number of sections that they have to cut to fit
036this year is the same for both and that's not a coincidence. That's to make it fit. Um I will say though that that consolidation that they have to do is easier because of this change. Right? If they if we were not getting rid of the Conan school this year, they'd be cutting existing sections out of existing schools, right? There there would be [laughter] you you had the counts, Greg. Um they'd be cutting classroom sections out of existing schools. In this school consolidation, they consolidate the classrooms to the number of teachers that they have. And so the class sizes go up by a couple. I I I think Lisa knows the exact numbers. They go up like by two or something like that. And so, um, that's why it, you know, again, it's not a coincidence
037that they're the same this year. But I also don't want you guys to underestimate the efficiencies moving forward. And they've they've talked about those and I think um Christy saw those, you know, in the previous meetings that she was at. There's significant savings in in future years. But just because they don't solve the whole problem doesn't mean that they're nothing. Uh, thank you, David. >> I'm sorry. I have one question. The the $1.8 million in savings that they're talking about, is that the 23 FTEEs or is that the cost of maintaining the Conan building or both? All of it. >> Conent building was 100,000. >> Yeah, the Conan building is a cost that we don't spend because we don't need to renovate it. >> Oh, sorry. >> It's a result of the reduction um in
038force. So that's where that cost is and that's why it's equivalent because either way there would have to be a reduction in force. Um but the difference between the two models has been clearly pointed out is the flexibility and how that's done and um how the impact is mitigated >> through the organization and flexibility of that. >> Since you're at the microphone, where we stand on the teachers contracts? So right now negotiations is still happening and um is your question in terms of the progress or if we think we're going to finish by the end of the year or do you mean um how reduction force occurs? >> Uh none of those. I I haven't paid attention in the last couple weeks. I mentally shut off around the holidays and I just haven't heard anything.
039So since you're up there, I just was curious if they're still ongoing then they're still ongoing. I that's the sufficient update. I just didn't know if they if it was done and I didn't know. I was trying to find out. >> Oh no. And I apologize for not understanding what you were asking. I am on the negotiations um subcommittee also. And um I that's still ongoing and planning. Um that's scheduled out all the way to May and so we'll see what happens there. >> All right. Any other questions on the schools? Steve does. more of a comment. Um, of the 50 or so people that spoke at the meeting, um, most who were well-versed with what was going on and had an opinion one way or the other, but there were a few that seemed
040surprised by all this. Um, and given the outreach that has gone on for the past couple years, I, you know, I was surprised that any parent [snorts] in town would not have heard what was going on and had some understanding. And and it I I bring it up to point out just how difficult it is to get the word out in this town about anything [snorts] >> real quick. So I I think quote all parents knew that AB4 was going on. some parents um heard through the grapevine, whatever you want to call it, misinformation that said, "Oh, if you're at the boardwalk school, you know, you you you you're you're okay." And so this was mostly uh initially a Conan school and then a a Conan McCarthy Town Miriam school. And it wasn't until near
041when we went from four options to two options that it was like, "Oh, wait a second. There's an option here that will affect everybody." And so it's not that they weren't aware. It's they hadn't [clears throat] attached the oh, this is what this means to me yet. >> All right. Thank you. >> May I uh just add to that? Okay. And just to echo your same uh thoughts that that's exactly what happened. And I think when those enrollment options came out, that was I think when more people became involved because I think the people who initially felt in their words targeted, you know, McCarthy Town, Conent and Miriam, those were the people that were more present in the process towards the beginning because I think the enrollment options allowed people to realize that there would
042be a higher level of involvement. Quick thing also on talking about initial costs and expenses. That was a thing I wanted to circle back to. Um, Peter Light or it was somebody else that did talk about being able to use the furniture from Conan and the plans to use all of those lunch tables to be brought over to the other schools. So, I just wanted to mention that that was already being considered and thought of as a potential expense or in this case the lack thereof. >> All right. Thank you very much. I'm going to move on to the next topic unless anybody has any other needs to talk about this. Um I I'm not going to really talk about the point of view tonight. Uh town manager did a uh budget overview that uh
043we attended last night and uh the request was to get questions in for the budget meetings next week um by Friday this week. And um just to be uh respectful of getting information communicated um if you have questions um you can uh I'd say email them directly to me. I will what I'd like to do is send an email communication to the town manager on Friday morning and not Friday and today because he's going to want it's Monday's a holiday and he's going to want to communicate questions to the people they are directed to to give them time to respond to them and sending it at the end of Friday is like giving it to them on Tuesday. So, I'd like to >> they also they also close at 12:30 >> and well, he works
044past 12, but but yeah, the rest of the staff is gone. >> So, if you have questions, I don't care what time on Thursday, send them to me. What I will do is I will aggregate the questions. Um, if I see repetitive questions, I will just, you know, work with that and I will, uh, I I don't think I can communicate. Yeah. Send them direct to me. I'll send them to the town manager and then um I will share at the start of the meeting like all the questions that you know were submitted. Christie, >> this seems like a ridiculously short turnaround that we're being asked for. Am I correct in thinking that it's been longer than this in previous years? I do not personally have time in the next four days to go line
045by line through the budget that I have done every other year and get this. Am I Steve? Am I misremembering? >> Oh no, you remember it correctly. But because of the change in the way um for preparing for town meeting, that's not acceptable. We we used to get them just before Christmas and have to have the answers in by the new first of the year. So we had more time, [snorts] but we were all busy doing something else, >> but this is short. >> Okay. Um, I I would like to request our chair to at the next ALG meeting or on the sideline to the select board as the boss of the town manager respectfully give us information to us sooner. We have had it in the past and if we're going to do a
046sufficient job advising on this process, we need more than four days when we all have jobs and other things going on which to read this budget. This is a committee of people who especially are um have daytime plans that do not allow them to spend the time with us. >> I would echo your comment, Chrissy, because I've taken five vacation days just to do this work. Um because I can't do this in my day job. Um Alex, and in the meantime, we could block and tackle it if so we don't all have to look at the entire thing. I mean, it's it's an option since we're short on time. [snorts] >> Yeah. Throwing it out there. >> Yeah. Not sure. I don't know if we collectively know what we want to look at. I think
047everybody's going to kind of look at it their own way. >> Um, >> just throwing it out there. >> No, I appreciate that. >> No, I get it. I mean, the day jobs and long travel. >> So, what's happened in the past with past years, myself included, is the questions are funnelled through you, right? and you just tally them, you know, so if there's three questions on the same thing, you know, so we're not sending three different questions of the same thing to the town manager, right? Or whoever it has to go to and then you just kind of consolidate them and then send them in for what we have. And he did say, you know, just ask when we're in the budget meeting, right? And and I'm looking over this, like I have one
048right here, replace 2015 F250 for facilities. Well, how many miles are on it? Is it is it a lot? Have you you know, you're talking 65 grand. There's a lot of good used ones on the market, too, that have low miles that are certified pre-owned and you could probably get it for less than 65 grand. Um, I do know how expensive pickup trucks are, believe me, right now, and it's outrageous. Um, so that that's the type of thing I kind of wonder is it, you know, how many do we have in our fleet? I guess that's the other question I don't really have the answer to. Um, and I know you've asked that question in regards to the um, storage right in the proposed building. So, I think that's one of my questions on just
049on that alone. I did have questions on the software. Are we leasing it? Are we buying it? Etc. Another thing, too, is I'd like to see on the school side is how much does it cost to send. So we have we have Minute Man which comes out of the out of the municipal side and then we send kids to the charter school that comes out of the school side. How much does it cost per student to go to the charter school and how many other out of district schools we and how many students I don't need to know who they are. Obviously you can't do that but how many are we sending to other schools and how much is that impacting the budget as well? I think those things are kind of gives us more
050insight to the budget, right? I mean, I don't know how much it is to to charter school, but I I guess it must be a pretty good chunk of money. And I I from what I understand, and Lisa might be able to answer that question, I thought we had somewhere around 60 students going there. Our enrollment next year at Minute Man's down. uh the freshman classes down for from the number of students from Actton than it was from the year before. So or from the seniors that are are graduating this year. Our enroll is going to end up being down next year. So you know it's I guess there some things that we need to understand. You know the software is it is it leased or are we buying it? Um is there any other
051it hardware whether it be laptops, desktops that need replacement and are we buying versus leasing because I know on the corporate side of it is we have laptops but every 3 years they're replaced we lease them we don't buy them because the technology changes so much >> when do you want questions by >> uh midnight on Thursday >> midnight on Thursday Okay. Um, outside of the questions, um, I I put this slide up in the point of view depth because, um, part of the objective of the point of view is to advise on items coming to town meeting. I feel like the storm water I feel like the finance committee had an opinion on that that was very unanimous at our last meeting um in that we did not want to see that as a
052separate feat [snorts] and I didn't know if he wanted to do a quick discussion and Christie >> I I'm was confused by this last time um Mr. Menerati was here. I thought he said that this was a fee already and when it was presented to us um by the rack, it was presented as the idea of a new fee. David, please clarify. Do we have a fee right now? >> There is a stormwater fee for commercial properties for but not for residential properties. >> So, this would the idea here would be to add it for everyone, >> right? and the stormwater fee, if we do it at this year's town meeting, which I don't know, we haven't voted on that or anything yet. Um would be a separate article. It would not not part of
053the budget. Um it would not affect this year's allocations for we have a very small number of I think $100,000 worth of storm water work this year, which is an extremely small number by normal years. So anyway, uh it's possible it may happen, but it will be a separate discussion for you guys. Also, um you know, we have these two budget nights, so you guys it's pretty efficient to ask questions and have a little back and forth. Um if there are any questions after um uh we'll certainly field them, right? Um we don't transmit the budget to you guys in for another 40 days. And so during that a after that 40 days, I think we can't really fuss with it much. Um I don't know exactly what the rules are, but um uh >>
054limited fut limited futzing. Um but uh between now and the time we transmit it to the finance committee, it's uh you know, we'll do our best to answer any queries or um tweak something if it needs tweaking. If I may, while you're still up there, David, um I was surprised to see that storm water was probably the biggest hit taken uh in terms of what was proposed by the department heads and what wound up [snorts] in the capital budget, which unfortunately I think is a pattern that's gone on for too many years. Any insight you might have would be helpful. >> So we we asked the select board asked the the manager to meet uh 3.25% 25% budget. Um um he came back with his recommendations. We talked about them and they were adjusted a
055little bit but um we ended up there. Um and one of the reasons for that is we have a number of storm water we have allocated stormwater money in the past uh couple of years. We have not finished spending all that. Some projects that definitely have been started and so we're not coming to a dead halt, right? And also uh that $100,000 is enough for a couple of really small projects. And so um uh those smaller kind of projects we do do mostly in house, the six-f figureure projects usually have some contracting out. Okay. Thank you. Dave, you might just want to hang up there because I just want to bounce through these three subjects. I'm sure you can have an opinion all three of them. >> Or you might want if you want to
056sit down, you can do it. >> Um so uh on the DPW uh I I'm calling it feasibility. I don't think that's an exact terminology for it, but it's going to be u money to be allocated or presented at town meeting to work on the building design. I asked the town manager last night um that I wanted the uh in the invoice details from uh Weston Samson and from Aerost Street to show how the money was spent um on the initial feasibility study and then the uh whatever the they call >> yeah however they call it because I I feel like seeing that detail is going to help us understand um this number that's presented. Um so myself personally, I want to hold on opinions on this uh until I get more until we have
057more information or if anybody has any comments on it. If there isn't, I'll just move on. Comments? No. All right. >> I would I would just add that to your list of questions even though it's not directly the budget just to make sure that it doesn't get lost. >> I will be bolded in the first couple Friday morning questions. >> Yeah, I asked it directly and I'm going to write it as well. uh the this building HVAC renovation. I uh I asked the town manager last night what would be the impact if this was turned down at town meeting considering that the town got a million-doll grant. Um, and I know we don't have um I know we have to do because if we're a green town, we have to do all this electrification of
058things and that um you know just fixing the existing system, whatever the cost is for that. Um we don't have that number, right? We never got that, right? No. Um it's easy to estimate that. I mean, I think it I'm not going to say that. Um, what I did ask him was what would be the impact if this is turned down? And he said it would be a very negative impact for the town um if you know we get a million-doll grant and then we don't use it basically or the town turns it down. So, yeah. So, I'm not sure how these grants work, but I wanted to ask that question last night because I don't know. Is this for individual projects, David? Have we received a million-doll grant for a project that's $4 million
059before? >> No, I'm not aware. I'm sure at some point we've received a million-dollar grant, but they're pretty uncommon to get 25% of the cost covered by a grant. >> This this grant is because we're a climate leader community. Um, and we've satisfied a number of requirements in order to be a climate leader community. We're one of the 19 communities in the Commonwealth that's a common climate leader community. So um that gives us the option to use the the these funds. Um um and as the town measure says, we would, as far as he knows, we would lose the grant and we would not be popular anymore with um the the granting uh the green communities group in the in it, it may be actually called green communities in the state government that uh um
060uh issues these these grants. So, David, is it possible for you to uh maybe scribe a paragraph to the finance committee that is better than just we're going to get people pissed off? [laughter] Um that would be more tangible about what you just kind of referenced to about the impact of and I'm not saying I'm for or against this. I I I'm just uh I just try to gather all the information, the facts, and understand uh try to make sure we're communicating, you know, impacts of decisions, impacts of actions, and I think that um that is an impact if this doesn't go through. That's But I I'd like, you know, something from you. I'm sure we can make it more, but it's there isn't much more to say there except that we would lose the
061grant and we would not be viewed f favorably for future grants. I mean, that's not something that's a rule. It says right now we have a good relationship with um um green communities and we're able to leverage that to sometimes buy cruisers, buy other [clears throat] vehicles, get get grants for other purposes. And so um anyway, it it we we're at an advantage doing that. I want can I say a couple things about the HVAC project? >> Uh, if you can get them done quickly, I promise Christie we'd be wrapped up in a couple minutes. So, okay. So, if you can do it like you're trying to sell us like life insurance. [laughter] Okay. So, um the the if if we went with um a a natural gas solution here, it would probably save us
062a few hundred,000 in cost. Not very much. Um um and the operating cost would be essentially the same. Um uh the um uh with the grants we actually significantly save money way over what it would cost for GRA uh natural gas. Um if we could do natural gas, right? But it um uh we would save money um we save money considerably over over that alternative. So it's without the incentives we we it would cost a few hundred,000 more with the incentives and we get by the way there's another set of probably incentives from the utilities which are not nailed down yet. Um we would probably lose those as well. So those are not going to be much smaller than a million dollars. But um um so [clears throat] we uh we're trying to leverage every
063everything we can here. Secondly is you guys can expect I I expect um Scott that you'll be asked shortly because I know there's preparations in the works for it to be able to present to you have this project presented to the committee maybe at your next meeting. So um um Okay. Um go ahead. Um, I'm not actually old enough to have experienced this, but I've lived in enough old houses to know that there was a huge spike in electric cost. So, in the 70s, people stuck in those spaceport heaters and then pretty quickly replace them because electricity went up 100%. For some people, um, that's part of my hesitation for installing an air source heat pump in my house. Is that something that we are at all concerned about? I understand all the reasons we
064want electrification. I'm a little nervous about moving over to a single fuel source. >> So, um I [clears throat] have personally done the calculations for this and they're almost identical for gas and heat pumps. Um the um we have to also realize that electricity is a conduit, not a source, right? Um so that that that we have there's a little bit of a difference there. Natural gas is really the the the source. Um uh so it's almost almost identical and I I've offered and I'm happy to do it. Uh I've offered to Scott to give you guys a backgrounder on electrification. Uh if you're interested I can do that at any time. Um I have made presentations to other groups not necessarily in town um uh about how to do commercial heat pumps. And so
065um I'm happy to do that anytime you guys are interested. >> I appreciate that Dave. But I think if I did that, I would want to bring in a second person. Uh that would also be an expert. So we wouldn't just get sole source. >> And in in that case, you can just do them. I mean, I'm not doing anything. >> Okay. >> Um you you don't you don't have to use me if you think I'm biased. Um the just do them. You get the same >> Yep. >> Um answer. >> All right. Any other questions on this? Bren, >> I'm sorry. Why did we apply for a grant for a project that had already been voted down at town meeting? >> Well, we have to replace the HVAC system in this building. The HVAC
066system in this building is problematic. It's reached the end of its life. It doesn't work properly. There are regions of the building that are overheated. At the same time, there are regions of the building that are underheated. So, we we have to do that. Um and we have a requirement in town to um uh not use fossil fuels. And thirdly, applying for the grants, considering we have to replace the HBAC saves us many hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, um we we lost the vote by one vote at town meeting. Um I understand that, right? But um a significant majority, 66 but not 67% were in favor. Um and a number of people in the meeting said we didn't give them enough facts. And actually I completely agree with that. Right. We we should have
067had that in a separate article with a separate presentation. But um you know the reason is we have to replace the HVAC in the building. All right. Um let's see. Uh I think the main liaison report was the school meeting. Um if anybody feels a need to liazison right now, raise your hand. Otherwise, um I'd like to keep to my promise to Christie. Um so I drove five hours for this. This is fantastic. Um, I motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor of adjourning? >> I. >> We are adjourned.